Women of Sand and Myrrh (27 page)

In spite of other doors opening, voices being raised in protest, and the intervention of the man from the desk trying to be civilized, the woman continued to bang on the door and call out threats and demand to be paid. I turned to Maaz, who was lying on the bed fully clothed, and told him to give her some money. As usual his hand went down to his trouser pocket, then to his other pocket, then to his jacket and he gave me everything he had on him. I took some of it and bent down and pushed it under the door. I didn’t wait to hear her taking the money and going away, but turned to Maaz, thinking how beautiful the woman was, and wondering about the coat she was wearing. My curiosity grew to the point where I had to ask him why he’d brought her back with him, why I was no longer Suzie, and Sand-and-Sky; but Maaz just laughed, and his laughter caught at my throat. I’d lost my stronghold. In my frenzy I found myself shaking him, and that night I didn’t sleep beside him; I sat up on the couch and he only called me once. I prepared myself to hear him calling a second time and to find out why he’d brought the woman and why I was no longer Sand-and-Sky. Before I’d made up my mind to ask him myself, he said to me as if he wasn’t saying anything in particular, ‘Suzanne, that woman was nice. And she liked Arabs. Honestly, I don’t understand why you insulted her like that.’ Then, in all seriousness, ‘God forgive you.’ I realized that he had no idea why I was angry and jealous. He must have thought I was Fatima who didn’t feel either emotion, and I heard myself saying scornfully, ‘She liked money.’ ‘Poor thing,’ he answered, ‘Perhaps she wasn’t married and didn’t have any family.’ Then he asked me confidently, and as if I were a friend, ‘Did you think she was pretty, Suzanne?’ I pretended not to be interested, although I knew he hadn’t meant to provoke an outburst from me. I’d
calmed myself with the thought that in a couple of days we’d be going back to the desert, and what had happened today would fade into memory. I tried to control my irritation and changed the subject. I asked him how he’d known his way around the streets. A mixture of interest and pleasure appeared on his face. He got up and, using his hands and his eyes, he told me how, as he’d left the room, he’d been making himself remember everything he saw: the flowers growing in a pot, the mirror, the room numbers, so that he’d remember where our room was. Then he asked the name and address of the hotel from the man at the desk. When the man gave him a card with everything he’d asked written down on it he knew that his English must have been comprehensible, and his self-confidence returned. But as soon as he’d stepped outside the hotel into the narrow street, he began to feel scared of the main street which ran parallel to it. It was as if he were seeing the crowds, the cars and the lights for the first time. He kept reaching into his pockets for his piece of paper and his money. He felt that he was in a strange, odd country, where the cigarettes with cats on the packets were called Craven A. In the desert the names on the packets corresponded to the pictures: the ones in the packet with a camel on it were called Camel, and the ones in a packet with a gipsy dancer, Gitanes. He didn’t know why he felt a sudden sadness. It seemed that he didn’t know how to walk along pavements, or how to look at people, or how to decide when to stop walking. He tried to give himself encouragement, reminding himself that he’d always wanted to travel and see the world – the countries which produced everything that came to the desert. He wanted to go back, but he knew in his heart of hearts that: he did really know how to go about things (here he mentioned that he’d learnt from me the right way to stroll around the streets). He went along until he came to a news stand where he saw some Arabic magazines and newspapers. When the man at the stand counted out the money and handed him the change Maaz, full of pride, said ‘Thank you’ in English, and
began to walk with a more confident step. Enthusiastically, he went into a restaurant, and as he wasn’t hungry he ordered a Scotch. He paid for it and when he heard the ‘thank you’ coming back at him he relaxed. He went on his way again and didn’t stop until he saw the word ‘Bar’. Inside, it looked like he’d known for a long time that it would, low lights, high stools, just like on the videos. He was pleased at his discovery and smiled to himself. On his right a woman sat drinking. When he turned in her direction she smiled welcomingly at him. He felt as if he was flying through the air with joy. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she understood him and asked where he came from, and what he was doing here. When he told her, she asked him if he was a sheikh, and he felt like nodding his head. Then his eyes fell on the bottles in their dozens behind the man pouring the Scotch. Laughing and talking to himself, he said out loud, ‘I could take them and smash them like I have to at home.’ The Scotch had affected his head. He couldn’t help thinking that what he did in the desert was ridiculous, and he seized the magazine he’d bought and went through it, pretending to censor parts of it. The woman didn’t understand, and a picture of himself sitting at his table at work went round in his mind: he saw himself swooping down on the magazines, turning the pages and enjoying looking at the women’s bodies, with the thick black pen motionless in his fingers; then he would go to the bathroom and play with himself, and return to the woman who was blonde, dark, thin, a foreign star, an Arab star, depending on which magazine she was in. When he visited friends of his who worked in embassies they used to show him the small black and white photographs on visa application forms, which also triggered off their desire, so much so that they went to the lengths of stealing the photographs of all the pretty women and copying them and enlarging them and swapping them with one another; eventually the authorities had introduced a regulation to the effect that a form would be refused if the accompanying photograph showed
any part of the woman below her neck or if a seductive expression could be detected in her eyes.

Then, recalling the high point of his adventure, he clapped his hands and turned to face me to be sure of having my full attention: ‘Listen, Suzanne, if it hadn’t been that woman, when I was in the underground city, I would have – O God, it was all twisting passages as if you were inside an ear – I would have been lost and starving, I could have died down there and nobody would have known. How would I have got up again?’ ‘An underground city? Like an ear?’ I repeated, losing patience.

‘Yes. The woman took me in a tram, and she began walking from one underground tunnel to another. It was like being in the land of the jinn. She’d go up a level and down a level, with me clinging to her hand and clutching my heart, terrified that she’d leave me …’

When I heard him snoring, I jumped up, but instead of shaking him by the shoulders I switched on the light and went to fetch a glass of water. I sat on the edge of the bed and called his name. When he opened his eyes, he said, ‘God bless you. What’s wrong?’

I handed him the glass of water, acting cool and calm, and said that I’d decided to accept his offer of marriage. To my surprise he didn’t answer, but closed his eyes again and said, ‘God willing.’ For a moment it was as if I’d gone back to being the Suzanne who sat in front of the television in the suburbs in Texas with my hair tied back and nothing in my life but sentimental soap operas. Miserably, I wondered how he had dared to bring home a woman, and why I was no longer Suzie and Suzanne and Sand-and-Sky. I went to wake him again, and shook him, not realizing how violent I was being until my arms and shoulders began to hurt. I was full of anger because I’d agreed to marry him and he’d refused me. As usual when I wanted the truth from him, I made him swear by his children before he said anything. He sat up in bed, and to my surprise he announced that he’d been afraid
of me the previous day and felt disgusted by me. My thoughts strayed back and I couldn’t think of any reason. Was it because I’d bought another piece of jewellery, or told him that I preferred life in the desert to life here? ‘Why? Why?’ I asked him, irritable in my curiosity to find out what sin I’d committed. He answered that I’d done things for my own pleasure like a man. When again I sifted through what had happened the day before and still couldn’t guess what he meant, I shook my head questioningly, and he said calmly and gravely, ‘God created you to bear children, and to give pleasure to a man, and that’s all.’ I didn’t understand. Perhaps I hadn’t understood his English? Naturally I’d had children, and naturally a man enjoyed me just as I enjoyed him. Wide awake by this time, Maaz repeated seriously, ‘God created woman to make children, like a factory. That’s the exact word, Suzanne. She’s a factory, she produces enjoyment for the man, not for herself.’ I laughed, and replied quickly, ‘If God doesn’t want her to enjoy it, then how and why do I enjoy it?’ He looked confused and, not finding a ready answer to my question, he shouted, ‘Yesterday you were like a she-devil.’ Then he mumbled, ‘I swear, in God’s name, I was disgusted by you, and by your whole race. You seemed like a man to me, when you were crying out. I said, Maaz, this woman’s a hermaphrodite. She’s both a man and a woman.’ Then he added, ‘You enjoy it because you’re a hermaphrodite.’ Although I felt embarrassed when I remembered my unstoppable wave of desire of the day before, I began to laugh. I thought of the grave way he had spoken, the pain he’d expressed, and I laughed. No doubt my laughter confirmed to him that I was indeed a devil, for he began looking at me with distaste. ‘And what about Fatima,’ I asked, tears of laughter running down my cheeks, ‘is she a devil too?’ ‘Foreign women must be made out of different clay from ordinary women,’ he replied. I didn’t find it strange about Fatima, and her lack of pleasure and desire; when I was in America, I’d stopped having sex with David or doing
it by myself, and I was no longer conscious of my body and sexual enjoyment, except occasionally when I was asleep and I dreamt that I had it with the local policeman, or my children’s teacher, or the edge of the table or the bath water, and I’d thought at the time that it was my body fulfilling one of its functions in spite of me.

I moved closer to him and, in an attempt to reawaken his desire, asked him if he’d brought the woman back here to sleep with her. ‘Poor woman. You insulted her,’ was his only reply. ‘I thought that I’d introduce her to you because she was nice.’ I tried again, playfully: ‘Does this mean no more Suzanne? Ever, ever?’

When he went on staring at the ceiling, I was sure that he’d made up his mind not to give in to me, even though he wanted to, but suddenly he shouted, ‘Now I understand why you’ve never got pregnant by me …’

Serious now, and eager to understand his way of reasoning, I exclaimed, ‘For God’s sake, why?’

Before I’d finished, he interrupted, ‘I know you’re not a man, but you’re not a woman either otherwise I would have made you pregnant.’

Laughing again, I told him that after Jimmy was born I’d had an operation to seal off my tubes. At this he brought his palms sharply together, then rubbed his eyes and said, ‘God forbid! You heathen.’ Then with spiteful glee: ‘I see, God’s punished you, so now you’re a hermaphrodite.’

My thoughts strayed to the occasion he’d first seen me naked, and how he’d said something which I hadn’t understood then, but now I did. I found it strange that he’d been amazed at the sight of my pubic hair, and felt sure at the time that it was because he’d never seen a completely naked woman before me.

I would have liked to reply to him, but I heard his breathing growing louder, and turned over to try and sleep myself. I concluded that I’d been protected all this time by his
naïveté
and ignorance, and wondered why I wasn’t annoyed by what
he’d said, or hadn’t taken him more seriously. I vaguely tried to think what my reaction would be if David thought about me in the same way, and automatically clenched my fist. But I looked at Maaz and smiled, captivated by his sincerity and spontaneity, which put me on a level with Marilyn Monroe. I felt safe at his side and vowed to myself that I would always sleep beside him like this, with his money, his gold watch and his possessions on the floor the other side of him.

Only as I packed my bags, delighted with the clothes I’d bought for my daughters and the gold jewellery Maaz had bought for me, and delighted to be going home, did I think how much this trip had changed Maaz, and our relationship. But I didn’t doubt that he would keep coming to see me, until we were back at the desert airport and I saw how he behaved with the friends who’d come to meet him, and how they looked at me, and then how he went off with them, without even bothering to find out if David was waiting for me outside.

I continued to sit there, resting my cheek on my hand, while Maaz and Ringo pored over the dozens of brochures about Sri Lanka, talking in English and Arabic and using their hands. Ringo was encouraging Maaz to go to Sri Lanka as if it were the only place in the world worth visiting, and when he felt that his description might not be conveying a true picture he would purse his lips into a whistle of admiration. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t want to shout at Maaz, so I attacked Ringo instead and asked him why he didn’t go back to his own country if he liked it so much and thought it was the most beautiful country in the world. Ringo didn’t understand the reason for my outburst and said hesitantly, pushing a lock of hair off his face, ‘I’m happy here.’ Mockingly, Maaz took his hand and pointed to the gold bracelet with his name on it and the gold ring, then stood up to pull the chain with a gold heart on the end of it from around Ringo’s neck, and said, ‘How could he get all this gold in Sri
Lanka? He’d only be given tin there!’

5

Sita’s bottle stayed where it was, and I was still in my house in the desert. I no longer saw Maaz. From time to time it was again as if I were the only woman who existed, almost a rare specimen. I wasn’t under a misapprehension about this, and it wasn’t difficult to find men. The men in their white robes searched for women among the freezers and foodstuffs in the supermarkets. They tailed foreigners and car passengers who weren’t wearing veils. As they walked along the street they stole glances at the gates of houses just in case a woman going in behind the high walls gave them a smile: telephone and electricity workers and private gardeners were the worst offenders. The first time I was hesitant; I pushed my trolley around the supermarket, and concentrated on reading what was written on the packets and tins, not looking at the man who was looking at me and going through a charade of coughing and spitting to attract my attention, nor at another who tried to test whether I was really there to shop by moving his lips and moistening them with his tongue. I pushed the trolley along at speed, paid the man at the cash desk and rushed to the car. But on the second occasion, in the bookshop this time, I found myself making an approach to a man who I’d heard talking in English, whose American accent and good looks gave me encouragement. For some reason I said to him, ‘Since you speak English, perhaps we could talk together and you could help me understand the nature of the males in your country.’ I began to tell him about
Maaz and how he’d left me, although I knew that these things weren’t relevant while I was with this man. He looked at me in astonishment, obviously thinking that I was crazy, and didn’t reply, but went on turning the pages of a magazine, then looked around for the foreigner he’d been talking to before. I told him that I wasn’t mad and seriously wanted to understand the personality of the Arab male. The man looked to one side then the other, before feeling in his pocket and taking out a card which he left on top of a magazine at the edge of the table. Then he vanished. I snatched up the card, covering it with my hand, and stuffed it into my bag with a sigh of relief. I dialled his number day and night until one day he answered and said that he’d been at his engineering project in the heart of the desert. I had to meet him: his voice gave me a strange feeling of warmth. The boredom I’d felt since returning from my trip abroad evaporated, and I rested my hand on my heart, afraid that he’d try to avoid meeting me. A long time passed before he did arrange to meet me. He asked me to come and visit him at his project, and agreed a time with me and described the car which would be waiting to take me at the entrance to the store.