Women of Sand and Myrrh (33 page)

Less than a month after our wedding I began to feel restless. The happiness and the hustle and bustle seemed to vanish upon our return to the desert, and Saleh began to get up at nine in the morning and wanted me to get up with him so that we could have breakfast together. I did it once but the following day I protested that I was tired and stayed in bed. That night Saleh didn’t want us to stay up after midnight but I wouldn’t sleep. He reminded me of how tired I’d been that morning, and I joked that he would make me forget that I was from a family of Draculas. Despite my efforts I never managed to get up till noon or a little afterwards, when he came back from work to have lunch. He continued to insist
that I must get up in the morning and when I asked him what the urgency was, he replied, ‘What about the house?’ and I laughed and said sarcastically, ‘What about the servants?’ ‘What’s the use of a crew if the ship has no captain?’ he returned.

On one particular evening our visitors departed early because Saleh had said a pointed farewell to them even while I was begging them to stay. Boiling with rage I went back into the room: ‘How can you drive them out like that?’ I shouted at him. Without looking up from his book, he answered that they were spongers, a flock of sheep moving from house to house to be fed, held in submission by the videos and funny stories. ‘I thought you enjoyed yourself with them,’ I said challengingly. He marked his place with a bookmark and shut the book. I found myself thinking that the division between us really was vast, not because I didn’t read books but because it would never occur to me to use a bookmark. Then he said in an affectionate tone, ‘Nur. Come here. I want to talk to you.’ Putting an arm round me he told me he loved staying up with them once or twice a week, but said that we shouldn’t use them to fill up our spare time. ‘How should we spend our evenings then?’ I demanded. ‘With one another, or are you bored with me?’ Then he added, ‘With one another, or with normal people.’ ‘With one another?’ I thought to myself. ‘That means him reading or watching films that I don’t like, or practising tennis or training on his exercise machines. And normal people means businessmen and embassy staff and their wives.’ However hard I tried, I could never think of anything to say to their wives.

Then Saleh began asking me like a school teacher if I’d read the newspapers and whether I’d liked the books he’d brought me to read. He began urging me to continue my education and enrol in a university, or even do a correspondence course. Anything rather than wasting my time sleeping or talking to friends whom he described as unfortunate because of their lack of intelligence.

I didn’t show the faintest desire to listen to what he was saying, and at midnight he went to bed, while I began pleading with a servant or a guest or a relation to stay up with me into the small hours.

These differences vanished during the holidays. He no longer said my English was awful because I’d picked it up haphazardly from foreign nannies and acquaintances, or criticized me because my only interest, according to him, was a single-minded study of the goods produced by modern industry for the consumption of the rich, such as yachts and sun beds. Instead he seemed proud of me as we moved around together in our yacht or our private plane between the chalet in Switzerland, the Paris flat and the house in a London suburb. We spent the time sailing the yacht and lying on beaches which we had almost to ourselves, and in winter wore skiing clothes, although I didn’t keep up with my lessons because it was always nearly sunset by the time I was ready. Still the weather and the people and their talk and laughter aroused a mood of happiness and enjoyment in me wherever we were. I quickly forgot that I’d been annoyed with him for trying to make me learn to read the compass while the white yacht ploughed through the Mediterranean; or for urging me to learn to ski and get out in the open and move at speed over the great expanses of whiteness. As soon as the holidays ended and we returned to the desert the old resentment returned too. When I asked him why we only came close to one another on holiday he answered that he liked life without work or responsibility for a while but my problem was that I wanted it to be like that all the time; of course he traced the causes back to my upbringing, as he did with all my behaviour. His continual criticism of me, even over stupid things, surprised me more and more. I remember how upset he seemed that I didn’t call back as soon as I heard that someone had called me. When I blamed the servants he said it was my fault because I didn’t encourage them to tell me.

One day Sally the American, the daughter of a friend of my father’s, came to the desert to attend my brother’s wedding. She tried to phone me more than twenty times, and as usual I knew about some of the calls and didn’t pay much attention. Then Saleh happened to answer and she was on the other end apologizing because she was leaving the next day and hadn’t seen me. Looking at me angrily he told her that he’d come and pick her up straightaway, and with one more furious glance at me he was off. His behaviour didn’t surprise me and although I was jealous I felt relieved that he was the same as all the rest, and wanted to get to know foreign women. Sally came back with him apologizing, as if she was quite sure that I couldn’t have known about her calls. I replied coldly that Mother Kaukab didn’t understand English, and Sally said in some confusion that she’d asked the servants at my parents’ house – where she was staying – to make the calls.

Then she turned to talk to Saleh about the time she and I had spent together in the United States when my father had left me with her and her family and they’d taken me over most of California, from Disneyland to Universal Studios. She talked enthusiastically and seemed to have captivated Saleh, as if my dress and the way my hair was done no longer mattered. Then their conversation took off beyond the table where the three of us were sitting and away from anything that I knew about or was interested in. She began to talk about her work: she was one of the people who wrote speeches for the American president; then she switched to talking about her father’s club and I pricked up my ears and thought that here was my chance to make them listen to me and look in my direction since I knew most of the internationally famous clubs. But a cloud of dullness descended on the conversation once more when I heard that the club was only for men and that their activities didn’t go beyond delivering speeches. Then he asked what university she’d graduated from and when she told him the name of some university he laughed and asked if she knew Candice F. She didn’t, but
she’d heard of her because she was president of one of the graduate societies. He hesitated a little, put his hand on mine and said, ‘With Nur’s permission,’ then proceeded to tell us that he’d promised to marry Candice when he’d said goodbye to her after his graduation. But as soon as he’d arrived back in the desert he’d found that he couldn’t begin to imagine her wandering about the house, or sitting at his side in the car or talking in sign language to the other women; the thought of her light-coloured hair, her unrestrained way of talking without regard to time or place, seemed absurd in this setting.

Sally remarked laughing that she couldn’t envisage a girl like Candice here for a moment. Saleh listened to her and he pressed my hand when I tried to draw it out from under his hand; it seemed to me that his talk of Candice was to make Sally understand that his being married to me didn’t mean that he was like me, or was even meant to justify his mistake. Then he began talking again in that enthusiastic voice which perhaps meant nothing when he used it to me or to people he found in our house; contradicting her, he said, ‘Sally, Candice is intelligent. She could even manage to live
here.
She might have a hard time because she’d be forced to lead a double life. Take me and Nur for example: when I came back here I found that the ideas which I’d been convinced were right when I was in the States seemed ridiculous here, like the contents of my suitcase. But I made a firm decision that Saleh who wore a white robe and sandals and tore meat apart with his fingers should also be a man of the twentieth century discussing Margaret Thatcher’s politics and standing to applaud dancers in a club.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘Nur wears an abaya when she’s here in her country but abroad she walks around in a cocktail dress. Of course she feels hard done by, but this is where she was born.’

When we took her back to my parents’ house, it was the first time I’d given someone a lift to where they wanted to go; I’d always been on the receiving end of such treatment, and only contacted people when
I
needed them. Saleh got out of
the car to shake her hand, then the two of them stood for a moment looking towards me. When I made do with a desultory wave, Saleh came back to the car and got in heaving a protracted sigh. He didn’t speak until I asked him what was wrong with him and then he shouted at me, ‘Even the Queen dismounts to say goodbye to people.’ Then he muttered, ‘Sorry. You’re more important than the Queen.’ I found myself saying that I hadn’t wanted anyone from the house to see me. He stopped the car and turned to face me: ‘And what would have happened if someone had seen you? Wouldn’t it have been more normal to go in and visit your family? Or are they at the round table solving the world’s problems?’ To himself he added, ‘I don’t understand your family. I don’t understand the stuff they’re made out of. None of them are normal.’ At this point I screamed at him, ‘Is all this fuss because I didn’t get out and shake hands with the American woman?’

Thumping his hand down on the steering wheel, he shouted back, ‘How can I make you understand that it’s not a question of an isolated incident? It’s to do with your view of the world, your understanding of life. Is it reasonable that Sally should be with your family for a week and you don’t get in touch with her? Instead you spend you time fooling about with empty-headed women and the nannies. From what I’ve heard, you only had to mention somewhere in the States and Sally would take you to see it. What about the telegram she sent us when we got married, and the present that would still be in its paper if I hadn’t opened it? You don’t only have this careless attitude towards people – you have it towards things as well. There was that orchid that was thrown to one side in the kitchen, and died still in its cellophane paper. And the plants left to wilt in their pots. Do you know the cost of orchids even before they reach the desert! Your problem is that you weren’t born into one of the ruling families.’

4

When I found out that I was pregnant, and the doctor said my feelings of nausea and tiredness were normal I told him that I couldn’t stand it, as if he were the one responsible for my condition. As well as feeling sluggish and sick, I began to swell up like a sponge and became convinced that I’d never go back to my old shape. Perhaps the state I was in began to bore my visitors because I no longer had people around me every minute of the day, and I grew lonely. I found that this isolation was something I didn’t have the strength to endure, and one day when I was barely awake I began to scream and shout; I tore my clothes; I bit the hands reaching out to restrain me, and then I rushed out of the house; Mother Kaukab caught up with me and contacted my mother and I called Saleh at the office and told him I wanted an abortion. The main reason I could think of was that the clothes I’d had made to wear this season were such beautiful and unusual styles that they would never be fashionable again. Although he was kind and showed some understanding of what I was suffering, he tried to convince me that I would become fulfilled as a woman if I had a child and that there were maternity clothes which were as unusual as ordinary clothes. When I gave in he began pestering me to stop smoking. My reply was that the doctor had said to me that if I stopped it would make me tense, so it was better if I didn’t.

When I gave birth to my daughter, jewels were showered upon me, too bright to believe in and almost too unbearably beautiful to touch; and flowers the like of which, I was told, the desert had never seen before. The day I had the baby I said I wanted to rest and wouldn’t pick her up, and the same that night, but on the following day the English nurse insisted that I should hold her so that she and I could get to know each other. After a few minutes she began to cry and I pressed
the bell and gave her back to the nurse. I tried the trick of feigning sleep every time I sensed the two of them in the room until the nurse gave up in despair and took her away. When one time she came in to find me talking on the phone, she told me that she was ready to collapse because she didn’t sleep day or night, and our lack of concern for the child made her angry. I told her that what made me angry was her coming in without permission, and shouted at her to go away and leave me in peace. I was especially cross because I was listening, consumed with jealousy, while a friend told me about a handsome Egyptian singer who was here, and the parties they had in the evenings, and who was chasing him and who was spending a lot of time with him. As she was talking, I pictured her still in her nightdress with no pain, her breasts not swollen as mine were, in spite of my attempts to empty them of milk. Or probably her maid was putting on her make-up for her or taking it off. I could no longer stand the sight of them, when they visited me just to show off their dresses and talk to one another, not to me, indifferent to my gasps of pain.

Saleh was no help to me during this period; he began giving me words of advice, saying that I must pick my daughter up, nurse her myself instead of giving her a bottle, and not smoke when she was in the room. I was at my most annoyed with him when he woke me up every morning as soon as he heard her voice, and brought her to our bed; I don’t know why but I began blaming him for everything, even for going to his office. I began to avoid talking to him and acted as if I didn’t care whether he was there or not. But instead of being prompted by my coldness to make it up with me, he no longer concerned himself with me either. He began to live his life as he chose, inviting his own friends, and even though some of them came with their wives, I refused to leave my room and sat in front of the video hour after hour. Feelings of depression and resentment towards him seethed inside me and I felt like I did when my cat escaped and hid in some
inaccessible place; I’d be angry to the point of tears and stamp my feet, almost choking each time I thought of the pleasure I felt when I had her in my grasp.