Cardamom pods. They must be split open, the seeds inside crushed into powder. It seemed unfair to her that he was all alone, ill alone, that he dragged himself to teach everyday and came back home to an unmade bed, unwashed cups and dishes, meals that he had to cook himself. In the department they said that he was turning into a workaholic. She said to him, they told you at the hospital to take time off work, why don’t you listen? He said that there were too many things that needed to be done.
She put the soup in two plastic containers, carried them to work. She was waiting for him when he came out of the lecture theatre, coughing, his fingers covered in chalk. She saw the change in him, the way he turned his back on everything else, his students who were coming out, the next class that was going in. When he spoke to her it was as if there was no one around, no physical world, his voice different, she had come to realise, than when he talked to others, kind, less sharp. It took him a few minutes to understand what she was saying, what she was carrying, what she was giving to him. Then he said, ‘Oh Sammar,’ in a low voice, too much emotion. So that they were both, after that, unable to say ordinary things, the usual things, ‘thank you very much,’ ‘I hope you like it,’ ‘I will like it for sure’, ‘you can freeze it…’ She turned and made her way down corridors illuminated with fluorescent lights, crowded with students taller than her, their loose denims, rucksacks, soft hair that fell over young eyes.
Two weeks. Two weeks and she would be far away on another continent. Sunshine, no need to put on the lights indoors. In two weeks’ time she would leave this city. She had booked her plane tickets from London, she must book her train ticket from Aberdeen. She had bought the things her aunt had asked for, she must start packing. She thought of going home, seeing home again, its colours again and in spite of years of yearning, all she had now was reluctance and some fear.
12
The past intruded when she wanted only the present. Wanted these two weeks before she left the city. The past came and lined up before her, demanding recognition. The time before she started working in Rae’s department. She worked in Languages and sometimes translated things for the Counciclass="underline" English to Arabic, leaflets about the health services, about classes in English. An incident from that time: a Libyan woman in hospital and Sammar was asked to go to Foresterhill and interpret for her. The woman didn’t know English and her husband who did was away off-shore. But Sammar refused to go, she could not face the hospital after Tarig. And she drowned her guilt about the Libyan woman in oceans of sleep. In her dreams she forgot that Tarig had died.
Her head in the Languages department was a woman named Jennifer, who one day, unexpectedly and abruptly, called Sammar, asked her to sit down and said that she was not religious but respected people who were religious. That was during the Gulf War, when suddenly everyone became aware that Sammar was Muslim. Once a man shouted at her in King Street, Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein.
Jennifer said, ‘My boyfriend is Nigerian,’ and paused as if that statement had a deeper meaning she wanted Sammar to grasp.
Sammar sat and nodded politely. She felt like a child who had stayed up too late at night and was discovering that in the adult world there were things she could not understand. Jennifer talked away fresh and brisk, reassuring her of how broad-minded and tolerant she was, not like so many people. ‘For example,’ Jennifer said, ‘I have no problem at all with the way you dress.’
When Sammar finally spoke, she managed, ‘Thank you,’ and went home and slept. She slept deeply and continuously until the next day.
It was part of her remit to work for other departments if they needed her. This was how she met Rae when he sent her articles from Arab newspapers, the aftermath of the Gulf War. The first time she went to see him, he surprised her by being not rushed for time, not distracted by other things. She was used to busy people, a tightness in time. Instead, after discussing the newspaper articles, he told her about the time he lived in North Africa and asked her about her name, an unusual name. Lulled by his manner, she said, ‘There is a Lebanese ladies’ magazine called Sammar,’ and immediately thought, what a silly thing to say, what an inappropriate thing to say. But he didn’t look surprised or amused. He said quite seriously, ‘I have not come across this magazine.’
People spoke about him: his students, his secretary, Yasmin. It was through him that Sammar met Yasmin. Yasmin who talked so fluently and knowingly about the Gulf War, immigration, ‘these people’. She told Sammar that Rae had been on television several times and on the radio during the war. She would come to work the following morning and the department’s answering machine would be jammed with messages, angry voices… You are a disgrace to our universities, we pay taxes… You don’t know what you’re talking about, fighter-planes aren’t enough for this war. We need to drop an atomic bomb once and for all… And after a radio programme, Is This War A Holy War? You wog bastard, may I remind you that England is a Christian country, and it would be a good thing if you and all the rest of the odious wog bastards were to go back to the land of Allah. Since you bastards came to England this country has become the asshole of the West…
Sammar remembered Yasmin telling her all this in the car one Saturday on the way to a DIY shop, Yasmin mimicking the man’s London accent.
‘Did Rae get upset?’ Sammar had asked.
‘No, he laughed.’
And Sammar pictured the scene in the secretaries’ office, Yasmin replaying the tape first thing in the morning, Rae standing still wearing his jacket because he had just come in. Some of the blinds in the room would still be drawn, the department still sluggish, no footsteps of students, a few members of staff coming in to check their mail, mumbling greetings, lingering at the sound of the tape. Rae would have listened to the unclear voice on the tape, the message left for him, then laughed alone, for no one else would laugh, and wiped his face with his hand.
Thirteen days to go.
Her date of departure loomed ahead, solid as rock, impressive as a mountain. The days were numbered. They dwindled and by their nature could not increase. But they were not normal days, they expanded as if by magic, they stretched out like trees, and the hours passed like the hours of a child, they did not flicker or melt deceptively away. She thought that it was not true what people said, that time passed quickly when you were happy and passed slowly when you were sad. For on her darkest days after Tarig died, grief had burned away time, devoured the hours effortlessly, the days in chunk after chunk. Now every day stretched long and when Rae spoke to her a few words, when they only saw each other for a few minutes, these minutes expanded and these words multiplied and filled up time with what she wanted to take with her, what she did not want to leave behind.
My last twelve days. My last ten days.
He said it was her soup, her soup was the catalyst that made him recover. He was back working a full day, he no longer coughed.