When she got to the university, the campus was quiet without the usual busy coming and going of students. Not many cars were in the car park and the few that were there were at awkward angles and distances from each other because the snow had covered the lines of the parking spaces. Some students were playing in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other. They wore hats and colourful scarves. They were laughing, not serious and blank as they usually looked. It seemed as if there were no classes running today or only a few. The university, unlike the business world, had surrendered to the exceptional day.
Sammar met Yasmin on the steps of the building. Yasmin was visibly pregnant in spite of the large coat she was wearing. She was on her way home rather than coming in.
‘There’s hardly anyone in today, there’s no point in me staying,’ she blew her nose. ‘I’m not too well. I can’t get rid of this cold.’
‘Is Rae here?’
Yasmin nodded, ‘He’s on the phone with some journalist from London… about the hijack.’
Sammar knew about the snow, not about a hijack. But it did not seem out of place. The whole day was different, lifted up out of the ordinary in every way.
‘A Libyan Airlines on its way to Amman,’ said Yasmin. ‘Haven’t you heard? It was on the news this morning.’
She had heard that there were power cuts in some parts of Aberdeen, the names of the schools that were closed, treacherous roads.
Yasmin said that the airplane was in Cyprus now. The hijackers wanted it refuelled but no one knew yet where they intended to go.
‘Fareed was with Rae a while ago. They called Tripoli. It seems to be about freeing political prisoners in Libya. Then Fareed went to teach. I don’t think more than half of his class turned up but he decided to go ahead anyway.’
Yasmin blew her nose again. It was cold standing on the steps of the building.
‘You had better go,’ said Sammar.
‘Yes, none of the others turned up.’ She meant the other secretaries.
‘The roads are really bad.’
‘It’s good Nazim isn’t off-shore,’ Yasmin said. ‘You’re lucky you’re going away. It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?’
‘If the trains run. They cancelled them today.’ Sammar stamped her feet to shake off the snow that was on her shoes.
‘The airport is open. They’ve cleared the runway. You can get a plane to London if the trains aren’t running.’
‘Yes, I suppose I can.’ There was no need to tell Yasmin that she did not want to go away, that she was not going away, that today everything was going to be different. But she could say insha’ Allah and not feel that she was lying. She said, ‘Insha’ Allah tomorrow. I’ve packed and everything.’
They said goodbye to each other. They said they were not going to meet for a long time.
Rae was still on the telephone when she went to his office. She was content to sit and hear his voice, know that he was here, smile at him once in a while. She sat on one of the brown armchairs that made up a seating arrangement separate from his desk. On the telephone, he was speaking the way he spoke to everyone except her: cooler, quicker. Sometimes he made notes, smiled at her. He did not look sad like yesterday when he was telling her about his uncle. She was pleased about that and proud that his opinion was being asked from London, where they must have many Middle-East experts of their own.
The politics of Libya and a lot of sun in the room, hitting the shelf of books, the filing cabinet. There were labels on the filing cabinet: Research, Administration, Teaching. Her work with him came under Research. What she translated made up part of the references for the papers he published in journals, presented in conferences.
‘So you didn’t go to Stirling?’ she said when he finished speaking on the telephone.
‘I’ll go in the afternoon, if the road’s clear.’
She was going to ask him if he would miss the funeral when the telephone rang again. It was a colleague this time, someone he was at ease with because he laughed when he spoke of the hijack, said he was up half the night hearing the news and yes, it was nearly as good as in the seventies but unlikely to compete with Entebbe.
There were pauses when he was listening and she was unaware of what the conversation was about. She could hear the students downstairs playing in the snow. Their laughter came through the window.
A few words from Rae, snatches, ‘We’re having our funding cut again’… ‘I didn’t know about that’… ‘Paris! Lucky man.’
When he finished, he said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and she thought of driving with him to Stirling in the afternoon. They would drive south and there would be snow piled at the side of the road. They would stop for petrol and from the shop he would get her mineral water and sweets. He left his desk and came to sit with her, leaned to kiss her but she moved her head away. His chin brushed against her scarf. They laughed a little, embarrassed now, a nervous laugh like breathing. But in the silence that followed, her resolve was strengthened. She said, ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Ask me.’ He was more subdued than when he was speaking on the telephone.
‘I want to ask you to become a Muslim so we could…’
Her courage failed her. She could not look at him. She looked down at her gloves on her lap. If it could really happen, she could drive with him to Stirling to be alone with him, to be settled. The words tumbled out, ‘I want to talk to you about this all the time but it’s so hard. We talk of Islam when we talk of work and it’s different from the way I want to talk to you.’ She folded her gloves in her hands, unfolded them again.
When he didn’t say anything, she looked up. If what was in his eyes was wariness, surprise, she would have felt the barriers between them, she would have withdrawn. But what she found was distress, enough to twist her with pity for him. Why, when she wanted to make him feel safe, when she wanted to look after him?
‘Is the shahadah what you want to talk to me about?’ His voice normal, the way he spoke to her.
‘Yes.’ She put her gloves back on.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No.’ So much sun was in the room, but the cold was inside her. She had come with it from outside.
‘There’s a portable heater in the cupboard in the hall; I can get it.’
She shook her head, ‘No, I’m alright.’
Somehow it was easier to talk after that, to say what she wanted to say, the way she wanted to say it. It was not difficult, confidence came.
She said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about the shahadah, what it means.’ She breathed in and went on, ‘It’s two things together, both beginning with the words, “I bear witness”. I bear witness, I testify, to something that is intangible, invisible, but I have knowledge of it in my heart. There is no god except Allah, nothing else is worthy of worship. That’s the first thing… Then the second thing… I bear witness that Muhammad is His messenger, a messenger not only to the Arabs who saw him and heard him, but to everyone, in every time.’
She thought, I have to explain things right, I have to be clear. She said, ‘There were messengers before, Moses and Jesus and others. Every messenger comes with proof about himself, a miracle suitable to his time. Something that his people would find deeply impressive, something that would make them listen to him. Though even with these miracles not everyone believes.