No news of him, his name. In Yasmin’s letters, the words slanting and large: her baby daughter doesn’t sleep through the night, her baby is teething, a photo of the baby, no mention of Rae. When she answered Yasmin’s letters she disciplined herself not to ask about him, not to ask for news or even a casual reference like the remarks she used to hear in Aberdeen all around her in abundance, from Diane, from the coffee-scented secretaries, from his Ph.D. students, the man from Sierra Leone. What she wanted to know: how was he, how was his health, did he have any new Ph.D. students, where did he publish the paper he and Fareed were working on, who translated for him now? This she asked Yasmin, this she finally allowed herself but without using his name, without writing it down. ‘Did they find anyone to take my place?’ she wrote. But Yasmin was on extended maternity leave, in another world with her baby girl, not keen to go back to work, not very interested. She wrote, ‘No, I don’t think the department has anyone translating for them at the moment, I’m not sure.’ And Sammar found herself nostalgic for her old job, the work itself, moulding Arabic into English, trying to be transparent like a pane of glass not obscuring the meaning of any word. She missed the cramped room with the hum of the computer. She missed Diane, the smell of her cheese and onion crisps, her innocence when she said, ‘Rae’s class was really good today. One bloke asked this question about…’
This was the exile from him then. Never hearing his name. Living in a place where no one knew him. And when weak from the dreams, needing to speak of him and not being able to. She wanted to say anything, however meaningless. At times with a friend, Nahla, even with Hanan, she would want to speak about him. A question from them would be the trigger, a question about her time in Scotland. A question followed by a pause in the conversation, the possibility of a turning point and then other words would fill up the space. She was afraid of the sound of her voice talking about him, the silliness of it and feeling ashamed. She knew that they would stop at him being a foreigner, their mind would close after that. Wide eyes, surprise, a foreigner? They would imagine him like someone in an American film. The kind of videos they watched: a bodyguard, a man who was really a robot with skin. She did not want them to imagine him like that. Their eyes rimmed with kohl, warm, wide, and she knowing what was in their minds, having to somehow defend him, stammer through the questions they would ask.
‘No, he’s different, not really…’
‘Half-foreign?’
‘No, he’s just different, not… impatient, not… cool.’
‘I still can’t believe it. A Christian?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not religious, he doesn’t go to church. He’s not sure…’
‘Not sure?’
‘He believes in Allah but when I asked him if he accepts that Muhammad, peace be upon him is a Messenger, he said he wasn’t sure.’
‘You, Sammar, of all people? You’re not like modern girls who marry foreigners. You’re not the type.’
‘Anyway it didn’t work. It failed.’
‘But why did you let yourself get involved in the first place?’
Start to talk of him and she would have to answer all sorts of questions, become hot with shyness and what she couldn’t say, that she had tipped over, begged him: just say the shahadah, just say the words and it would be enough, we could get married then. It was not a story to be proud of. Perhaps Hanan would repeat it to her husband, something to amuse him after a hard day’s work. Perhaps Nahla would repeat it to her mother, a piece of gossip from next door. It was sensible to keep quiet, keep busy, forget. She talked to herself, she told herself that she did not know him. She did not understand the words ‘sixties’ scene’ or a Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh when he got married in a church and wore a kilt. How could she understand things like that, be connected to them? She gave herself lectures when the dreams came and weakened her. ‘I must start a new life, stop being sentimental, stop feeling sorry for myself. Everyone around me is deprived of something or another. Some people don’t even have running water in their homes. And all the babies that die and inflation tight around people’s throats. I am so lucky I can afford medicine for my son and Eid clothes, decent meals, even luxuries, useless things like renting videos. I should be thankful. If I was good, if my faith was strong, I would be grateful for what I have.’
But she still dreamt of him. Vivid dreams in which he brushed past her, close, close enough for her to smell him but he would not look at her, would not talk to her. In one dream she was as short as a child in a room full of adults and smoke. She was in this room to look for him and she was standing near a table that was large and high. On tiptoe she saw that the table was green, a solid rectangular green with no cutlery, no food or drinks. She reached with her hand and it was as if the table was a shallow box lined with green rough wool. On the other side of the table Rae was talking to a man she did not recognise, a man with glasses and straight black hair sliding over his eyes. The room was choked with people bigger than her, older than her. Their discontent buzzed through the room, through the smoke, and, like in the other dreams, Rae came towards her and then brushed past her, distracted, unaware of her because she was too young and too short for him.
Raw eyes in the morning, the way a dream affects the day ahead. The ceiling fan rotated slowly distributing the breeze that came from the window. The birds were strident outside. The way a dream threatens the day, sharpens a memory. Only a dream and it could induce nausea in her, a dry soreness behind her eyes.
She poured sour milk in her aunt’s tea and had to make another cup. She sent Amir to school without making him brush his teeth, left the fan running in the empty bedroom all morning. At work she felt that she didn’t care, it didn’t matter at all that her adult students could barely read and write. The illiteracy rate was 60 or 82 per cent depending on who was right, and today she had no energy or desire to reduce it.
‘What’s wrong with you? Are you tired?’ she was asked. ‘Sister, please raise your voice we can’t hear you.’ It was women’s classes in the morning: mothers, grandmothers, today instead of reading, a health lesson about breastfeeding. The reading syllabus was set by a government commission and because of the shortage of books, children’s school books were used. The same books from which Dalia and Amir were taught. I am a girl. I come from the village. I am a boy. I come from the village. This is a camel. These are dates. It was humiliating to learn from such books. She could feel it in their voices, a kind of edge, the men (who made up the majority in the evening classes) more so than the women, who would laugh it off, saying, ‘Now I can read my children’s school books.’ For this reason health topics and community education lessons were more successful. It was lucky for her that on the day she was least motivated, the topic was the popular one of feeding babies.
‘You left the fan on in the bedroom all morning,’ said her aunt, the now familiar contempt in her eyes, her voice a certain way, wanting war. They were her first words when Sammar, Amir and Dalia came home. Dalia sucking a lollipop given to her by a friend, Amir trailing his school bag, pretending not to be envious. Sammar took off her sunglasses, poured herself a glass of water from the fridge. She sat on one of the children’s stools in front of the blowing air cooler, put her glass of water on the coffee table. There was condensation on the glass because the water was cold.