‘Dalia, get up,’ she eased the child’s head away from her lap. Dalia sat up and rubbed her eyes. Sammar began to clear the plates off the table and to sweep the rice off the floor. She could feel her aunt watching how inefficient she was, clumsy in her movements, slow. She felt cold, her bones cold and stiff, not moving smoothly, not moving with ease. She wanted a bed and a cover, sleep. She wanted to sleep like she used to sleep in Aberdeen, everything muffled up and grey, curling up, covering her face with the blanket, her breath warming the cocoon she had made for herself.
Amir pushed a tape into the video and cheerful music filled the room. Dalia sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Mary Poppins flying in the air. Mahasen lay down on the bed, propped up on her elbow watching the television. There was a peaceful expression on her face, as if she was drained now, fulfilled after her outburst.
Sammar’s fingers were steady as she washed the dishes. The water spluttered and gushed out of the tap. There were colours in the soap suds, pink, green. She rinsed the glasses and stood them face down to dry, moved her weight from one foot to another. Something to lean on, rest upon, be held up by. If she could believe that he loved her, that now he was aware of her… But she didn’t believe, could not make herself believe. It was not there inside her. Inside her was only a bright hardness. Months since she had seen him, months since she had left Aberdeen. He was far away. He had forgotten her, he was a foreigner and she was who she was. By now he must know another woman. It was so long since he had lived with his wife, one had to be realistic about these things. His world had different rules. Perhaps he was relieved when she left, all the messiness of it, the sticky complications. Another woman, more easily accessible, lighter. A woman with lighter eyes, a lighter heart, someone who didn’t care whether he believed in God or not.
When she finished washing the dishes, Sammar went and stood at the door to the sitting room. She watched Dalia squint a little in front of the television. Mahasen was sitting up on the bed rubbing cream on her hand and flexing her fingers to ease the joints. She wanted to say to her aunt that no one killed Tarig, it just happened, it was his day. She wanted to say that Allah gives life and takes it, and she had no feeling of guilt for wanting Tarig to buy a car. She was not to blame. If he had told her he was short of money, she would have understood and accepted. But he hadn’t told her. She wanted to say to her aunt, be careful when you speak of the dead because they are not here to defend themselves. Why tell me that he had complained about me, that he said I got on his nerves? He would not have wanted me to know this.
Mahasen looked up, ‘Did you finish?’
‘Yes.’
Mahasen looked down at her hands again, smoothed the white cream over her loose skin.
It was time for Sammar to talk now, say what she wanted to say.
‘When I say you should go back to England,’ said Mahasen, ‘it is for your own good and Amir’s. Not for my own good. Amir fills the house and you serve me…’
The house. Of course there must be a mention of the house. They shared ownership of this house…
‘It is better for us to be here,’ Sammar said. What she had intended to say when she came out of the kitchen effervesced. Her voice was sullen as a child, ‘I didn’t lose my job, they didn’t dismiss me, I left of my own accord.’
Mahasen sighed as if she did not believe her, as if she was humouring her. ‘Yes, alright,’ she said and turned to look at the television again.
The bedroom was not so hot. It was bearable with the ceiling fan and the shutters closed against the sun. The room smelt of her aunt, a smell of creams and cologne. Sammar sat up on the bed, leaned against the wall, hugged her knees and stared at the cracks on the ceiling. Some were angry and painful, some were delicate and faint: a European woman from long ago in a billowing dress, a cedar tree. She wished she could feel that Rae was close to her in spite of the angry words she had said to him, in spite of his get away, get away from me. She prayed that she could feel him close, not like in the dream, not distracted, not brushing past her. If she would dream a good dream about him. One good dream, reassuring her. He was so far away now that she could not imagine his voice, could not believe the things he had said to her. Another exile. Doubt, the exile of not being sure that anything existed between them, no tangible proof. The perfume he had given was in another room locked in a suitcase with all that she didn’t need: wool and tights, her duffle coat. All the clothes he had seen her in, locked away in the storeroom with sacks of lentils and rice.
She was weak today. Because of last night’s dream and she had annoyed her aunt. She couldn’t remember clearly what she had done to annoy her aunt, to trigger all that came out of her. The cracks on the ceiling. The fan? The children? The children running around like devils, making a terrible noise, then after Hanan came and went, her aunt said things… Her aunt blamed her for Tarig’s death. That was bizarre. She wished that Hanan had been present or Waleed then she would have felt sane and safe, maybe not so frightened. They would have defended her. Even if they were silent out of respect for her aunt, she would have felt that they were on her side. Rae was on her side. He had told her that in the hospital when she showed him her aunt’s letter, the address on the envelope, Aberdeen, England. He said, you’ve won me to your side in any quarrel you have with your aunt. That was what he had said. She could remember it now. She could remember. The hospital and how the glass door of the entrance was difficult to push. The way he looked when he saw her. She could remember now. Smile, gaze up at the lady in the hooped skirt and the branches of the cedar tree.
It was a joke. You’ve won me to your side, Sammar, in any quarrel you have with your aunt. It was a joke about the address and she had laughed. Someone in the post office had crossed out England with red ink. She had shown him the envelope and he had held it in his hand. There was a plaster at the back of his hand from the intravenous amoxilyn. He had thought she looked nice. She was wearing her new coat, henna-coloured and toggles instead of buttons. It was warm in the ward, too warm, and she had wanted to take the coat off but she had felt too shy. When he told her he loved her it was strange because no one had told her these words in English before. And it was not like in a film, it was just like the way he spoke, normal. If now she could have anything she wanted, she would want to look at photographs of him when he was young, black and white photographs and early coloured ones. His hair and the clothes he wore. She would like to look at his photographs and ask him questions. He would be more interested in her than in the photographs, answering her questions reluctantly, not so keen as she was to talk about the past. It was because of the way he looked at her that things came to a head, the awkwardness she felt, uneasy with everything. If they were not a man and a woman, if they were pure friends, if all that was between them was clear air, she would have been patient when she asked him if he believed and he replied, ‘I am not sure.’
There were people who drew others to Islam. People with deep faith, the type who slept little at night, had an energy in them. They did it for no personal gain, no worldly reason. They did it for Allah’s sake. She had heard stories of people changing: prisoners in Brixton, a German diplomat, an American with ancestors from Greece. Someone influencing someone, with no ego involved. And she, when she spoke to Rae, wanting this and that, full of it; wanting to drive with him to Stirling, to cook for him, to be settled, to be someone’s wife.