Castro's Dream (9 page)

Kader watched Astrid sipping her coffee. They were seated at a small, square table, overlooking the motorway that ran underneath the restaurant like a deadly river. She was not speaking and Kader was becoming uneasy. His mind was on a useless loop. All he could think was:
This
is
you,
Kader.
This
is
you.
This
woman
needs
you.
Since her eyes had filled with tears, he had been aware that he had suddenly become someone to her. He knew that she expected something of him, knew that he was ready but he didn’t know what for. He was charged with a grand energy. He felt like a warrior about to go into battle.

He had driven for two hours while she worked. He had listened to her speaking into a pocket-sized tape recorder. He thought she must be practising for some kind of a speech but when he had tried to ask, she had held up her hand and he had not pushed it because he was so happy there at the wheel of this tank with its V6 engine, her there beside him, doing her work. He could hardly contain his joy: he drove and she worked.

But she had not said a word and Kader could not for the life of him think of what to say to her. He wanted to ask why the thought of the Réal Madrid defender had suddenly made her so sad but he knew this was a stupid question.

He could feel something sticky under his elbows. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

I hate that, he said. I worked in a McDonald’s once and I always made sure my cloth was clean. He nodded at the table. My cloth for wiping the tables. It’s a minimum.

Astrid put down her coffee cup. Her face was flushed and her eyes were shining. She seemed to be waiting for more.

When I was a kid, he said, I used to go to this motorway bridge with my mates. We’d hang our bare arses over the rail and try and make people crash.

Astrid stared at him as though from a long way off.

You look sick, he said. If you want to throw up, you should.
You’ll feel better afterwards.

I’m fine. I’m fine.

You look terrible.

She seemed to be taking him in suddenly. He folded his arms in readiness.

Did you pay for the coffee? she asked him.

No, you did. She was withdrawing again: something happened around the eyes. Listen, Astrid, he said suddenly. My name’s not Karl. It’s Kader.

Why did you say it was Karl then?

He shrugged, then made a sweeping motion.

Karl, he said. I don’t know. I just like it. Kaaaal, he said, dispelling all other names with the back of his hand. Don’t you like it?

No.

What would you suggest? I want to change my name.

Carlos, she said.

Kader stared at her, then he looked down at the traffic disappearing beneath their feet. He let the idea settle on him.

No, he said, shaking his finger. It’s no good. It’s not serious. What will I do with a name like Carlos when I’m an old man? Be sensible.

Most of us outgrow our names, she said.

Karl’s better, he said.

Karl’s a Nazi name, she said.

That’s why I like it. It feels like stealing something from an enemy, like a trophy.

Stick to Kader, she said. Think of your mother.

Astrid was amused to hear herself being drawn into this fatuous exchange.

Do you have kids? he asked her.

The question caught her off guard. She looked into her empty cup.

No.

Why not?

I’ve just never wanted them enough, I suppose.

You don’t have to want them, he said. Plenty of people have kids without wanting them. You get attached to them once they’re there.

You don’t strike me as an unwanted child.

He looked pleased.

I’m my mum’s prince, he said, slapping his chest with the gesture that was already familiar to her. I had a dog. His name was El Niño. It’s Spanish.

I know.

It means the kid.

It also means the Christ child, baby Jesus.

No!

It’s true.

Kader grinned.

Cool. A Muslim with a dog called Jesus.

She looked at her watch. It was ten past four. She saw Mikel standing beneath that ridiculous bandstand. She still saw his young man’s face and his young man’s body. Neither existed any longer.

She stood up.

Let’s go, she said.

Where? he said, rising to his feet.

She faced him. For some reason he was clutching her handbag under his arm. She could not remember having given it to him. It occurred to her that to the outside world she could be his mother. She held out her hand for the bag. He gave it back to her.

Want me to drive?

She shook her head.

Oh come on.

Give me the keys, Kader.

He looked truly disappointed as he took the keys from the pocket of his tracksuit. He was a child.

Why do white girls go out with Arab boys?

I don’t know.

To get their handbags back.

He raised his eyebrows at her, his face full of encouragement.

She began to smile but some demon stole it away.

She turned and walked back over the motorway to the doors of the restaurant, Kader loping beside her. He held the swing door for her.

Where are we going? he asked.

At the top of the stairs she stopped.

I’m going to Spain. I think you should go to Marseille. Have you got family there?

Nope.

No one?

No.

Then why Marseille?

I knew someone who went there to look for work and he never came back. He must have liked it there. It’s full of Arabs, not just in the suburbs but in the centre of town. He paused looking about him as though for help. I don’t know. The weather, the football, the beaches.

Astrid stared at him. His face stripped of mirth was entirely different. He stared back at her. She saw that his left eye was paler than the right. There was a pink scar across the bridge of his nose where she could still see the stitch marks and an older cut high up on his forehead.

Don’t look at my scars, he said, covering his forehead with his hand.

How did you get them?

I box.

That’s not a boxing scar. None of them are.

Just let me come with you, he said. They stepped out into the fading heat of the afternoon. Please. She looked at him. There it was, the child again. You can work while I drive, he said. His face was slowly lighting up.

Astrid began to walk faster, eager to hide her face from him. She did not want him to see that she had already given in.

Are you sure you’ve got a licence?

Fuck off. Course I have. Give us the keys.

The car park backed on to a field of rape in full bloom. The smell was sickeningly human and reminded her of early autopsies.

No, she said, turning her back on him as she opened the car door. Get in. I’ve got a long way to go and I don’t like driving at night.

She could feel Kader’s excitement as he turned and walked with his fake nonchalance round to the passenger door.

The traffic on the motorway had thinned. Kader sat beside her, tapping out a fast, elaborate rhythm on the dashboard. Astrid drove with her arm resting on the open window. She had
decided not to question her need for his presence.

What made you leave home? she asked him. I presume you still live at home.

Kader turned away from her and stared out of his window. He sucked on his teeth by way of reply. The Arab women in prison had made the same sound when they were annoyed. It was the sound of their mouths holding back words of abuse they might regret.

You’ve got air conditioning, he said, facing her.

I know.

Why don’t you use it then?

I don’t like it.

Why not?

It dries up the mucus in my nose and throat.

That’s disgusting.

Kader hawked, wound down his window and spat a neat glob of his mucus into the hard shoulder.

Why don’t you let me drive? I know you’d rather work than make polite conversation with me. Anyway, I don’t like polite conversation.

Astrid glanced at him. He was restless and his long body, folded into the seat, looked redundant.

The sun was beginning to burn her arm. She wound up the window. They were still half an hour from Tours and at least seven hours from the Spanish border. Even if she wanted to, it would be too late to meet Mikel now. He would soon settle into his despair.

Astrid indicated and pulled over onto the hard shoulder.

Kader opened the door before she had come to a halt. He glanced at her, then sprang out and jogged around the bonnet. She moved across to the passenger seat, pulling her dress over her knees, but Kader was not looking. He was adjusting the seat and the mirror, then gripping the wheel, his arms straight, like a child in a carousel waiting for motion.

Thanks, he said without looking at her.

She guessed how hard gratitude must be for him. She began to work, speaking into her tape recorder:
Since
the
late
sixties
death
has
been
defined
as
the
disappearance
of
brain
function
rather
than
as
the
cessation
of
heartbeat
and
respiration.

She played back what she had recorded.

What are you grinning about? she asked him.

Your accent.

You should hear yours.

What are you talking about? I don’t have an accent.

She turned on her recorder.
Until
recently
the
greatest
single
source
of
heart-beating
cadavers
has
been
the
car
crash.

You can’t say that.

She stopped the tape recorder.

Why not?

‘The greatest single source’.

Why not?

He lifted his hands from the steering wheel and dropped them again.

I don’t know. It sounds bad.

She paused. He was working his jaw and she could see the muscles moving beneath the skin of his neck.

She held the recorder in front of her mouth.
Most
brain
deaths
are
today
the
result
of
brain
haemorrhage,
the
increase
of
which
has
com
pensated
for
the
reduction
of
road
accidents.

She clicked off the machine.

There.

You look a bit like my mum you know, he told her. There’s something around the eyes, he said. He turned back to the road. Look in my Adidas bag. My wallet’s in there. Get it out. There’s a photo of her. He nodded at her. Go on. Have a look.

Astrid reached into the back and found his wallet. In the plastic window was a photograph of a woman in a sugar-pink headscarf. Out of the pale, fleshy face two black eyes shone infinite sadness and mercy. The picture reminded her of the lithograph of the Madonna that had hung above her and Lola’s bed as children. The chest open like a cabinet to reveal the flaming heart had always scared her. Perhaps, she thought, this was the origin of her dislike of heart surgeons.

Isn’t she beautiful? Kader was saying.

Astrid looked at him. She looked again at the photo. Under the flash of the photo booth the woman’s moon face glowed with perspiration.

She looks even lovelier with her head uncovered, Kader
explained. She always wears the
hadjib
to go out. She’s not a religious fanatic or anything, she just feels naked without it. Do you know the story of the headscarf? It’s from the Koran. It’s not about covering women up and shutting them away like French people say it is. I’ll tell you. There was this young woman, very beautiful, out getting water or something, I can’t remember exactly but anyway, she was raped. When she came home her father put a beautiful cloth over her head, to show that she was still a princess, that the rape could not take that away. It was a mark of respect. Do you see?

Astrid nodded. His innocence made her unable to object.

She folded the wallet and put it back into his bag. Then she turned on her tape recorder.

There
is
life
so
long
as
a
circulation
of
oxygenated
blood
is
maintained
to
live
vital
centres
in
the
brainstem.

She turned off the recorder. They passed a vast, convex field of wheat, still uncut, the late sun setting alight the dust haze that floated above it. In the centre was a miniature wood, a small concession to wildlife. She suddenly longed to see the grand oak forests around her village.

I
d
ream
of
a
simple
life
with
you,
Astrid.
I
want
to
build
you
a
house.

Kader was looking at her.

Are you OK?

She turned on the tape recorder and kept talking:
Departure
of
consciousness,
however,
may
be
said
to
be
bilateral,
irreversible
damage
to
the
paramedian
tegmental
areas
of
the
mesencephalon
and
rostral
pons.

Then the phone rang. Her heart leapt. But it was not Lola.

Astrid.

Years of sorrow were contained in her name. She wanted to hang up but an old idea of sin stopped her. His voice was deeper than she remembered.

Lola’s looking for you, she told him. She went to your mother’s.

There was a long pause. She could hear him breathing. She closed her eyes, swallowed, opened her mouth to speak but could not make a sound.