Dancing In The Shadows of Love (7 page)

And she believed.

• • •

Dawud worked hard in the pharmacies he inherited from his grandfather. In those early days, before he became domesticated and worried about
The War
, he played hard as well.

Some weeks they were out every night. They met with friends in restaurants: opulent, expensive and exclusive. They went to the theatre and saw plays with names that Jamila had seen on the covers of books she couldn’t afford to buy because all her money had to go to feed the younger children. They dressed in nautical clothes and spent the day on some friend’s yacht. They would sail around the bay and Jamila would hang over the rails and stare deeply into the mysteries of the ocean, wondering about the Age of the Great Flood and the waters that rose and rose. When the flood stopped, did a long-dead woman, like Jamila today, comprehend the miracles the
Spirit King’s
love had brought?

She thrived in her new life…until Daren Samanya returned.

‘So the Jamjar’s not so innocent anymore, is she?’ Two years later, she recognised the thread of dark amusement that shuddered down her spine and made her think of love and man, angels and
ezomos
.

Dawud’s friend, Daren Samanya, had found her.

‘You’ve moved in with Templeton,’ he said. ‘Have you developed a taste for city life yet? Have you, Jamjar?’

She took refuge in dignity. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She arranged her face in a pose of polite enquiry and turned to him. ‘Have we met?’

He laughed. A deep belly laugh that threw his head back, his eyes such a dark, seductive blue she found it hard to remember what colour Dawud’s eyes were. ‘Oh, you’re good, Jamjar. Ver-r-ry good! You’ve learnt a lot. What else have you learnt, I wonder?’

He observed her with cloudy purpose. Jamila clutched her glass, a pale spritzer, not enough wine to give the soda a kick, but enough to make her feel a sophisticated woman-of-the-world. She hadn’t liked this man when he first tried to kiss her. She did not like him now. He unsettled her in ways she couldn’t control. She shivered and the wine lapped the edge of her glass in a vague warning she didn’t heed.

She was more confident then. The thought of Dawud’s promise and a vision of the reputable, the acceptable, the grand Mrs Jamila Templeton she would become, made her bolder, she realised later, than she should have been. She flirted from behind the safety of her half-full wineglass. Letting her eyelids droop in insolent challenge, the way she’d seen other women do, she said, ‘You’re mistaken. I would have remembered you.’

She was delighted when his eyes heated with the same fire that warmed Dawud’s face at times. Except this man’s face carried a latent temptation that both lured and repelled her. But she was so enthralled by the power surging in her veins she ignored the danger. Soon he moved closer, and lifted another glass from the tray of an itinerant waiter. This wine tasted stronger and she wanted to ask him to put soda in to weaken it, but she didn’t want to be gauche, so she left it, taking a discreet sip again and again until the glass was empty.

Then they were outside—and years later, as a restless Jamila lay on a bed covered with a white comforter in Daren Samanya’s house, she would fling an arm over her face to block out the memories, but it was too late, they were indelible—and she was back with Samanya leading her outside.

‘The moon is incredible,’ he said, and it was.

The full moon shone over them and turned the world silvery surreal. Jamila drank in the sight even as she drank from her wine glass. The mellow air, the silence of the night, trickled into her blood with the alcohol. When Samanya bent his head and touched his lips to her neck, she sighed and raised a hand to stroke his cheek to see if it was silky golden as it looked.

Samanya turned her into his embrace. He kissed her lips, her breasts, her secret place the night air cooled even as his lips set it aflame. Soon, Jamila shuddered out a release as Samanya moved between her legs and showed her paradise.

‘Why?’ she sobbed later. She leaned back into the low balcony wall and held her pale pink sweater, another gift from Dawud, against her nudity. She never wore pink again, not after that night. ‘Why couldn’t you leave me alone?’

Samanya riffled through her bag and took a tissue. He wiped himself clean. ‘You were too innocent, Jamjar,’ he jeered. He laughed a sunless laugh that almost, but not quite, drowned out the rasp of his zipper jerked back into place and dropped the soiled tissue into her lap. ‘Much too innocent.’

Where once there was a warm flicker of hope in all that the city offered her, the extent of its insidious underbelly chilled her. ‘You’re horrible! Horrible!’ She longed for Dawud to save her from the nightmare. He was not there and, unprompted by any thought, her hand searched for her pendant, her
Spirit King
-mask, to give her strength, to cover her shame revealed by the brilliant, merciless gaze of moon and man. But she had stopped wearing it when Dawud had bought her the real gold necklace she’d asked for.

Samanya laughed and coolly tucked in his shirt that, in the heat of ecstasy, she’d torn lose from his trousers. He said, as he left her, ‘Whatever I am, Jamjar, you’re the same.’ He looked at her with remorseless calm and added, ‘Because you could’ve said no anytime.’

And there—right there, where the moon’s light rippled across the dark waters of the silent sea—Jamila accepted that she had found her passion and kissed the face of her
ezomo
.

“I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits
and rank me with the barbarous multitudes.”

For days after the stranger’s visit, I found no peace.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Barry asked. He was not used to me quiet. Normally we discussed how to expand the family business or what to do with the multitude of staff who worked in the mansion.

‘What could be wrong?’ I flipped another page. A stupid book, although the newspaper reviews declared it as a recent literary success. Reading was a chore. With the same discipline I used to practise my elocution and every gesture I made, I forced myself to complete the task, for I could not risk Little Flower finding a crack in my memories.

The pages didn’t hold my attention. Who cared about Hemingway’s old man and a boy, his faith and a fish? Or even sacrifices and the sea? I didn’t, but at least I’d be able to talk about it at the next dinner party we attended.

There never was much time for reading when I was young. We moved too often, living out of suitcases barely big enough to hold our clothes, let alone books having little to do with survival in a world where the weak perished and the strong endured. I never joined a library. I had my natural intelligence, and I managed. Little Flower did well by herself in those early days.

‘There
is
something wrong,’ Barry insisted when I said no more.

I roused enough energy to give him my cool look, the one that warned others not to step past the boundaries I set.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

He wanted to argue, but I held his gaze until he left the comfort of his old velvet armchair to open a window.

‘I saw Mother today,’ he said. ‘She’s well.’

‘Umm.’ I turned another page.

‘Her visitor is good for her.’

I tensed and, even though I knew of whom he spoke, I asked, ‘Her visitor?’

‘Enoch. That fellow we met last week.’

‘Oh.’ A rapid flick feigned an interest in the pages I read. ‘Him.’ I shivered.

Barry never heard nuances. ‘I liked him.’ His head bobbed in emphasis and he used a short, stubby finger to push his heavy tortoiseshell spectacles back up his nose. ‘Yes, I liked him a lot.’

‘He doesn’t belong.’

Keeping my eyes on the page, I shifted into a more comfortable position, crossing my ankles neatly before tucking them under the chair, before casually looking up at Barry when he asked, ‘Belong where?’

‘Here.’ A casual wave of my hand marked the plush décor. The mansion bore my imprint, but Grace’s influence lingered, for she had brought the stranger here. ‘Will
this
house make Enoch comfortable?’

‘Of course,’ Barry said, and jutted his short, round jaw out. ‘A stable or a mansion, he’ll be comfortable anywhere.’

Why did he always choose such inconvenient issues to be stubborn about? He married me for my strength; for the steel Zahra forged out of the ashes of Little Flower’s life. So why did he try to fight me?

‘He’s common,’ I said with finality. ‘He stares rudely. There’s no respect for the natural order of life: some people have their place, and his is not with us.’

To keep me safe, Enoch must stay on the other side of my boundary, the one I crossed long before Barry knew me. The one that kept Zahra, and all I’ve achieved since I caged Little Flower, impregnable.

‘You’re a snob, Zahra.’ There’s no real venom in Barry’s statement. ‘That’s the way the world is. People are different.’

‘Of course. Some are common. Some aren’t.’

‘This time you’re wrong.’ He huffed as he contradicted me. ‘Enoch is not a common man. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say he’s an uncommon man.’

To my vexation, Little Flower agreed with him. I felt her, tender as she was before her
Great Error
marred her fragility. She reached out towards the silent sea song of the stranger and the sting of an age-old disquietude clenched my jaw until a muscle jumped in my cheek. I never lost my temper. No, never, not since Little Flower discovered she carried anger so deep it went beyond rage and slipped into the cunning heart of an
ezomo
.

‘You can say what you like,’ I said politely. ‘He doesn’t belong here.’ An almost imperceptible quaver revealed that I had a secret. It gave Barry power. I could see him flex his mind around the taste and feel of it. The stranger made me vulnerable and, like an animal foraging for food, Barry sniffed around.

He moved to stand in front of me as I sat in the plush velvet-red armchair, my book open in front of me. I no longer even pretended to read but I refused to let his stance intimidate me. If I did, he would sense I was afraid. And Zahra would not show Little Flower’s fear. Not ever.

‘You haven’t visited Mother this week,’ he said.

After all our years of marriage, he still tried to outwit me. He thought he was so clever, but I sensed the trap and defiantly faced my
ezomo
.

‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘Why don’t you telephone her and ask her if she’ll come for tea tomorrow.’ I gestured towards the bulky black handset; ugly like so much of the world after
The War
was ugly, but too convenient not to have. Then I struck. ‘You should ask her boarder to come as well.’

Confusion, or perhaps disappointment, flitted across Barry’s pale eyes and, as tentative as a butterfly’s original flight, he asked, ‘Enoch?’

‘Who else but Enoch?’ I raised my brows. A sibilant flap, so soft and slow it gave Barry no clue how much effort it cost me to appear relaxed, and another page was in front of me, the lines a black blur. I consoled myself that the pain in my chest was heartburn from a luncheon too full of rich sauces. I could manage indigestion, but I suspected this was worse. Much worse: Little Flower had heard the name of her beloved. Deep within the waters of my soul, my essence, she stirred and I was unable to calm the ripples disturbing her torpid presence.

• • •

The rose garden was in full bloom, but this time I went myself. There I stood and scanned the bay. White caps danced innocently on a jade surface and a yearning to experience more than a good view of the sea filled me.

Since the birth of my son, Barry the Third, I was unsettled and filled with strange fancies. The vista across the bay was what made this old mansion such a valuable piece of property. Why would I want to lose it by moving closer to the ocean, when I never swam anyway? A breeze from the bay brushed my face, but didn’t answer my question.

‘Ma’am Zahra?’ Elijah, dressed in his chauffeur’s hat and jacket, appeared silently at my elbow. I almost destroyed a rose in my surprise as his shuffle, along with his persistent cough, usually warned one of his coming long before he arrived.

‘Yes, Elijah?’ My irritation at the intrusion showed. He blinked that long slow blink of his, so like an artless child. Yet age and sorrow lined his face.

‘I have brought you this.’ He handed me a basket for the flowers. I filled its empty womb with the few roses I’d picked, nodding my thanks even as my gaze swung back to the sea.

I thought he’d gone, until he coughed again, an old man’s cough that spoke of age and death. My Daddy had the same cough, even though the senility made him forget what caused it.

‘The sea, she is a good woman,’ Elijah said. ‘Ma’am Zahra must listen when she speaks.’

‘Stop speaking nonsense! The sea isn’t alive; it can’t speak.’

A sudden gust of wind, no longer gentle, but sharp, tugged the ends of my braid as it brought a stronger smell of salt, perhaps even a hint of rain yet to come. It made me nervous enough to turn away from the sea and cut the roses more quickly. I wanted to fill the house with them. For artistic effect, I told Barry over breakfast, but Little Flower knew otherwise.

Elijah, unasked, followed me. Every time I cut another flower, he held the basket out.

‘The ocean lives in all of us,’ he said suddenly. ‘But sometimes it sleeps, and then you think it’s dead inside.’

Oh
Spirit King
! As if Grace’s rambles weren’t enough, Elijah was also becoming as incomprehensible as she was. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The sea.’

‘The sea can’t live inside a person,’ I said, with a fair attempt at patience.

‘It lives,’ he insisted. I ignored him. He should have retired long ago, so we could hire a new young driver, but Barry refused. If Elijah became as bad as Grace, seeing angels and the
Spirit King
, I decided, he’d have to go. One of them was enough to cope with.

The wind curled around my legs and whipped my skirt around my knees as invisible claws scratched loose wisps of my hair from my braid. I walked faster. Wherever I went, Elijah followed, the basket and its bounty held in both hands. On occasion, he would place it on the lawn so he could cough into a large white hankie he kept in his trouser pocket.