Minaret: A Novel (14 page)

You don't know me well,' I say, `there's a lot about me you don't know.'

He looks straight at me with neither curiosity nor disinterest. As if he is saying, `If you tell me or if you don't tell me, I won't change towards you.'

The next day is different. When I ring the hell, it is Tamer not Larnya who opens the door for me. He is in his pyjamas, looks like he had just got out of bed. `I have a cold.' He clears his throat. `I didn't go to university.' Lamya had gone out earlier, Mai is still asleep. He goes hack to bed and I start to tackle the kitchen. I try not to clatter so as not to disturb him. It is my fault that he is ill - he ran after me in the rain without his coat.

I am relieved that Lamya is already out and I do not have to face her after yesterday. It strikes me that even now, knowing I am innocent, she will never treat me as her equal. I had hoped to come close to her or at least get her to chat with me like her mother did. Now I know that she will never do that. She will always see my hijab, my dependence on the salary she gives me, my skin colour, which is a shade darker than hers. She will see these things and these things only; she will never look beyond them. It disappoints me because, in spite of what Tamer said, I admire her for the I'M) she is doing, her dedication to her studies, her grooming and taste in clothes.

When Mai wakes up, I change her and give her breakfast. While she watches TV, I cook. I make lentil soup and the peanut salad I promised Tamer. He wakes up at noon, looking better and says he's hungry. I set the kitchen table for him, heat up pitta bread. He slurps the soup while I iron, blows his nose into a tissue. `Maybe I have SARS,' he jokes. The day is different.

He starts to talk about his high school in Oman. 'It was an international school,' he says, 'following an American system.' The students chose their subjects. They didn't have to wear uniforms. 'My teachers were nice,' he says, 'nicer than the ones I have now.' He eats with a good appetite, tearing large pieces of bread, scooping out the peanut sauce that is chunky with onions and green peppers. It amuses me that he can eat well even when he is ill.

'My history teacher in school,' he says, 'she was disappointed that I didn't go on to study Middle East History or Islamic Studies. She knew I liked them. But the policy of the school is to respect the family's decision. In my case that meant studying Business.' He stands up, rummages in one of the top cupboards for a fizzy Vitamin C tablet and plonks it in a glass of water. 'Here there're all these antiAmerican feelings. It bugs me. My American teachers were really nice.'

I fold Lamya's nightdress and start ironing her purple skirt. You have to trust your instincts when people are talking. People say things they don't mean.'

'What hugs me,' he says, 'is that unless you're political, people think you're not a strong Muslim.' He gulps down the rest of his Vitamin C. 'Are you interested in politics

I shake my head and tell him why I am afraid of politics, why I am afraid of coups and revolutions. I start to speak about my father, things I have never said to anyone else. They surprise me by coming out fresh, measured - maybe because it all happened many years ago.

'You know a lot,' he says, offering admiration instead of pity.

There was a time when I had craved pity, needed it but never got it. And there are nights when I want nothing else but someone to stroke my hair and feel sorry for me. Looking at him now, his nose swollen with flu, I think he could pity me, one day, at the right time, in the right place, he could give me the pity I've always wanted. And because I am struck by this thought, because it suspends me, I say, One of the Muslim scholars or maybe even the Khalifa Omar, I'm not sure, said that the Rum, the Europeans, are better than us in that when they fall down in battle they quickly get up, dust themselves and fight again. I try to forget the past, to move on but I'm not good at it. I'm not European.' We smile at each other. I've finished the ironing but the iron is too hot to put away. I fold the board hack into the drawer and slide it shut.

He says, 'I have to go pray, I haven't prayed yet,' and he leaves the kitchen, blowing his nose. I wash the dishes and think of what he said to me. You know a lot.' If someone else had said that, I would have contradicted them saying, 'Oh no, I am neither educated nor well read. Look at me in a dead-end job.' But I had accepted the compliment from him, perhaps because he is younger than me.

Once, a few years hack, Shahinaz had unsuccessfully introduced me to one of her uncles, a man in his early fifties, divorced, looking for a wife. I remember how constrained I had felt with him, his probing questions, the way he looked at me, wanting to figure me out, to determine my type, to `suss me out' as Tamer would put it. If Shahinaz's uncle had said to me, You know a lot,' I would have suspected him of sarcasm, checked his eyes for a sneering look. I am glad he went away. I am glad he did not pursue me and instead married someone else.

Throughout the afternoon, Tamer hogs the television and annoys Mai who wants to watch her cartoons. He sets up his PlayStation and sits on the floor playing one football game after the other. I take her to the park and we do the usual things, feed the ducks, while away time in the playground. A little boy pinches her in the sandpit and she screams and screams. I get her as far away from him as possible, wipe her face, soothe her with a bag of crisps. I push her along by the pond and she calls out to the swans and the dogs out for a walk. I enjoy knowing that Tamer will he there when we get back. On the way, I walk past the flat to the bakery in the High Street and buy him a piece of cheesecake.

We drink tea together and watch The Pou'erpuf f Girls with Mai. The room is at its best, with the long windows bringing in the fading light. Tamer eats the cheesecake without offering to share it, without asking if I had paid for it with my own money or the housekeeping money Lamya leaves me. It pleases me that he is informal. It makes me feel relaxed.

He says, `When I was at school, I hated missing a single day. I hated being ill. Now I don't care.'

I say it would he wrong for him not to take his studies seriously. His parents are paying a lot of money to get him educated in London. He avoids my eyes and concentrates on the cartoon. After finishing his tea, he says, `I enjoyed being at home today. It was nice.'

I savour the moment before the sound of the key in the door, before Lamya comes home and I have to stand up. A maid should not be sitting on the sofa drinking tea; she should sit on the floor or bustle about in the kitchen. She should not take such delight in her employer's brother. I wish I were younger, even just a few years younger.

e did things we would never have done in Khartoum. Three weeks after Mama's funeral, Uncle Saleh and I had lunch in the Spaghetti House off Bond Street. If we had been in Khartoum, mourners would still be visiting, the television switched off as a mark of respect. Uncle Saleh sipped his tomato soup; I pushed my fork through smooth, buttery avocado. I had put on weight since we came from Khartoum; most of my clothes didn't fit me anymore.

Uncle Saleh smiled at me across the table. I was his responsibility now. It made me feel sorry for him.

`Have you changed your mind about coming with me to Canada?'

I shook my head.

'So what are you going to do?'

After the focus of Mama's illness, after not even wanting to leave her for an hour, it felt strange to he free. I was wobbly, as if I was not used to being out in public. I said, `Maybe I should go to Khartoum for a few weeks.'

He put his spoon down. `It's still not a good idea for you to go hack. And besides, when everyone asks you about Omar, what will you say?'

He won the argument that way. It was something Mama would have wanted - not to tell anyone hack home about Omar. I finished my avocado, sucked the remaining dressing off my spoon. `How can you just leave Sudan and go to Canada?'

`It's called immigrating. I've had it up to here with incompetence and instability.' He was bitter. What happened to my father had made him insecure and my mother's death had triggered anxieties about his own health.

`What about Samir?' My question wasn't loaded but Uncle Saleh looked defensive.

`He said that when he graduates from Cardiff, he'll follow me. Personally, I think he should transfer to a Canadian university. It would be sensible to have a Canadian degree if he's going to work there.'

We both knew why Samir wanted to stay in Cardiff. It was because of his English girlfriend. Whatever hopes Mama and Uncle Saleh had of Samir and I getting married had come to nothing. I would have liked to get married, not specifically to Samir (though if he had asked me I would have accepted) but I wanted to have children, a household to run. `You didn't finish your education,' Mama used to complain, but deep down she was happy that I was with her every day, keeping her company through all the doctor visits and treatments, the time spent waiting for test results. Uncle Saleh said I was `nursing her' but really the nurses did everything, especially at the end. Most of the time I just sat and watched TV. The room in the Humana Wellington Hospital had a nice bathroom and a menu for every meal - it was like staying in a good hotel.

The waiter took away our empty plates. `I keep thinking,' Uncle Saleh said, `that if you and Omar were younger, still at school, it might have been easier . . .' He paused. I tried to understand what he meant, screwed my eyes in concentration. `Yes, you're almost adults now but ..

We're twenty-four.' I took a sip of my Coke.

'It's a vulnerable stage, a crossroads in terms of careers and so on.'

Why don't you think if we were older, in our thirties, settled, then it would have been easier?'

`Yes, I think that too.' He looked somewhat slumped. 'It's pointless really thinking these things.'

The waiter brought cannelloni for me, a dish of garlic chicken for Uncle Saleh. We perked up at the sight of the food. Stearn rose from the dishes and the white sauce on my cannelloni was bubbling.

`I think you need to know that staying in London is the expensive option.' Uncle Saleh picked up his knife and fork.

What do you mean?' I spoke with my mouth full, swallowed.

'Well, life here isn't cheap - not what you're used to anyway. And what your father and mother left you isn't enough.'

How come?'

Rotten luck, that's how come. And this new government freezing your father's assets.'

'I see.' My stomach pushed against the waistband of my skirt. I reached back and undid the button, took a deep breath and felt the zipper slide open. I needed to buy new clothes or go on a diet. But even if I did lose weight, the clothes I had were already out of fashion. 'I can get a job,' I said, smiling.

As what? You're not qualified, Najwa. Do you want to study and get a qualification?'

`No.'

It might he a good idea. You'd meet people, make friends.'

Something in his tone made me feel that I was a useless lump. Tears blurred the cannelloni on my plate. I wiped them away with the napkin. He didn't notice. `You have a friend, don't you, studying in Scotland?'

`Randa.' I blinked and my voice was normal. `She's studying medicine in Edinburgh.'

`Why don't you go study with her?'

`Oh Uncle Saleh, I don't even have A levels. Don't you remember? I went to Atlantic College and came back after two weeks.'

`I remember. You refused to milk a cow.' He laughed.

I smiled, remembering Randa, Samir and Omar - how ashamed they were of me. `Who do you think you are? You're such a snob! It's part of the course - we have to do community work.' But I had never milked Sudanese cows, why should I milk British ones?

`Have you ever milked a cow?' I asked Uncle Saleh.

`No, I can't say I have. We're spoilt in Khartoum; everything's done for us. The closest I ever got to animals was when I went fishing.' He laughed.

I laughed with him. `And the zoo.'

`But you should have persevered with your studies, Najwa, cows or no cows.'

`I probably wouldn't have made the IB anyway.' Omar hadn't. He was the only Sudanese who failed his exams; he never got over that. Randa, Samir and the others went on to university and he couldn't.

`Your mother was too soft with you.' Uncle Saleh pointed his fork at me.

`Yes, I suppose she was.' Mama came by train to fetch me. She pretended she was cross but she was relieved that I was with her, near her when the doctor said that the result of her tests was positive.

The right thing is for you to come with me to Canada,' said Uncle Saleh.

I can't. I need to be near Omar. Besides, I know people here. Uncle Nabeel said he would give me some training in his travel agency.' Uncle Nabeel's wife, Aunty Eva, had been a close friend of my mother, someone who, unlike many others, didn't withdraw from us after what happened.

Uncle Saleh smiled with approval. `That's a good start. You'll be all right if you live off the interest in your bank account. Don't touch the capital.'

I nodded.