Refuge (34 page)

“That weekend was the first time we had sex, and over the next three months I don’t think a day went by when we didn’t. It was thrilling, romantic. There we were in crowds of thousands, linking arms, shouting slogans, running from the police, and afterwards we’d fuck until sleep finally took us. Then one day I missed my period. It’s funny you’d think I’d have been distraught, but I wasn’t. All I could think was that I was going to have this wonderful man’s child, and when he heard the news he’d leave his wife, and we’d live this incredible life together.

“That night I cooked dinner for him at my mother’s house; she was away visiting my grandmother. I spent hours slaving over it, but when I told him all I saw was shock. ‘You have to have it aborted,’ he said, and it was then I realized that he was never going to leave his wife. He handed me four hundred guilder as if I was some whore he’d fucked for the first and last time. ‘Get it fixed,’ he said. After that everything was a blur, that is until my mother returned and found me lying on our kitchen floor.”

A thought worms its way into Noor’s brain.

What if Bushra hadn’t walked in? What if I had become pregnant. What would’ve been Charlie’s reaction then?

“I tell you all this because I see a lot of you in me. The drive, the fierce independence but also a naïve innocence, especially when it comes to men. This Charlie Matthews, I promise you, he’s no different than my politics tutor. All men want a fantasy and you a poor, beautiful refugee are like no other. He wants to save you, I dare say he may even want to marry you, but once he has, reality will set in, and the passion will fade. ‘Men were deceivers ever,’ that’s what Shakespeare said, and it’s as true today as it was then, and as a woman who wants to be independent and free you need to see what your ‘love’ for this man really is. Nothing more than a silly schoolgirl crush that threatens everything you’ve worked so hard to realize.”

Noor knows Elma is right.

You have not only deceived yourself, you attempted to deceive Allah.

Noor collapses into Elma’s arms and sobs.

“I promise you,” Elma says, “six months from now you’ll be in Holland, immersed in university life, and you won’t feel a thing for him.”

Elma holds Noor tight, and eventually her tears fade. Noor wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her kameez.

“I want you to come live with me,” Elma says.

Noor looks at Elma in shock.

“I’ll need to talk to my father first,” she says.

“Then call him, the phone’s over there.”

“No, I couldn’t do that to Baba. I need to tell him face to face.”

“You’re aware from the moment you step foot in that man’s house that you’re in danger of falling into his web again.”

“That won’t happen.”

Elma looks at Noor with the air of a stern headmistress.

“You need to promise me you won’t see him. If he attempts to talk to you, you must walk away. Lock your bedroom door if need be.”

“I promise.”

“And if you’re not here tomorrow night, I’m coming to get you. You understand?”

Noor nods.

“Fine, I’ll drive you to his place.”

It takes no more than three minutes to get there, and before Noor gets out, Elma makes her promise one more time. Noor creeps up the driveway and opens the front door an inch. She hears Wali and Charlie having a boisterous conversation in the sitting room. She presumes her father is there too or on the verandah. She creeps upstairs to her room. She’s relieved to find that Bushra is not there and heads into the bathroom. She stares at herself in the mirror.

Who are you?

She has no ready answer. She takes off her shalwar kameez and her yellowed bra and underwear. She catches a glimpse of her naked body; the curve of her right breast, the mound of hair between her legs.

To think how close he was to seeing it all, to possessing it.

To her shame, she feels a similar feeling as before infect her groin. She steps into the shower and lets the cold water blast her until her body is numb. She sniffs the water up her nose and grabs the bar of soap and scrubs her feet, her legs, her vagina, her breasts, her face, her hair, even the inside of her mouth. Only then does she turn off the shower. She dries herself and puts on her nighttime garments. She opens the door, and finds Bushra sitting on her bed. The two sisters stare at each other.

“Baba wanted to know if you were coming down for dinner,” Bushra says.

“Please, tell him I have a headache.”

For a moment it seems as if Bushra is going to say something, but then she stands and leaves the room.

Noor takes a deep breath and focuses on her prayers. She asks Allah for forgiveness, and by the end she feels a comforting heat envelop her body as blood returns to her skin.

I am forgiven.

THIRTY-EIGHT

NOOR LOOKS AT
the clock for what feels like the hundredth time. It’s five. Time to go. She slips out of bed and is shocked to see that Bushra is already up.

“What are you doing?” Noor whispers.

“I need to wash Wali’s bandages, and then run his bath.”

“You bathe him?”

Even in the dim light, Noor can see her sister is blushing.

“Who do you think I am?” Bushra says.

“I’m sorry, I’m just surprised that’s all.”

“It’s a job, Noor. Someone must do it.”

Without another word, Bushra leaves. Noor dresses and creeps down the corridor to her father’s room. She kneels by his bed and looks at his peaceful face, his spindly body warm under a feather comforter, his reading glasses perched on the bedside table. His eyes open.

“Baba, we need to talk.”

He gives her a befuddled look and sits up. She proceeds to tell him everything. He doesn’t condemn her, if anything he blames himself for ever putting her in such a position, but she won’t have any of it.

“It’s no one’s fault but mine,” she says. “Not Charlie’s, and certainly not yours.”

She tells him about Elma’s offer, and after that her father’s mood revives. He tells her not to worry, he’ll explain it all to Charlie.

“You should get going, my love,” he says.

She spies his alarm clock. He’s right. It’s already five-thirty. She goes to leave when she realizes that tonight will be the first time in nine years that she’s slept under a different roof than him. She tells him and he smiles.

“See it as preparation for when you go to Holland.”

She tiptoes back to her bedroom. Outside her door she spies a gift wrapped in plain brown paper with a simple white envelope stuck to its front. It can only mean one thing.

Charlie’s up.

She knows she must leave, but before she does, she picks up the gift.

All day it sits on her classroom desk, and now, with her class dismissed, she finds herself staring at it.

Don’t open it.
What good can come from it?

The shutters bang in the wind but she doesn’t look up. It’s as if the gift has magical powers.

It’s fine, I’m stronger than any words he’s written.

She peels the envelope off and opens it. The note is on a piece of paper he’s torn from his sketch pad.

Dearest Noor:

Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me yesterday. No, that’s a lie - I do. I’m completely in love with you, and I let my passion get the better of me.

Perhaps you did only have a headache last night, and I’m stupid for worrying, but I’m petrified that I’ve scared you away. Please don’t be - scared that is. I promise never to place you in a position like that again. Your honor means more than anything to me.

Please reply to this - even if it’s just a one sentence answer. I’ll be a nervous wreck all day if you don’t.

I love you.

Forever, Charlie

p.s. I got this for you a few day’s back - as a Christmas present. I hope it inspires you as you inspire me.

Noor trembles, all her previous feelings for Charlie come tumbling back. She imagines him at home already waiting for her, and her heart breaks.

Remember what Elma said.

But here in this moment, everything Elma said seems false. Wasn’t it Elma after all who’d once told her that she was going to meet someone and fall in love with him without even realizing it?

And I have found that man. I know I have.

She rips off the wrapping paper to find a black, leather notebook. On the front cover there’s an embossed quote:

‘The reason one writes isn’t the fact she wants to say something. She writes because she has something to say
.’

She recognizes it as one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.

Except, of course, Fitzgerald wrote it in the masculine, and Charlie’s changed it to the feminine.

She feels an intense longing to see him; to kiss him; to hold him; to tell him her love’s as strong as his. She jumps up from her chair and looks for her burqa only to realize that in her earlier haste she must have left it at the house. She thinks about finding another and discards the thought. The black 4x4 hasn’t been back in weeks,.

Besides, I’m beginning to get much too comfortable in it anyway.

She picks up the notebook, makes certain her weekly wage is secure, and strides out of the room. In the next door classroom Miss Layla calls after her, but she ignores her. She is too desperate to see Charlie to delay. She runs across the courtyard and out the front entrance towards the main road. She feels raindrops on her face and gasps. It’s their first rain in six months. She raises her face towards the sky and breathes in the fresh earthy smell. She smiles.

It’s a sign. I’m absolved.

Up ahead a black SUV turns up the road. Her stomach turns.

It can’t be.

She pulls her shawl tight around her face and stares at the ground. The SUV comes up upon her. She holds her breath. The tires crunch, and the hum lessens.

She breathes easier.

The SUV stops, and she hears an electric window descend.

“Ma’am,” a man says in Pashtu.

She keeps on walking. The gears shift, and the SUV reverses.

“Ma’am, look this way please.”

She quickens her pace. She hears doors open. She looks back and sees two bearded young zealots jumping out.

“It’s her,” one of them shouts.

Noor starts running. She reaches the bus stop and bowls into a woman. The woman screeches at her, and, like a flock of penguins, burqaed heads turn in her direction. One of the men grabs her arm and yanks her backwards. The leather notebook falls to the dirt. She twists around and sinks her teeth into the man’s hand. The man screams.

Noor staggers on. She sees a bus pulling out. She sprints after it, and grabs a hold of the bar in its open doorway. Her feet drag along the road, mud splattering her face. She grits her teeth and pulls herself up.

“You mad?” the conductor says.

She cranes her head out the door. The SUV has stopped to pick up her pursuers. She knows it won’t take long for them to catch up.

“Two rupees,” the conductor says.

You can’t stay on here.

“Two rupees, woman, or I’ll throw you off.”

“Fine,” she says.

He looks at her as though she’s insane.

“Let me off,” she screams.

The conductor shouts at the bus driver to slow down and shoves her out the door. She lands on the side of the road. She cries out and rolls over and over until she comes to a rest by a stack of ghee cans.

Get up.

She clambers to her feet and sees nothing but mud huts. She realizes she’s on the outskirts of Kacha Gari refugee camp.

She hears a vehicle skid to a halt and starts running.

Doors open behind her.

She plunges down a tight alley, turning right into one and left into another. She runs through the rubble of an abandoned hut and out into another alley. She sprints down it, and just before the corner looks over her shoulder. The men are nowhere to be seen.

Don’t stop.

The alley ends, and she emerges onto a wider dirt road. Men with shawls wrapped tight around them are trudging towards evening prayers. She weaves in amongst them only to see shock sweep across their faces.

She looks over her shoulder.

The black SUV is careening down the road. The men dive to the side to avoid it.

She spies an alley and sprints towards it. The SUV skids to a halt beside her. Another door opens, and another man joins the chase. She hurls herself down the alley. The man is gaining on her.

Once more she makes a succession of quick turns.

She looks back. He’s out of sight. She sees six curtained openings, three on either side of the alley.

Now or never.

She throws herself inside the second on the right. Everything is pitch black. Her eyes adjust. Two old women stare up at her, a couple of ancient sewing machines in front of them.

“Please,” she says. “Please help me.”

Outside she hears the man run past and not long after her two other pursuers. She scrambles for the door only to hear a fourth man come up the alley. He sounds slower than the others as if he’s dragging one of his legs behind him. He stops.

“A woman’s hiding around here,” he yells out in Pashtu. “An adulteress. We’re here to return her to her husband.”

Noor shakes her head at the women. Outside she hears the other men return.

“I know your men are at the mosque, and you’re probably afraid. Don’t be, we won’t enter your homes without their permission. All I ask is that if this woman’s seeking shelter that you push her out. She’s a whore and apostate, and Allah won’t look kindly on anyone who harbors her.”

One of the women sets aside her work and stands up.