The Pact We Made
Page 22
I was filled with a curious combination of warmth and shame. I glanced down at his hands, his right one fisted and impotent. I saw the knuckles as they’d been, purple and swollen. He’d hit Omar so hard that he’d sprained the wrist and broken the thumb. Somehow, in my head, that physical assault had absolved him of any blame over what had happened. I’d always directed that at Mama, at her pleading for his ultimate silence on the matter, but perhaps there was fault to be laid at his feet. Or perhaps none of it mattered, and we’d all passed the point where it might have been salvaged. In any case, I had no desire to point fingers.
Baba’s countenance was alive with emotion: shock, sadness, relief (perhaps?), maybe pride – I couldn’t tell. His face was a symphony, and I couldn’t pick out the strings. Underneath it all was defeat, I think. He had the look of a man finally, finally, buckling under a world he could not control. How long had he labored, an Atlas on bended knee, desperate to hold up these lives that just wouldn’t work out the way he’d planned?
I wished I could snatch that look away, replace it with something benign or comforting, but it was too late for that.
I tucked myself into his chest. His arms wrapped around me and he pressed ‘Shhs’ against my hair, like he had when I was a child and I’d fallen down. Reassurances spilled from my lips: ‘It wasn’t your fault’, ‘It was a long time ago’, ‘You don’t have to protect me anymore’.
I’m not sure if we believed it; the words sounded hollow to my ears, but they managed to fill the space between us.
I don’t think my mother and I will ever reconcile. I don’t think our future holds a big heart-to-heart where she listens and I understand. I don’t know what she will think of the choices I’ve made; I don’t even know whether she knows what I’ve decided yet. If she doesn’t, she will soon enough. Word travels fast, and it won’t be long before the whole country knows.
At least I’m no longer her burden … Her shame, perhaps, but no longer a burden.
There is no longer the question of what to do with me; whether she likes it or not, the answer has been provided. She can insist that she tried to give me a ‘normal’ life, a life that I should have wanted, a life as close to her safe and predictable one as she could get. She can tell people how I rejected it, time and again I rejected what she had sought so tirelessly to provide me with. She can talk about how she tried her best, but what do you do with so obstinate a daughter? She’s free to shake her head along with the other aunties, lamenting my wasted youth.
‘She’s someone else’s problem now.’ That’s what the nods from all the aunties will wish to convey. There will be those who will chuckle, and then pass along rumors and say what a gold-digger I am and how this seems like something I would do. They won’t know why I’ve been such trouble; they won’t know the history and that my actions, if not justifiable, are certainly reasonable. And maybe Mama, in her heart of hearts, where my father cannot see, will be just a little bit glad.
I’ve been waiting for the panic, for the can’t-breathe, malfunctioning, make-it-stop sense of impending doom. I keep expecting the anxiety to metastasize, to mushroom into a nuclear cloud of blinding terror.
I expected it on the plane when the cabin crew went through their safety spiel. The signs were there – jumpy knees, tingly fingers, that fainting sensation not far away. But they went through their adopt-the-brace-position and help-yourself-before-helping-others routine, and I was still all there.
I was calm as we flew over Iran, the peaks of Zagros snowy and jagged outside my window. I dozed as we crossed into Turkey, waking every once in a while as the magnitude of it all pressed me deeper into my seat – or were we still gaining altitude? The night was black and heavy over the continent. Below us were tiny villages lit up in orange and white, twisting and arching against the Rhine like koi fish.
The moving plane on the map was crossing into that great blue expanse when Bu Faisal fell asleep. Just as it does when I stump him with an indelicate question, his face looked youthful in slumber. The generous mouth was slack under a mustache that twitched every now and then. His thick brows were relaxed, not pinched like I felt mine to be. I lifted my hand to his face, placing the pads of two fingers to the skin between his brows. It was cool, slightly dry, the hair coarse against my fingers. He didn’t stir, not even his breathing changed. I brought my hand to my own face, smoothing the skin between my brows, trying to relax the knot there. I saw movement beneath his eyelids, a sign of deep sleep, and I wondered how he could be so untroubled. The panic nearly lit me up like flash paper then; it came on so strong I gripped my armrest to stay grounded – no small feat when you’re 40,000-plus feet in the heavens. Did his calm stem from a lack of commitment? A knowledge that if I got to be too much, he could just leave? What would I do then?
We’re flying over land now, and still he sleeps. On the inside of my left wrist, I draw yet another Ariel. In miniature, in India ink, he balances on the bough of a vein. Upraised arms, elated mouth, stars like fireworks bursting at his side.
I remind myself that I’m not entirely useless. I have skills, marketable ones even. I will not be dependent on him. I’m accepting his help; I’ll accept what will no doubt be his excessive generosity, but I will also stand on my own. If I’m leaning on him now, I won’t be forever … But then what – do I throw him over when I feel steady on my feet? Looking at him now – his calm face, his shoulders filling the seat beside me – I can’t imagine it.
I have chosen him. I can’t say why, or what I want him to be, but I have chosen him.
His breathing changes, a hitch and a puff, and then his eyes open, one at a time. He scans my features; for what, I don’t know. Then he makes a silly face, and I smile for the first time in a long time. He doesn’t touch me. He’s so wary of touching me, so careful of where his hands land, where his body is in relation to mine. It makes me feel delicate, important, like what I might want matters to him.
I am thirty, and I have made my first decision. I have chosen this; I have chosen him.
I have chosen.
Acknowledgments
There are many people responsible for the book in your hands. Certainly more than I could ever hope to name … but I’ll try.
My eternal gratitude goes to my fantastic agent, Melissa Edwards of Stonesong Literary Agency, for believing in me and in this story. You are my champion. Many, many thanks also go to Ben Fowler at Abner Stein for being so encouraging and supportive and for bringing the next person I’m going to thank into my life – Ann Bissell! Ann, I could not have hoped for a better editor. From the first meeting your enthusiasm and feel for Dahlia and her story moved me more than you can ever know. I’m so honoured to have partnered with you on this book. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Borough Press family – Suzie Dooré, Emilie Chambeyron, Amber Burlinson, Ore Agbaje-Williams, and everyone else who made me feel so valued and who put so much time and thoughtful effort into this book.
A quick thank you to my professors and fellow writers at the University of Edinburgh for pushing me to write a story about Kuwait when I really didn’t want to. This book began in the cold basements of George Square, and I’m so thankful for all your notes. Special thanks to Catherine Cronenberg, Jenny Gray, and Christina Neuwirth for their support and friendship.
I’d like to thank my friends for the constant encouragement, especially Deena AlShatti, Dana Zubaid, Nilufar Khaja, Badria AlHumaidhi, Bodour Behbehani, and Waleed Jarjouhi. A special thank you to Fawaz AlFares for coming up with the perfect title at the eleventh hour! And a super-special thank you to Fatima AlJassim whose Twitter habit makes all things possible. Thank you for watching the hashtags and pushing me when I wanted to stop pushing myself, for reading every draft of this book, and for giving such helpful notes. This book honestly wouldn’t have happened without you.
I must thank my parents and the rest of my extended family for their boundless support, especially Anwar AlAmmar for being such a great sounding board for ideas, and my
mother, Linda, for never telling me I couldn’t read what I wanted to read.
About the Author
LAYLA ALAMMAR grew up in Kuwait with an American mother and a Kuwaiti father. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in the Evening Standard, Quail Bell Magazine and Aesthetica Magazine, where she was a finalist for the Creative Writing Award 2015. The Pact We Made is her debut novel.
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