The Last Gift

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘Let him sort himself out,’ Lena said. ‘Then we’ll go round later.’

  ‘I have to go to Norwich tomorrow, so we should do it this afternoon,’ Jamal said, and Lena made a sad face about his going.

  Later in the afternoon they went to call on their neighbour. The front door had a large brass knocker with a head of a spiky flower, a thistle or a daisy perhaps, and Jamal tapped it twice. He thought he saw a movement in the unlit front room, and a moment later the door opened and the man stood in front of them. The side of his face and his lower lip were bruised and swollen, the flesh around his left eye had puffed up and there was a large dressing on his temple. He looked at them calmly, unsurprised, and Jamal thought perhaps he had caught sight of them at the door and had had time to compose himself. He was dressed in a checked shirt and corduroy trousers, as he had been the first time he had seen him in the garden, and now that he was nearer he saw how slight he was. His eyes were grey and still, not yet friendly.

  ‘We’re from next door,’ Jamal said, pointing towards their house, and he nodded.

  ‘You dropped your cap,’ Lena said, and stepped forward to give it back to him. He smiled then and took a step towards her to collect it. ‘We were there when you fell yesterday and saw that the cap was left behind . . .’

  ‘So it was you,’ he said, his voice rising with pleasure and his face opening into a smile. He winced and clutched his face as the smile stretched his swollen lip. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said, as he waited for the pain to recede. After a moment, he smiled more carefully, apologising. ‘I was very confused but I remember your face now. Thank you for coming to my help.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Lena asked. ‘We just wanted to say if you need anything we’d be happy to assist. My name is Lena and this is Jamal. We brought you some oranges. Do you need anything? Food? Medicine?’

  ‘This is very kind of you,’ he said, smiling through his injured face and looking thoroughly surprised. ‘Thank you, Lena and Jamal. I am all right. I had some kind of blackout but it is nothing serious, the infirmities of age, that’s all. Thank you, but I have everything I need, and tomorrow the nurse will come to check on me, so I’m in good hands. You must come and have a cup of tea with me sometime so we can talk properly.’

  ‘Yes that will be nice,’ Lena said.

  ‘Well, we won’t bother you now. You must need to get some rest after that shock,’ Jamal said. ‘But we are next door if you need help.’

  ‘I will be quite all right, Jamal, but thank you,’ the man said.

  Jamal noticed that he did not tell them his name, and that he did not offer his hand. Was he just a private man or unfriendly? His smile was friendly. He spoke in an educated voice, the infirmities of age. He said all that to Lena when they got back to their house.

  ‘He’s probably still shaken. Those bruises look quite bad,’ Lena said. ‘He looked quite sprightly, I thought, and we did take him by surprise.’

  That night Lena spoke about her brother Marco, and how every summer their parents took them to Italy, to Verona, to stay with their dad’s family. They wanted them to speak Italian, and when they were children they only spoke Italian at home.

  ‘Can you speak?’ Jamal asked.

  ‘Oh yes, it really worked. Only I hate my name. I don’t know why they had to call me Magdalena. Why not Susan or Marie or something like that? Dad’s name is Carlo and mum’s name is Anne, and Marco is Marco. Why do I have to be Magdalena?’

  ‘Lena is a lovely name,’ Jamal said.

  ‘Here is the delphinium,’ her Ba said when Anna arrived on Friday afternoon, and then he subsided into a happy smile. It made her laugh out loud to hear him use that old name. He made up names for them when they were younger, unexpected names that did not always make sense to her. Delphinium was the one that lasted the longest for her, and which she liked, while Jamal had to put up with being Giant Pacific Prawn or Ziggurat. It made her happy that he remembered the name, that he was smiling.

  She sat with him in the garden, asking routine questions to which he replied briefly. She did not see any signs of his shouting, and she wondered if Ma and Ba were struggling to cope on their own. He felt so weak, he said. It was ridiculous. Anna thought he looked better although a little restless, perhaps just trying too hard to seem all right. Her mother came out with the tea, and the three of them sat in the breezy August sunshine, while she brought Anna up to date on the medical drama of her father’s life. Instead of arguing with the doctor about Ba’s medication, Maryam simply reduced the dose, especially the sleeping drugs. She could see for herself that this treatment made Ba better, he could do more things for himself, he could concentrate better, he could read. He did not feel so much nausea as he did before. When she saw all this, she confessed to Dr Mendez what she had done. The doctor did not make a big fuss, although she was not amused. She said it’s not what the doctor ordered but we’ll try it your way for a while. That was the doctor making a joke, which was unlike her, Ma explained. He has already had the benefit of the rest, the doctor said, and she then reduced the prescription as if it was her idea all along. Ba sat there grinning at them, wagging a finger at his wife for her audacity. She thinks she’s a doctor now, he said.

  From the bedroom window upstairs, Anna watched him as he sat on his own on the terrace, his eyes rapt on the leaves falling in the summer sunshine. He was so silent and still, that she imagined he would be able to hear a sparrow building its nest. She could not imagine why Ma had sounded so upset on the phone a few days ago, maybe it was a quarrel that was now forgotten. Later they went for a walk while it was still light, and then her mother took Ba upstairs for his exercises. There had been no shouting, no whisperings, no suspicious stares. He was weak and a little edgy, perhaps even slightly irritable, but he was also gentle and listened with a smile. After their dinner, when the news came on television and it was all about raids and explosions and tormented children, he listened without a word, leaning back in the chair to reduce the heartburn that now troubled him. Both Anna and Maryam glanced at him at moments when they would have expected him to react, but he watched wearily without a word, his eyes hidden behind a blank stare. It had been a long day for him, and although he had wanted to wait up for Jamal, who was coming on the late train, he was very tired and could not stay up any longer.

  After he went to bed, Anna talked about her work, how she had been offered a permanent post and some new responsibilities at the school where she was doing supply teaching. She did not say anything about Nick, that he had still not rung when she left that morning, and she had not called him to see if he was back. She could see her mother was not really listening to the stories of her thriving career, but she kept going anyway. Perhaps she was distracted by Jamal’s imminent arrival, or perhaps her mind was on whatever it was that had been troubling her a few days before, on the maybe-quarrel Anna had declared forgotten. She would have to find a way to ask about that. Her mother’s face was made solemn by her thoughts, and as Anna talked, with eyes on her mother, it occurred to her how unlike her that look was. How whenever her mother turned towards her, she expected her face to be open and readable: concerned or content or resolute as the situation demanded, not this distant inward gaze that made her seem so unexpectedly sad. She understood then how much work it must take to sustain that face of concern and attention that she was used to.

  Anna was looking for a way to move the conversation in her mother’s direction when Maryam looked her directly in the eye and then held her gaze. Anna stopped speaking and waited, suddenly tense from the unaccustomed intensity in her mother’s face. Maryam began to speak, at times looking at Anna, at times looking away. After a few moments, she was lost in her story, uncaring, captive to the feelings that now seemed to have overtaken her. Anna knew that she should keep quiet, should not ask any questions. This is what they have been talking about, Anna thought, the dirty secrets. That is the meaning of the tension and the long looks in both of them. She wished Jamal was there because
the thought of the ugliness she was going to be forced to listen to was making her queasy. But as her mother continued to talk, Anna realised it was not what she expected at all.

  ‘I was sixteen years old when I left school,’ her mother said, ‘knowing nothing or next to nothing.’

  She had enough sense to know that she was someone without any worth. They used this word a lot at school then. Was it worth it? Staying on? No, not for her. There was no point, she was too far behind. She was living with Ferooz and Vijay then. When she started to live with Ferooz, she wanted to be a psychiatric nurse, like her. It made Ferooz happy to hear Maryam say that, and she laughed and said if that was what she wanted to do, then there was nothing to stop her. Ferooz was good to her, kinder to her than anyone had ever been. She talked to her all the time, hugging her and kissing her, encouraging her to do the school work, to catch up. She had gone to several schools by the time they took her, but even with Ferooz’s help, she could not settle. She had missed her moment. All the moving from school to school was not the best thing for a child and she had fallen too far behind and had become used to not making any effort to understand. It was not worth it. She was not a bright enough child, that was what she thought of herself, and another child with more determination would have coped somehow and done well. Someone like that would have found pleasure in the struggle against those troubles. There had been too much anxiety in her life. She could not make her mind quiet enough to take things in at school.

  Ferooz told her stories about how her future life was going to turn out if she worked really hard. Ferooz was a good woman, but life was too complicated for all of them and none were exempted. There are so many opportunities in this country, Ferooz used to say. If you work hard, you can make your way even if life has given you an unkind start. Look at Vijay. After the accident, they thought all he would be any good for would be weaving baskets or begging in the streets, a burden to everyone all his life. But he pleaded and fought to be allowed to stay on at school, then he found dirty work in the town and attended night classes and learned to be an electrician. Then a friend who was back for a visit told him there was work here in England, so he saved and borrowed and along he came. Look at him – and if Vijay was within earshot he would clown at this, holding himself up and flexing his biceps like a champion on TV – he worked hard and he got his rewards.

  That was Vijay’s constant advice. Work hard, work hard, nothing is impossible. He was so determined, not like a hero, but like a small stubborn man who knew he was not worthless. He was always occupied, not as if he was forced or stressed, but as if he always had something waiting to be done. He left for work at seven in the morning and came home at seven in the evening. After his dinner, he sat at the small table in a corner of the living room and did his studying. He had started a correspondence course in accountancy and was hoping to learn enough to get a job in an accountancy office, and then build up his knowledge in that way. That’s the kind of man Vijay was, silent and hard-working about almost everything he did, even eating. Maybe cricket got him excited, when India were playing, otherwise he was quietly busy and let the world get on with it.

  By the time she was a teenager, she thought it was strange, being driven like that, like being a captive to little ambitions for success or wealth. It seemed a joyless life, working all the time. She thought it was a mean way to live, mean in spirit and without any interest in anyone else. But Ferooz did not seem to mind. She talked to him whether he was studying or eating, if that was what she felt like doing. Sometimes he replied and sometimes he went on with what he was doing. Neither seemed to mind. She worked hard too, cooking and cleaning and carrying and fetching so that Vijay could continue to be a miracle of perseverance. Ferooz liked to say that about him, a miracle of perseverance. She heard someone say it on the radio, Lady so and so was a miracle of perseverance in the campaign for children’s rights. She thought it was a lovely way to describe Vijay.

  A car stopped outside and after a moment Anna heard a car door slam. She guessed it was Jamal arriving in a taxi, and she hurried to the front door before he rang the bell. Somehow it seemed important that he should not ring the bell, that he should not agitate the fiends that were abroad in their house at this hour. When they came back into the room, Maryam tried to rise to her feet but Jamal smothered her in a hug and forced her back into the chair. Anna had said something to him. He sat in a chair, no he was not hungry, not tired, yes a good journey, sorry he was late. Yes it was good to see her too. They waited in silence until their mother was ready to begin again.

  ‘Go on, Ma,’ Anna said.

  ‘I was telling Hanna about Ferooz and Vijay,’ Maryam said, and for some reason her eyes wandered to the photograph of Abbas that was still on the shelf and had not made it back upstairs since all the months ago when he was in hospital and she talked to Jamal about their early days together.

  Things became complicated when she first went to live with them, at least for a while, and Ferooz had to make arrangements at work. Then, when they got used to her – and she tried very hard to make them get used to her – she was given a key. Ferooz did not come home until six, so Maryam had an hour or two of TV before she arrived. It was the happiest time for her, that hour or two after school, sitting quietly in the upstairs flat, feeling safe from everything, watching the excited children on TV. She loved living with them, a room to herself, fussing and kindness from Ferooz, a bit of worldly wisdom from Vijay when he remembered, and time to herself when she could do what she liked. It may seem strange for a child to think like that, to want to be alone at the age of nine, but everything had been such a bustle and confusion in her life that those afternoon hours were a comfort she had not known was coming. She always switched off a good while before six. When she was first given a key, Vijay asked her what she did when she came home from school and she said she watched TV. He did not like that. He frowned and shook his head sadly and told her she should catch up with schoolwork, not waste her time with TV. After that when he came home he put his hand on the TV to see if it had been in recent use. Then Ferooz started to do the same when she came home, so to show that she was obedient and as hard-working as they wanted her to be, she switched off in good time and sat down with a book or with crayons or something like that. She tried to like doing the schoolwork, but her mind could not settle to it.

  Then as she grew older, she became the skivvy of the household. It started slowly. When Ferooz came home from work Maryam helped in the kitchen. Ferooz gave her a stool to stand on so she could reach the pots. She was teaching her to find her way round a kitchen, which she told her was something every woman should know, even if later she was lucky enough to marry a prince. Ferooz was surprised how quickly Maryam took to it, because she was still so small. Neither of them knew at the time that it was what fate had in store for her, a lifetime of pots and pans. That was how it started, helping out in the kitchen. Then Ferooz started to leave things for Maryam to do when she got back from school, peeling vegetables, getting pots ready, laying the table. Then making the dough for the chapatis, putting the dhal on the fire, until finally she was cooking the whole meal for all of them.

  They were careful with money, and the food they ate was simple. It was a skinflint house. That was how they lived, saving everything for the future. When Ferooz came in from work, she checked the bin to see that Maryam had not thrown away vegetables that could have been used. She did that at first, when she could not trust her to be as careful about waste as she was.

  In another year or two, Maryam could not remember exactly how long because time moved differently when your life was like that, she was also doing the cleaning and the washing. Ferooz did not talk so often about her future career as a psychiatric nurse, but she kissed her when she came home and found the washing folded away and the table laid for dinner. And Vijay was happy enough to have Maryam sitting with them, fetching something for him when he needed it, and having her around as someone they treated kindly. Because they did treat
her kindly, they told her so, and they told her what they had rescued her from. She did not always understand their meaning at the time. Perhaps that was what they had in mind all along when they took her, to exercise their kindness and save her from a degraded life. To teach her to find some dignity in living with sober people and doing honest work. She had been confused at first by Ferooz and her talk of family.

  The work she did in the house was not hard. She even liked it, to prepare a meal and cook it, and then clean up and put everything away and wipe the kitchen down. It felt like it was an achievement. Something she could do and complete with satisfaction. Even Vijay did not tell her to work harder any more because he could see she was. Her school work improved too. She was in a secondary school by this time, a noisy and crowded school where teachers and pupils kept each other on the run all the time. She was so far behind that she was put in with the thick ones. That was what they called themselves. The work they did there was easy. Some of the teachers brought them comics to read and let them play board games in class. She started to get good grades for the first time. She also made some new friends. Their teacher was pleased with her and she liked being in his class, Mr Thwaite. He had a big ginger beard. He even called her Maryam instead of Mary, which no one else at school did. He told them some very unexpected things, Mr Thwaite, drifting away from his lessons into improbable stories that they never wanted to hear the end of. One day he told Maryam a story about her name. After the Muslims conquered Mecca, he said, they went to the Kaaba to remove all the idols and paintings that pagan worshippers had put there. Do you know what the Kaaba is? It is the great stone towards which Muslims face when they say their prayers. There was only one God for the Muslims, and the idols of other gods made the Kaaba unclean for them, so they had to remove them. But among the paintings was a small icon of the Madonna and child. Mohammad, the Prophet of the Muslims, put out his hand to cover the icon and ordered that everything else should be painted over. The name of the Redeemer’s mother is beloved by all people, Mr Thwaite said. He had to explain many parts of the story to her before she understood it, and years later when she understood even more, she wondered what happened to the icon.