by Claire Hajaj
The commentator’s voice rolled over the scenes – an English voice filled with Arab emotions striking Salim strangely. The Israelis were seizing new holdings of Arab land around Nazareth. They cut to the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, talking about Israel’s need for security and new settlement. And then there was a fuzzy video of a man – some poet, called Ziad – calling on Palestinians to stand up and revolt. Ziad – like the man in Shatila. They’d declared a national strike and called it Land Day. Yom Al-Ard.
The commentary moved onto tensions in Iran, and Salim flicked it off. He had to face Omar in the morning, to give him the bad news. Now he felt dirty, as dirty as a traitor, sick of the whole thing.
In the kitchen, Jude, Sophie and Marc were already at the table. Sophie was attacking a chicken leg with both hands and Marc was peeling the flesh off the bone and arranging it on his plate in a neat circle. In the corner Sophie’s birdcage rattled as its wounded inhabitants, rescued from cats and car windscreens, clambered nervously along the bars.
Jude looked up as he came in. He recognized the expression of unhappy defiance. Salim’s senses were still surging on the bitter flood of memory; she looked more than ever like Lili Yashuv, standing behind her husband at the gates of their house. Jude and Lili – their two images overlaid like two transparencies, coming together in striking clarity in the lines of their long noses, their high foreheads and blue eyes.
He pulled up a chair and took a plate of rice from her hands. Shovelling it into his mouth despite his closed stomach, he tried to push the anger away. I’m British, he had pathetically pleaded to Meyer that afternoon. Pleaded like a boy, while more of his true home was being leached away by men like Meyer, women like Jude.
‘Was it okay at work today?’ Jude was asking. ‘Was Meyer pleased?’
‘Mostly.’ He looked over at Marc, who was steadily looking back at him from over a large, flayed chicken leg. ‘What about you, Marc? Did you have your Arabic lesson today?’
‘It was yesterday,’ Sophie said cheerfully. ‘Mr Shakir came to the house.’
Salim kept looking at Marc. How could he have such blue eyes? The child who would take his name forward had nothing of his nature. It was so unfair, as if Jude’s genes and his mother’s had conspired to remind him that he had no real power, nothing left worth passing on.
‘What did you learn in your lesson then?’ he asked the boy. Marc’s eyes flickered back down to his plate.
‘We learned how to name all the animals.’
‘Really? So you can tell me what you’re eating for dinner.’ Marc’s brow furrowed as he examined his deconstructed chicken. Looking back up at his father, the blue eyes were ruffled with a hint of worry. ‘I forgot,’ he said.
‘I know!’ Sophie squealed, but Salim put his hand up to silence her.
‘I asked Marc. Come on, Marc. Try to remember.’
‘I forgot, I told you.’
‘That’s not good enough. It was only yesterday you learned it. You can’t really have forgotten, can you? Weren’t you listening in the first place?’
Marc looked at his mother for reassurance, but that sidelong glance infuriated Salim. He hit the table with his hand, and Marc’s eyes snapped back to him, his body jerking in shock. Jude said, ‘Sal, please, don’t.’
‘Stay out of this,’ he said heatedly. ‘They’re supposed to be learning and you’re supposed to be helping them. So Marc, tell me something in Arabic. Tell me anything, so I can see that you’re taking this seriously, like a little man. Come on.’ He leaned over and pulled Marc’s plate from his hands, to leave nothing between the boy and him.
Marc started to cry in that painful way he had, his lip wobbling like a girl’s and tears trickling down his nose. Salim saw Jude’s face – it was white. ‘Sal, for God’s sake, enough,’ she said, her voice low. Something inside him reached out of the blaze of anger and self-pity to comfort her, to apologize. But the image of those Israeli tanks rolled over it, slamming it down.
‘If you had done your job, he wouldn’t be so fragile,’ he heard himself saying. ‘But I guess you don’t want him to be like one of these crazy Arabs, right?’
He could see Sophie starting to cry now, her dark almond eyes swimming. Where do these terrible words come from? What kind of man are you? Angry with them all, horrified at himself, he got up from the table and went into the bedroom. As he shut the door, he felt the comfort of silence slide over him, blanketing the maelstrom within.
Meyer’s wife invited them to the beach that weekend. Jude arrived with a warm smile and all the essential facts ready for new friendships: Mrs Meyer’s name was Anne; she was secretary of the International Women’s Club and had three grown children all doing something in New York.
Out on the blazing sands of the Creek, Anne Meyer gave her a fainting handshake from under a drooping sunhat, a butterfly exhausted in the shimmering air. She complimented Jude’s ‘sweet kids’, and complained about the ‘god-awful heat’. Then she turned away to her other guests.
Sophie ran off to join the mêlée of sandy little bodies at the edge of the water. ‘Be careful, pet,’ Jude called out, but her daughter just waved her arm, a brown glimmer of delight. Marc lay down under the umbrella, tracing stick figures in the sand. Out in the haze a tiny sandbank lay white against the blue. Not more than a hundred yards away, she thought. Once I would have swum there without thinking.
The rush of the water and the children brought back distant echoes of memory, the clamour of Wearside, the Junior Team Tryouts, the brightness of those friendships. Another life, another road not taken. She hugged her knees to her chest against the sudden ache, and turned to Salim.
He stood tall above her with the Super 8 camera in his hand, trained on Sophie’s leaping form. As their eyes met he knelt down, his body brown as the darkening sand, and slid a hand onto her shoulder. Since that inexplicable fight he’d been contrite and defiant by turn. The pressure of the bid – that’s all it was, she told herself. So much pressure on him to prove everyone wrong, to succeed in their hare-brained venture.
‘Okay, my love?’ She saw the concern in his eyes, and it moved her – these precious reminders that they were still uniquely attuned to each other, that each soul could still resonate with the other’s needs.
‘Perfect.’ She smiled up at him and pointed to the shoreline. ‘Look at our Sophie.’ Their daughter was skipping with another nameless girl, splashing joyously across the warm sand. ‘She’s never afraid, is she?’
‘Just like her mother,’ Salim said, squeezing Jude’s shoulder. Inexplicable tears rose to her eyes. Beside her, the sound of Marc’s humming mixed with the rush of the waves. It washed old memories over her – rain soaking her forehead when Salim had first kissed her, the flood of her waters breaking and the perfect emptiness of her being when Marc was finally dragged out of her body, hours after Sophie slipped into the doctor’s hands. Salim had rejoiced in his son and daughter, taking them from the bassinet and holding them up to the light, his face shining in pure happiness.
Even their names had been precious, a flag in the earth, staking their claim to their own choices. They named Sophie after Safiya, the Prophet’s fiery Jewish wife who converted a nation of doubters. Marc’s name had been harder to choose. Tradition would force Saeed on them, after Salim’s father. But they’d buried it behind Marc – in memory of the unknown grandfather who saved Rebecca’s life. They were so cherished, those secret truths hidden inside their children, linking their old lives to this new one they were building together.
‘Did you talk to Anne?’ Salim’s eyes were fixed on Meyer’s friends, handing out Pepsis under a large umbrella.
Jude forced herself back to the present. ‘A little.’
‘I really hope you can be friends. Tell you what, I’ll get you a drink,’ he said, standing up and strolling over to the coolbox.
She watched him, two Pepsis in hand, hovering outside the knot of laughing men. His face was fixed in happy attention, betr
aying the strain of matching them smile for smile as they ignored him.
Over on the other side of the beach, a large Arab family sprawled out on mats, the scent of cardamom tea drifting on the rising breeze. Every now and again Salim’s eyes would be drawn to them. She knew what he was feeling, the unspoken question, the search for a ready embrace.
She left Marc and went over to stand by him, lifting her Pepsi out of his hand. His dark eyes found hers; she saw he was embarrassed. In answer, she called over to Anne, lying in a low deckchair reading a magazine. ‘Hi Anne – can I get you something?’
‘No thanks.’ Only the thin hand moved, a restless fanning of super-heated air. Salim tried again. ‘Anne, you know you and Jude are both into teaching? Jude’s going to work at the Kuwait International School – she was doing her master’s in literature before we came here. I hear you did some teaching too.’
Mrs Meyer made a noise from her throat, halfway between agreement and dismissal. Her head settled back as if to sleep. Salim stood waiting with his Pepsi. His stance was hopeful, poised for an answer, and Jude tasted a raw hatred. You scrawny bitch. She wondered where Peggy was now, which beach she was lying on, whose shoulder her pale pink nails were gripping.
Twisting away from Salim, she marched over to the shoreline, fixing her gaze on the sandbank. A lonely gull had landed on the brilliant white, the image of remote perfection. Her fury turned to Salim – these repeated humiliations were his fault, the price of his endless thirst for acceptance. She’d given up her country for him, locked her family’s traditions away in the box with Rebecca’s menorah, but her love alone didn’t satisfy him. A jealous part of her wanted him to run, to throw rejection back in their laughing faces – but would that be any better? Had it made her happy, running from her own humiliation once, leaving all her dreams at Peggy’s front door? I was the best, the best in my year. I should have made the team.
She stepped out into the water, feeling it stroke her. The salty warmth was far from the cool, green smell of Wearside – but she could imagine Mr Hicks yelling at her, ‘Go Judith! Go on, go!’ She wanted to stand on that sandbank and look at them all from far away. She wanted to be a girl again, with everything still before her.
The sea was gentle, cooling above the steep drop-off, the waves calm. Her arms slipped through it. As she kicked she felt the glorious, familiar stretch of her body, the ache of muscles long disused, the exultation of resistance and speed.
Halfway across, the current grabbed her.
At first it was a tug at her legs. Then she saw the sandbank slipping away, sliding suddenly to the right.
Now the water gripped her; her arms grappled to make headway. She fought, incredulous, instinct commanding her to try harder. Her legs and arms beat the water – but soon her kicks turned to flails as the strength leaked out of her into the running sea.
I can make it. But she no longer knew where the sandbank was and the sun was burning into her head. She was being carried faster now, a forced surrender to the power of the rip.
Swim diagonally. The thought filled her brain. But the swell was on her now, walls of water on all sides. Water was in her mouth and she breathed it into her lungs. She couldn’t get enough oxygen, she had to get to land – she lunged out towards nothing and then she was submerged, directionless, her arms weaker, moving in frantic circles.
For a moment she rose, to see the children in sharp relief on the shoreline, like pictures from a book, a girl with her arm pointing outwards laughing or calling.
Then someone else’s arms were around her. They raised her head, and she felt them anchor her. The shoreline was there, an unimaginably small distance to safety. And as she put her hand on the man’s chest to steady herself, she felt Salim’s heart pounding with her own as he pulled them towards the beach.
They were out of the water and she fell on her knees in the sand. He fell next to her, dripping, his arms tight around her. He was crying the words, almost incoherent: ‘What were you doing, what were you thinking?’ Marc was there too, he clung to their legs and Sophie pressed between them, a tangle of limbs, of sand-streaked faces and hot tears.
She tried to reach out to them but her arms didn’t belong to her any more. And theirs were all around her, safer and stronger than her own. ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all she could whisper into Salim’s shoulder, his sweat sharp in her mouth.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he choked, as they clung together, fused into one being. ‘We’re all here now. We’re safe.’ The words rose around her with the beat of the waves, drowning out everything else. We’re all here now. We’re safe, we’re safe, we’re safe.
Everything changed a week before the Baghdad trip.
First, Marc’s tree died. Lingering just a few months through the cooler Kuwaiti winter, it finally gave up, its light green leaves curling into yellowed scraps and drifting helplessly to the ground. Salim wanted to dig it up, but Marc wept at the suggestion. In the end Sophie set stones around the base of the thin trunk, giving it an ominous aspect. To Salim it was a hateful object as he left the house every morning, something between a shrine and a grave.
On the day they booked the Baghdad tickets, Eric came into Salim’s office. Meyer’s selection for project assistant was paler than usual, his forehead creased in a puzzled frown.
‘What’s up?’ Salim asked. Eric had bright red hair, allergy-wet eyes and a nose that looked like it was dripping off his face. Meyer’s secretary said he was like the fire and the hosepipe in one body.
‘A call is coming through to this phone,’ he said, significantly, pointing to the handset on Salim’s desk. ‘I think you should hear it yourself.’
Salim picked up the phone and pushed the flashing red button that indicated a call on hold. The line instantly began to crackle. ‘Hello?’ he shouted into the long-distance buzzing.
‘Mr Al-Ishmaeli, schlonak!’ An Iraqi greeting from Abdel-Rahman, their man on the ground in Baghdad. ‘I wanted to tell you something I heard today, it’s very important.’ The line screeched and Salim held the phone away from his ear. It had been the siren of a car. Abdel-Rahman had clearly thought it wiser to call from a street phone.
‘What is it?’ He spoke in English for Eric’s benefit.
‘I went to the Al-Rashid, to check our bookings,’ Abdel shouted. The Al-Rashid was one of Baghdad’s most prestigious hotels, close to the Presidential Palaces. ‘I wanted to take one room a few days early, for preparation, you know. But the girl at the desk told me no. They have another group coming, some Americans from Bahrain. I got her to show me the name. It’s Curran, habibi. The men are coming from Curran to Iraq, in three days’ time. I called the Minister’s office and it’s true. That bastard, that kahlet, he got ahead of us. Curran will negotiate with the Minister, pay his bribes, get the deal and you will come here in time for a handshake and goodbye.’
Salim felt dizzy. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure, habibi, sure. They screwed us. What do you want to do?’
I have no idea. ‘I’ll call you back in ten minutes, Aboudy. Give me the number you’re on, and stay there.’
As he hung up, he looked at Eric, wondering what the young man saw. Another failed Arab leader, no doubt. The world was full enough of them.
‘Should we tell Meyer?’ Eric asked him, hugging his thin arms around his chest.
God, no. ‘Not yet,’ Salim said. ‘Just give me five minutes.’ Eric nodded, and walked slowly out of the door. Salim was left to himself.
Panic raced through him, carrying bitter thoughts. They had not been careful enough – they had got the timing wrong, and someone else would get there first. He would be the man who presided over a disaster, a corporate humiliation.
He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out onto the haze of the city and the long, empty desert beyond. Light glinted off the limousines sliding through the streets below. They reminded him of silver fish, circling above the desert’s waiting maw, just a finger’s width from oblivion.
/> A picture of Jude and the children sat on the shelf beside him. Her hair caught his eye, and a memory stirred – the Yiddish phrase she liked to use – be a mensch. Be bold. It was fine for her to say, and Meyer. They were born to be masters. The rules worked for them, so they never had to find the backhand way.
And that’s when he saw it, clear as the noonday sun, the glint of a hidden road. Meyer would never get it, but any Arab would instantly understand. It was the only possible way.
He walked across the floor to Eric’s desk, heart pumping with every step. ‘Listen,’ he said, throwing Abdel-Rahman’s phone number at him. ‘I want you to call him back and get every single room in Al-Rashid for tomorrow night. We are going to meet the Minister in Baghdad. Book the flights and tell the team.’
Eric went grey under his freckles, and a drop of sweat trickled off the end of his nose.
‘There’s no way… I mean, we are so far from being ready. And we haven’t even got an appointment with Ramadan. It sounded like they have no interest in seeing us.’
‘So what?’ Salim said, feeling a glorious wave of superior knowledge for the first time on this project. ‘Was your girlfriend interested in seeing you, the first time you met? My wife certainly wasn’t. Between now and tomorrow, I’ll make them interested.’
He left Eric and walked over to the furthest part of the floor. To his relief, Omar was at his desk.
The young man had hardly spoken a word to him after learning of Salim’s decision. Adnan had met Salim at a dinner a week later and the coolness could not have been clearer. He was polite enough, the old man, shaking his head and saying, ‘It’s a shame that you and Omar couldn’t have been working together.’ And later he’d patted Salim on the arm when they were talking about politics or travel, and said, ‘We have to watch our backs with these Americani, right, Salim? You think they’re your friends, you sell yourself, but they will remember who you are in the end.’