Only in London

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  Lamis looked at her eyes in the bedroom mirror. They showed her someone who would never cheat, or be devious.

  For the eye is the door into the soul.

  In Beirut her mother had decided that Lamis should marry the Iraqi who owned the modern building whose basement they sheltered in with other local people. Her mother was impressed by his grand apartment and its marble bathroom, which he let Lamis and her mother use once during a lull in the fighting, and she saw the way the Iraqi looked admiringly at Lamis when most of the people in the shelter had eyes only for the food that the women of the neighbourhood vied with one another to prepare. When the Iraqi declared his interest, Lamis told her mother she wouldn’t marry him. Back at their tiny flat her mother pleaded with her to accept that rich suitor, sent from heaven to pull them out of poverty and give them back their dignity, and after Lamis refused, she turned her gaze to some distant spot, as if saying to her husband, ’Leave her to me.’ He tried to suggest, not too obviously, that she should go easy on the girl, but she snapped her eyes shut threateningly. Then, several days later, when Lamis finally agreed to the marriage, her mother lowered her gaze almost humbly to express her delight.

  Should Lamis blame her eyes for the course her life had taken? They say that the eyes are more precious than the costliest jewel. Or should she blame the mirror?

  When Lamis was a child the other members of the household, even the birds in their cages, were so wrapped up in themselves that only the sight of her own reflection seemed to confirm her existence. She used to look at her face reflected in water, a pair of scissors, the cap of her fountain pen, a bowl of soup, an empty cup, in the toilet bowl, between her legs, superimposed on the reflection of her bottom.

  The mirror took her into another world of vivid colours and imagination, where she had her mother’s blessing, since her mother was always talking about beauty.

  Would she have taken an interest in me if she hadn’t thought I was beautiful? Lamis often wondered to herself.

  Her maternal grandmother used to shout at Lamis to stop staring into the mirror or it would snatch her away inside it. When her father told the old lady to stop her nonsense, her grandmother recounted many tales about mirrors: once a man consulted a soothsayer because he doubted his wife’s fidelity and the soothsayer gave the man a small mirror telling him it would reveal whether or not his wife was unfaithful - if she were, it would whisk her away inside it. Lamis always remembered this story and asked her husband for a mirror when he wanted to give her a present, but the mirror never took her away from him.

  In the renowned holy city, Najaf, Lamis’s mother made friends with the wives of the theology students who came from Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, to study, so she’d be able to borrow the women’s magazines they brought with them on their visits to their husbands, and she asked them to buy her fancy modern necklaces and lipstick with the money she was always trying to save.

  She took Lamis with her when she went to the dressmaker. The moment they arrived, the dressmaker used to send her own mother out of the room, telling her it was time to make dinner. As soon as she left, the dressmaker would push the table up against the door - she didn’t want her mother to come back into the room and see the fashions Lamis’s mother chose; the way they revealed the wrists and ankles, and the bright colours of the materials never seen in the city before, not even in its flowers.

  In times of danger Lamis would stare at her own reflection to calm her down. She saw herself reflected in the circular pieces of metal that hung from between the blue beads of the necklace they put round the neck of the mule that travelled with them when they fled Iraq across the mountains and valleys of Kurdistan.

  As well as their two suitcases, her father carried his lute and her mother a plastic bag holding a pleated skirt. Lamis’s father urged her to put it in one of the suitcases, promising that if it were ruined she could buy another, but her mother wouldn’t listen. ’It’s pure silk. I’m going to put it on as soon as we get to Damascus.’

  They were all frightened of hyenas. Her mother was also frightened of rain and wind in case her skirt blew away, and she held the plastic bag close to her when it was her turn to sit on the back of the mule. Lamis’s father was so concerned about his lute that the other members of the group they were travelling with became convinced that he had money stashed away inside it.

  When her mother tried to dissuade Lamis from asking for a divorce she said, ’If God hadn’t wanted you to marry, he’d have fed you to the hyenas when we were escaping from Iraq! We should take every opportunity to thank God the hyenas didn’t eat us.’

  Lamis opened the bedroom window and called out to the London air, ’I thank God the hyenas didn’t eat me!’

  A pigeon flew off, startled by her shout.

  If I was still married, she thought, I wouldn’t have dared do that.

  This realisation gave her some satisfaction and she found herself smiling. She spun around like a whirlwind, and prepared to go out and buy beans or lentils. Her grandmother used to say to the sick, the sad, the lover, the widow, the divorcee, ’Fortify your stomach with pulses, and God will give you courage.’

  She thought she would fortify her stomach before contacting her son, but in the end she dared not leave the flat: her ex-husband and his mother had closed the door to London in her face.

  II

  Although Samir was barely able to take his eyes off Nicholas in the minibus from the airport, he noticed they no longer seemed to be driving through London. The green parks and grand buildings had disappeared. Signs on a restaurant, a chemist, a dentist, a letting agency, a shop, made him think they could have been back in Mazraa Street in Beirut: ’Come in and you’ll find what you’re looking for. We speak Arabic’, ’Unwanted hair removed by the most modern methods’, the Moonlight Café, Maroush, Ranoush Juice, Beirut Express, the Elegant Clothes Store, and there were Arabs in long white robes, black abayas, and contemporary fashions.

  ’My goodness!’ he exclaimed involuntarily. ’It’s incredible! Mazraa Street has moved to London! I remember when my father, God rest his soul, used to take us to the Salwa Cinema in Mazraa Street, and buy us sesame buns, and I always wanted to sit in the front row so I could try to touch the actors in the film.’

  The driver of the minibus stopped outside the Lebanese fast-food restaurant, the Tabbouleh. Samir said goodbye to Amira and Nicholas and glanced around at the street before he pushed open the restaurant door. A blast of shawarma and chicken kebab hit him in the face. His entrance caused a stir among the youths frying falafel and squeezing orange juice behind the counter, and they winked at one another, and the young man at the cash desk started to hum a tune.

  Samir caught sight of himself in the mirror that stretched the length of the wall behind them. ’Mama, you’re right to laugh at me.’ He smoothed down his hair. ’I’ve just come from the plane, as God’s my witness.’

  The youths roared with laughter because he referred to himself in the feminine and talked like a woman. To their astonishment Samir joined in.

  A customer stood up from the table where he had been sitting with a blonde woman and walked over.

  ’Does anyone know a guy called Faruq?’ Samir asked the youths behind the counter.

  The man came up to Samir and pointed at himself.

  Samir put his bag on the floor and held out the basket, finding it hard to believe that the stout, unattractive man in front of him could be the brother of the beautiful youth who’d persuaded him to smuggle the monkey to London. ’Are you dumb? Why don’t you speak?’ Samir asked.

  The man nodded his head to indicate that yes, he was Faruq, and he was mute.

  ’What a fool I am! I’m sorry. Your brother didn’t tell me. Anyway, he’ll be here tomorrow,’ he said.

  The man patted Samir on the shoulder, then opened the lid of the basket, deftly moved the newspaper, empty biscuit wrappers and jumper aside, and saw the comatose monkey. He rested his head on his hand and covered his eyes, to ask Sa
mir if the monkey was asleep.

  ’The bastard’s got addicted to the pills,’ Samir said.

  Faruq carried the basket out, followed by the foreign woman. Samir dropped back to say in confidential tones to the youths behind the counter, ’The dumb man’s sister’s in hospital here. She’s dying and I smuggled the monkey out of Dubai so she could say goodbye to it. She raised the monkey like her own child. Fed it from one tit while she fed her son from the other. Give me a falafel sandwich for the monkey.’

  His words ricocheted like a firecracker along the line of waiters.

  ’Ask the monkey if he wants tartare sauce with the sandwich,’ said one sarcastically.

  The man drove for less than five minutes and parked his car in a narrow street lined with white houses that looked like hospitals, shabby and decrepit. Samir followed the couple to the front door of one of them and noticed the rubbish and dirt piled at the ground-floor windows, and the peeling paint. Was it possible that there were places like this in London? And buildings with no lifts? Faruq and the woman started to climb the stairs and when the woman found out that the flat was on the top floor, she sighed loudly and crossly. So even the English said ’Oh God’! She was both pretty and ugly. Samir was surprised she never once smiled at him. This didn’t happen often. Women were generally cheerful in his company, even when he didn’t open his mouth. Perhaps she had a period, or was sensitive because her boyfriend was dumb and fat, and had little black hairs sticking out of his ears. Samir was suddenly afraid that the couple might slam the door in his face. He’d been wrong to hand over the monkey to the man like that. He hurried after them and pushed between them on the stairs, determined that the exchange should take place: the monkey in return for a thousand pounds.

  The flat was dirty, unbelievably neglected, its contents scattered chaotically about, the blue carpet stained with patches of brown. Only the chandelier hanging from the high ceiling of the main room testified to the building’s venerable past. The man held the basket out to Samir and Samir heard him say, ’Get it out, so we can see it.’

  ’What a world we live in! I swear he spoke! It’s a miracle! So you were pretending to be dumb. What for? So you didn’t have to ask what my trip was like? For twenty-four hours, even before I got on the plane, I didn’t know if I was coming or going, and my heart was beating like a drum. I only became human again in the minibus. Don’t I get any thanks? Your brother knelt and kissed my feet when he was trying to persuade me to be a courier for him. I risked my life and future and five kids out of pity for your sister, and now you’re ordering me about as if you’re God Almighty.’

  ’What’s wrong with him?’ interrupted the woman.

  ’He wants me to get on my knees and thank him.’

  ’He’s right. You should.’ She turned to Samir. ’Thanks.’

  ’OK. Thanks, brother. Now make it wake up.’

  Samir bent over the basket to take out the monkey. It opened its eyes for a moment, then closed them again.

  ’It’s still drowsy. The sedatives haven’t worn off yet. Come on, where’s the money?’

  ’They told me to give you eight hundred pounds.’

  ’You’re lying. A thousand pounds cash down.’

  ’The other two hundred’s for your board and lodging, until you leave.’

  ’A thousand pounds and I’m happy to go without eating or sleeping.’

  ’You won’t find a hotel here for less than a hundred pounds.’

  ’Don’t worry about that. You give me a thousand pounds. I’m ready to sleep standing up if I need to.’

  ’When it wakes up I’ll pay you. For all I know, it’s dead.’

  Samir hurried over to the monkey and pulled it out of the basket. He placed the animal on a piece of furniture that had once been a sofa.

  The woman gasped. ’Oh, it’s tiny. Only as big as a chicken.’

  Samir kneeled and rested his ear against the monkey’s stomach. ’Look! See how my head’s rising and falling. That means it’s breathing.’

  He put a hand to the monkey’s mouth. ’See, its breath’s burning hot.’

  ’I forgot to ask you. Has it been to the toilet?’

  ’Yes, of course. In the plane it asked to go three times, and washed its hands afterwards. It’s very well behaved!’

  ’What?’ shouted the man. ’Didn’t they tell you that it ... ?’ Then he checked himself and forced a smile.

  ’Your brother told me it mustn’t get out of the basket even if it had a shit. Leave the shit in the basket, he said, otherwise we’ll get into trouble. They’re afraid of diseases in England. They don’t let you bring in animals or shit or food.’

  The Englishwoman took a book out of her bag and sprawled on the other sofa, reading. Faruq sat in a chair, looking impatient. Samir squashed himself up beside the monkey and fell asleep.

  The monkey stirred before Samir. It leaped up and urinated into its hand, watched by the startled Englishwoman, then rubbed its hand dry on its fur. She shouted, but it was too late - the monkey made a leap for the chain supporting the chandelier.

  ’You wanted it to wake up. It just has,’ remarked Samir.

  Samir and the man tried to entice the monkey down. The more violently the light swung, the more delighted the monkey became. It sensed the woman’s fear and leaned down towards her, baring its teeth and shrieking loudly. Samir laughed. Each time the woman tried to make a run for it the monkey hung down off the light, blocking her path.

  ’Tell it to stop. It’ll bring the ceiling down on top of us.’

  ’Stop that! Do you hear me? Stop it! See. It doesn’t listen. It could be up there for twenty-four hours.’

  ’Is it going to act like this all the time?’

  ’Unless you give it a sedative! Come on, pay me the thousand pounds. Let’s get this over with.’

  ’As long as you don’t leave me with the monkey.’

  ’OK, don’t worry, I’ll take it to the patient.’

  ’The patient?’

  ’Your sister. Have you forgotten about her? I smuggled it from Dubai to London for her sake.’

  The monkey gave a series of short, piercing yells and turned its beseeching eyes towards the woman. She began screaming too, and the monkey went silent and gazed at her with interest.

  ’Come on. We’ll take it to your sister, then go our separate ways,’ said Samir.

  ’Tomorrow. Let it rest now, and you must want to rest too.’

  ’I’ve got things to do. I need to be on my way. I’ve got friends waiting for me to phone.’

  ’If you set foot outside that door, you’re getting nothing.’

  ’How can I be sure you’re going to give me the money if stay?’

  The man reached into his pocket and handed Samir a bundle of pound notes. Samir took it and, as he counted the money, the monkey landed on him and clung on. Samir put the pounds in his pocket, out of harm’s way, and found himself hugging the monkey, which put its finger in its mouth and rested its head on Samir’s chest. Before Samir knew what was happening, the monkey had snatched the bundle of notes from his pocket. By the time Samir had gathered up all the scattered bills he felt completely exhausted, but the man would not let him out of the flat and kept urging him to do something to make the monkey defecate.

  Only the sight of the building opposite and the trees in the street outside made Samir feel that he was actually in London, unlike this semi-derelict flat. He toured around inquisitively like the monkey, and stopped asking when the man’s handsome brother was going to arrive. He’d imagined him wearing a silk robe, a cravat and leather slippers, standing at the door of a room with logs burning in the grate, and he would have led him into a bedroom full of erotic paintings with blue films playing on a huge video screen. But Samir no longer cared since the reality was turning out to be so much at odds with the fantasy, and he was sitting in this ugly place with a man and a woman whose eyes and hearts were fixed on the monkey’s backside.

  ’Maybe it’s going to
do a shit. Look, it’s got its legs apart.’

  When the monkey bounded off again and sat swinging on top of the door, the man yelled, ’Shit, for God’s sake, and let’s be done with it.’

  ’Perhaps if you did it in front of the monkey, it’d imitate you.’

  ’Are you sure? Or are you having me on?’

  ’Try. What have you got to lose?’

  ’But how can I do it in front of you?’

  ’Why in front of me? In front of the monkey.’

  ’I don’t want to go the bathroom and be by myself with it. It’s crazy.’

  The monkey leaped up on to the wooden curtain rail and hung upside down by its tail, which, taut and curled like a ring, bore the monkey’s full weight. After a few moments, the monkey righted itself and clung on to the curtain. It jumped off, and the curtain and rail came crashing down. The monkey clapped its hands, shrieking with excitement, and jumped on to Samir’s shoulder. Samir whispered in its ear and the monkey bent close, imitating Samir’s movements.

  ’What? What’s it saying?’

  ’It wants something to eat. Let me go and buy it something to eat. It’s hungry, poor thing.’

  ’I’ll go. Tell me what it wants.’

  ’Pistachios, peanuts - but in their shells - eggs, bananas, bread and biscuits, flowers, little shrimps - and if you can find a dozen flies. I’m not kidding. It adores flies.’

  ’I’ll only be a minute. Keep your eye on it.’

  The man slammed the door behind him. Samir went forward on the tips of his toes, taking long steps. He stopped, remembering his bag, and went back for it. The door opened suddenly and the man came back in.

  ’Seeing that I’m responsible for the monkey, it ought to be locked in the bathroom while I’m gone in case it escapes,’ said the man.