Only in London

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  ’How do you know?’ Lamis had asked in annoyance.

  ’I added up the cost of her clothes and jewellery on a calculator, because I knew the price of everything she had on.’

  At the thought of this, Lamis nearly went off the idea of going to meet Belquis. She wandered into the kitchen and switched on the kettle to make a cup of coffee. The smell of the coffee instilled a spirit of adventure in her and she hurried to dress, thinking sentimentally of the Nescafé advertisement with the girl by the sea who wipes away her tears, tastes the coffee, and the sun comes out and the music plays:

  I can see clearly now the rain has gone ... It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day.

  She decided to dress differently. She wanted Belquis to see her as someone who was happy to be divorced, free: neither repressed nor reckless, but balanced and composed. She chose a see-through shirt with bold designs over a white camisole and wide trousers. Instead of their uniform of high heels, she wore flat shoes with long tips, like a pair of Aladdin slippers. She fastened her hair loosely at the back; it looked as if it might come undone at any moment.

  ’Leighton House, please. Holland Park.’

  ’What?’

  ’Leighton House. Lord Leighton’s house in Holland Park.’

  ’Oh.’

  The taxi stopped in front of the house. The depression that had returned to Lamis during the journey lifted as she smelled a sweet fragrance and caught sight of the tall trees, but then she made out Belquis’s hairdo and her spirits sank again. Belquis stood looking at her watch; she patted her hair and adjusted her shirt collar.

  It took Lamis back to the past, to the cult of the single brand: the Chanel bag, the Chanel buttons: the intertwined ’c’s, like a pair of forceps, signalling that their wearer was entitled to be part of the circle. It reminded Lamis of the numerous charitable functions where the women vied with each other over their clothes and social status. Women who took classes at Sotheby’s and Christie’s and elsewhere, in table decoration, the English tea ceremony, geology - with special reference to precious stones - the history of chocolate, bridge, flower arranging. Afterwards they met in a restaurant, feeling that they’d earned it, confident that they could say they hadn’t wasted their time in this country. Belquis was like them, and at the first suggestion that Lamis would divorce, she’d been like a hen pecking insistently at the ground and wailing, ’You mustn’t divorce, you can’t.’

  ’But I get nausea and feel faint, sick. I’m not happy.’

  ’Perhaps you’ve got an inner-ear infection or a tapeworm, or you’ve been eating too much chocolate.’

  Belquis had advised Lamis to try Feng Shui to gain peace of mind, and although Lamis did not really believe in it she had gone so far as to change the iron bedstead and the cloudy mirror and put flowers by the bed. The flowers made her throat tickle, and her husband complained constantly of a headache and woke her up every night to ask her to get him an aspirin.

  Lamis drew back. She had to get away. She couldn’t face Belquis. She edged back out of the entrance; she stayed close to the wall and scanned the cars on the road, praying she’d see a taxi with its light on.

  How is it that Belquis doesn’t mind waiting for me for three-quarters of an hour? she wondered. She’s loyal and generous, that’s all, and I ought to be ashamed of the way I’m behaving. I should go up and hug her, and instead I’m running away. I’m afraid that when I look at Belquis it’ll be her husband’s face I see. He’ll be hiding behind her hair, telling her off for still talking to me.

  Many of the women she knew during her marriage had the strange habit of metamorphosing into their husbands on certain occasions, especially at charity balls, and taking on not only their names but their physical appearance. Lamis used to find that she was talking to an ambitious building contractor, instead of his serene wife, or realise that Nirmin and her necklace studded with precious stones had disappeared, and in her place was her diplomat husband nervously straightening his tie. Even Evelyn, the foreigner who made candles, had been transformed into her husband in public, a broker stowing files away in a briefcase. She supposed that they probably saw Lamis herself in the guise of her ex-husband, smoking a fat cigar and receiving people, holding forth on his political views: ’I’ve tried everything. I’ve made my fortune. I’m in my fifties, I’ve achieved what I set out to, and now I want to go into politics.’

  Down the street Lamis saw a taxi with its light on and put her hand out, but ahead of her she saw Belquis rush out of the garden and beat her to it. Lamis walked back and re-entered the garden, unflustered, as if she had just arrived. She looked at her watch, expecting to hear Belquis’s voice calling, ’Lamis, Lamis.’

  As if on automatic, she paid for a ticket and joined a group of five people who were sipping champagne. To the others’ surprise, since a glass of champagne was included in the price of the ticket, Lamis refused a glass. A guide led the group towards the museum door, through which could be heard English voices, interspersed with the rattle of dishes and cutlery and the ring of crystal: ’Of course, your excellency, would you like more cognac?’

  ’Are you going to play Brahms?’

  The guide was slender, elegant. She gestured to indicate that the group should follow her. They went into a dining room where a waiter was eyeing a table on which could be seen the remains of a meal: crusts of bread, dishes of grapes and cheese, and lilies and candles. He began collecting up the dessert plates, including a plate that had not been touched. The voices came again: ’The sauce was splendid. My compliments to the chef.’

  ’Thank you, your excellency.’

  An actor entered who looked like a young painter. Although Lamis did not understand their conversation, she listened carefully and eventually worked out that he was an up-and-coming artist who had criticised Leighton’s art: he had accused Leighton of being tied to privilege, of being unable to escape his aristocratic birth, and now he wanted to apologise. Could the waiter arrange an appointment? Lamis could not take her eyes off the actor; she stared at the veins standing out on his temple. Lamis imagined herself stealing glances at a man like that from a place at the head of the table in the tableau. He would show her his paintings and she’d listen to him, then she’d rise from her seat trailing her long dress behind her like a peacock’s tail, disregarding the silver cutlery, the crystal, the vase of flowers, the carafe of wine, a half-empty glass and even his paintings, and approach the end of the table, where she’d stop and offer him her mouth.

  Lamis caught a phrase in the actor’s speech: ’a lotus in Holland Park’, and gazed past him, at the purple walls and the Persian rugs. The rest of the group began to move on. The guide looked at Lamis sharply and asked her to hurry. An actor cloaked from head to toe in a white abaya was waiting in front of closed doors. He delivered a welcome peppered with Arabic, ’Greetings, Hajj Abdullah, Glory be to God’, before he flung open the doors to a vista from One Thousand and One Nights, and the brink of the abyss.

  Turquoise domes overhead, brilliant tiles depicting birds drinking from fountains, borders of white and black and grey mosaics, Victorian columns holding aloft Qur’anic verses painted in blue.

  Lamis did not share the wonder expressed by the rest of the group. She gazed around at the various shades of turquoise, the domes of the mosques, with a feeling of familiarity. Behind saffron tiles, mausoleum walls and wooden lattices, she could envisage women who were desperate to become pregnant, to see their husbands return, or to be cured of illness; women whose features were blurred behind the circles and squares of the carved screens. She tried to remain unmoved, and yet the sound of the muezzin affected her: when she was a child her father had taken the call of the muezzin as an opportunity to hide in the basement and play his lute undetected. Incense drifted through the room. Its fragrance distracted her; it infiltrated the dusty weave of the Persian rugs and the crevices between the floorboards, drowning out the perfume from the Smarties-coloured orchids dotted here and there. A mem
ber of the group whispered, ’It’s like being in church.’

  ’It’s incense,’ his companion replied. ’Frankincense.’

  ’Frankincense comes from the Arab world.’

  ’Of course. The Three Kings and all that.’

  The group moved on. They viewed Lord Leighton’s studio, a crucible of ideas, colours, dreams of faraway countries, all together in the convolutions of a single brain; traces of anyone who had ever sat in the room, lain down, wept, laughed. The atmosphere of the past hung on in this little portion of space, nestling in the high corners, out of reach.

  Lamis was irritated by the actress in the studio. She knew she could have played the part better. She doesn’t know how to lie on the sofa, she thought, or to look out through the wooden lattices. They frame images engraved on our collective memory, not theirs. I know what those silent artefacts would like to say. I know their history and what they’ve seen. If only I could lie there while Lord Leighton mixes his colours and silence envelops the house and the wind rustles in the trees.

  Lamis opened her bag, looking for a piece of chewing gum. She wished something would happen, but what?

  She wanted to be part of a larger group that night, with a focus, a purpose. Perhaps this was what she should do in the evenings from now on. Explore the lives of others. From Lord Leighton to where? Why should everyone have to be atomised, discrete, a separate individual? What if the eye that watches over existence was exhausted, and wanted to sleep?

  Every time anyone in the group exhaled, there was a whiff of wine or champagne. They walked on. Suddenly Lamis was in darkness again. There were candles flickering here and there, on the staircase, and at doorways, giving an air of solitude to the house.

  Somebody brushed against her shoulder. She saw the gleam of spectacles and white teeth. There was the sound of breathing. A woman’s voice said, ’Sorry.’

  The warmth of the passing intimacy receded and Lamis was aware of being on her own again. The room seemed empty. One of these people must be feeling as she was now, but not making a move. Wasn’t this, too, how the English were?

  The people in the group dragged themselves along as if mesmerised by the sound of their own footsteps on the wooden floors and the Persian rugs. They looked at one another only briefly, by way of greeting, when they came face to face with some other member of the group in the dim light. Then they were at the end of the route: the room where Lord Leighton had coughed his last.

  She couldn’t believe that this had been his bedroom. It was a hermit’s cell: a simple bed against a bare wall. At night Lord Leighton had withdrawn into himself, away from beauty’s lure.

  Lamis came out light-heartedly, her guilty conscience about Belquis gone completely. She could never return to her previous life, not even for a moment, and she was glad she was divorced. She wandered into the bookshop thinking that if Belquis had been sincerely interested in the exhibition, she would have gone in on her own as well. Belquis only wanted to find out exactly what had happened to Lamis in Dubai and, in exchange, Belquis would have told Lamis exactly what people were saying about her, and the latest gossip about her former mother-in-law. Then of course Belquis would also have been able to let the others know that she had been to the exhibition and to report how amazing it was, and feel superior.

  Lamis decided to buy a book about Lord Leighton. She was in the process of making her choice when she abandoned the idea, put the book down, and hurried out to buy another ticket for the tour. She had seen the Englishman, Nicholas, the one who found her passport and who insisted on helping her carry her suitcase to the entrance hall when they dropped her off from the minibus.

  He was talking to a woman in her forties.

  Lamis went up to them. ’Nicholas, do you remember me? I shared a taxi with you.’

  ’Oh! Lamis. How wonderful. How are you? Sorry, Pamela ... Lamis.’ He introduced them, adding, ’We waited for you that night.’

  ’It’s nice to meet you,’ Lamis said. ’Are you taking the tour?’

  ’Not me,’ Pamela snapped.

  ’Pamela’s one of the creators of the show,’ Nicholas said, ’and well, yes, I’d love to take the tour. Twenty minutes in the nineteenth century. Not a bad idea at all.’

  ’Let me get both of you tickets, then,’ Pamela said.

  ’I already have one.’

  ’Then I’ll get one for you, Nicholas. Oh, I just remembered. We still owe you for the incense, don’t we. For this time, and the last.’

  ’It’s good that I stopped off in Dubai. I completely forgot about the incense when I flew to India.’

  This time Lamis had no intention of letting the darkness impose itself on her. She knew the walls of the tour of Leighton House, and the steps and doors, like a blind man who has found out by repetition and practice how to avoid the pitfalls. And as a blind man finds his way to where he wants to be.

  She pretended to be impressed by the performance although she was seeing it for the second time. Only when she smelled the incense and heard the call to prayer did she respond to the surroundings again.

  ’Like in church,’ she whispered, imitating the Englishwoman she had heard.

  ’The incense is getting up my nose,’ he whispered to her. ’I’m trembling. I want to confess.’

  ’Confess?’

  He took hold of a strand of her hair and squeezed her hand. A sound came from him, of pain or pleasure. She did not understand until he touched her face, tracing his finger over her features as if he were drawing them. He did it again and she touched his finger, and then he kissed her very gently on the lips. She could smell the orchids and the white lilies that perfumed the place. She felt her heart flutter and then pound in embarrassment as Nicholas brushed her lips again as if they were alone. They were alone; the group had moved on to the next room. His mouth was like a bee that had discovered nectar. Then he pulled her along to rejoin the group as if nothing had happened, and she was not expecting it when he returned to her lips as if he’d come to pick up something he’d left behind. Strange things happen after a Badedas bath, and after a divorce, for she’d received her first proper kiss from a man.

  Her grandmother used to say, ’Live and learn,’ and now she was doing both.

  On leaving Leighton House they strolled down Holland Park, past the lit and darkened houses. Lamis could not concentrate on what either of them said. His kiss was still breathing inside her. She did not know in which direction Nicholas was leading her as they walked, but realised that they’d made their way back to Leighton House, where Nicholas had parked his car. She was hoping that he wouldn’t ask about her car. For the first time in her life, she was embarrassed at the thought of confessing that she couldn’t drive. She was also hoping that he wouldn’t ask about her occupation, but he hesitated, and then said, ’Are you going home? Shall I give you a lift?’

  ’Yes, thank you.’

  Did he think that she wanted to leave? She’d been withdrawn during their walk. Maybe he thought she was regretting their kiss.

  While Nicholas drove, Lamis regarded herself dispassionately, amazed at how, in the space of a few moments, she’d been stripped of her confusion and loneliness.

  Everything seemed far away and unimportant: the divorce, the boxes and suitcases piled in the empty flat, learning to talk with an English accent, the search for a job - as if all she desired was a man who would kiss her exactly as Nicholas had done, in the London night.

  II

  ’Come on, let’s take the bus, Amira. It’s getting cold. When my make-up gets cold, it fades ... believe me. Besides, the bus stop isn’t near the Dorchester. Nobody will see us getting off.’

  ’But what about the tree guarding the hotel, with all its lights like hundreds of Rudolph-the-Reindeer noses?’

  Amira and Nahid waited until they found a taxi. Amira told the driver to drop them at the Dorchester. At the hotel’s entrance she tipped the porter five pounds, and the two women, pretending to be composed and sure of themselves, were
ushered to a table in the lobby that was converted into a tearoom every afternoon, where they sat down, confident in the knowledge that the beauty of the surroundings, the melody from the piano, the dinner lights, the fragrance from the huge bouquet of flowers, created the essential European atmosphere that would summon two Arab punters in no time.

  The arrival of an Arab entourage interrupted the hotel’s usual routine: several attendants followed one woman, whose footsteps made no sound as they crossed the thick carpet and the mirror-bright marble floor. The black abayas worn by the women stood out against the starched, ice-white hotel tablecloths. Whispers rose above the sound of the piano, ’S ... s ... princess ... princess ...’ and surged into the head waiter, pumping him with vitality and self-importance at serving someone as imposing as an Arabian princess.

  The Princess was seated at a table. One of her entourage, an Englishman, spoke to a waiter; another, an Arab, turned his attention to the Princess’s three women companions, then both men left the four women at the table.

  ’She must be a very important princess,’ said Nahid. ’One day,’ she joked, turning back to Amira, ’you’ll be a princess.’

  ’But did you notice her hand? I think she has some sort of disease. It looked as if she was wearing a spotted glove.’

  The two women sat mesmerised, still as statues, watching the Princess. Other people, Arabs and Westerners, were staring discreetly at the Princess’s table, and the piano player started to show off.

  ’When I was a child the teacher asked me to return her teacup to the staff room.’ Nahid spoke at last. ’I was so proud I put my own lips to the mark left by her lipstick before I put the cup down.’

  Amira was not listening. She continued to keep her eyes fixed on the Princess’s table. Another woman entered. Immediately the head waiter was beside her, a master of protocol, guiding her over to the Princess. The newcomer kissed the Princess on both cheeks, and then kissed her three companions, and one gave up her seat so the visitor could sit next to the Princess. Yet as soon as the woman sat down, her beauty, her expensive handbag, her magnificent jewellery, were eclipsed, even though the Princess had left her face plain, with no make-up other than the fading lipstick on her mouth. Her clothes were expensive but modest. She wore a diamond-studded watch on her wrist, and one ring. Her shining jet-black hair was her most attractive attribute. Her neck was fat; her arms, clothed in the fine wool of her jacket, were fat. Amira suddenly came to life.