*
Farid introduces her to a woman named Maryam: his confidante, he says. Maryam is Iranian, only a year or so older than Ruth, with two small boys, Harun and Qasim. The boys are not-quite-four and three, young enough to be playmates for Anna, and on the days when they have Anna with them, they call in at her apartment. Ruth is shocked to discover, after their first meeting, that Maryam is Farid’s father’s second wife. She has read in her guidebook about Islam allowing a man to take multiple wives, and she knows the King of Bahrain has four. But she had not expected ordinary people – people she knew – people who were, to all other appearances, modern – to practise such customs. If she had not grown to trust Farid, she might have been repelled by it. But when he explains how it came about (his father married, soon after his mother died, a woman much older who could keep house, but who gave him no sons; Maryam fled from Iran with nothing after both of her parents were executed, and his father, a distant cousin, took pity on her and fell in love, married her and set her up in an apartment), it is so practical and matter-of-fact that Ruth finds herself understanding it. Maryam lives with her boys, and sees her husband two or three evenings a week. On holy days or family occasions, she joins the rest of the family in the compound – she is not a secret, or an outcast. In her spare time, she is studying for a business certificate, so that one day she can help Harun with his various enterprises. She seems happy with the set-up, and unembarrassed: from her point of view there is nothing salacious about it, Ruth realises, nothing of the stuff of dodgy late-night movies or tawdry travellers’ tales. She had not known such other lives were possible.
Maryam’s English is poor, but she is kind to Ruth, and they communicate through gestures and laughs, and Farid’s translations. Maryam shows Ruth how to cook thick, salty Persian pancakes, on a gas stove on the kitchen floor, and she shows Ruth how to drape and secure a veil. When Ruth questions her about her life, here and before, in Iran, she tells of whole relationships conducted by text message and email, by long phone calls at night. You pass your number to a friend, written on a tiny, rolled-up slip of paper, and that friend will pass it on to another friend, and to another. Eventually, a boy might text you, and after a while you will email, exchange pictures, and then you might speak. You will never meet in person. You will do everything a normal couple might do – talk, fall in love, make love, argue, split up – without ever meeting.
Ruth’s mind whirls with what she is learning. She had not known that so many other lives were possible, that so many other worlds existed.
2
Noor’s plan was falling into place: just as if it was meant to be. Since returning from the al-Husayn compound, she had resumed her diet with a vengeance, allowing herself little more than a low-fat yogurt, an apple and one piece of toast a day. She was sure that Sampaguita knew: the witchy old woman always seemed to know everything, and she had started trying to foist bowls of crema de fruta or fried cassava with egg-yolk custard on Noor. But Noor was cleverer than Sampaguita: she would take the food without protest, go into her bedroom, leaving the door ajar, and make noises like she was eating it – clattering the spoon on the bowl, smacking her lips – then scrape the fatty mess into a shopping bag and later, when Sampaguita was gone or occupied elsewhere, flush it down the toilet. The crash diet was working: the weight was melting off once more.
Making an effort with her father was paying dividends, too. The politer she was with him, she was finding, the less he questioned her or watched her. By complying with a few of his simplest rules – that she dress modestly, that she not answer him back, that she give the outward signs of respect for him like bringing his indoor flip-flops, refilling his glass of tea – she was able to fool him into the sense that she was settling down, accepting her new life in Bahrain. She felt him relax, and relax his vigilance over her. He started to smile at her again, and once or twice even revived a silly childhood joke between them. Whenever he encouraged her to come along with him to the al-Husayn compound, she used the excuse that she wanted to study in preparation for her new school. Sometimes, she said she was going out with Farid – which was not wholly a lie – and one morning, when he frowned at her spending so much time with the missionaries, she hurried to explain that she hardly ever saw them at all, that it was the baby she was looking after – and it was good for her to have responsibility. This was a Dr Badawi idea, and she knew he couldn’t argue with it.
‘You’re OK,’ he said, tentatively, one evening. It was not quite a statement, but not quite a question, either. ‘You’re getting better.’
‘I am, Baba,’ she said. ‘I really am.’ And she was.
Best of all was the fact that Ruth was busy suddenly – with church, and outings with some of her churchgoing friends – and she was glad of Noor’s help with Anna. It was almost, Noor wrote in her diary, as if she was being given the opportunity to prove herself, to prove how useful she was, how needed.
During the day, when Anna was having her nap – she slept for an hour or so after lunch – Noor would wander through the villa strewn with the Armstrongs’ things, and let herself pretend that this was their house in Ireland, and they were living all together. At first, she confined her fantasy to the living room and central spaces. Touching Euan’s books, tidying Anna’s toys, draping over her shoulders a cardigan that Ruth had left lying around. But then, one day, she went into the bedroom. She didn’t do anything, not then – she didn’t even touch anything. She just stood there, breathing the air (which still smelt faintly of sleep, unventilated), her heart beating inexplicably fast. The next day, she sat on the edge of the bed, and the next she lay down on it, working out which side Ruth slept on, and which Euan. She found the T-shirt that Ruth slept in (how odd, to think that she slept in a faded old T-shirt! Noor had imagined her in something much more glamorous, silky pyjamas, perhaps, or a slithery nightdress) and inhaled Ruth’s faint, soapy perfume. Then she folded it back under the pillow, lay down with the sheet pulled over her head, and let her fantasy roll: the fever, the helplessness, and Ruth and Euan being there.
Day by day, growing bolder, she took to looking at their things, riffling through them, touching them. She found Euan’s ring-bound notebook, in which he planned his sermons. Ruth’s Arabic phrase book, with a sheet folded inside: Muslim parables entitled THREE STORIES ABOUT GOD. The stories seemed vaguely familiar, but she could not place them. She put the piece of paper back exactly how she’d found it – she was always careful to do this. She didn’t mean any harm, by looking. She didn’t intend to take anything: just to know them, these scraps of the Armstrongs’ world. She found a stack of Irish linen tea towels, which Ruth must have brought over to give as presents, some with an Irish poem printed onto them, others with an illustrated map. The map she thought childish – but she learned the words of the poem, until she had them by heart. May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm on your face and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. She found an envelope of photographs, too, of Ruth and Euan and Anna, of what must be Ruth’s family farm in Ireland, the cottage they lived in, the lough. She pored over the photographs, until she no longer needed them to summon up the scenes in her mind.
*
Out of the blue one day, Ruth suggested that Noor might like to take Anna over to her own villa, and Noor wondered if she’d been found out: if she’d forgotten to wipe fingerprints from the photos, or to put something back exactly the way it had been. She stared at Ruth, searching her face for signs of anger, or displeasure. But Ruth’s face was perfectly calm and kindly. Noor’s villa was more comfortable, she said, its carpets and cushions were better for a toddler than her own, with its hard marble floors and sharp-edged tables. It might be easier to look after Anna there. Ruth was right. And Noor found she enjoyed having Anna in her villa, showing off – she could not help showing off – in front of Sampaguita, or her father, if he was there. How good she was with
the child, how much Ruth Armstrong trusted her. Sometimes her father would snort and say, how come she showed no interest in her cousins’ babies, her own relations? But she just laughed: of course he didn’t, couldn’t, understand how different this was.
*
In the evenings, when Ruth came home and collected Anna again, Noor would join them for Anna’s supper. She loved these suppers. Sometimes, if Ruth ate, she even allowed herself to eat a little, too: sharing whatever food Ruth’s maids had prepared. Noor would talk about the day, telling Ruth about the things she’d done with Anna – the pictures they’d drawn, the finger-painting they’d done, the games they’d played. And then she’d ask questions, questions she prepared and rehearsed each night, to show her interest in Ireland and in Christianity. One evening, Ruth gave Noor her very own Gospel of Matthew to read: and Noor was so taken aback by her kindness, by the meaningfulness of the gesture, that she almost started crying.
For a week, then, she read Ruth’s Gospel of Matthew obsessively, long into the night each night. It gave her a peculiar thrill to be reading the same words that Ruth had read: I know that sounds like a stupid thing to say, she wrote, because of course they’re the same words, but you know what I mean!
She appropriated a torch from the kitchen in case her father, coming home late from the hospital after some complicated surgery, or from smoking a pipe with her uncle, might see the light on under the bedroom door and catch her in the act. But on the nights that he came home late he merely kicked off his shoes, grunting, and shuffled slipper-footed to his room, not noticing or caring that Noor was still up.
The little book was worn, its pages thumbed soft at the edges and its imitation leather peeling. It was not a beautiful object. It was not made to last, either. It was a cheap, mass-produced edition, made for quantity rather than quality, its printing often fuzzy and its ink smudged. But Noor held and treated it with reverence, keeping it on a cloth on the shelf, as her cousins did the Qur’an, taking care to turn each thin page without dog-earing or ripping it further.
She read each chapter, each verse, not skipping a single word of the dull bits, the lists and litanies, mouthing the difficult words. After the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel. She knew the story of the Nativity, of course, but she knew Luke’s version: Caesar Augustus’s census and no room at the inn; the little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes while the shepherds and angels watched the flocks. Matthew’s account was swifter, scarier: the escape to Egypt, the killing of the baby boys – and suddenly, no mention of his childhood or questions at the temple, Jesus is grown and asking to be baptised and being tempted in the desert.
And then the Sermon on the Mount. The spine of the little book was broken at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, and in the margins was written, in faded biro, This is the most important sermon ever given – these are all the guidelines you need by which to live your life.
As she read, it made her shiver to think that these were Jesus’s words – his actual words – and these were the words that Ruth had read, over and over, she had said, until she had them by heart. When Noor came to the Lord’s Prayer, she tried to pray it with meaning, instead of rattling through the empty rhythms as she had done most mornings in house assembly. She read the Parables – the Parable of the Weeds and the Parable of the Mustard Seed and Yeast, the Parable of the Pearl and the Parable of the Net. She read each word fiercely, trying to understand them. She read about the Miracles, the walking on water and feeding the five thousand, the driving out of demons and raising of the dead. She read so intently, she almost cried when she reached the Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In those nights, she almost felt that she had been there, that she was there: it was not difficult to imagine the hot and dusty Place of the Skull and the bushes of thorns, the vinegared sponge impaled on a stick and the sun beating down, the sweating of soldiers startled in the distance.
Every evening for the rest of that week, Noor talked with Ruth about what she had read the night before. Why should it be, she asked, that a man should be turned against his father, a daughter against her mother? When Herod declared that the babies should be murdered, why did God not intervene? How are people like salt? What happened to the poor farmers who lost their pigs, and why did the workers in the vineyard all get the same pay? Question after question: and Ruth answered them all.
And then, one day, when she had read the book of Matthew three times through, she knew it was time.
*
It was a hot, dry day nine days into April. Winds were blowing across from the Sahara coating Manama in fine red dust and Ruth had returned early from her excursion with her friends. Anna had been in the middle of her afternoon nap at Noor’s villa, and they had carried her over the road without waking her up. Now she was napping in her cot and the maids were in the kitchen; it was just the two of them, alone in the living room; a perfect moment.
‘Ruth,’ she said, ‘I think I want to be a Christian but I don’t know how. Will you pray with me?’ She gabbled the words too fast, and Ruth did not hear her; she had to repeat them, her face on fire. How many times she had said those words in her head, practised whispering them in front of the mirror!
For a moment, she thought that Ruth was going to refuse: to say that Noor was not ready, or not worthy. But then Ruth shrugged and said, ‘Sure,’ and gestured for Noor to sit down on the divan.
Noor closed her eyes and tried to block out the thin jabbering of the radio and the rumble of the tumble-dryer in the next room; to concentrate solely on the words that Ruth was saying. ‘Our father,’ Ruth began. She placed the flat of her hand lightly on Noor’s bowed head, and Noor was glad that she had washed her hair that morning.
‘Our father in heaven.’
The hairs on the nape of her neck were stirring and she felt the skin of her legs pimpling. The velvet of the divan was pressing into the bare backs of her thighs; she could feel it, every tuft and fibre. Her hands were dampening in her lap. She tried again to concentrate, all too conscious of her physical body, of her proximity to Ruth. She could feel Ruth’s breath on her neck, the warmth of Ruth’s body, Ruth’s sweet, clean smell. Her stomach was churning. It let out a gurgle and she squirmed, hoping Ruth hadn’t heard.
‘I am sorry for the wrong I have done in my life,’ Ruth was intoning, ‘and for those I have wronged. For all I have done, I ask your forgiveness. OK, Noor,’ Ruth said, making her jump. ‘I want you just to take a moment to think about the sins you’ve committed, the people you’ve hurt. Reflect on them, and ask in your heart for God’s forgiveness.’
‘OK,’ Noor said. Then she said, ‘Ruth, there’s too much to know where to start. I’ve tried to tell you before – I’m a bad person, I really am. I’ve done some terrible things.’
‘We all have,’ Ruth replied, distant. ‘Just think on them, and ask God to forgive you, and He will.’
‘OK.’ Noor took a shaky breath, and let herself see Hong Chang Jones. The chubby face, the eyes that disappeared into her cheeks when she smiled, like a hamster, they all used to say. Hamsterface Jones. Her slightly protruding teeth and inability to pronounce the letter r, the way she said her own name, Hoh-chah-joh, they all used to whisper at roll-call, just loud enough that she could hear, but not the teacher. How they’d all laughed when she announced that she wanted to change her name to Rose. Roh-hoh-chah-joh, it had become then, until they tired of that and went back to Hong, which was easier to rhyme with Pong, and Mong. Noor saw them all following her down the corridor to the locker room, hunching their necks into their shoulders – Hong was short, and squat – and pulling their eyes into slits. Annabel Varley, raising her hand in history and asking, innocent-eyed, if it was true that Chinese people were only allowed one child and they all wanted boys, so they tried to abort their girl babies, often very late in term, leading to hideous birth defects if the abortion failed? And then, that lunchtime,
setting up a society to raise money for the poor deformed girl babies – asking the house mistress to announce a collection in house assembly, printing posters with Photoshopped images of dribbling, squash-faced Chinese babies for the society’s noticeboard. Hong, all the while, knowing it was her, it was all about her, and unable to do anything. And Noor had joined in – Noor had joined in gladly. She had come up with all manner of small, clever persecutions: not enough for teachers to realise what was going on, or to get them in trouble if someone did realise what was going on, but enough for Hong to know. Asking the drama mistress to stage a celebration of Chinese New Year with Hong at the centre, working out that Hong’s name anagrammed to Gang Chosen John, and spending a whole morning asking, Who have the gang chosen, Hong? and sniggering at her confusion, her pathetic attempts to laugh and pretend she understood. The truth was: Noor was relieved that the focus had moved away from her. Since September 11th, she had been the focus of the clique’s attention. The societies they formed then had been Anti-Arab Coalitions – changed to Anti-Al-Qaeda when Miss Williams, the English teacher, had intervened and pointed out that Anti-Arab was a sweeping generalisation. When they had assemblies for the victims of the Twin Towers and their families, she knew that Lily Carrington-Villiers or Emily-May Brierly or whoever stood up to read, voice quavering just enough, a practised tear in the eye, was directing their words at her. Hussain was hissed in roll-call; leering photos of Saddam appeared on the charities noticeboards. When Hong joined their year and the focus shifted to her, Noor leapt to join in. The house mistress had placed Hong under Noor’s protection, asking Noor to show the new girl round and look out for her. Perhaps she had sensed that Noor, the fat girl always on her own when people paired up in lessons, was in need of a friend. But Noor could not allow herself to become friends with Hong: the new girl was too useful as a target, a foil. When Hong asked her to visit Beijing in their Christmas holidays, there was no way that Noor could accept – and she felt disgusted that Hong had asked, knowing that Hong’s parents must have suggested she ask a friend home, and Hong did not dare admit that she had none. She told Lily and Emily-May and it became more fodder for their tormenting. Things had not let up over the holidays, either: they had worked out when she would be online at home and swamped her MSN Messenger in comments, put up recipes for dog soup in chatrooms she visited. And on the first day of term, Noor walked into the dorm room she shared with Hong and two other girls to see Hong hanging from the top bunk bed with a noose made from her tights, her face purple, a pool of urine spreading on the floor. Her eyes were open, bulging, staring straight at Noor. One of them was bright red: the capillaries had burst and it was swollen with blood. Hong’s eyes saying: You did this. You.
The Meeting Point Page 17