The Meeting Point

by Lucy Caldwell

  *

  Noor felt herself shaking. Please, God, she begged in her head. Please forgive me. Please, Hong, forgive me. Please, Jesus. Please.

  ‘All right,’ Ruth was saying, ‘if you’ve reflected on your wrongs—’

  ‘God can’t forgive me,’ Noor burst out. ‘He can’t, not the things I’ve done.’

  ‘God can forgive anything,’ Ruth said. ‘Even the most heinous of crimes, if repentance is true, then God forgives. The blood of Jesus Christ Our Lord was spilled so that we may be cleansed, so that we may be washed white as snow, and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’

  ‘He will truly forgive me?’

  ‘If you mean it in your heart, and ask Him, then he will forgive.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Yes, Noor. Will we carry on, then? Thank you God our heavenly Father for sending us your only son, Jesus Christ, to be born as a man and live as a man and die as a man, on the Cross, for our sins, and for the sins of humankind. In Christ we are all forgiven. From now on I will live my life by Him.’

  I will, Noor thought. I will: I promise I will.

  ‘I ask, now, for you to enter the heart of this girl, Noor Hussain, and to be with her, and to stay with her, and help her grow within you. Amen.’

  She had been holding her breath. She let it out in a long, shuddering gasp, and felt her body trembling.

  ‘Amen,’ she managed.

  ‘OK?’ Ruth said.

  ‘OK,’ Noor whispered. She felt so weak that if she tried to stand, she knew, her legs would buckle beneath her. ‘Ruth,’ she said, ‘is that it? I mean – am I a Christian?’

  Ruth looked at her with an expression Noor did not understand. ‘Well,’ she eventually said, ‘you’re not baptised, so in that sense not officially. But yes, you have just asked Jesus into your heart.’

  Noor’s heart was racing but she did not feel any different. ‘Shouldn’t I feel it?’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t I feel – or know – something?’

  Ruth shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Some people feel calmer, more peaceful. Some people feel joy. But it doesn’t necessarily happen right away. It might take time. You never know how the Holy Spirit will move in you. Some people might be moved to tears or laughter, but others …’ She trailed off.

  ‘What did you feel?’

  ‘What did I feel?’

  ‘When you asked – asked Jesus into your heart.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ruth said, straightening up and turning away. ‘I don’t remember. It’s different for everyone.’

  Ruth seemed distracted, Noor thought. All she wanted was to stay there, to prolong the moment, she and Ruth praying together. But it was evident that Ruth was preoccupied. So she got to her feet – she did not think they would support her, but they did – and gathered up her things and went back home.

  She was surprised at how weepy she felt, that evening: as if the slightest thing could set her off. A pat on the cheek from Sampaguita. The TV footage of Private Jessica Lynch being flown to Germany, and the joy of her family, played on a loop on CNN. Her own mother phoned and she found herself crying on the phone, even though they were only talking about the weather in England, a trip into London to see an opera with Jamie and his girlfriend, a scandal (Noor could not follow the details) at tennis club.

  ‘Are you all right, Noor?’ her mother asked, but Noor did not have the words to reply and she hung up the phone instead.

  She tried to write in her diary how she felt, but she could not find the right words for that, either, and when she did find the words she could not seem to get them in the right order. And then, when the words started coming, she found they were not a diary entry at all.

  The Diary of Noor Hussain

  Wednesday, 9th April 2003

  Dear Mr and Mrs Chang Jones,

  I know it’s no use me saying sorry but believe me I will be sorry to my dying day and beyond for the rest of my life always for what happened to Hong. I wish I knew then what I know now because truly I wouldn’t have behaved in the way that I did. At the time it was me or her, I know that doesn’t make it any easier for you and I know it doesn’t change what I did or how wrong it was but that was the way it was you have to understand. If I had it all again I wouldn’t do half of the things I did and I would be friends with Hong because she was really honestly a nice and sweet girl and I wish I had come to Beijing with her over the holidays like she asked because the honest truth is she is the only one who ever invited me to her home since I started at secondary school. And you won’t know this but I saw you on the day you arrived at school, two days after it happened. I was in East Wing watching at the window for my mother to arrive and I saw your taxi pull up, and the two of you get out, and I saw you Mrs Chang Jones wobble on your feet and then straighten up and your husband had his arm around your waist and you stood there for a long time, well it seemed like a long time, maybe 2 or 3 whole minutes, just standing, looking at the school. And you looked up to the window where I was, only you didn’t see me there. But I was watching you, and I swear to you, I would have killed myself there and then if it would have brought back Hong. And you didn’t know what had happened or rather why it had happened because Hong didn’t leave a note. But everyone knew. And I didn’t even care that they all said it was me, because it was me, and what I did was worse than any of them because I knew how bad it was when you were on the receiving end. Some of them, I think they were just having fun. I know what that must sound like to you but what I mean is they didn’t know how bad it felt and I did, so I should have protected Hong and been her friend and maybe we would have been ok, so long as there were two of us. I don’t know – we’ll never know – and I am so, so sorry. And there have been so many times I’ve thought I’d kill myself, too, that that was the only way, and I think I might have done it if it wasn’t for Ruth Armstrong, who is the wife of a minister who has come to Bahrain, and who is showing me the truth and the way. And maybe this letter doesn’t make sense to you and maybe you don’t even want to know what I have to say because none of it makes any difference, really, because none of it can bring Hong back. And I can’t ask for her forgiveness even though I dream about her most nights and I probably can’t ask for yours because I can’t imagine that you’d forgive me, so I won’t, but again I just want you to know how sorry I am.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Noor Hussain.

  Noor tore the letter out of her diary, carefully, using the edge of a ruler. She folded it up in a tight little packet and hid it in the basement, down the side of the packing crate where she used to keep her stolen cigarettes. She did not think she would ever send that letter. But she had written it. Somewhere, somehow, perhaps Hong’s parents – or Hong herself – would know.

  3

  Her new life was an edifice built on sand.

  It started to crumble with what seemed a chance remark. Maryam had promised to take her to a beauty parlour, and on the chosen morning Farid collected her, dropped her off, and took the boys for ice cream on the Corniche. Maryam led her through the backstreets and up a flight of stairs marked, at regular intervals, with WOMEN ONLY in Arabic, Farsi, French, English. Inside, Ruth was shocked to see the abaya-clad women disrobing: they shed their flittering veils like skins, and underneath they wore tight jeans, high heels, and full faces of make-up. Maryam was having her face threaded: her upper lip and cheeks and chin, and Ruth had her eyebrows shaped. Afterwards, looking in the mirror, she was surprised to see how big and flirtatious her eyes looked, framed by teasingly arched brows. While she waited for Maryam’s treatment to finish, she watched two Indian girls having mehendi: henna patterns applied on their hands. When they noticed Ruth’s curiosity, they insisted on doing hers, too: not a full design, just the palm and wrist. It lasted up to six weeks, they told her, before it faded. Would she be back home by then? they asked. She could show all her friends, they giggled, and make them jealous.

  She had a slight stab of fear when they said this, at the thought of where she would be
in six weeks. Since the first lunch in the Persian restaurant, since the affair, she had not missed Ireland. For the first time ever, she had been faintly bored during her mother’s conversation about farm life, had started to lose track of which cows had calved or died. The prospect of life back home seemed suddenly dull: colourless, adventureless, and she saw herself there miserable, with no escape from church coffee mornings and the mounting duties of a minister’s wife.

  She tried to dismiss the thoughts, but Maryam had seen her face, seen the panic flit across it. As they were leaving the beauty parlour – Ruth careful of her newly hennaed hand, smeared in Vaseline until the patterns dried – Maryam turned to her and said, ‘Be careful of him, Ruth. I like him a lot. Please don’t hurt him. He is only young.’

  Ruth stared at her, felt her mouth open and close, uselessly. They had been careful to introduce her to Maryam as a friend, been careful not to touch or give any other indication of their intimacy in front of her. She suddenly felt foolish, and responsible.

  ‘I do not think you are a selfish person, Ruth,’ Maryam went on carefully. Later, she realised that Maryam had obviously chosen and learned her words, and she wondered if the whole beauty parlour trip had been planned for this purpose, for the opportunity to say them.

  ‘I—’ she said, and she stopped. ‘It’s not like that,’ she tried. But her objections sounded lame, even to her own ears.

  ‘There are punishments for adultery,’ Maryam said, softly, not looking at her. ‘It is a crime, Ruth, as severe as murder under sharia law. Bahrain is more liberal than most countries – than Saudi Arabia, say, or Iran, or even Dubai. In some countries, you can be stoned to death. Here, it will be lashes, or a term in jail. For Farid, the punishment will be greater, and the consequences of that punishment. Be careful, please.’

  She had thought Maryam her friend, and Farid’s: but now she saw that Maryam was a cover story, an alibi. It was a game, and she did not know the rules. No: ‘game’ was wrong. It was not a game. It had been a game – she had treated it as a game – but it was all too real.

  *

  Farid brushed away her concerns, when she raised them. She was careful not to say it was Maryam who had warned her – but an article in the Gulf Daily News, she said, that she’d happened to read. They would not be caught, he said. Under the law, you needed four witnesses to catch you in the act. Unless the authorities had another reason, or unless they’d been tipped off and had to act, they would not bother to enforce the law. Why – he even laughed at this point – did she think they had taken so many precautions? It was not just for her husband’s benefit, surely she had realised that?

  They had lunch, but even in the cloistered cubicle of the restaurant she was jumpy. Farid reassured her, time and again. But the fears would not dissolve. They had plans for the afternoon – to drive up to Buddayi’ Harbour and see the sailboats – but she asked him to take her home early. When he protested, she said it was not just the worry – she had a headache, brought on by the fumes in the salon, maybe. It was a pointless lie, and a bad one. There were things she had not told him, of course – about the bible-smuggling, the underground cell. The real reasons for their being in Bahrain. But these were omissions, not direct untruths. This was the first time she had lied to him, and he knew she was lying. He said nothing, but the reproach in his eyes was terrible.

  Noor was surprised to see her back so early. When she followed Ruth into the house, talking, Ruth did not have the strength to stop her, or to turn her away. Noor had taken to hanging around, each day, after Ruth collected Anna. Even if Ruth tried to indicate that she would rather be alone – by going into the living room and switching on the television – Noor would follow her, copy her, and Ruth tried to tolerate it as the price for having a babysitter every day. She was starting, though, to dislike Noor: to feel uncomfortable around her. Strangely, Noor was the only person who could make her feel guilty and deceptive about what she was doing. Noor swallowed every line Ruth fed her: about a sudden increase in church-related work, about meeting Euan for lunch, about outings with Rosa. It was as if, having made up her mind to think Ruth good and kind, she was incapable of seeing otherwise. When Noor asked her to pray, she almost said no. She had stopped praying, after the day at Al Bander, and stopped even trying to pray. Once, it had been as natural as believing, and the Holy Spirit as tangible as breath. Once, the words of the Bible had power: they were not only vehicles for the truth, they were the truth, the word of God, God. But now they just seemed words, loose, rustling, disposable. If Noor had asked on any other day, Ruth would have fobbed her off, found some excuse – telling her to ask Euan, perhaps. But that afternoon, something in her wondered – some tiny, residual voice – if she prayed for help, would God answer?

  *

  For the rest of the day, Maryam’s remarks rang in her ears, and for the first time, she started to question what she was doing. What she and Farid had just done, without thinking or talking of what they were doing. They had been blithe, wild, free, caring only of their own pleasure. The last weeks had been a fantasy, a madness, the most liberating – liberated – days of her life. But suddenly the henna on her hand – blazing, scarlet and orange – seemed like a branding. That evening, she felt nervous lying to Euan about what it was and where it came from, about where she had spent her day. She wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. She thought of the time she had come back sunburned from Al Jayazir. That night, as she applied aloe vera to the blistered skin, she had waited for him to ask what she had been doing to get so burned. Eventually, unable to bear it any longer, she had said herself, ‘I got a bit burned today.’ But all he replied was, ‘Yes, you’ll have to be a bit more careful.’ She had thought, at the time, that she had got away with it. Euan was so engrossed in Saudi Arabia, so exhausted by it, that he had no time for Bahrain. He and the cell had been amassing Christian material to take on their trip: the gospels inside the pens and encoded on USB memory sticks, audio files of sermons and inspirational speakers, New Testaments in Arabic and Tagalog and Hindi and Malayalam. They were finalising their itineraries and cover stories, getting the necessary papers and signatures and stamps. Some documents needed as many as twelve or thirteen signatures, in a specific order, or they could be refused entry to – or worse, exit from – the Kingdom. They were memorising street names and addresses, phone numbers, safe houses and meeting points, places they could be safe if they were discovered or betrayed. They were learning code words and passwords for taxi drivers and compounds, being trained to take circuitous routes so that they did not draw undue attention to the places they were going. Their mission was to be the biggest, the most comprehensive, that any underground Christian network had undertaken in years. She was not supposed to know any of this. But Euan could not help telling her: it was an I told you so, she thought, a proof of the magnitude of the undertaking. He was trying to awe her into submission, because he still sensed that she was not supportive of him, had not yet forgiven him. She had listened, for the most part, in silence to his secrets; all the while cherishing her own. It gave her a strange, hot pleasure to think that he knew nothing of her secret world. But suddenly she was no longer sure: of this, or of anything. She had not considered – it sounded ludicrous, but it was true – what the consequences might be if Euan did find out. A squirm of fear twisted in her bowels. She tried to still it by telling herself that nobody did know; that Maryam had no proof of anything; that it would serve Euan no purpose confronting her. Of course he did not, could not, know. He was too dazzled by his Kingdom to see her shadows. She told herself this, ordering herself to calm down and stop being paranoid. But the doubt was there now, and that night she could not sleep.

  *

  The following morning, Trudy called by, and told Ruth that she and her husband were going home.

  ‘As an American, I just do not feel safe here,’ she said, ‘and I do not feel safe with Patrick going out to work all day with Arabs.’ Ay-rabs, she said, Ay-rab. ‘You just c
an’t trust an Arab,’ she said, and she looked at Ruth with sly eyes. ‘You have Arab friends here, don’t you?’

  Ruth realised that she should have kept up with the neighbours, endured the pumpkin pie and Indian sweets. For the last two weeks, she had been coming back to find notes on the porch, covered plates of food; and she had never gotten around to reciprocating, to returning the visits.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, keeping her voice light. ‘I’ve found Bahrainis to be very friendly, actually.’