Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  Rickie Zussman broke his silence, for the first time since the meal began. “I don’t know much about Western Australia,” he said. “But I feel that must be a very mistaken notion.”

  Frances began to collect the plates; Marion half rose from her chair, Frances said “No, no,” but Marion followed her to the kitchen. “Just stack up everything there,” Frances said. She turned her attention to the lemon sauce for the veal. Another floating speck; she tried to skim it off. Examined the carrots. Not good.

  “What is it?” Marion asked, peering into the serving dishes.

  “I’m afraid,” Frances said, “the fucking Saudiflon is coming off the pans.”

  Marion picked up a spoon and began to stab and scrape at the vegetables, her tongue between her teeth.

  “You can’t do that,” Frances said. “We’ll be here all night.”

  “Slosh some more butter on. They’ll never know.”

  “That’ll just make it float about on top.”

  “Well, never mind,” Marion said. “I’ll bring the salad, shall I? I don’t suppose Saudiflon tastes of anything. With luck they’ll just think it’s black pepper.”

  When they got back to the dining room Russel was smoking already. He offered a cigarette to Daphne. “I don’t mind women smoking,” he explained, “but I don’t like to see it in my wife.”

  Marion sat down, without looking at him, and kicked off her shoes under the table. “I’ll find you an ashtray,” Frances said.

  She disliked, in particular, the way the flesh welled over Russel’s collar. She thought, you think you’re such a philanthropist, don’t you, to marry her and give her a couple of children; Mr. Big-Heart. Carla Zussman, from the other end of the table, gave her a tight, compressed smile.

  “Ah, Frances,” Eric Parsons said. “If you’ve finished flitting about … I’ve heard of a job prospect. An old friend of mine is leaving the Kingdom, and his wife used to do a bit of filing for this firm … I’ve got her telephone number here.”

  “I don’t want to do filing,” Frances said, summoning a reserve of pleasantness. I must do better than this, she thought; after all, I invited them here.

  “Oh, but it’s an opportunity,” Daphne Parsons said. She tilted her head charmingly, and gave Frances her best poison-madonna smile; with her knife, she delicately scraped at the fragment of veal on her plate.

  “It’s not what I call an opportunity,” Frances said.

  “You’re not worried about the police, are you?”

  “Not really, but then if you are going to do something illegal, it ought to be something a bit more exciting.”

  “But what do you do all day? You don’t see anyone, do you?”

  “I see my neighbors.”

  “Oh, you bother with Raji’s wife.” Russel stubbed out his cigarette in the saucer she had found for him. “Shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t try to put some sort of a deal your way, Andrew. Raji’s a crook.”

  Jeff said, with his mouth full, “They’re all crooks.” He reached for the carafe, and Andrew shifted in his chair, watchful host, ready to replenish it when there was a gap in the conversation. “But then I’m a cynic,” Jeff said.

  “Are you?” Frances asked him. “Are you proud of that?”

  “Yes … why not?”

  “I think being a cynic only means you’ve had a lot of disappointments in your life. That’s nothing to be proud of.”

  There was a short pause. “Very philosophical,” Russel said. “Frances is a clever girl. She thinks she’s above office work, Daphne.”

  “I do, really,” Frances said.

  “It’s the best offer you’ll get, I’m afraid,” Daphne said airily. “You’ll get awfully bored, as the months go by.”

  “Yes, I know you mean for the best, but I’m just not cut out to be a filing clerk.”

  Carla Zussman put down her fork. “Honey,” she said firmly, “if you don’t want the job, you don’t take it.”

  The doorbell rang. Saved, Frances thought. “I’ll get it.” There’s a limit to how rude you can be at your own dinner party, she thought; more’s the pity.

  Yasmin was giving a dinner party too, though for her it was more routine; Frances had made extra bowls of salad, and had taken one across the hall, and one upstairs to Samira. Sarsaparilla had opened the door, and a tear had run slowly down her cheek and dropped into the vinaigrette.

  Now Yasmin had returned some dessert, a pale and creamy dish strewn with chopped nuts. Frances tasted it. Andrew came into the kitchen behind her. “Are you going to give it to them? It looks a bit unappetizing.”

  “It’s nice.” She offered him some, on the tip of a spoon, but he backed off.

  “Try and be nice yourself,” he said. “What’re those black spots that are in everything?”

  “It came off the pans.”

  “Oh, no … Did it? Why didn’t you notice?”

  “Because I’m incompetent,” she said calmly. She bent down to take a jug of cream from the fridge. “I’d never make a filing clerk.”

  As she returned to the dining room she hugged herself, mentally, whispering consoling words. They’ve drunk their wine, haven’t they, they’ve eaten their veal, or most of it. They haven’t said, is this by any chance Saudiflon? They can’t have seen it. Or politeness wouldn’t constrain them. Politeness? Pollard? Russel Smallbone? They haven’t really noticed the food, that’s what it is. They’re too busy boasting, about the vacations they’re planning for next summer, about how their unit trusts have gone up. She resumed her seat. Only the Zussmans were not boasting. They had transferred their salad from their bowls to their plates, and they were cutting the lettuce up small, and eating every scrap, eating every leaf, with a concentrated energy; as if they had been told that some starving child in Africa would be glad of it. Rickie reached again for the salad bowl, the hairs on his arm—he had rolled up his sleeves—a pale fuzzy crest in the candlelight.

  “Have you heard what’s going on at the Philippines Embassy?” Daphne said. “It seems the place is full of maids who’ve run away from Saudi households. And the Embassy staff won’t repatriate them until they come up with bribes. Apparently there are hundreds of them, camping out in the grounds.”

  “How do you know?” Andrew said, interested. “Has somebody seen them?”

  “Well, I have it on good authority,” Mrs. Parsons said. “I was told by a committee member, at the British Wives.”

  “Hundreds seems a lot,” Carla said. “Still, you never know in this town.”

  “And the Filipino nurses,” Marion said. “Did you hear about the nurses, Fran?”

  “I don’t think I did.”

  “I thought everybody knew.”

  “She wouldn’t hear it from her neighbors, would she?” Russel said. “Have some sense, Marion.”

  “There were two of them, and they were out with some Lebanese men. And the police stopped them, and wanted to see their documents. Well, of course, they weren’t married, were they?”

  “Get the story right, Marion,” Russel said. “You may as well get it right, if you’re going to tell it at all. These two couples were walking around Jeddah International Market. The police picked them up and put them in the back of a van.”

  “I heard they let the men go,” Eric Parsons said. “It was just the girls they took.”

  “Well, you’re right, you’re right, but what actually happened, according to my source, was that they picked the two Lebanese up, but then they dumped them out somewhere—”

  “Near the souk,” Daphne said.

  “And then,” Russel resumed, “the two girls were found dead next day, in the car park on the roof of Sarawat supermarket. They’d been raped, of course.”

  A short pause. Frances scanned the table. The Zussmans had stopped eating at last. A particularly large speck of Saudiflon lay, like an exclamation mark, in the center of Daphne’s plate.

  “That’s funny,” Andrew said. “I didn’t think there was a car par
k on the roof at Sarawat.”

  “I heard,” Carla said, “that it happened at Sarawat in Riyadh.”

  “Oh well, I don’t know,” Russel said. “But I did definitely hear that they’ve got the five policemen involved.”

  “Yes, I heard that,” Daphne said. “And one of them was executed yesterday.”

  “What about the mother and daughter in the souk?” Frances said. “Those Australians. The rape. Did they execute anyone for that?”

  “Let them go, as far as I heard,” Jeff said. “The police wouldn’t proceed. Women walking around the souk in shorts, they were asking for it, weren’t they?”

  “Well, right,” Russel said. “Why can’t they be careful? Marion’s always careful. I mean you have to have rules, don’t you? Otherwise you’d get women going down to the souk in bikinis.”

  “I don’t see why you would,” Frances said. “You don’t have dress rules in England, but you don’t get people walking down Regent Street in bikinis.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they were wearing,” Carla Zussman said. “They weren’t asking for anything.” Andrew leaned toward her with the wine, and she covered her glass with her hand. “Thanks, enough. I have to say, though, I’ve heard so many versions of that story, I don’t know what to believe.”

  “It scares me,” Marion said.

  “Look,” Russel told her, “you keep the rules, and you won’t come to any harm in the Kingdom. Respect yourself, and you’ll be respected, that’s my view. You girls can say what you like, with your women’s lib nonsense, but as a family man I regard this place as a much better proposition for my wife and children than ever Africa was. You don’t hear of armed robbery here, do you? No, because they know what they’d get.”

  “Of course you don’t hear of armed robbery,” Frances said. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  “You hear,” Carla said, “what they want you to hear. You think what they want you to think. Don’t you know that yet, Russel?”

  “Look,” Andrew said, “more wine, anybody? Frances, I think we’re ready for the pudding.”

  They met up in the kitchen. “I want some Perrier for Carla,” Andrew said. “Listen, Frances, just cool it, will you? You shouldn’t take Russel apart like that.”

  “Carla was right.” She scraped vegetables into the bin. “How can you know what goes on?” Bethinking herself, she took a can of insecticide from under the sink and sprayed the floor around the bin. “You can’t travel around inside the Kingdom. You can’t go and see. You can’t even go to the Philippines Embassy, I suppose, and count these hundreds of maids who are camping out.”

  “You take a certain amount on trust,” Andrew said.

  She rinsed her hands, and dried them. “Here, carry this. I’ll bring this pudding of Yasmin’s. Somebody might want it.”

  Andrew brought to the table a glazed tart of small, out-of-season strawberries, and a jug of thick yellow cream. “Oh, how lovely,” Marion said, and yearning crossed her face. “But I mustn’t.”

  “Marion has to watch her figure,” Russel explained.

  “Don’t we all!” said Daphne gaily. “No, Frances dear, not for me. But it does look rather delicious, I must say.”

  “Any black specs?” Jeff said, peering.

  “Perhaps you’d like some of this?” Frances indicated Yasmin’s dessert.

  “What is it?” Rickie Zussman asked.

  “I don’t know, but I had a spoonful in the kitchen, it’s nice. My neighbor sent it.”

  “No thank you,” Rickie said. “Carla and I never eat desserts,” he added politely. “But I’m sure it tastes fine.”

  Jeff picked up the serving spoon and dabbled it into the dish. A shred of coconut and a fleck of green pistachio floated to the surface, with the delicate scent of rosewater. “Looks as if it’s been regurgitated. Wouldn’t touch Paki food at the best of times. Think I’ll give it a miss.”

  “Me too,” Russel said. “You can give me some of the strawberry thing, if you will, my love. My goodness, Andrew, you do well for yourself. Married a good cook, eh?”

  “As well as a philosopher.” Frances stood up. “Excuse me.” As she turned away she caught her hip painfully on the corner of the table. Eric’s wine spilled. “I’ll bring back a cloth,” she said, averting her face.

  “That’s all right,” Eric said absently, dabbing up the liquid with his white linen napkin. The red wine, which they had made with cherry juice, was dark and strong, and they had got through a number of bottles already.

  In the kitchen, Frances heard Carla running down the hall toward her; heard the slap of Carla’s feet, in her flat leather sandals. She turned to meet her, her face flushed, angry and defensive tears springing into her eyes.

  “It’s a failure,” she said. “An utter mess.” She searched her pocket for a handkerchief, and Carla tore off a strip of kitchen roll and gave it to her. She blew her nose.

  Carla’s sparrow arms went around her neck. “Nothing’s a failure. What do you mean, failure? Your life doesn’t ride on a Jeddah dinner party. Listen, they’re here because you’re obliged to them. That’s all. You feed them and your obligation ends. If they want to squabble and tell scare stories, let them.”

  “Oh, go back, Carla, would you?” Frances scrubbed the tears from her face, leaving it blotchy. “Just keep the conversation going. If Pollard says anything else about my neighbor, just push a glass in his face, would you?”

  “Yeah,” Carla said. Her quiff of tough dark hair seemed to bristle, like a terrier’s. “I’ll scar him for life,” she said.

  Frances made the coffee. When she took in the tray Russel had vacated his chair, and taken hers; he had got a piece of paper from somewhere, and was demonstrating to Jeff, by means of figures, that smart investors were moving into nickel. Having no choice, she sat down by Daphne, and began to set out the cups. Daphne leaned toward her. “I hope you’re not making a mistake about that job.”

  “I don’t think so. Coffee, everybody?”

  “Carla and I usually drink herb tea,” Rickie offered.

  “Pour the coffee,” Carla said.

  “Okay,” Rickie said amiably. “It was just information, you know, not a suggestion.”

  “I’ll pass these cups down, shall I?” Daphne resumed her confidential tone. “Tell me, Frances, how long have you been married?”

  “Five years.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Frances felt a passion of enmity for the woman, a torrent of choked-off phrases, leaving a nasty taste in her mouth. Five years was nice, was it? What would fifteen years have been? Nicer still, or not nice at all? What would five months have been?

  “So perhaps you’re thinking of starting your family?”

  “Not really.”

  “You shouldn’t leave it too late, you know.”

  She felt Mrs. Parsons looking her up and down: thinking, no doubt, perhaps she has a little problem. Maybe her natural tact, which she was always referring to, would forbid her to say more.

  “I think you’ve forgotten the sugar, Frances dear.”

  “Does anyone take sugar?”

  “I do,” Russel said.

  Andrew began to get up. “I’ll get it,” Frances said.

  In the kitchen, she took the opportunity to rinse a few glasses. Soon be over, she told herself. A pity that it’s taken a fortnight out of my life.

  When she returned the topic of conversation had shifted. “I see they’ve put a tank trap outside the American Embassy,” Jeff was saying.

  “Perennially popular target, I should suppose,” Eric Parsons said.

  “Who for?” She slid the sugar bowl down to Russel.

  “Anybody, really. There are a lot of people who don’t like the U.S. influence here. Even people within the royal family.”

  “The newspapers are always denouncing us,” Carla said. “But it’s only for show. They need our guns.”

  “It keeps the fundamentalists happy,” Rickie said. “Al
l the—what do you call it. Rhetoric.”

  “I wouldn’t say it kept them happy,” Carla said. “Not happy exactly. But you see, Frances, the Saudis are trying to keep the lid on things in this part of the world. They’re rich, thank you. What do they want with the Islamic revolution? Though they have to pay lip service.”

  “So the Saudis give their money,” Rickie said. “And other Arabs give their blood.”

  “My neighbor told me—my Saudi neighbor, I mean—that when girls’ schools were first opened, there were riots.”

  “There were riots when TV was introduced,” Jeff said. “The King’s nephew was the ringleader. The security forces shot him dead.”

  “They have a little go, every few years,” Mrs. Parsons said. “Some of them, they want the place to be like Iran.”

  “They cut their thobes short, and grow their beards long,” Carla said. “And then it’s jihad, it’s holy war. Martyrs. If you die in battle you go straight to heaven.”

  “I didn’t think that happened. Not here.”

  “The place nearly fell apart in seventy-nine,” Parsons said. “You must remember when those madmen took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. God knows how many were killed. It was a full-scale military operation, winkling them out. They didn’t want football, they said. They didn’t want video games. They didn’t want working women.”

  “They didn’t want the House of Saud,” Rickie said.

  “That was it, really. They wanted to overthrow the royal family. The same week, the Shia were rioting in the Eastern Province. Looting, burning buses. Funny thing was, at the time none of us knew what was going on. Total news blackout. But they were pretty close to the edge, if you ask me.”

  “There are,” Rickie said, “two distinct military bodies, the army and the National Guard. So if one decides to do its own thing, maybe the King can rely on the other. They’re under the command of two different princes, of course.”