No Sex in the City

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  ‘Why don’t you talk to Anil about it?’ I say, although as soon as I make the suggestion I realise how stupid this advice is. If Anil defends his mum, he’ll inflame Nirvana even more. If he concedes there’s a problem but doesn’t want to confront his mum, Nirvana will flip out too. If he does agree to confronting his mum, what exactly is he going to say without causing a problem between the two women?

  ‘It will just make matters worse,’ she says, and I know she’s right. ‘Okay, we’ll talk later,’ she says with a sigh. ‘I need to go buy a kilo of Cadbury now.’

  Twenty-Three

  Senem is having a girls’ night at her house and has invited me over to hang out with some of her closest girlfriends. There are five of them, all married: Hatice, Zuleyha, Sue, Betul and Lana. Sue, Zuleyha and Lana have children, and Hatice is a newlywed.

  ‘So I’m the token single woman in this group, am I?’ I joke as I walk into the lounge room, the last to arrive.

  ‘Esma!’ they squeal, and they jump up and smother me with hugs.

  I immediately lunge at the baby closest to me, Lana’s six-month-old baby boy, Erdel, who is gurgling and being utterly adorable. I scoop him up in my arms and carry him against my chest, stroking his soft fine hair as he peers over my shoulder and chews on my top. The girls settle back in their chairs and we cover the usual ground: how our jobs are going, any holiday plans on the horizon, latest movies we’ve seen. Then, when I get a chance, I ask Hatice about her honeymoon.

  ‘It was incredible,’ she says. ‘We spent a week in the Maldives and then two days in Bangkok on our way home. It’s so hard to be back. I’m exhausted.’

  Zuleyha, who moved to Australia from Cyprus nine years ago when she married Betul’s brother, laughs. ‘Of course you’re exhausted,’ she says cheekily. ‘You’re a newlywed.’ She nudges Betul in the side and they both giggle. ‘And your hair is curly again,’ Zuleyha adds. ‘No point straightening it, huh?’

  They all laugh, except for Macedonian Sue, who’s the only non-Turk in the room and therefore doesn’t get the joke. ‘What’s so funny?’ she demands.

  ‘In our tradition you have to wash your whole body, including your hair, after sex,’ Lana explains. ‘Both the man and the woman. So you can pray.’

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ Sue says.

  ‘Well, when you get a blow-dry, what’s the last thing you’re going to do afterwards? Wet it, right? So you can always pick a newlywed girl because their hair’s never done – what’s the point when they’re showering all the time?’

  ‘Ahh!’ Sue cries, the joke dawning on her, and she joins in with the laughter.

  I can’t help but turn my head away to hide the blush creeping over my face. Even though I’m the oldest in the group, I’m the only virgin and I never fail to feel embarrassed by how open and candid these women are about their sex lives, throwing out all the strict religious rules about keeping your relationship with your husband a private matter.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Zuleyha says mischievously, winking at the girls as she directs her advice to Hatice, ‘it’s just the newlywed phase. Wait until you’re married for nine years, with three children, working full-time, juggling a zillion responsibilities. There’s more time for blow-dried hair, let’s put it that way.’

  ‘Why wait for three children?’ Lana cries. ‘Just one will do the trick. Out the baby pops and then the only thing you think about when you see a bed is sleeping! It’s all you think about, day and night.’

  Sue jumps in. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I race to get into bed first, close my eyes and pretend to snore so Steven thinks I’m asleep and won’t bother me!’

  They all cackle wickedly and I drop to the ground and offer Erdel a rattle, propping him up on my lap as I listen intently.

  ‘Steven had the gall to come home the other day all excited that he’ d bought me some herbal tablets,’ Sue moans. ‘He thinks it will help with my low libido.’

  That gets them going again.

  ‘They don’t work,’ Betul says when she’s got her breath back. ‘Trust me, I’ve tried them.’

  Sue sits up straight on the couch, her face animated. ‘I said to him, “Honey, you know what’s going to turn me on the most?” You should have seen his face – it was like offering him a winning lottery number. So I told him, “Helping around the house, washing the dishes, picking up your dirty laundry. The less I have to do, the more energy I will have.” So simple. How’d you think he took it?’

  They laugh.

  ‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t get it. It’s not that I’m rejecting him. I adore him. I’m just tired all the time. I’m juggling being a mum with my job at the bank. It’s full-on.’ She looks at me then and says, ‘Listen up, Esma. Absorb all this precious advice. I bet you only think about how romantic and passionate marriage will be because, I tell you, movies have a lot to answer for. But this is the real world here.’

  Senem groans. ‘Oh, give it a break, will you?’ she says. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  My ears perk up. Although Senem and I are close, we’ve never discussed anything personal or intimate between her and Farouk, and I’ve always respected her privacy. The only time the issue came up was the night before her wedding.

  My mum, aunt and I were helping Senem pack her bags. We’ve always been like that, in each other’s lives down to the last detail. Senem and Mum were ticking off items on a list they’d prepared the week before (we’re all neurotically organised) while my aunt was folding clothes. I was sitting on Senem’s bed holding back tears as the whole I’m-losing-my-sister thing started to hit me. Then, out of the blue, while Mum was counting out how many T-shirts Senem had packed, she suddenly launched into what must have been a rehearsed birds-and-the-bees speech. Senem and I simultaneously cried out at Mum to stop because it was so painfully embarrassing watching her colour code T-shirts while trying to explain what both of us had picked up years ago via Cosmo, the school playground and our religion teacher at Turkish weekend school, who had answered all our questions about sex and periods, and taught us sex wasn’t something to be ashamed about so long as we experienced it only through marriage. Mum looked relieved that she didn’t need to continue. Senem and I exchanged looks that managed to convey both mortification and amusement and we all just went on doing what we were doing as though Mum hadn’t, twenty seconds earlier, actually referred to the vagina as a ‘lulu’ (the cutesy word she’ d used when we were kids).

  ‘Well, now we know who out of this group takes a different view on the matter,’ Betul says, grinning at Senem. ‘Farouk obviously has special talents!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so crude,’ Senem says with a laugh. ‘It’s not that at all. It’s just that you’re making marriage seem like some kind of scorecard or tit for tat. I suffer here, you have to suffer there. I’m tired so you don’t get sex, so it evens out. But everybody’s emotions get ignored in the process.’

  ‘Honey,’ Lana says in a practical, no-nonsense tone, ‘like it or not, it does become a scorecard, it’s just a matter of survival. My husband and I keep tabs on who’s been babysitting the most, who put the kids to bed last, who slept in last on a weekend. It’s a credit-debit system. Obviously I’m almost always in credit, except for when I had a girls’ weekend in Queensland and he got ahead of me, but as soon as I got back the tables turned again.’

  ‘It’s not like that for me and Farouk,’ Senem says. ‘We share the chores. He does all the cooking, doesn’t he, Esma?’

  ‘Well, yes, and thank God because your cooking is terrible.’

  ‘See!’ Senem says, nodding in agreement. ‘It doesn’t have to be an unfair division.’

  ‘Stop rubbing it in,’ Betul says, throwing a cushion at Senem, who dodges it so that it lands on Sue’s head.

  ‘Hey!’ Sue cries.

  ‘Not all guys are slack around the house, and not all women get turned off sex,’ Senem says.

  Sue, Betul, Lana and Zuleyha all burst into hysterics. The
n Zuleyha turns to me and says, ‘Sweetie, Senem’s talking about the minority, and don’t go thinking this is only to do with Turks. Sue here is Macedonian and she’ll tell you herself that background has nothing to do with it. Men are just born lazier and hornier than women. So don’t get into any relationship with false expectations. And train them when you first get married, like your sister here has, or you’ll end up doing the bulk of the chores for the rest of your life. But don’t get us wrong, we’re all happily married and love our hubbies, don’t we, girls?’

  They cry out a chorus of agreement and I shake my head and smile. ‘Listening to you all, I think I’d rather take a vow of chastity than get married,’ I joke. ‘I mean, the positivity and optimism has been overwhelming.’

  ‘Just don’t say we didn’t warn you,’ Sue says in a singsong voice.

  Twenty-Four

  A random guy, recommended by a family friend, is visiting my house so we can discover, by engaging in a random choice of conversation topics, whether there is a mutual spark that might potentially lead to love and marriage.

  I mean, nothing to it, right?

  I throw most of the contents of my wardrobe onto my bed. Then I systematically discard anything I think is ugly (these arranged dates usually result in mass wardrobe clean-outs).

  I end up deciding on jeans (because casual is best) with a khaki shirt-dress and ballet flats. I know Mum would prefer I wear heels (because height gives you confidence, etc), but there is no way I’m wearing heels in my own house. Not after last time.

  Mum had bought me a beautiful pair of black pumps and I’d agreed to wear them only because they were a gift. But they were new and therefore a torture chamber for my heels and toes. So I was hobbling rather than walking. This would have been bad enough, but then Mum mopped the floor right before the guy and his family arrived. So when they rang the bell, I walked downstairs into the hallway, timing my entrance as they were welcomed into the house by my parents. I took a step off the stairs and slid, landing on my backside right at their feet. Suffice to say, this did not work in my favour. Nobody can really recover their dignity after that kind of introduction.

  I woke up this morning before dawn to pray. Whenever I need something I suddenly become devoted to my prayers. I begged God for the following:

  To send me Mr Right.

  To give me the intelligence to judge fairly and wisely.

  To let me fall for the right Mr Right (I know plenty of girls who thought they’d met Mr Right only to discover he was Mr Wrong).

  If he is The One, let him be The One who makes me happy, not The One who ends up being a loser who treats me badly/picks his toenails/can’t hold down a job/hates kids/tries to make money by selling McDonald’s Happy Meal toys on eBay/etc (I think it’s sensible for one’s prayers to address all possible contingencies).

  I also asked for forgiveness (that went on for quite a while), guidance, world peace, health and Australia hosting a World Cup (I was up at dawn, I figured I had nothing to lose).

  Then, for good measure, I jumped onto a charity website and donated some money to a well being built at an Indonesian orphanage.

  I’m ready.

  Good deeds? Check (assuming the credit card isn’t maxed out and the money goes through).

  Make-up? Check.

  Good outfit? Check.

  Frizz-free hair? Check.

  The doorbell rings. I run to my bedroom window, which has a view down to the front porch. My stomach plunges – in a good way. Although the guy’s face is obscured by the security door, what I can see is promising. A very tall guy (yippee!) is standing on the porch, next to a couple I assume are his parents. He has dark hair which is styled really nicely (the correlation between a comb-over and lack of a spark is statistically proven, in my experience) and he’s wearing jeans and a shirt. From this view, he has passed the superficial ‘looks’ threshold. Having met one too many guys who think a bottle-green polyester suit and mustard tie is attractive, I have a particular appreciation for guys with a dress sense.

  When they walk in moments later and I’m standing face to face with him, I go weak at the knees. Some people are just made perfect. They’re like hand-crafted furniture. It’s a little like walking through Ikea and seeing an antique masterpiece sitting among the Billy bookcases.

  Which is why it devastates me to realise by the end of the evening that I can never be with him.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m trying so hard to look past his personality and accept him purely for his looks.

  And yes, he’s a doctor, the in-laws would be safely tucked away in another country (conveniently in Europe, thereby giving us excuses to travel there), and he’s the most unbelievably good-looking male I have ever met in my entire life. And I’ve been to Italy, so that’s saying a lot.

  But there’s just one problem. Metin is completely self-absorbed. He’s not arrogant or boastful, going on about money or peeking a look at his reflection in his fork (Mum polishes everything before these visits). It’s just that he seems to have no interest in asking me anything about my life.

  In these kinds of situations, questions usually drive the conversation. When you have no history in common, you have to probe, find out about the other person, take an interest in who they are, what they’ve been up to, you know, for the past twenty-odd years. I’m not interviewing Metin, subjecting him to a personality test or anything weird like that. I’m just trying to make conversation.

  When we’ve settled down in the pergola and Mum’s served us a drink, I ask him, ‘So have you travelled much?’

  For the first fifteen minutes, I’m excited. Finally! A guy (who happens to be drop-dead gorgeous) who can talk. It’s not like I’ve only met mutes before, but there have been a few it’s-like-pulling-teeth interactions (Q: So what do you like doing on weekends? A: Stuff. Q: Such as? A: Depends).

  After fifteen minutes it occurs to me that, actually, I’m not having a conversation with Metin. My question about his travel experience has propelled him into a long monologue about his trips all around Europe. He goes on and on. So I try to butt in.

  ‘Oh, that reminds me of the time I was in Sicily and got robbed at a café.’

  ‘I was almost robbed once, back home in Germany. But I saw the guy hanging around me and was suspicious, so when he reached for my wallet I was quicker than him and caught him in the act.’

  Then he launches into more travel stories, and my near-death encounter in Sicily (it wasn’t, but how will he know that unless he bloody well asks?) is completely ignored.

  I wait for him to ask me where else I’ve travelled in Europe. But when he stops talking, he well and truly stops. Red light. Nothing else. No turning the question back onto the questioner. So I say, ‘I’ve been to Paris, Italy and Amsterdam.’

  His response? ‘I love Italy. If I could live anywhere it would be Rome.’ He spends the next five minutes talking about his experiences in Italy, Paris and Amsterdam, not once bothering to check whether I share his opinions about each country.

  I’m getting frustrated, to say the least, because it has now been forty-five minutes and he hasn’t asked me a single question about myself. For crying out loud, he still has no idea what I do for a living. Naturally, I’ve asked him about his job as a doctor, the usual banal questions to cover an initially awkward silence. That keeps him going for a long while too. And when he gets to the stop sign, the point at which you’d ask the other person about their job, he takes a sip of his drink and stops, like he’s developed some kind of verbal constipation and is waiting on me to administer a laxative with another question about him.

  So I hook him some bait. Because maybe he’s just socially inept and needs a little nudge in the manners department (which begs the question why I’m bothering, but I banish the question from my mind).

  ‘Growing up, I couldn’t stand the ads on TV. If I saw one more commercial associating a woman’s happiness with a clean tabletop, I thought I’d go crazy! So I did a marketing degree. I h
ad to take human resources as part of the course. I loved it and decided to go into recruitment. So that’s what I do now. My clients are mainly pharmacies.’

  ‘I always knew I wanted to be a doctor. Ever since I was a child ...’

  Cue another monologue. And cue me zoning out, offering the occasional nod or ‘hmm’ while I look around our garden and make a mental note to remind Dad that his flowers need watering.

  Twenty-Five

  ‘We have been accepted!’ Faraj announces when he walks into class.

  We all know exactly what he means and instantly jump up to congratulate him. Sonny lets out a whoop and the others cheer loudly.

  I quickly whip out my phone and hold it up in front of him. ‘Let’s record,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Actually, here, Christina, you can be the interviewer.’ I pass her the phone and she grabs it, giggling. She immediately falls into character.

  ‘Okay, everybody, please be sitting down for the interview,’ she commands and the others sit down on the tables.

  Faraj pretends to fix up his collar and spikes up his hair with his fingers. He clears his throat and then tries to give Christina a solemn, distinguished look, failing miserably. We all laugh at him.

  ‘Okay,’ Christina starts, holding up the phone and pressing record. ‘Faraj, welcoming you to television and please be telling us the news you have today.’

  Faraj clears his throat again. ‘We be accepted in Australia and now having a new home.’

  ‘And please be telling us where you are born?’

  ‘I born Iraq.’

  ‘Can you telling us about Iraq?’

  Faraj gives her a cheeky grin. ‘Since the war, Iraq is being full of ice cream and parks.’ He becomes animated, throwing his hands about and walking around so that Christina has to follow him. ‘Every day is visiting the beach!’