by Fadia Faqir
Parvin walked in on me while singing. `Get the lyrics right, Salma!' She put the shopping bag on the table and said, `No luck!'
I sat down on the bed exhausted and said, `Relax, something will come up.'
`We must change strategy. How about you? What can you do?'
`Can farm, take the sheep to grass, take care of horses and cows.'
She pushed her straight fringe back and said, `Countryside kind of skills' Then she looked at me and said, `That white dress you keep under your pillow Who made it?'
`How did you see? Search the room when me out?'
`No, I was stripping the bed to take the linen to the laundry, stupid.'
`Did you like dress?'
`Yes, it's so beautiful.'
`I no stupid, I made. Never say stupid.'
She held my hands and said,'I am so sorry. I was joking. I was not serious.'
`I no stupid, I family, I tribe.'
`I am sorry.'
`I no stupid, I think God.'
Completely mute and on hunger strike, I thought, while looking at the reflection of the moonlight on the barred window, about God. The night guard greeted Officer Salim, the prison governor, and shut the gate behind his speeding car. I could hear the clank of the main gate being pushed shut for the night. Ants were tiny insects crawling on this earth looking for food and shelter. They were defenceless against floods, the hot sun, famines and each other. They were exposed to the elements. We were exposed to the elements like an open wound.They put us in prison, took away our children, killed us and we were supposed to say God was only testing his true believers. But this heart, this blood-red heart, which was too hungry to beat regularly, belonged to me for I was the one who was starving it.
The Hellena stopped for a few hours in the French city of Marseilles. The old port was bustling with people and goods. I watched passengers rush down the gangway to meet their loved ones and could hear the cries of happiness of families being reunited: hugs and kisses and a rush of French and English words. I pulled down my white T-shirt to cover my hips, fixed my veil, put on a brave face and held the railing tight while France was receding. The seaside cafe with blue and green parasols was getting smaller and smaller. I joined Miss Asher on the sun deck.
Her blue eyes looked tired when she said, `Child, I must speak to you. 'I sat on one of the white chairs and prepared myself for one of her lectures. The sun was going down slowly, setting fire to the sea. `I have noticed that you don't think about religion at all. Look around you. This vast sea must have been created by a great force.'
I looked at the sea, the wave crests breaking, the sun sinking and said, `I have never thought about God before.'
Later in the cabin, looking out of the rounded window, my pipe dangling between my breasts together with my mother's letter and her lock of hair, I felt better. When on deck there was something in the way affluent foreign people converse and sip coffee, the openness of the view and the brightness of the sea that hurt your eyes. In the cabin, the view - small and framed - was tolerable. `May Allah bring a good end," my mother had said. I saw her open face, eversmiling eyes and heard the smack of the disapproving lips. I could smell the powder of cardamom pods which had clung to her headband while grinding coffee beans in the mortar. She would run her fingers over my face, rough from weeding, reaping and grinding in querns.
At around eleven o'clock in the morning Max calmed down about the Japanese and began working while having a long chat with a customer on the phone, sucking at his cigarette.When the yellow nicotine started dripping down the window panes I knew that the boss was in a good mood and ready to talk.
I placed the silk mauve skirt on the chair and walked towards Max. I must ask him for a rise `that in real terms was in accordance with inflation'. Ten per cent I thought, not bothering to calculate how much a month. `Max, I've got to talk to you.'
He pushed his metal glasses up his nose then said, `Not now Pass me the iron, will you?'
I picked up the steam iron and gave it to Max.
Max had always been kind to me. He offered me employment when no one did, he gave me Christmas presents and cards and helped me make skirts and trousers for myself. He also knew when I was going through one of my long silences and started telling me jokes in Pakistani pidgin English. `Is your wife dirty? My wife is dirty too.' I did not know whether to laugh or cry at his jokes. I would compose myself and say, `We better do some work or our customers will start complaining.'
`Max, I must talk to you now'
`What is so urgent?'
I pulled my stomach in, took a deep breath and said in a quivering voice, `I want a rise.'
`What? Say that again.'
`I want a rise, Max,' I pleaded.
He pressed the steam iron on the grey collar, spat all the needles on the floor and said, `With the way things are I cannot give you a rise.'
`Business is good.'
`Yes, but there is a cash-flow problem.'
`But you always ask for cash, you never take cheques with tax and all.'
`Look, Salma, there are many young English kids out there without a job. They would jump at the chance. Count your blessings, darling.'
I walked back to my chair, placed the mauve silk skirt on my lap and continued stitching the hem. I should really count my blessings. Four years of work and no rise. Five hundred pounds a month. Rent has risen to fortyfive pounds a week plus bills. About sixty pounds a month for rates, which together with other taxes added up to four hundred a month. Then I am left with one hundred to eat, pay for transport, buy books and pay university fees. If Max gave me fifty pounds more things would be much easier. I realized that I had stopped stitching and was gazing at my shoelaces which were getting longer and longer. Either my feet were getting thinner or the shoelaces were stretching.
Max was busy talking to his wife on the phone. `Darling, I put the money on the kitchen table before I left.' He pulled the measuring tape tight around his neck. `Who borrowed it? The dog?' I noticed that the mauve skirt had some wet spots on it. I was horrified. I vowed once never to cry in public. I rushed down the stairs to the toilet, put the lid down, pulled the flush handle and sat down face in hands like an unwise monkey. The sound of rushing and gurgling water refilling the tank filled the hollow cold space of the toilet. I rocked myself back to normality again, then washed my hands and face with cold water, tied my hair with a rubber band, took a deep breath and rushed up the stairs. I must look for an evening job.
I closed my eyes and imagined my mother's chipped hand running on my face and erasing my anger and fear like a rubber. `It's a girl,' announced the dayah and spat on the floor. She did not expect a large tip delivering a baby girl. `The burden of girls is from cot to coffin,' said my father. My mother told me that she had forgotten all the pain of labour when they told her it was a girl. She said that when she looked at my swollen closed eyes open for the first time her heart had never been the same. She sat me down, untied my braid, poured some olive oil in her hands, rubbed it and combed it through my hair. `In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful,' she said and poured the cold water over my head, then rubbed my hair with soap, trying to create a lather. She washed behind my ears, under my arms, between my legs and buttocks. `Your bath is cold, your bath is cooling, sheikh,' she sang. `I purify you from minor and major sins,' she said and poured more water over my head then dried me with a piece of linen that my father had given her as a wedding present.
When I got dressed my father called, `Salma, na'iman. Where is the bath kiss?' I kissed his hand then he held me up and put me down in his warm lap.
`My lunch break's mine and I'll do whatever,' I said hastily to Max. He sucked his cigarette and said nothing. That was a definite yes. I put my bag on my shoulders and left the shop, rushing down to the cathedral close. The sky was overcast, the sun nowhere to be seen and fog filled the air. A cafe in the middle of nowhere with some white tables and chairs on the pavement, without sunshine, overlooking no busy street,
pretended to be a continental hotspot. It was nothing like the receding French cafe I saw in the harbour at Marseilles. Many professional men, in their grey or blue suits (which were definitely not made in our shop), with their newspapers and lunches, walked towards the close. Those with money go to the hotel bar and those without head straight to the lawn, sit on the grass and start munching their tuna sandwiches. A man in a black dinner jacket with tails was tap dancing to an old song.
Old ladies looked wistfully at him and giggled when he did a difficult jump.
Parvin asked the porter of the hostel for something called theYellow Pages and he gave her a big thick yellow book. She flicked through it looking for tailors and alterations. She began reading: `Kings; Lord's Tailors, Exeter; Make and Mend; May, Donald; Whipple, J. & Co. Ltd, Complete Alteration Service. Lord's is at the other end of the high street. What do you think, Salma?'
I shrugged my shoulders. The pills made it all seem easier. `Why not?' I said, `but you have to come with me.'
`Of course, tomorrow morning sharpish,' she said and smiled.
I could see the tip of an old oak tree in the distance, wet and gleaming in the feeble sunlight. I wondered how everything grows so much without the heat of the sun. It must be the water and the fertilizing poison Parvin told me about. The Yellow Pages was left open at tailors on the table. The room was clean and tidy but the musty smell lingered. The duvet cover I bought with the few pounds Minister Mahoney (who spent his time visiting immigrants in prisons) had given me was purple with flowers drawn in silver paint on the edges. Parvin's was a myriad of orange and gold streaks. She began crying at night again and because she did not show me her tears I could not tell her how green the meadows were when the sun shone on them, how white were the clouds and how vast was the blue sky. I could not play `Rock The Casbah' on my pipe for her. I could not run my fingers on her face. I just lay there under the duvet listening to her muffled sobs.
Crossing an unknown river far from your domain, observe the surface turbulence, and note the clarity of the water. Heed the demeanour of the horses. Beware of massed ambush.
At a familiar ford near home, look deep into the shadows on the far bank, and watch the movement of the tall grass. Listen to the breathing of your nearest companions. Beware of the lone assassin.
I continued reading, `This piece by Suzume No-Kumo is an example of Japanese poetry, which is normally short and concise focusing on a few images.'
My lunch break was over so I drank up the cold coffee, secured the flask lid and put the clingfilm in the bin, stuck my book in the bag and walked back to work. When I listened to Hamdan's breathing I was not heeding his demeanour so I was betrayed and ambushed. As for the lone assassin, he followed me back to work. His leather sandals worn out, his feet covered with desert dust, his yellow toenails long, chipped and lined with grime and his rifle slung on his right shoulder, he kept pace with me until I arrived at Lord's Tailors.
English Tea
THE HILLS WERE DARK APART FROM THE DISTANT LIGHTS of the mill and I could make out the silhouette of the cows huddled together on the hillside. The river was gliding quietly now and the trains were less frequent. Everything was asleep, apart from the odd car. The Hellena glided gently into a brightly lit land called the port of Southampton. England looked like a tree of light. Miss Asher laughed, fixed her collar and pulled her cardigan over her ample breasts. Metal columns with cargo tied to them were being lifted right, left and centre. Men in small cars were carrying boxes from one place to another. Piles of wood, boxes and machines were waiting to be loaded. I felt that I had landed on another planet, where men were working like machines and where giant lifts filled the sky. I held Miss Asher's hand. She smiled and said, `Soon we will be out of here.' She was wrong. She spent a whole night in the harbour and went in the morning to get some help, and I spent two months in the port prison.
Walking on the iron bridge, I could see the cathedral and the green meadows of Devon in the distance. Honestly, a postcard. Although I didn't have their addresses, I kept sending letters and cards to Layla and Noura. An old Arab postman might feel sorry for me, and go on a mission to find them. The other day I sent Noura a postcard telling her about my new rented room in Swan Cottage, my lovely boss, and described to her the cows on the hills which I could see through my window `From cows to cows,' I could hear her distant voice say.What I did not tell her is that I earned so little that I ended up with nothing at the end of the month, that Jim did not want to have anything to do with me ever again, that I was still living on my own and that the railway line was about a hundred yards from my bedroom, which rattled with every train arriving or departing from the station.
It was cold but bright when Parvin and I walked to the tailor's shop. It had a sign on the door listing the charges for alterations and mending. When we opened the glass door an invisible bell rang. It sounded like the small brass bell Miss Nailah used to strike to announce the beginning and end of the school day. A bulky man in a striped navy suit, gold glasses and thinning hair came down the narrow stairs behind the reception. `Good morning, ladies,' he said while holding pins in his mouth.
`Good morning,' said Parvin.
`What can I do for you?' he asked while sticking the pins in the sponge pincushion.
I began shifting my weight from one leg to another, while trying to maintain a smile on my face.
`My friend Salina is a seamstress and she is looking for a job,' said Parvin hurriedly.
`So you are not customers,' he said and pushed his glasses up his nose.
`No, but good worker me,' I said and smiled.
`She cannot speak English, for Christ's sake!' he said.
`Her English is irrelevant. She will be making, altering and mending clothes," Parvin said and pulled the white dress out of the plastic bag and put it on the reception counter.
He held it with both hands, lowered his glasses, examined the pockets and the sleeves, then gave it back quickly. `No vacancies'
`Why don't you try her for a month without payment? See for yourself.'
I noticed that his trousers were too loose around the knees with turn-ups that were too wide.
`You are wasting my time, miss,' he said.
She stuck the white dress back in the bag and said, `It's because we are black, isn't it? Because she is not an English rose,' she said.
His face was covered with red patches when he said, `Get out of my shop!'
`Racist, sexist pig,' she said.
The immigration officer at Southampton port detention centre kept asking, `What is your Christian name?'
I looked at him puzzled. `Me Muslim,' I said. He ran his fingers around his stiff collar as if trying to loosen it. Other passengers whizzed through the immigration control counters with a smile on their faces.
`Name?' he said
`Yes. Salina Ibrahim.' I nodded my head to show him that I understood his question.
Miss Asher interrupted quickly and said that my name was Sally Asher. There was a quick interchange of words in English and showing of papers. She mentioned the word `adoption', which she had taught me. The officer slammed his book shut, phoned someone and a policeman appeared through the sliding glass doors. I was standing there fingering the plastic plants. The policeman pushed me to one side, searched me quickly and handcuffed me. I felt the coldness of the metal cuffs encircling my wrists. Miss Asher looked at me reassuringly, but I could see that she was distressed. `Don't worry," she said while I was dragged through the glass doors. They ushered me through a narrow well-lit corridor and then unlocked a heavy door. They asked me to go in, unlocked the handcuffs then shut the door and locked it. The room was small but clean, with a single bed right in the corner. I sat down and waited for Miss Asher to knock on the door. There were no windows to be seen and the invisible fan whirred all night. Hours later I stretched out on the bed and tried to wrap the whole of my body with the blanket, but it was too short and my uncovered feet were frozen. There was a huge difference bet
ween the port prison and the prison room I had left behind: this room was spotless, it did not smell of urine, the walls were covered with gleaming metal sheets, it had no barred windows, it was really quiet except for the whirr of the fan, but I was in solitary.
Max gave me two sleeves to stitch before closing to claw back the hour I spent over lunch. I took the pair of loose sleeves and sewed them lightly and neatly, put them on the table, took my things and rushed out while Max was on the phone. It was a good half-hour delay. I went to the Royal Hotel and walked through the old thick doors to the reception. A middle-aged man rushed towards me and said, `May I help you?'
It sounded like `May I throw you out?' to my sensitive ears. `Yes, please, I would like to see the bar manager.'
`This way.' I was ushered quickly out of the thickly carpeted entrance to a small, untidy room. `He won't be a moment.'
Another middle-aged man, his hair oiled and combed back, gave me another mechanical smile which reminded me of the Fred impostor tap dancing for the old ladies. `May I help you?' he said in a perfect English accent.
My chin began quivering and with difficulty I said, `My name is Salma.'
`Yes?'
`I am looking for evening job.'
`Are you registered with a job agency, the job centre?' he asked.
I shook my head.
He was about to dismiss me, then he changed his mind. `You don't sound English.'
`I am British of Arab origins.'
`Aha!'
Egged on by the images of Hidden Greece, where I could stand on a high cliff and probably see my homeland, I tried again. `I work in a tailor's shop; I just need the extra cash, that's all.'
`Right,' he said and smoothed his slick hair.
I smiled, stretching my wide mouth to the limit.