The Map of Love

by Ahdaf Soueif

  ‘How do you know it’s a girl?’ Isabel asks.

  ‘What? Of course it’s a girl. Isabel. Jonathan adores her already. Only there’s too much pressure. You understand? Too much.’

  ‘Yes.’ Isabel nods at her mother’s bedside. ‘I understand.’

  Outside the sun was burning down on the Manhattan streets, but in the room, the curtains were drawn and the air-conditioning hummed gently.

  ‘If I can get her out she’ll be safe. She’ll be a bit early. But she’ll be safe. They’ve got good doctors here. The best doctors in the world are right here in London. Isn’t that right, Nurse? Yes, I know I mustn’t talk so much. Bad. Bad for the baby.’

  Isabel looks up at the nurse, who has come in quietly and now lifts Jasmine’s arm, holding the frail wrist gently while she looks at her stopwatch. Isabel wonders whether the nurse speaks French.

  ‘It’s OK, Mrs Cabot,’ the nurse says in English. ‘You’re doing great.’

  Does she speak French? Or does it not matter any more what her mother says?

  ‘I can’t feel her kicking any more, Nurse. She’s gone very quiet.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, Mrs Cabot, just fine. Try to relax now.’

  ‘She was kicking and moving about all the time. And now she’s gone quiet. Perhaps she’s sleeping; getting ready for her journey.’

  Jasmine closes her eyes. When she opens them again it is 1944 and she has just met Jonathan Cabot, the bright young diplomat attached to Eisenhower in London.

  ‘I am not blaming you or criticising you,’ she protests to Nur. ‘I am saying simply that I like his frankness. It is all simple with him. He says what he means. He knows what he wants. He is full of hope and energy. I love Papa dearly but I would not choose to marry him —’

  The nurse asks if Isabel wants to talk to the doctor about sedating Jasmine.

  ‘He has one room, one big room in an attic with large windows tilted to the sky. And he has a gramophone. And the floor is bare and good for dancing. Our apartment, it is so heavy: the big drapes, the chandeliers forever being dusted and polished, the huge, gloomy paintings. Nothing is less than a hundred years old. Perhaps I love him for the bareness of his loft —’

  Isabel says to let Jasmine be. The once black, glossy hair is a spiky halo of white, the movement — now redundant — of the trembling hand to push it back from the temple reminds Isabel of an elderly ballerina showing how things should be done.

  ‘I never stopped loving him. No, not for a day. Even when I was in his arms I did not stop loving Jonathan. It was different. Something drew me to him. His youth. His hair and eyes were dark, like mine. Layers of trouble I sensed behind those eyes — but I had to let him go. I knew it would not do. I had to let him go, though it was like tearing out part of my heart all over again

  ‘Are you sure now?’ The nurse asks again.

  ‘Valentine,’ Jasmine sobs, ‘Val, Valentine — ‘ She curls over on her side, holding her pillow close, ducking her head to wipe her streaming eyes, her mouth, her nose against it.

  When it was over, Isabel called my brother:

  ‘Can I see you?’

  ‘You know I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I still have a lot of things to do.’

  ‘How long will you be away?’

  ‘A week, maybe ten days.’

  ‘I — my mother died.’

  ‘Oh, Isabel. Isabel, I’m so sorry. I’ll come right over.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to go to the apartment.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m — I’m in a public —’

  ‘OK. Stop a cab and come over. OK? Now.’

  So she went over and when he saw her at his door he took her in his arms: a beautiful, forlorn, parentless child. He poured her a drink. He rubbed her cold hands and breathed on them. He took her in his arms again. I imagine she held on to him and wept and he kissed her tear-drenched face and then her mouth and she held on to him as though for life itself.

  My brother took Isabel into his bed and made love to her and when, later, she fell asleep, he drew the covers over her. And when he had finished his packing he went and lay by her side and she awakened and turned to him again. And it was as the sun was rising that she started to talk to him about her mother.

  20 August 1997

  Now I know where my brother is and why. He must be in Ramallah where — the radio tells me — the Palestinian Authority are holding a ‘Conference of National Unity’.

  ‘And about time too’ I can hear him say.

  I am not easy. My brother hates seeing the Resistance turn into the Authority.

  ‘The first thing they do,’ he said, ‘the first thing is set up the security services. Eleven security services. So what are they doing? They’re going to do the Israelis’ dirty work for them?’

  My brother speaks his mind, and he speaks it where it will be heard — and dangerous.

  I arrange a cloud of pink sweet peas in a shallow bowl in his room and promise myself he will be here while they still bloom. I blow on their petals and make sure each one has room to breathe while I listen to the radio report Washington’s criticism of the conference for giving a platform to the Islamists, and a tune repeats itself insistently in my head:

  Weinha Ramallah? Weinha Ramallah?

  Tell me, oh traveller, where is Ramallah?

  In the newspaper, today’s batch of photographs from the Territories are pretty much the same as every day: young men lined up against shuttered shops in a cobbled street, old men standing by, watching, as their olive groves are torn up, women wailing as bulldozers smash through their houses — any one of these women could have been my mother. A particular photograph arrests my attention: a child of three or so rides high on men’s shoulders at his father’s funeral. He carries a machine gun and wears a headband inscribed ‘We shall return’. His expression is tranquil. Is it right that a child’s path should be so firmly set so early? I have tried not to weigh down my sons with our history. Now I try to be glad that they are free.

  Weinha Ramallah? Weinha Ramallah?

  We used to sing this when I was a student. We were in 1968 and Ramallah had just been lost to us.

  22

  That handkerchief

  Did an Egyptian to my mother give.

  William Shakespeare

  22 August 1997

  I wait for my brother. I wait for my sons. I wait for Isabel. I wait for news from Minya. I wait. The ceiling fans work all day and I open my blinds only at night. The Nasr Abu Zaid appeal has been refused and now there is nothing for it but he and his wife must stay in Europe, for our state cannot ensure their safety. I think of this most Egyptian of men: a round, jolly, loquacious, balding, bearded man. I think of him huddled in his overcoat, finding his way in the clean, cold streets of the north, making a new life away from home.

  27 May 1901

  Emily has informed me of her decision to return to England. I have furnished her with everything necessary and my husband is making the required arrangements.

  A terse entry. I ponder over Anna’s feelings. Is she disappointed? Angry, even, that Emily, after all the years in her service, has decided not to stay? Or is she perhaps relieved that now she can set off into her new world without a constant monitor from the one she has left behind? And what about Emily? I do not wish to do her an injustice, but — try as I might — I can see nothing but pursed lips and a shaking head as she tells, back in London, of how she left her ladyship.

  29 May

  Zeinab Hanim has detailed a young woman by the name of Hasna as my personal maid. She has a delicate blue tattoo on her chin and is of a sweet disposition and has already shown her skill in dressing my hair and laundering some small items. Shall I one day converse with her with the same ease that I observe between Zeinab Hanim and Mabrouka?

  3 June

  We have decided to dispense with a honeymoon for the moment and to go to Italy later in the year. Indeed I have no need of change for here is change enough
for me.

  My husband showed me an article by Mustafa Bey Kamel in l’Etendard attacking the idea of Urabi Pasha’s return and saying it would be more fitting for him to die in exile as most of his comrades had done. My husband is saddened by this as an expression of division among the nationalists and because Urabi is old and so should merit more courteous treatment. He does not see much good coming of his return, however.

  7 June

  Visit from the dressmaker as I had expressed a wish to have some costumes made in the Egyptian fashion. I chose some deep blues and aquamarines, set off with scarlet and old pink. Colours which would have looked most overblown in European dress but suit the style of clothes here wonderfully well.

  My days have fallen into a happy pattern. We wake and take breakfast together. My husband goes to work and I spend the morning with Zeinab Hanim. I accompany her into the kitchen and the storerooms and the linen room and watch what she does and she invites me, with a motion of her head and hand, to show her how I would have things done. The responsibility of arranging the flowers has now by consent become mine and I have already learned to make a dish of lamb soaked in the juice of the Tamarind flower. We have coffee in the loggia at eleven. A most gentle friendship is growing between us, based not on conversation but on shared tasks and these mornings spent together, and each day I am sensible of the happiness our arrangement has brought her. How wonderful it is that a circumstance that has brought me such joy should also be the cause of contentment for others!

  When my husband comes home we have lunch en famille, generally at around two o’clock, after which we repair to our apartment for a ‘siesta’. In the afternoon, when he has returned to work or to Hilmiyya (for he has not yet moved his study to this house), it is the time for visiting or being visited by other ladies. I am always accompanied on these occasions by Layla, who guides my steps with great delicacy. For now I am not simply myself, but Haram Sharif Basha al-Baroudi, and everything I do reflects on him. If there are no visits I may go to the shops (always in a closed carriage and always accompanied by Hasna and a manservant) to choose materials and furnishings for our apartments. I fashion our rooms with patterned cushions and bright silk curtains and tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

  I feel happiness — I could laugh aloud as I write the words — as surely as I would feel the warmth of afire upon coming to it from a cold, damp night. And the oddest thing is that I am grown fond of my own limbs. The hands and feet that have served me these thirty years, the hair I have brushed unthinkingly each night — I feel a tenderness for them now as though they were che shed creatures in their own right —

  But one week later, in a hurried, distraught hand:

  15 June

  I have been alone in my room for two hours. I cannot believe that the man I have chosen above all others — the man for whom I have left everything I ever held dear — can I have been so mistaken? I go over our argument and I am at a loss to understand it in any way that might bring me comfort.

  When he came in to lunch I noticed that his face was changed and he ate in silence. Zeinab Hanim and I exchanged glances and when I was alone with him I asked whether he had received news not to his liking, to which he responded by asking me where I had been the day before. I listed the shops I had gone to and he asked where else I had been. I searched my memory and then said that I had also been to the bank.

  ‘Why did you go to the bank?’ he asked.

  ‘Whyy because I needed some money,’ I replied, surprised.

  ‘Do you not realise you are married?’ This in a cold tone that I had not heard from him before. I was at a loss and said yes, I realised I was married but I did not see what that had to do with visiting the bank.

  ‘You are my wife,’ he said, ‘and you go to the bank and withdraw money — and without telling me?’ He spoke so angrily that I was stung and retorted that surely as it was my money I could withdraw it if I pleased and that I was disappointed that he employed his servants to spy upon my actions.

  ‘It seems, madame, my servants have more sense than you of what is fitting.’ And with that he left the room. I could hear him moving next door but I would not go to him and presently I heard him leave.

  I do not know what to think. He has been so generous with his gifts and with the terms of the marriage — have I been blind?

  Surely Madame Rushdi would have warned me? But we kept the impending marriage secret. I have since felt no reservation in her happiness for me. Oh, how little I really know him! Could my heart have been so mistaken?

  Can it be that all I am to him is a foolish, wealthy English widow? Oh, hurtful, hurtful thought —

  All certainty is dissolved. The rooms she has so lovingly arranged, the wordless companionship with his mother, the bond she had thought so secure with his sister; what is Anna to make of those now? Images from the hours she has spent with him, in his arms, in this very room, bring a hot blush of shame and anger to her face and her tears spill out yet again.

  I DO NOT ALLEGE THAT all was always well between them. How could that be when they had fallen in love across countries and seas?

  And I recall that once I entered upon Anna during the first month of their marriage, and I had heard from my mother that there was a problem between them, the nature of which she did not know. My mother was worried, for my brother’s face was dark and thunderous as he left, and as for Anna, she kept to her room but Hasna, her maid, said she had been weeping. Anna would not sit but I begged her to tell me what had happened, for are we not sisters? I asked. At that she looked at me strangely but eventually I understood that she had been to her bankers to withdraw money and that my brother had found out and questioned her and she had taken this amiss. I told her she must expect him to be angry if he is insulted, as he surely would be — for if she needed money, why did she not ask him? I explained that with us, if a woman is married, her money is her own and her husband, if he is able, is obliged to furnish her with all the money she needs for her personal expenses as well as any household expenses she might incur.

  ‘If you use your own money, Anna, you are accusing him of negligence, or of being miserly. Or you lay yourself open to the charge of having some secret expense which you cannot divulge to him.’

  ‘And why does he have me spied on?’ Anna holds on to her anger a little longer.

  ‘That is more difficult,’ Layla says. ‘But look into your heart: what were you thinking of him before I came in? You know so little of each other. He is a public man and, as well as his heart, he has placed his reputation in your hands. Think of the bank clerks whispering why Sharif Basha al-Baroudi’s wife should come in person to withdraw money from her account. That news will already be with the Agency.’

  Anna’s face has been changing as Layla speaks. Now she rushes to her dresser.

  ‘I must send it back immediately,’ she says.

  AND IT WAS WITH DIFFICULTY that I persuaded her that that could make matters worse. For she had that impulsive generosity of spirit that made it a necessity to her to right a wrong upon the instant.

  Oh, wicked, wicked, wicked! How could I have doubted him so? I am ashamed of my thoughts and happy beyond measure to be in the wrong.

  I have prepared a note to Mrs Butcher saying that as an act of grace for my present happiness, I wish to make a donation to her charity for orphaned children. I placed it in a purse with the money and waited.

  28 June

  Last night my husband came back early and walked into my room and stood before me with his hand outstretched, looking pale and tired. ‘I could not work,’ he said. ‘Come, Anna. Let us not quarrel. I cannot believe you meant to wound me.’

  ‘Would you send the money to Mrs Butcher tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘For one of her charities?’ And he took me in his arms.

  Late in the night, he held my face between his hands and said, ‘Our ways are so different. Let us be patient with one another.’

  5 July

  It is grown hot and Ahmad and I are not
allowed into the courtyard during the day without our bonnets. Hasna is constantly appearing at my side with glasses of cool water scented with rose-water. I am aware at times that my husband is regarding me with some anxiety, for it seems he cannot feel certain that I am happy and content. He persists in thinking that I find my life too confined, but in truth, it is not so dissimilar to life in London — except in that we cannot do things together outside the house, for Egyptian Society is segregated, and there is no place for him among the Europeans. But where we cannot walk in the park, we walk in our garden, and he has procured for me some bushes of an English rose which we have planted in a shady spot. I have warned him that he is to draw no conclusions if they do not thrive, ‘for I am no rose’, I said.

  ‘So, what are you?’

  ‘I do not know. But I know that I have everything I need.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ he said, drawing me close. ‘Tell me what you need now.’

  Can love grow infinitely? Each day I feel my love for him push its roots deeper into my soul. I rest in his arms, so close that I can feel his heartbeat as though it were my own, and I wonder that just four short months ago I did not even know him.

  12 July

  It has come about quite naturally that I am learning Arabic of my husband’s father for I had taken to visiting him for a few moments each day, and as I saw that he welcomed me but we did not converse together, I took my book with me and he, seeing my attempts, read for me and I repeated after him and so we began our lessons. He is a very gentle man, made frail and uncertain by his long seclusion and by the great sadness he has carried for so long. My husband is unfailingly courteous to him but I sense he is impatient of him, not because of his present infirmity but because of the path he chose some twenty years ago. They are so different to each other that it is hard to think of them as father and son. But I used to think that of Edward and Sir Charles.