The Translator

by Leila Aboulela

  This was the exile from him then. Never hearing his name. Living in a place where no one knew him. And when weak from the dreams, needing to speak of him and not being able to. She wanted to say anything, however meaningless. At times with a friend, Nahla, even with Hanan, she would want to speak about him. A question from them would be the trigger, a question about her time in Scotland. A question followed by a pause in the conversation, the possibility of a turning point and then other words would fill up the space. She was afraid of the sound of her voice talking about him, the silliness of it and feeling ashamed. She knew that they would stop at him being a foreigner, their mind would close after that. Wide eyes, surprise, a foreigner? They would imagine him like someone in an American film. The kind of videos they watched: a bodyguard, a man who was really a robot with skin. She did not want them to imagine him like that. Their eyes rimmed with kohl, warm, wide, and she knowing what was in their minds, having to somehow defend him, stammer through the questions they would ask.

  ‘No, he’s different, not really…’

  ‘Half-foreign?’

  ‘No, he’s just different, not… impatient, not… cool.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it. A Christian?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s not religious, he doesn’t go to church. He’s not sure…’

  ‘Not sure?’

  ‘He believes in Allah but when I asked him if he accepts that Muhammad, peace be upon him is a Messenger, he said he wasn’t sure.’

  ‘You, Sammar, of all people? You’re not like modern girls who marry foreigners. You’re not the type.’

  ‘Anyway it didn’t work. It failed.’

  ‘But why did you let yourself get involved in the first place?’

  Start to talk of him and she would have to answer all sorts of questions, become hot with shyness and what she couldn’t say, that she had tipped over, begged him: just say the shahadah, just say the words and it would be enough, we could get married then. It was not a story to be proud of. Perhaps Hanan would repeat it to her husband, something to amuse him after a hard day’s work. Perhaps Nahla would repeat it to her mother, a piece of gossip from next door. It was sensible to keep quiet, keep busy, forget. She talked to herself, she told herself that she did not know him. She did not understand the words ‘sixties’ scene’ or a Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh when he got married in a church and wore a kilt. How could she understand things like that, be connected to them? She gave herself lectures when the dreams came and weakened her. ‘I must start a new life, stop being sentimental, stop feeling sorry for myself. Everyone around me is deprived of something or another. Some people don’t even have running water in their homes. And all the babies that die and inflation tight around people’s throats. I am so lucky I can afford medicine for my son and Eid clothes, decent meals, even luxuries, useless things like renting videos. I should be thankful. If I was good, if my faith was strong, I would be grateful for what I have.’

  But she still dreamt of him. Vivid dreams in which he brushed past her, close, close enough for her to smell him but he would not look at her, would not talk to her. In one dream she was as short as a child in a room full of adults and smoke. She was in this room to look for him and she was standing near a table that was large and high. On tiptoe she saw that the table was green, a solid rectangular green with no cutlery, no food or drinks. She reached with her hand and it was as if the table was a shallow box lined with green rough wool. On the other side of the table Rae was talking to a man she did not recognise, a man with glasses and straight black hair sliding over his eyes. The room was choked with people bigger than her, older than her. Their discontent buzzed through the room, through the smoke, and, like in the other dreams, Rae came towards her and then brushed past her, distracted, unaware of her because she was too young and too short for him.

  Raw eyes in the morning, the way a dream affects the day ahead. The ceiling fan rotated slowly distributing the breeze that came from the window. The birds were strident outside. The way a dream threatens the day, sharpens a memory. Only a dream and it could induce nausea in her, a dry soreness behind her eyes.

  She poured sour milk in her aunt’s tea and had to make another cup. She sent Amir to school without making him brush his teeth, left the fan running in the empty bedroom all morning. At work she felt that she didn’t care, it didn’t matter at all that her adult students could barely read and write. The illiteracy rate was 60 or 82 per cent depending on who was right, and today she had no energy or desire to reduce it.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you tired?’ she was asked. ‘Sister, please raise your voice we can’t hear you.’ It was women’s classes in the morning: mothers, grandmothers, today instead of reading, a health lesson about breastfeeding. The reading syllabus was set by a government commission and because of the shortage of books, children’s school books were used. The same books from which Dalia and Amir were taught. I am a girl. I come from the village. I am a boy. I come from the village. This is a camel. These are dates. It was humiliating to learn from such books. She could feel it in their voices, a kind of edge, the men (who made up the majority in the evening classes) more so than the women, who would laugh it off, saying, ‘Now I can read my children’s school books.’ For this reason health topics and community education lessons were more successful. It was lucky for her that on the day she was least motivated, the topic was the popular one of feeding babies.

  ‘You left the fan on in the bedroom all morning,’ said her aunt, the now familiar contempt in her eyes, her voice a certain way, wanting war. They were her first words when Sammar, Amir and Dalia came home. Dalia sucking a lollipop given to her by a friend, Amir trailing his school bag, pretending not to be envious. Sammar took off her sunglasses, poured herself a glass of water from the fridge. She sat on one of the children’s stools in front of the blowing air cooler, put her glass of water on the coffee table. There was condensation on the glass because the water was cold.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She could not say that it was because of the dream. Everything going wrong because of the dream. She started to drink her glass of water. Nile water beautiful after thirst, alhamdulillah.

  ‘Electricity isn’t free,’ said Mahasen. She was sitting on one of the beds putting Hanan’s baby to sleep, patting him on the back as he lay on his side facing the wall. Hanan was still at work. She worked longer hours than Sammar, she was more productive, more efficient. The baby raised his head up and smiled at Sammar. She smiled back, mouthed his name silently. Mahasen patted him harder. ‘Come on, sleep!’ she said to him.

  Sammar felt that her aunt wanted to say more, that there was more to come after the statement ‘Electricity isn’t free.’ She escaped, went to the bedroom to change, then called Amir to give him a shower so that he could be clean before he ate. He talked to her while she towelled and dressed him but she was not listening, her mind numb behind her dry eyes, the fear that she was somehow not going to able to complete the day, that it was too long, too much of a challenge. Even when she prayed she still felt a tightness inside, a sense of foreboding.

  The main meal of the day served as usual and Hanan’s twins were brought down by their father, who went upstairs again. The children sat on the stools around the table. The clutter of plastic dishes, murmurs from her, ‘Say bismillah before you eat. Be good and finish your plate.’ They were sometimes lively, sometimes quiet. Today after the first few mouthfuls it was as if devils danced around the house, skipped on top of the furniture, goaded the children. Rice scattered everywhere, there were screeches, fights, rice grains in noses and ears. Amir pinched Dalia, stuck his tongue out at her. Dalia bit Amir, leaving saliva, chewed rice and ridges on his arm. He pulled her hair, yanked it and she screamed, a scream so loud that it seemed incredible to Sammar, as she pulled them apart, that such a noise could come out of someone Dalia’s size. Devils danced around the room making everything a blur in front of
Sammar’s eyes. Millions of children babbling away, the rattle and the din of plastic plates and she in the middle of it, immersed, hypnotised. Dalia’s scream woke the baby, his arms grasped the air, his face scrunched with anger, his own kind of screaming. Mahasen picked him up and started to rock him in her arms. If he did not have a proper nap, he was grumpy the rest of the day.

  ‘Make them quiet,’ Mahasen shouted. ‘Do something, Sammar, instead of staring at them like an idiot.’

  But the children were wild, stronger than her. They rotated around the room, shouting, kicking. They ran too fast. At last Hanan appeared at the door like a hero, solid and in control, dignified in her dentist’s working clothes. She smacked Dalia, picked up her screaming baby and herded her messy twins upstairs. She left Sammar with Dalia whimpering and cringing, and a dull calmness all around the room. As if nothing had happened, Amir arranged his toy cars on the floor, talked to them and pushed them carefully from the carpet to the tiles.

  ‘All this is because you are useless,’ said her aunt. ‘A few children and you don’t know how to handle them. I don’t know what happened to you. In the past you were lively and strong, now you’ve just become an idiot.’

  She wanted to escape from her aunt but Dalia was clinging to her, sticky and limp. She wanted to escape into cleaning the room, sweeping up the rice that was scattered on the table and on the floor.

  ‘You don’t even have a proper job, a job that pays. How much have you been contributing to the house?’

  ‘Not much,’ her voice flat, obedient, answering how Mahasen wanted her to answer.

  ‘And content to wear others’ clothes, without any pride.’

  That was true. She had been passed on a whole wardrobe of Hanan’s, clothes that were too tight for her after having the baby, didn’t fit anymore. And it was also true, that she had no pride. The clothes, when Hanan offered them, had made her happy. They were loose on her, long. Hanan had been nice, she had said, as Sammar tried each thing on, looking at herself in the full length mirror, turning this way and that, ‘Everything looks lovely on you, Sammar.’ Now her aunt was making it all dirty, wanting her to feel ashamed.

  ‘You should go back to England, work there and send us things.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘We buried the deceased and you went around saying, “It’s a good thing he left me with one child, not three or four, what would I have done with them?” A thing to say. It shows how low you are, with no manners, no respect for his memory. Now you have this one child and you don’t even want to take him to England and look out for his benefit.’

  She wanted to wash the dishes, smell soap, the soothing fall of the water on spoons and plates, but she was pinned down by Dalia, her little sobs, her head on her lap. Someone must have repeated her words to Mahasen. She had never told Mahasen that she was glad she had only one child. And now all this could lead to the old quarrel about ‘Am Ahmed, bringing that up all over again…

  ‘I know what happened,’ her aunt went on, her voice and the steady roar of the air cooler. ‘I know why you came back. They fired you, didn’t they, because you didn’t do the work well? Don’t think I’m fooled by this story of you going to Waleed and sending off a resignation letter or the rubbish you said about being homesick for your country. Foreigners don’t stand for nonsense, I know. Their countries wouldn’t be so advanced if they did,’ she gestured vaguely at the unlit screen of the television, her source of knowledge about the world. ‘You were just no good and they told you to leave.’

  ‘No.’ She stared down at Dalia’s head on her lap, her hair sticking out of the braids.

  ‘You’re a liar.’

  ‘I’m not a liar.’ She smoothed Dalia’s hair, her hands cold, clumsy.

  ‘You’re a liar and you killed my son.’

  She shook her head, not sure if her aunt meant what she said and it was not her muddled mind that was imagining it all. It was not a line from an Egyptian soap that her aunt was repeating. ‘You killed my son,’ Mahasen had actually spoken those words out loud. Now on her face there was a kind of triumph as if she had finally, from deep inside, pulled out what she had always wanted to say.

  The denial stuck in Sammar’s throat.

  ‘You nagged him to buy that car,’ her aunt’s words were focused now, distinct. ‘You nagged him day and night and he sent for money.’

  Sammar shook her head. She hadn’t known, she hadn’t known that he was short of money, that he had asked his mother. ‘He didn’t tell me,’ she said breathing through the fear, the fear that her mind would bend, surrender to this madness, accept the accusation, live forever with the guilt.

  ‘You nagged him for that car and that car killed him. He wrote and said, “Please, Mama, help me, Sammar’s getting on my nerves, saying it’s cold, it’s too cold to walk everywhere, let’s get a car.” Then I sent him the money.’

  Tarig wrote to Mahasen, complaining… Sammar’s getting on my nerves… It sounded so much like him, the way he would speak, Sammar’s getting on my nerves. It jumped up at her in spite of the years, in spite of the gulf between their world and his. It sounded so much like him, the way he would speak. The way he spoke to his mother sometimes, as if there was some kind of conspiracy against him, threatening his career. He had been like that… Sammar tried to remember the time before they bought the car, she tried to remember nagging him. It was years ago. He hadn’t told her he was short of money, he hadn’t told her that he had written to Mahasen asking for money. She had thought he wanted a car as much as she did. And now he was not here for her to ask him. Her aunt’s words hung in the air, a banner of victory, they could not be contradicted or denied.

  ‘Dalia, get up,’ she eased the child’s head away from her lap. Dalia sat up and rubbed her eyes. Sammar began to clear the plates off the table and to sweep the rice off the floor. She could feel her aunt watching how inefficient she was, clumsy in her movements, slow. She felt cold, her bones cold and stiff, not moving smoothly, not moving with ease. She wanted a bed and a cover, sleep. She wanted to sleep like she used to sleep in Aberdeen, everything muffled up and grey, curling up, covering her face with the blanket, her breath warming the cocoon she had made for herself.

  Amir pushed a tape into the video and cheerful music filled the room. Dalia sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Mary Poppins flying in the air. Mahasen lay down on the bed, propped up on her elbow watching the television. There was a peaceful expression on her face, as if she was drained now, fulfilled after her outburst.

  Sammar’s fingers were steady as she washed the dishes. The water spluttered and gushed out of the tap. There were colours in the soap suds, pink, green. She rinsed the glasses and stood them face down to dry, moved her weight from one foot to another. Something to lean on, rest upon, be held up by. If she could believe that he loved her, that now he was aware of her… But she didn’t believe, could not make herself believe. It was not there inside her. Inside her was only a bright hardness. Months since she had seen him, months since she had left Aberdeen. He was far away. He had forgotten her, he was a foreigner and she was who she was. By now he must know another woman. It was so long since he had lived with his wife, one had to be realistic about these things. His world had different rules. Perhaps he was relieved when she left, all the messiness of it, the sticky complications. Another woman, more easily accessible, lighter. A woman with lighter eyes, a lighter heart, someone who didn’t care whether he believed in God or not.

  When she finished washing the dishes, Sammar went and stood at the door to the sitting room. She watched Dalia squint a little in front of the television. Mahasen was sitting up on the bed rubbing cream on her hand and flexing her fingers to ease the joints. She wanted to say to her aunt that no one killed Tarig, it just happened, it was his day. She wanted to say that Allah gives life and takes it, and she had no feeling of guilt for wanting Tarig to buy a car. She was not to blame. If he had told her he was short of money, she would have unde
rstood and accepted. But he hadn’t told her. She wanted to say to her aunt, be careful when you speak of the dead because they are not here to defend themselves. Why tell me that he had complained about me, that he said I got on his nerves? He would not have wanted me to know this.

  Mahasen looked up, ‘Did you finish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mahasen looked down at her hands again, smoothed the white cream over her loose skin.

  It was time for Sammar to talk now, say what she wanted to say.

  ‘When I say you should go back to England,’ said Mahasen, ‘it is for your own good and Amir’s. Not for my own good. Amir fills the house and you serve me…’

  The house. Of course there must be a mention of the house. They shared ownership of this house…

  ‘It is better for us to be here,’ Sammar said. What she had intended to say when she came out of the kitchen effervesced. Her voice was sullen as a child, ‘I didn’t lose my job, they didn’t dismiss me, I left of my own accord.’

  Mahasen sighed as if she did not believe her, as if she was humouring her. ‘Yes, alright,’ she said and turned to look at the television again.

  The bedroom was not so hot. It was bearable with the ceiling fan and the shutters closed against the sun. The room smelt of her aunt, a smell of creams and cologne. Sammar sat up on the bed, leaned against the wall, hugged her knees and stared at the cracks on the ceiling. Some were angry and painful, some were delicate and faint: a European woman from long ago in a billowing dress, a cedar tree. She wished she could feel that Rae was close to her in spite of the angry words she had said to him, in spite of his get away, get away from me. She prayed that she could feel him close, not like in the dream, not distracted, not brushing past her. If she would dream a good dream about him. One good dream, reassuring her. He was so far away now that she could not imagine his voice, could not believe the things he had said to her. Another exile. Doubt, the exile of not being sure that anything existed between them, no tangible proof. The perfume he had given was in another room locked in a suitcase with all that she didn’t need: wool and tights, her duffle coat. All the clothes he had seen her in, locked away in the storeroom with sacks of lentils and rice.