Patti’s voice was unshakable after all those years. The music was muted by the space between us, by the wind, but I could still make out the words.
I have the answer now, I believe. What would Patti Smith do? She would sing to me. She would forgive me for losing myself.
epilogue
It’s been seventeen years since I first stepped onto the plane headed for Singapore.
I left New York for San Francisco soon after I returned from Brunei, and I never did make it back. Leave New York and it leaves you behind so quickly. New York is like the lover you leave, the one who still somehow retains the upper hand for the rest of your life. When you pass him on the street, you will recognize him before he recognizes you. You will have to decide whether or not to call out, It’s me. It’s Jill. You will read his name in the paper and your body will remember.
You will watch on television as thick pillars of black smoke rise into the air and you will remember New York, like someone just ran a plane into your heart. But New York, even at its moment of greatest pain, will not remember you. And though I like my view so much better since I left, it sometimes still smarts when I realize I’ve been forgotten.
I am married now, entrenched in a three-bedroom life, my mornings spent drinking green tea and looking out my picture window at the lush camphor trees and the purple-frosted jacarandas that line my suburban California street. When I pause, I sometimes feel an unfamiliar emotion flickering somewhere in the periphery of my consciousness. It’s there for a moment and then it’s gone. It takes a moment for me to locate a name for it. I believe it may be happiness.
As I wind further into this forest of domesticity, the dense sleeves of tattoos on my arms hint at another life to my neighbors. They look at me strangely when I stop by with homemade Christmas cookies, knowing somehow that the picture is skewed. And when, at cocktail parties, I drop hints of my former sordid self, they look at me and laugh, unsure if I’m joking.
I’m sure Robin is also leading a life he never expected. In 1997, a former Miss USA filed a ninety-million-dollar lawsuit against him claiming he drugged and raped her and held her as a sex slave against her will. The charges were dismissed based on his diplomatic immunity, but it was an international embarrassment. Not long after, Prince Jefri and the Sultan parted ways after Jefri was accused of embezzling about thirty billion dollars.
The case has been in and out of court and many of Prince Jefri’s holdings have been seized and sold at auction. Most recently, he failed to appear to answer contempt charges at the High Court of England; there is currently a warrant out for his arrest. I follow his travails with some interest, wondering what he’ll do now and what’s going to happen to his wives and children.
As for me, I’m about to take another long plane ride. A few days ago I received a call from our adoption agency saying that our son had made it through court in Ethiopia and that our travel date had been confirmed. I have a ten-month-old son whom I’ll meet for the first time in two weeks. I have seen pictures of him, so I know that he has huge chocolate eyes and is beautiful beyond measure.
Though he isn’t here yet, I still open his green gingham curtains every morning. I stand looking out the window, imagining what it will look like to my son, whose landscape now is so different. My son, who is about to travel so far for such a little boy. We’ll both have traveled so far to find each other.
The story of Scheherazade is the story of the storyteller. We hope the story we tell will be the story that saves our lives.
My son’s name is Tariku. In Amharic it means “his story,” or “you are my story.”
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem Page 26