Women of Sand and Myrrh

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  When Maaz came into the room where we were after the meal, it was as if he banished the spectre of drowsy boredom which had begun to steal in on the three of us and especially Suha, who at once asked him where Said was. ‘He’s on an errand. He’ll be back in half an hour,’ answered Maaz. Then he said, ‘Come and see what I brought from Sri Lanka.’ At his bidding, Fatima bent down and pulled out a wooden box from under the bed and opened it. It was lined with red velvety material, and contained prayer beads and rings set with semi-precious stones – mauve, dark blue, pink – and with pink and red coral. I picked out a ring which appeared to have more gold in it than the others. ‘This is beautiful,’ I remarked, hoping fervently that he’d say to me as usual, ‘Please have it,’ and he did, quite happily: ‘Please have it, Suzie.’ He took out a necklace and put it in my hand, then proffered the case to Suha who’d remained standing. ‘Please, Madame Suha. You’re my sister, I swear to God.’ Suha refused, as I thought she would. Although Maaz pleaded and insisted that she should take anything she wanted, she wouldn’t and eventually she asked Fatima for a glass of water and followed her into the kitchen.

  My eyes became riveted to the box again and I said playfully, ‘So you went away without me?’ ‘It was a mistake, I swear, Suzanne,’ he replied, laughing. ‘See how it’s drained my strength and health and left me with hallucinations. After the land of God and Magog, God’s decreed a new life for me.’

  I wanted to bring him back to the main issue: I reached for a ring set with a pearl and a red stone and slipped it on my finger. ‘Fatima’s lucky,’ I sighed. ‘Fatima doesn’t like Sri Lankan work,’ he answered, ‘nor Italian. She says the gold’s poor quality. I promised her a chain from Bahrain.’ I pretended that the ring wouldn’t come off my finger and he said, getting to his feet, ‘Leave it there, Suzanne.’ Suha came back in, asking when we were going to leave. I smiled at her. I’d put everything that Maaz had given me in my handbag, afraid of what she would think. She turned to Maaz challengingly. ‘You didn’t finish the story,’ she said. ‘What happened to the woman with the mole?’ I didn’t feel like hearing the story again. I was pleased with the jewellery and I wanted to take it home and look at it properly. I stood up: ‘We must go.’ But Maaz gestured to me to sit down again and turned to Suha, appearing happy at her interest in him. I’d sensed for a while that he was anxious to talk to her. ‘In the hotel they told me to make the trip home and be with my family when I died. They looked for my papers and then contacted the embassy. A man came to show me how to get to the airport and he stayed with me right up till I boarded the plane, God bless him. I told him everything that had happened to me, and he said, ‘You’re very lucky.’ And it’s true, I am. If I’d died in Sri Lanka I would have died unclean, without the prayer or the creed.’

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but Suha asked him, ‘What caused it? You haven’t told us what caused it.’ Maaz paid no attention to Fatima who came in carrying a stainless steel coffee pot, and answered, ‘The woman with the mole cried and said nobody would marry her, and she wanted to hide the mole with a diamond. I told her that I’d help her escape from them and take her to my country and marry her. The following day I went to the casino. She didn’t turn up. Some of her group were there, and they took me away and tortured me with fire and with lights that hurt my eyes and made me confused. Maybe they put sleeping pills and pills to make me crazy in the drinks they gave me. I didn’t know why they were doing it, and every time I asked about her they tortured me some more. When I understood what was wrong, I told them that I was married already, and I’d said the things I’d said for a joke.’

  I smiled at Fatima, and so did Suha. Fatima returned our smiles, raised her hand as if she was throwing something over her shoulder, and repeated, ‘God guide you, Maaz.’ Without sitting down, she began pouring coffee into the cups. She stood up nearly all the time we were eating. Whenever Suha invited her to sit with us, she poised for a few moments, pretended to eat something, then stood up again, listening out for Maaz to call to her. She sat down again to fill my plate and Suha’s with rice and meat which she broke up with her fingers, although we tried to stop her. When Suha stood up, I did the same, and with difficulty we prised Umar and James off the camel. We shook hands with Maaz, then with Fatima; she held out a bottle of cologne and shook a few drops from it over our hands and on the ground. Meanwhile Maaz went to fetch an aerosol; ‘Haven’t you sprayed any incense over them?’ he asked, spraying it at Suha’s face, while I moved out of reach. A smell of incense spilled into the room, sickly sweet like sugar, mixing instantly with the smell of the cologne. Fatima said in embarrassment, ‘Really, I only like to burn sticks of incense. They cheat us by selling us these aerosols instead of proper incense, and you can’t see smoke coming from it or anything.’

  In the car Suha told me that Fatima didn’t believe that Maaz and I were having an affair, then she began to laugh. She wouldn’t tell me the reason until she’d made me promise that I wouldn’t be angry whatever she said; but she couldn’t stop laughing. Fast losing my patience I said that if she didn’t tell me I really would be angry. So she told me and I didn’t understand why she’d laughed such a lot: Fatima had said that the blue of my eyes was like glass, my skin was the colour of a red fish, and my bottom was like a sheep’s buttocks.

  Eventually she told me the rest of the conversation: Fatima didn’t believe what the neighbours said about my relationship with Maaz because I was married and had children; I taught him English in exchange for Arabic lessons as I and my husband wanted to start a business; Maaz took us to visit villages so that we could get to know the country, and he’d become a real friend to us. Then Suha laughed again, and told me at last after more hesitation all of what Fatima had said, that she presumed I left my pubic hair unshaven like a forest, and since this was unclean, and Maaz was a good Muslim, he wouldn’t have risked invalidating his prayers. I found myself sharing Suha’s laughter, and I recounted what Maaz had discovered when we went away together, and how he’d moved away from me as if I were a leper.

  7

  I knocked on Maaz’s door again – it wasn’t passion, or the memory, or boredom – but his door remained silent. I saw an eye looking through its newly installed spy-hole and began to bang with the flat of my hand, as I thought of the return to the States coming closer all the time. I paused, then started up again when I heard his daughter’s voice, and then his son crying. I couldn’t make myself move away from the door: it was as if I had to see it opening now or it would turn into an aircraft door. At the thought of this I kicked it. There was a rattling noise from inside but the door remained closed.

  I leaned my head against my hand which still rested on the door, and wondered who I could turn to for help. Maaz was the only one lodged in my mind and I returned to him instinctively as the sole person I felt I had any power over. It was as if I was still contining to exact payment from him for his relationship with me which had shown him another life beyond it and allowed him to escape out into the world. I’d contacted all the men I knew; they were the ones with young frustrated bodies always wanting me. Through them I found out that Maaz’s frenzied infatuation and jealousy were both quite normal: most of them, especially those who’d never been abroad, pursued me day and night. More than Maaz, they made the fantasy of A Thousand and One Nights come true for me. They held parties for my benefit and had caviare and salmon flown in. They procured the latest videos straight from the studios, and I probably used to find out what happened to Sue Ellen before the television companies. When I’d begun to get in touch with them one by one about my problem, and asked them if they could think of a solution, I felt that I was becoming more aware of their delicate situation for the first time. The man who replied seriously to my requests was not the same man whom I’d seen dancing, drinking glass after glass to forget some woman or other. All of them avoided the issue of my wanting to stay here and tried to talk about something else. The company David worked for had been declared
bankrupt, closed its offices, and named the day on which its employees were to leave the country, but I was desperately anxious to prolong our stay so that perhaps David would find another job and we wouldn’t lose our residence permits for ever. As I knocked on the door these ideas were on the tip of my tongue and I only needed to come face to face with Maaz to put them into words.

  Suddenly I heard his voice. ‘What’s wrong with you, Suzanne? We were asleep.’

  Quickly I replied, ‘Open the door. You must.’

  He was silent, then he said, ‘I’m not well. Perhaps we can talk on the phone …’

  Without letting him finish his sentence, I replied like a stubborn child, ‘You must open the door. Just for a minute.’

  When he didn’t, I thought about what was going on, and could hardly believe how crazy relationships were which came about as a result of a desperate need. In the past he’d knelt humbly at my feet. Now he wouldn’t open the door to me. I let my mind wander, remembering the time I’d gone away with David to another part of the country to spend the day with his boss. When we opened the door on our return we were met by a horrible smell. Ringo wasn’t at home and there were glasses all over the place, empty Scotch bottles, vomit, cushions strewn about. I realized that Maaz hadn’t left the house since saying goodbye to us that morning; he’d turned up with a bottle of Scotch, asking if we minded him drinking a glass there because Fatima would tell the neighbours if he drunk it at their house. I found him lying on the floor with the curtains drawn. I took hold of his face and shook him awake. Then I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. When he’d drunk it, David left me with him and went pointedly upstairs. Maaz wept and said that he’d missed me and hadn’t wanted to leave my house; he’d lain on my bed and smelt my clothes and kissed them, even kissed my shoes. I helped him to his feet, afraid of the burden of his attachment to me. And David who’d made me run away with him so that we could be married and who’d cried to see my suffering at the birth of our first child stopped taking me in his arms. As I remembered, my sadness changed to anger. I swallowed it back with my spittle as I drew breath, then drummed on the door in a subdued manner and said, ‘David hasn’t got a job any more. We have to leave and I want to stay here.’ His reply came back fast: ‘Never mind. You go, and I’ll come and visit you in the States soon I hope.’ ‘No. I’m not going,’ I shouted. ‘You have to fix my passport and David’s, or mine anyway.’ ‘I can’t. I’m not well, Suzanne. You go back home with your husband. He’s a good man: at least he didn’t kill either of us.’

  With all my strength I pounded on the door. ‘You’ve got to let me in,’ I cried, my feet planted resolutely on the ground like an animal about to be led to the slaughter.

  When the only response was a movement behind the door, which remained firmly closed, I felt as if a power secret as the wind had stripped me of everything which I’d put my trust in as I moved about the rooms of my house deep in the desert. I was like a deposed beauty queen: the jury had turned on me and replaced me with a new queen, dragging off the crown, robe and shoes, wiping away the make-up and taking the sceptre from my hand, tearing the smile off my lips and even the memory of the past happiness out of my heart. I felt like a fortune-teller who’d seen her own future in her crystal ball and then made it go wrong. Nobody would ever understand that I was scared of going back because the roar of cities destroyed people and I was scared of being destroyed. Going back to America was going back to being a speck among the millions, while here I felt aware of my importance every minute of the day; if I just said good morning in Arabic everybody praised me. What does a woman in her forties do in a country swarming with others like her when she’s been used to being the one and only? Who’d look at a fat woman in her forties with a lisp which made her hard to understand? Who’d call her on the phone except someone who’d dialled a wrong number? In my mind was an image of my telephone ringing all the time irrespective of the hour, transmitting their crazy longing to me. I was an oasis, green and sparkling in this great drought. I’d become like Barbara, jangling with gold bracelets and confidence and security, even spiritual and material security for years still to come. I could picture exactly what was going to become of me: in the car on the way to the airport I would revert to being a woman with rather a round face, hair hanging on a podgy neck, two fat arms, slack breasts and a stomach protruding over two short fat legs.

  In a final desperate attempt I knocked so ferociously that my gold bracelets hurt me. I touched them one by one and although this comforted me the thought of Barbara pained me. Was I going to go home with only these bracelets and a few pieces of jewellery? What had happened to my dreams of doing business and growing rich, my dreams of the man with whom I was going to spend the rest of my life? This time I shouted, ‘Fatima! Fatima!’ I heard a commotion, followed by another burst of noise, then the key was turned in the lock and the door opened. I didn’t recognize the person standing there for a moment, although he bore a resemblance to Maaz. I gasped. It was Maaz, his legs weak and emaciated, his face yellow, with white sores on the lips. When he came to offer his hand to me, I saw red sores on the fingers. Behind him was Fatima looking thin, with a beautiful smile on her face. I noticed that her stomach had disappeared. I was still in a state of shock at the sight of Maaz but I asked her straight out, as if everything was normal, ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’ She answered me hesitantly, looking at Maaz, ‘A boy. But he’s not very well.’ I found myself wondering if I ought to take the gold chain, with ‘Allah’ in ornamental calligraphy hanging from it, from around my neck and give it to the new baby like the women did here. ‘Where is he?’ I asked. Maaz tried to mumble something but it was Fatima who led me into the bedroom. ‘Poor thing. He’s not well,’ she said. The baby was lying in the middle of the bed with some white powder on his face. When I went closer I saw white sores on his hands and face, even on his eyes. I said nothing. I put my hand up to the chain around my neck then let it drop, feeling sick. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help looking back at his eyes, where the syphilis showed so clearly. I noticed that the baby was wearing the clothes which I’d ordered for Fatima from the States, and then I don’t know why, but when I saw the brightly-coloured cover which Maaz’s mother must have woven in her tent, the thought came to me that it was I and the oven which cleaned itself and the aeroplanes which had caused the syphilis in Maaz and his newborn child. Why hadn’t Fatima been treated? Why hadn’t the doctor given her an abortion, knowing that her baby would be born with syphilis? Then my thoughts trailed away: Maaz must have hidden it from her, ashamed to tell. I considered asking what his name was and a lot of other things, but I just smiled as if I hadn’t seen anything or thought anything. A vision of the doorway of the private clinic, jammed with people newly returned from the Far East, flashed into my mind. Only then did I know for sure that Maaz couldn’t help me.

  I went back to the car, trying to chase away my thoughts, the pangs of conscience, the self-reproach, but they moved back in again little by little, chasing after one another, weaving the syphilis into the story of Maaz’s trip to Sri Lanka: this was the first time I’d encountered the disease in real life and not just at second hand in books and pictures. I thought how lucky I was that I hadn’t caught it, and moreover I wasn’t living with him as I’d so often pictured I would be. This realization made me more cheerful. As I rode through the streets, protected from the burning sun outside, Maaz’s house began to seem a continent away. I sensed the slow regular pulse of life, which was apparent even from the men and goats resting in the shade, and found that I loved this reality. I forgot the baby bit by bit and vowed not to leave here whatever happened. This resolve made ideas come tumbling into my head, including fantastic ones. I could say I’d converted to Islam and ask to stay on as a children’s nanny, or sign my divorce papers and go through a formal marriage with Ringo, whose residence permit didn’t expire for a least a month. I found myself counting on my fingers: I had five days left.

  Nur

>   1

  Everything was tranquil, the water in the swimming-pool, the gazelles’ house. If Saleh’s robe and his white headcloth hadn’t been lying on the floor, I wouldn’t have believed that I’d really been wearing them. I was lucky to be safely back in bed, although I could still see myself panting along the street. I hadn’t taken account of the moon and it had been full, shining down on me and lighting the way so that Suha’s house looked as if it was lit up.

  Standing before the outside door of the house, I had noticed that my uncharacteristic feelings of agitation were growing, and that the excuse I’d thought of using to her and her husband had suddenly evaporated. But when I looked back along the street I couldn’t imagine going home, and I felt a renewed burst of courage at the thought of Suha being inside these walls. The wooden garden door opened easily. I pushed her son’s toys out of the way and stood up on the table to open the small window of the bathroom. I’d meant to sneak quickly through it like her son did, but Saleh’s clothes held me up and I had to lower myself in gradually until my foot touched the edge of the bath. When the whole of me was inside the bathroom I stood listening: the house was still and the air-conditioners roared noisily. I confronted myself in the mirror in men’s clothes and tiptoed out of the bathroom past the canary’s cage, which was covered up for the night, wondering whether to scream for help and wake up everyone in the house; I could say one of the servants had tried to come into my room, or a driver had abducted me, so that I’d had to fling open the car door, roll out on to the ground and rush to their house; or should I say my heart was pounding, my breathing constricted, and I needed their Lebanese doctor friend to examine me?