The Gulf Between Us

by Geraldine Bedell

  On the way home, I had a text from Matt: ‘All well. Can’t get back for flight on Saturday. Arriving Hawar soon. All love.’

  I called straight back, but I wasn’t surprised to find the phone had again already been switched off. How on earth was I supposed to pretend to dad and Sam that Matt couldn’t make it from Yorkshire to Heathrow for the flight home? I don’t think I have a particular talent for untruths, even though Sam now regarded me as a pathological liar. Having finally come clean to him about Dave’s death, I didn’t want to start lying about another thing. He was still scowling at me disappointedly every time we passed on the stairs and avoiding meals with me almost entirely, spending every available hour at Faisal’s flat and frequently sleeping over.

  It seemed that Matt was expecting an awful lot of cooperation from me, considering – although in truth, neither dad nor Sam seemed in the least bit curious about Matt’s supposed trip to Yorkshire. In their different ways, they were both too busy being self‐absorbed. Sam was hardly at home and my father was, as I pointed out to him, so upset by the fact we were leaving that he was unable to take any pleasure in the rest of our stay.

  ‘There’s going to be a war,’ he pointed out unnecessarily on Friday, when I was on my way upstairs to pack.

  ‘The embassy will get us out if we need to leave,’ I promised briskly, although I didn’t believe it. If there were weapons of mass destruction heading in our direction, Richard Crossley‐Tennant wasn’t going to have time for much except a few panicked phone calls.

  ‘I don’t know why you want to go back there, after everything that’s happened.’

  ‘It’s where we live.’

  ‘You don’t even speak the language.’

  ‘No, well, it’s very complicated. They mix up all the singulars and plurals, for a start. Instead of saying “the shoes are big”, you have to say, “the shoes, she is big”.’

  ‘And if they’re making Matt leave, I don’t know why you’d want to stay…’

  ‘Dad, I have to earn a living.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you haven’t found someone. It’s not as if you’re unattractive. Even James Hartley went out with you.’

  We hadn’t gone out; we stayed in. The only place James Hartley would have wanted to go out with me was Kabul, where I could have worn a burkha. ‘Dad,’ I said wearily, ‘we’ve been through this before.’

  ‘It’s not as if you don’t meet people. What about that bloke who was here the other day?’

  ‘Which bloke?’

  ‘The Arab.’

  ‘Nezar Al Maraj? You can’t pair me off with random men I only vaguely know… Look, I’ve talked to you about this before. I only want to live with someone if I can’t bear not living with them. Otherwise, it’d be worse than living alone. It wouldn’t solve anything. You know that.’

  ‘How likely are you to find someone you feel like that about?’ Dad asked irritably. ‘Especially in Hawar.’

  Fourteen

  I concocted a story about Maya’s family flying back to Hawar via Cairo and offering to take Matt with them. It would be tricky when he arrived back with nothing to say about the pyramids, but he’d have to deal with that. I wished afterwards I’d said they were coming back via Rome, because Matt had actually been there, but Cairo was the place that came into my head. I thought that Matt probably really was in the Middle East and at the time it seemed better to stick to the truth as far as possible.

  ‘What, so he’s not going back with you?’ Karen asked disapprovingly, somehow conveying the idea I was an inadequate mother who couldn’t keep her children close by her, or under control at all.

  I was angry with Matt for not saying goodbye to his grandfather, especially after dad had made such efforts with his sexuality. But dad himself was indulgent and said he was looking forward to having Matt to stay again soon. ‘Perhaps he could come to our relatives’ group?’ he suggested, ‘and talk about the situation for gays in the Middle East?’

  As we set off for the airport, Sam finally registered how unlikely it was that Matt would have given up the chance of a first‐class flight back to Hawar, so I confessed that not only was he not with Maya, but also that I had no idea where he was.

  ‘You’ve been lying to me again?’

  ‘He asked me to keep it a secret.’

  ‘So you did? Without thinking of me?’

  ‘I wanted to protect him. I never thought we’d get to this point, going back without him.’

  When we landed in Hawar, I half‐expected the immigration officer to tear up my green landing card and throw it back at me. I couldn’t believe the ruling family and their henchmen didn’t know that Matt had disobeyed the very clear instructions to stay away from Shaikh Rashid; nor, since that was the case, that they’d let us in. But we were waved through with the usual indifferent hauteur.

  The front‐page story in the Hawar Daily News on the day we arrived was that the United States had deployed its first full combat division to the Gulf since 1991. President Bush had also made a speech warning Saddam Hussein that unless he changed his ways, he was heading for war. As Sam pointed out, he didn’t say which ways, and it was unfair not to be a bit more specific.

  Given that Saddam had already let in the weapons inspectors, war now seemed inevitable. There was a feeling of helplessness among people in Hawar, of matters having been taken out of our hands. Jodie came round the following day, looking for Matt, and said her dad was hardly ever getting home these days: ‘I think it’s get the hajj over and…’ she shrugged.

  ‘Seems odd that they’re so scrupulous about Ramadan and the hajj,’ I said, ‘as if war could be conducted with rules, like croquet.’

  ‘But you can’t have it so that anything goes,’ she objected – ‘atrocities and stuff.’

  I shrugged. Once you were killing people, it didn’t seem that big a leap to kill them horribly.

  Jodie had come up to the compound because she knew Matt was due back but she hadn’t been able to get hold of him on his mobile. I was forced to tell her I had no idea where he was. There was no point in pursuing the Maya story with her because she and Maya had been shopping together in the souk that morning.

  She stared at me. She knew there was only thing Matt could be doing in such secrecy. ‘Bloody hell, good for Matt! Who’d have thought?’

  I swore her to secrecy and hoped Matt would come back soon, because I couldn’t see how we could possibly keep on lying. He must be due back at work; I was going into the British Primary tomorrow and the International School term was starting in a couple of days, although Sam was already well ahead of the game. The day after we got back, he triumphantly announced that following a month‐long campaign of persuasion (about which, needless to say, he’d told me absolutely nothing) Mohammed Alireza had finally agreed to be interviewed for the International.

  ‘Is that wise?’ I asked in alarm.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s not the sort of thing you usually cover, surely?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘What does Mr Koppel say?’

  ‘It’s not his magazine. It’s for students.’

  ‘Sam, please be careful.’

  ‘Are you saying Mohammed Alireza should be censored?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I answered irritably. ‘But he seems perfectly capable of getting his message across without your help. We don’t need any more trouble, that’s all.’

  ‘What, so you think we should censor ourselves, then? To protect the Al Majid?’

  There was no way I was going to win if Sam turned this into an argument about free speech. ‘If you want to finish your IB…’

  ‘If I’m editing a magazine,’ Sam retorted pompously, ‘I think I should do the best job possible, and cover the subjects people are interested in.’

  Matt walked in the following morning as I was getting ready for work, looking as if he’d just been round the corner. I was drying my hair and didn’t hear him open the front door a
nd come through the house. He knocked on my bedroom door, then poked his head round, smiling a bit blearily. I caught sight of him, squealed and dropped the hairdryer on the floor.

  ‘Matt!’ I rushed at him. ‘Thank God you’re back!’

  ‘Hey, mum.’

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘I told you I’d be OK.’

  ‘You didn’t say you were going to be gone this long…’

  ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ He disentangled himself from my frantic hug and I let go reluctantly and followed him into the kitchen. The blood was flowing back to my brain after the initial faintness and, though I had a thousand questions for him, unfortunately the one that came out was, ‘Are you mad?’ The second was hardly any better: ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘I’m back, aren’t I?’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Cairo.’

  ‘No!’ I laughed; he looked puzzled. ‘That’s where I told everyone… oh, it doesn’t matter. How did you know where to go? How on earth did you organize it?’

  ‘I didn’t. Nezar did.’

  ‘Nezar?’

  ‘I thought you knew… He organized the whole thing.’

  ‘How would I know? I knew nothing, Matt. Nobody told me where you were or what you were doing. I’ve been worried sick…’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. I told you it’d be OK, though.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with Al Maraj, anyway? You hardly know him!’

  ‘I dunno… You know him.’

  ‘Barely.’

  Matt looked confused. ‘Oh, well, he organized the plane and flew out with me and everything.’

  ‘You went on a private plane?’

  ‘Yeah, with these big armchairs and a sofa…’

  I didn’t want to know about the soft furnishings. ‘And, what, Al Maraj came with you?’

  ‘He took me to the house where Rashid was staying.’

  ‘Why on earth did he do that?’

  Matt shrugged. ‘I thought it was something to do with you…’

  ‘No. And it was very wrong of him to give you that impression. It would have been a lot better if one of you had told me what was going on. It was one thing for me to tell granddad and Sam you were in Yorkshire, but lying about why you weren’t coming back to Hawar was really difficult. It was very unfair.’

  ‘But you did see him just before Christmas, right… ?’

  ‘Yes, but that was…’ I blushed. ‘We didn’t discuss you. So,’ I asked suspiciously, ‘what’s in it for him? Has he done some kind of deal with the Al Majid?’

  ‘Well, there was some kind of deal, must have been, to let me see Rashid,’ Matt answered reasonably. ‘He’s virtually a prisoner. If he wants to be crown prince, he has to do what they say. They made it pretty clear that this was the last time I’d be allowed to see him.’

  ‘So Al Maraj is working for the ruling family?’

  ‘No.’ Matt shook his head. ‘He found some way to persuade them – I don’t know what, but the only people he was working for were me and Rashid.’

  I stared at him, trying to make sense of it. ‘So, how was it?’

  ‘We had four days. Not whole days, but I was allowed to see him four times. We talked and talked, and we were on our own, and it was fine.’ He smiled. ‘And in the end, he told me the best thing would be to find a boyfriend who doesn’t come with the responsibility of a small country.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No… it’s OK.’

  ‘And that’s his decision? They’re not coercing him?’

  ‘Well, they are, obviously, because he’d rather be with me. But they haven’t driven him mad, if that’s what you mean. He’s seeing a psychiatrist and an endocrine specialist but he’s still the same. He was quite funny about the treatment, which mainly seems to consist of giving them sperm samples. He’s had to provide about twenty so far. They give him pictures of women, though. I suppose they think they’d be encouraging it if they gave him boys…’

  ‘And what do they want him to do?’

  ‘If he agrees to get married and acts like a good husband, he thinks they’ll leave him alone.’

  ‘Seems rather hard on whoever gets chosen as the wife.’

  ‘Yes,’ Matt looked away. I think he didn’t approve; certainly, he didn’t want to talk about it.

  ‘And what about you? Was it worth going all that way?’ It sounded as though he’d gone only to be told it was definitely over.

  ‘Yes,’ he said decidedly. ‘It was painful, but it was also wonderful, and it would have been much, much worse not seeing him. I know now that he’ll always be thinking of me a bit.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Matt.’

  ‘Perhaps he feels guilty. He says he doesn’t: he’s always quoting this thing about how in Islam judgement belongs to God – but the religious establishment is so hostile to gays, and there are a lot of things about being a Muslim that he really values.’ He frowned. ‘Are you ever going to pour that tea?’

  ‘Is it the right decision, though? For him?’

  He shrugged. ‘He says when the Americans invade the whole region’ll be in a mess and there’ll be a job to do in Hawar because people are sick of the repression but they’re even more afraid of the religious fanatics. But Nezar doesn’t think it’s worth it.’

  I wished he wouldn’t keep referring to him so matily.

  ‘What, Al Maraj thinks he should give up politics? For you?’ I said. It seemed unlikely.

  ‘We were talking about these doctors Rashid’s been seeing and Nezar said specialists couldn’t restore lost opportunities to an old person who’s missed out on erotic experience.’

  ‘Right.’ I felt suddenly hot.

  ‘He thinks Rashid’s closing down that whole side of his life, and it’s wrong.’

  ‘Maybe things will change?’ I said hopefully ‘– maybe the Gulf won’t be homophobic for ever.’

  ‘Yeah, except they seem to be changing in the wrong direction. It’s getting even more difficult to be gay in Hawar.’

  ‘Did Al Maraj come back with you? Only we ought to thank him…’

  ‘I did thank him, mum. What d’you take me for? He said since I was coming back here, he wanted to make sure it all went smoothly, so he came too. He seemed to think it was better I didn’t take a scheduled flight. But he’s gone to Paris now.’

  ‘He must have had an ulterior motive…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Matt said, amused. ‘I think he did, mum. He’s very cross with you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘For not being over James.’

  ‘But I am!’

  ‘He thinks you’re still obsessed with him.’

  ‘That’s nonsense! How dare he? You know that’s not true. Didn’t you tell him?’

  ‘Mum, I had a lot on my mind. Anyway, how am I supposed to know what’s going on with you? It’s way too complicated.’

  People get things wrong all the time. It’s not surprising when you think about it. The politicians deciding whether to invade Iraq, for instance, might have had more information about Saddam and WMD than the rest of us, but in the end George Bush couldn’t feel like an Iraqi, however many intelligence reports he read. He’d be basing his decision about whether to start a war mainly on instinct and intuition. It seemed rather a big intuition, that it was a good idea to invade a country, but I felt in those weeks that I was scarcely in a position to criticize because I’d lost so much confidence in my own judgement. Before now, I’d flattered myself that this was rather sound, and that this was because I was good at seeing other people’s points of view and the various different sides of a question. I even thought this might be something to do with being a mother, because it’s what so much of motherhood is about. Yet when it came to James, I’d been dazzled and blind‐sided, thrown off balance by factors that a more sensible, wiser person would have ignored, such as how flattering it was. I could also appreciate now that I might have made some rather serious mistakes ab
out Al Maraj, having been distracted first by James and then my own prejudices. Unfortunately, knowing all of that didn’t get me very far because Al Maraj wasn’t here and I had no idea where he was, and he seemed to think I was still obsessed with James. Added to which, Fiona Eckhart had probably reported back that I went round telling everyone I couldn’t stand him. There were a lot of things I would have liked to say to him, to ask and explain, but when last heard of, he’d been heading for Paris – which meant, frustratingly, that I had no choice but to get on with my life, with going back to school and all the usual start of term mayhem: new pupils to settle in, muddles with the music timetable, meetings to organize with parents and visits to set up with the Ministry of Education.

  At least Matt seemed a lot happier since his visit to Shaikh Rashid. He only had a few weeks left at Palm Publishing, and he’d started to talk about what he planned to do afterwards. Life seemed finally to have regained some of its old, regular, uneventful rhythms. The January weather was beautiful: a breeze filtered through the palm trees and brought up goose bumps on your arms in the early morning, in spite of faultless blue skies and warm sunshine. Everything was etched more sharply in the clear winter air: the hibiscus flowers looked brighter, the bougainvillea more purple, the sea azure instead of its faded summer yellow‐grey. When I’d first arrived in Qalhat, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for the emirate to be anything other than the drab dead colour of dust, but now it looked completely different: we had architecturally striking buildings, new hotels with lagoons and flamingos, a golf course and a university. And pavements everywhere – proper ones with kerbs and trees, not like before, when roads petered out at the edges into ditches or were simply the unmade gaps between buildings. When I’d first arrived, there had been no point in having leather shoes, because you couldn’t go out without wrecking them. To get to one of the concrete and glass skyscrapers in the diplomatic area, for example, you’d have had to cross dusty open spaces where plastic bags drifted about, catching on the rubble. Now the entire district was manicured, with hedges and palm trees and fewer and fewer patches of stony ground each year. Where all the houses had once been the colour of dust, of the desert, and had had a kind of desiccated uniformity about them, as if it was too much effort to keep the sand out, the thousands of new homes built in the last twenty years were faced in gleaming marble, or, like the whole of Hassan Town, whitewashed and shining in the relentless sunshine. The smarter ones had swimming pools, bouncing bright blue light off their white walls, and most had gardens, because a garden here was almost as big a status symbol as a Ferrari, so that now the emirate was patched with vivid green.