‘Could you not’, I remember her saying, ‘simply go to Umbria?’
‘No, mother; Umbria would not do at all.’
I folded the letter and placed it on the low wall that surrounded the fountain in the courtyard. As we left Geneva for England she’d said to me, ‘It is still my time, Eva.’ A curious thing to say.
The second letter was from Mr Hatchett:
Dear Ms English,
I hope that this letter finds you well settled and comfortable in your Great Eastern outpost. I have thought of our meeting and conversation often. I do hope you will be understanding about this, as I could not reach you to confirm that this course of action is preferable to you, but I endeavoured to formally put a proposal to the board here at Hatchett & White for the publication of your Lady Cyclist’s Guide to the desert. I am very pleased to inform you that we would very much like to publish your suggested Guide and impressions of this unknown region. With great pleasure we offer you an advance of £150 for the Guide and, although we are unsure as to your return date, we look forward to receiving the manuscript in due course.
May I also add that it was a very great personal pleasure to make your acquaintance and I hope that we shall become good friends. I pray that you remain safe in your chosen location.
All kind wishes,
Francis Hatchett
What do I remember of him, this Mr Hatchett? His beard was gingerish, lightly trimmed. Cousin Alfred described him as an Oxford man, uneasy in Cambridge company. This, of course, is how Alfred assesses the world: one college versus another and everyone else in the mire. He had an uneasy way of sitting as we talked, his hands a little shaky, yet, at the same time, a confidence – the sort that comes with breeding and wealth. Or, what I mean is, I suppose, he did not have the unbearable atmosphere of the English middle class about him: the dowdy, the greedy, the endless concern about what others think, the ghastly parochialism. Yes, he is beyond all of that, though certainly I could not imagine him comfortable in the cafés of Geneva. Despite it being April, it was cold and blowy in that house in Hampstead. I crouched near the fire in the green, book-lined room and looked up at him, smiling. Where was Lizzie? Over with Alfred and that friend of his, the one who talked relentlessly at a woman all looped in lace and froth whose name I forget. I daresay Mr Hatchett was polite. I don’t recall his words, but I do remember his encouragement, which was charming, and I remember him picking up my glove and that he is not at all old.
I watched several small lizards disappear into the courtyard wall behind a white, fragile flower that was so pervasive it seemed it must have been responsible for the dry, bitter cracks in the earth. It smells far too strong and sweet for its colour. I returned to Millicent. Packages and envelopes were in a mess across the room and then I saw that Millicent looked grim.
‘What is it?’
Lizzie looked up from reading her letter from Mother.
‘It’s the Inland Mission,’ she said. ‘They are refusing to provide funds for our release. We must “talk our way out”.’
Millicent looked round the room. I picked up what she was looking for, her Hatamens, and handed them to her. She put one in her mouth and took out a match to light it, turning to Lizzie whose face had become blotchy.
‘They won’t provide the bribe?’ Lizzie asked. Millicent leaned against the wall. Lizzie put the letter down, pushed aside the papers on the floor with her foot and walked over to Millicent. I was astonished to see her pick up Millicent’s hand and hold it.
‘I should send a telegram to Mr Steyning in Urumtsi at once. He will help. He is the senior representative in the field, more aware of the reality than those in the Mission houses.’
Millicent glanced down at Lizzie’s hand holding hers, then looked away into the distance. Lizzie was looking at her face, directly, but Millicent avoided returning the look. She coughed, as if all were absolutely normal, and so on we all go, like a ship, drifting hopelessly.
This evening, I wrote a letter back to Mr Hatchett. Here is a copy:
Dear Mr Hatchett,
I write to you from the shade of a pavilion in the centre of a garden that seems like a jungle. The heat here is something you could not even imagine, and I hope for your sake, that it is something you never experience. From memory, at any rate, I think you have pale skin (you are of Irish descent, perhaps?) and I am quite sure that the sun here would not suit you. It made me extraordinarily happy to have received notice from your board regarding my book and I shall be forever grateful. Thank you for your support. I very much look forward to meeting you again on our return. I cannot thank you enough.
June 27th
Millicent is in the kitchen, reading from the Bible as Khadega cuts segments of fruit and puts them into a clay bowl. Apricots, apples, figs. Side by side with their backs to me. God’s intimate friendship blessed my house. Millicent’s hand rests on Khadega’s shoulder, her thumb rubbing a specific place as the questions continue: Do they love you, at your home? Do they need you? What is your value to your family? Millicent takes up pieces of Khadega and opens them up, like prising open a shell. She places her fingers into them and pulls them open.
I’m writing this now – fast in the pavilion. The heat seems intent on crushing me today, droning on and in, suffocating like a blanket being unfolded and placed upon the earth. The courtyard, usually a shelter, is too opulent and over-bearing. Roses grow out of walls and hang heavily like crepe-paper decorations. Jasmine spreads as if it intends to smother.
Watching Millicent and Khadega it occurs to me again that this must be how Millicent bewitched Lizzie, with this tight female intimacy. All the flattery and prayer and the talk and the tea and the attention. I suspect Khadega has never felt so central, so important and seduced, in all her life, ignored as she is in her home of so many women because she is ugly.
Millicent smokes and asks questions, smokes and asks, and I can see now that real conversion can only begin when secrets are surrendered. She is trying to find a secret, a pearl; the one thing that would make Khadega vulnerable. Khadega’s unpleasant, square face nods and smiles, and parts of her rise up to the surface like stolen items hitherto concealed in a pocket. Witnessing this, I am left wondering what Lizzie’s secret must be? What is the soft pearl inside Lizzie that gave Millicent the key – and ultimate control – to her soul? Poor Lizzie.
Then, tonight, witnessed, an argument between my sister and Millicent, in the garden, beneath the curious handkerchief tree. I saw them from the top of the garden, but couldn’t hear what they were saying: Millicent holding on to Lizzie’s wrists, Lizzie shouting, and then her head dropping, her hair hanging down, Millicent letting Lizzie’s arms fall and walking away, and me left saying to the air: come back to me, Lizzie.
June 29th
I came through the gate into the courtyard with Ai-Lien strapped native-style against my chest and walked into a very unusual scene. The altar was upside down, candles were on the floor, and Khadega was crouched in front of the fountain. Millicent was beside her, stroking her back. They were talking fast in a blur of Turki and Russian.
Khadega’s body was shaking. Millicent took her hand and began to pray, her hands traced circles around Khadega’s bent spine. Irritation came over me, like water, as if I were submerged in it. Why should Millicent take this young girl away from all she knows? Where is she taking her? To total abandonment by her family. To the breaking of all the sacred codes of her community. If Millicent succeeds she must then provide her not only with a physical haven (will she come to live with us here?) but a moral one. Millicent, in realising her evangelist ambition, will create the ultimate dependant. Perhaps this is her way; she thinks herself a collector of souls.
Khadega looked wretched with her black hair hanging damp with sweat and free and I could not help but think of the layers of her life: the Holy Quran ringing its laws, the words of her prophet and father, then Millicent, spelling her away from all of that. Millicent continued her prayer. It was sung in a rhy
thm, but I could not hear the words.
I pressed myself against the courtyard wall and felt the prick of a rose thorn on my thigh. The sting of it kept me still, even though I wanted – powerfully so – to take Khadega’s hand and deliver her back to her father, to put her in his total possession again. I wanted to rush to Mohammed and tell him of the perils here, that he should take his ugly daughter away from us, but I couldn’t move. It was as if the roses themselves pinned me still, as if Millicent had magicked them to do so.
When I looked again Millicent was holding a piece of paper. She put it into Khadega’s shaking hands. I guessed it was a pledge of some sort but Khadega was not immediately ready to sign it. The prayer continued, soft and repetitive, like a lullaby. Khadega began to whimper. The prayer and the crying connected rhythmically and Millicent ran her hand along Khadega’s neck, pulling her hair back to expose a vulnerable part of skin behind the ear. She offered Khadega the pledge, again, and her pen and this time, shaking, her head bent low, as she crouched towards the courtyard floor, Khadega signed it. She then dropped the pen and her whole body collapsed into the dust. Millicent stopped the lullaby-prayer and bent down next to her and kissed her neck, then, and as if sensing suddenly that I was here, she turned round and looked at me. Her eyes narrowed and then she looked past me. Lizzie, emerging through the doorway, was also watching, with one hand on her cheek and her camera in the other.
14. London, Present Day
Pimlico
Lying flat like this on the concrete floor, looking up at the talons, she could watch it with her eyes half closed. A line from Dr Seuss came to her: lots of noses smelling owls’ feet. Perhaps the owl was happy to be free? Frieda had no idea. In her hand was a tea towel, although in what way a tea towel could help her catch the owl was unclear. The window in the hall was open a little. If the owl were determined enough it could squeeze through to a new life in the wild woods of Pimlico, fashioning a comfortable home in the golden-topped trees of Battersea Park. Frieda had often seen escaped parrots and cockatiels up above the Peace Pagoda, looking dolefully across at indigenous crows.
It hadn’t moved for more than an hour now. She had only left it once, to go to the toilet, but she ran straight back and it hadn’t moved. She was fearful of losing it. Whoever Irene Guy was, she’d owned this owl, perhaps cherished it, and now Frieda had carelessly let it out. It was one of those actions that could never be undone, and now she was left with the question of whether to leave the bird or not. The responsibility of this owl that was not hers was making Frieda weary.
She had once made an owl from plasticine during what her dad termed the ‘Plasticine Era’. It began with a Noah’s Ark, with two cows, two sheep, and two blue whales, then quickly expanded into a zoo. It became an obsession, this caravan full of stretched-out figures, hooves and wings moulded in reds, blues and greens, and she remembered her mother, always wary of Frieda’s tendency to stay indoors and make creatures out of Play-Doh substances, poking her head into Frieda’s caravan:
‘Come on, out into the sun.’
‘I don’t want to, Mum.’
Her mother, stepping round the door, grabbing hold of Frieda’s hand and pulling her away from her plasticine wilderness, saying, ‘Don’t call me Mum. Come on!’
‘Why?’ Everyone else said Mum. Mum. Dad. Me. Brother. Sister. Dog. Fish.
‘Call me Ananda, Frieda, baby, you know that. Get your jeans on, come on . . .’
Her mum swaying in the door frame, singing a stupid song, something to do with looping and loo, barefoot, with painted red toenails, wearing a long blue skirt, her black hair shimmery, and her dark eyes shiny and laughing as she stuck out her tongue at Frieda. She was trying hard to be infectious.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Come on!’
Jump. From bottom step to beach, then out towards the sea. The tide far out past the rock pools, far enough that a skin of sand comes up, like a lick of stomach, or a flash of back.
‘Come on, to the sea.’
Frieda skittered across slimy rocks, eventually letting the soles of her feet recover in the relief of flat, wet sand.
Don’t call me Mum. Don’t call me Grace. I am Ananda Amrita. Divine Sister.
Ananda Amrita pulled her black vest off in front of Frieda, throwing it into the sea and splashing about. The sun was getting up in the sky. Ananda’s long skirt clung to her legs, her small breasts were exposed, nipples saying hello to the sky, her arms flapping like seagull wings.
‘Come on – look at the light!’
Frieda waded through the shallow water until it was deep enough to bend knees, lower her chest, and flipper into the cold of the sea water. Ananda was going further out, not looking back. A grey coral of fish eggs bobbed past, along with a cigarette butt, and Frieda’s feet could no longer touch the floor.
‘Mum,’ she shouted out, lifting her chin up like a turtle, swallowing the salty water, and then there was a splash behind her. It was her dad, wearing all of his clothes, coming fast towards her and scooping her up, pulling her out of the water and holding her. Shouting, ‘What do you think you are doing?’
Ananda Amrita was swimming, half-walking through the waves, saying something, but Frieda couldn’t hear. Her father said, ‘You don’t deserve her, this child.’
Frieda hung upside down over her father’s shoulder, like one of her plasticine bats, looking at Ananda who stood still and half naked and wet in the sea. It was her mum’s fault that Frieda had eyes that were black and dark and different from her dad’s. That she wasn’t right.
Nostrils: wide and deep and she could see right up them. Above them were eyes, looking down at her, below them a moustache. Frieda didn’t move, for a moment, and then jumped up, pushed her glasses along her nose and coughed.
‘I have forgotten my pen.’ The man had an accent. Frieda blushed at being found lying on the floor, so oddly, and stood up, feeling that she ought to apologise, even though he was the one intruding, but she said nothing.
‘Ah, there it is.’ He pointed at a green and silver fountain pen that was poking out from underneath her welcome mat. Frieda bent down and picked it up. As she turned towards him she saw the drawings on the wall.
‘You must have been working on that all night.’
‘Yes.’ He did not look sheepish, or apologetic. In fact, she saw him smile at his work appreciatively. Frieda was about to ask him what the Arabic said, but didn’t.
‘I like it,’ she smiled, ‘although I might get in trouble for it.’ There was a pause. What was it about, this lurking about in her stairwell? Was he following her? She was about to ask him, but he spoke first:
‘Why were you on the floor?’
‘I was trying to work out how to get the owl back, but I must have fallen asleep.’ He looked up in the direction of Frieda’s glance, to the owl.
‘Ah.’
Frieda watched the man move until he was exactly below the owl, which sat impervious on a pipe. He held his hand up towards the owl and made a gentle cooing noise. It didn’t respond.
‘He escaped,’ Frieda said, redundantly. With his pen still in her hand she watched the small, wiry man as he continued with his cooing.
‘It is very stubborn,’ she said. ‘It has been there for hours. I don’t know what to do.’
The man laughed. ‘That is the way it is with owls.’
‘Al Salaam a’alaykum,’ she said, shyly.
He turned and wrinkles appeared around his eyes as his smile grew with surprise and pleasure. ‘Wa aleikum ah Salaam . . . you speak Arabic?’
‘A teeny bit. Very, very badly.’
He offered his hand, moving closer to Frieda and she took it, a formal handshake, much like a child in a play. His hand was small and smooth and he was shorter than her, by about an inch. After shaking her hand he rubbed his palm over his black, springy hair, as if to calm it, and tidy himself for her.
‘It is very nice to meet you,’ he said, speaking as though in an English
lesson, and introduced himself. Having introduced herself back, Frieda held on to the door frame. She still did not give him his pen.
‘The problem is, I don’t know if by letting it out I’m killing it or setting it free.’
She looked at the Arab man’s face as he looked up at the owl. She caught herself thinking Arab man, as if he was the sole representative of a race. She should know better with her training. He did not seem to be surprised by events, her lying on the floor, or an owl on the pipe. In fact, he looked rather as if he were enjoying himself. He raised his chin, considering the bird, and turned to look at Frieda.
‘Do you want him back or have you let him go?’
The question took residence in the air between them and it had surprising weight. Frieda, as well as feeling suddenly rather cautious about this man, surprised herself by thinking that she might cry, contemplating it. To cover her confusion she said, ‘It was let out,’ and then, ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘So you want it back?’
Frieda looked at the owl. ‘Yes. I want it back. Do you know how I can get him? Is it a “him”?’
The man put his hand on the rail and leaned back with an air of leisure, with an expansive sense of having endless time to ponder the problem. His rumination took the mode of meditation and Frieda, unsure whether to speak or not, moved her foot back and forth on the mat. Finally, he said, ‘Yes. It looks like a male. The females are larger, I think. Food is the only way. You will have to . . .’ he paused, ‘. . .. lure him back.’
‘Do you think that will work?’
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar Page 10