Gravel Heart

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘You must be very tired then,’ Marjorie said. ‘Why don’t you take a rest?’

  It did not seem likely to me that Mr Mgeni would get fat. If anything, he was losing weight and at the same time swelling around his wrists and his face and perhaps other parts of his body not visible to me. He did not look as if he had the strength to do very much anyway. His hand trembled when he picked up a cup, and he was no longer capable of the unstinting benevolence of years before. He was now more easily irritated, although his tetchiness was often directed at himself and sometimes at Marjorie. He cried very easily. When I saw those tears in his eyes I had to look away for fear they would bring on my own. He looked exhausted and conversation with him was becoming difficult because he was not able to keep his mind from wandering. He said that sometimes he woke up in the morning and did not know where he was. He returned again and again to the hardships of the early years of his life at sea, and then to the decades of his time in England, working in all weathers and living in hostels and cramped lodgings – the life of a beast, he said – until God showered him with blessings and sent him Marjorie. He wandered from story to story, sometimes becoming exasperated with himself because he could not remember a name or a place or a date, or because he tangled up one outcome with another. He spoke about old wrongs that he should have put right while he had the strength. He said nothing when I asked him what those were.

  ‘Are you thinking about your home?’ I asked him.

  He did not reply for a while and I did not ask again. Then he said, ‘This is my home.’

  I went round there a few days after I received a letter from my mother telling me that she had to go back to Dar for more tests. He was his old self on this occasion, laughing and telling stories and giving advice. I mentioned my mother’s letter to Mr Mgeni because he asked after her.

  ‘Tests for what?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, she doesn’t say,’ I said. I had told him that she was having tests but he did not always remember. ‘You know how it is, people are discreet about their illnesses.’

  ‘Not with her own son. Call her. You have a telephone in your flat now. Call her like she wants you to,’ Mr Mgeni said, bristling uncharacteristically at me, like a proper uncle.

  When I lived with Uncle Amir and Auntie Asha they called home regularly, and at some point I was always summoned to exchange a few words with my mother. She hated the phone, I knew that of old, and I hated it too and hated hearing her voice on it. But after I was expelled from that Eden I did not call because the man himself might answer and I had no wish to speak to him.

  Yes, I did have a telephone in the flat and I had her number beside it but I still had not been able to bring myself to make the call. It was another one of my anxieties but I did not know what I would say to her. I thought of the phone as an instrument to be used when there was something urgent to say and I had nothing like that to tell her. I had not spoken to her for years and I did not know where I would begin. And then he might answer the call. But that weekend evening, stung by guilt and Mr Mgeni’s rebuke, I did call home. I dialled the number and after a few rings I was about to put the receiver down with relief when someone picked up. I heard a voice I could not mistake.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. It was him. When I did not answer he said, ‘Nani huyu? Who is calling? Hello, is this an international call? Can you hear me?’

  I put the phone down. His voice was strong and firm as I had imagined from a man with a thick neck and hard hands. I should have spoken and asked for her. I should have spoken like a grown-up person who had learnt to cope with the world and not fled like a child. I tried to put the encounter behind me but could not get over the shame. I could not stop thinking about it for days.

  A couple of Sundays later I went round to Mr Mgeni’s for lunch and he asked after my mother and if I had spoken to her about the tests. I lied and said that I had called but there was no reply.

  ‘You tried once?’ he asked. I did not answer. ‘Do you have her number with you? Don’t be so stubborn. Go and call her now. Use our phone.’

  ‘I’ll call her later,’ I said.

  ‘Give me the number,’ he said. ‘I’ll call her and tell her that you are an ungrateful son as well as a worthless nephew.’

  ‘I don’t have her number with me. I’ll call her later,’ I said. He must have believed me because he forgot himself enough to pat my knee some time during the afternoon.

  He was almost his old self at Frederica’s wedding, beaming at everyone and even stepping out on to the floor for a couple of turns when they put Nat ‘King’ Cole on for him. I saw Frederica at work sometimes and she always had news of them, speaking to me in a way that had come to her with marriage, a way which was flirtatious but had in it an unguarded confidence, as if she was a grown woman teasing a child. I remembered Peter’s girlfriend Fran used to treat me like that years ago. What had happened to Fran? Did she go with Peter? What had happened to him back in the new South Africa?

  Mr Mgeni died during my second year in Putney, and I went to the funeral held in the crematorium chapel in Streatham. Marjorie asked me to read something that would remind us of Mr Mgeni’s home and the way he grew up, and I read the fatiha followed by al Ikhlas because I did not know any funeral prayers and I did not think Mr Mgeni did either. I wrote to my mother to tell her about Mr Mgeni’s death. I had told her about him several times, about how we spoke Kiswahili together and how I used to go on jobs with him and how I was always welcome in his house. After his death, it felt to me as if my mother was someone who knew him and would like to be informed about his departure. I wrote: It might not seem right that there was no one there to say a prayer for him but me, and that all I could manage was the fatiha and the shortest sura in the good book, but I don’t think it would have troubled him very much. There was his family there, who were, as he said, the blessing that God had showered on him. That would have mattered more to him than if I had read Yasin for him. He had resigned himself to many losses. As I was writing the letter I thought of what Mr Mgeni would have said to me if he were here. Call her. The thought thrilled me and without further reflection I did so.

  ‘Salam alaikum,’ said the destroyer of souls.

  I delayed as long as I could before replying, debating whether I should do so or just hang up. In the end I said, ‘Alaikum salam. May I speak to my mother?’

  ‘Salim, is that you? Do you know what time it is?’ he said, his voice stern. Then he laughed and said, ‘Haya, just wait a minute. How are you? Are you all right? Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, there is no problem. I just called,’ I said.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice sounded as familiar as if I had spoken to her a short while ago.

  ‘Mama,’ I said.

  ‘I knew it was you,’ she said gleefully. ‘Even before Hakim picked up the phone I knew it was you. Who else would ring after midnight?’

  I had forgotten about the time difference. I pictured her face and her eyes and her gesturing hand as I spoke to her. I said I had no reason to call, just to say hello. I asked after her health and she asked after mine. I asked about the tests and she said the doctors were not sure what it was. It could be just early menopause, run-down and headaches and that kind of thing, but they were continuing with the tests. They were not sure what her mother died of. In case it was something hereditary they were doing regular checks on heart and blood pressure and kidneys and so on, but with nothing definite to report. When was I coming to visit? she asked. I said I would soon. There was, after all, not much to say but I was thrilled to hear her voice.

  After a few more predictable exchanges, I said I was going now. I wanted to ask if she had any news of Baba but I did not. ‘You must call again,’ she said. ‘Often. Next time call when Munira will be able to speak to you. Call in the evening and don’t forget the time difference. She is always asking after you. She does not even remember how you look.’

  ‘I will,’ I said.

  To myself I said: I
will become one of England’s helots like Mr Mgeni if I don’t do something about myself, until one day England kills me too. After that call I lay in the darkness of the early hours, looking again at various plans I had considered in the past to extricate myself from my pointless life, then in the morning I dressed for work and fitted myself into the day’s events.

  After the funeral, Marjorie went back to Jamaica for a holiday. She was to be there for a month, but when that time was over she stayed for another month and then another one after that. St Thomas’ Hospital kept her job open for her as long as they could but Marjorie did not return. She stayed on in Jamaica and did not even come back to pack up the house. Frederica and Chris did that. They shipped what they thought she would like to keep and gave away the rest. Then they put the house on the market and banked the proceeds for her retirement fund. I laughed with disbelief when Frederica told me how Marjorie just left everything and went back home. She would have gone years earlier and taken Dad with her, Frederica said, but he was too tired and could not face another move.

  *

  It was during this time when Mr Mgeni’s death forced me into a small crisis of reflection that I met Billie. Her full name was Bindiya but she was called Billie from birth. Her father was English, although he had lived most of his adult life in India, and it was he who insisted that the children should have Indian names, just as he always only used his own version of their English contractions. So he had familiar English diminutives for her brothers too and only used their given Indian names for ceremonial or disciplinary purposes.

  I met her when I went to see a production of The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre. I read about the play in the Sunday newspaper: Trevor Nunn’s brilliant production and stunning performances by Corin and Vanessa Redgrave and a cast of stars. I thought it was time to give Chekhov another chance after my disappointing encounter with him as a schoolboy. The play was showing in the Cottesloe, and the theatre was packed and buzzing, but the seat on my left was unoccupied until seconds before the doors were closed and the lights went down. When its owner turned up I was aware that it was a woman, probably more sophisticated and fashionable than the plainly dressed older woman on my right (linen trousers and a thick cardigan) because of the perfume that accompanied her arrival and the stiff swish of her clothes. I suppressed my curiosity about her so I could concentrate on the stage, although it took me a moment or two to do that.

  Within the first few minutes I was lost in the play, mesmerised by the pathos of the dialogue and the beautiful staging and lighting. Vanessa Redgrave played Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya and Corin Redgrave was her chatterbox brother Gayev. Brother and sister playing brother and sister, a publicist’s cliché, but they were brilliant. When out of nowhere Lyubov Andreyevna declared her anguish: If only this burden could be taken from me, if only I could forget my past, I felt my eyes stinging with distress for the middle-aged mother mourning her child. It seemed that human sorrow was always based on regret and pain in the past, and that neither time nor location nor history made much difference. And when later she told the story of her betrayal of her husband and the failure of her love, I wept for her. At the end of the play, as Lopakhin’s crew were cutting down the orchard, I knew that the thud of the axes into the cherry trees would always stay with me, as if the blows were a violence on my own body. Three hours went past quickly, and by the end I was on my feet, joining everyone else in enthusiastic applause.

  The woman to my left turned to leave and I did too. I had seen during the interval – which I had spent in my seat while she went off somewhere – that she was attractive with a finely drawn face which gave her features an appearance of delicacy even though she was otherwise well-built. As we made our way between the rows of seats, she looked my way and then looked again and smiled. She said hello lightly, and it was apparent she was addressing someone she thought she knew. My mind was still on the play and I must have failed to respond fully enough to her because she smiled and reminded me that we had met at a wedding party some months before.

  ‘Lucy and Morgan … a boat on the Thames,’ she said over her shoulder as we moved slowly out of the auditorium.

  Then I remembered a wedding party I had gone to with Theresa, although I knew neither the bride nor the groom and was not invited on my own account. Theresa said they would not mind in the least, and I heard in her voice the expectation of the hospitality that people of her class anticipated and extended to each other. I had met Theresa at a jazz club in Kilburn where I had gone with friends because someone had mentioned it or it was in a listing. We joined tables with another group and I found myself sitting next to her. She had soft dark eyes and a slow smile, but she turned out to be a fast-talking woman with a sarcastic wit and a loud laugh. She worked for a public relations firm and told me that her agency had a big account with a mining company that had African operations. She mentioned the name as if her association with it gave us something in common. At some point in the evening, an African woman who was dressed in a full-length spangly dress and a multi-coloured turban with an ostrich feather stuck in it came out to sing in a language none of us understood. She was the one we had come to see. After that evening I went out with Theresa three times and she told me entertaining stories, that I guessed were well salted, about disreputable goings on in the world of PR. She had no sexual interest in me and I had no other interest in her. The party on the Thames to celebrate the wedding of Lucy and Morgan was the last time we went out together.

  In the foyer I had a good look at the woman I had been sitting next to during the play but did not recognise her from the party. I had known no one there, so maybe it was too much to take in after a few drinks. Did she know many people there? She said Lucy and she had been at university together and they kept in touch afterwards.

  ‘We’re still in touch,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, ‘because it’s so easy to lose contact. Would you like to have a drink?’

  The theatre bar was too crowded so we walked out to the promenade and found a wine bar there. That was how I met Billie, or rather, how I met her again. I rang her a few days later and we met for a movie and a meal on Friday night. I suggested a drink afterwards but she said she had to go to work the next morning. She worked for a bank in Liverpool Street, and it was a long way to Acton and then back to the City the following morning. She was planning to move soon but for the moment she still had to trek back and forth. Well, so did everybody else, she said, but it was still tiring. And anyway, she lived with her mother, who worried if she was late. Her elder brother also lived at home, but he could stay out as long as he liked, of course, being a man. Their father was dead, he had died when she was five.

  I asked if she would like to meet again, and she said she was not sure, maybe I could call her. I called her later in the week and we met for a drink after work. So things moved slowly for us in this way, a drink after work, sometimes a film or a meal, and several weeks passed, perhaps six or seven. I was not sure if I should press harder or retreat, and whether she was taking her time or was actually reluctant, whether I was bothering her. I could imagine many reasons why she might be reluctant – a half-Indian girl with a mother at home, getting mixed up with a Salim from Zanzibar, just think about it. I would have given up long before this and gone after a more willing partner, but I had fallen out of that routine and now felt a distaste for its predatory relentlessness, and I could not quite give her up.

  One evening some two months after I met her in the National, as we sat in a quiet restaurant off Holborn and she was talking about something to which I was evidently not paying full attention, I felt a tenderness for her that I had never felt for any other woman before. I would have to let her know that and make sure she did not choose to walk away from me. We went to Kew on a sunny Saturday in April and when I took her in my arms, she held on to me for a while. I knew this moment, making love to a woman for the first time, the eagerness of it. After walking the gardens we
spent the afternoon lying on the grass, our coats spread out beneath us, kissing and fondling and talking, abandoned to the relief of this new knowledge of each other.

  ‘How did your parents meet?’ she asked me.

  ‘In a school debate at the Youth League headquarters,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, that sounds cool, tell me about it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t really know any more. Tell me about yours.’

  ‘They met in Delhi, when he was working there for Canon photocopiers as a sales director,’ she said. ‘No, he was not a salesman, he was a sales director. An Englishman in India cannot be a salesman. All of us were born in Delhi. Suresh also known as Sol and Anand also known as Andy were both ahead of me. By the time I arrived, my eldest brother was eleven, and my father wanted him to go to secondary school in England. Perhaps it was an ancestral longing but what he said was it would make it easier for Sol, and later for the rest of us, to go to university.

  ‘Our father had not been to university. He had found work more or less immediately after boarding school, through a relative who had Indian connections, and ended up in Delhi working for Canon photocopiers. But it was a different world now and there was not much you could do without a university degree. So we came to London,’ Billie said, ‘which was something Daddy’s company could arrange without any problem. For him it was coming back for good, but for me and my middle brother it was the first time, although I was only a baby and couldn’t have cared less. Suresh and my mother had been back with him before, when he took them round like tourists to Bath and Margate and Cambridge and the Norfolk Broads and places like that, staying in B&Bs or with his sister in Wanstead when they were in London. That’s our Aunt Holly, still here today aged seventy-one.

  ‘But the move to London did not really suit him. My mother said it was too late for him, his whole body wanted to be in India, his mind, his limbs and especially his heart. She talks like that a lot. At the slightest opportunity she slips into metaphor, especially if it’s something to do with sentiment. On special occasions she writes poems in Hindi, all about love and duty and motherhood and sacrifice, devotional poems, more like prayers, I suppose. They’re quite good if you like heavy stuff like that.’