‘I was at work on Friday,’ I said. ‘Then I went away for a few days. I’m sorry not to have been here to take your call.’
‘We buried your mother on Friday afternoon,’ Uncle Amir said, ‘and we had a khitma for her that evening at Mskiti Mnara. We added your prayers to ours because we knew you would have wanted to do so if you could.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It must’ve been very sudden.’
‘Alhamdulillah, we prayed for God’s mercy on her soul. Your sister Munira was with her until the last moment, and heard her say the shahadah just before her soul left her body. That was a great blessing. No one can die except by the will of God, and at the appointed time,’ Uncle Amir said, reciting a line from the Koran. Then he told me who had washed the body, and who had led the prayers, and how grateful he was to them for their kindness in the absence of her brother and her son. I was surprised by Uncle Amir’s distraught and pious language. I had not heard him speak like that before.
‘It was a blood clot in the brain, an embolism,’ Uncle Amir said. ‘You knew she had high blood pressure, didn’t you? And diabetes. You knew that, didn’t you? But then perhaps you didn’t. You never bothered to keep in touch. You hardly ever wrote to her and never thought to ring. How could you know? Well, never mind, nothing can be done about that now, but you could at least have left a number when you went away so we could do what we are obliged to do under such circumstances. Don’t you have a cell phone? Everybody has a cell phone.’
I said all the abject words the moment required of me: my regret that I was not there to mourn her as a son should, the anxiety I had caused them all because I was not able to take the call. I had always made sure I had the air fare in my savings in case, but when the call came I was not there and I had not taken my phone with me when I went away. I was not so used to mobile phones then and I was not a regular user and sometimes forgot it or forgot to switch it on. Instead I had been with Rhonda and the thought of her and her relentless games filled me with disgust at my needs.
‘Nothing can be done about all that now,’ Uncle Amir said, his voice gravelly and flinty again. ‘I assume you are well and that your life progresses in some fashion. Now that I have your number, maybe next time I come through London I’ll give you a ring and we can meet for coffee or something. Perhaps you’d better give me your cell-phone number as well, in case you’re not at home. There’s no need for you to worry about the funeral expenses, by the way. Hakim and I took care of that. All right, your family here send their regards. Look after yourself and keep in touch.’
I had been waiting for this news, dreading and expecting it in low-key resignation. All those tests had filled me with worry and my mother must have lied to me when I asked because she always said they found nothing. She was fifty-three, no age to die in this place and in these days and times. But she did not live in this place, and her times had been fraught. I waited until Uncle Amir hung up before I put down the receiver. I was distraught to have missed the funeral, but I did not feel tragic about it. There’s no need for you to worry about the funeral expenses, by the way. Hakim and I took care of that. It would have given them satisfaction to do what was necessary for her honour. In any case, it was not really her honour they were worried about so much as their own. Uncle Amir told me about the expenses in the way he did to remind me how derelict I had been in my obligations.
I took out the shoe-box in which I kept my mother’s letters, and for the rest of that evening and night I read through every one of them. There were dozens. Uncle Amir was lying again. We must have written to each other more than I remembered. Habibi, that was how all her letters to me began. Beloved. Mamako, that was how they all ended. Your mother.
Habibi,
I am so grateful to receive your letter and to have your news. I am so pleased that you are enrolled in a college and that your studies will begin in earnest so soon. I know you will be brave and do all that is required to make this journey into a great success, and that you will work hard and return to live a good life here with us. I have never travelled anywhere, and it is not easy for me to imagine how you live there and what you see. You must tell me about those things so I can picture them. Can you understand the people when they speak to you? I have heard that no one speaks the way they do on the radio and TV, and that when you get there you can’t make out what people say. The house is so still since you left us, although Munira does her best to make a racket. She misses you too.
Mamako
Habibi,
I have just read the letter you sent me at the beginning of the month. It was sitting in the post-box all these days and I did not know about it. It is such a long way to the Post Office and I can only go there every now and then. I am sorry to be so long replying. I loved the picture of you in the snow. It made me wish I could touch it, although of course I have seen pictures. Unlike you, I have not stood on ice! What an adventurer you are.
You must not complain about the angry crowds or about the noise. Nothing comes easy in life, only you must stay alert and do your best, and don’t get into any trouble. All we hear about here is the drunkenness and violence of young people in Europe. Your uncle will be there to advise you whenever there is need, so don’t do anything without asking him. Please give him and Auntie Asha my regards.
Mamako
Habibi,
There were two letters waiting for me today. If you go on like this you will make me greedy. I am so happy to hear that your results have been so excellent. I know you will succeed and make me feel very proud of you. Here the rains are over now and the weather is perfect. It’s not too hot, everywhere is green, and the breeze is constant and mellow. You would have loved to be here.
Today we moved to our new flat. It is very comfortable and has all kinds of modern equipment in it, as well as a bathtub! There is a balcony at the back where I will grow plants in pots. I have always wanted to have plants in the house but we never had the room. It was sad to leave the old house, in some ways, but it was fortunate in others. What a relief to get away from that champion backbiter Bi Maryam!
You must send us a photograph. I want to see you in the big ugly coat you say they force you to wear. It’s probably for your own good, you ungrateful wretch. Munira sends love, as I do too.
Mamako
There were several such letters during my first year, cheerful and encouraging, mildly hectoring. The tone changed in the ones that followed, when I was struggling with my studies and with Uncle Amir and Auntie Asha. I read through the later ones as well, after I left Holland Park, and felt her disappointment at my failures, and heard their forced encouraging tone. I must have written less frequently after that because most of the letters that followed began with her complaining about not having heard from me in a long time. Every now and then, a letter would begin with an apology for not having replied sooner, or with a cry of joy at a recent letter. I should have done better. When I finished reading my mother’s letters, I read through my notebooks. There were three of them, filled with what started off as incomplete or abandoned letters, but the later entries read as if they were never intended to be sent. My mother was the absent reader, the unsent letters a conversation I was having with her in my mind. Two of the notebooks were full but there were still some blank pages in the third for me to compose another letter to my dead mother.
Dear Mama,
Salamu na baada ya salamu. It looks like snow is on the way. I know how much you like the weather reports. I haven’t seen the forecast, but from the chill and the stillness I would guess snow is imminent.
Why did you not tell me about the diabetes and the blood pressure? Did you know about the risk of the blood clot? I have been waiting for you to go, I think. Not because I wanted you dead (do you mind my using that word about you?) but because I dreaded that I would never be able to say to you that this torment is over, that I have done well and found some good that I can tell you about. I would’ve come if you had told me. I haven’t found anything much here t
o tell you about, little bits and pieces to string a life together, but it’s not hopeless. It’s just not anything to make much of.
Love,
Salim
*
Two days later – I needed that time to prepare myself – I rang my mother’s number. I expected Hakim to answer, the man whom I now decided to call by name. I thought my mother would smile to see that my petulant resistance was over. She would think that my rejection of Hakim and his gifts was intended as a rebuke to her, but she would be wrong. I felt a mild repugnance as I rang the number. It was fear perhaps, an involuntary helplessness in the face of such violent appetites. But I wanted to speak to Munira, who had also lost her mother. I wanted to hear her voice, and to wish her well and to leave matters there. I wanted nothing from her and could give her nothing. That was what I thought. Munira answered the phone but I heard my mother’s voice.
‘Munira,’ I said.
‘Salim,’ she said instantly. ‘Salim, Salim! How nice to hear your voice, you sound just the same.’
‘Munira,’ I said.
‘I recognised you. As soon as I heard that empty noise a long-distance call makes, I knew it was you.’
‘I am sorry I did not hear in time,’ I said. ‘I would have come.’
‘It happened so quickly,’ Munira said. ‘She was taking her medicine for the pressure as normal and looking after herself, but then that day she had a very bad headache. She had been having headaches for several days but she did not think it was anything serious. We did not know that it can be a symptom. That day she also started feeling dizzy and was numb in her right leg. They told us later that it was an embolism, a blood clot had moved from another part of her body and blocked an artery in her brain.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
‘I know you would have come back if you could. It would have been wonderful to see you,’ she said, ‘even for such a sad event. We missed you so much. She spoke about you often, nearly every day, as if she had seen you earlier that morning. Do you know her word for you? She said you were loyal, ana amini, and that one day you’ll come back. But this is how things have turned out and we can’t do anything about that.’
I could not think of anything to say, speechless with guilt. I had waited too long and now it was too late. I listened as my sister told me about the funeral. ‘Uncle Amir arrived just in time, from the airport straight to the funeral. Daddy arranged for an escort to pick him up at the airport. Auntie Asha and the other aunties from Daddy’s family have been so good. One of Daddy’s cousins has moved in to stay with me for a while. I haven’t decided what to do yet. I can’t stay in the flat on my own, and anyway I still have the final year of my degree to complete in Dar es Salaam. I’ll decide after that. The flat is in Mama’s name, it’s her property, so now it belongs to the two of us. If ever you come back, even for a visit, you’ll have your own place to stay.’
Munira spoke with what seemed to me surprising assurance, like someone who knew how to talk on the phone, someone with decisions to make. She had grown up among powerful people, which maybe explained why she was so confident. Or perhaps she had inherited an audacious gene from her daddy. At some point she must have become aware of my silence because she stopped and after a second said: ‘Salim, are you still there?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘I was just listening to you.’
‘I can be a chatterbox on the phone,’ she said, laughing. ‘This is a long-distance call, it must be costing you a fortune. I’ll call you next time.’
‘Never mind the cost,’ I said. ‘Let me give you my email address. We can’t have a student making long-distance phone calls.’
It was in one of her emails that she told me Baba was back. She wrote: He returned three weeks after Mama’s funeral. I don’t know whether it is anything to do with her passing away or not. Daddy told me. He just said someone informed him that Salim’s father was back. I don’t know if he’s here for good or only visiting. I am off to Dar in a couple of days to begin the second semester of my final year in the Business School. I’ll keep you informed and you keep me informed.
The news of my father’s return was quite unexpected. It had never occurred to me that he would do something like that. It made me smile, the thought that my old Baba had decided to return. I was sure it must be because he had heard the news of Mama’s passing away, and the sentimental in him forced him back. I decided that I would go back too, to catch up with the nervy old man after all these years. I replied to Munira immediately, to tell her about my decision and to ask her to find out if Baba was staying or visiting. Munira replied at once as well. We must both have been sitting at our computers: Hurray. Yallah, it’s about time. Will find out before I go to Dar.
Dear Mama,
He’s come back for you. I don’t know why he would do that after such unhappiness. If I ask him, do you think he’ll tell me? He was not much of a talker when I knew him. You saw to that.
PART THREE
8
RETURN
I arranged leave from work and booked a ticket way in advance. I would have to wait until June to get a month’s leave but there was no hurry because I knew now that Baba had gone to live at the back of Khamis’s shop, as he used to before. Munira had gone to the shop to ask after him and to take him my message. She would have been six years old when my father left for Kuala Lumpur but she would not have known him, or rather he would not have known her. He did not have very much to do with anybody at that time. She reported that she introduced herself as Salim’s sister, and he said: Ah. That’s all he said: Ah. He looked well enough, a little frail, and he smiled when she told him that I was coming back in a few months. Tell him I’ll be here, inshaallah, he said.
I was not sure where I would stay. Should I stay in the flat Hakim had given my mother? I was sure I did not want to do that, just as I was sure that was what Munira wanted. It was Mama’s flat and now it’s ours, she had written in an email, and where I have lived most of my life. To me it meant something darker, and I did not want to own any part of it. First it was her father’s property and now it was hers. I would have to find a way of making her understand that. I made an advance hotel booking on the internet, so there would be no argument when I got there.
I tried to imagine Baba, but I did not try too hard. It was difficult to dislodge the picture of him when I went to say goodbye to him that afternoon, looking weary and threadbare in his room at the back of Khamis’s shop. I could not quite remember the incomprehensible advice he had given me then. Was it blessing was the beginning of love or the other way round? It didn’t matter anyway, they were just words, and they were not really what made someone unhappy, not in the long run. Memories did that, those dark immovable moments that refused to fade. So in those weeks of waiting for my flight, my Baba remained that mumbling recluse I had seen every day of my youth. And he went back to that life! What faith he must have to do that! Ana amini. The old scholar must have passed away and then, when Mama died, Baba had come to be near where she was.
I had not travelled much since my first arrival in England. I had gone to Paris on the Eurostar twice with friends, and had taken the ferry to Boulogne for the day with Rhonda. I took a city break holiday to Amsterdam some years before with a woman friend, and visited various places in England at one time or another. The trip back home was my first long journey. My inexperience of travel added to my other anxieties about returning after such a long absence, but as the day approached, I felt much calmer about what was to come than I had expected. I told Munira about the hotel booking, just to get that out of the way, and she replied to say she would meet me at the airport.
The flight was exhilarating, and as the plane flew over Zanzibar in the dawn I searched the landscape for familiar signs in the brief moments before landing. I recognised the air with my first breath, even though it was not something I had thought about and would not have had the words to describe. I knew this smell, and would have known it if I had been shaken awake in the mid
dle of the night and asked to name it. Someone behind me on the steps of the plane nudged into me. The flight was packed with British tourists. They must have been eager to get to their holiday pleasures while I wished to linger and relish my return.
I saw Munira across the barrier as I was going through Customs. She was standing on the pavement outside the Arrivals gate, her left hand on the metal railings that fenced off the passengers from the outside. I recognised her from the photograph she had attached in her last email, but I would have known her anyway. She looked so like Mama, but perhaps taller. I waved to her and she waved back, and even from that distance I saw that her smile was calm and patient, as if she was in no rush for what was to come, as if she was just meeting her brother who had been away for a few days, really just like Mama. We embraced and kissed, and then she stood back and examined me with a confident gaze. Still handsome, she said, and then led me to the car. She drove herself. It would have been unusual for a woman to drive in the time before I left, but I expected things like that to have changed. She talked as if she had known me all her life when in reality she was three years old the last time I saw her.
‘By the way,’ she said in between our excited exchanges and my distracted attempts to take in familiar sights and listen to her at the same time. I was familiar with By the way, spoken in a casual way like that. It was usually a preamble to something that was anything but casual, and I gave my sister my full attention.
‘By the way,’ she said, unable to suppress a smile, ‘I’ve cancelled your hotel booking. You’re staying with me.’
‘But why did you do that? I’ve already paid,’ I said.
‘No, you haven’t,’ she said firmly. ‘I checked with the hotel. There’s no point protesting or being stubborn. I can’t have my brother staying somewhere else when we have our own flat. What will everybody say? Can you imagine?’
I protested again but nothing I said disturbed her composed smile. ‘See if you like the flat first,’ she said. ‘You can stay there as long as you like. I have to go back to Dar for four nights next week to take the last of my finals, but after that I’ll be here and we can catch up with everything that’s happened. You’ll see, it will be better than shutting yourself up in a hotel.’
Gravel Heart Page 17