He was right. She did not think her faith was a diamond; she thought it was lines on her palms. She asked him, ‘Did Iman have a happy life in the new place she ran to?’
‘She felt safe and she felt happy. Especially at the beginning, when she first arrived. Like the camel in the story.’
‘What camel?’
‘A young camel who lost his way because he straggled behind. The trading caravan, a long line of heavily laden camels, including his mother and brothers, went off without him. You see, the day before, as they were resting and refreshing themselves in the oasis, he had gorged himself on wild berries. They will make you sick, his mother warned, and she was right. The following day he was too weak to carry the load he usually carried and so the owner of the caravan placed him at the very rear of the procession. On the road, the camel became violently sick. He vomited and collapsed and when he woke up, he discovered that he was all alone. The caravan and all that was familiar had moved on to the farthest horizon.
‘Off the road he went, groggy and dehydrated. Unless he found vegetation, he would surely die. He stumbled here and there and eventually found himself in a valley where there was a running stream and lush vegetation. It felt like a miracle. Soon he was refreshed and started to gain back some of his old strength. Now, this valley belonged to a lion, who ruled it with skill and generosity. The lion believed himself to be a fair and magnanimous king. This perception of himself was important to him. Out hunting one day, he chanced upon the camel. The camel was terrified by the sight of the carnivore, fell to his knees and started to plead for his life. ‘‘Your Majesty, I beseech you to spare me. I seek refuge in your land, please grant me safety and your permission to live here.’’ The lion was moved by the sight of the skinny mottled camel, by his fear and youth. ‘‘Camel,’’ said the lion. ‘‘You are my guest for as long as both of us shall live. My valley is your home. Eat and drink as much as you need. I will protect your life.’’
‘The word of the king is law and the other carnivores in the valley did not dare disobey him. The camel was given free rein and he was full of gratitude. With time he became plump and his coat glossy. Now, the lion’s closest companions were three – an elderly jaguar, a gossipy black crow and an entertaining hyena. They circled the king and, for their livelihood, they depended on the meat the lion hunted. Their loyalty was unquestionable and when they spoke, the lion tended to listen.
‘One day, whilst out hunting, the lion was badly injured by a bull. He withdrew to tend to his injury and, like other wounded animals, fasted from food. The onus fell on the jaguar to hunt for food for the others. But the jaguar was old and what it managed to bring in was barely enough for its own needs and that of the crow and hyena. The situation actually got worse when the king’s health started to improve. No longer fasting, the biggest share of the meat went to him, while even less was left over for the other three. Taking the jaguar and hyena aside, the crow said to them, ‘‘This cannot go on. We will die without food. The only solution is to eat the camel. He is not one of us. He is a vegetarian and we are carnivores. He is a newcomer while we are citizens of this valley from birth. He is a lowly refugee while our ancestors roamed these lands since time began. In these difficult circumstances that are beyond our control, it is the camel that must be sacrificed. I will petition His Majesty on that matter.’’
‘The lion, however, did not even allow the crow to finish its speech. He was incensed. ‘‘Did I not promise the camel safety?’’ he roared. ‘‘Did I not give him my word of honour? How dare you make such a proposal?’’ He attempted to lunge at the crow, but the pain of his wound flared up and he lay down again.
‘The crow was not deterred. It gathered the jaguar and the hyena and together they hatched a plot against the camel. They went to him and it was the crow who spoke first. ‘‘Dear camel,’’ said the crow. ‘‘The king is slowly starving. As his loyal citizens we cannot sit back and let this happen. Therefore, the jaguar, the hyena and I are going to formally offer him our lives.’’
‘The camel was taken aback. The jaguar was old, the hyena a pack of bones and there was hardly any meat on the crow. ‘‘Will the king actually eat you?’’ the camel asked.
‘ ‘‘Of course not,’’ said the crow. ‘‘It is merely a formality. A show of loyalty and gratitude.’’
‘ ‘‘Then I must join you,’’ said the camel, and the four set off together.
‘One by one, led by the crow, the animals laid their life down before the king. ‘‘The crow is a scrawny thing, there is more meat on me,’’ said the jaguar. ‘‘The jaguar is old and tough,’’ said the hyena. ‘‘Eat me instead.’’
‘Roused by these noble sentiments of sacrifice and altruism, the camel cried out, ‘‘Your Majesty, I am young and healthy. Please eat me. Look at the lustre of my coat and the plump meat that covers my bones. I am the one most worthy of your palate.’’
‘ ‘‘He’s right,’’ said the crow and without further ado the jaguar leapt at the camel’s throat.’
‘Oh no,’ Iman cried out. ‘What did the lion do? Didn’t he stop them?’
‘No,’ said the Hoopoe. ‘The lion looked away.’
Chapter Seven
Salma was talking to Amir. She knew she shouldn’t, but here she was in the cloister of the monastery where the phone signal was strongest, using up her data. He was miles away and she was safe from sin, the disloyalty symbolic not actual, too airy to be incriminating. This gave her courage, or arrogance; she could not be touched and so could not be blamed. This was a virtual game, which she could enter and exit, unscathed, incurring no losses. What was it like hearing his voice? Exactly as she remembered. Nothing had changed. All these years – eighteen, nineteen years – could have been weeks or months.
‘What’s your daughter’s name?’ she asked and immediately forgot his response. Her mind couldn’t retain the new changes, though this was what they talked about at first. Bringing each other up to date, although they had already done that with messages and emails. There was a need to repeat the facts, though the facts continued to remain abstract. He now had a six-year-old daughter. So what? It had nothing to do with their shared memories, the future they had planned but never executed, the places they had sat in and talked about how much they meant to each other.
They spoke about mutual friends. Who was working where, who had married whom, and the ones who had died prematurely. They lingered a little over this last small group – the particulars of their illnesses or fatal accidents, where they last were, how old, but then they quickly moved on, leaving them behind. It was awkward talking about death when they now felt electrified with life. The deceased had exited too early, left the party in full swing, didn’t see their children grow up. It was Amir doing most of the talking, filling in details. She listened to him, ignoring the chill gathering around her, the instinct to be inside. The door of the refectory was locked. She had tried opening it.
‘Do you still play tennis?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I am on the board now.’
‘Of the club?’ She laughed out loud. ‘That’s such a grown-up thing to do. That’s what people our parents’ age did when we were young. And we used to be frightened of them. Remember. They would tell us off for messing up the net. ‘‘Whatever you do, don’t touch that net, don’t lower it, don’t raise it. Leave it alone.’’ Even though it was sagging, filthy and full of holes!’
‘We have brand new nets now,’ he said, a familiar bristle in his voice. ‘In excellent condition.’ So quickly defensive. She remembered the effort of circling him, humouring him, mindful of stepping on his toes. All this she had done with goodwill, without complaint. Full of energy she had been, optimistic and hopeful, flexible as only the young could be flexible. Photocopying past exam papers for him, queuing so he didn’t need to, allowing him to win every card game and every tennis set, yet, at the end, she had completely floored him. But they would not talk about
that today, not yet the reproach. That would be too intimate, too close and revealing. Safer the banter.
‘You haven’t changed at all, Salma.’
‘That profile picture you’re seeing is old.’
‘How old?’
‘Last summer.’
‘See, I’m right. You haven’t changed one bit.’
She liked hearing this. Of course she did. ‘I don’t play tennis any more, but I do keep fit. Then I’m on my feet all day, always busy.’
He understood straight away that ‘on her feet’ was a reference to work. He said, ‘I was so sorry to hear about your PLAB exams.’ There was warmth in his voice, a genuine understanding of that loss. No one else in the world had really cared. Not her parents far away, unable to comprehend that their daughter, the doctor, was not considered a doctor in Britain. Not David for whom her choices were her choices, who asked her questions and innocently believed her every answer. Do you want this badly? Are you sure? What could she be sure about with baby number two on the way by the time she had already failed the exam twice? He would cook so she could study, babysit so she could nap, but it hadn’t been enough. To pass the exams needed too much of an overhaul, a surge to join an altogether higher league, and she was not able enough, not prepared enough. Sometimes she felt that David did not want to dirty his hands with her complications, specifically these complications that arose from that other continent, the guts and terrain she came from. But then he would be generous and considerate; so open and trusting that she would regret her complaints and find herself flooded with gratitude.
‘Salma, you are a doctor and these exams were just an obstacle.’
‘That’s life,’ she said on the phone, the bitterness surfacing through. ‘People here complain about the health service being strained, doctors working long hours and yet they make it incredibly difficult for medical graduates from abroad to qualify.’
‘You should have persisted,’ he said. ‘You should have cracked these exam requirements whatever it took. Made sacrifices. Got help. Come on, it’s not like you to give up.’
She liked this reproach, his unshaking belief in her. But he hadn’t known her as a mother, hadn’t seen what pregnancy and sleepless nights did to her, time and again. It almost submerged her once and for all, but it didn’t. She wouldn’t be on the phone now with him if it had. Motherhood hadn’t enslaved her, but it did dent her resolve, put her in her place.
‘I tried, Amir. I tried my best. The circumstances were against me.’
‘Nonsense. You needed help that’s all, a bit of support. Your husband isn’t a doctor, is he?’
His voice was neutral, but she knew it was a dig that did not require a reply. Amir was the surgeon now, his private clinic stuffed full of patients, his reputation high, the money coming in. No doubt his wife had a full-time maid, a beach house overlooking the Mediterranean, private schools for the kids.
‘Do it now,’ he was saying. ‘It’s never too late. Sit those exams again.’
For a second, the old ambition surged through her. It flared up like lust. She was conscious of her elbow touching her breast as she held up the phone, her hips brushing the column she was standing against. ‘Or I could just pack it up and return home. Rewind the clock.’ Her voice had an edge to it, an uneven attempt to sound flirty.
‘I would be at the airport waiting for you.’
She could visualise it. To be whisked away, to be young again. ‘Don’t you have better things to do? I reckon you’re busy.’
‘Every day is the same as the one before it,’ he said. ‘My wife is Japanese.’
‘Really? I didn’t know.’
He laughed. ‘Metaphorically.’
She didn’t get the joke and imagined her children heckling in the background: ‘Racist!’
Amir began to explain. ‘She’s super-efficient, methodical and organised . . .’ He suddenly stopped as if caught out. He didn’t want to talk about his wife any more.
Salma rescued the silence with chatter. The Wimbledon matches. It turned out he was following the coverage even more regularly than she was. They were the same people but heavier and slower, their responses taking more time, their words loaded with assumptions, presumptions and the solidity of the past. She told him about Lady Evelyn. Her wedding in 1891 was in the All Saints Church in Cairo. As a gift, the Khedive sent palms and flowers to decorate the church.
‘What was she doing in Egypt?’
‘Her parents owned a villa in Cairo and they spent the winter months there.’
‘I know where that church is,’ said Amir and she almost gasped with delight as he started to connect her with streets and landmarks she had forgotten. ‘I badly need a holiday,’ he said. ‘There is no peace here. Continuous strife every which way I turn.’
She surveyed the scene around her. Fresh cool air, the almost empty lawns of the monastery, the blue-grey waters of the loch up ahead. ‘Plenty of peace here.’
‘I will join you,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘You will be most welcome. Bring a rain jacket.’
‘Seriously. I need to get away. I feel stifled.’
‘You said this years and years ago, the exact wording: I feel stifled.’
‘Did I? What was the occasion?’ He sounded more alert. They both had good memories. Brains that retained information to spill out on examination papers. But why start raking up the past?
She said, ‘The first day of our clinical placement. We were put together.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
Did he remember that he had hated it and she had encouraged him, neglected her own work to do his for him while he procrastinated? He never acknowledged her support or thanked her. But then she didn’t need to be thanked. To be his love was enough. To bear his weight was enough. If she were to judge him now, she would say spoilt brat. Mollycoddled at home as the only son, privileged everywhere else. But that was typical of their time and place. The hard knocks hit the men later in life, while vulnerable girls turned into venerable matrons who could do no wrong.
‘Salma. Salma.’ His repetition of her name pushed its way through her.
It was coming too soon, she wanted to press down the brakes, to keep the pace steady, to be in control. Instead she blurted out, ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry.’
‘Sorry is not enough. It’s not enough.’
The whine in his voice made her laugh or sob or cough. A sound from the throat. She was far away. Cruel and far away.
‘You can laugh all you want, but there are flights to London every single day,’ he said. ‘More than once a day.’
‘I’m not in London.’
‘Then how do I get to this forsaken place where you’re at, another flight?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘You’re not taking me seriously.’
‘I thought I was the one who was going to come back, and you were going to make a doctor of me.’ Even while joking the hurt was still there, old but visceral.
‘I will bring you back with me. That’s a separate issue.’
‘Ah, well. You would like it here. There’s a tennis court. I’ve seen some people playing. I haven’t played in years.’ It was such a holiday thing to do. Search for equipment, play a sport you haven’t played in years.
‘I will book and let you know.’
She laughed, and he said, ‘This isn’t an empty threat.’
‘I believe you.’ She was playing along now. ‘Bring some coriander with you.’
‘What!’
‘Freshly ground. It’s not the same here.’
‘What else?’ His tone was bored. Even in this play-acting, he did not want to be the one to bring, the one to carry or go out of his way. Salma imagined his wife being totally in charge of the household, while he lived in an orbit of work, siesta and tennis club – actually not much diff
erent than when he had been a boy. His print on the household would be faint, his presence brooding rather than constructive. Or when he was in a good mood, his presence as sparkling as a holiday, the family hanging on every word of his clever banter.
She said, ‘Long ago, when you used to tell me you felt stifled, I thought you wanted to emigrate. Do you still want to do that?’
‘It’s too late.’ He sounded resigned. ‘There are decisions that need to be taken at a certain time. You can’t put them off for ever. I wasn’t desperate about leaving, though. Not like you.’
So this was how he saw her. Desperate to get out. True, she had done the rounds of embassies – New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the US – come back with forms, which she read and summarised for him. The precious pages on the café table between them, the extra care lest a drop of tea fell on them. If she hadn’t queued for the forms, he wouldn’t have. That was their pattern, what came naturally to them both – she did the legwork and the research so that they could brainstorm and fumble towards a decision in which he would have the final word.
‘I wasn’t desperate to leave,’ she said.
‘Oh, you were,’ he said. ‘It’s the only explanation.’
She felt pushed back, unable to come up with a defence. A defence that would not be a personal criticism of him. It was admirable, in a way, how he had justified her actions and protected his ego. She loves me but she’s desperate to leave. She loves me, but a better opportunity came up. She loves me.
Salma said, ‘Is this why you’re back in contact? To prove that I made the wrong choice.’
‘Didn’t you?’
Her voice was stiff. ‘There is something called fate and destiny, as you well know.’
‘Sure. I don’t disagree.’
‘Let’s not quarrel.’
‘I’m sorry. I act disingenuous and it must be infuriating for you. You once let me beat you at tennis, didn’t you?’
Once? She laughed, taken by surprise, the warmth back again, the edge gone. Such a concession from him! ‘Of course not. It’s not the sort of thing I would do.’
Bird Summons Page 11