There’s the headstone. There it is. Wishful thinking. Seeing what one wants to see. They must keep on.
Salma had parked the car in the Achnashellach Forest car park so they were able to walk across the level crossing. Because they were on foot, they did not need to telephone for permission to cross the railway line. A sign explained that they should just look and listen to make sure that a train wasn’t coming. Once inside the estate, they followed the road upon which, if it wasn’t the stalking season, Salma would have been allowed to drive her car. After two miles there was a turbine and a deer fence with a locked gate they had to climb over – Iman nimbly, Salma with care, Moni with effort. On the other side of the fence, the path was rugged, suitable only for a 4×4. They continued on.
In January 1963, when Lady Evelyn died in a nursing home in Inverness, a telephone call was made to the mosque in Woking. The story the imam heard was strange. An aristocratic Scottish woman, over ninety years old, had laid down the terms of her funeral in a will. She wished to be interned according to the rules of her faith, a faith that was not that of her family or the people around her. She wanted an imam to read the prayers in Arabic. She wanted bagpipes to be played and no Christian minister must be present. She wanted to lie facing Mecca in a place where the red stags could run over her grave. The imam took the overnight train to Inverness, far away, he later said, like the distance between Lahore and Karachi. He was met at the station and driven sixty miles by car through the mountains to the hunting lodge in Glencarron. There the family were gathered, people from the estate, those who had known Lady Evelyn and spent time with her. Apart from the imam and the deceased, there were no other Muslims in the funeral procession. Severe frost covered the ground, an icy wind carried the tunes of ‘MacCrimmon’s Lament’. The ground was difficult to dig but it was dug. With no one to understand his words except the deceased, the wind, the rocks, angels and djinn, the imam asked Allah Almighty to forgive Lady Evelyn her sins and to grant her paradise. To fill her grave with comfort and light, to accept all the good she had done and overlook all that she should have done but couldn’t. As was her request, the verse of light was later inscribed on an inset bronze plaque over her grave.
It was the verse which, whenever she had opened her copy of the Qur’an, she found before her. She loved it because she understood it. And she understood it because it spoke to her of something that she had known, had always known, had glimpsed in these hills that were empty but not empty, that were more rough than pretty. Even their colours were unpolished. Her spirit was here where she wanted to be buried. The people who walked at her funeral knew it and now the three women sensed it too in the gentle wind and the tough climb, in the mists that lowered over the dark peaks and lifted.
They had moved, as she had moved symbolically, from the built monastery near the loch to the emptiness of the mountains. Left behind the hushed, thick, sombre atmosphere of organised religion and travelled up to where there was simplicity and balance. Not the indulgence of the secluded life, neither the gratification of service, nor the voluptuousness of identity. No, here was aloneness. The nothing of it. Just to be small, a conscious part of the whole. Lady Evelyn could not help her faith, it was given to her without asking and it paralleled her life unpremeditated, unplanned. It was separate and part of her roles as traveller, writer and mother; her social position, her aristocratic breeding and contacts. Where was Lady Evelyn’s Islam? So deep that when it surfaced it surprised her. When the Pope asked, her reply rose sincere, a reflex, the truth summoned forward by the authority of a man of God. ‘I am a Muslim.’ And where had that come from? From her childhood in Algiers and Cairo, the kindly servants who bowed to Allah alone and not to her parents, the murmur of their prayers, the sound of the azan floating through the window. Little girl, loved as one of them. Carried and fed, clutching the black veil of her nanny because they were leaving the house, the warm calloused hand nursing insect bites and bruises, holding up her chin to look into her eyes, voice soothing to her ears. All that she had absorbed. But her experience was not unusual for a colonial child. As a teenager, she had written in a poem, ‘I felt His Presence within and around’. But this in itself was not an explanation either. Perhaps it was, as she described, the weird cadence of the muezzin’s cry. Perhaps that sound went in and lodged itself years after she came home, her home, here, the unmistakable mauve mountains and glens, grouse and salmon, leaves turning colour, the thrill of the hunt, the smells of fear, blood and the bellows of the stags – these were hers too, her ancestry, her robust health and independence – her toughness, Scottishness and sense of entitlement – all together, one and the same.
‘I can’t go on,’ said Moni, stopping. ‘I need the toilet’.
The others stopped too. ‘What toilet?’ said Iman. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’ This was no tourist destination; there was neither phone signal nor picnic bench.
‘Squat behind a bush,’ said Salma.
‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean you can’t?’
‘I’ve never done that, I don’t know how.’
‘There is nothing to it,’ said Iman.
‘Even if you turn around now,’ reasoned Salma, ‘you won’t make it in time. It’s four miles back to the car.’
Moni had no choice. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she said, heading into the bracken.
Iman rolled her eyes at Salma. They looked the other way.
When Moni reappeared, she was distressed. ‘I made a mess. It would have been easier with a skirt.’ The bottom of one trouser leg was wet.
‘How on earth did you do that?’ said Iman.
‘Never mind,’ said Salma. ‘It will dry. Don’t worry about it.’ She started to walk, expecting the others to fall in step.
‘Salma, I can’t go on,’ said Moni. ‘Not like this. I will wait here for you. I don’t feel clean. I don’t feel right.’
‘Wash it then,’ said Salma. ‘From the stream.’
‘That’s what I want to do,’ said Moni, ‘but I need my own time. I don’t want you hovering over me, impatient. You go on and I will head back and meet you at the car.’
Salma was disappointed in her and for her. Moni had come so far, walked for hours, overcoming her early reluctance and weakness. She had tried her best. Iman was willing to argue with her, but it was no use. Salma handed her the car keys and the two kept on walking.
They walked faster, believing they were two thirds of the way. They stepped over puddles and passed a bridge made up of only two wires, one high up to hold on to and another one to slide the feet along. ‘You use this bridge at your own risk’, the sign said. Thankfully, they did not need to cross but just to keep walking and walking. The grave would be up on a hillock to their left.
The path rose up and suddenly there was a dip, the glen spread out beneath them. About a kilometre ahead, a jeep was blocking the road, stationary but pointing towards them. Two men in hunting gear were leaning on the bumper. ‘They can see us,’ said Iman and that situation lasted a good ten minutes, the men becoming clearer as they approached them. One of them was holding a greyhound on a leash. The other was eating an apple. Closer still, they noticed there was also a puppy, a spaniel, frisking around the men and the jeep.
The dogs barked as Salma and Iman approached. The encounter could not be avoided, but that they were heading for the grave did not elicit surprise. ‘Another mile,’ said the man who was crunching the apple. ‘When you see the shooting lodge ahead of you, the grave would be up to your left.’ Iman cooed over the puppy. She knelt to stroke it, declaring that she had fallen in love with it, making the men smile. Salma reminded Iman that they must keep going. Iman, standing up, did not hide the fact that she was reluctant to leave.
The path twisted and, looking back, they could no longer see the men with their car. They speculated about them. So, they were the deer hunters, but what were they
doing just standing there with a jeep? Were they waiting for a signal about the whereabouts of the deer? Were they already done for the day? Their hunting clothes had made them look as if they were from another century, but it was because they belonged to a different tradition, a way of life that Salma and Iman would never know. And yet Lady Evelyn had known this life, was part of it. Worlds intersecting, overlapping. Above them, the clouds separated and a shaft of sunlight touched the mountains like in religious paintings.
Iman started talking about a sign she had seen near the car park. ‘A hostel, and the sign said, “help needed”.’
Salma didn’t reply.
Iman went on, ‘I want to go back and ask about this position. Maybe it would include lodging too. My things are in the car. I could just stay on.’
Salma felt the same sense of rejection as before. So, Iman hadn’t changed completely, hadn’t put away her reluctance to return with her to the city. Better humour her this time. Let her ask and, nine out of ten, it would come to nothing. ‘Sure, no harm trying. You can ring the doorbell and enquire when we get back,’ she said.
‘Those two men could give me a ride back in their car. It would save time.’
‘What a crazy idea!’
‘I can say the Fatiha for Lady Evelyn from here, I’m close enough. It’s just as good as reaching the grave.’
They argued back and forth, but Salma felt calm, a little detached. She did not want to squander her energy, she did not want to tarnish the journey. No ugly words or recriminations. No tears. If Iman already felt as if she had reached her destination, Salma couldn’t force her to keep going. They would all meet later at the car.
So, Salma walked alone, the wind stinging her eyes. Up here in the mountains, it was already autumn. She was by herself and it felt as if it were a weaker position. From the beginning, she had been the one who had cared the most about visiting the grave. The others were never as keen; she was leading them, but they did not want to be led, or perhaps there were places to which you could not lead others, at least not the whole way. Perhaps she was being unfair. Moni and Iman had done their best. She walked faster but was suddenly vulnerable to anxieties. What if she got lost? What if she got hurt all alone in the middle of nowhere? The more she walked, the more she doubted herself. What if she had already passed the grave?
The road went on, the views of mountains and gullies, brambles and bracken, burns flowing, marshes that were in every shade of brown. The last stretch would always be the most difficult, the longest, accompanied by silence, too late for enthusiasm, too late for change of any kind. She must keep going.
She was tired too, she had to admit. Her knees were beginning to ache, her back a little stiff. She did not want to stop and stretch, nor eat a snack. She did not want to risk losing momentum, giving up like the others had given up. Come on, come on, you are nearly there, one last push. It would have been better if David had come with her. He would not have left her alone. He would have stayed with her until the very end. She should have thought of this – a trip for the two of them, a couple. Instead of the whole trouble with the women’s group, instead of Moni and Iman. She missed him and suddenly she could make Glenuaig Lodge in the distance and soon, very soon, there would be the grave up on the hill.
Up on the left, she spotted the two gravestones, the taller one that belonged to Toby Sladen, Lady Evelyn’s grandson, and then the shorter, older, broken one. It was a steep climb and she scrambled through stalks and brambles. She had made it, she had found it and here she was.
‘Lady Evelyn Cobbold, 1867–1963, Daughter of the 7th Earl of Dunmore, Widow of John Dupuis Cobbold.’
Salma sat near the grave, catching her breath. When she could speak, she greeted Lady Evelyn, knowing that her presence could be sensed, maybe even her prayers could be heard. She called her by her Muslim name – Zainab. Your state is my future, Zainab, one day I will follow to where you are, and I will know what you now know. Motionless after hours of walking, Salma could feel the wind cool against her face and parched lips, the muscles of her thighs stretching. Here she was at last looking down at the bronze plaque, the photo of which had caused such offence and made the women in the group stay away. Certainly, someone had tried to cross the words out, clawed at the flat bronze with a rock or a knife, fuelled by outrage. Lady Evelyn had requested the original Arabic verse, but her exact wishes could not be fulfilled and instead an English translation was used. Words that could be read by anyone walking past, understood and objected to. Allah is the light . . .
The clouds shifted and a shaft of sun touched the bronze, blurring the words and the grooves that had been scraped in over them. Salma blinked, her eyes dazzled. Strange that now, instead of the words, she could see her own smoky reflection. It was blurry at first, but when she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, she could see more clearly. It was not the Salma of today, weary and scruffy, instead it was her future, all she had ever done layered and marked over her features.
She did not recoil in horror, nor smile with joy. The future was stories repeating themselves. The future was a more pungent, more bitter extension of the present. A fresh mix of desires fulfilled, and others thwarted, the improbable and the inevitable. She will earn more, enjoy her work and her youngest son will graduate from medical school. She will dance at her daughter’s wedding, carry a grandchild, book tickets for her and David to go on pilgrimage to Mecca.
Hints of her friends’ futures floated towards her too, the bronze plaque a screen, a whirlpool of images, translucent as a mirage. Moni succeeds, against the odds, in getting Murtada to return from Saudi Arabia. They have another baby, a bright wilful little girl who sparkles their life until Murtada announces that he is returning to Sudan and he wants his family with him. No, says Moni again, I will not leave this country. Adam, Adam, Adam, Moni says, and her future is a more complex negotiation than the present. Iman’s English improves. She works and can bring her mother over from Syria for a visit. But her greatest material success comes in middle age with the widower she lands as a husband, a house whose mortgage has been paid off.
Then the images were of Salma again. The positive medical test, the hushed voices and days in hospital. For her to be buried in her beloved Egypt would be too costly, too inconvenient, she was destined to stay put. Loved until the very end, her husband devoted, her children gathered around her.
She covered her face with her hands. The future was not meant to be seen. This was not why she had come, not to see the end but to save the present. Not to learn the obvious lesson that there was less time left. Is that all you will give me, Lady Evelyn? Is this how you receive your sister, Zainab? I want to know how I can go on. How I can keep going without taking a fall, without giving up or making a fool of myself. You were lonely too, you were tired, help me. I came here for rejuvenation, a recipe for patience, a cure for disenchantment, the will to keep going, keep going, without wandering astray. I came to get the secret of keeping restlessness at bay, to learn how to feel settled. I came to see you, not to see myself.
She staggered down the slope; where was the strength now to walk six miles back to the car? A shot rang out. Close enough to make her freeze. She stepped away from the path and crouched down next to the rocks. She could now hear what must be the faint gallop of the wounded deer, the last sprints before the final collapse. Flooded with fatigue, she stretched out on the grass and looked up at the sky. She watched the cloud formations. Peace. The kind without thoughts or voices, neither images nor words.
She continued lying until the ground became uncomfortable for her back, the grass damp through her clothes. She pushed herself up and received the shot that was intended for her.
‘I died,’ she said to Moni and Iman in the car park. ‘Then I felt better for it. It was easy to walk back.’
They had heard the gunshots and were relieved that she was here in the car, that she was safe, sane and strong. They were relie
ved that she would now be able to drive them back home.
Iman sat in the front seat next to her. Her queries about the ‘help wanted’ sign at the hostel had come to nothing but making the attempt had felt like the first small step towards independence. She could be herself without hating the femininity she had been born with. She could still learn even if she hadn’t finished school. She could be Salma’s best friend and nobody’s pet.
Moni, clean now, was comfortable and soothed, ready to go back. She had walked much further than she could ever have imagined, exceeded her own limits. Given another chance, perhaps, just perhaps, she would do it all over again and succeed. She handed Salma a bottle of water.
‘Did you remember to take a selfie at the grave?’ asked Iman.
‘No. And no one can ever prove that you two weren’t there with me.’
This made them all laugh, and Moni said the prayer for the return journey.
Author’s Note
In my favourite verses of the Qur’an, a woman reads out loud, to a gathering of men, or mostly men, a letter she has just received. The woman is Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba; she is addressing her royal court and the letter she holds in her hand was written by King Solomon and delivered by his special messenger, the Hoopoe bird. Bilqis reads the letter without omitting the heading. ‘Nobles,’ she says. ‘A distinguished letter has been delivered to me. It is from Solomon and it says, In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, do not rise against me and come to me in submission to God.’ In the background, the Hoopoe hovers, awaiting the answer it will carry back, Bilqis’s response.
It was the Hoopoe who had first alerted Solomon to the existence of Bilqis. More than a courier, it is King Solomon’s intimate, a scout and an explorer, a fearless traveller and a trustworthy source. In Sheba, the Hoopoe had found a woman sitting on a magnificent throne, ruling a prosperous nation. But she and her people worship the sun instead of God, the Hoopoe tells Solomon. ‘Should they not bow down to Allah who brings to light what is hidden in the heavens and earth and knows what you conceal and reveal?’ This verse is one of fifteen instances in the Qur’an when the reciter is required to stop reading and respond to the words by bowing down in prostration. It is always a stirring experience. Instead of continuing to read, there is a pause, a space to interact, a physical reply to the Hoopoe’s rhetorical question. The only species of bird mentioned in the Qur’an, the Hoopoe has opinions, insight and a voice that rings eternally in the sacred text.
Bird Summons Page 23