Chapter Twelve

With her newfound purpose and confidence, Leyla had recently become the object of attentions that she had not sought herself. Having been unable to find any sign of lesbian women around her for years, they now seemed to be everywhere.

The previous week, in the coffee shop down the road from the office where she had stopped to pick up a drink, she was flirted with by the female barista. And not more than a few days later, she found it almost unfathomable when after a party at the home of some friends, a young woman whom she had spent almost an hour talking to about music, casually asked her if she’d like to go out the following week.

‘Go out?’ Leyla had asked, encompassing perhaps a little less eloquence than she would have hoped.

The girl nodded, blue eyes smiling. ‘Like on a date,’ the girl clarified. Leyla knew she had not contained her surprise enough because she saw alarm touch the features opposite her.

‘Sorry, I thought you might be..I mean, I’m gay. I thought…’

Leyla tried to convey her nonchalance with a casual flicking back of her hair, but succeeded only in knocking over a candle that sat on the table behind her. Once the two of them had managed to stamp out a flaming paper napkin and had scraped up the hot wax, Leyla felt able to reply.

‘No, that’s fine,’ she stuttered. And then, before her courage should fail, she added. ‘I’d love to’

It was now the day before that date and Leyla had already forgotten exactly what she had talked about with the blue-eyed girl that had drawn her to accept the offer. Nevertheless, something about the certainty of the moment’s attraction, the solidity of a date, whether anything came of it or not, had spurred her to have a talk with her parents. A serious talk. The kind of talk she had never had occasion to trouble them with yet in her life.

As she pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, Leyla felt nauseous. It was approaching eight in the evening, and between the time she had left the office ten minutes before, and the moment that she arrived at her home, the world had darkened. The pleasant nuances of the late summer twilight had dispersed, covered over by a bleaker, more ominously grey hue. She looked up at the house. It looked dark and deserted, a haunted mansion within whose cavernous walls only the parsimonious spirit of her mother flitted from bedroom to living room, conserving the electric lights. Her father was in London with a client. Yasmin was out of town for three days working on a catering job. Though Leyla would have preferred to speak to her sister first, the blind craving, the overwhelming need she had felt building all week would no longer be held back.

She pushed open the door, and spent a minute divesting herself of her coat, briefcase and umbrella. By the time she moved forward into the large hallway, she had run through ten different introduc-tions to the subject on her mind and every muscle in her slim body was generally tuned to an unbearably fine pitch of tension. So when Maya leaped out at her from the shadowed staircase, uttering a primal yell and brandishing a poker, Leyla felt her heart flirting with a cardiac arrest. She staggered back against the wood-panelled wall, almost panting.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Maya.

‘Who the hell were you expecting? Jack the Ripper?’ Leyla asked, unable to articulate more than a ragged whisper.

‘Watch your language,’ Maya countenanced. ‘I heard someone sneaking around. I’m on my own here, you know. No-one else is going to protect me.’

Without further explanation she turned and went back to the living room, where she replaced the poker among the other useless fire-tending paraphernalia that rested by the gas-fed hearth, and sat down in front of the television.

‘Mum, I need to talk to you,’ Leyla began, but she was at a disadvantage, for she was now competing for airspace with a soap opera.

Maya’s eyes were fixed doggedly on the screen where a tired-looking older woman had just discovered that her drug-addicted daughter was pregnant. This cheered Maya immensely. It relieved her beyond expression to see before her the acute suffering of other people, even characters on a screen (because after all, these characters were based on real life) and to be able to favourably compare her own problems with theirs.

‘Mum!’

Maya became aware of Leyla’s insistent voice in the background.

She sighed. At least her daughters were home with her, not running around having sex with strange men. She ought to be thankful, and in recognition of this newly felt gratitude, Maya heroically switched off the television in order to listen to her daughter.

The sudden silence, combined with Maya’s expectant eyes upon her, startled Leyla and she found that she could not speak.

‘I’m making some pasta,’ Maya said, quickly leading the way to the kitchen, for there was something about the mutely pleading way her child was looking at her that was making her nervous.

‘You’re not sick are you?’ Maya asked.

‘No, I’m fine. Really good, in fact.’ Leyla cleared her throat. ‘Really happy, actually.’ She coughed, for her voice felt seized and thick.

Maya’s internal problem-detecting antennae shot up at this unusual response, and quivered tremulously, probing the air around her daughter. This triple, insistent reply, combined with Leyla’s anxiety and phlegmy cough made her instantly alert. Briskly and with mild panic, she stirred at the boiling pasta, willing it to cook quickly.

‘Ali called,’ she said, over her shoulder. Just the mention of his name reassured Maya in some way and she smiled. ‘He’s a wonderful boy.’

Leyla took a short step into the kitchen. ‘I’m not happy with him, Mum.’

‘Then Aunty Gulshan’s son is looking for someone,’ suggested Maya, not without an air of desperation. ‘He’s very successful!’

‘He’s a bookie.’

‘And tall and handsome,’ persisted Maya.

‘He’s six foot seven,’ replied Leyla. ‘All I can see is his navel.’

‘Well, then, you’ll have tall children!’

‘Mum, I can’t be happy with him!’ Leyla coughed again. ‘The same way I’m not happy with Ali. And I’ve always known why, but I was hoping the reason I thought was the reason might not really be the reason, and that things might change, but they never have.

And now I know for sure that what I’ve been feeling all these years is actually the right thing and there’s nothing wrong with it….’

‘Do you want cheese on this?’ Maya asked, her head having momentarily disappeared in the burst of steam that issued as she desperately dumped the half-cooked spaghetti into a colander. Her voice was pitched at a level that suggested rapidly mounting hyste-ria, for even amongst the confused torrent of her daughter’s rushing words, it was becoming all too clear to her that Leyla was about to confess something horrible, something Maya would rather not hear, ever.

‘Mum, please listen, I’m just trying to say…’

‘There’s olive oil over there, if you want it.’ Maya moved to the table, then changed her mind, picked up her plate and made for the relative safety of the living room, where the television stood only feet away, ready, just waiting to be turned on.

‘Mum,’ Leyla said, following her, confused but determined. ‘I’m gay!’If Maya had been able to scream and faint without feeling embarrassed, she would have done so but, as it was, she simply remained rooted to the spot, her plate of overly al dente pasta (free of cheese or oil) in one hand, and the television remote control in the other. In the hallway, the muffled sound of the front door slamming reached them both, followed by a cheery confirmation from Sam that he was home.

As her husband strode in, Maya became aware that she was standing like a statue, lips quivering in shock, armed only with the congealing spaghetti. She watched Sam’s anxious gaze go from his wife to his daughter.

‘What did I miss?’ he asked.

Leyla looked at him, tears in her eyes. ‘I’m gay,’ she whispered.

Sam stared in disbelief. ‘But I’ve only been gone two hours.’

He looked at Leyla’s pale, uncertain face regarding him with forlorn hope, then looked down. This news was certainly a surprise to him, mainly because he had never taken a moment to consider his childrens’ private lives, except when Maya regaled him with the virtues of one or other of their boyfriends and, even then, he paid minimal attention, since he could not really say that he much cared who either of them was with, as long as they were decent, and as long as he did not have to picture them sleeping with his daughter.

Leyla turned to her mother. ‘You always said you just wanted us to be happy.’

‘I lied,’ Maya reassured her. She sniffed back the tears of anger she felt stinging her eyes.

‘Don’t cry, please, Mum,’ Leyla said. Maya detected a note of regret in her daughter’s voice. She cried.

‘Who did this to you?’ she demanded through her sobs.

‘Mum, I haven’t caught a disease. I’m just gay, like I have brown hair.’

When would she stop saying that word? Irate, Maya turned on her.‘First you stop coming to mosque, now you are up to your neck in sin!’

‘It’s not a sin.’

‘It’s a huge sin!’

‘According to who?’ Leyla was close to tears now.

‘According to God!’ Maya yelled.

‘What kind of a God is that? I don’t accept it!’ Leyla yelled back.

‘Then you will burn in hell,’ stated Maya, her eyes piercing Leyla’s with a righteous fury that gave her the courage to confront this appalling deviance and call it by its proper name.

‘That’s enough.’ Sam’s firm voice cut through the thick air and brought Maya to a stop. Incensed, she glared at him, paused to toss the plate of ruined pasta on the table and stormed upstairs.

Leyla looked down and stared at the rug. It was a swirling pattern that had flecks of beige and russet but which was primarily brown, a choice her mother had made because it would be easier to clean. She felt her father’s arm around her, felt him holding out his capacious handkerchief which she took gratefully.

‘If I could help it, I would,’ Leyla said, blowing her nose. ‘But I can’t.’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I know.’

* * *

When Tala shivered back into consciousness, she found herself lying in the salon, on an antique chaise longue, like a Victorian heroine from a third-rate novel. Above her as she woke were the faces of her mother and Zina. Zina’s frowning concern brought back to Tala’s mind all that had overwhelmed her in the bedroom, and she shut her eyes again, only to find her mother’s pointed, burgundy-painted fingernail applied to her stomach.

‘Stay awake, mama,’ she exhorted. ‘It’s better for you.’

Tala doubted this to be true. On the contrary, the slip back into giddy blackness was more than appealing – it was seductive.

It would be such sensual pleasure to glide away from Reema’s pok-ing finger, from Zina’s intent perception, and to simply drift into the soothing darkness of sleep, where she would not have to think about what to tell Hani, how to tell him. She opened her eyes again and sat up, which was not easy against the assorted, solicitous hands that encouraged her back onto the sofa. She could now hear her father in the background, ordering mint tea, and she was grateful, for it struck her fractious mind as a good idea. Perhaps the scalding, soothing, sugary liquid could give her the sustenance she so desperately craved. Her mother got up, assuring her that she had just the thing to cure this kind of fainting spell upstairs in her bathroom.

This left her with Zina, who held her hand tightly, while her father paced in the background.

‘What is it, Tala?’ Zina whispered. ‘What happened?’

Tala swallowed. ‘I’m not sure,’ she lied. Her eyes went to her father, who cast glances of concern towards her. ‘Zina, I need to talk to Baba. Alone.’

Zina nodded, and damped down her own curiosity, her own wish that Tala would confide in her, and left the room, closing the heavy door with a discreet click behind her.

Tala swung her legs off the sofa and tried to stand up, but Omar was next to her in a moment, guiding her down.

‘Just sit a while. You’ve had a shock.’

Tentatively, he sat down opposite her and played with his watch strap while he waited for her to speak, but the silent moments dripped by, sitting heavily on him, and once he had checked every metal link of the watch and found each one satisfactory, he realized that he might have to open the conversation himself.

‘I have a strange sense of déjà vu,’ he offered. ‘I feel we have been here before.’

Guiltily, Tala looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Baba.’

Omar nodded, and stood up again to continue pacing.

‘Tala, everyone gets nervous,’ he said. ‘It’s normal. But sometimes you have to ignore it, keep moving till you get past it. If you are in love it will be okay.’

Tala stared at the floor. The polished wood, the edges of the Persian carpet that lay within her line of vision. She traced the patterns of the grain, the rich threads of the carpet with her eyes. Her lips parted, wanting to say something, to admit something, that she knew what it was to be in love, but that she wasn’t in love with Hani.

‘It’s not nerves,’ she said. ‘You see, Baba, I don’t love him. Not like I should. It’s not that I’m not sure,’ she continued, the words rushing out now. ‘I wake up every morning suffocated by the idea of living here in Amman, of living with him, I realize now that I have been dreading my wedding day, every day. Dreading it.’

She had certainly spoken longer paragraphs to her father over the course of the years, but never one that held such frank emotion, and for a moment Tala blushed at what he must think of her. For she could not quite bring herself to look up and see for herself. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor, while she listened to the measured tread of his shoes, and saw the tops of them come into her eyeline, felt him standing over her. In the background, somewhere in a hallway, she could hear her mother’s voice approaching.

‘Go and tell Hani,’ Omar said. ‘Go before your mother comes. It will be okay.’

* * *

‘I was hoping you’d surprise me,’ Hani said. Taking her hand, he pulled her into his own office, away from the small reception area.

The building was large, recently renovated, but his small personal space comprised only a battered desk set amid peeling walls.

‘They’re painting it next week,’ he said, following the flicker of her gaze. ‘They should get your mother to interior design the whole place.’

He was smiling, and there was room for her to smile too, to add a laughing comment about how Reema would have him sit on a gilded chair at a cut glass table, but she could not lay out such banal banter now, when she was preparing to crush his expectations. Expectations that she had given him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as she sat down. He remained standing before her, leaning against his desk, his hand reaching out to touch her hair, to stroke it gently back from her forehead. ‘Is it all getting too much?’

‘Yes.’ She was hanging inside a vacuum, the inside of an empty, comforting shell, facing an inexorable, relentless pull from the small window of opportunity she now saw before her. She wanted to turn and leave, but the inevitability of what was to come held her, and the pull of the rushing air from that window was sucking her towards what she had to say. She felt herself approach the sentence, felt her inner organs being dragged out of her as she put aside thought and just spoke.

‘I’m not going to marry you,’ she said. She stared at him, to see if he had heard. He had. His hand was removed from her head, and was held awkwardly against his stomach, as though shielding a gunshot wound. There was no room for maneouver amongst her words, no chink of daylight in the dark shutters she had just closed across his heart. The sentence was not ambivalent, the tone was not confused. She had decided, and it was already done.

‘Why?’ he asked, his voice hoarse.

‘It doesn’t feel right.’

He considered. ‘Do you need more time? I don’t even care about marriage,’ he continued. ‘We can leave this place and just live together, wherever you want.’

He was crying, he realised, and he blinked back the drops that were gathering thickly in his eyes.

‘I don’t want a wedding,’ he said. ‘I just want you.’

In these excruciating, elongated moments she found that she hated herself with a depth of feeling she had rarely experienced before. That her own self-deception and self-absorption, her own slavery to the society and family in which she had been brought up, had reduced this blameless man to a weeping wreck struck her as horrific. She saw more clearly than she had ever seen before that she must change, or keep hurting the people who truly loved her.

Like Hani.

‘Is there anything I can do to salvage this?’ he asked, the rationality of his question lost under the desperate cracking of his voice.

‘No. You haven’t done anything to ruin it. I have. It’s all my fault, and I am so sorry, Hani, so sorry that I couldn’t be honest with you – and myself – sooner.’

‘What is it? Have I done something?’

Tala looked at him. It would surely comfort him to know the true reason, to know that no matter what he did, he could never compete with the person she really wanted. But she could not bring herself to say it out loud, to admit it to anyone. There was still a sense of shame about the idea that clung to her like an old cobweb.

‘I love you, Tala.’

‘I love you too.’

‘But not enough to marry me?’ he asked angrily.

‘Not in the right way,’ she whispered.

She got up to hold him, and he submitted, but his grasp was hot and tense, until she pulled his head down to her neck, and he let out a ragged breath and stood there without moving for many minutes.

* * *

Reema was incandescent with a rage that, over the course of two hours, sublimated into hysterical grief at the demise of her own hopes. The air in the house now held the grey pallor of mourning. The sun still rammed with brilliant solidity against the glass; the crammed plant-life of the garden still let out the dense, vegetal smell of profuse growth. But within the rising walls of the home, all was death. The tight, angry shuffle that Reema used to ascend the staircase to her own room, the pursed, thin set of her lips, were the bitter signs of a woman forced to prepare for a funeral in the midst of a wedding.

Tersely, she ordered Rani to begin packing her daughter’s bags, and plenty of them, for she intended to take Tala with her to London the next day for a good, long spell. She could not allow her to remain here to embarrass them even more, and the idea of sitting through visits from pitying, prying, probing friends was too much for Reema to bear.

The other three engagements were bad enough, but this. To break it off, to embarrass them all, to ruin everything the day before was unacceptable, and she would not accept it. She had to allow it – that much she was forced to admit – for, as usual, Omar was the weak link, had always been gentle at the times when the full force of his male strength and power was needed. Omar always sided with Tala when a crisis came to its apex – he would never force her to go through with an actual marriage; if he had, Tala would have discovered that marrying someone was no worse or better than a hundred other things she could decide to do with her day. But it was over; the union between Tala and Hani – handsome, good, perfect Hani – had been severed. She would never forgive it. Today was the day of her daughter’s death, Reema decided, at least for the foreseeable future.

* * *

The yelling hawkers and tradesmen of downtown Amman provided a constant, staccato backdrop of screams for Hani’s ears. He stood very still, with the sun casting its heavy heat onto the crown of his head, and listened as they shouted the names and remarkable qualities of the tired merchandise they tried to sell. He liked the souk, he liked this area of the city. He would not live here unless he had to – it was noisy, dirty and overcrowded – but he did not have the an-tipathy towards it that many of his peers had. West Amman, where he now lived, was a separate enclave, a faux town within the real city. It had beautiful homes built on its cresting hills, and appealing restaurants along its wider streets, but it lacked the life and heart of downtown. The raw, urgent bawl of everyday life. He had grown up near here before his father had made his fortune; his family not poor enough to be stuck in the rotting centre of the souk, but not yet rich enough to be very far removed from the competing wails of the mosques and the roaring races of the delivery trucks along the narrow roads where enough of the desert encroached to coat everything in fine dust. He loved this city, and she did not. He loved her and she did not love him, not enough to pledge herself to him for a lifetime. The world appeared simple for the traders out there; it was a matter of survival or demise, selling enough to buy food and old clothes, or starving. And it was now simple for him, who had no such immediate concerns of hunger or want. There was light and there was darkness, and where once, so recently, he had sat at his desk bathed in that light, now he was clothed in the black cover of heartbreak. He felt a pull at his sleeve. A young boy, thin and dirty, grinned and offered up a bag of figs for sale.

‘Fifty fils,’ the boy said. Hani’s eyes went to the fruit. Squashed against the clear plastic of the bag, the figs were already blackened, with soft patches where the skin had collapsed in against the dark crimson of the flesh. He could smell the rotting odour of them from where he stood.

‘Okay, okay, thirty fils,’ the boy compromised. He held up the bag again, bringing the corrupted fruit closer to Hani’s gaze. Hani reached for the bag and cradled it in his hands. The squelching, bad figs felt right in his hands. This was what he wanted to hold now that she had slipped through his fingers. This was all that was left to him, and he could not yet begin to imagine how to rescue the rest of his life from the festering ruins of the fruit. The boy held out a demanding hand. Hani dipped into his pocket, pulled out two dinars and placed them in the outstretched palm.

‘ Shukhran, Ammo, ’ the delighted boy said. ‘May Allah make you happy and give you all your dreams…’

Hani waved the child off, and the boy turned away, grinning. He watched as the thrilled child ran off towards his home, shouting and punching the air with delight.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 642