Minaret: A Novel (7 page)

`That was last year,' said Omar. I laughed. It rarely happened but today Omar and I were dressed in identical colours. We were both wearing Wrangler jeans and I was wearing a beige polo neck and he had on a long-sleeved beige shirt. Mama came and took a photo of us. Years later, after everything fell, that photo remained. Omar and I smiling, a pink flower wedged in my hair, my legs crossed, my elbow on my knee and hand on my chin. Omar close, his back against my arm, his eyes bright, legs stretched out, hand resting lightly on the tape recorder, the cassettes scattered on his lap and on the red-check rug. Years later, when everything fell, I would narrow my eyes and try to distinguish by colour and words the tapes on the rug, tapes we used to buy on our summer holidays in London: Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Hot Chocolate and nay own tapes of Boney M.

Everything started to fall that night, late after the picnic, after the barbecue, after the guests had gone home and we also had gone home. After grilled kebab and peanut salad, boiled eggs, watermelon and guava. We drove back home and we were quiet, we were all tired. I washed my hair that night because of all the dust that had got into it. I examined an ant bite on nay elbow. It was swollen and raised and I could not stop scratching it. The telephone call came late at night, close to dawn. I heard it and I thought someone had died. It had happened before, someone dying, a close friend or relation and Mama and Baba having to leave the house in the middle of the night. Over the next days of mourning they would say, We came as soon as we heard the news ... we came at night.'

I didn't get out of bed. I was not curious enough. I heard Baba's voice on the phone but I could not distinguish his words. I could hear his voice and something about it was not right. There wasn't the bite and shock that came with death. I sat up in bed, saw the outline of the room slowly come to focus as my eves adjusted to the dark. The nights were still cool; we did not need air conditioners. If they had been on, I would not have heard the phone.

The door to Omar's room was closed. I walked down the corridor to my parents' room. Their light was on and the door was ajar. I saw the suitcase on the bed. I saw Mama tucking some of Baba's socks in the suitcase, which was already nearly full. He was getting dressed, buttoning his shirt. He turned and looked at me as if he couldn't see me, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to he going out in the middle of the night.

Are you going away?' I asked but neither of them answered. N/lanma continued to stalk the room, packing, distracted, as if she was listening to a voice in her head, a voice that was listing things for her, telling her what to do. 'Go hack to sleep,' she said to me.

Wide awake, I went to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, smoothed my eyebrows, admired how the yellow of my pyjamas suited my skin and forgot about Baba.

When I got out of the bathroom, I heard him starting the car. It had to he him starting the car because Musa didn't sleep over. Musa went home every night. I wondered where Baha was going, where was he travelling to. Why didn't they tell me that someone important had died abroad? I went into Omar's room and started to wake him up. He woke but didn't come with me to the window. I looked through the curtains. I saw Baha easing the car out of the garage, over the pebbles towards the gate. I saw the night watchman drag open the gates for him. Then I saw the headlights of a car coming fast down our road. It stopped with a screech in front of our gate, blocking Baba's car. Two men got out. One hovered near the gate and the other went and opened Baba's car door, like ,Musa opened it for him every day but not like that, not exactly like that. Baba turned the ignition off and got out of the car. He spoke with the man, gestured towards the hoot of the car. The man said something to his friend and the friend opened the hoot and took Baba's suitcase out. They started to walk towards their car and just left Baba's car beached in the parkway, neither in the house nor out of it. Baba took out something from his pocket, probably money or the car keys, and gave it to the night watchman. Then he got into the car with the two men. He sat in the hack seat and that was wrong, I knew. He shouldn't he in the hack seat. I had never seen him sitting in the hack seat, except in taxis or when Musa was driving. And Mama was next to me; she frightened me. The way she ground her teeth, stopping herself from crying, and hanged the window softly with her fist frightened me. Omar came and put his arm around her, led her away from the window.

What's wrong?' he said. `What's wrong, Mama?'

His voice was calm and normal. I looked out at the dark empty street, at Baba's abandoned car, at the watchman trying to close the gate and realizing that he couldn't. He couldn't move the car because he didn't know how to drive. It would have to wait for morning, for Musa to come.

`What's wrong, Mama?' Oniar's voice was patient. They both sat on his bed.

`There's been a coup,' she said.

ur first weeks in London were OK. We didn't even notice that we were falling. Once we got over the shock of suddenly having to fly out the day after Baba was arrested, Omar and I could not help but enjoy London. We had never been there before in April and the first thing we did was go to Oxford Street and buy clothes. It was fun to do all the things we never did back home; grocery shopping, pushing the Hoover around, cooking frozen food. It was fun to do all the things we usually did in the summer. Omar went to the cinema in Leicester Square and I don't know how many tapes he bought from HMV. I went through Selfridges trying the perfumes and getting my face made up at the Elizabeth Arden counter.

But Mama was not herself at all; she was in a daze, sometimes crying for no reason, muttering to herself in the middle of the night, immune to the excitement of London. She refused to go out shopping and constantly followed the news of the coup; surrounding herself with all the Arab papers as well as The Times and the Guardian, phoning round and leaving the TV on all the time. Our flat in Lancaster Gate was constantly filled with other Sudanese: businessmen passing through London, anxious Embassy staff who were awaiting the inevitable changes that would come about with the new government. They all reassured Mama about Baba. `They'll soon let him go and he'll join you here,' they said. `It will all die down,' they said, be patient, they'll flex their muscles at the beginning and then they'll slacken.' She listened to them quietly and I helped her serve coffee and tea. Her face was harsh without makeup, her hair out of the way in a bun because she no longer went to the hairdresser; the jumpers she wore under her tobe were in sombre colours.

Randa called me from her college in Wales. `I can't believe it, you're really here!' she shrieked.

'I can't believe it either - I was just saving bye to you a while back ...'

What are you going to do now?'

'We're waiting for Baba to join us - we're worried about him.' I swallowed and there was a burning in my forehead.

`And then what, how long will you stay here, what about your university?'

'I don't know Randa. I brought all my notes and books with me ...'

But this new government seems like it's here to stay, the coup was a success. I suppose you'll just stay here on political asylum . . .'

They might allow us to go hack. I don't know.' I had not thought things out.

You can come here you know.'

'Here where?'

Here in Atlantic College with me.'

The idea for some reason horrified me. 'Omar would love that - but Randa tell me about VOL]. Tell me what's it like for you. Do you like it in Wales? Is the work hard? Have you done the mountain climbing?'

`I'll tell you all about it in a letter. I can't stay on the phone for long.'

'OK. Give the letter to Samir, he's coming down to see us at the weekend.'

`Yeah, OK I will. I do bump into him frequently.'

`Randa I forgot to tell you - Sundari's pregnant ...'

`Whaaat!' she hissed.

`It's a big scandal; even the American Embassy is involved. This is not why marines are posted to Sudan.' I tried to laugh at my own joke but the sound that came out was more like a lumpy cough.

Samir came at the weekend, wearing faded jeans and a leather jacket. He had on a new pair of glasses. He hugged Omar hard and I felt again that burning in my forehead that had started to come to me from time to time. He kissed Mama and she started to cry, embarrassing us all.

`Any news?' Samir sat down in one of the armchairs, Omar in the other. I sat on the sofa with Mama. The TV was on, as we sometimes had it these days, pictures without sounds.

`They are going to try him,' Omar said. Mama dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, her mouth stretched open.

`Insha' Allah it will all he OK.' Samir shifted in his armchair. He looked smothered by the deep, soft cushions.

But what if it didn't turn out to be OK, I wanted to say. What if they found him guilty, what if he was guilty, what then? As if I understood what they were trying him for ... Corruption. What did that mean? How could that word have anything to do with my father? We shouldn't have left him, we should have stayed with him. What were we doing here? It was Uncle Saleh who decided that we should come here. He had sorted everything out, all in a few hours, getting us on the last plane out before they closed the airport. But maybe he was wrong, maybe we should have stayed, maybe us running away would make Baha be found guilty. Weren't we acting as if he were guilty? But I didn't say anything; I stared at ITV - ads for chocolate biscuits, coffee, a new drama serial. Whenever I watched television, I forgot all about Baha, the had food he must he getting in that `special' house he was held in, the coming trial. The President was now in the US. He had called last night and spoken to Mama. `It's all his fault,' she said afterwards, `it's all his fault.' But on the phone she had been all nice, respectful in the same way she had always been with His Excellency.

`Samir, will you drink tea or something cold?' I smiled at him, happy to see a familiar face.

He said, `I've got a letter for you from Randa.' I took it from him and went to read it in the kitchen.

`Where's that tea?' Mama called out. I stopped in the middle of a description of Randa milking a cow (how absurd that that was part of her course!) and switched the kettle on.

Pizza Hut was warm and they played all the latest songs, songs we were just getting to know. The three of us shared a large seafood pizza and Samir ordered something I had never had before - garlic bread with cheese. It was very nice. Outside in the cold, Leicester Square was full of lights and so lively that I forgot it was night. People were coming out of the theatres heading towards the restaurants and the tube station, bouncers stood in front of nightclubs wearing check waistcoats. In one of the smaller cinemas Saturday Night Fever was still playing. We stood in front of a disco. We could hear the heat of Michael Jackson's `Billie jean' and the glimmer of red and flashing lights.

`Are you mad? How can we go to a disco?' I glared at Omar.

`Why not?' He did his imitation of a moonwalk. It was good but I was not in the mood to praise him.

`Tell him why not.' I looked at Samir but he shrugged and moved away from us. He seemed guarded, stiff with a new formality.

`We can't go to a disco because of Baba,' I said to Omar. `What do you want people to say? The man's on trial for his life and his children are dancing in London.'

`What people? Who do you think is going to know us in there? Don't be silly.' He turned to Samir to get support but he was busy examining a shop window.

`There just might he someone in there who knows us. It might just happen. Why take the risk?'

`You're obsessed with what people think of you!'

`I'm not obsessed. I am just sure that if we were in Khartoum, we wouldn't be at a disco.'

`We are not in Khartoum. Look, just go home.'

`Right, I will go home.'

Omar turned and started to walk towards the disco. 'Sarnir, come on,' he called out.

`Look, I'll take you home first,' Samir said. He didn't want to take me home. It struck me that he was bored with us. As if something had happened to make us less than him. As if he was all grown up and we were still little.

`No,' I said, `stay with Omar. I'm OK by myself.'

Our flat was only a few stops away by underground. The floor of the train was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans. The passengers were sleepy and tense, I felt as if we were moving in stale, unfulfilled time. Baba was going to be found guilty. Why else would they try him? That would he the justice the papers were crying out for. The new regime was supported by the Democratic Front. It was a populist regime, a regime of the people: no more old feudal ways, no more accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of an elite. Members of the Front were now offered places in the new government. My communist lecturer who had taught us about Rostow's take-off was now the Minister of Finance. I read all that in the papers, after Mama discarded them. I read an article about Baba's trial written by a student - because the students were the vanguards of the revolution. The article said that justice would be met and nothing was a fairer punishment for corruption than sequestration and the noose. The article was written by a student I knew well. The article was written by Anwar.