Minaret: A Novel (8 page)

There are all kinds of pain, degrees of falling. In our first weeks in London we sensed the ground tremble beneath us. When Baba was found guilty we broke down, the flat filling with people, Manna crying, Omar banging the door, staying out all night. When Baba was hanged, the earth we were standing on split open and we tumbled down and that tumbling had no end, it seemed to have no end, as if we would fall and fall for eternity without ever landing. As if this was our punishment, a bottomless pit, the roar of each other's screams. We became unfamiliar to each other simply because we had not seen each other fall before.

amya, my new employer, stands holding open the door of her flat. There is a light above her head and she is more relaxed than when I saw her at Regent's Park mosque. Her voice, when she returns my greeting, is thick as if she has just got up. She is wearing jeans and an attractive cardigan. Her face is not pretty but her figure, clothes and hair compensate. I keep my eyes and head lowered like I trained myself to do. This is not my first job; I know how deferential a maid should he. I take off my shoes and leave them near the door. I take off my coat, fold it and put it over my shoes - it wouldn't be polite to hang it over the family's coats on the coat-rack. I know I must he careful in everything I do; I mustn't slip. The first day is crucial, the first hours. I will he watched and tested but, once I win her trust, she will forget me, take me for granted. This is my aim, to become the background to her life. She closes the door behind me and I hear the television; the sound of a toddler and an older woman's voice.

I follow Lamva down the corridor towards the television sounds. The flat is modest, subdued - I had expected it to he more luxurious given the posh area and the fine building. Lamva pushes a door open, a thick wooden door. It is stiff and rubs against the wool of the carpet. The living room is spacious, with large windows overlooking the autumn trees of the park. Shadows of leaves flicker over the carpet and the light in the room is orange. It glows on the green upholstered furniture, on the mahogany dining table and sideboard. I try and stop my eyes from wandering too much. Surveying is disrespectful and likely to give the impression that I am the type who steals. I take in as much of the room as I can with lowered eyes. A little girl with soft curly hair is sitting on the floor surrounded by bricks and dolls, her eyes fixed on the television. A large middle-aged lady is sitting on one of the armchairs, eyeglasses sliding down her nose; she is reading the characteristic green pages of Asharq Al-Awsat. She looks up and studies me, her eyes bulging and serious above her glasses. The newspaper rests on her lap. Her hair is short and severely cut, but softened with the colours of henna.

`Salaamu alleikum,' I say

`Mama, this is Najwa,' Lamya says, and then to me, `Doctora Zeinab,' introducing her mother.

`Ahlan, Najwa,' the Doctora says lightly, `I'm leaving tomorrow for Cairo, insha' Allah, and the responsibility of all this house is going to be on you.'

I smile, slightly taken aback by her husky smoker's voice. I go towards my prime responsibility. I kneel and sit next to her on the floor.

`Mai,' I say, `Mai, how are you, what are you watching?' She doesn't respond.

Lamya's sleepy voice. `Mai, say hello to Najwa. She's here to play with you.'

The little girl looks at me once without interest and then back to the Teletubbies. She has her grandmother's eyes.

`Leave her,' the Doctora says, `she's concentrating on the television. It's a sign of intelligence when a child concentrates so well.' And as if to demonstrate concentration, she goes back to reading her paper.

`Come, let me show you the rest of the flat before I leave,' says Lamya.

Another room, a bedroom also overlooking the park. It is in ivory with two beds and a cot. This is my room and Mai's,' says Lamya. `My husband works in Oman and comes every six weeks or so for a holiday. He just left so it will he some time before he comes again.'

Were you living before in Oman?' I venture, curious but aware that I have no right to ask her questions. She intrigues me, as does her mother. The mother's accent is clearly Egyptian and she is going tomorrow to Cairo but Lamya's accent has traces of the Gulf and she is much darker than her mother.

`Yes, we were in Muscat ... Let me show you Mai's clothes.'

She shows me Mai's clothes and where the nappies are kept. `Change her on the bed,' she says. `I'm trying to toilet-train her but she still wears nappies. She just turned two, she really should be toilet-trained.' Her voice trails in a dreamy way as if she is thinking of other things. She must he clever, I think, to he doing a PhD.

`Here is the kitchen.' It is slightly dark, with a large rectangular table in the middle, cluttered with Mai's highchair.

`You have to put on this tape for Mai when she eats, otherwise she won't eat.' She gestures vaguely towards a tape recorder on the kitchen counter. `Unfortunately we don't have a dishwasher.' A pile of dishes stands up in the sink.

She shows me the washing machine, which is also a dryer. She shows me how a slim kitchen drawer opens out into a folding ironing board. Underneath is a cupboard full of clothes waiting to be ironed.

She shows me where the vacuum cleaner is kept, the brooms and mops. `This floor,' she trails her toes on the clay-red plastic tiles, `is so difficult to clean. Me and Mama are fed up with it.'

We walk down the hall. There is a washroom and a bathroom. The bathroom is all in brown tiles, `These brown tiles are troublesome,' she says. `We have to wipe every drop of water, otherwise the stains show.'

At the end of the corridor is a small dark room. We need the light to see. There are two beds, a dressing table and a small washbasin in the corner. `Mama's room and my brother Tamer's,' she says. `You won't see him much. He has lectures early in the morning and he comes home late.'

Something in her voice makes me guess that her brother is younger than her, rather than older. I wonder if he is the youth I met in the lobby.

`When Mama leaves tomorrow, Tamer will probably turn the dressing table into a desk. So far we've both been using the dining table in the evening. He's so untidy,' she says, her eyes falling on a T-shirt discarded on the floor. I smile, remembering a young Omar, the Omar of Khartoum, not the one he became in London.

When she leaves to go to her university, I spend a long time in the kitchen, washing the dishes, tidying up and then tackling the ironing. Doctora Zeinah and Mai remain in the sitting room until eleven o'clock.

`Oh, you've done a lot of ironing, very good,' she says when she sees the ironed clothes draped all over the kitchen chairs. `Go get hangers from the cupboards, so you can hang them up.' I go hack and forth between the bedrooms and the kitchen in some confusion, until all the clothes are in the correct cupboards. Tai's clothes are of course the easiest to sort out. I can tell which are Lamya's clothes and which are Doctora Zeinah's, but the men's shirts confuse me. It turns out that some belong to Lamya's husband and need to go to her room. Some belong to Tamer and need to go to his room. And a few shirts belong to the father who had not been in London for several months. Their ironing has certainly been piling up!

Doctora Zeinah shows me the airing cupboard where clothes, damp from the dryer, are hanging up. It is right outside her room, in front of the bathroom. She stands with the cupboard wide open and starts to pull the clothes out while I sit on the floor folding them as fast as I can, sorting them into piles. They fall around me as she pulls them out one by one. Mai has trailed after her grandmother. She messes up the pile of clothes I have folded. I smile at her and move the clothes out of her way. Doctora Zeinab scolds her but I know better than to object to anything the little one does. I know from experience that employers don't like maids scolding their precious children, no matter what damage the child does. So I keep on smiling and folding. 'Look Mai, this is how you do it,' I say. I show her how to fold a T-shirt.

'Ta-ma, Ta-ma,' she says urgently, patting the shirt on the carpet.

'Yes, it's Tamer's shirt,' her grandmother says. 'You're a clever girl. And whose is this?'

'Ma-wa, Ma-wa,' she says reaching out for her own red jumper with a picture of a hear on the front.

'Now that pile, which needs ironing, goes to the cupboard in the kitchen. Take it there but you did enough ironing today, leave it for tomorrow.'

Back in the kitchen, she announces, `It's time for my coffee,' in such a way that I move to make it for her, but she is already pressing the button on the kettle and scooping Nescafe into a mug.

`Now it's time for Mai's nap. I give her juice and take her to the bedroom and she sleeps for about an hour and a half, sometimes two. While she's asleep, you should do the cooking. Later in the afternoon she gets a hit troublesome and you won't have time. Also in the afternoon, if the weather is good, you must take her out to the park. She enjoys playing on the swings and seeing other children. What can you cook? Tamer loves macaroni.' She says her son's name with fondness.

In the afternoon, the three of us go to the park - Doctora Zeinab grand in a dark coat and bright lipstick, her hair the perfect autumn colour; Mai bundled up in her pushchair. I had thought park meant Regent's Park and that we would cross the big roundabout with the statue of St George slaying the dragon, pass the mosque, and turn left into Regent's Park. But by park Doctora Zeinab means the small park across the road. It also has a children's playground, but is quiet, more relaxed. We walk under the same trees that are visible through the sitting-room window. It is slightly windy but not too cold. The early morning sun has given way to greyness, but still the autumn leaves on the ground are dry and crunchy.

I have been trying to draw close to Mai and win her trust. It is difficult because of the presence of her grandmother. They are attached and Mai does not even let me push her pushchair. So Doctora Zeinab pushes and I walk along feeling sheepish and anxious that come evening time, the verdict to Lamya will be, she wasn't any good with Mai'.

Are your family here or in Sudan, Najwa?'

'I have a brother here.' I try to sound open, natural. Yesterday I received a visiting order from Omar. He is allowed to write letters but he rarely writes to me.

Do you have children?'

No, I'm not married.'

Were you living in Khartoum?'

`Yes, in Khartoum.'

`Lamya was horn in Khartoum,' she says. Her father is Sudanese.'

`Really?' My heart starts to pound as it always does when there is the threat that someone will know who I am, who I was, what I've become. How many times have I lied and said I am Eritrean or Somali?

`My children are Sudanese in name only,' she goes on. They don't remember the Sudan. We spent years in Oman - my son, Tamer, was horn there, and now we're in Cairo.'

'Do you go hack to the Sudan for holidays?'

`My husband doesn't have any brothers or sisters, maybe that's why we don't go back often.'

Her words reassure me. Their ties to Sudan are obviously fragile. Even if I were to reveal my last name, they might not know it. They might not remember my father. At any rate, Doctora Zeinab is much younger than my father's generation. She must he no more than ten years older than me - even though I feel she is older. If I feel young it is because I have done so little. What happened stunted me.

Who were you working with before us?' She stops walking and silently gives me the pushchair to push. I am grateful to end the embarrassment of walking next to her, swinging my arms while she pushes. However Mai is sensitive, she looks back, sees me and starts to holler. Doctora Zeinab takes hold of the handle of the pushchair again.

`I worked with a Lebanese lady who lived near Swiss Cottage tube station. She had two children. She was a second wife to a Saudi businessman who lived with his first family in Riyadh. He came for visits and it was then that she needed me most. They entertained regularly or they went out in the evening and she left the children with me. Her husband eventually got her a Sri Lankan maid from Saudi Arabia.'

An elderly couple smile and stop to admire Mai. I look beyond the park and see, between the trees, the Humana Wellington Hospital. I have never seen it before from this angle. It looks unfamiliar, yet I had stayed there with Mama for weeks. I remember the colour of the carpet, the telephone in my hand, the way the television was high up on the wall. If I tell Doctora Zeinab that my mother died in such an expensive hospital would she believe these words coming from her granddaughter's new nanny?

Near the children's playground, Mai sees the swings and starts to get excited. She points and babbles and wants to be taken out of her chair. I undo her seatbelt.

`Shall I take you to the swing Mai, shall l?' I sound desperate as I crouch near her chair trying to meet her eyes.

`Mai, I will go for a walk,' the Doctora says, `and Najwa will take you to the swing. OK?'

The plan succeeds. The pushchair is parked near a bench, Doctora Zeinab strides off and Mai allows me to put her on the swing and push her. We are soon having a fun time.