The Cry of the Dove: A Novel (22 page)

I WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY AGAIN, TO SUBMIT MY ESSAY TO my tutor. It was neatly packed in a mauve plastic folder Gwen had given me when I finally joined the Open University. I chose to wear a dark flowery second-hand skirt and a long embroidered white shirt, which Parvin had given me for my birthday. I ran my fingers down my skirt, made sure that my hair was neatly tied up, spat on a tissue and wiped the dust off my shoes, then knocked on the door and got an instant and thunderous, `Come in,' which froze my limbs. With trembling fingers I opened the door, but could not drag my feet forward on the Persian carpet.

`Come in,' he said in a gentler voice.

I stood by the door and said, trying to imitate Liz's accent, `Here is the essay!'

`Ah! At last,' he said and looked at me from above his sliding half-moon glasses. He took the folder and placed it on top of the pile on his desk. I was still standing up, so while flicking through it, he said, `Sit down!' I caught a glimpse of the same novel I was reading on the shelf behind him and made a mental note to tell Gwen.

`I see you don't have your flask today. Would you like a cup of coffee?' he asked. He took off his reading glasses, folded their handles gently and put them in a soft leather box.

`Yes, thank you," I said, expecting the coffee to be produced straight away.

He stood up, pulled his blue shirt down over his trousers, stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and said, `Let's go then.'

We walked on grass, among flowers, shrubs and trees whose names I did not know Had he asked me about that tall tree with flowers erect like candles I wouldn't have known what to say: `Beech, horse chestnut, oak,' which I memorized recently without matching the words to the shape of the trunks and leaves. Had he asked me about that dog chasing a stick I wouldn't have known what to say: `Dalmatian, Rottweiler, Alsatian,' which I memorized recently without matching the names of species to the actual dog. When I closed my fingers over my empty palms I realized that they were wet with the sweat of ignorance.

A man in a red worn-out velvet jacket, a bowtie and glasses walked towards us on the footpath and when he was close enough to be heard said to Dr Robson, `Whey aye, man!' and smiled.

Dr Robson said under his breath, `Arsehole!'

`What did he say?' I asked.

`He is taking the piss,' he said.

`Why?' I asked.

I come from a village called Aycliffe. A northerner,' he said and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

I was about to cross the distance between us and grab his hand, but I remembered that my palms were so sweaty. Shahla would have sucked her teeth loudly and said, `Tzzu'! The eye can never be higher than the eyebrow'

The building was totally hidden behind trees and shrubs. We rushed up the old stairs to the entrance. Dr Robson opened the door for me and I entered as if I were a lady. The cafe's walls were made of shining glass and when I sat down I felt as if I were outdoors in the magnificent garden inhaling the scent of flowering trees. The smell of coffee, clean flesh and clothes wafted to my nose when Dr Robson came back carrying a tray with two mugs of steaming coffee and a piece of flapjack. He smiled and asked sweetly, `Sugar?'

`No thank you, Dr Robson,' I said while still looking at the delicate blooming tree.

He followed my eyes and said, `Please call me John. It's a Japanese dogwood tree.'

I sat on the edge of the chair nearest to the entrance pretending to enjoy this cup of coffee with him.

He searched my face and then asked, `What is the name of your daughter?'

I choked on her name. `Lay ... Layla,' I said and swallowed hard.

He stretched back, stuck his hand under his loose shirt, rubbed his belly and said, `Do you have a big family?'

`Yes,' I said and shuddered as if I had caught a cold. My thin cotton shirt felt sticky and damp. I must leave before the fabric sticks to my sweaty back. He sipped his coffee, then fingered the lip of the cup. `Is it time-consuming taking care of a family?'

`Yes,' I said.

`Yes, John,' he said.

`Yes, John, cooking for them, and all,' I said and stuck a rebellious strand of hair back into the elastic band. I found it hard to address him as John. In the old country teachers were never addressed informally.

`Thank you for the coffee," I said and stood up.

He took a final sip and said, `I'll see you next Monday, same time.'

I sighed with relief, pulled my top off my back and rushed out.

While walking down the hill I saw a tree in full bloom, its delicate white flowers swaying in the wind. `Dogwood, dogwood,' I repeated. I began writing a letter in my head. To whom it may concern: My name is Salma Ibrahim El-Musa, I was in Islah prison for eight years. During the first year I gave birth to a baby girl and she was instantly taken away to a home for illegitimate children. I wonder if you can help me locate her. My postal address is ... Then I tore the imagined letter up. How could I reveal my true identity and address? I would risk being traced and killed. How could I ignore Layla's cries, her calls, her constant pleading? I stood at the bottom of the hill and looked back. It was green with grass, weeds and shrubs, but suddenly like magic everything was erased and it turned into a dry brown mountain covered with silver-green olive trees, plum trees and grapevines. I sat down on a flat stone, put my head between my hands and breathed in. What was better: to live with half a lung, kidney, liver, heart or to go back to the old country and get shot? To learn how to numb this throbbing pain or let it all end swiftly? A swarm of bees was sucking the nectar out of some purple irises with bright yellow hearts.When I turned my head again the hill was covered with the black iris of Hima.

When I got back to work Max was in a foul mood, cursing the Japanese all the time for coming to this country and buying factories. I tried to be invisible, like Casper, and do my job briskly and lightly like a summer breeze. Many people were losing their jobs; I was lucky to have one, I thought, and stitched, sewed, ironed, until my nostrils were lined with starch. At the end of the day Max sat next to me and asked, `How is the arm?'

`It's fine, thank you.'

He put the pins and needles on the sewing machine and took a paper bag off the dirty floor. `This is from the family. A coconut cake,' he said and ran his finger over his gelled hair to make sure that the fringe-like wave was still stuck around his head.

`Thank you, that's really nice of your wife,' I said.

`She said you must like coconuts, being foreign and all," he said and smiled.

`Yes, very, very much. Thank you,' I lied. The first time I saw a coconut was several years ago when Parvin bought one in the market `to cook with the chicken'.

`It's all right, hint,' he said and walked away.

Allan was surprised to see the wrapped arm. `What happened to you?'

`A small accident," I said and smiled.

`When?'

`A few days go,' I said.

`Are you sure you want to work tonight?'

`Yes,' I said.

`I will get you some rubber gloves to wear. Keep them on when you collect glasses.'

The bar was crowded and the smell of cigar smoke, beer and stale breath filled the air. I concentrated on collecting glasses then lining them up in the drawer of the dishwasher. One of the customers, thin and respectable, suddenly shouted, `We're not in a fucking operating theatre. Jesus, what are those gloves for? I don't have Aids you know' I stepped back and bent the elbows of both arms to stop him from pulling off the gloves.

Allan was angry so he rushed to the man and asked him to leave. `Out,' he said.

I felt awkward. Allan was overreacting. My immigrant survival kit said, `Avoid confrontation at any price."Allan,' I pleaded.

Ten minutes later the thin respectable man was back with Mr Brightwell, the manager of the hotel. Heart thumping I knelt behind the counter to feed the dishwasher. I was about to lose my job. There was a hushed silence. The manager walked towards Allan and said, `Let me introduce John Barker-Rathbone OBE, chairman of International Enterprises Limited.'

It must be serious, I thought, although I did not understand what OBE stood for.

`Allan, I would like you to apologize to Mr BarkerRathbone.'

Allan cleared his voice and said, `Sorry, sir,' then walked behind the bar.

`Where is the rude barmaid?' the manager asked.

I raised my head slowly, waving my yellow rubber glove in the air like a flag and parroted Allan, `Sorry, sir, very, very sorry, sir.

`Why are you wearing gloves?' he asked.

I showed him my bandaged arm.

`You should be at home resting.'

I was shaking by now, sure that I would get the sack. I looked for Allan, but he was busy serving customers. Pulling my rubber gloves up I said, `I am all right, really,' and smiled.

The manager was about to say something then he changed his mind then he changed his mind again and said, `When will you get rid of the bandages?'

`Tomorrow,' I lied.

The manager walked out and Mr Barker-Rathbone OBE went back to the same table and resumed his drinking as if nothing had happened.

After closing, legs spread on chairs, over our usual cup of coffee we began chatting.

`He must be a rich son-of-a-bitch,' said Barry, referring to Mr Barker-Rathbone.

Imitating him I said, `Jesus, I don't have Aids!'

Allan joined in. `Then the dark iceberg came crashing down.'

Then Barry said from behind the bar, `An avalanche of disease.'

I asked Allan, `What does OBE stand for?'

`Order of the British Empire.'

`So it is a title like sir,' I said. And I thought about the perfect English/Irish gentleman, my only sir, Minister Mahoney OBE.

The sun shone on Minister Mahoney's house in Branscombe. Shelves decked with old books, the wornout sofa, the old radio in the corner and the Bible with his reading glasses on top of its leather jacket. He used to teach me English to `equip me to tackle this harsh environment'. The most beautiful language was the language of peace and reconciliation, he would say, and read me Portia's speech about mercy. And now like my father I searched the sky for clouds and the gentle rain for kindness.

It was a `glorious' summer evening in Branscombe and Minister Mahoney was cooking pasta in the kitchen while listening to Sunday jazz. I was sitting on the soft sofa in the sitting room listening to the sounds of home: pasta bubbling away in boiling water, mushrooms sizzling in the frying pan, water gurgling out of a carafe, laying the table, stirring, checking, whistling then singing along. The lyrics were about longing to meet a caring person, someone who will watch over his loved ones.

Noura, there were no nightmares that afternoon. I looked through the patio doors at the orange rose tree in the corner lit by the golden light of the setting sun, sniffed the aroma wafting from the kitchen and listened to the bouncy but sad voice. I held my breath, released it and snuggled against the soft leather of the sofa.

I was not working that evening, so I decided to treat myself to a trip to the Turk's Head. My arm was still thinly bandaged, so I struggled to keep it out of the water while having a bath. I began the atrocious routine of trying to make myself look younger. The pine bath and the close shaving was followed by covering my whole body with cocoa butter, spraying myself with deodorant, working mousse into my hair, bending down to blow dry it. The awkward position pushed my blood pressure up. Head dangling like a chicken, oiled as if about to be roasted, hair sweeping the carpet, I started shaking. I could see the grime lining his dusty toenails sticking out from under the curtains. I threw my hair back, stood up firmly and straightened my spine ready to face him, but he had disappeared again. I pulled the curtains open and there was nothing behind them except my steaming washing folded neatly and wrapped around the radiator.

My Bedouin mother would have smacked her lips and said,'Tzu'!You look like a slut' To convince Mother that respectable women here wore clothes that made them look like sluts would be impossible. She used to cover even her toes with the end of her long black robe when sitting down, `Don't let the men see your ankles.' My thin and ugly ankles were not a turn-on as a buxom actress had once said. It was late evening, but the summer sun was still shining, turning everything into gold, the trees, the river and the hills. I wrapped my mother's black shawl around my shoulders and walked on to the Turk's Head. I quickened my pace when I got to the big Royal Mail hangar, where they sort out the mail for the whole of Exeter. I must be well known there, the crazy lady who never wrote a complete address on her letters. The sun by now looked like a wound at the end of the horizon, dripping clear blood all over the place. The water caught fire, the way the village creek used to do in the summer. Our crop of wheat was being gently cooked to maturity so the old men, the women, the young men and the children would say, `Isn't the sunset beautiful?' Old women would say, `Thank Allah for his kindness.Your crops could have been plagued by locusts or could have rotted away.'

I stood on the riverbank, reluctant to enter the pub, happy just to watch the wound heal and the sun sink behind the hills, but the noise of animated chats, the smell of cigarette and cigar smoke and beer, and the jolly sound of the jukebox welcomed me. I sat on my usual corner stool and asked for lemonade. After the first sip, I began looking around to see if Jim was there so I could avoid him. Right behind me, in the raised smoking area, Dr Robson ... John, my teacher, was sitting with a group of young men and women who looked like students. He saw me and raised his glass to me. I raised mine. At that very moment, I realized that Jim was heading towards me and it was too late to avoid him. I'd told John that I was a family woman and now look.

'Hi.'

`Hello," I said, looking at my glass.

'Are you following me?' he asked.

I remembered steaming cups of sage tea on the side table, the hurried breakfast and bumping into him in town. I also saw him in a cafe with a petite blonde woman, whispering to each other. I looked at him without saying anything.