Zadie Smith: The Embassy of Cambodia

‘Yes, but what I am saying is like this,’ Fatou pressed, wary of the conversation’s drifting back, as it usually did, to the financial corruption of the Nigerian government. ‘Are we born to suffer? Sometimes I think we were born to suffer more than all the rest.’

Andrew pushed his professorial glasses up his nose. ‘But, Fatou, you’re forgetting the most important thing. Who cried most for Jesus? His mother. Who cries most for you? Your father. It’s very logical, when you break it down. The Jews cry for the Jews. The Russians cry for the Russians. We cry for Africa, because we are Africans, and, even then, I’m sorry, Fatou’ — Andrew’s chubby face creased up in a smile — ‘if Nigeria plays Ivory Coast and we beat you into the ground, I’m laughing, man! I can’t lie. I’m celebrating. Stomp! Stomp!’

He did a little dance with his upper body, and Fatou tried, not for the first time, to imagine what he might be like as a husband, but could see only herself as the wife, and Andrew as a teenage son of hers, bright and helpful, to be sure, but a son all the same — though in reality he was three years older than she. Surely it was wrong to find his baby fat and struggling moustache so off-putting. Here was a good man! She knew that he cared for her, was clean and had given his life to Christ. Still, some part of her rebelled against him, some unholy part.

‘Hush your mouth,’ she said, trying to sound more playful than disgusted, and was relieved when he stopped jiggling and laid both his hands on the table, his face suddenly quite solemn.

‘Believe me, that’s a natural law, Fatou, pure and simple. Only God cries for us all, because we are all his children. It’s very, very logical. You just have to think about it for a moment.’

Fatou sighed, and spooned some coffee foam into her mouth. ‘But I still think we have more pain. I’ve seen it myself. Chinese people have never been slaves. They are always protected from the worst.’

Andrew took off his glasses and rubbed them on the end of his shirt. Fatou could tell that he was preparing to lay knowledge upon her.

‘Fatou, think about it for a moment, please: what about Hiroshima?’

It was a name Fatou had heard before, but sometimes Andrew’s superior knowledge made her nervous. She would find herself struggling to remember even the things she had believed she already knew.

‘The big wave …’ she began, uncertainly — it was the wrong answer. He laughed mightily and shook his head at her.

‘No, man! Big bomb. Biggest bomb in the world, made by the USA, of course. They killed five million people in one second . Can you imagine that? You think just because your eyes are like this’ — he tugged the skin at both temples — ‘you’re always protected? Think again. This bomb, even if it didn’t blow you up, a week later it melted the skin off your bones.’

Fatou realized she had heard this story before, or some version of it. But she felt the same vague impatience with it as she did with all accounts of suffering in the distant past. For what could be done about the suffering of the distant past?

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Maybe all people have their hard times, in the past of history, but I still say —’

‘Here is a counterpoint,’ Andrew said, reaching out and gripping her shoulder. ‘Let me ask you, Fatou, seriously, think about this. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I have thought a lot about this and I want to pass it on to you, because I know you care about things seriously, not like these people —’ He waved a hand at the assortment of cake eaters at other tables. ‘You’re not like the other girls I know, just thinking about the club and their hair. You’re a person who thinks. I told you before, anything you want to know about, ask me — I’ll look it up, I’ll do the research. I have access. Then I’ll bring it to you.’

‘You’re a very good friend to me, Andrew, I know that.’

‘Listen, we are friends to each other. In this world you need friends. But, Fatou, listen to my question. It’s a counterpoint to what you have been saying. Tell me, why would God choose us especially for suffering when we, above all others, praise his name? Africa is the fastest-growing Christian continent! Just think about it for a minute! It doesn’t even make sense!’

‘But it’s not him,’ Fatou said quietly, looking over Andrew’s shoulder to the rain beating on the window. ‘It’s the Devil.’

Andrew and Fatou sat in the Tunisian coffee shop, waiting for it to stop raining, but it did not stop raining and at three p.m. Fatou said she would just have to get wet. She shared Andrew’s umbrella as far as the Overground, letting him pull her into his clammy, high-smelling body as they walked. At Brondesbury station Andrew had to get the train, and so they said goodbye. Several times he tried to press his umbrella on her, but Fatou knew the walk from Acton Central to Andrew’s bedsit was long and she refused to let him suffer on her account.

‘Big woman. Won’t let anybody protect you.’

‘Rain doesn’t scare me.’

Fatou took from her pocket a swimming cap she had found on the floor of the health club changing room. She wound her plaits into a bun and pulled the cap over her head.

‘That’s a very original idea,’ Andrew said, laughing. ‘You should market that! Make your first million!’

‘Peace be with you,’ Fatou said, and kissed him chastely on the cheek.

Andrew did the same, lingering a little longer with his kiss than was necessary.

By the time Fatou reached the Derawals’ only her hair was dry, but before going to get changed she rushed to the kitchen to take the lamb out of the freezer, though it was pointless — there were not enough hours before dinner — and then upstairs to collect the dirty clothes from the matching wicker baskets in four different bedrooms. There was no one in the master bedroom, or in Faizul’s or Julie’s. Downstairs a television was blaring. Entering Asma’s room, hearing nothing, assuming it empty, Fatou headed straight for the laundry basket in the corner. As she opened the lid she felt a hand hit her hard on the back; she turned around.

There was the youngest, Asma, in front of her, her mouth open like a trout fish. Before Fatou could understand, Asma punched the huge pile of clothes out of her hands. Fatou stooped to retrieve them. While she was kneeling on the floor, another strike came, a kick to her arm. She left the clothes where they were and got up, frightened by her own anger. But when she looked at Asma now she saw the girl gesturing frantically at her own throat, then putting her hands together in prayer and then back to her throat once more. Her eyes were bulging. She veered suddenly to the right; she threw herself over the back of a chair. When she turned back to Fatou her face was grey and Fatou understood finally and ran to her, grabbed her round her waist and pulled upwards as she had been taught in the hotel. A marble — with an iridescent ribbon of blue at its centre, like a wave — flew from the child’s mouth and landed wetly in the carpet’s plush.

Asma wept and drew in frantic gulps of air. Fatou gave her a hug, and worried when the clothes would get done. Together they went down to the den, where the rest of the family was watching Britain’s Got Talent on a flat-screen TV attached to the wall. Everybody stood at the sight of Asma’s wild weeping. Mr Derawal paused the Sky box. Fatou explained about the marble.

‘How many times I tell you not to put things in your mouth?’ Mr Derawal asked, and Mrs Derawal said something in their language — Fatou heard the name of their God — and pulled Asma on to the sofa and stroked her daughter’s silky black hair.