Nadine Gordimer - The Pickup

She picked up the jeans and shirt, and the simple gesture, could have been that of his mother or sisters, sent him over to her. His naked feet covered hers, his naked legs clasped her, and he smothered her head against his breast as if to stay something beginning in her.

No-one can say how long it could take. When you grease a palm (or whatever that business is called here) you have to risk whether the recipient-behind-the-recipient can do what he assures — no problem! no problem! — or won’t be seen again, and neither will the dollars.

Life in the meantime.

Life. An unremarked insidious way in which both anticipation and impatience are suspended along with the official refusals and the repeated re-applications to be made. An entry into the state lived by the family, the street that ends in desert, the men sitting at coffee stalls. Everyone is waiting for something that may come sometime — a return from the oil fields, the settlement of an ancient debt, a coup whose generals will not stuff their own pockets — or never.

Julie was teaching English not only to Maryam and the quiet young neighbourhood girls and awkward boys who sidled into the lean-to whispering and making place for one another cross-legged on the floor. Maryam must have mentioned this little gathering to the lady of the house where she was employed; the woman invited the foreign wife to come to tea and be good enough to talk English with other ladies wanting to learn to speak the language. What on earth qualified her to teach! On the other hand, what else did she have? What use were her supposed skills, here; who needed promotion hype? She was like one who has to settle for the underbelly of a car. The books in the elegant suitcase were bedside bibles constantly turned to, by now, read and re-read; she agreed — but in exchange for lessons in their language. Why sit among his people as a deaf-mute? Always the foreigner where she ate from the communal dish, a closeness that The Table at the distant EL-AY Café aimed to emulate far from any biological family. Never able better to reach her lover (husband! — she found it difficult to think of herself as a wife) through some sort of contact with the mother to whom was reserved, she knew long before meeting her in the imposing flesh, a place within him out of reach by anyone else. The Table friends were always cash-strapped, even if she had felt like re-entering the cul-de-sac she once occupied with them, not fair to expect an outlay on purchase and despatch; she wrote to her mother, why shouldn’t she be asked to order through one of those wonderful Internet book warehouses in California a translation of the Koran, hardback. And send it by courier; the village post office was a counter shared with chewing gum and cigarettes in a shop.

Her mother, of all people, yes. Speaking from within the family where she now found herself, he had made it clear she was remiss in not keeping a daughter’s contact with a mother. So there had been an exchange of letters. My crazy girl, I can imagine your papa’s horror … you’re like me, I’m afraid, you just can’t restrict yourself to tidy emotions! But don’t forget, darling, if it doesn’t work you can always get out. She had been amused to read the letter to him but skipped the last sentence. A few days later he asked whether she had answered the letter yet.

No of course not. It’s not going to be a weekly duty, like when I was at boarding school.

Her mother can get some references. From her friends, her husband. He’s an American, isn’t he. It’s necessary for our visas.

Canada, Australia — America too? Every possibility was being worked at through his contacts. The only country where she might have any of use was England; but he already had against him a record of illegal entry there.

The letters of recommendation she requested — at his dictation, he knew so well the form to take — so far had not come from California. But the book by door-to-door service prepaid at high cost did arrive — somehow — with the driver of the bus from the capital; whoever was supposed to take charge of the package there happened to know the man’s route. She hesitated to ask Ibrahim what the verses were that he had told her his mother knew by heart; Maryam would tell her. There was some difficulty in making her request understood, perhaps not because of language problems but of the girl thinking she must be misunderstanding: what would Ibrahim’s wife want to know these things for?

The Chapter of The Merciful, the Chapter of Mary, the Chapter of The Prophets.

He was out with men with whom he grew up, some friends said to be able to lead him to the hands open behind officials’ backs. There were no hours restricting his quest, no chances of pursuit too unlikely. She was alone with the goose-neck lamp he had bought, saying that at least she could read by the light of some amenity she was used to, while they were in this place. Suras, the footnotes said they were called. She read aloud to herself as if to hear in the natural emphases of delivery which had been the passages come upon — for life— in these choices out of so much advice and exhortation, inspiration, consolation people find in religious texts. She read at random; the verses did not come in the order in which Maryam had happened to name them.

And remember Job: when he cried to his Lord, Truly evil hath touched me: but thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy.

So we heard him, and lightened the burden of his woe; and we gave him back his family.

Turned away from the encircling light of the lamp.

She was beside the majestic figure statue-draped in black at the feast, the first meal. Her lover, the son, cast out by Nigel Ackroyd Summers’ world, given back to his family by that silent figure whose authority came from the thrall of his love. How had the girl-child known the verse she was learning to read was: for her. Known by heart.

And make mention in the Book of Mary, when she went apart from her family, eastward

And took a veil to shroud herself from them: and we sent our spirit to her, and he took before her the form of a perfect man.

She said: ‘I fly for refuge from thee to the God of Mercy! If thou fearest him, begone from me.’

He said: ‘I am only a messenger of the Lord, that I may bestow upon thee a holy son.’

She said: ‘How shall I have a son, when man hath never touched me and I am not unchaste.’

He said: ‘So shall it be, The Lord hath said: “Easy is this with me; and we will make him a sign to mankind, and a mercy from us. For it is a thing decreed.”’

And she conceived him, and retired with him to a far-off place.

Boarding-school scripture stuff.

And when one who was dubbed a Jesus-freak among the café habitués got herself pregnant and said she didn’t know how that happened, it had been the banter of the day … now which of you randy guys played Angel Gabriel …

What the story might mean to the one who still could recite it by heart; well you’d have to have a son of your own to understand.

The light fell again on the pages; turning, skimming; a pause:

The God of Mercy hath taught the Koran

Hath created man,

Hath taught him articulate speech.

The Sun and the Moon have each their times,

And the plants and the trees bend in adoration,

And the Heaven, He hath reared it on high …

… He hath let loose the two seas which meet each other:

Yet between them is a barrier which they overpass not.

Everyone knows, in texts like these, what is meant: for her. She left this book open on the last two lines.