Selma Dabbagh - Out of It

A lone Buddhist monk draped in red stood out against the black and denim swamp of the crowd. His jangle of peace bells and the rap of his tambourine were drowned by the shouts, the milling and the pure noise of the throng. Iman wanted Rashid to get a move on. Ian waved coyly at her from behind Rashid before she turned away.

‘Look, Rashid. Look.’ Iman grabbed Rashid’s arm and pulled him further into the crowd, past small groups chatting as they walked, women with pushchairs and men with babies on their shoulders. She pointed to a makeshift placard with a black-and-white photograph on a stick. It was the hospital with the words, ‘Who were you bombing on 8 August?’ handwritten above it with a black marker. Pictures of Raed and Taghreed were among those displayed at the bottom of the poster. Rashid could not help but be lifted too by the acknowledgment of injustice and the demand for it to be adjusted. He wanted to embrace the pale, bearded bearer with his Jesus sandals.

‘Where’s Khalil?’ Iman asked.

‘He’s down by the main square. He sent me a text cursing us both for not being in this morning. He brought your flatmate, by the way.’

‘Flatmate? You don’t mean Eva?’

Rashid shrugged that he didn’t know. How would he know, anyway? It was just a text. The prospect of moving into the square with this energised crowd was starting to make him feel weak.

‘And Lisa?’

‘Somewhere down there, too.’ The knowledge, Rashid indicated, was with others and not with him.

When they had arrived at Charles’ flat over a fortnight before, the dark street had been pulsing with the blue lights of stationary police vans. His door had unstuck itself with a crack as he had forced it open. ‘PM’s just around the corner,’ he had said in a way that suggested he always said it to himself or others as he stepped over the threshold.

The flat smelt old and felt unused. If it were not for the contemporary mess on the surfaces, it would have been possible to believe that it had been sealed up for decades and preserved against the century’s turmoil. Charles strode ahead, trying to scoop up odd pieces of paper, a pair of trousers thrown over a chair, a cold mug that slopped something greyish on to the floor. He bumped into the lampshade causing a yellowy light to swing over the faded surfaces. It was furniture built for tight spaces and limited heat, for rooms where visitors stayed for a purpose and did not expect to be indulged. Books lined the walls around the fire and were stacked up on the floor. Several lay open on a polished wood and leather desk that seemed too small for a grown person. Swirls of flowers adorned the low sofa, the short curtains, the tapestry cushions.

‘It’s like my brother Sabri’s room,’ Iman said.

‘Really?’ Charles found it difficult to reconcile old-world chintz with new-world Gaza.

‘The books,’ she added. ‘He has books everywhere. They even prop up his mattress.’

Charles thought fleetingly of a cartoon character, a worm or something, that had all its furniture made out of books. Bookworm. He was going to try to joke about it, but didn’t think it would work. Her profile really was quite something. Great smile. He had always found gaps between women’s front teeth rather thrilling. Stemmed back to reading Chaucer at school. Lascivious. She had that pre-Raphaelite thing going on, too. Charles flicked through some images in his head to try to find one that matched, but found none of them entirely satisfactory. There were also those rather lovely paintings of the bare ladies by the pool, fabulous detail of the blue painted tiles, Delacroix possibly? A bit out of fashion now. Should not be mentioned. Orientalist probably.

‘A drink? Or tea? Do… do sit down, make yourself at home.’ Charles took some papers off the sofa and patted it so vigorously that dust rose from the fabric.

‘What are you having?’

‘Scotch, I think, but I also have some liqueurs, if you are not partial to strong tastes. Or I could pop some ice in it?’

‘That would do.’ Iman looked over to the kitchen, where Charles was noisily washing two glasses. The cabinet doors had been removed and two chrome replacements leant against them. An orange cloth hung over a pipe under the sink. Charles walked into one of the spare doors.

‘Trying to fix the kitchen up,’ he said. ‘Just never get the time to finish it. This girl I was seeing was very keen that I revamped this place.’ He wished he had not mentioned another girl. He did not want to have that conversation: the one about exes and where it had gone wrong. She was bound to ask now. But Iman did not ask and Charles surprised himself by feeling a little put out by her failure to do so.

Iman could see some of the titles of the books: spy books, war books, books about dogs and the countryside. A whole shelf of books about a place called Blandings. There was a book about etiquette and several about the lives of Hollywood actresses who had grown fat or died. The walls had a lot of detailed etchings and lithographs, hunting scenes, Captain Cook landing among the natives, an Indian war scene entitled ‘The Battle of Krishnapur 1845’ with a jolly italicised caption underneath it about bivouacking.

‘Bit of a collector, my great-uncle, liked the old military stuff. Arms dealer himself, you see.’ Charles handed Iman a glass that was wet on the outside and sticky on the inside. He spoke to the crossed swords over the mantelpiece, because they knew him better than Iman did. ‘Not really my cup of tea, but just don’t know what to do with the stuff. No other relatives. Can’t really just sell it all off.’

There was an extra ‘r’ in the last word that Iman had not heard others use before. Orff.

‘Why not?’

‘Well… well, I suppose I could. It’s just not really done. It’s not that it can’t be done, I guess you could say, but it just isn’t .’

Charles felt an anxiety with Iman in the room that he was not sure how to resolve, he did not want to be obvious about it but felt that really one should not be too indiscreet. He had left some confidential documents out which he didn’t want to be too careless about. He placed his Scotch on the coffee table and got up to move his work papers back inside the desk and close up the flap. He sat back down.

‘There, looks a bit neater like that. Bit of a mess really. Cleaning lady only comes on Mondays.’

Iman was quiet now, but at the party she had got heated about some erroneous supposition he had made. She had become fiercely aggressive and tremendously beautiful.

Charles tried to find something else that was as easy to fix as his desk, but could not see anything else that was as easy to remedy. He drank his Scotch in one go instead. Ha. Done .

Iman had come into the flat with a purpose, but then with a stunning suddenness, like a floodlight coming on to a stage she realised that she did not know what it was that she was supposed to do. She had no lines to utter, no directions as to which moves to make. She was a woman alone in a flat with a man. But still nothing had been resolved. Her message was not being picked up on. Normally just to talk for this long to a man would be enough to make her intentions clear. The drink stuck all over her mouth and her hands. It seemed to glue them all up. She felt a bit sick. She had not been drunk since school when the girls in her dorm had smuggled in some sweet wine. She had spent most of that night vomiting into the shower tray. Sometimes she had sipped arak with Sabri but that was not the same.

‘Another?’ Charles took the glasses and came back with them full and tinkling. ‘Not quite the right shape, I daresay, but it will do, no? Better for brandy that one.’ Charles moved across the sofa so he could see Iman. ‘See, we are searching at the moment, at the FO, for a so-called Partner for Peace. It would be a cross-departmental collaboration; we’d be working with the development people, just at the non-governmental level, you understand. Now, I suggested Abu… someone. Well, whoever, but I have had some discouraging reports.’