Leila Aboulela - The Translator

‘I thought you were homesick,’ he finally said, ‘and this anti-terrorist project would be a chance for you to go on to Khartoum, see your son. Maybe I made a mistake in suggesting it…’

‘It wasn’t a mistake. I was homesick for the place, how everything looked. But I don’t know what kind of sickness it would be, to be away from you.’

He said, ‘I know what my sickness would be…’

‘Don’t say no then, not sure is better than no, don’t ever say no.’

‘It’s not in me to be religious,’ he said. ‘I studied Islam for the politics of the Middle East. I did not study it for myself. I was not searching for something spiritual. Some people do. I had a friend who went to India and became a Buddhist. But I was not like that. I believed the best I could do, what I owed a place and people who had deep meaning for me, was to be objective, detached. In the middle of all the prejudice and hypocrisy, I wanted to be one of the few who was saying what was reasonable and right.’

‘It’s not enough,’ she pressed her hands together. ‘It’s not enough. It’s not enough for me.’

He leaned and put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

She said, ‘Don’t you realise how much you hurt me saying objective and detached, like you are above all of this, above me, looking down…’

‘No, no it isn’t…’ His face had a deeper colour as if he had pressed it too hard against his hands.

‘It is. It is looking down, saying it has nothing to do with you, not for you. When you know very well that it’s for everyone. You know it’s not just for Arabs. You know the figures, you know more than me how much percentage are Chinese, Russians…’

‘I didn’t say it has nothing to do with me. I didn’t say that.’

‘You’re not reassuring me, you’re not saying anything to stop me being anxious.’ She was shivering. If she did not hold her teeth together they would start chattering.

‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘This room can get too cold.’

She nodded. All the sunshine in the room, the light laughter coming up through the window and no warmth.

‘I’ll go get the heater from the cupboard,’ he said.

His absence was harsh, abrupt. In his absence the room was bleak, filled with too many things: books, papers, a telephone that rang only for him. She sat where his students sat, on that same armchair, panicking about their exams, their financial difficulties, on the edge of dropping out. She imagined that he was reasonable with them, genuinely concerned. It occurred to her now that she had come here to his office to ask him to marry her and he had not said yes. He had not said yes, and yet here she still sat, clinging. She had no pride. If she had pride she would go away now. Instead she was still sitting.

He came back pulling a large heater on wheels. It took time for him to untangle the wire, plug the socket in the wall. His movements were slow, a little clumsy, someone who did not spend much time doing things with his hands.

The rods on the heater glowed pink and orange. When he sat down he said, ‘Be patient with me, I don’t know what to do… All this fumbling and I never had so much empathy for anyone in my life.’

She did not understand the meaning of the word ‘empathy’. At times he did say words she could not understand, words she would ask him to explain. Sixties’ scene, Celtic, chock-a-block. But now she did not ask him the meaning of ‘empathy’. Today she could not ask. It sounded like ‘sympathy’, and, she thought, he feels sorry for me. To him I must have always looked helpless and forlorn.

Somehow she was able to speak, make the last attempt, ‘If you say the shahadah it would be enough. We could get married. If you just say the words…’

‘I have to be sure. I would despise myself if I wasn’t sure.’

‘But people get married that way. Here in Aberdeen there are people who got married like this…’

‘We’re not like that. You and I are different. For them it is a token gesture.’

She thought, it is clear now, it is so clear, he does not love me enough, I am not beautiful enough. I am not feminine enough coming here to ask him to marry me when I should have waited to be asked.

‘Why did you talk to me then? From the beginning, why did you start all this. You should have just left me alone. You had no right. If you were content in your religion…’

‘I’m not content, there are too many things I can’t justify to myself. Of course I’m not content. Isn’t it obvious to you?’

‘Nothing is obvious to me.’ Nothing except that she was rubbing her pride back and forth over barbed wire.

‘I wish I never trusted you,’ she said and saw pain in his eyes. ‘What did you imagine all this was going to lead to?’

‘I imagined a longer time before…’

‘From the beginning, you should have looked at me and said, she is not for me.’

‘No, I couldn’t.’ He put his face in his hands, pressed his eyes and forehead.

She said, ‘Yes, that would have been the sensible thing. Objective and detached, you say. So what do you need from me?’ She had tried to make her voice sound sarcastic, cool and sarcastic but is sounded twisted and childish.

He did not look at her, he continued to sit with his head in his hands. If he had looked at her she might have stopped talking. But there was nothing to check her.

‘I’m not fooled by you. Just because you were kind to me and paid me attention. That’s all. But you would have always been second best… And I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life with this stupid weather and stupid snow. Do you know what I wish for you? Do you know what I’m going to pray and curse you with. I’m going to pray that if it’s not me then it’s no one else and you can live the rest of your life alone and miserable. There really must be something wrong with you to have been divorced twice, not once, but twice…’

It was a sound that stopped her, a movement of his shoulders. It frightened her. Because his head was in his hands, she thought he was crying. She thought she had hurt him enough to make him cry. For a second there was triumph, the crazy happiness of thinking, he does love me, good, he is not immune to me.

She walked towards him to put her hand on his shoulders, to say, don’t cry. She did not stop when he mumbled, ‘Go away.’ She did not hear him clearly when he said, ‘Get out of here.’

Only when he looked at her. Not crying, she had been wrong about that, but looking at her in a way he had never looked at her before. His voice different than the way he always spoke to her. She heard him clearly this time when he said, ‘Get away from me.’

She obeyed him. She turned and picked up her bag from the floor. She found the door knob, she opened the door, left the room without looking back. Down the steps, out of the building, to the sunshine and the snow. Everything clear and cold. Her breath smoke, the snow speckles of diamonds to step on.

She obeyed him. She went home and telephoned a taxi to take her to the airport. She carried her suitcases downstairs, knocked on Lesley’s door for the key to the basement to store the boxes she was not taking with her.

The taxi ride to the airport was slow but the traffic was moving, not at a stand-still as it had been earlier in the day. At the airport they put her on a waiting list. The morning flights to London had been delayed and there was a back-log of people waiting. But one seat to London, either Heathrow or Gatwick, she stood a good chance, they said, of leaving before tonight.

It was a plush, clean airport, crowded today with oil-men on their way to Shetland, women with small children, men in business-suits. Sammar’s eyes missed nothing. She could see everything, register everything. Her mind would not think, would not dwell or settle on anything. Just her vision, so much to look at, everything gritty bright.