Leila Aboulela - Lyrics Alley

‘I want to start smoking,’ she whispered to Nur. ‘I want a cigarette.’

‘Now?’

He was taken aback. Sometimes she glimpsed a childish sweetness in him, a simplicity that was embedded and would not go away with time and age.

‘Well, no. But one day.’

It was the glasses that made her crave a cigarette between her fingers. She wanted the sophisticated look, high heels. .

‘Shush and watch the film,’ he said, squeezing her arm and guiding her mind back to the opening credits.

Fareed Al-Atrash’s latest film was his best and they floated out of the cinema with the tunes playing in their heads, the lyrics jumbled and half memorised. The Corniche was lively with lights and street vendors, the waves a background rhythm with the frills of their white foam a decoration. It was as if no one was asleep. Even the children, odd in their clothes after the beach nakedness of the day, their faces shiny with sunburn, were grabbing popcorn, candy floss and grilled corn as if they had not eaten all day. The breeze lifted dresses, and if Soraya had straight hair, it would have got tossed and tangled. Nur held her hand and they walked arm in arm like other couples did, unthinkable in Sudan or in the presence of anyone they knew. Here, husbands and wives linked arms, whereas back home they did not even walk side by side. This was what Soraya wanted for them, to be a modern couple, not to be like Fatma and Nassir each in their separate world.

She said to him, ‘I wish we could stay here forever. When you graduate, ask Uncle Mahmoud to let you work in the Cairo office.’

‘It’s dull in the Cairo office,’ he said. ‘The real work is in Sudan.’

‘But it is so much fun here!’

She was used to pleading for what she wanted, for her whims and passing fancies. And she knew the need to wait for what she wanted, while continuing with the gentle application of pressure. But she sensed a restlessness in Nur, even before he spoke.

‘Let’s go back home. If we’re too late, there will be a row.’ There was something he wasn’t telling her, but she would tease it out of him.

‘What’s the hurry?’

She stopped walking as if to make a point and sat on the low stone ledge that separated the Corniche from the beach below.

‘You’d laugh,’ he said, his hands in his pocket.

‘I won’t, I promise.’

People passed and left bits of their conversations; words in Greek and Arabic, French and English.

He looked down and said in a low voice, ‘I want to write down the lyrics from the film’s songs before I forget them.’

She had promised not to laugh and it was an easy promise to keep.

‘I can help you. I can jog your memory.’

‘No. I want to do it myself.’

There were corners in him that she didn’t have access to. The part of him that wrote the poems, his masculinity, and a purity she did not share. Inside her was selfishness and impatience, unforgiveness and self-pity, all camouflaged by a wholehearted love for others and a delightful femininity. Her nature was immature and wobbly, faults that a mother’s sound care would have corrected.

On the last afternoon that she loved the sea, she walked with Nur on the beach. She did not have her glasses on, but that was all right; there was nothing detailed she needed to focus on, nothing tricky. Nur had arrived without his friends, had left them behind in Sidi Bishr so that he could be with her. On the way he had gone to change and was now wearing his swimming trunks and a white shirt. They walked along the edge of the water because Soraya had seen other couples do that and she wanted to imitate them. Her arm brushed against Nur’s arm. They were the same height, the same build, the same colour. Their feet pushed into the wet sand and once in a while the froth of a wave would encircle their ankles. The beach was not flat. It dipped gradually to the water and, in other places, steeply, yet the stronger waves reached up higher and further. The beach was scattered with umbrellas. Each had a different design but they were all colourful and gay. Rainbow stripes, polka dots, bright greens and the orange Abuzeid umbrella they were walking away from had different shades like the segments of an orange.

He said, ‘Why don’t you swim?’

The red flag was hoisted today, which meant that the sea was boisterous but swimming was still allowed. A black flag meant keep away, and when the white flag fluttered, the sea was calm as a carpet.

She lifted her dress up to her knee as a wave splashed up and reached them.

‘I don’t have a bathing suit.’

‘We’ll go and buy you one.’

She laughed and dropped her dress. Their feet were imprinted in the wet sand and the imprint would last until the next strong wave.

‘I don’t know how to swim.’

‘I’ll teach you.’ He held her hand, which meant they were out of sight of Fatma and Nassir.

‘I knew you’d say this.’

‘Say what?’

‘Say you’d teach me.’ She had to raise her voice above the sound of the waves.

‘I am sure you will learn in no time.’

‘I don’t know any girls who swim.’

‘Not a single one?’

‘Not one.’ But she did not sound so certain. ‘Apart from Nabilah.’ Every summer Nabilah shocked the Abuzeid women by donning her striped navy swimsuit, pushing her hair in a white cap and striding into the waves. But Nabilah was Egyptian. ‘I wouldn’t be allowed to swim,’ said Soraya. She stopped walking and waved her hand towards the orange umbrella. ‘Have you seen Fatma this summer? She’s refusing even to wear a dress. Every summer since I can remember we come here and wear dresses. This time she’s saying she’s married, so she shouldn’t take off her to be!’

‘She was married last year and the year before. What got into her?’ He started to walk again.

She followed him. ‘Fatma would never allow me to wear a swimsuit.’

‘I’ll talk her into it.’

She believed him. He could do that.

‘My father would have a heart attack,’ she said with a giggle.

‘He’s not here. Tonight we’ll buy you the swimsuit and tomorrow your lessons start.’

She imagined a dazzling white swimsuit, her long legs bare on the sand, his eyes on them. She held his hand tight.

‘Is it difficult to swim?’

‘No, it’s easy. Diving is harder. I’ll teach you to dive too.’

She gasped and laughed at the same time. ‘Even Nabilah doesn’t dive.’

‘Why do you talk about her so much?’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes, you’re always going on — Nabilah does this, Nabilah said that.’

Soraya was taken aback. She did not want her admiration for Nabilah to be questioned, because it was not reciprocated. Nabilah had no time or sympathy for her, but Soraya was confident that she could win her over in time.

‘You’re still against her! You just don’t like her, do you?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Am I supposed to, when she causes my mother so much grief?’

‘She doesn’t mean to.’

‘She knew my father was married. She knew he had grownup children so why did she marry him? Because of his money, that’s why!’

He was blaming Nabilah to avoid blaming his father, but Soraya understood why her uncle had married Nabilah. She could imagine clearly his desperation to move from the hoash to a salon with a pretty, cultured wife by his side. Everyone loved Uncle Mahmoud, even though they were in awe of him. It made her say, ‘I would trade you my father for Uncle Mahmoud and Nabilah any day.’

He laughed. ‘Uncle Idris? Keep him.’

‘Do you hate him because he tore up your poem?’

‘And the things he said.’ He wasn’t smiling any more. ‘He certainly knew how to stop it in me.’