Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

He strode past her and walked into the guest quarters. ‘What’s this?’ he bellowed and kicked over a rusty pot of dirty onion water. ‘Is this supposed to pass for soup? Is this what you have been giving them?’

Zeidat’s protests did not have the slightest effect on him. ‘Since when did the chimney break down and why wasn’t it fixed straight away?’ Now both of them were shouting at the top of their voices; soon Zeidat was reduced to tears.

He ignored her and headed towards Chuanat’s room. In her was his comfort, in her was tranquillity and what was beautiful in this ugly world. Charged with self-doubt, restless, saddened, he felt himself pouring towards her, mother of his newborn, his pearl and gentle friend, who never thwarted his desires, never contradicted, never held back loyalty and love. But when he entered her room, it was Anna who caught his attention. Anna standing up holding the baby, the light of the fire on her hair and foreign dress. She turned and looked at him with the haughtiness of the injured, the stark knowing eyes of a parent who had lost a child. He sensed in her what she had not yet acknowledged; her need to conceive was only dormant, poised to unfurl. ‘What will happen to me if the negotiations fail?’ she had asked the first time they met and he had felt bored by her question. ‘Our rules and customs will prevail’ meant handing her over to the chief of one of the dithering mountain tribes not yet won over to the resistance. Now, seeing her turn towards him with his newborn in her arms, royal blood rising to her cheeks, he changed his mind. Anna, Princess of Georgia. If the negotiations failed, he would not give her to anyone else.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, to check out of the hotel, to get in the car and just drive. I had been unable to sleep and couldn’t bear any more the raspy blow of the heating, all the coughs and noises from the other bedrooms. My mind was switched on, uncontrollably scanning the events of the day. In the afternoon, the police had come to the university and checked my desktop; they searched my office and asked me question after question. On the titles of my papers, Royal Support for Jihad and Jihad as Resistance ; on my political opinions, on my other nationalities and, of course, on Oz.

They sealed the entrance and though my colleagues were restrained in their curiosity, I shrank. Every step climbed, every achievement, every recognition — all that hard work — had not taken me far enough, not truly redeemed me, not landed me on the safest shore. The skin on my skull tensed so that I could not form a facial expression; even pushing my glasses up my nose felt strange, as if my skin was both numb and ultra-sensitive at the same time. To have your personal files examined, to reveal what is exceedingly intimate — a password and search engine history — felt a hundred times worse than having luggage examined at the airport. Perhaps Oz’s email to me was worth their search. I downloaded the al-Qaeda training manual from the US Justice Department website and I didn’t even have to pay for it! They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I could not bring myself to speak naturally to them. When they finally left, hours later, the corridors and rooms around me were empty. In the floor below, the sociology department were finishing up their Christmas party. I walked out of the building as if it was the end of just another ordinary week, as if I had not had my dignity shaken and my balance broken.

I drove into Aberdeen a little after 3 a.m. I crossed the dark river, its surface surprisingly still, like a creased sheet of metal. Orange streetlights on the black roads and the hidden white buildings. Despite the ice warning, I had been speeding all the way, enjoying the emptiness of the dual carriageway, overtaking one truck after another; Amy Winehouse on full volume, the heating just right. Now South Anderson Drive swept up ahead of me, the smooth curves of one roundabout after another. I owned the brightly lit road and could drive longer, all the way to Inverness and beyond. I slowed down, reluctant now to reach my destination, still without the pleasant tiredness that preceded sleep. Tony was not expecting me until Saturday afternoon but I had the key to the back door. I had kept it all these years and when I parked across the road I lingered in the car, remembering other homecomings. That early switch from new independence to entering the life Mum and Tony continued without me. The time I had come from the hospital stunned and still bleeding but I never told them why, just stayed in bed for a whole weekend. Fast forward to finding Mum ill and in her dressing gown, the evening I found her wearing a wig. Back to less dramatic times: coming home from a club on the night bus, the weather blustery, and fiddling with the back-door key, knocking my handbag against the wheelie bin. Birthdays that were boring, gaps between moving from one set of digs to the next, storing my things. A whole summer in which I worked in Waterstones and took driving lessons in long sunny evenings.

I let myself in through the back door into the kitchen. It looked messier and barer than in my mother’s time. A sudden pang of hunger made me open the fridge and sit at the table, still in my coat, helping myself to potato salad and cream crackers. My old room, now the guest room, was on the ground floor. I had liked that a lot, being downstairs by myself, away from the two of them, close to the kitchen, close to the road.

I rolled my suitcase into the room and decided to nip into the sitting room to see if Tony had some vodka in the cabinet. Then I heard a noise from upstairs. I was sorry I had woken him. The sound of a door opening, a whisper and I stepped into the hallway, stood at the foot of the stairs. Up on the landing he looked vulnerable, not at all as if he was about to confront an intruder. His longish grey hair was dishevelled, his pyjama trousers sagging. ‘It’s me,’ I called out loudly. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up, it’s just I had the worst night. That hotel …’ I stopped when I saw her behind him. For a minute my blood went cold. But it was not my mother, healthy and young again. Of course. It was the cleaner, Kornelia, in a satin nightdress.

I turned and headed towards my room. Tony shouted down after me, ‘You can’t do this! You can’t just barge in here in the middle of the night. Who the hell do you think you are? First thing in the morning you give me this key back, Natasha. Bloody inconsiderate.’

I heard the whisper of Kornelia’s soothing words, her accent. I imagined her holding his arm, pulling him back to bed. It turned my stomach. I stumbled into my room — something was on the floor blocking my way. It was only when I switched on the light that I saw that the room was full of boxes, suitcases and clothes. They covered the whole floor area without even a path to the bed. My mother’s things had been tossed into reusable shopping bags. Her cardigans, her shoes, her toiletries. Long evening dresses lay across the bed. Her fluffy slippers, a belt in leopard print, the belly-dancing outfit (she had taken classes at one time and purchased this on holiday in Istanbul), her curling tongs, hairdryer, fake fur, real silk. Photos of family members in Georgia, photos of me as a baby and at school, my graduation. Things from way back, I Can Make You Thin and things she had used at the very end — the wig, the hot-water bottle and the walking frame. A lifetime of possessions had been dumped here. A testament to a mania triggered by having financial access to shopping centres and channels after a communist upbringing. My poor mother who, as a child protégé in the Russian Olympic team, returned from the games in Rome with a doll, only to have it confiscated at the airport. She never got over the resentment, what she felt as a theft. But it was not dolls that she wanted when she came to Aberdeen, it was all this. What lay now before me, valuable rubbish. Tony could never have risen to this task by himself or even taken the initiative. It was Kornelia who had done it, I was sure, to evict every trace of my mother from the master bedroom.