‘You never visit me.’ The reproach in her voice was sweet, without anger. She wanted reassurance, reassurance that marriage and distance had not changed anything between them.
Soraya understood this and her voice was loving, ‘Because it’s better for you to come here. You enjoy yourself, and there are more of us here.’
Every time Fatma was due to give birth, she came from Medani and stayed with their elder sister, Halima. In her first pregnancy, when her morning sickness was severe, she had stayed in Umdurman from her second month until forty days after giving birth.
‘Anyway, anyway,’ Fatma was impatient, ‘tell me about this prospective bridegroom. He can’t be from the family.’
Soraya smiled. ‘You’re right. His father is a friend of Uncle Mahmoud. His mother came and spoke to Halima. She said that her son is going away to study in London and then he wants to be an ambassador. When we get independence, he will be one of the first ambassadors of Sudan abroad. As if I want to travel!’
‘You do, Soraya, you do.’
She did. Geography was a favourite subject. She gazed at maps and dreamt of the freshness and adventure of new cities. She loved travelling to Egypt, and how she didn’t have to wear a to be in Cairo. She wore modern dresses and skirts and so did Fatma, and they went shopping in the evenings for sandals.
‘You would make a good ambassador’s wife,’ Fatma said slowly, looking into a future, a possibility.
‘Well, I have other commitments,’ Soraya whispered as coquettishly as she could, making herself sound like an actress in a film.
Fatma laughed. ‘What did Halima say to the mother of our future ambassador? How did she reject the proposal without offending her?’
‘Guess!’
‘She told her: “Soraya has already been spoken for by her cousin Nur”.’
Fatma said the most beautiful words in a normal voice, without a smile. All the joy was her younger sister’s and the anticipation that, within a few minutes, he would be here, sitting by her side under the stars.
Motherless child, too young to remember maternal love and milky warmth, too young to remember the anguish and strangeness of death. . Fatma remembered and told Soraya, made a mother myth for her. Halima, the eldest, put herself in the role of a mother to the two of them. Fatma resisted at first and was often awkward, but Soraya was docile. She was the pampered baby, loved, as Halima later told her, because while the women wailed over their mother’s deathbed, she stood with a bit of hard bread in her hand, nappy sagging, her hair unkempt and her eyes innocent and wide. Over the years Soraya heard the story of their mother’s premature death from an asthma attack over and over again. In her mind she saw their house burning with grief and loss while she, little and soft, toddled unscorched, like an angel passing through Hell.
A mother is a home, a hearth, a getting together. A wife is company and pleasurable details; expenditure and social contacts. Soraya’s father, Idris Abuzeid, the younger brother of Mahmoud, quickly reverted to being a bachelor again. He was the agricultural expert, more comfortable in the countryside than in town. He was also responsible for the financial accounts of the family, a behind-the-scenes position that suited his reserved, untalkative personality. Unlike his flamboyant, visionary brother, Idris counted the pennies, knowing they would become pounds, which he valued not because of what they could purchase — he was austere by nature — but because the piling up, the stacking, the solidity of wealth, was in itself satisfying. He never allowed a tenant to get away with a late payment or a debtor to default. He disliked the English, not because they had invaded his country, but because of the effort required to understand their different language and customs. At the same time, he was in no hurry for them to leave, for he admired them, most of the time, not for the modernity they were establishing but for the business opportunities they brought with them. Prudent, some would say miserly, Idris calculated the cost of remarrying and decided to remain a widower. Sore? A little, like any man in his situation. Often lonely, too, but a good wife was expensive and, though he was a difficult, heavy-handed father, he did not want to saddle his daughters with half-brothers and half-sisters.
The result was a dry and hollow home, a house Soraya did not particularly like to spend time in. She became a nomad. At every family occasion: wedding, birth, illness or funeral she would pack up and move to where the company was. No Abuzeid family gathering was complete without her. She spent so much time at Halima’s teeming, noisy house that her children grew jealous.
Her eldest son once pushed Soraya and said, ‘You are not my sister. Get out of our house!’
Soraya did not cry. She pushed him back, strong in the knowledge that Halima would always take her side. Motherless child — but loved even more for it. A princess with glowing skin and beautiful features; that smile and liveliness which made her popular at school; the bubbling generosity that made her give time, energy and gifts to others. But no, she was not silly like Fatma, who let them snatch her out of school and into the arms of the no-good Nassir, to be banished to Medani. How I would have escaped marrying Nassir, had I been Fatma, Soraya wrote in her diary, a present from her friend Nancy. She wrote in English, so that if anyone opened it they would not understand.
One. I would have insisted on finishing school and persuaded Sister Josephine to come home and speak to Father long before the engagement was made public and it was too late for him to back out.
Two. I would have refused to leave Father, Halima and the whole of Umdurman. I would have turned down Nassir on account of his work being so far away.
Three. I would have spoken to Nassir himself and told him I did not want him and challenged him that a gentleman would not marry a girl against her will. But is he a gentleman?
Four. I would have threatened to commit suicide.
Writing that last sentence conjured up anger and a deep sense of injustice. Number one and number two were her best option. Sister Josephine before, not after, an engagement announcement. But would she, on her own, have thought of Sister Josephine?
Sister Josephine, now in her late forties, lean and energetic, was formidable in her white habit, white clothes and black flat shoes. Wisps of auburn hair sometimes drifted from her habit, blowing away the rumour that all nuns were bald. When she had unexpectedly visited their house, Halima did not know where to seat her. A European woman requesting to meet their father? Should she be seated in the women’s quarters or in the men’s salon? Halima decided to treat her like an honorary man and that was the right thing to do, as everyone confirmed later.
Sister Josephine did not smile at Idris, but she had a soft spot for Muslim girls with rich fathers. Fatma and Soraya were easy to teach, and the generous donations made by the Abuzeid family to the school were essential for the nuns to pursue their mission of providing free education to the poorest of the Catholic community. On learning that Fatma had been pulled out of school to get married, Sister Josephine had taken the Bishop’s Ford Anglia and crossed the bridge to Umdurman. Despite the dramatic nature of that visit — she rarely left the convent and school grounds, and it was not easy to get the Bishop’s car at such short notice — she was unable to save her student. Yet her strident, pleading voice, her protest, her confidence that she was right (which increased Fatma’s misery) left a deep mark on Halima, Soraya and the other young girls in the neighbourhood. Halima, who had never been to school at all, vowed that her daughters would continue. Even Idris, ruffled and flattered by this visit, reluctantly and solemnly promised that Fatma would be the last girl in the Abuzeid family to drop out of school and get married. Soraya could safely, and with relish, complete her school education. She could, every day except Friday and Sunday, wear her beloved uniform, which suited her so well. She could write and make her handwriting beautiful, and she could look down to look at her book, and up to look at the board.