‘Do you want something from the shops, Nabilah?’ her grandmother asked.
She smiled and shook her head.
‘I just miss this basket. We don’t have anything like it in Sudan and here we don’t live near shops.’
The basket had fascinated her as a child. How her grandmother, from behind the green curtain, would call down to the grocer, the butcher or passing vegetable sellers. She would tell them what she wanted and lower the basket with the rope. They would place her order in the basket and she would hoist it up. Then she would put money in the empty basket and lower it again. The basket was so sturdy that Nabilah, as a child, would often plead to be placed in it and hoisted up and down.
‘You were a lively little girl,’ her grandmother said, ‘always wanting an adventure or plotting some mischief.’
‘Ferial is naughty too,’ Nabilah said. ‘Farouk is quiet and mostly well-behaved, but he can get up to lots of mischief, too, when everyone’s back is turned.’
‘May Allah protect them for you, my dear. You will find that the years fly and in no time they will grow up. Then they will be like friends to you and you won’t feel lonely or bored because of their company.’
It was easy to talk to her grandmother. Thoughts that were complicated and suppressed took wing and became spoken grievances against the Sudan.
‘They have no sewage system and I am disgusted with the buckets and the men coming to empty them at night!’
‘The Sudanese circumcise their little girls in the most brutal and severe of ways. Waheeba wanted to circumcise her granddaughter, Zeinab, but Mahmoud explicitly forbade it.’
‘There are no hairdressers in Umdurman, I have to go all the way to Khartoum!’
‘Everyone is serious. They don’t laugh or joke. They take offence at the slightest rebuke.’
‘I get heat rash. If I don’t put on talcum powder my skin goes all red. I have to put chamomile lotion on the children, all over their arms and legs.’
‘There are things I can’t understand. There is no privacy. His eldest son, Nassir, once strolled into our bedroom! And the endless social obligations — they are continuous, really, so that there is no time to do anything else. You know how much I like to sew? It should be a simple pleasure to spread a pattern on the dining table and cut it with scissors or to sit at my sewing machine, but I am always being interrupted by visitors, who come without warning, and if they arrive at mealtimes, they stay and eat. So I must always be dressed for company, I can never stay long in my dressing gown. It is irksome. And how the windows and doors are open all the time! To let in air, but they let in dust as well, and the glaring sun. I feel as if I am roughing it up in a chalet on the beach!
‘And it is so hot for so long, like an oven. The winters are not cold enough for winter clothes; a cardigan over a summer frock is all that’s needed. I do miss my fur coat. I do miss knitting and crocheting.’
She lowered her voice.
‘I am afraid of his wife. The Sudanese practise black magic and she might harm me or the children. She is jealous of me and, of course, she has every reason to be.’
The balcony was enveloped in the soft glow of sunset now. Her grandmother sighed.
‘This is the only thing that troubles me about your marriage — his wife. He is a lot older than you, but for many couples that is normal and successful. I don’t think of you as being far away; Sudan and Egypt are one country, so you are not like the girls who married Turkish men and moved to Istanbul, you are much closer. But Mahmoud Bey should have divorced his wife before marrying you. He is neither being fair to her or you. I should not say this, but your mother rushed and said yes to his proposal straight away. Qadriyyah was influenced by your stepfather — and you are not his flesh and blood. If your father had been alive, he would not have given his consent.’
This was poignant for Nabilah, but at the same time reassuring. Her father would have protected her. She told her grandmother about this morning’s conversation with Qadriyyah.
Her grandmother looked sad and sounded angry.
‘What does she mean, you will have nowhere to go? Shame on her! This house is your house, your father’s home. My door will be open to you — whatever happens.’
These words, spoken in the gold and green of the balcony, bolstered and pacified Nabilah.
Then, as if she had been paving the ground for a request, her grandmother’s voice grew soft and coaxing, ‘But why don’t you love your husband, my child? Why is your heart hard towards him?’
She could answer now. ‘There is a wide distance between us. I am something, and he is something else.’
‘Then try and get closer to him,’ was the advice. ‘Involve yourself in his affairs and concerns. Change, Nabilah, become different. Do it for your children’s sake. Do you want them to be without a father, too? You, of all people, who know this deprivation, should not want it for them.’
They went indoors, and while her grandmother prayed maghreb, Nabilah gazed at her father’s portraits. In one he was standing, wearing his fez and his judge’s robes. He looked large and healthy, with a steady, confident gaze. In another, less formal, portrait, he was sitting down and she, a child of six in a pinafore and felt hat, was standing next to him. She could still remember the handkerchief protruding from the pocket of his jacket. It had a navy border and on that day, after the session with the photographer, she ate candyfloss and used that same handkerchief to wipe the pink sugar off her hands.
When her grandmother finished praying, they had tea and cakes. Nabilah caught up with all the news of her paternal family and she had to wrench herself away, knowing she had left the children too long.
‘Next time bring them with you. Or, better still, bring them and spend a few days with me. Now that your husband is away, why should you be by yourself?’ Such possibilities!
At night she had the luxury and space of a double bed all to herself. She stretched and turned to lie on her side, tucking the pillow under her chin. Her grandmother’s kindness had soothed her and given her hope. For weeks now, ever since they had arrived from Khartoum, she had longed to visit her. Every day there was an obstacle, and duties that had to be done. First, she had to quench her thirst for her mother, which was understandable. Then the Harrisons arrived and she was caught up in a whirl of daily outings and engagements. For Mahmoud, her grandmother was not a priority, many other people came first, but she did not want to think bitter thoughts about him now. She wanted the joy of the afternoon, the green curtain and wicker basket, and her grandmother’s support. She wanted this feeling of home to settle inside her until it gave her the sweetest of dreams.
VIII
He walked into a nightmare — the military hospital in Alexandria, with its disinfectant smell and muted atmosphere. There were Nassir, Fatma and Soraya, standing in the corridor, looking anxious and out of place. They were relieved to see him, Nassir not hiding his gratitude at being able to hand over the responsibility. He explained that Nur had been admitted here because Victoria College students were entitled to the same amenities as the British staff and Army personnel.
‘It was an accident, Father,’ Nassir blurted out. ‘It was no one’s fault. No one did anything wrong. No one was negligent.’ Then, remembering his manners, he offered his father a seat. ‘You must be tired after your journey. Have a rest.’