— She’s not going?—
— Couple of weeks.—
— Bismillah. That’s much better.—
— When he has a place.—
He was walking to the taxi. The owner-driver everyone knew stood grinning, door held wide, a kindly man with a fierce face resurrecting genes of some ancient desert warrior.
He bent his head to enter and held himself straight in the sagging, tattered passenger seat, looking ahead as if he had already left. The driver banged the door several times to get it to hold shut, laughed to the gathering and capered round to take his place at the wheel.
Ibrahim had abandoned this place again, his eyes were on the road, the arrival at the same airport, the initiation through security body-check, handing over of ticket and passport where the visa is plainly stamped, cannot be doubted this time, sight of the same canvas bag borne away on a moving belt, the pressure of other bodies, leaving, pushing close at the boarding call. The plastic bags of gift foods like those he’s been given shoved into overhead lockers, the blocked gangway where he will thrust and jostle to find his seat. Close on either side their breath, their heat, you can’t get away from them, poor devils like himself. The rites of passage.
He does not look back at the raised hands and faces, some smiling at his happy chance, one or two crumpled in tears not for his departure but in reminder of another, closer parting, endured.
Everyone continues to stand about until the taxi has turned from up the street, out of sight and hearing. The children jump and scuffle in excitement as they do on any sort of occasion, whatever brings adults together. Maryam nervously goes to whisper something to the mother and apparently is given consent; all are invited to come into the house for refreshment.
Ibrahim’s wife is asked kindly questions, when will she expect to follow, what city will they make their home, is she preparing warm clothes for the climate, it’s said the cold is something you have to get used to. She has the appropriate kindly answers for them.
Unnoticed in the house’s customary bustle of hospitality and the rising voices of the company, she took her tea and went to the lean-to. She drank it slowly, placed the cup and saucer on the window-sill and was standing at the window when there was a tap at the door. Before she could answer it was opened; Khadija there. Khadija has never come to the lean-to. Khadija dragged the ill-fitting door closed behind her with her often-heard scornful sigh, dangling a bunch of dates, her strong red-painted lips twisted as she savoured what was in her mouth.
Khadija put an arm round her conspiratorially, smiled intimately and held out the bunch of sweetness, smooth dark shiny dates. She spoke Arabic, the foreigner understands enough, now.
— He’ll come back.—
But perhaps a reassurance offered for herself, Khadija thinking of her man at the oil fields.
Notes
Too long a sacrifice W. B. Yeats, ‘Easter 1916’, Michael Robartes and the Dancer (Churchtown: The Cuala Press, 1920).
Whoever embraces a woman Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Happiness’, Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Poems (New York: Viking).
I decided to postpone our future Feodor Dostoievsky, ‘The Meek One’, The Diary of a Writer — Feodor Dostoievsky, trans. Boris Brasol (New York: George Braziller, 1954).
Rose thou art sick William Blake, ‘The Sick Rose’:
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
‘Songs of Experience’, Songs of Innocence and Experience with Other Poems (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1866).
Let us go to another country William Plomer, ‘Another Country’, Visiting the Caves (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936). In his Collected Poems (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), Plomer published a slightly different version of this poem.
And remember Job ‘The Prophets’, Sura XXI, The Koran, trans. Rev. J. M. Rodwell, with an introduction by Rev. G. Margoliouth (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1948), p. 156.
And make mention in the Book of Mary ‘Mary’, Sura XIX, The Koran, p. 118.
The God of Mercy hath taught ‘The Merciful’, Sura LV, The Koran, p. 74.
And she conceived ‘Mary’, Sura XIX, The Koran, p. 118.
al Kitab wa-l-Qur’an: Qira’a mu’asira The views expressed by the young men are based on quotations from this book by Shahrur Muhammad Shahrur, as cited by Nilüfer Göle in her article ‘Snapshots of Islamic Modernities’, Daedalus (Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) (Winter 2000).
I was occupied in picturing him Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. John Linton (London: The Hogarth Press).
Grateful thanks to my generous mentor, Philip J. Stewart of the University of Oxford.
A Note on the Author
Nadine Gordimer’s many novels include The Lying Days (her first novel), The Conservationist, joint winner of the Booker Prize, Burgers Daughter, July’s People, My Son’s Story, None to Accompany Me and, most recently, The House Gun. Her collections of short stories include Something Out There and Jump. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She lives in South Africa.