Authors: Selma Dabbagh
Rashid wondered whether Lisa was his destiny. When he had first seen her come into the Centre in Gaza he had felt so desperate for her he could hardly stand up. Then there had been her response to him. All that bright-eyed enthusiasm that flooded back at him despite the errors in his speech, the gaps in his knowledge (both of which could sometimes feel overwhelming around her). It was as though she saw a place and a purpose in him that no one else did. But it was not quite the same thing as Destiny. (‘Don’t say
ass
,’ she had said to him the night before – right in the middle of everything, ‘It’s so
American
.’)
Myres passed him a cup; it was not particularly hot and the milk had formed small oil bubbles on the top of the brown liquid.
‘My brother told me that you were in Palestine during the war,’ Rashid started.
‘Oh yes, I was there. As a terribly young man, posted there as a junior police officer. Not much choice about things like that then. Came from a big family. Too many boys. The first went to university; the second to the clergy; the third to teach; the fourth to the services, and then it was me and I was packed off to the colonies. Just missed the war, you see. Too young. Lost two of my brothers, though. I was still in my teens when I got to Palestine. Seventeen. Apish, foolish kind of a boy. I spent most of my time moping around wishing I had a girlfriend.’
Again, Rashid thought of Lisa. He could never call her his girlfriend in front of her, or to anyone who might know her, in case it got back to her. But what was she other than his girlfriend? They slept together, didn’t they? But when he had said that he loved her, she had looked two things neither of which were good: one had been
indulgent
and the other had been
put off
. She had looked put off. It was the only way that he could explain it.
‘But, you know, it got to the point where even I, clueless as I was, could not help noticing that things were getting really rather nasty. It just was not fair play.’ Myres appeared to be addressing an invisible commission of enquiry. ‘The sugar’s over here if that’s what you are looking for.’
‘What kind of things?’ Rashid asked. He tried to find in Myres’ face the features of the past, tried to make out whether Myres’ nose would have been distinguished or goofy, but it can be as hard with some old people, as it is with some babies, to tell what or where a face has come from, and where it will be going. Clearly, the man had always been stupendously tall, even now with his stooped stature he was a head taller than Rashid.
‘In my capacity as a member of the Mandate Police, we were required to go round the Arab villages on weapons searches. This was 1947 and tensions were high. Our orders were to go into the villages and search these
fellahin
peasants in their houses, often at dawn, waking the women, slashing through the mattresses, pouring the olive oil on to the floor, sifting through flour. For what? Occasionally we would find a bullet. Once in a blue moon we might turn out a pistol of some sort, even then it was often Ottoman and antiquated. And when we did find something – well then, it was out with the men, marched down to the police station, handcuffed and the rest of it. Women crying, usually.’
Professor Myres had not sat down since Rashid arrived. He did now, on a high three-legged stool.
‘We hung a man once. I was there. We found a rusty German revolver under a ledge in his well and a round of bullets. He told us that he’d sold half his livestock to purchase it. Hung him for that. All justified under the Emergency Laws of His Majesty’s Government in Palestine, the same laws that are now being used for closures, house-sealings, curfews, demolitions and the rest of it. All British, those laws.’
Myres raised his hands in a gesture of what? Rashid wondered, admission? Responsibility? Guilt?
‘Strung him up in the village like a sheep. Big, portly man. He was not the
mukhtar
, the leader, but he was not far off. Huge moustache and a cigarette filter. Could not get that out of my mind for some reason, that filter. Very dignified chap. The whole way through he was an absolute gentleman. Shameful. I think it was that cigarette filter that sealed my fate. But it would not have mattered so much,’ Myres continued, ‘I think it would not have changed everything for me – I am sure I would have found a way to justify it to myself, as the necessities of Empire etcetera – if it weren’t for this disparity of treatment, which annoyed me even then, wet boy that I was. You see, the Jewish immigrants were being trained by us, armed by us, when we were shooting Arabs for hiding a couple of rusty bullets. And then the Jews decided that we weren’t doing enough so they started attacking us, too. Well, of course, you know the rest of the story. By 1948 it was a total walkover for them. The Jewish settlers were – what did one observer say? – cock-a-hoop? No fight needed at all.’
Myres pushed the window open. A small pocket of autumn air challenged wet dog until it was absorbed by it too.
‘Disgraceful conduct on our part. A disgrace, really and truly.’
‘And the Kurds?’ Rashid asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know anything much about the Kurds. It just would have been a lot easier. Could have been the Armenians. Why not, indeed? Damn shoddy history all of them. I just know it would have all been different: the ability to get published, to get and keep university tenure, to get heard, not to have this hate mail, not to . . .’ Myres looked around his somewhat mouldy-looking purpose-built property, gestured vaguely. ‘Well, they would have given me my own office at the university, for example. Instead I am
persona non grata,
relegated to the backwaters of the Thames. All would have been different I can tell you, if I had not chosen the Palestinians or Palestine had not chosen me.’
Myres seemed glad it was out. It steadied his resolve. He wandered back into the sitting room, stately, expecting to be followed even in his humble premises,
especially
to be followed in his humble premises.
‘Now, young man, what do you have for me on this fine morning? What have we here?’ His pencil ran smoothly down the edge of the page of Rashid’s draft thesis, his tongue curled up at the ready. ‘Ah, yes, good. Good. I am glad you picked up on that point, I thought you would.’
Sabri, Sabri,
Rashid was starting to think again,
You so should be here instead of me,
when he noticed some markings at the side of his essay. Next to the paragraph Rashid had taken straight from an email from Sabri on the topic were two question marks and a large cross and below, clearly marked, next to the paragraph he, Rashid, had typed out without looking at any other source, as an articulation of ideas that rippled away at the back of his mind, was a large tick and a word before an exclamation mark. Rashid leant closer to this man with his smell of old waxy things and cloth left in damp drawers for too long, he leant through the mist of wet dog to make out the word. A solitary, magnificent word scribbled out by an accomplished hand:
‘
Excellent!’
It was unmistakable.
Rashid had been driven through the area the restaurant was in on the first night he arrived in London. It had been a similar evening, post-rain clear, the gleaming black pavements pattering with feet. There had been hurry in the air as the street dressed itself up for the evening. And he liked the way that each building on the High Street had a different height, face, origin, but they sat alongside each other amicably, like members of a Cuban jazz band. The lights had been on already, many neon but others were strung from trees to the buildings across the road. Some of the windows were slatted with white wood and jutted out from the bottoms of the buildings like birdcages. Chairs and tables had been arranged in squares and rectangles under striped canopies.
On that first night, the street had been rich with promises for his future in London. These were bars and cafés that were waiting for him. They were places where Rashid would be known. There would be a cheer from the tables as he entered. His friends would pull him into discussions, jokes would be told, and they might even cajole him into playing instruments that he would discover an untapped talent for. He would be known. He would be loved. He would be free.
Lisa did not understand what he saw in these places. She had pointed out the number of chains, laughed at the prospect of going to a couple of restaurants he had named (‘I don’t think you can afford that place, Rashid’), and described the rest as ‘passé’, ‘singles joint’, ‘gay’. With a little time he had learnt to view the street and ultimately the rest of London in the same way that she did.
The sign for the restaurant Lisa had chosen was lit by bulbs in copper cups. In the window a carpet hung like a curtain and a clay pot sprouted gnarled twigs. Lisa was already there by the door, twisting her tube pass in her teeth. ‘You look beautiful,’ Rashid said, leaning over to kiss her. She winced. He wondered whether he had let the street Arab inside him (a horny vagabond hiding right there under his skin) slip out again. This beastly doppelgänger seemed to be making his appearance more and more frequently around Lisa. He was unable to get him under control. Rashid wanted to pull her towards him or to say something to lift her agitation, but he didn’t trust himself to speak. He didn’t know how it might sound. Perhaps there was a way of kissing her that would soften her, or maybe she would hate that, too. He felt taken over with
Hey, pretty girl, come look at my carpets. I give you nice price
and it made him unable to act.
‘My sister’s coming,’ she said, the rim of her plastic tube pass still in her bite. Rashid resolved not to say anything. Whatever he said on the subject of Lisa’s family was invariably wrong. When in doubt, Sabri had taught him, one should gather information. Sabri had been referring to guerrilla warfare at the time, but Rashid chose to adopt this tactic now.
‘Why’s she coming? I thought you didn’t get along that well?’ He couldn’t help it, it come out despite his promise to himself.
‘We don’t. She’s only coming because Charlie’s coming, and Charlie and Anna were at university together. I asked her to introduce me to him. But she won’t fit in with everyone else. At all. She just won’t fit and I told her that and she got all arsey.’
‘Who’s Charlie?’
‘Rashid, for God’s sake. I told you: Charles Denham, the contact at the Foreign Office. That’s what this whole thing’s for. He’s just been moved to the Middle East desk. I told you all about him. It’s really important that you get through to him about what’s going on. He needs to know about Gaza. About the Centre.’
‘Sure, sure, Charlie, fine.’ Rashid did remember discussing the man. He had a clear image of him already – Charles Denham wore a bowler hat and had a pipe that he tapped on with his little finger. Rashid had not made the connection with a university-going Charlie.
The concert tickets in Rashid’s pocket were tickling him. He shuffled around. A couple in suits stopped to examine the menu in the brass box close to Lisa’s head. The woman rubbed her hand against the man’s hip, as though she was trying to ignite it. They were black (
Afro-Caribbean, Rashid,
he could hearing Lisa stressing,
not black
). Lisa smiled at them consolingly. Rashid stubbed his cigarette out in a pot holding a tree modelled on a lollypop. The couple walked on. Rashid, deciding that an appropriate length of silence had passed, pulled the concert tickets out and flashed them in front of Lisa.
‘What’s that?’
‘Saturday, the Albert Hall, the man himself: Eric Clapton. Two tickets.’
‘Rashid! They must have been so expensive. How can you afford them? You should have told me. Or asked. I can’t even do Saturday. I’ve got this charity dinner I might have to go to.’
He had not thought that she wouldn’t be able to make it. He had anticipated the scene of handing over the tickets as being one of delight (there would be a hug, a long kiss), that she would only question him about how he had managed to get them as that was a tale in itself. It hadn’t been easy and now she didn’t even seem sure as to why she couldn’t make it.
‘No, I’m certain that I can’t,’ she said, handing the tickets back. ‘You should’ve asked before you bought them. All that money, Rashid. You probably can’t even get a refund.’ Her voice was cross but when she looked up at him she made herself look sweet, her brows frowning up above her nose. ‘Sorry,’ she said, moving a bit closer.
A significant presence was approaching from around the corner, clattering towards them in high heels. Lisa stepped back from Rashid and dropped his hand at the appearance of her sister’s tightly suited body.
‘It’s Anna. Look, I think it’s best if no one knows about
us
, that we’re, you know, together. OK, just for this dinner?’
He was not going to take Ian to the concert; he would rather go on his own and waste the money. Khalil would have loved it, but he was not coming over for ages. There was no one else.
‘Anna, Rashid,’ Rashid shook hands with a neater, slimmer version of Lisa: plucked brows, tiny static pearl earrings, a cleanly cut fringe. She had the kind of look that would be used to advertise a telephone company or a law firm.
‘Ya, hi! Rashid?
Rasheed
? Is that right? Great. You’re umm . . . a
friend
of Lisa’s, right? You went down to see the parents, didn’t you? I heard all about that.
All about it.
I can’t remember, where is it that you’re from?’