The Cry of the Dove: A Novel (29 page)

When they scanned my tummy they told me that it was a boy and it was in good health. Perhaps we would call him Imran, harmonious cities and civilization. `Imran,' I whispered, `the light in your mother's eyes, the air she breathes, her heart pumping, pumping love and pain, land safely on a carpet made of silk, in a jar full of honey, in a garden covered with fragrant white jasmine flowers. Come to this world safe and whole for your good English father and your Arab Bedouin mother are eagerly waiting to see your moon face.'

That Sunday King Edward Street was full of cars being washed, clothes being hung on lines and children playing frisbee and cycling in the middle of the street. Last week our offer for number 15 was accepted. I unscrewed the two rusty nails, freeing the wooden sign that says `Swan Cottage' and waved it at Sadiq. He raised his index and middle finger in a victory sign then hastily stuck his arms to his sides and bowed his head. He must be sad because Elizabeth was not only his friend, but his best customer. He looked like a ghost gesticulating in his white shalwar kameez behind the dusty glass of his shop window

`I will buy curtains, neither of here nor of there,' I said.

Parvin fluttered her eyelashes and said, `I don't know what you mean?!'

John and Mark were negotiating the antique rosewood wardrobe down the stairs. Parvin said that Mark would like to help and that his amputated hand never stopped him from carrying on normally with his life. He could hold on to things even better with the metal hook.

She was sipping her herbal tea slowly. When she got pregnant she gave up tea and coffee. Imran was sucking his thumb and babbling in the baby carrier, strapped to my chest, when the doorbell rang. It was Gwen, flushed and breathless, carrying a small suitcase.

`Are you OK? You're not going to hospital, are you?' I asked while kissing her on each cheek.

`No, no, my hip is fine," she said and put the suitcase on the kitchen table, sat down on one of the chairs, wiped her forehead and sighed. We could hear John and Mark's grunts as they struggled with the wardrobe. `You have two strong men out there,' Gwen said and giggled.

`Hands off!' said Parvin and winked at me. She had finished eating the slice of fruit cake I offered earlier. With her fine fingers she chased the leftovers on the kitchen paper towel then put them in her mouth.

I ran my hand over Imran's head, over his thin dark hair, counted his fingers, his toes, his eyes, and placed my hand gently over the tender cavity in his skull.

Filling the kettle with water I said loudly, `Coffee, anyone?'

`Yes please," sang John, Mark and Gwen.

Gwen's coffee was the way she liked it, strong, with little cream and one coffeespoon of brown sugar.

The winter sun was feeble, but it managed to light up part of the corridor and hall. Gwen fiddled with the drawbolt locks, pressed them open and lifted the top of the brown leather suitcase.

The old dusty suitcase was full of baby clothes: some white, embroidered with shiny fuchsia threads, some pink, some lilac, with ducks, horses, bears running or flying on the yokes, lace-trimmed briefs, cotton bodysuits, white and blue knitted cardigans, one with picot edging and a satin ribbon, and the other with netted jasmine-shaped flowers sewn to the edges with a matching hat, a flowerprint dress set with smocked yoke and matching knickers, socks with lace trim, booties with a bear design and bibs with clowns and fairies embroidered on them.

`I bought some, made some for your Layla. But she must be sixteen by now, grown up, perhaps even engaged to be married,' she said and bit her tongue.

The white dress which I made for Layla with its zigzagged hem, the flowery collar, the small rose-like pockets, the tiny puffed sleeves was in the suitcase on top of the wardrobe upstairs together with the return rail ticket Minister Mahoney had given me, my mother's letter, the lock of hair, Noura's mother-of-pearl hair combs and bottle of perfume, Francoise's turquoise silver necklace, the Qur'an, the Mary Quant lipstick from Madam Lamaa and a black madraqa. I spent hours trying to imagine what a water lily would look like on a luminous jolly night, Layla. I tried to make the shape of the dress similar to that of a lily.

When Gwen shook the yellow and red baby duck plastic rattle and said, `It used to belong to my prodigal son. I kept it all these years," I walked out to the corridor, biting my lip, pretending to look for John and Mark. So many cardigans, bodysuits, dresses for her, but where was Layla? What did she look like? Was she dead or alive?

The rosewood wardrobe, pine display cabinet, two mahogany chests of drawers, two antique side tables, Indian mirror, bedside cabinets and dark domed travel chest full of Elizabeth's clothes and personal belongings were lined up on the pavement, waiting to be picked up by Natasha's boyfriend.

I went back to the kitchen and looked at the unpacked and ruffled baby clothes covering the kitchen table and laughed. Gwen and Parvin joined in.

`She is mental,' said Parvin.

Gwen holding Imran's hand began rolling her eyes and babbling.

`Salaam jiddu: hello, Granddad,' I said to the old man in the kebab van on the high street. John was holding Imran, who looked great in the blue cardigan and matching hat Gwen had netted for Layla, a king with a jasmine garland.

`Ahlan wa sahlan binti: welcome, Daughter,' he said.

`Remember me? I am the woman who used to sit behind your van sniffing the air,' I said.

`Yes, yes. We thought you were a tramp or M15.' He smiled. He was tall, spindly, with large eyes whitening with age, grey stubble, thinning hair covered by a crochet white skull cap, wide embroidered black trousers tight around the ankles, brown leather pointed mules and an embroidered North African shirt.

`This is my husband John and my son Imran,' I said.

`Ahlan wa sahlan. By Allah, you must have some falafel,' he said.

My Geordie husband scoffed the falafel and said, 'Shukran: thank you!'

`La shukr ala wajib: don't thank me for upholding my duty,' he answered.

Clapping his hand on the shoulder of a dark young man in blue jeans and black T-shirt with `Bon Jovi No Pain No Gain' printed in large red letters on the front, his thick dark hair spiked up with gel, his eyes large and hidden behind thick black curled-up eyelashes, his eyebrows plucked, his face smooth and glistening in the dim light of the van and his full chapped red lips parting with a smile, he said, `Meet my son Rashid, he a little effeminate like English people, but is OK.'

`Marhba: hello! That's it really. I cannot speak much Arabic,' he said and smiled.

We shook hands, talked and ate on the pavement by the kebab van. If you did not know me you would have thought that we were an ordinary family on a day out enjoying the brief winter sunshine. I should have been happy, but something was holding my heart back. I imagine you, Noura, soaring above our heads, dark, dignified, with arched eyebrows, seductive eyes, crimson lips, your pearl-shaped teeth masticating chewing gum then blowing pink bubbles, Rima and Rami, cured of his diabetes, holding your hands. You look at the square roof of the white van, the black-circle dots of our heads, at Imran taking his first steps towards his father, a frilly blue flower, at the cars skidding behind the van, at my face searching for your light and laugh, an irreverent, resilient, timeless laugh that reverberates in your ribcage.

IT WAS A DARK MOONLESS NIGHT AND I COULD NOT GO TO sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I heard distant but amplified wheezing as if it were coming from the bottom of a well. I ran in the dark following footpaths all the way down the hill from the Long Well to the farm. Then I stood still, panting, sniffing the air, listening for rustling leaves, watching for movement. Rhythmic squeals came from the other end of the farm. I followed the stench of sour baby milk and rotting limbs. It was the smell that took me to her. Layla was swinging from the fig tree naked, her hands and legs tied together in an obscene way and shackled to the trunk, her neck slashed, face cut up and her private parts rotting. A black cloud of flies buzzed frenziedly around her. She was burning. I got up drenched with sweat, a helpless moth.

`They will kill you,' said Parvin.

I held her face and said, `I have to go. Look for her. She is calling me. She needs my help.'

`I've not spoken to my family since I left. They don't know my whereabouts. Do you think my heart is made of flint? I miss them too, yaar,' she said and blew up at her straight fringe. She was annoyed.

`It my daughter, Parvin,' I said and pushed my hair off my face.

`This is madness. What's wrong with you? Since you've given birth you've gone downhill. You don't eat. You cry all the time. You look like a tramp. Have you started seeing men with rifles again?'

`I depressed. I dream of Layla almost every night. Something must have happened to her. Mother's heart know,' I said.

`I don't know what to say,' Gwen said. `If Salina feels she should go, then we cannot stop her, I'm afraid.'

`I won't let you, Salina. What about our son? What about me?'John choked.

`We can notify the police. Interpol can contact your friend, can look for her,' said Mark.

`I am a British citizen now and the British will protect me,' I said.

`Oh! Yeah! Look at the colour of your skin. You are a second-class citizen. They will not protect you,' said Parvin.

`No one would recognize me now Especially if I have my hair cut and dyed.'

`They will recognize your smell. So many Asian girls were killed when they went back,' said Parvin.

`She wouldn't stop crying. Her sobs echo in my head,' I said.

Parvin stood up with difficulty and held me tight. `Please, please don't go!'

`Cannot you see?' I screamed. `I've got no names. I haven't even got Noura's or Madam Lamaa's family name. I have to go. My daughter is in danger.'

`What about your son?' asked Gwen.

`Sons are treated better. They can fend for themselves. Daughters are helpless,' I said.

`You're wrong. He needs you," she said.

`He has a good father. He will take care of him if anything happens to me.'

John hid his wet face and walked out of the kitchen holding Imran against his ribcage the way my father used to hold me.

I had the same dream again, but this time Layla's muffled cries intensified. My heart knew that I had to go and find her before it was too late. I got the red silk Chinese box, which Parvin had given me for my birthday, out of the wardrobe, opened it and began tidying up its contents: a return rail ticket to Exeter now yellow around the edges, my mother's letter, a lock of Layla's hair, Noura's mother-of-pearl hair combs, the bottle of perfume, the Mary Quant lipstick from Madam Lamaa and Francoise's turquoise silver necklace. When I pulled the lock of hair out of the leather pocket I had made especially for it and my mother's letter an electric current ran all the way up the fingers of my right hand, my arm, my shoulder then the back of my neck. The fine hairs at the back of my neck stood up and my scalp twitched. I put everything back in the box, shut the lid, and secured the loop around the button made of twisted silk fabric sewed together.

I began writing a letter in my head: To whom it may concern: My name is Salma Ibrahim El-Musa; I have been in Islah prison. During the first year I gave birth to a baby girl and she was instantly taken away to a home for illegitimate children. I wonder if you can help inc locate her. My postal address is ... then I tore the imagined letter up. How could I reveal my true identity and address? I would risk being traced and killed. How could I ignore Layla's cries, her calls, her constant pleading? I stood in the kitchen, a woman with a twisted neck looking both ways: backwards and forwards. The tea I made at four o'clock in the morning was tepid, tasteless; the floor tiles were so cold against my bare feet. The hills, which were covered with green grass, weeds and shrubs, were suddenly erased - puff - and turned into dry brown mountains covered with silver-green olive trees, plum, almond and fig trees and grapevines. What was better: to live with half a lung, kidney, liver, heart or to go back to the old country and risk being killed? If my son, who was sleeping peacefully in his cot in the bedroom, began crying I would run upstairs without thinking and hold him close against my jugular vein until he felt safe again and stopped crying. Over the years things must have changed in the old country, people change, I changed. I might not get killed even if I were recognized. I had my hair cut, straightened, dyed blonde and bought some crimson-red lipstick. If I wear a sleeveless low-cut top, a short skirt and sunglasses they would never think I belonged to their tribe, they would see only a shameless foreign woman, whose body, treasures, were on offer for nothing. Why would you give her family twenty camels if you could get her for free? When I finally looked up the hills were covered with Hima's black iris, which swayed in the wind in unison and whispered her name. A feeble sound echoed in my head, `Mama? Mama?' then it suddenly stopped. I covered my face with both hands pressing hard on my forehead, just above my eyebrows and eyes. How precious was your eyesight? How precious was your daughter? I must not go, I should not go, I would not go.

Imran was nine months old and it was time to wean him. I wrapped my nipple with cotton wool and offered it to him. He spat it out and began crying. I held the bottle full of brewed camomile and aniseed up and placed the plastic teat in his mouth. He spat it out, spilling the tea around his chubby neck and began crying again. His soft bib had `I love whoever feeds me' printed on it. I wiped his tears with it and pulled him out of his cot. When I held him close he stopped crying, but when I kissed his fine dark hair he began crying again. This time it was a heartrending cry as if he had just lost a limb.

Weaning was three days of intermittent crying, sleepless nights, dribbling, trying to feed him with a spoon, bribing him with sugar, and holding him and pacing around the house until he finally went to sleep. My mother did not wean my brother Mahmoud until he was three and his long legs were dangling and almost touching the floor. He used to go and play with the dog and come back ruffled and say, `Give me your ziza: teat!'