III

For Nabilah, the Sudan was like the bottom of the sea, an exotic wilderness, soporific and away from the momentum of history. It was amazing but constricting, threatening to suck her in, to hold her down and drown her. Sometimes she was able to hold her breath and accept, but on most days she struggled to rise up to the surface, working to recapture a routine like that of her mother in Cairo, a life of fresh air and energy, the natural bustle and order of civilised life. Nabilah knew that she should be more flexible, that she should adjust, but she was not easy-going enough, and too conscious of her status.

She had, with her husband’s full approval and generous finances, designed her wing in the saraya like a modern, Egyptian home, not a Sudanese one. Instead of a hoash, there was a shaded terrace with a wicker table and chairs where, in winter, she could sit and enjoy her afternoon tea, while watching Ferial ride her tricycle and Farouk kick a ball in the garden. Instead of the traditional beds lining the four walls of the sitting room, she had spacious armchairs, a settee, and, in pride of place, her gramophone. It was a proper room, a room to be proud of. Guests reclining and sitting on beds, angharaibs made of rope being the only furniture in a room, the intimacy and privacy of a bed laid out for public eyes and use – was something that particularly infuriated her. It was, she believed, a sign of primitiveness, proof that the Sudanese had a long way to go. Meals too, in Nabilah’s quarters, were served in the dining room, around a proper dining table, with knives, forks and serviettes, not clusters of people gathering with extended fingers around a large round tray, while sitting on those very same beds she had so many objections to. Her household staff, too, was all from Egypt – Chef Gaber, whose Turkish dishes inspired so much envy from her co-wife, as well as the children’s nanny. Nabilah surrounded herself with the sights, accents and cooking smells of Egypt, closing the door on the heat, dust and sunlight of her husband’s untamed land.

But she could not shut out his family. They came, invited or uninvited. And came casually, with friendly smiles, affection for the children and a staggering tolerance for her moodiness and indifference. She did not understand them. That boy, Nur, with his bright smile, so pleased and at ease with himself. She had explained to him once that he must ring the bell and not just barge in.

Instead of apologising, he had just giggled and said, ‘Isn’t this my father’s house?’

And that girl, Soraya, with her lack of discipline, the sloppy way she carried herself, gum snapping in her mouth, her hands always moving, stroking the back of an armchair or playing with a doorknob in a way which irritated Nabilah. She would gaze dolefully at Nabilah’s wedding photographs without saying a single word. Or she would lean, slouching, on this piece of furniture or that and drawl, ‘how are you doing, Nabilah?’ without addressing her as Madame, Abla, Hanim or even Aunty.

Soraya, too, floated in unannounced, to borrow books and never return them and to poke fun at how Ferial was covered in talcum powder and how Farouk’s accent was Egyptian. How else did she expect the children to speak if not like their mother!

Nabilah kissed Farouk and Ferial the first of many goodnight kisses and prepared to tuck them into bed. They were the only children in the Abuzeid family who had bedtimes and a proper, decorated nursery, with beds of their own. The Sudanese did not understand about proper modern child-rearing, but she would teach them by example. Tonight, instead of a story, she was explaining to the children the origin of their names.

‘You Farouk, were named after the King of Egypt and Sudan who granted Baba his bakawiyya. That’s why Baba is Mahmoud Bey. Not everyone can be called Bey, even if they wanted to. Only the King can decide.’

Farouk smiled and slid deeper into his bed. Ferial was holding on to her mother’s hand.

‘And me, what about me?’

‘Wait. Farouk wants to ask something.’ He always needed encouragement. The boy opened his mouth, closed it again and then asked.

‘But not everyone addresses Baba as Mahmoud Bey. Some people call him Sayyid Mahmoud.’

Nabilah sighed. ‘Some of the Sudanese don’t understand. They don’t appreciate the title. Your father should correct them, but he doesn’t.’

‘So Sayyid is not as good as Bey.’

‘Here in Sudan, Sayyid is the best way a man can be addressed. But your father—’

She was interrupted by Ferial who, not only satisfied with putting her hand on her mother’s cheek, now pulled so that Nabilah had to turn and face her.

‘Don’t do that. It’s not polite.’

The girl, whose hair was smooth in a ponytail, pressed her lips in annoyance.

‘What about my name, my name?’

‘Say sorry first, Ferial.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Say it like you mean it.’

‘Sorry, Mama.’

‘That’s better.’

Nabilah kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair. What a blessing from God that her daughter did not have coarse hair! She had worried about this constantly during her pregnancy.

‘You were named after a princess. Princess Ferial is the eldest daughter of the King.’ The girl squirmed with pleasure. ‘Now into bed.’

She tucked her lively daughter in bed but Ferial was wide awake. ‘When Grandma comes from Cairo will she be the one telling us bedtime stories?’ The children knew that Nabilah had sent a telegram to Qadriyyah Hanim telling her about Mahmoud’s illness and begging her for a visit.

Now she sighed.

‘She won’t be able to come. Next time I put a call to her, I will let you speak for a little while. Oh, if only we were in Cairo now! I am sure Baba would not have been so ill, for I am sure the doctors in Cairo are better than the ones here.’

It still did not feel right that they were in Sudan. This had not been the original arrangement when they first got married. The original arrangement was that she would live in the flat Mahmoud had set up for her in Cairo, and that he would spend lengthy visits with her. After all, his business required that he spend several months in Cairo and it made sense to have a home there instead of his suite in the Shepheard’s Hotel. Nabilah would be his Egyptian wife in Cairo and Hajjah Waheeba his Sudanese wife in Umdurman. It had made perfect sense, and years passed that way, successfully, but suddenly he proposed to move her and the children here. Nabilah’s mother encouraged her to accept and Mahmoud Bey assured them that Nabilah would have her own quarters; she would be independent of Hajjah Waheeba and the rest of the Abuzeid family. He promised that every summer she, Farouk and Ferial would return to Cairo. So Nabilah had gathered her courage, took a deep breath and with a friendly shove from her mother, plunged herself into Umdurman.

To banish the feeling of nostalgia, Nabilah turned to her serious son.

‘Guess who visited Baba today?’ She straightened the collar of his pyjamas. ‘Your teacher, Ustaz Badr.’

Farouk stared into space. His skin was darker than his mother and sister’s, his hair more curly, his features more African.

‘When will Baba come home?’

She stroked his cheek.

‘Soon. He is better today. Tomorrow when we go see him he will come home with us.’

In his illness, Mahmoud Bey had chosen to go back to his old room in the central part of the saraya, near Hajjah Waheeba’s hoash. He did not want his many guests to disturb Nabilah, he had said.

‘Is he going to die?’

As if she had not just told him that his father was getting better! The boy was aloof, perhaps because of all the time they had spent alone in Cairo, without his father. Mahmoud Bey rarely addressed him and Farouk was stiff and uncomfortable in his father’s presence.

She frowned.

‘This is a very rude thing to say about your father. You must never say this word again. It is not a word to be said and it must not even cross your mind.’

Yet she thought it, too. She made peace with Farouk, for she did not want him to go to sleep weighed down by her disapproval, a situation which usually resulted in him wetting his bed. But after she put out the lights and walked to her own bedroom, she abandoned herself to the rudeness and anxiety she had denied him. The death of her husband would mean one thing for her. A return to Cairo.

She would be the same age as her mother had been when she was widowed. Nabilah’s father had died when she was nine and her mother remarried within a year. But, if Mahmoud died, Nabilah would not need to marry again because she would have an income and an inheritance share in Mahmoud Bey’s wealth. It was obscene to follow this line of thinking, yet her mind could not help but gallop in this direction. She saw herself wearing black, boarding a plane with the children, her eyes pink from crying, her face pale, without rouge. She imagined her mother meeting her at the airport and the drive home; the wide roads, the familiar sights and sounds. The doorman would stand up in greeting when they reached the building and carry her suitcase up the stairs. The door of the flat would be already open when they stepped out of the lift. Her mother’s maid would be there, in her long patterned dress and kerchief.

‘Alhamdullilah for your safe return, ya sett hanim.’

A feeling of shame passed through her and brought tears to her eyes. Mahmoud Bey was getting better, the English doctor had said that, and she could tell, too. There was no need for these morbid, perversely exciting thoughts. Her husband had been so generous to her, compensating for the father she had lost, for any sense of deprivation she had felt. She had experienced real joy when they were together in Cairo, the time after the wedding when their new flat was being decorated and they had stayed at his suite in the Shepheard’s Hotel. There was the evening they had gone to see Um Khalthoum in concert, the nightclubs on Pyramid Road where they would go for dinner and a show. Oh, the fun she had had, watching the belly dancer and looking around at the other tables, comparing her clothes with those of the other ladies, her hair with their hair, and always feeling good about herself. In those days she had forgotten that she had married a Sudanese. Mahmoud was light-skinned enough to pass for an Egyptian, his clothes were as modern and as elegant as any other Bey, and she was his new wife, much younger than him, but that was not uncommon.

True, he had given her a lot, and he did not want much from her in return. Not much but to bear this exile, to tolerate his family, to decorate his new mansion in Umdurman simply by being herself. She was loved and cherished, and the fact that he was already married was not really a threat. He and Hajjah Waheeba no longer lived as husband and wife, not since they moved into the saraya. He had, long before his second marriage, separated himself from Waheeba and kept his own room. He would not divorce her, though, he had made that clear from the beginning. Waheeba was the mother of his sons and Nabilah must not feel threatened by her. Yet since he had taken ill, he had craved Hajjah Waheeba’s food. In his exhaustion, his accent had become more heavily Sudanese, and when she saw him surrounded by his concerned family, he looked so much like them, was so unmistakably one of them, that their happy years in Cairo seemed distant and illusory.

When she was sure that the children were asleep, Nabilah put on her navy blue dotted dress and combed her hair, fixing the waves with a touch of cream. She put on her lipstick and used a tiny black brush to smooth her broad eyebrows, then she studied her reflection in the mirror and felt that something was missing. A handbag. She did not really need it because she was only going from one section of the saraya to another. But she picked up her handbag anyway. It completed her look and lifted her spirits, for the cloud of illness that was hanging over the saraya was depressing. It made Nabilah want escape, and her own circle of friends and acquaintances. Of course, propriety demanded that she stay at home. Only when her husband went back to work could she leave the house to resume her social activities among the community of Egyptian ladies – the wives of the engineers who worked on the irrigation projects, the wives of embassy staff, or the few transplants like herself, married to local men.

She expected Mahmoud Bey’s guests to have gone by now. Nur had been spending each night with him, but he went and had supper at his mother’s hoash before joining his father. It would be a good time to find her husband alone. She tiptoed downstairs and out the front door, then walked across the terrace past the huge clay flowerpots and down the garden steps. In Cairo, the nights were alive with the pleasures of leisurely walks, roasted peanuts and grilled corn, people chatting and shops that stayed open late – the liveliness and light of it all. Here, the heavy indigo sky was bearing down, the stars mysterious, and the clouds unnaturally large. As she walked around the garden to the other side of the saraya, she could hear frogs croaking and the hiss and breath of night creatures, as if this were a jungle. The huddle by the gate was a servant sleeping on a straw mat. They prayed Isha and slept as if this was the countryside not a city. In her fashionable dress and elegant high heels, she was wasted in this place, but she kept on walking to his room.

When she pushed open the door that had been slightly ajar, she saw Idris sitting on an armchair, toothpick in one hand, his face a snarl as he cleaned his teeth. He gave her his usual guarded greeting, but there was a hint of expectancy in the way he tilted his head and moved in his seat, adjusting his jellabiya. She turned towards the bed and saw the bulk of Hajjah Waheeba leaning over her husband. Mahmoud was lying on his stomach, head turned to one side, naked to the waist, and his wife was massaging his back. She was bearing down with her full weight, so that he was only able to grunt at Nabilah in recognition. She froze, not knowing what to do in the face of this unexpected intimacy. This was only her third time to be in the same room as Hajjah Waheeba. The first had been soon after her arrival in Umdurman, when many family members came round to take a good look at her. The women had made no attempts to hide their curiosity and had simply filed in, sat and stared at her, not bothering to introduce themselves or engage her in conversation. She had not even known which one of them was Hajjah Waheeba. They had all looked alike to her, these middle-aged Sudanese women swathed in to bes, their faces without make up and their hair in traditional tight braids close to the head. Later, she had come to know that Waheeba was the one with the tribal scars on her cheeks, those vertical scars that looked like cracks on a French loaf. The second time they had met, when Fatma gave birth, Nabilah took a good look at her co-wife and decided that she was neither interesting, nor worth competing with. They never exchanged words. Each avoided the other, marking her own territory, cautious and watching, as if they were assessing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Now Hajjah Waheeba looked up and smiled at her, a genuine smile. There was a serenity in her face, as well as a warm flush of exertion. Her to be was falling around her soft round stomach and slipping down to show her head and hennaed braids. Her large, plump hands were flat on Mahmoud’s back, pressing. There was a pinch, like a bracelet around her elbow and above that the moving fat of her upper arms. She shifted her weight and, instead of pressing down on him again, began, with her thumb and fingers, to lightly smooth and iron out the tightness of his muscles.

He could talk now, and he said to Nabilah, ‘My back has been giving me a lot of pain.’

This encouraged her to walk into the room and close the door behind her, just as Waheeba was saying to him.

‘This will release it.’

She leaned down closer, propping her right elbow on his shoulder. She began to work a particular spot as Nabilah sat down in her regular armchair. It was impossible to ignore what was happening on the bed and she and Idris sat and watched.

‘It’s here isn’t it?’

A grunt, a muffled, ‘To the left a bit.’

‘Here . . .’ Waheeba smiled.

A groan and she laughed.

‘But this is the bit you want. Be still!’ Her laugh was hearty, coming from the throat. When it trailed off, she turned to look at Nabilah and pressed her lips, ‘Of course, in Egypt they didn’t teach you how to give a massage. But I can teach you.’

‘No thank you, I don’t wish to learn.’

Waheeba smiled, as if this was the exact reply she wanted. Her voice was soft and easy.

‘And why don’t you want to learn? Don’t you want to please your husband? He brought you here to this good life and you don’t want to serve him?’

Nabilah could not think of an able put down to what sounded like an accusation of ingratitude, to the insinuation that she had been needy or, at least, less well off before this marriage. She looked at her husband, but he turned his head so that she could not see his reaction. He did not come to her defence and, to make matters worse, Idris gave a chuckle. Nabilah looked at her husband’s back, at the black-and-white of his hair. His neck and skin were smooth with oil, glistening, and his wife’s dark hands, kneading now, her thumb moving, coaxing the sore muscles into calm suppleness. Nabilah knew she must control herself. She was well bred, she was cultivated; she must not overreact. She breathed and noticed, for the first time, Nur sitting at the desk in the far corner. He was writing in a notebook.

Mahmoud gave out a long, loud sigh of pain and Waheeba laughed in response, admonishing him to bear it. It was a laugh that was surprisingly attractive – but there is no competition, Nabilah reminded herself. How could she compete with me! She, who was obese, menopausal, illiterate. She, who had no concept of fashion or travel. She, who had never walked into a club or read a book or eaten with a knife and fork, or even been inside a hairdresser. Nabilah forced herself to smile, walked over to the desk and sat next to Nur.

‘What are you writing?’ Her voice was deliberately friendly. She was young, and she could read what her co-wife’s son had written.

‘I am making a list of all the guests who came to see Father. He asked me to do that.’

Idris called out, ‘You should write each person’s name as they come in. Now you are relying on your memory and you will miss someone out. Also, Ahmed Ismail and his son were here and I don’t know where you were – so put their names down, too.’

This negativity was typical of Idris. Nabilah did not particularly like him. He was too Sudanese for her and, unlike his brother, rarely travelled abroad. She suspected that he had been against their marriage. But Idris knew his place and knew that he could not stand against his older brother.

‘Let me see,’ she said to Nur.

He put down his pen and handed her the notebook. His handwriting was neat. A few names were in English; Graham Westman, Colonel Freddie Hewgill . . . Colonel! She felt a surge of pride that her husband moved in such high circles and that even the English went out of their way to visit him . . . Mr Wavelry, Dr McCulloch.

‘You even counted the doctor as a visitor!’ This amused her, but Nur looked at her with the same steady gaze and did not share the joke. ‘You wrote the English names in English,’ she said loudly. She could read English, too.

‘Yes. But the Armenians and Greeks I wrote in Arabic.’

There was also a list of those who sent telegrams from faraway provinces and from Cairo. Her stepfather’s name was among them – she had always addressed him as Uncle Mohsin. He was a Senior Civil Servant and a prominent member of the Wafd party. Immaculately dressed and well-spoken, he did not have any children of his own and seemed to have enjoyed a carefree bachelorhood. Not many men would take on a widow with a daughter and he was conscious of this act of charity. You are my family now, he had said to the ten-year-old Nabilah, but everything she did seemed to irritate him. She ate too much, she laughed too loud, she disturbed his siesta and tired out his household staff. Qadriyyah took her husband’s side. He was right and the girl must keep out of his way, out of his sight and hearing. Nabilah must become small, insignificant and inoffensive. She must tiptoe around the apartment, not use the bathroom for too long, not weep too loud, because, as her mother put it to her bluntly, she was a guest.

Nabilah held the notebook in her hand and turned its pages. She sensed that Nur wanted her to give it back, but the list of names was a welcome diversion. She searched for the Egyptian names she was familiar with, the husbands of her new friends.

She said to Nur, ‘In Europe and even in Cairo, some families would have a guestbook and on special occasions visitors coming in would be asked to sign the guestbook. This guestbook would be a large, impressive album and it would be on a small table by itself.’

Nur did not seem to be interested in what she was saying. His eyes were on the notebook and when she turned a page she began to understand why. A loose sheet fell out. She picked it up and Nur’s hand instinctively reached out, but politeness made him hold back. She started to read the sheet of paper. It was a poem, written in his handwriting. A poem of love and longing, of lovers separated by place. Nabilah was not familiar with Sudanese poetry, so she could not tell whether the author was Nur or someone else.

‘Did you write this yourself?’

He hesitated before whispering, ‘No.’

‘Are you sure? I don’t believe you,’ she teased him. He was betrothed to Idris’s daughter, Soraya. They were childhood sweethearts, Nabilah had heard. Perhaps he had written the poem for her. ‘I think you wrote it. It’s nice. You have talent.’

‘A talent for what?’ Idris called out.

‘Poetry . . .’ She raised her voice, smiling at Nur. The boy was looking more uncomfortable now, more wary than ever.

From the bed, Mahmoud grunted. He turned and sat up. Hajjah Waheeba handed him his pyjama top.

‘Poetry, ya salaam!’ he said. He sounded his old self again, high-spirited, a little amused.

‘Wasting his time on this rubbish,’ Idris said.

‘Wasting his time indeed,’ said Hajjah Waheeba, as she heaved herself onto the settee.

‘No, he should be encouraged,’ said Nabilah, keen to contradict.

Nur was not young enough to be her son and she felt an affinity with his youth. He was being educated in Egypt, at Victoria College, a school few could afford. She was proud of this further proof that her husband was truly enlightened. He was sparing no expense to give his son the best possible education. And one day he would do the same for her son, Farouk.

Waheeba sucked her teeth.

‘Encouraged?’ She mimicked Nabilah’s Egyptian accent. ‘We are not that kind of family. We don’t waste our time on jingles and silly words.’

‘Read it and judge for yourself.’ Nabilah walked over and, smiling, offered her co-wife the sheet of paper. ‘Read it.’ It gave her satisfaction and pleasure to underline Waheeba’s illiteracy. ‘Don’t you know how to read? I can teach you.’

Waheeba turned her face and shoulder away towards her husband and said, ‘Look at her! She gets up, she sits down, she walks backwards and forwards. What is wrong with her? Why doesn’t she settle down?’ She turned to Nabilah and said, ‘Sit and have a rest. Don’t trouble yourself with Nur and what Nur did and didn’t do. What’s in it for you?’

Before Nabilah could reply, Idris sprang from his seat and snatched the paper from her hand. He scanned it and tore it down the middle. He tore it once, twice, the noise slick and decisive in the silent room. A tall, dark man in a jellabiya with a set, impatient face taking action. He tore it again and dropped it in long, skinny strands on the floor. He sat down again and said to his brother, ‘You are spending money on his education and what does he come back from Egypt with – silly songs!’

‘Exactly,’ murmured Waheeba, facing her son. ‘Did you go to school, ya Nur-alhuda so you can write down shameful things?’

Nabilah looked at Nur, and the boy’s face had that closed, shamed look she had seen before on the faces of servants when they were being told off. She wanted to come to his defence, but when their eyes met, the look she found there was one of hostility. The logic of youth – it was all her fault, she was the meddlesome one.

Mahmoud got up from his bed and put on his dressing gown. He looked tired and thoughtful, his handsome face strained.

He said, ‘Nur, you need to go back to Alexandria. The academic year has started and you’ve missed too many days of school already. I am better now – there is no need for you to stay any longer. Tomorrow morning I will give orders for your travel arrangements. Nabilah . . .’

‘Yes . . .’ She moved towards him.

‘If you need to send anything to your mother, Nur will deliver it for you. He will stop in Cairo on the way. Also check with the Egyptian servants if they want to send anything to their families.’ He put on his slippers and started to walk to the bathroom. The matter was settled, the subject closed.

After Idris left, Nabilah made a point of remaining in the room to outstay Waheeba. While Mahmoud Bey read the newspaper, she watched Nur pick up the torn pieces of paper from the floor. He crumpled them and threw them in the bin.

‘Later on I will talk to your father about this,’ she promised him, her voice low.

His response was an anxious look at his father’s face, hidden behind the newspaper. She did not say anything more. Perhaps later, in private, Mahmoud would admit to her that he had been on her side, that Idris and Waheeba had over-reacted. Idris must have guessed that Nur’s poem was addressed to Soraya and, as her father, taken offence. Later, Nabilah could convince Mahmoud that it was civilised and modern to allow young people to express their feelings through poetry, music or art. Now, though, she must bear this dull, metallic feeling of – not exactly defeat, but not exactly success, either.

Back in her quarters, she stayed up late, writing a letter to her mother, sharing every small detail of the evening’s events. But she felt far away from Cairo, and somewhat excluded. Was it her fate to be always in the periphery? Her late father had been a provincial judge who toured the towns and cities of Egypt, and the years of Nabilah’s childhood were spent adjusting to, and departing from, different schools where she was treated well because of her father’s position. He had been an imposing, charismatic man, highly educated and liberal in his thinking. Had he lived, he would have risen high in the judiciary, and Nabilah remembered her mother tolerating the pettiness and deprivations of provincial life, struggling with packing, unpacking and setting up a new home; all in the hope of a brilliant future in Cairo. Yes, the Sudan was like a province of Egypt, and now she, Nabilah, like her mother before her, was yearning for the metropolitian centre.

Nabilah idolised her mother. She believed that she was less beautiful than Qadriyyah, though this was not true. She believed that her mother had the best clothes sense, the best hairstyle and that her cooking was superior. Nothing was good or real without her mother’s acknowledgement. That was exactly why Nabilah’s marriage had taken place and lasted for nine years. Her mother’s faith in Mahmoud Bey transmuted itself to the daughter and Qadriyyah Hanim had wholeheartedly, and with utter conviction, engineered her daughter into this marriage. She had brushed aside Nabilah’s protests: the twenty years age gap, his foreignness, his first wife and grown-up children.

‘You don’t want to marry an inexperienced youngster,’ Qadriyyah had argued, ‘who will wear you out and drag you around until he stands on his own two feet. You want someone established, mature, someone able to look after you and guide you. Mahmoud Bey will humour and indulge you; he will pamper and protect you. Wait and see, isn’t Mama always right?’

Yes, Mama was always right. Nabilah waited and Nabilah saw. But there were other things, like this exile from the one she loved most. Nabilah’s dissatisfaction, her low-grade unhappiness, was not entirely caused by this mismatched marriage, by this second-wife status or by this backward place. It was the banishment from her mother that was so hard to get used to.