The Pickup

Chapter 46

He got up dazed and dulled with the hangover of emotion and went to his brothers. She woke to their low voices behind the lean-to door. She left the bed, dizzied for a moment, and then collected the contents of her suitcase scattered everywhere. She folded some garments on the wire he had rigged up for her and the bright plastic hangers she had found in the market, hung the pants, dresses and shirts. The shoes went to their place in a row under the window.

He came back into the room with a bucket of hot water. He saw her things, the clothes hung up, folded, the shoes where she kept them. He looked only for a moment; and not at her; he poured water into the bowl on the table and began to shave. Although his back was turned, she could see his face in the little mirror strung to the wall in which he met himself as he was on this morning. She saw, once more, his cheek thrust taut by his tongue as he delicately shaved close to his glossy moustache.

From the neat pile of underwear on the bed she took a bra and panties and began to dress.

He was aware of her movements somewhere around him, somehow slowed, as his own were. When he had shaved and washed he poured his water into the empty jar kept beside the table and refilled the bowl from the bucket he had brought. He heard her washing as he dressed himself for the journey in jeans she had learned to iron just as well as the black woman she paid to do it, back at the cottage, a shirt she liked best, and the silk scarf that was his plume. While her back was to him he happened to glance and saw in the little mirror the gestures of her hands, the upward tilt of her neck as she looped her earrings into her ears; once more.

He spoke. Are you coming to eat?

She looked round as at a call. Yes, in a moment.

Everyone was at home; apparently Maryam, the brothers, had been given leave to arrive late at work, be present for this latest farewell. The brother-in-law was unemployed at present, anyway. Over food there was subdued chatter, suitable to an imminent departure, on the route to be taken, the country where a connecting aircraft would be, the time-change in space, a further separation of the voyagers from kin. She appeared, dressed in what became her best, a combination of pants made of handsome hand-woven local textile and a jacket bought long ago on some jaunt in Italy. A necklace given her by Maryam brought the exchange of a slight smile between them. When Ahmad asked her how long was the wait between connecting planes, she answered round about three hours. Ibrahim corrected, more like four or five, there are always delays on airports this side of the world — drawing laughter in which she joined. Daood the coffee-maker turned fondly to his brother. — Maybe you’ll be lucky and everything will go all right, for you, on time.—

Muhammad, excused from school, was quick. — And when Julie goes next month, it must be lucky for her too!—

So she understood what the low voices behind the door had been about: it was arranged among the adult brothers that the official family version of what had happened would be that their brother’s foreign wife would be following him as soon as he knew in what city of this immigration he would find himself established.

He kept away from her, in the company of the family, making sure there was no chance for them to be alone until the hour of the taxi arrived for him. Let her have an idea of what she doesn’t realize, all his pleading, arguing, of no effect, that she will be in this house, this family, this village, this place in the desert, without him, without the love-making she needs so much, without anyone to talk to who, as he does, knows her world, without — yes, he can admit it to himself only, without his love for her. That weakness that is not for him.

She could not approach him. He held her off by his right, as she had asserted hers. She was not going; in all the pain of seeing him return to the same new-old humiliations that await him, doing the dirty work they don’t want to do for themselves, taking the hand-out patronage of the casino king (stepfather, is he) as the chance of being the Oriental Prince, quaint way-out choice of the mother’s daughter. That’s it. That’s reality.

Neighbours came to see off the lucky one bound for America. The taxi ordered so well in advance drew up in the home street before the family house exactly when expected. In the gathering she stood with him now, their clothes touching in contact, they would keep up together the version he had arranged with the brothers; it was all she could do for him for the present, her lover, her wonderful discovery back there in a garage. Everyone embraced him, children ran to him to touch the great adventure, the achievement that is emigration, not understood but sensed.

Muhammad rushed up with the canvas bag and neighbours added plastic carriers with gifts of food for the journey. The son embraced the family in the order of protocol they knew, embraced his father and then, last, his mother. She blessed him. And made a slight movement as if directing: her son embraced his wife. Before them all, the women who watched from behind curtains across their street, the men who looked away from her where they mended their cars and motorbikes, the close neighbours who flitted in like swallows to visit, the children Leila brought along for games — he and she held one another, and there was a kind of gasp of silence. Some old man with the loud voice of the deaf broke it.

— 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.