Читать книгу My Eye is a Button on Your Dress: A Story from the collection, I Am Heathcliff - Hanan al-Shaykh - Страница 7

translation from Arabic by Catherine Cobham

My beloved Amal,

Come and take my breath away.

Yusuf

I CLUTCHED AT MY heart for fear it would roll away, just like people in films and books. ‘Come and take my breath away.’ I became my own private earthquake: the ground was no longer in its normal place beneath my feet, my job didn’t matter any more, my relationship with Simon had lost all meaning, in fact it seemed like a sheet of newspaper I’d fixed over a broken windowpane to keep out the draught. Freezing-cold London vanished in the warmth of his letter, and the Eye of Horus on the postage stamp looked kindly at me, pleading with me to return to the land of the sun where I was born and raised, and where I’d been madly in love with a man for ten years until he clipped my wings and I crashed to the ground.

I hurry to answer to Yusuf’s email address, my fingers conveying my eagerness: ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.’ Then I rush to ask my boss if I can take a week off, clutching the letter and lying that I have to go to Cairo for a family emergency. I text Simon, telling him that my mother has to have an operation, reserve a seat on the plane for the next day, and return to my emails. I read Yusuf’s reply: ‘Your body will gather up the fragments of my body like Isis gathered Osiris and made him whole again.’

‘I’m flying to you tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow? Not now? How can I wait till tomorrow?’

‘You’ve lived without me for five years while I’ve suffered the torment of having you always here with me, on the sofa, in the bathroom, in the book I’m reading, in my bag, in the street, while I eat, wash my hair, dress and undress, sleep, yet despite all of that I never see you, touch you, hear from you.’

I don’t write any of that, but ask if we can talk on Skype or FaceTime.

‘Don’t you think that would diminish the impact of our meeting, like someone fasting and breaking his fast on an onion?’

His refusal kindled my desire and made my passion grow.

He was a husband and a father. I never once asked him to divorce his wife, or to take me as a second wife. I was perfectly happy with our arrangement. I didn’t try to make him jealous by telling him if men asked me out, or wanted to marry me, and I never tried to turn him against his wife. I remember when he used to tell me that she knew about our relationship and was threatening to leave, I just pretended to be busy moving the hands of my watch forwards or backwards.

But one day, five years, two months, and three days ago, he took my hands in his, telling me that we had to end our relationship for the time being.

We were in a nightclub called Aladdin, in Pyramid Street. I remember that everyone in the club was having a siesta, even the cats, as he had insisted on seeing me in the middle of the day. I was surprised when he asked to meet me there, and I suggested instead that we meet on the balcony of the Mina House Hotel, but he objected, and not as gently as usual.

‘No, no.’ And surrounded by the scary pictures of artistes, singers, and dancers, and the smell of cigarettes, he announced, the moment I sat down opposite him, that he loved me more than anyone else in the world, even more than he loved himself, and would love me for ever, for I had entered the pores of his skin and lived inside him, but that present circumstances were against us continuing our relationship.