Gravel Heart(14)

Once I began to understand what was going on, which was perhaps a year before Munira arrived, I expected to be mocked at school and in the streets, and could not imagine that boys of my age could restrain themselves from the malice. But it happened on one occasion only, when a boy made fun of a pair of shoes my mother had given me, whisperingly asking if they were a gift from my mama’s friend. It had never occurred to me that the gift was from this man. The boy who said this was very big, almost an adult, and he said those words to me with a taunting grin, looking to goad me into a reaction so he could beat me up. I turned my back on him and pretended I had not heard the whisper, ignoring the jeering laughter that lashed across my shoulders. Like father like son, I too turned away meekly from shame. I never wore those shoes again. My mother did not mention the man’s name or even his existence until just before my sister Munira came, when her body was beginning to swell and grow hard, and by then I did not need to be told.

‘His name is Hakim,’ she said, with her hand on her belly. ‘The baby’s father. He is Asha’s brother. Do you know who I mean? You see him on television sometimes.’

I did not speak. I could not bear the smile on her face as she said his name. I had seen the same smile when we saw him on the TV news and it was then I guessed for the first time that he was the man she went to see. I looked away when his face came on the TV after that. When she said his name to me, images of that hard-headed man passed through my mind. Did she say habibi to him when he touched her?

‘Do you know who I mean? You met him at Asha and Amir’s wedding,’ she said.

I nodded. I saw him, I did not meet him. I could see the look of pain on my mother’s face because of my silence. I nodded to reassure her, to make conversation. I saw the man sitting dead-pan on the podium reserved for the bride and groom and their important guests. My mother sat up there too, looking beautiful. She had pleaded hard to be excused but Uncle Amir would not have it. I did not know about that man and my mother then. I was busy breathing in the aroma of brute power all around me.

‘His Excellency the Minister,’ I said, and my mother chose to smile, to make light of my sarcasm, to pretend I was teasing.

‘He is the father,’ she said again, touching herself on the bulge, smiling unawares again, pleased with what seemed to me her grotesque disfigurement. ‘I would like you to meet him, to show him courtesy.’

I did not know what to say then. She looked suddenly so helpless, so unhappy.

‘He has asked me to marry him,’ she said after a long silence.

‘Why does he want to marry you? Isn’t he already married?’ I asked.

‘To be his second wife. He wants me to be his second wife,’ she said.

‘Why does he want a second wife?’ I asked.

‘It’s not that strange. He wants to be able to see the baby. He wants the baby to have a father,’ she said. ‘But I said no, I’m already married.’

‘Then why are you having his baby?’ I asked.

My mother shook her head and looked away. We were both being stupid because she could not speak openly to me and I could not restrain my bitterness. I saw she was annoyed with the way I took her words but I did not know what else she could have expected of me.

‘What did he say when you told him that you were already married?’ I asked. ‘It probably wasn’t news to him.’

She shrugged, refusing to placate me. ‘I can’t talk to you when you are like this,’ she said.

‘Did he say, we can soon take care of that? He is a big man, why hasn’t he already taken care of that?’ I asked. ‘Why hasn’t he taken care of it in all this time?’

She shrugged again, and closed her eyes as if my questions were a matter of great tedium to her.

‘What happened between you and Baba?’ I asked.

My mother opened her eyes to look at me. I had never asked that question before, not exactly like that, with that directness, with that degree of dislike, with that intensity of blame. He had left when I was so young and my mother and I had found a way of speaking about his absence that avoided conflict. Whenever I asked for details she deflected or ignored me and I did not persist for fear of causing her pain or making her angry. I had always blamed my father for his absence, suspected he was guilty of something that made him cringe in shame as he did. So I had never asked the question in that way before, forcing the issue, demanding of her. She appeared to give thought to it for a moment and then just shook her head. I knew she was not going to tell me anything. Somehow I knew that she did not have the words to tell me what I needed to be told. ‘I don’t know how to tell you. It is too bad. I caused him grief, and he has made it into a kind of piety,’ she said. ‘I cannot put right what I’ve done.’

‘Was this man part of what you did to cause him grief?’ I asked.

‘Don’t say this man. Yes, he was,’ my mother said.

‘Was it because of this man that Baba left us?’ I asked.

My mother shook her head again, and was silent. ‘It was because of what I did that he left,’ she said at long last, and I saw that she was reluctant to continue, that she would refuse to talk even if I pressed, that the wretchedness of it was too much, that she would walk away and lock herself in her room and sob, as she had at other times when I had insisted to be told. I could not bear to hear her do that. ‘I cannot undo what I have done. I did not know he would ruin his life,’ she said.