Gravel Heart(76)
*
Baba’s eyes were glowing. The tempo of his speech had slowed and his tone was harder, with a hint of reproach. I sensed that we were getting closer to the moment of pain. He reached for the large thermos of coffee that he had asked Ali to prepare for us, anticipating another long night, and poured us both a small cup.
‘I was at work the next day when the following events happened,’ he said. ‘So what I will tell you now I know because of what Saida told me later. I don’t know if she told me everything, and it has been such a long time and I have thought about these matters for so long that I may have forgotten something important. It will not be easy to talk about. This is what she told me happened while I was at my desk at the Water Authority that day.’
*
At mid-morning a message was delivered to our house from Abdalla Haji, the appointments secretary at the office of the Vice-President. The man who delivered it stood at the door and said: ‘You are called. There is news. I’ve parked the car round the corner and will wait for you there.’
‘I’m coming,’ Saida said without a second thought. ‘I’ll come right away.’
She changed out of her household rags and hurried out. The car was parked under a tree and there were already a handful of people watching nearby, curious to see who it had come for. The words The Office of the Vice-President and the national seal were painted across the side of the car. She wished then that she had refused the lift and walked to the office so as not to draw so much attention. The messenger dropped her outside the door of the office as if she were a dignitary, and as she walked past the armed guard, the same one who had refused her entry the day before, stiffened slightly in a kind of salute. The secretary saw her from his open office door as soon as she entered the reception area, and rose from his desk with a smile. After a word of greeting, he indicated that she should follow him and started off upstairs. He knocked on the Chief Protocol Officer’s door, opened it after a short pause, and stood aside to let Saida pass. Then he closed the door without following her in. Hakim came walking slowly towards her and she sensed that the intensity of the previous day’s rage had diminished, although his expression was still taut. He indicated that she should take a seat and came to sit opposite her.
‘Sasa,’ he said again as he had done the first time, but now without venom. He was dressed more casually today, in a long white shirt made of thinly ribbed material that was almost transparent.
‘I am told you have news,’ she said.
He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. ‘I still find it hard to believe that this could have happened, that your brother would dare to act in such a savage and insulting manner. He has done wrong. You will admit that?’
‘If what you say proves to be true,’ she said stubbornly.
He smiled, toying with her. ‘Do you mean I could be lying? But if it is true, will you then admit that he has done wrong and no longer seek to defend him?’ Saida said later that it was at this point, when he smiled at her in that way, that she began to be afraid.
‘Will you then stop defending him?’ he asked again, and waited until she made a gesture of compliance, a small ambiguous nod that might have meant something like: If you insist, but I’ll wait to see where this is going.
‘Will you then accept the punishment the authorities decide fits his ugly deeds?’ asked Hakim, still smiling, insisting on her compliance, but now the veins in his temples seemed to pulse with anger as he spoke, or if not from anger then from some other strong emotion. He leant forward a little and she saw the hardness of his neck and the depth of his chest through the thin, baggy shirt he was wearing. ‘The authorities in this case is me,’ he said, ‘and in my hands he will suffer for what he has done and he will deserve it. Or that is what I thought yesterday, before you came to see me. But now that I have seen you, I am no longer sure if there isn’t a way of saving your brother after all. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Saida thought she understood perfectly what he was saying, and she sat in front of that powerful-looking man, disbelieving what she knew he was about to say.
‘Only you can save him,’ said Hakim. ‘You are a very beautiful woman. When you came in the door a moment ago, I felt my blood rushing to my chest with eagerness. I have not felt like that for a woman before, never in my life. I mean for you to be clear what I am saying, plainly understand that I want you. I want to remove that mtandio veil and undress you and take full command of your body. I want you to yield your body to me. I want to take charge of it and do with it as I wish. I thirst with desire for you. I will not harm you or cause you pain, do you understand? I want to make love to you, not just once, but to my satisfaction. That is how much I want you. In return, I will release your brother.’
He made no effort to touch her. His face was dead-pan and unsmiling now, and after he had said what he said, he leant slowly back in the chair and calmly waited for her to speak.
She said: ‘You humiliate me. I am a married woman and a mother. I love my husband above any other person in this world, and I will not bring shame to his home and my son’s home.’
Hakim leant forward again, smiling now with a kind of teasing pleasure. ‘I thought you would be a virtuous woman, and your words do you credit. I do not mean to harm you or humiliate you. I desire you but I do not wish to belittle you. I want you to yield your body to me, that is all. If you wish to redeem your brother, you have no choice but to do as I ask. Your father was shot as a traitor some years ago, and suspicion already hangs over your brother, in addition to his abuse of a minor. You must understand that nothing else can save him but what I ask for. No one will interfere in this matter, not even the Vice-President, because they will see that it is my right as a brother to have the last word on it. I will give you a few hours to think about this, and I will arrange for you to see your brother after our conversation here, so that you may see he is well and his skin is undamaged … yet. Then I will want your answer before the end of tomorrow. And as for shame, I will do everything to arrange matters discreetly, so that you and your home will suffer as little embarrassment as possible. I want you to understand, I do not wish to harm or humiliate you.’