Page 52 of Kiwi Gold
I laughed. “Well, maybe not so graceful tonight, but the other two things? Probably.”
“I’m not reserved,” she said. “Look at all I’m telling you. Also, look at my dress.”
“I’m looking,” I said. “I’m trying not to look too much. But how many times have you told a man this story? How often have you worn a dress like that?”
“Well, never,” she said. “Not to a man. Possibly in some angsty pouring-out-my-soul way to Poppy in my teenage years, and I definitely put it in a diary. I need to burn that before Amira finds it and gives it to Yasmin to read out to her. How embarrassing.” She was laughing again. “And I think you know that the dress is unusual for me. To say the least.”
“Beautiful, though,” I said, and then, possibly because I was carried away by the look of her across the table, the scent of her when I’d held her against me, the softness of her hair that first night, and the way she blushed like honey rising in the jar, “Your mum said reserve was appealing, I reckon, because it makes a man feel so good when you do open that door. Especially if you don’t open it often.”
“Oh.” She seemed to be weighing that. “Somewhat slut-shaming, but all right.”
I laughed. “Nah. If I meant sex, I’d say sex. I mean the way you talked to me the first night, sitting by the door, the way you held out your hand to that palm reader, and how I could tell I was getting that peek inside that nobody else had seen. And every time since. It’s special. And, yeh, it’s sexy, too. Since we’re meant to be sharing.”
“At any rate,” she said, going for briskness, “by fourteen, I was ready to push back against it. I remember one day—on my fourteenth birthday, in fact, when we were talking about divination—telling her, ‘I need to think for myself, Mama. I need todecidefor myself, like you did. I need to live here, not between two worlds.’ I liked the sound of that. Dramatic, eh. ‘You chose,’ I said. ‘Why can’t I choose, too?’”
“And what did she say?” I asked.
She laughed. “She gave the most refined of snorts and said, ‘I was twenty-two, not fourteen, when I made that decision. I was educated. I was adult.’ Anyway, she held the trump card, because my father reallydidlove her that much. When he came home at night, the first thing he did was to take her in his arms and kiss her, all this tenderness and passion andheat,and the second thing was to touch her hair, which was so black, it was nearly blue, in this really …greedyway, because he was the only man who got to do that, and he just … hereveledin it. Imagine the cringe. Did I mention the bit about being a child born of a great love? I didn’t even have a sibling to roll my eyes with!”
“Still,” I said. “Could be better than two people who couldn’t be bothered.”
“There’s that,” she agreed. “As it was … when she was dying. Which I’m bringing upagain,but that’s because you reminded me of that time, when I was fourteen, and it wasn’t long after that. She’d always sing this song at home. When she was brushing her hair, or when she was singing me to sleep. It’s a love song, and it’s a lullaby.Ana La Habibi.”
I frowned. “That’s familiar.”
“Yeh. Famous song. Lebanese, but sung other places as well. You’d know it when you heard it, I’m thinking, if you’ve spent time in the Middle East, and if you paid attention. And you always do seem to be paying attention.”
That was warmth. From her, and in me. I said, “Sing it to me, and I’ll see.”
She laughed. “I’m not singing ithere.”
“Right, then. Sing it to me on the way home instead.”
That was why, half an hour later, after I’d run for the car the way I’d promised, had helped her walk to it, had wished I was carrying her instead, and had finally put her gently into the passenger seat, she sang our way home.
The songwasfamiliar, and she sang it beautifully, the Arabic syllables pouring out like liquid gold. It should have been a happy tune, but it felt bittersweet, somehow, and a lump was rising in my throat.
“What does it mean?” I asked, when the last notes had drifted away.
She recited, her voice quiet in the dark. “I belong to my love, and my love belongs to me. O white bird, do stop asking why. Let no one else reproach, let no one be displeased, for my love has called to me and said, winter has gone. The pigeon has returned, and the apple blossoms have bloomed. At my door are the mists and the morning, and in your eyes, my spring is beautiful. My love has called to me, and I will appear without question. He has stolen my sleep from me, he has stolen my peace. Now I am on his road, and his road leads to beauty.”
The words hung there in the dark, in the silence, and she said, “So you see—a song to go with the story my mother told me, and for the way my father kissed her and touched her hair. About the lightning and the thunder, and the peace that comes after the storm.”
“Sounded good,” I said. That lump in my throat was bigger now, choking me. I was going to have to like Torsten Drake, or at least to understand him. The responsibility he must have felt to have somebody trust him that completely, to love him that unreservedly. Not to have any part of his heart, or hers, held back. “Her dying, then. It must have hurt.”
She sighed. “Oh, how it hurt. She was almost past hurt, she was so tired by then, but he had enough hurt for two. She’d always sung the song to him, because, I think, it spoke her heart. When she couldn’t sing it anymore, after one of those days when even opening her eyes was almost too much, I woke in the dark and heard him singing it to her. I lay still and held my breath and listened, and I realized that whatever I’d thought I knew about love, I didn’t know enough to understand this. When the fortune-teller was holding my hand that first night with you, her eyes looking into mine … that was what I saw, even though I’d never seen it at all. His hand around hers, and her eyes struggling to open so she could look at his face, the face she loved best in the world. The face she wanted to be looking at when her light dimmed, and when it died. The man she’d left her family for, and her home. She believed in him with all her heart, and she died believing in him still. And I envy that.”
She tried to laugh, then. “Not what you thought you’d hear on a date. Let’s do something cheerful next time. Picnic. Visit to the botanic gardens. Roller skating.”
“Not on that foot,” I said. “But later, on some day when the wind’s blowing, we’ll walk into it for as long as it takes. We’ll run into the water if we want to.” I wanted to say more. I wasn’t sure how.
“You’d do that?” she asked. “Not your classic date, other than the togs, possibly, but I warn you—mine are depressingly modest. I never quite managed to have my own parental rebellion for long enough to know where I should go with it. A bit hard to rebel when your dad’s so sad, so I’m still stuck in the middle, it seems. No burkini, but no bikini, either. I do love the sea, though.”
“Long Beach,” I said. “We’ll take the girls, if you like. Long Beach, and the wild sea, watching for albatross and penguins, so you know you’re home.”
She didn’t say anything, and I found a carpark. By the time I made it around to her side, she’d pulled herself up and was standing on her right foot, saying, “I can walk, if you’ll put your arm around me. It’s not that bad.”
I said, “I’d rather carry you. What d’you reckon?”
