Five

dived into the pool and the January water was a shock. I surfaced with a catch in my chest, out of breath. `Freezing,' I spluttered.

`You're mad,' Randa shouted from under the umbrella of a poolside table. She had on glamorous sunglasses and was eating a grilled cheese sandwich. My only choice was to swim, keep swimming until I warmed up. The surface of the water was warm where the sun had been hitting it all morning. It was much colder below and so I didn't swim underwater. I reached the shallow end, turned and pushed my legs against the wall, started to breaststroke to the deep end. Some foreigners were on deckchairs sunbathing, slathered in Ambre Solaire reading Sidney Sheldon, but I had the whole of the pool to myself.

It took three lengths before the stiffness of the cold melted away and I began to enjoy myself. My eyes tingled with chlorine, the familiar taste of it in my mouth. My arms and legs separated the water, making a way for me to go ahead. Yesterday I walked right past Anwar without saying hello - he was with some friends pinning up the latest newspapers. It made me feel good to ignore him. He was waiting for me when I came out of the Accounting lecture all nice and smiling as if nothing had happened. He expected me to go walking with him but I just went oft with some girls to the cafeteria. I could still feel, moving in the water, a dull anger towards him.

When I got out of the pool, I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat next to Randa.

The lifeguard couldn't take his eyes off von,' she said.

`Very funny.' I stole a quick look at him. He was wearing a yellow polo shirt over swimming trunks. He was Eritrean.

I took my comb out of my hag and started to tug at my hair. I did not have nice, smooth hair like Mama's.

`Aren't you going to have a shower and shampoo it?'

`No.' After what she had told my about the lifeguard I felt too shy to go and stand under the showers which were just next to him.

`He'll get a good view of you then,' she giggled.

`Exactly.' I felt uncomfortable for no reason. Mama didn't object to me swimming as long as I didn't wear a bikini but, ever since I started university, I had begun to feel awkward, even in my black full-piece.

`My dad booked my ticket today,' Randa said.

`No!'

`Yes. I'm leaving next Saturday. Monday the term will start.'

I counted the days. Ten more days.

`We'll have a goodbye party for you,' I said.

`That will be nice.'

I tried to imagine where she was going. She was not going to London. She was going to Wales. I said, `fly cousin Samir is there too, at Atlantic College. You know, he said they have to do mountain climbing and outdoors stuff like that. It's part of the syllabus. He can tell you all about it. He's here now for the Christmas holidays.'

I pushed my chair hack from under the umbrella so that the sun could dry my hair. Chlorine-streaked hair. I had to go home, wash it and set it fast because I had an evening class.

I wore my denim skirt that evening. It was my favourite, tight and longish, with a slit at the hack. It had two side pockets and a zipper in front just like trousers. I wore my red short-sleeved blouse with the little blue flowers on the collar. My hair turned out nice that day, wavy and not crinkling up into curls. I cared that day about how I looked, more than usual. As if by looking good I would annoy Anwar or show him that I didn't care.

He wasn't there when I got to the university at five. I was late for my lecture because Omar had gone out with Samir and I had made the mistake of waiting for him. A breeze blew around the trees as I took a short cut across the lawn. The boy from the canteen was spreading out a big palm-fibre mat on the grass. He unrolled it and was shifting it around, getting the angle just right.

The Economics class was good that evening - Rostow's Take-off, which I understood and it made perfect sense to me. Our country was going to take off one day like an aeroplane, we just needed to keep jogging, to accelerate our development and then we'd move, slowly at first but then much quicker, from our backwardness, faster and faster until lift-off, take-off. We would become great, become normal like all the other rich Western countries; we would catch up with them. I was understanding all of this crystal clear, writing in my notebook, wishing Omar was with me, knowing that he would have loved Rostow. But then the professor pushed his glasses up his nose and said, `And now the Marxist criticism of Rostow's explanation for underdevelopment.' So it wasn't true after all.

We were not going to take oft. Around me the students began to shuffle their feet and fidget, murmur that it was time to pray. The professor ignored them. `History shows that not all developed nations have followed Rostow's model ...' The murmurs increased and two brave boys just walked out, some girls started to giggle. The professor gave in and said, `We'll have a ten-minute break.'

A rush for the door. `Because he's a communist, he's not bothered about the prayers,' smiled the girl next to me, the pretty one with the dimples. She passed me in a hurry to go out, calling out to her friends, her high-heeled slippers slapping her heels. She wore a blue tote today and looked even more cute. All the girls wore white tubes in the mornings and coloured ones in the evening. I liked watching the change in them, from the plain white in the morning to blue and pink flowers, patterns in bold colours.

I was one of the last to leave the class. Outside, I found Anwar chatting warmly with the professor as if they were old friends. I walked past them to the garden outside and sat on the steps of the porch watching those who were praying. Not everyone prayed. Girls like me who didn't wear topes or hijab weren't praying and you could tell which bons were members of the Front, because they weren't praying. The others lined up on the palm-fibre mat but it was too small to take everyone. The ones who came late made do with the grass. Our Maths lecturer, who belonged to the Muslim Brothers, spread his white handkerchief on the grass. He stood, his shoulder brushing against the gardener's. The student who was leading recited the Qur'an in an effortless, buoyant style. I gazed at all the topes of the girls, the spread of colours, stirred by the occasional gust of wind. And when they bowed down there was the fall of polyester on the grass.

`Why are you ignoring me?' Anwar's voice next me. I felt as if he was interrupting me - from what, I didn't know. I didn't reply. I got up and walked away in the direction of the lecture room. I couldn't see the students praying anymore and I felt a stab of envy for them. It was sudden and irrational. What was there to envy?

Anwar followed me. We were alone in front of the lecture room. He held my arm, above my elbow. `Don't play with me.'

`I am the one who is angry.' I tugged my arm away but he still held on.

`Is it what I said that day at the talk?'

`Yes it is what you said that day at the talk.'

He let go of my arm. `it has nothing to do with you

`It's my name. It's my father.'

`You're taking it personally. Broaden your mind.'

`I don't want to broaden my mind.'

`Do you know what people are saying about him?'

`I don't want to know.'

`They call him Mr Ten Per Cent. Do you know why?'

`Stop it.'

`You can't bury your head in the sand. You have to know what he's doing. He's taking advantage of his post in the government. He takes commissions on every deal the government makes with a foreign company.'

Anwar said the word `commissions' in English. It sounded to my ear formal and blameless. `So!' I said, sarcastic.

He lowered his voice, but it was sharper. `He's embezzling money. This life you're living - your new car, your new house. Your family's getting richer by the day ... Can't you see, it's corrupt?'

My anger was like a Curtain between us. 'How dare you say these lies about my father! My father is me. My family ►s me.

'Try and understand this. My feelings for you and my politics are separate. It's had enough I'm laughed at for going with you.'

'Then leave me alone. ,Just leave me alone and no one will laugh at you.'

He blew impatiently, turned and went. I walked into the lecture room and, instead of emptiness, found a girl wearing hijab sitting filing her nails. She looked smug and carefree, filing her nails. She had probably heard all the conversation between me and Anwar. What was she doing here anyway instead of going out to pray? She probably had her period. I sat down in my seat and, to prove to myself that I wasn't upset, I took my pen and started to make an invitation list for Randa's goodbye party.