Twenty-nine

oesn't his sister suspect anything?' She hugs the cushion on her lap. It is amber and round, worn out by the children and overnight guests who use it as a pillow.

No, I don't think so. Maybe there is nothing to suspect. Maybe you're overreacting.'

`I'm not. He has a crush on you.' Shahinaz has a soft voice when she's at hone. She changes when she closes the front door behind her, when she takes off her coat and pulls off her headscarf. She relaxes and becomes gentle, off-guard. It makes her more beautiful now at home than at the Eid party with the make-up and shimmering clothes. Maybe this is how it should be.

it will wear out,' I say. `It'll pass.' This is what I'm doing; waiting for the day he will outgrow me, heading towards it like death.

And between now and then?'

`I'll he careful. Nothing will go wrong.' But I am standing hack and watching, watching how his attachment to me will play itself out.

She sighs and takes a sip of her tea. Her children are asleep, her husband is upstairs, her mother-in-law is moving about in the kitchen. I like being with a family, even these fleeting visits, these temporary sounds and smells. `I wish we were living centuries ago and, instead of just working for Tamer's family, I would he their slave.'

She makes a face. You mean Concubine.'

`There would he advantages in that.'

She shakes her head. `I can't believe you're saying this. No one in their right mind wants to be a slave.'

So I don't tell her of my fantasies. My involvement in his wedding to a young suitable girl who knows him less than I do. She will mother children who spend more time with me ...

`Look,' she says, `I know you regard him as a kid brother but does he know that? Maybe you should tell him.'

`I can't because it's not true.'

I watch the realization settle on her face. She blushes and I feel ashamed. She says, When I think of a man I admire, he would have to know more than me, he older than me. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to look up to him. And you can't marry a man you don't look up to. Otherwise how can you listen to him or let him guide you?'

I don't have anything to say. I stare down at my hands, my warped self and distorted desires. I would like to be his family's concubine, like something out of The Arahlanz Nights, with life-long security and a sense of belonging. But I must settle for freedom in this modern time. Shahinaz envies me sometimes, when her husband, children and mother-in-law weigh her down, when she has no room to herself, no time to herself, she envies the empty spaces around me.

She puts away the cushion she has been cradling. `So many times I've introduced you to prospective bridegrooms and every time you said, "I can't feel anything towards him." Now suddenly you've changed!'

The impatience in her voice makes me clam up, the way she mimicked me. I feel myself slowly shutting down. She says, `It's not going to work out, Najwa. His parents will never agree.'

I take a deep breath. It is as if the room is too small, too warm. It is time to change the subject, to talk about her, to ask about the course she has applied to. It is the right tactic because she beams and says, `Yes, I heard from them. They've accepted me.' She stands up and moves to the mantelpiece, opens a drawer and comes back with the letter of acceptance. She shows it to me proudly. It is from the same university Tamer attends. I think of him with the burden of studying a subject he doesn't like, and her with her enthusiasm. She is going to be a mature student. Every day she will go to class and after three years she will get a degree. It is an old wish, a hankering she had had ever since she got married, and then one baby after another dampened her hopes, kept her at home. `Sohayl is supportive,' she says. He wants me to study. He filled the application form for me.'

I am touched by her life, how it moves forward, pulses and springs. There is no fragmentation, nothing stunted or wedged. I circle hack, I regress; the past doesn't let go. It might as well be a malfunction, a scene repeating itself, a scratched vinyl record, a stutter.