Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel

Jeff chortled. “Who knows what’s under the veil?”

“No, we’ve never seen anybody,” Andrew said. “Frances thought she heard footsteps once. But she wasn’t sure.”

“The Deputy Minister’s nephew, isn’t it?” Marion said.

“Brother, I thought.” Andrew turned to Parsons. “Eric, didn’t you tell me his brother.”

“Did I? Must be then.”

“I thought it was the nephew,” Jeff said. “Greasy character. Looks the type. You’d know him if you saw him, Andrew, he hangs around the Ministry.”

Andrew smiled. “Don’t think I would, you know, Jeff old boy. All these colored chappies in white frocks look the same to me, don’t you know? Tea towels on their heads. Filthy foreign food. Eat goats, you know. Dreadful types. All right with that bottle down there, are you? Get you another?”

Surely they would go home soon. Frances closed her eyes. She saw skeletons, neat, bleached, reticulated, on the vast desert floor. Andrew touched her. She jumped. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said.

“You were.”

It was two o’clock when everyone left. Andrew waved a hand at them as he opened the gate, meaning hush, keep the noise down. The roads were empty, the night air was mild. They stood for a moment in the shadow of the wall, their arms around each other, then reentered Dunroamin, locking the doors behind them. Inside, a procession of cockroaches was wending its way along the hall toward the kitchen bin. Andrew went for the spray. “I’ll sweep them up in the morning,” he said; and then, violently, brought down his foot on the largest of them, squashing it into the tiles.

“Oh, Christ,” Frances said. The mess was horrifying; quite disproportionate. Blood, debris, detached legs. A slaughterhouse.

“The others will eat it,” Andrew said.

“I’ll have to rinse all the plates off. There’re ants, as well.”

Andrew took her shoulder, pulled her toward him, ran a hand over her breast. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Come to bed.”

“You can’t do it,” she said. “You’re too drunk.”

“I can try. Or do you hate all men tonight, is that it? I don’t think I’d blame you.”

Over his shoulder she saw the pans piled up in the sink, the tray of sticky glasses, the saucer overflowing with Russel’s cigarette butts, and the stained napkins in a heap on the drain board. She laid her head against his chest. “No,” she said. “You’re all right.”

Rabi al-thani

Frances Shore’s Diary: 1 Rabi al-thani

Sometimes I wake up saying, I hope nobody crosses me today.

Sometimes the air seems too thick to breathe.

Since the dinner party life has just gone on. I cook, and we shop. We sleep late at weekends, watch a film. When I am in a good mood I think of the money mounting up in the bank. Now the shops are full of “seasonal trees.” The Embassies are holding carol services, which they call “Family Welfare Meetings.” The word “Christmas” is not to be mentioned, but nobody can impede the progress of goodwill to all men.

Andrew accuses me of lacking tact. He says that it seems to him that I ask too many questions, and don’t I remember that when we came to Dunroamin we were told to be careful? He says I shouldn’t be allowed out into the hall without a UN peacekeeping force.

My neighbors say women are not veiled because they are despised, but because they are revered. It is out of self-respect that they cover their faces and bodies, and out of respect for them that men do not look. At first this is plausible—but it bothers me. Something is wrong. I know what it is. I just don’t believe it.

Everything is fine, for about two weeks at a time. But then some word, some event, some trivial incident, will trigger off a screaming rage. I don’t scream, of course, but sometimes I cry a little, in private, knowing that if I could cry properly, yell and bawl and shed tears, I wouldn’t wake up in the mornings with such a leaden weight inside my head. I would like to tear the roof off, and let some light into the flat. I would like to run down the street, hitting people. Run amok. I would like to stride up to the next veiled woman I see and tear the black cloth from her face, and rip it up before her eyes.

I know that would be wrong. But I would like to do it.

Andrew says the leaden feeling is sinus trouble. He says you get it from living with air- conditioning.

CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM

FROM: Director, Turadup, William and Schaper, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

TO: All expatriate staff

DATE: 2 Rabi al-thani / 24 December

We have received extremely strong hints, from our valued and most reliable contacts, that the police will be out in force over the “Festive Season,” that Breathalyzer equipment has been issued, and that random roadblocks and on-the-spot checks are to be expected. Everything indicates a blitz aimed at putting a damper on expatriate festivities therefore PLEASE remember that in the event of your being picked up under the influence there is very little that Turadup can do for you.

May I wish you all the compliments of the Season, and a happy and prosperous New Year

When Frances went across the hall, and rang Yasmin’s doorbell, a huge yellow sari opened the door; and Raji’s mother looked down at her, in silence. She did not speak any English, or if she did, she didn’t speak it now; and she folded her arms across her matron’s bosom, seeming to squash it into overlapping layers and yellow folds. Her face was jowly, her