tales of drunken parties and sexual perversion. Surely that’s what she wants to hear. Or does she really care for me? In that case I could put her mind at rest, and tell her I was married a virgin. She would clasp my hands, and smile into my face, and her bracelets would jangle. The Arab News says, “Love after marriage is the true, the long-lasting fond. Love before marriage is naive, weak, and baseless.”
Since New Year there have not been many parties. All the people who saw too much of each other over the holiday are now staying at home, by unspoken agreement—as if they had called a truce. Andrew and I are alone most evenings, and meanwhile Yasmin’s mother is still in residence across the hall, and the junketings get more strenuous week by week, and Yasmin gets more weak and tearful. In the mornings, if she can, she comes here for a cup of coffee, and for five minutes’ refuge—and I commiserate with her. She does not mention our meeting on the roof. She says, And where have you and Andrew been? And I say, Oh, nowhere really.
I wish this man Fairfax would come. I’d like to spend an hour with someone from the real world.
Andrew and I talk a lot about our leave, about what we are going to do in the summer. July seems a long way off. I realize that we live in the future. That seems no healthier than living in the past.
Andrew’s paycheck hasn’t come yet. It’s not just Turadup. Other people are in the same position, all over town. Until now everyone was paid on time, by the Arabic calendar. So the men would look at the full moon, and say, in their romantic fashion, “Ah, halfway to pay day.” But they don’t say that anymore.
We talk: about the building. Even when funds start to flow again, Andrew will have to cut corners, which is foreign to his nature. What can I say to him? There are other things I would like to talk about. How long are we going to stay here, and what kind of person will I have become before we leave? I might have become a Muslim. Or I might have joined one of those feminist groups which believes men should be kept in cages and periodically milked for their semen, so that it can be used for artificial insemination—there being no other use for them, and no other need, and they being the source of all misery and wars.
But when Andrew asked me if I wanted to go, I couldn’t say yes. I know he would leave tomorrow, if he thought I was seriously unhappy. I’m not unhappy, not really. I just want to talk about the things that really bother me, but when I try to do that I get some sort of block, some sort of impediment in my throat. I think I am afraid that Andrew will laugh at me.
The Saudi Gazette says: “Love may be a most important basis for marriage only in novels and poetry. In practical life, however, it does not provide a firm foundation for a happy married life. This is due to the fact that people change with the passage of time. It is well known in all societies that the overwhelming majority of marriage cases based on love do not last long.”
If we did leave here, where would we go? We don’t belong anywhere, physically. If we didn’t have each other we wouldn’t belong anywhere emotionally. We sit in the evenings, looking at each other, and I feel that he wants something that I can’t give him, and that I want something that he can’t give me. A familiar problem in marriage, I suppose. I feel weak with need for him, mental need, physical need. Isn’t it strange that no matter how many times you sleep together, you don’t get any closer? I feel that perhaps by nature we are lonely people. Then I think, perhaps everyone is like this, and their need to be together is only just a bit stronger than their need to be apart. I agree that love doesn’t guarantee anything. But with the odds stacked up as they are, love certainly doesn’t do any harm.
One thing is clear, anyway. I cannot bring up the matter of the rifleman while Andrew is having his grilled sirloin and green salad. That would not be the time to do it. I cannot find a time to do it that would not upset our long-lasting fond.
January weather: overcast, windy, cool. A stack of concrete slabs has been moved on to the vacant lot, and some builders’ vehicles; the Yemeni workmen have knocked together little shacks, which will keep the sun off them, when the sun comes back. But today the sky hangs low over Ghazzah Street, and the crane that bisects the view from the window seems very close to the ground. Every speck of gray dust is visible on the leaves of Dunroamin’s single tree. Soon the King, the court, and the Muslim scholars will hold rain-prayers; but as they wish to reinforce faith, not to injure it, they will not ask for rain until the weather forecasters promise that it is in the offing. Meanwhile Dunroamin is quiet: the pipes gurgle, there is a crackle of voices from a radio, but there are no footsteps up above. Even the rats seem to have gone back into their holes. The branches of the tree toss soundlessly. A car engine splutters, out of sight. Inside the flat a dim silence reigns; but the doors rattle in the draft.
At a quarter to nine there was a battering at the door. It was the landlord, greasy and rotund as ever. Behind him stood a wan and gangling figure, unkempt, straggle-haired, knock-knees bare under a tunic and dhoti.
The landlord smiled at Frances. “Madam,” he said, “we are going to paint you. All buildings in Jeddah must be brilliant white. By Order. All unsightly wooden structures must be demolished.”
The bare-legged man rested his gaze on the lintel. He didn’t acknowledge Frances, didn’t seem to notice her presence at all. He looked, with his sepulchral features and his wrappings, like the subject of some dull religious painting, who is rising from the dead; and whose thoughts, understandably, are elsewhere.
“We haven’t got any unsightly wooden structures,” Frances said. She felt unfriendly; blocked the doorway with her body.
The landlord stabbed his finger in the direction of the vacant lot. “Uncomformable to regulations,” he said. “All these must go. Otherwise you will get the hajjis living in them. The pilgrims, if you understand me, madam. They come for their pilgrimages and try to stay. They will set up anywhere.”
“Really, will they?”
“These Third World persons are disease-bearing,” the landlord said. “Have you not had the hajji flu, madam?”
“We weren’t here at the pilgrimage season.”
“They have plagues,” the landlord said. “Still, it is unlucky for them. Madam—” he paused, and smiled his bristling smile, seeming to remember why he had come; he pointed to the gangling man, drawing attention to him, as if he were an object in a picture book. “Madam, this is an Egyptian. I want you to know this man.”
“Is he your foreman?”
“Boss-man, yes. I’m telling you so he don’t alarm you, going up and down, up and down the stairs.”
“He don’t alarm me,” Frances said. She felt an urge to stretch out her hand and give the Egyptian a little push, to see if he would keel over. Still he stared ahead of him; a film of sweat glistened on his face. “Will he be going up
