I’m waiting for you, she texted. It would be like you to surprise me by just appearing. No warnings given. No, Salma, I am arriving on such-and-such a flight. Or, Salma, pick me up from the airport. She laughed at the thought of seeing him again. The comedy of it. Perhaps she would not fancy him at all and instead see him as another client. Someone she would caution not to sit too much, not to lift things too heavy. Why shatter the illusion and spoil the gentle flow of nostalgia?
On and on, the back and forth of it. Every time, it became less guarded; every time, she took more risks. A selfie. A photo of her new running shoes. He sent photos of his clinic – he was showing off. He sent a voice message she could listen to time and again. Speaking to him as she was lying down was different than sitting or standing up. When they were both lying down, when they knew they were both lying down . . . Now that it started, it went on, even when Moni noticed that she was sneaking off to send voice messages, even when Iman noticed her excitement every time her phone flashed with the arrival of a new text. The guilt, if there had been any at the beginning, was trampled by repetition. Any awkwardness was ironed out. She became bolder in what she said. What she said she wanted. In theory of course, always in theory.
They exchanged secrets. He could trust her because she was far removed from his social circle. She did not know the people he rubbed against each day, the movers and shakers in his life. He told her of an incident he was ashamed of, an incident in which he had broken the law. He had not spoken to anyone about this. A week after he first opened his clinic, late one night after all the patients and receptionist had gone, two men came in. You will accompany us, they said. We are state security, they said. He went with them in their car. They blindfolded and handcuffed him but were extremely polite. The drive went on for miles. When the car stopped, and they uncovered his eyes, he saw with the first light of dawn that they had arrived at a villa in the middle of the desert. It had a wide garden and a spacious drive. There was a sprinkler in the garden. Inside, the furniture was new and expensive. He was led up the stairs to a bedroom with the television on at full blast, a singing competition. A woman in a nightdress was on the bed, tied up, obviously bruised, obviously pregnant. But he had not been brought here to tend to her wounds. You will bring the contents of her womb down, the men said.
When he said no, they held a gun to his head. They said, a shame you would die in such squalid conditions, in a bedroom in the arms of a whore. That’s the image your father and mother would carry for the rest of their lives. He had trained as a surgeon, not a gynaecologist, he had never performed an abortion before. Not even on a willing mother. This one fought him with all her strength. And the baby, a girl, was big enough to breathe, at least for a few minutes.
He said that, for months and years, he lived in fear. In fear that the woman would surface and report him, in fear that the men would show up, in the fear that such a dirty secret would pop up out of nowhere and ruin his life. Even now, he said, after all this time passed, I still walk against the wall, with my head down. ‘You’re fortunate, Salma,’ he said. ‘You are more fortunate than you think.’
The confession drew her closer to him. The catch in his voice, the fear he invoked. She understood what he had gone through, at least understood the compulsion and the shame. He would never be the same again and no one would guess why. Later, when the men drove him back to his clinic, still polite as ever, he could not believe what had happened. A slice out of his life. A bad dream. Count yourself lucky. Among the disappeared and the imprisoned for years, his tragedy wasn’t such a tragedy, his loss minute.
‘They put a gun to your head,’ Salma said. ‘There was nothing you could do. You were forced into it.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what I tell myself.’
‘Were they really state security?’
‘I don’t know. How can I ever be sure? Gangsters, mafia. I don’t want anything to do with them.’
‘Why didn’t they just get a corrupt doctor and pay him?’
‘I thought of that too. I can’t figure it out.’
The suppositions and making sense were part of the pleasure of their phone calls. She had not spoken like that in years. Every culture has its own way of reasoning. With him, she was untangling things the way she had done long ago. The same probes, the same logic. This is a function of that, this is correlated to this, correlation is not causation and, of course, there is the law of diminishing returns.
When it became her turn to confess, the mood lightened between them. She said that she had already told him about not being a physiotherapist. ‘That can’t be everything,’ he said, which made her laugh. He was right, but it was Iman who was her confidante, Iman was the one with whom she shared her secrets. She could not bring herself to tell him about the shop assistant who sold her the gloves. He was handsome and young, most likely a student, and she had felt an attraction to him that was so strong that it was almost tangible; every second in his company loaded, the whole interaction heaving. It was all
