Swimming on the Lawn Page 4

  ‘May we speak to George until you get back?’ asks Selma.

  ‘Of course you can. He’ll be very happy to see you.’

  We run to the huge aviary at the side of the verandah, and look through the wire mesh.

  ‘Hello, George,’ I say to the beautiful African grey parrot perched on one of the branches of the tree growing in the middle of his palace.

  ‘Hello,’ says George. He grinds his beak to show us he’s pleased to see us, and he sidles towards us.

  ‘We’ve come to see baby Klaus,’ says Selma. ‘And you,’ she adds.

  ‘Scheise,’ says George, and flips upside down.

  ‘That’s rude. Say hello again. Hello, George,’ says Selma.

  George flaps his wings and rights himself onto the branch.

  ‘Say hello,’ repeats Selma.

  ‘Nein,’ says George. He seems to be smiling as he hops onto another branch and walks right up to the mesh. ‘Hellooo,’ he says, and bows his head towards where the palm of my hand is resting on the wire.

  I poke my finger through the mesh and stroke his feathers. ‘Good boy,’ I say. ‘You are very clever.’

  ‘Good boy,’ says George, and Selma goes up on tiptoe and strokes him as well.

  ‘Do you think we could let him out?’ Selma asks me.

  ‘I don’t think we should, because Aunty Nina will have baby Klaus, and then George might get jealous. I expect he’ll be let out later.’

  ‘Out,’ says George.

  We hear a baby’s cry, which means Aunty Nina is back in the garden.

  ‘Sorry, George,’ I say. ‘We have to go now.’

  ‘Bye bye, George,’ says Selma.

  ‘Scheise,’ says George, and turns his back on us.

  The servant carries out a tray with a jug of freshly made lemonade. He fills the drinking glasses and places them on the table in front of us as we sit down. Meanwhile Aunty Nina has put Klaus in his highchair. He has dark brown eyes, but his skin is very pale, almost white, and his thick dark hair is damp with sweat. He is wearing a light-blue romper suit that looks expensive and not homemade.

  ‘Hello, Klaus. You had a good sleep?’ I ask. He waves his arms, smiles and shows off his two teeth. The servant passes Aunty Nina a boiled egg in an eggcup on a small plate. She taps the top of the egg with a teaspoon and lifts the cracked shell as though it is a crumpled hat. The egg white is runny and only partly set. Selma and I look away and focus on our drinks. Mama always makes sure that our egg whites are well cooked, even if they are from our own chickens, but Aunty Nina doesn’t have any chickens.

  ‘Mmmm,’ says Aunty Nina as she holds out another spoonful in front of Klaus, who opens his mouth wide like a baby bird. I look at Selma and we both take another sip of lemonade as we concentrate on keeping the sick from rising from our stomachs.

  The Hairdresser

  Mama has an appointment at the hairdresser, and I go with her so that I can look after Amir while she is having her hair done. On the way, we drop off Selma and Sami at a friend’s house, and then Dad drives us into town and stops the car in front of the cake shop on the corner nearest to where we have to go. We wave goodbye to Dad as he drives off, then we step up onto the wide, tiled verandah in front of the row of shops.

  Mama is carrying Amir and I’ve got the empty shopping basket. The smell of baking and sugar wafts around us. By one of the verandah’s brick pillars I notice that the albino family is in their usual place. A woman and two children are sitting on a flattened piece of cardboard so that they look as if they are marooned on a small brown island surrounded by a grey terrazzo sea. Both children have white skin, white hair, and behind their sunglasses I know they have pale eyes with red-rimmed eyelids that look sore. Mama stops, opens her purse and gives some money to Amir, before lowering him to the floor.

  ‘Give the money to the lady,’ she tells him. Amir puts the money in the woman’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ says the woman. ‘May God bless you and give you a long life.’

  Mama picks up Amir again and we walk past the gold jewellery shop. Its window display is glittering and shining with rows of elaborate gold wedding necklaces, and sets of bangles engraved with the latest designs. The shopkeeper is standing in his doorway and I can see him looking at Mama who is wearing no jewellery at all apart from her wedding ring. He hesitates, before giving up on this particular customer and going back into his shop without the usual entreaties to come inside.

  We climb the narrow stairs wedged in the gap between the dress material shop and the chemist. At the top of the steps is a metal door that Mama pushes open. We are in a large room full of women.

  ‘Take a seat, we won’t be long,’ someone’s voice calls out from the other end of the room.

  The radio is on and some of the women are singing along with it. Recognising the popular song by a local singer I take Amir from Mama and twirl with him to the music. There is a row of chairs along the wall nearest the door, most of them occupied, but Mama and I find two empty seats together and we sit down. Opposite us are women sitting on chairs facing away from us and towards a wall of mirrors. Most of them are having their hair done in the latest fancy styles, probably to attend a wedding. Some are having their nails done.

  To our right are three loudly droning hairdryers that look like giant Anglepoise lamps, each with a pale blue shade blasting warm air over a lady’s head. A couple of other women, drinking glasses of mint tea, are having their damp hair divided into sections and stretched smoothly over giant hair rollers that are then pinned in place with long black metal hairgrips. Two women, with rollers already fastened in neat rows all over their heads, are chatting while they wait for the hairdryers to become available.

  Sitting in my lap, Amir leans his head on my chest and closes his eyes. I put my arms around him and gently rock him. A smell of burning catches my attention. A customer is having sections of hair twisted into tight ringlets by one hairdresser while another quickly runs a lighted candle up and down the length of the twisted hair, the flame shrivelling and sealing the split ends that are poking out like stiff hairbrush bristles. I touch Mama’s arm and point. ‘Why don’t they just cut off the split ends with scissors? What if her hair catches fire?’

  ‘It is dangerous,’ Mama says. ‘But they think that cutting the hair makes it much shorter than burning the ends.’

  ‘It stinks,’ I say, as I fan the air under my nose with my hand.

  I watch as one of the customers has her hair sprayed with lots of hairspray which means that she’ll be leaving soon. Most of her hair is piled on top of her head in a big beehive style. The long fringe at the front is parted in the middle and the hair is swept across each side of her forehead like two black glossy wings, the tips of which are pinned behind her ears with hairgrips. The hairdresser holds up a mirror behind the woman’s head, so that she can admire the back of her hairdo. I can see her smiling in the mirror. She opens the small purse on her lap, takes out some money and discreetly tips the hairdresser, and then she gets up and goes to the counter to pay. I watch as she counts out some notes, then tucks her purse down the neckline of her dress and into her brassiere. She adjusts her chiffon scarf neatly over her hair before leaving the salon.

  Mama is called and has her hair washed even though she has already washed it this morning. Soon she is sitting in the chair the beehive lady was in, and the hairdresser is mixing colour in a bowl. It takes ages to section Mama’s thick hair and cover the roots with a dark paste using a small flat brush. Mama sometimes says her hair is going grey before her time from all the worry we cause her, but I know that can’t really be true.

  Amir is fast asleep on my lap and sweat has dampened and curled his hair. Mama will be at least another hour, so I close my eyes and hum along with the radio.

  The Mawlid

  Today is the Mawlid, the Prophet’s birthday. It is late in the afternoon, just before sunset, and we are all excited as we tumble into the back seat of the car.

>   ‘My turn to sit by the window,’ says Sami, and Selma doesn’t even argue. All the car windows are down as we drive into the centre of town. We look at the rows of shops with their lights on, and at the crowds of people dressed up in their best clothes. We can smell charcoal smoke and simmering beans that will continue cooking slowly all night in their large round-bottomed steel pots. They will be perfectly tender in time to be sold from the food kiosks for the next morning’s breakfasts.

  Dad drives twice around the big roundabout in front of the president’s palace so that we can see the fountains and feel the damp air. Hundreds of people sit on the low walls, but policemen with long, green palm tree branches that have been stripped of their leaves wave them like whips to stop anyone from putting their hands or feet in the water.

  We pass the closed wrought-iron palace gates, then our car takes the road that follows alongside the high, whitewashed wall that encloses the palace gardens all the way to the river. Taking a left onto Blue Nile Road the car slows as we merge into a traffic jam. We can feel the cooling river breeze as the car moves at walking pace. We watch families strolling along the pavement or leaning over the low embankment wall looking at the water. Crowds around each lamppost are buying peanuts or toasted watermelon seeds pre-packaged in newspaper cornets that have nothing but the twisted pointy end keeping them together. The sound of adults chatting and laughing, and children squealing, is all around us. Perfume from the passing women wafts into the car.

  We pass several dark government buildings with single lights by the entrances where a lone night guard is on duty. Ahead, moored to the riverbank, is an old but stately paddle-steamer with strings of white lights looped around the railings and the posts of the upper deck. On the other side of the road, I can see the bright lights of the Grand Hotel. Rich ladies in sparkling dresses or silk thobes sit in cane lounging chairs and chat while they drink glasses of sweetened lime juice with lots of ice cubes. Men in white shirts and dark trousers are drinking cold Camel beer. Others sip hot mint tea from dainty gold-rimmed glasses.

  We have never been to the Grand Hotel at night. Sometimes, as a very special treat, we have been there on a Friday morning, and had ice-cold Fanta or ginger beer on the hotel terrace under one of the umbrellas, and been waited on by men in white jellabiahs with wide green sashes around their waists.

  Dad drives on past the lights and into the dark again. We approach the old iron bridge designed by a Frenchman a long time ago. The water looks black under the bridge, but if it had been daylight we would have seen the blue water of the Blue Nile meet the white water of the White Nile and mingle before becoming one vast river flowing towards the north.

  On the other side of the bridge, everything is different. There are fewer trees lining the main road, which is so full of potholes that Dad drives in the dirt alongside it. Narrow tracks run left at intervals and disappear into the dark. Occasionally there is a streetlight that is working, and it stands tall, proudly showing off its flickering halo of moths. Long brick walls change height and sometimes texture, marking where one house’s courtyard ends and the next one begins. The pillared entrances to the courtyards vary in style, but most of the wooden doors are either bleached by the sun or have faded patches of paint. Occasionally we pass a metal gate brightly lit by an electric bulb mounted on top of the wall, which probably means the people who live there have relatives working abroad in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, and who send money home.

  Dad parks the car under a lonely streetlight. We can hear music distorted by loudspeakers, and see thin clouds of dust hanging low in the dark sky, lit from below by yellowy-orange light.

  Mama holds Sami’s hand and Dad carries Amir, while Selma and I follow them down a narrow street and into a large square. The din surrounds us. The music is so loud that I can feel the vibrations of the drums in my chest like a swarm of trapped and angry flies. Loudspeaker announcements are lost in shrieks of feedback. Everyone is shouting to be heard.

  Stalls line the perimeter of the huge dusty maidaan. Kiosks festooned with strings of white electric lights are a bright contrast to the soft, wavering golden flicker of those lit by lone kerosene lamps. The square is a mass of people, slowly moving in different directions like jam on a slow boil. To one side and above the crowd I can see a Ferris wheel. Each bench seat rising up into the dusty air is packed with screaming people.

  ‘Stay together,’ shouts Mama. ‘We’ll go round some of the stalls first.’

  The stalls are beautiful. The counters are stacked with shiny and brittle rectangular slabs made of sesame seeds and honey, dry-toasted chickpeas and honey, or peanuts and honey. On the high shelves behind the stallholders are the sugar dolls. Bright-pink granulated sugar has been compressed and cast into dolls. Each one is dressed in colourful tissue paper with a layered skirt and ruffled blouse, and fixed to each doll’s back is a huge paper fan spread out behind her head like a gaudy peacock’s tail.

  On the shelves below the dolls are treats for boys. Orange sugar has been cast into horses, tanks, jeeps, and soldiers holding guns. Every stall has similar treats. I can smell the warm sweet scent of roses wafting from the trays of Turkish delight. Dad buys Mama a box of pale white delight flecked with green pistachios. For the family he buys several slabs of sesame crisp, and one of toasted chickpeas just for me.

  Selma and I are allowed to choose a sugar doll each, and we agonise over the different coloured costumes.

  ‘Can I pleease have a tank?’ asks Sami.

  ‘May I,’ Mama corrects, automatically.

  ‘Pleease may I have a tank?’

  ‘You can have a horse.’

  ‘I don’t want a horse, I want a tank.’

  ‘I don’t really want you to have a weapon. You like animals, Sami, and the horse is lovely. It’s even got reins and a saddle.’

  ‘I don’t want the horse. If I can’t have the tank, can I, I mean … may I have a soldier?’

  ‘Sami, the soldier has a weapon.’

  Sami is looking upset and is trying not to cry.

  ‘Oh, let him have the tank,’ says Dad. ‘It’s only going to last five minutes. Go on, Sami, point at which one you want and the man will wrap it up in newspaper for you, so you don’t get sticky.’

  Dad passes Amir to Mama so that he can pay, and Mama presses her lips together and I can see that she isn’t pleased.

  Selma and I point to the dolls we want. We don’t want them wrapped, so the man hands them to us.

  ‘Thank you,’ we say.

  ‘Thank you,’ whispers Sami, blinking his eyes to keep away the tears.

  ‘Affwan. You’re welcome,’ replies Dad with a smile.

  Mama hugs Amir, and she is smiling again. ‘We don’t need to look at any more stalls. Let’s go and see the dancers,’ she says.

  We follow Dad as he squeezes through the throng. The dust is going up my nose, and I can feel little stones hurting the soles of my feet, and sand is stuck between my toes with sweat. My sandals will need whitening with polish again.

  Holding my sugar doll to my chest with one arm, I shield its paper fan with my other to prevent it being crushed. Dad has come to a stop, and Mama is beside him. The dust in the air is thickening around us. The drumming is louder here, but it’s a different rhythm from the one over the loudspeaker. My eyes itch and I sneeze. We push through the space between our parents and stand in front of them.

  Rows of twirling, leaping men stamp their bare feet in unison as they land in time to the beat of the drums. They are dressed in brightly coloured patchwork robes, with lots of green. Long strands of beads and amulets hang around their necks, leather belts are slung over their shoulders, and they hold long shiny swords up in the air. Small curved daggers in leatherwork scabbards are strapped to their upper arms, and their hair is twisted into matted strands that look like burnt sausages.

  Each time the men stamp their feet they exhale a loud ‘whoom’. They seem to be in a trance, and as I stand and watch and listen, I just make out a lone v
oice chanting praises to God and to the birth of his last prophet.

  Ants

  Selma and I put our sugar dolls in the cabinet in the dining room. We wedge them in front of Mama’s best china tea set, so we can see them through the sliding glass doors.

  ‘I’m going to start eating mine tomorrow,’ says Selma.

  ‘I’m going to keep mine,’ I say.

  Selma follows me into the bathroom and watches me clean my teeth. ‘If I let you have some of my doll tomorrow, will you give me some of yours when you eat it?’

  ‘I’m keeping it forever, I’m not going to eat it.’

  ‘But if you did one day eat it could I have some?’

  ‘I’m not going to eat it.’

  ‘But if you change your mind.’

  ‘Yesss, you can have some.’

  I am drinking my morning cup of tea on the verandah when I hear the milkman clang his ladle on his milk churn down by our gate to let us know he’s arrived.

  ‘Milkman’s here!’

  On hearing my shout, the milkman rides his donkey slowly up our drive, right up to the kitchen door.

  ‘Milkman’s here!’ I shout again.

  Mama’s voice comes from the bathroom. ‘Farida, get the big saucepan from the kitchen. The money’s on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Okay,’ I call back.

  In the kitchen I count the milk money, and then fetch our largest saucepan, the one with two handles. I carry it outside and hand it up to the milkman, and then I go to the donkey’s head and stroke its nose. The milkman, in his short, knee-length jellabiah and long underdrawers, remains sitting in the saddle. A large shiny metal churn is strapped to either side of the donkey. The caps on the churns are high enough for the milkman to comfortably rest his elbows on as though sitting in an armchair. I watch him take off the caps, and then I silently count as the milkman dips his one-pint ladle into the right-hand churn three times, then into the left-hand churn three times. He must have had a few more customers than usual this morning, because he has to lean far into each churn to reach the milk.