Read Online Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel - Free Book Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
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There was a furrier: fox, wild mink, sable. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. The smell of fried chicken mingled with the scent of Chanel and Armani. Between the Porsches, a fountain played in a marble basin. She stopped before a
shoe shop; a window of tiny high-heeled sandals, green, lilac, red, gold. “Why these?” she said. “Westerners have more sober shoes.”
“I suppose that if you have to go out draped in black to your ankles, you want some way to express yourself.”
She followed Andrew. “Can’t they buy furs when they go abroad? They can’t need them in this climate.”
“Money is a burden all the year round.”
They bought cassette tapes; cheap copies, pirated in Asia and imported by the shopful. All the latest stuff was on the shelves; rock music, and Vivaldi’s Greatest Hits . She didn’t buy the Vivaldi. She planned to fill the flat with noise. I am thirty years old, she thought, and I still buy this, whatever is current, whatever is loud. When they came out of the music shop it was time for night prayers, and men were unrolling prayer carpets on the ground.
“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet,” Andrew muttered. Gates clashed down over the shop windows, doors were barred. In a space by the fountain—which now, unaccountably, had run dry—the worshippers jostled together in lines behind the imam, and then in time fell to their knees, and touched their foreheads to the ground, elevating their backsides. It was just as she had seen it in pictures; she was always surprised if anything was the same.
They stood watching, in the heat. Andrew looked as if he wished to speak; but perhaps he had no right to an opinion? She glanced at him sideways. “Oh go on,” she muttered. “Spit it out. I know you hate religion.”
“Oh, they must do as they like,” he said. “It’s not my business, is it? It’s just the ablutions I mind. They have to wash before they pray, all sorts of inconvenient bits of themselves. When you go into the lavatories at the Ministry all the floor is flooded, and people are standing on one leg with their other foot in the handbasin. You can’t … you want to laugh.” He took out his handkerchief from the pocket of his jeans and mopped his brow. “We timed this trip badly. But people are always getting caught like this. There’s only a couple of hours between sunset and night prayers.”
And then, she thought, eight hours till dawn. Her feet ached,
still swollen perhaps from the flight. When prayers were over they went into a fast-food shop. Small Korean men in a uniform of check shirts and cowboy hats grilled hamburgers behind the counter, and stacked trays, and busily cleaned the tables. There was an all-male party of young Filipinos in one corner, and Saudi youths sprawled across the plastic benches, nourishing their puppy-fat and their incipient facial hair.
A sign said FAMILY ROOM, and an arrow pointed to a corner of the café marked off by a wooden lattice screen. Andrew steered her behind it. There were three tables, empty. They ate pizza and drank milk shakes. Conversation between them died; but for a moment, over the comforting junk food, she did feel real again, and uncalculating, whole, as though she were a child. But it is not really myself, she thought, as she pushed an olive around her plate, it is just an image I have been sold, in a film somewhere. A wide-eyed child of America; the innocent abroad.
The feeling did not last. They drove uptown, the roads packed and dangerous now that night prayers were over. “At this hour,” Andrew said, “Saudi men go out to visit their friends.”
“They drive like maniacs,” she said.
“Just think if they had alcohol.” His face was grim and set. He was almost used to it now, the six near-misses a day.
Each highway was straight; the same neon signs flashing between the streetlamps, NISSAN SANYO MITSUBISHI. On the center divide, saplings wilted in the exhaust fumes. “I don’t
shoe shop; a window of tiny high-heeled sandals, green, lilac, red, gold. “Why these?” she said. “Westerners have more sober shoes.”
“I suppose that if you have to go out draped in black to your ankles, you want some way to express yourself.”
She followed Andrew. “Can’t they buy furs when they go abroad? They can’t need them in this climate.”
“Money is a burden all the year round.”
They bought cassette tapes; cheap copies, pirated in Asia and imported by the shopful. All the latest stuff was on the shelves; rock music, and Vivaldi’s Greatest Hits . She didn’t buy the Vivaldi. She planned to fill the flat with noise. I am thirty years old, she thought, and I still buy this, whatever is current, whatever is loud. When they came out of the music shop it was time for night prayers, and men were unrolling prayer carpets on the ground.
“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet,” Andrew muttered. Gates clashed down over the shop windows, doors were barred. In a space by the fountain—which now, unaccountably, had run dry—the worshippers jostled together in lines behind the imam, and then in time fell to their knees, and touched their foreheads to the ground, elevating their backsides. It was just as she had seen it in pictures; she was always surprised if anything was the same.
They stood watching, in the heat. Andrew looked as if he wished to speak; but perhaps he had no right to an opinion? She glanced at him sideways. “Oh go on,” she muttered. “Spit it out. I know you hate religion.”
“Oh, they must do as they like,” he said. “It’s not my business, is it? It’s just the ablutions I mind. They have to wash before they pray, all sorts of inconvenient bits of themselves. When you go into the lavatories at the Ministry all the floor is flooded, and people are standing on one leg with their other foot in the handbasin. You can’t … you want to laugh.” He took out his handkerchief from the pocket of his jeans and mopped his brow. “We timed this trip badly. But people are always getting caught like this. There’s only a couple of hours between sunset and night prayers.”
And then, she thought, eight hours till dawn. Her feet ached,
still swollen perhaps from the flight. When prayers were over they went into a fast-food shop. Small Korean men in a uniform of check shirts and cowboy hats grilled hamburgers behind the counter, and stacked trays, and busily cleaned the tables. There was an all-male party of young Filipinos in one corner, and Saudi youths sprawled across the plastic benches, nourishing their puppy-fat and their incipient facial hair.
A sign said FAMILY ROOM, and an arrow pointed to a corner of the café marked off by a wooden lattice screen. Andrew steered her behind it. There were three tables, empty. They ate pizza and drank milk shakes. Conversation between them died; but for a moment, over the comforting junk food, she did feel real again, and uncalculating, whole, as though she were a child. But it is not really myself, she thought, as she pushed an olive around her plate, it is just an image I have been sold, in a film somewhere. A wide-eyed child of America; the innocent abroad.
The feeling did not last. They drove uptown, the roads packed and dangerous now that night prayers were over. “At this hour,” Andrew said, “Saudi men go out to visit their friends.”
“They drive like maniacs,” she said.
“Just think if they had alcohol.” His face was grim and set. He was almost used to it now, the six near-misses a day.
Each highway was straight; the same neon signs flashing between the streetlamps, NISSAN SANYO MITSUBISHI. On the center divide, saplings wilted in the exhaust fumes. “I don’t
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