I Think of You Read online

  Now the amber incense pervades this room, and as my eyes track the sweet cloud drifting behind the Baluchi cleaning woman, I see you once again sitting up in bed, splendid, your head wrapped in a turban of emerald silk. From the sofa I watched you: lit by a discreet lamp, your bed on a raised dais, a huge gray and white fur rug thrown over the bedclothes. In my light dress my body was warm with new life, but around your shoulders you drew a dark red woolen cloak and the fingers that held it to your breast were longer, more tapering than I had remembered, although still tipped in defiant scarlet.

  Barbarian Queen, I thought then, Medieval Matriarch. Now, beached in this strange country, I wonder what these women among whom I find myself would make of you. Five women, each in a bed. They are dressed in grays and browns, garments fashioned so that underneath them they are all identical, solid bulk. Their hair is closely wrapped in dense black cloth, and more black cloth is folded back on top of their heads ready to veil their faces at a second’s notice. My white cotton nightdress, smocked, buttoned to my throat, wide-sleeved with a frilled cuff touching the backs of my hands, feels light, revealing, beside the dark layers that they wear. My hair is uncovered and loose. I pull it back and twist it into a halfhearted braid and I feel the movement of my arms making my breasts shift under the cotton. I have nothing with which to secure my hair.

  Your head was wrapped in emerald silk. The front still showed a narrow black hairline, but at the back, a thin, smoky tendril had escaped. Your son, fifteen years old, came in and wrinkled his nose at the smell of incense. Your old nanny slowly swung the burner into the corners of the room. Flat on the floor at the foot of your bed your dog lay; he flicked his tail and watched me with sad, uninterested eyes. Your son, before he left the room, climbed the dais to kiss you. Elevated, theatrical, your bed was worthy of Cleopatra; worthy of nights, afternoons, mornings of kingly caresses. And finally, of this.

  I push my bare feet out from under the sheet and lower them from the bed. The perfect toenails I had once more achieved—twisting, bending, maneuvering around my now-enormous belly—are here ten small red badges of shame. And as my feet touch the floor, the nightdress slipping to reveal two ankles—swollen, but still ankles—the door of the ward swings open, a warning cough is heard, and a man walks in. Four hands fly up to four heads, four veils drop over four faces, and all sounds cease. Heavily I stand and reach for the curtains as the man, with lowered eyes, walks to the fifth bed and sits by his wife. I am not supposed to move, not supposed to move at all. But I walk slowly around my bed, drawing the green and yellow curtains, plucking at their edges, placing them carefully one over the other to complete my isolation. Awkwardly I climb again into the bed. I lie flat on my back and hold the sheet to my chin. I feel the tears well into my eyes and let them trickle coldly down my temples and into my hair. I do not want to be here.

  Your hands were so thin and fine, a network of blue veins showed through the skin. Your eyebrows were carefully shaped: winged high above your deep black eyes. Your cheekbones

  (oh, how I always coveted your cheekbones) stood out now even more. Your mouth remained the same: wide and strong, the full lower lip tensing as you pulled your cloak more closely around you. Your mother, burdened by years and by her fear for you, stood for a moment in the doorway. Your husband lit another cigarette. You looked at the evening paper and talked animatedly about a review. I sat on the sofa and wondered how you could. But on the other hand, how else could you have been?

  The Filipina nurse whisks the curtains apart and stands smiling between them. “You have to have some air. You will be too hot,” she says, and briskly walks around the bed pulling them wide open. The man by the fifth bed has gone and the women are talking in low voices. The nurse picks up my wrist and stares at her watch. Then she puts my wrist down and shakes out a thermometer. As she puts the thermometer into my mouth: “You must not cry,” she says on a melodious, rising note. Why you are crying? Yo u will be all right.”

  Do you cry, my dear? I’ve never seen you cry. And yet I think I can hear the great, wrenching sobs—late, late in the night, when all the house is asleep.

  One of the women gets out of her bed and walks around to the sink just outside my open curtains and hawks and spits, then runs the tap for a moment. She takes the two steps to my bedside and stands looking down at me. “Do not weep,” she says.

  I nod. So what if she spits into the sink? She didn’t spit on me.

  “Why do you weep?” she says.

  I shrug feebly. If I open my mouth I shall howl.

  “You do not speak Arabic?” she says.

  “Yes, I speak,” I say, but my voice comes out in a shaky whisper. I cannot make her out; with the shapeless smock and the wrapped head she could be anything from eighteen to forty-five. “Carrying, yes?” she says.

  Again I nod.

  “What is wrong with you?” she says.

  I whisper, “High blood pressure.”

  “All things are in the hand of God,” she says, and I nod. “Shall I raise your bed a bit?” she says. “You cannot be comfortable like this.”

  I shake my head; I do not want to be comfortable. But she cranks the bed up anyway so that my shoulders and head are raised up a little. She is being kind. Curious, naturally, but kind too. But I do not want to be comfortable. I do not want anything except not to be here.

  I want to be with my daughter. Over the phone she asks, “Why do we have to be separated like this?” She is five years old and chooses her words with care and I want to be with her, treading water in the middle of a cool swimming pool, my circling arms breaking up the sun’s reflection into patterns that form and re-form while she swims from me to the edge and from the edge to me again. I want to hold her foot as she sleeps—on her back, arms and legs flung out wide—and in the dim light, watch her eyes move under the delicate, slightly purple lids and wonder what it is she dreams of.

  Standing at your window, I watched your driver and your old doorman kneel together inside your gate for evening prayers. I was sure they prayed also for you. In the street, a young couple loitered arm in arm in the crisp spring air and stared into a shop front glittering with fancy shoes. Beyond them, I could see the glow of Cinéma Roxy and I could almost feel the general hum as the open-air cafés of Heliopolis filled up for the evening. Your husband came up to the bed and looked at your drip. From the sitting room next door came the hum of conversation punctuated by the periodic click of the telephone followed by a chime as someone hung up and tried yet another number.

  The Filipina nurse comes back with a young man in a white coat. The woman standing over me retreats to her bed. The doctor’s stethoscope dangles close to my face. He says: “You must not cry, madam, it is not good for you.” He speaks with a Syrian accent, his voice kind, and his eyes are a light hazel but too bright. I feel my mouth shape itself into a polite smile, and my hand lying by my side makes a slight gesture as though to say it’s nothing.

  “You must not be afraid,” he says again. “All things are in the hand of God.”

  I nod and close my eyes briefly. I do not trust myself to speak. He stands and looks at me. His mouth smiles and his eyes burn. I wish I could make him less uncomfortable. I move my hand again.

  My neighbor in the compound said, “You can have a crisis at any minute. If you’re not in the hospital you’ll die.”

  I said, “If I feel a crisis coming, I’ll run to you for help.”

  “You won’t be able to run.”

  “I’ll walk then.”

  “It’s not a joke,” she said. “You have to go into the hospital.”

  “How can I go into the hospital?” I ask. “The exams are this week, I have to be with my students.”

  “You don’t understand,” she says. “I’m telling you: you’ll die.” In the end she brought me in for a checkup, and when they kept me, she took my daughter home with her. She looks after her and they phone me twice a day. When all is said and done, my daughter is the reason I would pre
fer to stay alive. She and this other, uncelebrated child inside me, clinging so tenaciously to life.

  When your husband and the doctor left the room and we were alone, I climbed the two steps to your bed and picked up the hot-water bottle from where it lay on the fur rug beside you and said, “Wouldn’t it be better under the cover?” I lifted the rug and the quilt and the blanket and the sheet and snuggled the bottle against you and covered you again. I put my hand on your shoulder and said, “Would you like me to rub your back?” And you sighed, “Oh my dear, I wish you would.” I sat behind you. And when you allowed yourself to slump on to your side your spine touched my rounded belly and I felt the child inside me kick. I still don’t know if you felt it too. I rubbed your back. Gently, gently with my right hand, my left elbow resting on your pillow, my left hand on your shoulder. It comforted me so, I could have rubbed for hours.

  The doctor with the burning eyes hurries back carrying a hypodermic. He says, “Like this you are making your blood pressure go up. I will give you some Valium. Could you please roll up your sleeve?”

  With my right hand I roll up my left sleeve.

  The nurse says, “You want I do this?”

  But he does not answer and eases the needle into my arm. The Valium hurts as it enters the muscle. He pulls out the needle and the nurse starts rubbing the tiny puncture with an antiseptic wipe.

  “You will sleep now,” he says, and his mouth smiles.

  My body is in pieces, each piece too heavy for me to support. My hands are grotesque pads, the now-ringless fingers so stiff I wonder at the time when moving them required no conscious thought. The wrists where I used to watch the shadowy pulse throb under transparent skin are now dense, opaque flesh. If I stretch out my arms and hang them through the rails at the sides of the bed they are—for a while—not uncomfortable. The left arm hurts and I have to be careful with it or the drip tubes will get tangled and blocked. My breasts are so heavy they drag at the skin of my chest. I have to wear a bra pulled high and tight. It cuts into my ribs and presses on my lungs. Every few minutes I have to disengage my right hand and lift the elastic and hold it away from me so that I can breathe. When I hang my arm back on the railing, the relief of not having to support it rushes through my shoulder and my chest. What will they think when they come in and find me like this: a suffering figure, arms stretched out to the sides? Or do Christian images—even this one—not exist for them at all? They are probably not into images. Our religion is a religion of the Word, not of the Image. I close my eyes. Relax, they say. Relax, worrying is not good for you.

  I am alone and this room is not unpleasant. There are no oranges or browns. The walls and bedclothes are white. There is a gray incoming-calls-only telephone by my bed and my mother, father, family call me from Cairo and my husband calls from London. There is a gray leather armchair. There is a television on a shelf in the corner; between it and the window there is a bilingual notice. The English reads: “Under no circumstance you must be alone with male doctor. Call sister urgently if male doctor approaches you for examination.” I think this is funny and copy it laboriously into my notepad. I am alone and so, unobserved, I can hold on to what is left of me. Next to the notice I have pinned up the painting of a big, bright butterfly my daughter brought me on her first visit. I keep my students’ exam papers next to me and correct them when I can.

  In the morning the nurses detach me from the drip and I let myself carefully off the bed. I walk slowly across the room and into the bathroom. I pee with what precision I can into the waiting jug and cover it and replace it on the shelf. Although this is no longer the body I know, I wash it meticulously, spray it with eau de toilette, and dab moisturizing lotion on the bits I can reach. I brush my hair and do what I can with my face: I draw a black pencil along the puffy eyelids, apply some mascara and lip gloss. I put a bed jacket on over my nightdress. Back in the room, the bed has been made and the nurse helps me into it. She twitters that I should not get up, that I should use a bedpan, that I should let her wash me with a flannel. I smile politely and say nothing. She is very clean and neat with her white linen uniform and her small features and glossy black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She measures my blood pressure, my temperature, and my pulse rate, and notes it all down. She reattaches my drip and I lie back weak and nauseated but ready with my face, my bed jacket, my notepads and exam papers for the doctors’ morning rounds.

  They sweep into the room and position themselves at the foot of the bed. The consultant, majestic in his white robes and black and gold abaya stands center stage. The nurse hands him the notes and stands back. He looks at them and, slightly behind him, the Indian registrar with the slicked-back hair and a tightly shuttered face looks at them too. There is another doctor, Sudanese: Othello with a grieving face and a limp and an ebony cane. Three local house doctors stand farther back. They are women and all I can see of them is their dark eyes through the slits of their black veils.

  When they go, the nurse asks if my arm is stiff. She whispers that it was wrong of the doctor to put the Valium in my arm. “It should be here,” she says, patting my hip, “but he was afraid to ask you. The muscle in the arm is not so big.”

  Your back was so thin; through the flannel nightgown and the woolen cloak I could feel each vertebra. I rubbed slowly down your spine and out and up in a circle and pressed your shoulder and your neck, then went down your spine again. I could have cradled you like a baby. I could have kissed your head and your hands and wept over you. But I sat behind you and rubbed your back and thought, Tomorrow I leave. Will you still be here when I come back in the summer? I wanted to tell you things and ask you things. I said, “Do you remember when we had lunch at the Meridien seven years ago?”

  “You should not go downstairs,” the nurse says at five o’clock as she disengages my drip.

  “You don’t allow children up here,” I reply. I ease myself off the bed and wrap my body in the black abaya and my head in the black tarha and walk slowly out of the door.

  In the women’s corner of the vast waiting area on the ground floor my daughter climbs on to my knee. She strokes my uncovered face and I bury my mouth in her small, plump palm. She plants big wet kisses on my eyes, my cheeks, my nose, and my mouth. A group of women sitting silently nearby stare at us through their veils.

  On my fourth day, the door of my room opens and a woman walks in. She is tall and wears a long, loose gray garment with buttons up the front and the usual black veil over her face and head. In her hand she carries a covered dish. She looks around to make sure I am alone in the room. “There are no men?”

  “There are none.”

  She lifts the veil from her face and lays it back on top of her head. “Peace be upon you!”

  “And upon you peace and the mercy of God and His blessings.”

  She puts the dish on the cabinet next to the phone and settles into the gray armchair. She has a young but not particularly fine face. She wears, of course, no makeup.

  “I have brought you something to support you, sister. Hospital food is tasteless.”

  “May God increase your bounty,” I say. “It was not necessary to trouble yourself.”

  “We see no one comes to visit you?”

  “I have no people here.”

  As I say the words, I feel tears of self-pity well up behind my eyes. But I blink them away. I can do this much.

  “They say you are married to an Englishman?”

  “It is true.”

  “But how can you marry an Englishman?”

  “It is my portion and my fate.”

  “But you are Muslim. How can you marry an Englishman?”

  “He has embraced our religion.”

  “And you live there?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you live there? They are all animals there.”

  “They are people, like us.”

  “They live like animals there.”

  “They live like us. Among them there is good and there is bad
.”

  “They copulate on the streets there.”

  “Pardon?”

  “There, the people copulate on the streets.”

  “I have lived there a long time; I never saw anybody copulating on the street.”

  “I saw it.”

  “Where?”

  “In films. My husband brings home video films and I have seen them: the man goes to the woman on the street, he lifts her clothes and copulates with her.”

  “Ah! Those films don’t represent the truth. They are made only to excite people’s appetites.”

  “I have to go,” she says, and rises. “But your husband is a good man? He is good to you?”

  “Like my own people.”

  “My husband is a teacher.”

  “It is a good profession.”

  “Peace be upon you!” She pulls the veil down over her face and moves toward the door.

  “And upon you peace,” I say, “and thank you for your generous gift.”

  We had taken refuge from the July heat in the air-conditioned coffee shop of the Cairo Meridien. We drank chilled white wine and ate tomato and white cheese salad and artichokes vinaigrette. Your first play was a rave and people turned to look at you as they walked past. We watched the sun sparkle silver on the Nile at its widest point and we peeled the leaves off the artichokes and ate their pale green hearts and I told you of all the ways I loved him and you listened. Then I told you of how, when I had the flu, he had tended me like a mother.

  “He even read me a silly little fairy story,” I said, “to cheer me up.”

  Yo u said, “Marry him.”

  I said, “But how will I manage never to speak to him in my own language? How can I stand not to live here?”

  “Cairo will always be there for you,” you said.

  On the sixth day the Scottish matron comes in and rechecks my pulse. She says I should have morphine and should not go downstairs anymore. I say, “But you don’t allow children up here, and I have to see my daughter.”

  She says my body is like a compression chamber and every move I make adds to the pressure on my baby.