Kauthar Read online

  Claude calls. Lydia hears him say, ‘We have to talk. I never thought you wanted a child from me. I always thought one day you would find someone younger who you would marry.’

  She says, ‘You hoped that you’d be rid of me.’

  He says, ‘I didn’t hope for it, but I expected it. I’m pragmatic. I know figures and calculate my chances for winning or losing.’

  A short laugh travels through the receiver to her ear.

  ‘And since we are talking about figures and numbers . . .’ he continues. And his tone suggests that it is no longer a laughing matter. Pragmatic, realistic, only figures and numbers: they are tangible, you can see them, no other reality exists outside them, beyond them. And while he continues to talk she tries to read the words between the lines, but there is nothing except the figures that he has added up. ‘Of course, if you want to keep the baby I will be prepared to take financial responsibility.’

  ‘And emotional responsibility?’ she asks, and hears the echo of her own voice come back to her.

  ‘Emotional responsibility? In emotional terms, I will try my best, but I can’t promise anything,’ he says.

  He doesn’t lie, he plays a fair game, he sticks to the rules. Lydia is the one who tried to cheat. She secretly marked a card in a moment he wasn’t looking. He took the marked card and then coolly returned it to her. And Lydia realizes what she has to do. She has been found guilty and now she has to clean the mark off the card without anyone noticing, so that the game can continue as before, where she has nothing to lose and Claude has everything to lose. And she prays for the first time in a long while, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. She doesn’t know who to direct the prayer to. She thinks about Jesus, but can’t make up her mind if she believes that he is the son of God.

  ‘That’s not important,’ says the vicar in his talk to Lydia before her confirmation. And he decides to confirm her regardless.

  While Lydia thinks, But I don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God, the only son of God, and she says out loud, ‘How can I be confirmed if I don’t believe what I am supposed to believe?’

  And the vicar repeats, ‘That’s not important, my child.’ And he confirms the girl. He is kind.

  ‘A lovely, kind person,’ says Lydia’s mother. But he is not a man of God, thinks Lydia. How can he be a man of God and say, That’s not important, my child, when I tell him I don’t believe that God has a son. Either we are all children of God or no one is.

  The Reverend Edward Bertram is sitting behind his big desk with his black collar and agrees with Lydia, and says, ‘You are absolutely right, my child.’

  She asks, ‘What do you mean? How can I be right?’

  ‘That we are all children of God.’ Reverend Bertram nods with a good-natured, harmless sparkle in his eyes.

  ‘So Jesus is no one special,’ Lydia insists, and even to herself, her voice sounds like that of a stubborn little child. She would love to be able to express herself better, because the vicar doesn’t want to understand what she is telling him.

  ‘Jesus is the son of God, and he died for us on the Cross and he rose after three days and now he is seated at the right hand of God. And beside him no one is sitting. He is sitting there all alone. Do you understand, my child?’ Reverend Bertram leans forward, pulls his big blue Bible towards him and opens it. ‘I have a very good verse for you here: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’ And he lifts his face and smiles at the girl. ‘Do you understand, my child?’

  Lydia shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t understand. I don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God. I don’t doubt that he lived,’ she adds, and hopes that Reverend Bertram will be willing to discuss this. She wants to be confirmed, but only if she can believe what is right and proper.

  Later this evening her mother will say, ‘I met the Reverend at the butcher’s. He told me you were splitting hairs.’

  And her father adds, ‘Leave the Reverend in peace. Confirmation is a thing one does and that’s it. It’s a tradition in our family.’

  Lydia says to Reverend Bertram, ‘I believe that Jesus lived and he was a helpful, pious man. But now he is certainly not sitting at the right hand of God, because if he was sitting there, we would all be sitting there.’

  She feels her anger rise because Reverend Bertram doesn’t respond. He doesn’t help her to understand. All he wants to do is confirm her, despite the fact that he shouldn’t be allowed to because she doesn’t believe in what he tells her, what the Church tells her. Because she doesn’t understand.

  Then she adds, ‘I don’t really know if I believe in God.’

  The vicar lowers his head. Lydia stares at his grey curly hair as, with his finger underneath the line of text he reads once more: ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’ Then he looks at her once more, with sadness in his eyes. ‘You have to believe, my child. Jesus died for us on the Cross.’

  ‘I want to believe – honestly, you have to believe me. But I don’t know how to believe. You have to help me.’

  ‘The confirmation will help you, my child.’ He looks at his watch and nods in the direction of the door. ‘Your time is up. There are others waiting outside. I will see you on Sunday at church.’

  They shake hands, Lydia and the vicar. And she cycles away and at home she screams, ‘The Reverend is barking mad. I will not be confirmed by him. I will not get confirmed. I don’t believe in God.’

  Her mother is in the kitchen baking a cake for Sunday.

  ‘You are ungrateful,’ she says. She turns back to her cake and starts pouring the mixture into the tin.

  Lydia replies in a calmer voice, ‘I am not ungrateful. But I simply can’t believe. I would love to believe, but I don’t understand it. How can Jesus be the son of God? How can he have died for all of us? That’s absolute nonsense.’

  Her mother has finished filling the tin.

  ‘Do you believe?’ Lydia asks.

  ‘Believe in what?’ her mother asks.

  ‘Well, Jesus and God,’ Lydia replies.

  Her mother opens the oven door and pushes the cake inside.

  ‘I was confirmed and I was grateful for the presents. I would never have dared to second guess. To scream around the house as you do. My mother wouldn’t have put up with it. I am far too soft with you. I have always shown far too much leniency.’

  ‘Now, now, you two. Don’t fight.’

  Her father is standing in the kitchen doorway. He is wearing his slippers and his dark-blue cardigan.

  ‘Lydia, listen,’ he says. ‘As far as I am concerned, all priests and vicars have a little problem up here—’ He points to his head. ‘However, tradition is tradition. And it is good to be seen in church. Let Sunday come and go and no one need mention it again.’

  ‘But you don’t understand!’ Lydia’s voice has become shrill again. Her father is leafing through the pile of post that is lying on the sideboard. ‘I can’t lie,’ she says. ‘Especially not when it concerns God and the Church. How could I? But I don’t understand how Jesus can be the son of God. Do you both believe that Jesus is the son of God?’

  ‘Let me tell you one thing,’ her mother now says in a stern voice. ‘If you don’t want to be confirmed we will return your new skirt and blouse to the shop. They were a lot of money.’

  Her father tears open an envelope. ‘In life you don’t have to evaluate every single word carefully. All you have to say is that you believe in God. That’s enough. That’s also enough for Reverend Bertram. He understands young people. He isn’t asking for much.’

  ‘So do you believe, Dad?’

  ‘I certainly do.’

  The following Sunday Lydia is confirmed, and in the name of the Church Reverend Bertram puts a big copper cross on a woollen thread around her neck and on it is a sticker: Be thou faithful unt
o death, and I will give thee a crown of life. Revelation 2:10.

  And now Lydia is holding this cross and presses it against her forehead and to her lips, and whispers, ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive me my sins, dear God.’ She is kneeling in St Paul’s, early in the morning, before work and before the tourists flood into the cathedral. She is sitting in St Dunstan’s Chapel, to the right just after the main entrance, on a small wooden bench that is covered with red velvet. Her elbows are resting on the back of the seat in front of her. Her eyes wander from the marble pillars and the wooden wall panels to the brass chandeliers. Jesus is hovering behind the altar on a cloud with a kindly look in his eyes and his hands raised for blessing. Mary is sitting to his right and St John the Evangelist is sitting to his left. Jesus’s palms are marked by the stigmata and there is a cut on his right side from which the blood still flows. Lydia folds her hands and lowers her forehead on to the copper cross between them. She is praying to God and seeking Jesus and sliding from her seat on to the floor. She is holding the cross because she has nothing else to hold on to. Her guilt and sins are increasing. Now she is playing games with life itself, making decisions over life and death. How many more sins does she want to accumulate? She feels the hard ground underneath her knees and she pulls the scarf she is wearing round her neck up over her head. If only she could become a nun. Then she wouldn’t need to bother with this world any longer; she’d be in the company of other women who were walking the same path as her and she’d know it was the right path.

  But Lydia can no longer become a nun because she is pregnant. She carries another life inside her, conceived in the lustful embrace of the flesh. Her flesh is lusting after Claude, so much so that she wants to feel him inside her for ever, to be united with him for ever. But he doesn’t want to. He only wants her body. He takes the body, satisfies his needs, then he turns away. He does not want to be bound to her, to be united, to become one for ever. It is no longer a game. It has never been a game. Because Lydia has never been capable of playing games, even as a child.

  She can watch the clouds, can jump from cloud to cloud. But to play hide-and-seek with other children or go for bicycle rides or build sandcastles? Her brother and sister spend hours building sandcastles with other children. Why? They just disintegrate with the next tide. Sometimes they don’t even last that long. Other children come and kick them down. She remembers at nursery sitting by the radiator watching the other children play. She doesn’t want to join in. It is so nice and warm there, she feels cosy and secure. Two boys are building a Lego castle; they don’t talk, they are engrossed in their game. They spend hours building something only to be able to destroy it again. Lydia can see it coming and would like to warn them, but they wouldn’t understand her. And she doesn’t understand them. And she can’t yet actually put her thoughts into words; she only senses the nonsense of other children’s games. She doesn’t understand the children’s senseless running around, screaming, laughing, shrieking, squealing. What’s the point? And later on they will learn to play tennis, netball, cricket. And Lydia tries too. But she quickly realizes that she is not talented at any of it. She will never reach a world-class standard in any of the games or sports, she won’t even win school competitions. So why should she participate? Because it is fun? But how is it supposed to be fun? She can’t feel it. Why have games been invented? And by whom? Why is there a difference between games and life? She doesn’t want to learn how to play games. She wants to learn about life. She watches people play cards, Monopoly, Mikado. Their seriousness, their focus, their eagerness to win. They bite their nails and twirl their hair, they can’t take their eyes off the cards, off the board. They get angry, upset, fight, play on. And they all want to win. It’s all about winning and losing, always. And she doesn’t understand.

  She should have told Claude.

  And she kisses the cross in her hands and prays to Jesus, that he may come to her, that she might understand him. She looks up and sees Jesus with his kind-hearted gaze and the wounds from the crucifixion. She knows that he suffered and perhaps might still be suffering. But she also only sees a human being, the image of a human being. And she still can’t believe that he has taken away all our sins.

  It is a month before Claude calls again. He is coming to London, he needs to see her, he can’t live without her. He has changed his mind, he says. He had to think things through first, but now he is sure. He wants her, he wants the baby.

  ‘I am sorry I didn’t call for a month,’ he says. ‘That I didn’t respond to your messages, didn’t answer your calls.’

  That evening he rings her doorbell and stands there with thirty red roses and a bottle of Champagne in his hands. It’s the first time in nearly three years that he has visited her in her bedsit. They’ve always met only in restaurants or his hotel.

  ‘Mon dieu, how thin you are.’ He steps inside. ‘Shouldn’t you be blooming as a mother-to-be?’

  ‘I am no longer pregnant,’ Lydia says.

  ‘A miscarriage?’ he asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘No.’

  The door behind him is still open.

  He is staring at her. Not moving. She walks past him, pushes the door shut. She doesn’t want the neighbours to hear.

  ‘You killed it. How dare you? I am a Catholic. This was my baby too.’

  Lydia is still standing by the door. She looks at his massive back. ‘I tricked you. The pregnancy wasn’t an accident. I shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to force you to stay with me. It was my baby. It had nothing to do with you.’

  Claude turns around. He stares at her uncomprehendingly.

  ‘But here I am,’ he says, and he looks like a helpless little boy.

  ‘Too late,’ replies Lydia, and opens the door. ‘Please leave.’

  Claude takes a step forward, his arms reaching above her. She sees his movement in slow motion. He pushes the door shut, then lets his massive body slump against her, against the door.

  ‘You little witch, you won’t get rid of me that easily.’

  He straightens up, takes her by the shoulders and shoves her hard against the door. A tearing pain shoots up her back and she sees his startled face. He lets go of her and she sinks to the ground.

  ‘Claude, please. It’s over.’ Then she runs out of words.

  He squats down next to her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why are you coming only now?’ she asks instead of answering his question.

  ‘You could have waited,’ he replies.

  Lydia shakes her head. ‘No. Today you arrived with roses, but in a few months you would have betrayed me.’

  She is now leaning against the closed door. He is sitting next to her. Two children, exhausted from their game. They could be sitting together on a monkey bar. For a moment they don’t speak. Lydia stares at her feet, watches how the two big toes move towards each other, touch, part. She feels her back, the pain in the back, and the hard door. She already sees herself dropping backwards from the monkey bar so that she doesn’t need to observe her feet any longer – her feet that play with each other as if nothing has happened. And even though she said, ‘Today you arrived with roses, but in a few months you would have betrayed me,’ only becoming aware of the full implication as she spoke, because she had never seen things in such a clear and logical way before, at the very same moment she began to hope that Claude would contradict her, that he would wipe those words from her lips, that his rage would be real, that he really wanted a child with her, a family with her. In that split second she realized that she would forgive him, she would forgive herself, if only he’d contradict her. Contradict her with force, with violence. In hate – in love – would fall on her.

  But he says, ‘You’re right.’

  And Lydia watches her feet. How they slowly form a V and then a rooftop.

  Rafiq returns my call half an hour later. He would like to ta
ke me out to dinner tonight and he will pick me up from home at eight.

  I take the afternoon off and go shopping. In the last couple of years I haven’t spent much. I buy my clothes in East-end markets and I don’t go out in the evenings, except to my language classes and meetings with my sisters. But now I spend. I buy make-up and hairclips and lacy underwear, a long black taffeta skirt with a matching basque. In the evening I am wearing a black blouse over the basque and a dark-grey silk hijab. I am standing in front of the mirror and studying my beautiful reflection. I open my blouse very slowly and my breasts look full and voluptuous and tempting. I hope that the meal won’t estrange us. I’d love to invite him to my flat afterwards. I would have the right, because I will be his wife. I change the bed. Before he is due to arrive I pray ‘isha’ – the night-time prayer. Then I put on my make-up: eyeliner and mascara. I dab my lips ever so slightly with colour I know I am allowed as a lipstick. Then I sit and wait, like a well-behaved schoolgirl on the edge of my seat with my hands folded in my lap. We have to take the marriage vows first before I get in the car with him. Otherwise I shouldn’t really be in a car, in any closed space, with a man on my own. These are the rules. When at precisely eight o’clock the doorbell rings, I am startled. I tell myself to stay calm, kneel down on the floor, rest my palms on my thighs and pray one more time for God’s advice. With closed eyes, I focus on my breathing, then I get up and turn off the light, close the door and walk down the stairs.