Free The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif Page B

‘Itfaddali.’
    ‘Now?’
    ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Come.’
    Tahiyya is the doorman’s wife — and my friend. She asks after me and sends her children to see if I need the washing-up done or my clothes taken to the ironing shop. Now she comes in smiling, with her littlest — his leg still encased in plaster — on her hip.
    ‘Please God you weren’t asleep?’
    ‘No, no,’ I say, crossing the room to close the balcony doors as she puts the child down on the floor. ‘But that thing is so loud; it startles me every time.’
    ‘Why don’t we get the engineers to turn it down?’ she suggests, looking at it.
    ‘We could,’ I say, looking at it too.
    ‘Or they might ruin it,’ she says.
    ‘Let’s not,’ I say. It’s a new addition, a modernising touch, and she andAm Madani are very proud of it.
    ‘We don’t mean to wake you,’ she says.
    ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ I say. ‘Let’s make some tea.’
    We go into the kitchen and she says ‘You rest’, so I sit at the table while she fills the kettle. ’Abd el-Rahman follows us, back to crawling now because of his plastered leg. He settles on the floor in front of my father’s tall dresser and opens the lowest drawer. This is where the coloured plastic clothespegs are kept.
    ‘Look at this for me,’ she says while we wait for the tea leaves to settle. She puts a large brown envelope in front of me. I open it and pull out an X-ray — no, a scan. I read the tiny English writing and look up at her tired, pretty face; the brown eyes lined with kohl, the eyebrows plucked thin, the blue kerchief tight across her forehead:
    ‘Again?’ I say. ‘Again, ya Tahiyya?’
    ‘By God, I never wanted to,’ she protests. ‘We said four and we praised God and closed it on that. It’s God’s command, what can we do?’
    ‘But hadn’t you put the loop? I thought —’
    ‘Yes, I had put it, but I had blood, blood coming down on me and they took it out and said take a rest for a while — andyou know what men are like. Then God’s command came to pass.’
    She tests the tea. It is the colour of burgundy and she pours it into our glasses and spoons in the sugar.
    ‘There are some biscuits,’ I say, and she brings the plate to the table and hands a biscuit to her son.
    ‘By the Prophet, I can’t keep up with them all,’ she says. ‘Yesterday the little girl had a temperature and was fretful all day and at night this boy kept me up all night coming and going. The plaster — you’ll excuse me — makes his leg itch. All night I’m carrying him and patting him and calming him down until Madani was about to say to me, “May God help you.” ’
    ‘That’s good of him,’ I say.
    ‘What can he do, ya Daktora?’ she asks. ‘All day he’s working, and he’s got diabetes. His health isn’t what it used to be.’
    I can hear Isabel: his diabetes didn’t stop him getting her pregnant. When his health was what it used to be, did he wake up and soothe the kids at night? But is it Isabel? Or are these my thoughts in Isabel’s voice? Of course termination doesn’t even come into it. ‘Haraam ya Daktora,’ Tahiyya would say, ‘it’s a soul after all.’
    ‘How far gone are you?’ I ask.
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    I look at the scan. ‘Eleven weeks,’ I tell her.
    ‘Look at it for me,’ she says, ‘and read it for me. Tell me everything it says.’
    ‘It says you’re eleven weeks pregnant and the baby is normal.’
    ‘Praise God,’ she sighs.
    ‘What doesAm Madani say?’
    ‘What will he say? He says “How will we feed them?” and praises God.’
    ‘God provides,’ I say.
    ‘It’s known,’ she agrees, and gets up to wash the glasses.
    ‘Yakhti, laugh,’ I say. ‘What do we take from it all?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Man is destined for his God.’
    ‘And they’ll be five in the eye of the enemy —’
    The buzzer goes again and I get up to answer it.
    Isabel comes in as Tahiyya is collecting the clothespegs and wiping the crumbs from