A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore Read online

  Aisha was uneasy. “Sister Margaret,” she said, “let’s go to the school and find something to eat there.”

  But Margaret was looking eagerly about, sniffing the air with an explorer’s instinct. “Why are you in such a hurry to go back behind the walls?” she asked Aisha. “Can’t you smell something roasting?”

  In fact there was cooking smoke rising from somewhere. Rizq’s face was pale as he escorted them. The grocers interrupted their transactions to gape at them as they went by. The black nun’s habit drew everyone’s attention, inviting curious stares. They stopped at the entrance to a restaurant.

  “We can’t go in this place,” said Aisha. “We’ll be expelled from the school.”

  “Just because we had something to eat? Don’t worry about that. You’re my only friend, and I’d defend you with my life.”

  The owner of the restaurant came out and stared at them worriedly. He was Maltese, a short man with a large belly and a thick moustache. For a moment it seemed as though he wanted to bar their entry, but he didn’t dare look directly into Margaret’s face or at her black vestment. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his head the other way. Margaret parted the curtain—beaded with shells, like the others they had seen—and stepped inside. Aisha looked around for help, but Rizq was stupefied, stock-still and clutching the donkeys’ bridles, so she saw no alternative but to follow Margaret into the restaurant.

  She found Margaret standing stiffly just on the other side of the curtain, her moment of bravado having evaporated. The restaurant was dimly lit, its tables covered with white cloths empty all except for one, at which four women were seated. They stopped talking and laughing as soon as they noticed the nun, abruptly stricken with a kind of panic. They huddled like wet hens. They were wearing heavily embroidered robes, décolleté, their heads adorned with colored feathers. The cigarettes slipped from their fingers, curls of smoke still rising like fine tendrils in the semidarkness. One of them pulled a shawl up over her shoulders, and another made the sign of the cross, murmuring a prayer.

  Margaret felt her confidence return, sensing that she had imposed her own will on the surroundings. She moved forward through the utter silence that had descended; there was no sound but her footfalls and the rustle of her clothing. Aisha caught up with her after nearly stumbling over one of the tables. She hastened to sit beside Margaret, attaching herself to her. The women’s expressions changed from anxiety to perplexity. Rizq was still outside, standing next to the donkeys, but presently he overcame his hesitation and went cautiously inside. On seeing the four women, he was about to turn around and run back out in consternation, but Margaret beckoned to him to come and sit across from her and Aisha at the table. His presence changed the atmosphere of wariness and fear that had prevailed at first. The women began whispering, for the sight of the three of them was incongruous, giving rise to numerous speculations. One of the women laughed in a low voice.

  The air was thick with the aroma of something roasting, which came from the back of the restaurant. It mixed with the reek of alcohol rising from the cellar, in addition to the four women’s perfume and the odor of their perspiration. The Maltese proprietor was still outside, certain that the newcomers would soon leave, and that there was no point in asking them what they wanted.

  One of the women got up—the one who had laughed a few moments before—put her hand on her hip, and stared quizzically at Margaret, Aisha, and Rizq. She cast a contemptuous glance at Rizq and ignored Aisha, focusing her attention on Margaret. “Excuse me, Sister,” she said, “but are you actually a nun? Or are you new to this place and wearing a costume to attract customers?”

  Margaret flushed a deep red. She opened and closed her mouth several times, then finally spoke. “We’re all children of the Lord,” she said.

  The woman turned toward her comrades, momentarily at a loss. Then she spoke again. “You really blushed,” she said. “I must have drawn the wrong conclusion. You actually are a nun, then. Pardon me, but if what you have in mind is to save our souls, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

  Margaret found her voice at last. “We just want a meal,” she said. “That’s all.”

  The woman drew herself up and clapped her hands impatiently, bringing the proprietor at a run. She pointed to Margaret and said, “See what the daughter of our Lord wants.”

  She went back to her table, and the rest of the women stood up to leave, feeling that their presence in the same room with that black habit was insupportable. Margaret asked the proprietor, who had resigned himself to the circumstances, to tell them what was available, and he ran down the list of dishes as if the information were a burden and he wanted it off his chest.

  When the food was set before them, they felt very hungry indeed. As they began to eat, the proprietor stood by, seething with anger, thinking they were enjoying having brought his business to a halt, for the defection of the four women meant that other customers would desert him as well.

  Margaret laughed. “They thought we were here to compete with them,” she said.

  Aisha blushed, and Margaret laughed again, full of mischief. She looked at Rizq, who was eating his food with rapid bites, scarcely bothering to chew it. “Lord,” said Margaret, “I love the way you eat—it’s primitive, actually, but it makes food seem like both a necessity and a pleasure.”

  They chatted as they ate, and even Rizq joined the conversation, in his peculiar Saïdi idiom. They forgot the differences among them, and the stern rules of the school vanished. No one remembered Father George, who was waiting for them. Meanwhile, the Maltese proprietor was ready to lose his mind. A number of customers had entered the restaurant—local landowners, farmers, and Europeans—but at the sight of a nun they hurried back out.

  At last Margaret brought out a few coins and placed them on the table. Outside the restaurant a small group of effendis, peasants, and policemen had gathered to watch for the nun and her companions to emerge. A hum of voices arose as soon as they appeared. One of the peasants approached, and Rizq tensed, thinking he intended to block their path. But the man stared into Aisha’s face and said, “Aren’t you Aisha, daughter of the late Mohammed Abu al-Ainayn?”

  The color drained from Aisha’s face and a tremor went through her. She had never imagined that her past could loom up so suddenly before her. She tried to hide behind Margaret, but the man kept on staring at her, waiting for an answer. Rizq stepped in front of them. “Get out of our way!” he shouted. “I assure you she’s a Christian girl. So stop bothering us.”

  But the man was too curious to relent. “I’m sure,” he persisted, “that this is the same girl. She disappeared from our village three years ago, but I know her very well. I was a friend of her father’s.”

  At a loss, Rizq looked at Aisha, who managed at last to speak. “He’s lying,” she said. “I don’t know him.”

  “Get out of our way,” said Rizq.

  Resigned, the man threw up his hands and stepped aside. The three went their way, back to the school. On taking Aisha’s hand, Margaret found that she was trembling violently. The tremors continued even after she went up to bed and buried herself beneath the covers.

  Several days went by before Margaret brought up the subject with her, although she talked constantly about other things. Even in bed at night, she mostly talked about Rizq. She wanted to know every detail of his earlier life, but there were no details.

  Aisha and Sister Margaret were both sleeping in the empty dormitory, while Rizq slept always in the small room next to the outer gate. Most of the time Father George was preoccupied either with prayer or with a revision of the New Testament that he was writing. He had traveled a great deal between Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and he was concerned with the question of bringing geographical descriptions in the New Testament into conformity with the actual topography of the land. So he was always hard at work in his room, which was full of maps and globes.

  Aisha woke in the middle of the night. The window was open, t
he full moon lighting up one side of the dormitory. Margaret, also awake, was perched on the windowsill. Sitting with her knees drawn up and her chin resting on them, the moonlight shining in her long, unbound hair, she seemed a pallid specter, worn out with thinking. The sight of her made Aisha anxious, and she sat up in bed.

  Margaret turned her head slowly in Aisha’s direction and said in a soft voice, “How are prayers performed in your religion?” Aisha made no reply to this, but her heart beat harder. “I’m just wondering,” said Margaret. “I want to imagine Rizq when he’s performing his prayers.”

  Saying nothing, Aisha gazed at the shadow Margaret cast with the moonlight shining off of her. She couldn’t see her face clearly. At last she said in a choked voice, “Are you going to report me?”

  Margaret got down off of the windowsill and knelt beside Aisha on the bed. “No, I won’t,” she said. “Heaven doesn’t like lies, but earth always needs its little fibs. I don’t want to know what troubles you’ve been through, but I have no doubt they were terribly cruel, for you to have done what you did.”

  Aisha found that tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was afraid, and Margaret’s gentle words only made her more so. Sitting next to her on the bed, Margaret put her hand on Aisha’s shoulder and pulled her in close. “Religion doesn’t divide people—stupidity does. Tonight we’ll share a bed.”

  As Aisha acquiesced, Margaret lay down on the bed, and all at once Aisha felt a warmth she hadn’t experienced since she stopped sleeping beside her mother. She smelled the fragrance of Margaret’s hair as it spread out on the pillow, and the child-like scent of her body. She closed her eyes, feeling Margaret’s breath against her face.

  She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she awoke feeling cold. The bed beside her was empty. She looked about for Margaret, finding the rest of the beds in the dormitory likewise vacant. Not daring to leave the room, she stood beside the window. The shadows dissolved and gray streaks began to appear beyond the river. The street was empty, but the wolf was there, standing beneath the window. She went back to bed and wrapped herself in the blanket. Cold, loneliness, fear . . . what if Margaret hadn’t pardoned her deceit, and had deserted her?

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and sat up in alarm, startled to see Margaret sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face was flushed and her eyes shone with an unearthly gleam. She was a different person from the one who had lain beside Aisha earlier that night.

  “I’ve fulfilled my vow,” said Margaret. “I’ve surrendered to him, body and soul!”

  Aisha gasped. She knew at once what Margaret had done, unthinkable though it was. Margaret hastily put her hand over Aisha’s mouth. Her fingers were both cool and warm. “This was my promise from the beginning,” she went on, “to give my body only to our Lord and savior, and that’s what I’ve done. I gave it to my own messiah, my personal savior . . .”

  Pulling Margaret’s hand away from her mouth, Aisha spoke between clenched teeth. “How dare he touch you?”

  “He had to,” Margaret replied. “I was the one who insisted—I went to his bed. This was the first time for us. I never knew any man before him, and he had never touched a woman—just the way it ought to be. We were innocent, just as we should have been. It was as if we were swimming in an endlessly flowing river, or dancing a never-ending dance. At that moment I knew it couldn’t be wrong. And that is just as it ought to be.”

  She squeezed in beside Aisha in the bed. Her body was warm, having known fulfillment at last. She tucked her hand under her head and murmured sleepily. “What’s done is done. I regret nothing.”

  One of the cleaning women alerted Aisha to what was happening. There was a large crew of cleaners busy in every part of the school, tidying it and preparing it for the start of the new school year. One of them came to Aisha, who was absorbed in a book, and said, “The police have surrounded the school.”

  Aisha got up and tried to cross the room to see what was happening, but the dormitory floor was slippery, awash in soapy water. So she climbed onto one of the beds, and began leaping from one to another. At the door she found the other cleaning women in a group, talking fearfully in whispers. She was surprised also to find the abbess standing in the outer corridor, watching events unfold in the courtyard below. Her hands were tucked into her wide sleeves, her features set in a harsh grimace. On her return from her extended journey her face had looked even sterner than before. Now Father George was standing beside her. Aisha hesitated, on the point of going back inside, but the commotion coming from below drew her forward.

  Policemen were pouring in through the school’s outer gate and making straight for the little room in which Rizq resided, carrying truncheons and chains. There were more of them than the room could contain. From inside it rose the sounds of shouts and blows. Aisha’s heart quaked to hear Rizq’s voice as he cried out for help. They all came out, dragging him along the ground, his face covered in blood. He was still resisting them, but the troops surrounded him and rained blows on him from every side. They tried to drag him toward the school gate. He looked up in an appeal for help from anyone, but found only the grim face of the abbess. A young officer approached on horseback and gestured to the troops to put a choke collar on him, to stop him struggling. They tightened their formation around him, some holding his arms, and tried to get the metal ring about his neck, while he snarled and shouted. He was barefoot, and there was nothing to cover his body except a torn undershirt and a pair of dirty trousers.

  The abbess turned toward Aisha, who was quietly weeping, and bent her implacable glare upon her. Down below, the battle continued, with no sign of Margaret—where had she gone? Had the abbess locked her up in the cellar? How had she found out so quickly what was going on? Rizq could take no more beating. He fell to the ground. They bound his wrists with a rope, which, at a sign from the officer, they tied to the horse’s saddle. The officer drew the reins taut and spurred the horse into motion. Rizq’s face was ground between the dust and the gravel; his head, as the horse gathered speed, was battered by the stones in the road, until the horse disappeared from sight.

  Aisha sat huddled on the floor, staring at the dust rising up in the wake of the struggle. She was incapable of speech. The abbess turned and stared at her for a long time, then withdrew without a word. The door to Rizq’s room was shattered and there were traces of his blood on the ground. All the plants he had tended were trampled.

  During the night the school was transformed, as the silence of a tomb descended upon it. A scant moon appeared in the sky, its light too faint to dispel the gloom. Aisha sat up, slipped from her bed, and left the dormitory. She descended to the courtyard and then to the stairs that led to the cellar. She knocked on the door, calling, “Open the door, Sister Margaret—it’s Mary. I need to talk to you.”

  She didn’t hear a sound from within, but she was afraid to raise her voice any more, for fear of rousing those upstairs. She sat on the stairs, and felt the cold night air invade her body. Was Margaret sleeping? Had something happened to her? Had she seen what took place in the courtyard? Aisha felt despair and guilt as a party to all that had occurred—and yet everything seemed fated, inescapable.

  She heard the door shifting on its hinges and raised her head to find Margaret standing before her, clad in a thin white gown, scarcely adequate to keep off the nighttime chill. She was spectrally pale. Aisha stood up and embraced her. Her body was thin and cold, and she was shivering. She sat down with Aisha on the stone steps and whispered, trying to contain her tears, “Have the Romans taken him?” Her wide eyes shone brightly, dark though the night was.

  “The police took him,” said Aisha, “a big gang of them, and an officer on horseback.”

  “Did they put the cross on his back and make him climb the hill? Did they kill him on account of me, to complete the cycle?”

  Aisha peered anxiously into Margaret’s face. She was speaking in a hollow voice, as if it came from some other realm. Her eyes looked cloudy and vag
ue. It angered Aisha that Margaret had chosen this of all times to retreat from the world. “Wake up, Margaret!” she cried. The police came, they beat him with unimaginable cruelty—why did you not intervene? Why didn’t you try to stop them?”

  On the point of tears, Margaret replied, “I couldn’t. I was lying there helpless, I couldn’t move—everything that was happening was taking place in another world. The abbess carried out her threats in spite of all my pleas.”

  “How did she find out?”

  “She saw me leaving his room in the middle of the night. This morning she took me to a doctor and found out that I’m pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a holy child, Aisha—there’s no sin or scandal, whatever she may say. She only wants to take revenge on me. She didn’t know I was the Magdalena and that the story of the crucifixion would come full circle.”

  She went up into the courtyard and circumambulated the well. Then she went into Rizq’s demolished room. She ran her hand across the rough bed, which still bore his scent. She inhaled, filling her lungs with it, then knelt upon the floor. She picked up a handful of dust, in which were traces of his blood, smearing her head and face with it. Aisha watched her, wide-eyed with astonishment. Margaret looked up at her and said, “Come with me—let’s go away from this accursed place.”

  She went to the iron gate, tugged at the metal chain that secured it, and the chain gave way to her fingers. She soundlessly opened the gate—it seemed as though some extraordinary power enabled her to do all these things. Her white garment billowed around her, exposing her pale legs, and the breeze stirred her hair. They walked through the streets, empty not only of people but of mud and filth as well. Margaret made her way, lightly and quickly, in the direction of the river. Its waters were quiet and tranquil, dark except for the faint light of the moon. There was only the soughing of the willows at each breath of wind. Farther away, the flank of the mountain appeared like a black shadow with a serrated edge. Margaret proceeded down the embankment, indifferent to the brambles and the stones.