Women Who Blow on Knots Read online

  “Let’s get out of here before another bee comes,” says the man. “Yes, yes,” says the woman. “Hurry up and finish your crepe.”

  As I watch in astonishment, Maryam says, “She’s dead.”

  “No, she didn’t die. The woman got it but then it got up and flew away.”

  Facing the sea, Maryam says, “She died. She killed herself when that bastard from the Trojan War sailed away.”

  “So Dido committed suicide?”

  “She did, but why? It couldn’t have been only love. Yesterday I asked you why a powerful woman would kill herself?”

  “She killed herself because the man left?”

  “There has to be something else. It couldn’t just be love… For some reason it just doesn’t sound credible to me.”

  “Maybe it’s just better that way. Instead of rotting with some guy the woman killed herself. Look at Madam Lilla. She’s a good model of an entirely different kind. Going crazy all alone. They are these different models. It seems like you’ve blown Dido up in your mind. She fell in love, was rejected and in the end she killed herself out of grief.”

  “It still doesn’t sound believable.”

  She was gone again, gazing at the sea, her forefinger between her lips, staring into the distance. I suppose it was from out there that the man had arrived by ship, the one who ravished Dido with love and drove her to suicide. As Maryam slipped deeper into sadness, I said, “Why did you cut your hair?” Her eyes still fastened on the waters, her finger on her lips. Suddenly she came out with something completely unrelated.

  “I’m not like Amira, living with everything out in the open… I can’t understand her.”

  She expected me to say something but I kept silent. She went on. “Is she really that much of a child or is she just acting like that so I look out for her?”

  She looked at me. I didn’t answer. My only thought was that this wasn’t good. In the crystal web that cocooned us a knot was coming loose and who knew when it would unravel. The events at dinner chez Madam Lilla would bring an unexpected answer.

  7

  Holding back a mocking smile as she pretended to laugh along with Amira and Madam Lilla, Maryam was poised for a ruthless attack. She seemed to be saying, ‘Is that so? Well then show me your hand,’ as she shook her head, her elbows propped on the table. I saw the red flashes in her eyes before she even opened her mouth. But there was no stopping her. She was intent on her victim: Madam Lilla.

  “You’re very kind, Madam, and so gracious. Yes, you are and you are aware of this as much as we are. Very much so. I wonder what they said about you when you were young? Seductive? Devastating? Surely you got whatever you wanted? You became a master at managing others. That much we understand. Clearly you’re a master at getting what you want whatever the human cost. Who knows how many skeletons you have stuffed away in your closet? Have you counted? Or you don’t even remember? And now you’ve decided to drag Amira along with you, just like that, for the thrill of it. Is that right? How long has it been, Madam Lilla? It must be some time since you tested your powers on others. Did you decide to suck the blood of young women when you saw us? Or have there been recent victims? Oh, but of course! You’re too above it all to even keep count. Does Eyüp Bey oversee the accounts? Bury the bodies for you? Just what is it you’re doing in Tunisia? Where were you before? What sort of game are you trying to play here? Do you really think you can still play the mysterious games people let you play when you were young and beautiful? Just who are you, Madam Lilla?”

  As she raised her right hand to her chest, Madam Lilla seemed ready to take an oath before the gods. Then she shook her head as if to say, ‘OK, be quiet now, I’ve had enough.’ Her leg bouncing under the table, Maryam was a restless racehorse in the starting block and there was no jockey. But as the silence around the table grew she leaned back, determined to hold her ground. And this is how Madam Lilla made her appeal:

  “Ladies… There comes a time when nothing can bring you back your old life. The more you try the more you obsess about it. One little mistake… One tiny little slip and your entire life is gone. And everyone laughs and laughs. You know they’re talking about you and laughing, behind your back. You feel humiliated and defeated… They once looked at your face with admiration but now it evokes disgust. They turn away from you. As if they’ve been caught in the act of loving you. And they shun people who still dare to mention your name. A few adoring knights will remain, a faithful few… But a handful of people are nothing in the face of the cynics, and it is shameful to even honour the respect they bestow upon you. It’s as if … as if a bunch of madmen have gathered around a false prophet. You don’t even want to see the people who love you. These friends, who remind you of the unjustness you’ve faced, cause more pain than loneliness. You just want to be forgotten… Someone from the past sees you and stutters out your name and you would rather hide. So that you don’t have to hear her say, ‘once upon a time you were so important for us.’ A few friends feel compelled to say, ‘bad luck. If only you hadn’t gone and done what you did. I wish it had worked out differently for you.’ Then they talk about little details from the past you cannot change. And you want to cry out at the injustice. People like me are slapped by fate, fallen from grace… Like the sails of a ship bound to the chances of the wind. Ladies … sometimes the wind doesn’t blow. For years the waters are still. Disappointment is the utmost damage a person can inflict on herself. On the one hand there is the mockery of others and on the other an endless torment of your own making…. And there is no balm for the suffering. The droughts come and go when we are young. But in middle age…”

  Smiling at Maryam, Madam Lilla gently leaned over to her and said as if inviting her to suffer the same fate:

  “My dear Maryam, imagine a single woman close to fifty. All the men in the Arab world are ready to cut their wrists for a chance to see this woman and all other women are so worn out from jealousy they surrender to this woman’s magic, a woman who sings and dances and shuttles the secrets of the world’s rulers from ear to ear, a woman who is suddenly taken by her Achilles heel and then there is no more of her beloved stage… My dear Maryam, you are left with no choice but to run away and build your own little stage where you can beg from a handful of spectators… Say I was a vampire, and I ruined hundreds of lives. Say that of all the heartless people in the world I was the most drunk. But you see, my dear soul, I was on my own!”

  Snatching her glass off the table, she downed her wine in a single gulp. We were under a spell. When she began her speech she was ten times ruder than Maryam and a thousand times rougher than us all. As the words fell from her mouth the awning of an enormous tent seemed to stretch out over the table and her body seemed to embrace the three of us like a great cape. But gradually her voice softened like the sea drawing over the sand. It was clear that she hadn’t prepared her speech in advance. But if she really did… I didn’t even want to think it was possible. A wisp of hair slipped out of the aristocratic bun on the top of her head. It hit your heart like a catastrophe, as scandalous as the Mona Lisa skewed against the wall. An untended silver tendril dangling over her face like the stroke of a sword, she went on:

  “And then there was a man who laid waste to the stage, who came and left, never to return. Now if I cannot find him when I am at death’s door… In that event, my dear friends, my entire life will have turned out to be false. Oh, that will mean I was entirely deceived, that I’ve lived all my life the wrong way round…”

  “Enough!” said Amira, placing her hands down on the table. She avoided our collective gaze. She had not yet decided if she was ‘rooting’ for Maryam or Madam Lilla. Silence fell over the room. We were still as silent birds waiting for a rain cloud to pass. The silence was intro music to an old Egyptian song, Madam Lilla sizing up her audience before she took the stage. She knew precisely when emotions would leap from joy to expectation, from tension to anger and then submission. Drawing on her wisdom, she asked at the very momen
t we had given in:

  “So then what do you say, ladies? Are you in?”

  Like a military commander fresh out of ammunition, Maryam answered as if there was nothing left to lose but pride:

  “We will let you know, Madam Lilla.”

  It was the end to an evening in stark contrast to its beginning. But in a way it made perfect sense.

  *

  What happened back in the hotel before leaving for Madam Lilla’s had foreshadowed events to come. Amira was busy showing us the treasures she had picked up on her shopping spree. Dressed in her strange dance outfit and clacking beads in our faces, I could read what was coming in Maryam’s face. She asked, “Can you really live on dancing alone?” and Amira was even more delighted in her dancing toys, pushing aside the more esteemed personality to whom the question had been posed. Clearly she felt the need to pack up that other Amira, the person who wrote and cared about politics, wrap her in a sack and stuff her in a closet. Since our trip to visit her Dido, Maryam had not relinquished her sword. I was frustrated with the way she kept going after Amira but… it would take a lot of courage to come out and say, “A woman angry with the desperation of another woman is no doubt angry with her own life. So what’s your deal?” Or thinking quickly on my feet I could spin something clever like: “If you willfully reveal another woman’s secret then surely you’re hiding from another woman who lives in you.” But in that moment I had neither my wits about me nor the courage and I simply watched the network of crackling electric cables that ran between Maryam and Amira. Maryam was a darkening shadow and this made it increasingly hard to handle Amira’s rising exuberance. And of course when those charged lines hit Madam Lilla’s stage, there was no stopping them.

  Is the evening set in motion when Amira gives Madam Lilla a present – her purple belly-dancing skirt adorned with antique silver coins – or is it when Maryam and I retreat into our shadows? I’m not sure. But I do know the dinner will now feature two solo performers – an adolescent and a grown-up who will graciously share the stage. Amira seems to be constantly throwing a thought over her shoulder like a chiffon scarf blown back by the wind. Who knows what she is thinking. When we’re out of sight I can clearly see she’s deep in thought but she keeps it bottled up. But now and then she speaks. Madam Lilla leaves the brightest spot on the stage for Amira, as if setting up a trap. It’s as if she is going to fire up the audience for her then jump into a role no one would have expected. There’s a dangerous cunning about Lilla but Amira is in no state to see it. Drunk in her own dance in the spotlight, she’s dazzling the world around her. Turning, twirling… Madam Lilla poses questions and Amira gives long and elaborate answers as she plays along. Laughing, she talks about all the different jobs she’s had to stay afloat in Europe and America:

  “Oh and once … I played the role of defendant for law students.”

  Madam Lilla mimed surprise.

  “Of course they have that kind of thing in the US. They call in actors to play either the witness or the defendant so that law students can get used to the process. Of course as an Arab I had to play a terrorist. And once I was a woman who was abetting terrorists. And once you start with terrorism it never ends. Later I played a terrorist for the US army. They needed Arab actors when they were conducting drills. It was hilarious. You act all afraid and then not. You’re in tears then extremely dangerous. Like a school play, nothing very difficult!”

  Maryam and I forced out smiles but Madam Lilla was throwing coal on the fire.

  “Oh! Well then tell me about the most interesting one, Amira!”

  “In Spain. This woman set up the weirdest company, called Destroyers Inc. Later she was arrested for it. So here’s the story: Let’s say a man ruins your life. You go to Destroyers Inc and they guarantee to send a group of actors to ruin the man’s life in the same way he ruined yours. Like a private law firm. A revenge firm. Of course there were some really interesting stories. And in the end it was always a matter of cleaning up the mess.”

  Madam Lilla maintained her teasingly seductive air. There was a feather in Amira’s wing that would help her fly and Lilla was twirling it, and the more she twirled, the more Amira looked like a dove doing somersaults.

  “I am amazed, Amira. These are truly invaluable experiences. Please tell us more,” said Madam Lilla and then Maryam was waving her sword again.

  “Seeing as you’ve had so much work experience yourself, staying up on your feet and all that, you must have very thick skin? Either it’s thicker than you’re letting on or you really haven’t lived … wouldn’t you say?”

  Amira’s smile was suddenly frozen on her face, her eyes flickering like a young girl stabbed in the back. Picking her up from the fall, Madam Lilla said, “And dance? Did you ever dance in those places?”

  Amira shrugged away the role of fallen child, steadied her voice and with a few words she was back up on stage again.

  “Some … I mean not how I would have wanted to. But in a couple of hotels, at weddings. Actually I was part of the play in a dance theatre once, I came out in the ‘oriental’ role. But I wasn’t really dancing, just doing an imitation of the style…”

  “So you either cater to Western deceit or become it, right?” snapped Maryam.

  It didn’t look like Amira was going to let this one slide. With a blank expression on her face, she looked like a child suddenly plucked out of a dream. But Madam Lilla was determined to finish the play on her own schedule. The audience might have been hurling rotten vegetables but this show was going to unfold exactly when she wanted it to.

  “Alright then, Amira, so now that you are here in Tunisia… What is it you are thinking of doing?”

  Falling short this time, Amira stopped and looked at Maryam. I felt the need to jump in.

  “Amira wants to open a dance school here in Tunisia.”

  Amira and Maryam’s electric cables crackled and Madam Lilla said with delight, “Ah!” and she sat up in her chair. “Oh, how wonderful. When?”

  Her eyes still fixed on Maryam, Amira only managed to say, “Not yet”. No doubt under the impression we could all simply ignore Maryam’s fury, Madam Lilla went on.

  “Why not right away? I think you should get right down to it. No need to delay!”

  With Amira still faltering, I said, “There’s no money right now.”

  “Money?” said Lilla, laughing. We were startled, Maryam included, by the sudden outburst and we watched her closely as she continued:

  “Now why are you worrying about such a thing, Amira! If the matter is money then leave it to me! And if that’s the only problem then when are we opening?”

  Even Maryam’s jaw dropped. We were taken aback by the sudden offer to front Amira’s school but Madam Lilla went on as if there was nothing to be surprised about. “As for the matter of dance, Amira…” And she stood up. She stopped. As she raised her hands up into the air, the baggy sleeves of her chiffon dress fell in a quick and decisive flourish. Her face turned towards the red light on the terrace. She closed her eyes. The light was cast over her face. Slightly turning, a beam fell over her cheek. Like that she began to slowly twirl her wrists, broadening her shoulders. And in a single, sudden, startlingly fluid movement a wave shot through her neck and her shoulders and down her body. Then she stopped and turning to us she shot a glance at Amira.

  “Look at the light. Only at the light.”

  Slowly she began to dance. Snakes seemed to slither out of every part of her body, twisting and curling. No music was playing but she heard something. The rustling of her chiffon dress hummed music only we could hear and only this once. Madam Lilla’s body was broadcasting a crystal clear message from a distant planet called youth. And as we marvelled at the quick, coy movements of the hips and breasts of such a woman, she danced and spoke in twilight tones.

  “You need to get lost, Amira. Close your eyes and make them feel like you’re in another world…”

  With another turn that seemed to bring her chiffon dress
to life, “They should think that you’re reeling wildly from pleasure in that place and that they cannot get there.”

  Madam Lilla grimaced, crinkling her brow, and shutting her eyes.

  “They should have the feeling that you’ll drown if you’re left alone to writhe in that sea of pleasure. You must make love with yourself until you give them the feeling that they are the only one who can save you.”

  Madam Lilla wraps her arms around her waist and bows her head like a dead bird. Then, as if alive and resisting capture, she flings open her arms and lets them fall at her sides.

  “Then dropping the tempo you need to make them feel, this time so sweetly, how beautiful it would be if they were also in that world.”

  She smiles and begins to twirl, faster and faster and faster, dashes of red light shimmering on her chiffon dress flying in the night.

  “Then one last time, in a final frisson, you call them to your world of pleasure, summoning them to your body and you collapse.”