Bone Ash Sky (77 page)

Rowda is outside as well, with a group of Red Crescent workers. Her veil is wrapped so completely around her head I can only recognise her by the slash of red that's her mouth. I begin to follow the imam inside without another glance at her.

‘Wait,' Rowda hisses, putting out her arm. ‘Do you mind if I'm here?'

‘What do I care? It's a memorial, Rowda. This mosque doesn't belong to me. This is Bilqis's memorial.'

As I say Bilqis's name, the tears I've been trying to hold back all morning – for Inam's sake, for Chaim's, for my own – come all in a rush. At the mention of her name, Rowda murmurs
Rahimaha Allah
, the traditional prayer:
Allah be merciful upon the deceased.
I turn away and wipe my cheeks with my veil, embarrassed for Rowda to see me like this.

‘It doesn't matter whether or not I mind.'

But my words are crushed against her shoulder as she draws me close. The group huddles around us, screening my tears from passers-by.

‘I'm sorry,' Rowda says. ‘I'm so sorry.'

Somewhere in my half-hysterical state, I'm trying to figure out why Rowda is saying this.
Sorry for what? For Bilqis's death; for your
prejudices; for everyone here?
All I'm aware of are the two strong hands holding my head down, the musty hashish sweetness of Rowda's clothes, the swishing, smacking sounds from people's bare feet as they discard their sandals and step over the entrance to the mosque. I pull away.

‘Thank you. I'm sorry too. I—I need to go inside now.'

I sit at the back of the mosque, near the open doors. My veil damp and clammy, a dead weight around my neck. As I kneel and bend my head I can see Chaim walking through the entrance with Inam running behind. I beckon to them but they don't see. Inam's tugging on his jacket as they make their way closer, and he stops and looks back at her, exasperated.

Then I see him bend down and twine his fingers with hers, leading her to me.

The adoption process was surprisingly easy, even with Rowda's negative report. I managed to find another Muslim social worker, who came to my new apartment and stayed for three days, writing a glowing account of my living arrangements. Julius and his good-natured antics obviously helped. My job and apartment in America helped. I referred to Chaim as an ‘honorary uncle' to the social worker, saying that Inam could rely on him for friendship and support as she grew older. He didn't object to this, but in his heart I can see he mourns what could have been. Or maybe could still be – he hasn't given up hope. Nor have I. I'm a mystery to myself these days, but I know I still feel so much love for him. It increases every day, changes. If he and Inam can learn to love each other too, then I can see a future for us. The healing of my father's wound has left a bigger hole: a hole that's surprisingly light, and spacious, and free. I'm letting it be. For now.

The court saw fit to milk the situation as a political coup, a bestcase scenario of Israeli–Arab relations. As did the fact that I was staying in Beirut. I wasn't going to take the orphan away to a foreign country of infidels. After all, it wasn't as if rich Westerners were clamouring to take away Palestinian children. Unless they were newborn babies, of course. The babies didn't even make it to the orphanage. They were especially sought after, being adequately unformed, pale-skinned, pliable. Easy to pretend with.

I sat in the office of the orphanage and the French headmistress handed me paper after paper to sign. I could see Amal's and Sayed's signatures on the line above mine: Sayed's a flourish, Amal's a thin, shaky cross. I kept on scribbling my initials at the bottom of each page, anxious to get it all over with, to take Inam home.

I show Inam her bedroom – tiny, almost a cupboard, but perfumed with triangles of incense I've burnt to chase away the past. I switch on a lamp, pale-blue and beaded, with silk fringing Inam caresses as she stands looking at the oval side table, the tiny writing desk against the high, pointed window, a flat ultramarine square of sky.

‘Do you like it?'

Inam wanders to the centre of the room, sits down on the bed, gazing around and up at the ceiling.

‘It's beautiful.'

I'm relieved at her reaction.

‘This is your room now. There are fresh sheets on the bed, more blankets in the linen cupboard if you get cold.'

Inam nods. She's overwhelmed by the immensity of the situation. She grasps my hand.

‘Is it really true? I'm living here with you – forever?'

I laugh.

‘Don't know if we'll be living here forever, sweetheart. But we'll definitely be together, you and me, for a very long time.'

Inam thinks for a moment.

‘And Julius?'

‘Well, Julius is Chaim's dog, and I don't really know what Chaim will do next. But he'll always be our dear friend, I hope. Do you like Chaim better now?'

‘I like him so much more now I've met Julius. He's such a good dog – better than the ones at the prison.'

Chaim hears this from the open door, where he's come with a tray of baked eggplant for dinner.

‘We always liked each other a little bit, didn't we, Inam?'

Inam shouts back, ‘Whatever you want. Nothing matters anymore now I'm here.'

Inam and I walk arm in arm along the beach. Julius has raced on before us, sniffing at seaweed and sea urchins rotting on the shore. I'm tired. We've scaled the split white rocks in bare feet and made it down to the water's edge. Far away now, obdurate buildings and noiseless cars make no impact. Here we can splash in the foamy waves, watching out all the while for drowned garbage and discarded syringes, feel the hot wind from Africa sting our faces and a hotter sun burn the tops of our heads. We can talk in whispers. Talk about Bilqis.

Since the funeral six months ago, all we talk about when we're alone together is Bilqis. Whether she's happy wherever she is, whether she can see us and know how much we miss her now she's gone. Amal visits once or twice a week but her great-aunt's presence seems to make Inam's grief worse. She looks like Bilqis but isn't – and Inam can't bear the trick. Yet her grief is always more manageable in the daytime: when she's at school or after-school activities, when I traipse around the city interviewing people and filing stories for
The Star
. But in the evening, when dinner is over, when she's had her shower and is allowed to read for an hour in bed, the tears and disbelief well up and Bilqis is too far away.

Inam wails for me then and I bring her into the big bed. Some nights Chaim is staying over, and I can't help but feel ashamed. So I ask him to go back to his own apartment and Inam snuggles into the warmth he's left behind. It's the only way she can fall asleep for a few hours and be half-awake for school the next day. I worry that Chaim will soon become fed up with the nightly situation and go away to Nabatiye, never to return. Then I reason that it wouldn't be so bad after all, that at least the situation will be resolved that way.

Some nights I wait until I think Inam is sound asleep, legs and arms kicked out to the far edges of the bed, frail mouth quivering in her dreams. Then I tiptoe silently out to the hall and phone Chaim to come back. I slip down beside him in Inam's single bed. On some nights he refuses to come back. On others he kisses the back of my neck, breathing comfort into me. When dawn steals through the curtains, I always make sure I'm back in bed with Inam, and Chaim is back in his apartment.

‘Put your sandals back on,' I say now. ‘I'm scared you'll step on a syringe and catch something.'

‘I won't. I'm being careful.'

Inam looks up at my face, pleading. I sigh, feel the responsibility weigh heavy on my chest, hesitate, nod my head. Inam will never know what it costs me to do this.

‘Okay. Just this once.'

Inam sighs, happily. She threads her arm still tighter through mine and hops a little from foot to foot.

‘She might be looking down on us now and smiling.'

‘Won't she have better things to do, don't you think?'

‘No. Nothing better than watching over us. She must miss home.'

Inam skips over the pebbles, splashing herself a little around the hem of her dress. Julius joins in the fun with more enthusiasm than is necessary, almost knocking her over into the waves. She pushes him away and hums, crouching low near the water. I look at her, drink her in: the peach-dark skin, the long-limbed grace, the kiss-curls at the nape of her neck. I can't get used to this miracle. Inam is not family yet I love her with a ferocity only blood and pain can impart. There's plenty of that between us, even without the mess of birth.

She plucks pebbles from the shore like flowers, fat stones fall as she wades in further. Up to her hands, her brown wrists. Fingers submerged, silver-finned, and she shakes them free, singing. An unintelligible song, obscured beat by beat as she advances into the blueness, so blue; her voice covered by the lapping of waves then finally increasing in volume, unfolding into the air.

I can't hear her anymore. Panic makes my voice sharp.

‘Hey! Get back here now.'

She wrinkles her nose and returns, protesting with the slowness of her movements.

‘I wasn't going far. And you know I'm old enough to be careful.'

She flits up and down, humming the song under her breath, clapping her hands to the quiet rhythm of the music.

‘What's that song?'

‘I made it up.'

She continues singing, but softer now.

‘I know that tune from somewhere. But I've never heard you sing it before.'

‘I used to hear the old men sing it in the camp.'

‘Did you know it's Armenian originally? There's also a Turkish version. It's not in Arabic.'

‘No. I never thought about it.'

‘I'm sure your grandma would have told you. She knew some Turkish, from her days in Palestine. So tell me, isn't paradise preferable to the camp? She must feel as if she's gone home to Jaffa.'

‘Not if we're not there to enjoy it with her.'

‘But she's with her son, my darling. And with your mother too.'

Inam stops and stares up at me.

‘But Anoush, my father's not in paradise. He killed too many people. So he must be in hell. Like your father. They're both in hell.'

‘Who's been telling you such lies?'

‘Nobody. I worked it out myself.'

I bend down, fix her with a stern eye.

‘Are you sure about that? Nobody said this – not the French teachers at the orphanage, other kids at school?'

Inam shakes her head from side to side, as if mesmerised. I draw her closer, rest the burnished head against my chest.

‘Nobody knows where your father is, Inam. Not me, not you, not Chaim, not the teacher. Only Allah knows. Okay?'

Inam nods and clutches tighter. She seems relieved. I stand up with her arm still about me. We walk slowly. Inam breaks away and paddles in the foam, teasing Julius, and all the while I'm thinking,
I said ‘Allah'.
I said something I don't know if I believe. I relinquished control to something
higher.