They Do the Same Things Different There (17 page)

Ali sighs, he keeps looking at his watch; at last he gives in, he takes out money, he offers the man in the suit a bribe. The man doesn’t seem in the least surprised. He takes the cash, he counts it, it looks very dirty to you, why is Egyptian money so dirty? Then he writes something on a form, he tears off a receipt. It’s all over. The bride and groom are deemed compatible.

Whilst your sister is getting dressed, Ali comes up to you. You think he is going to offer some appropriate platitudes about the forthcoming marriage, and indeed you get in first—you smile, and you say, “Don’t they make a lovely couple?”

“I do not like your sister,” he says.

You don’t know how to respond. You know you should defend her. But he’s taken you completely by surprise. “Oh,” you say. And then, “Hey. Wait a moment. Hey!”

“I do not like it, all these foreigners, coming over here and marrying our camels. Take her home with you. Take her back to England.”

“Hey,” you say. “Now then. Now, you wait.” Because that’s just
racist
, isn’t it? That’s just fucking bigotry, and he should feel
lucky
that an Englishwoman is prepared to marry an Egyptian, what the fuck does he think Egypt is?—it was big once, mate, it was powerful, but the civilization’s long gone, the civilization has crumbled to dust, it’s ruins and pots and canopic jars from now on for the likes of you, it’s canopic jars forever. And all you do is grovel around in the sand trying to fleece tourists, you’re in the shadows of something greater than you can ever be, and they’re thousands of years old, they were made by
primitives
, you can’t reject us, you can’t afford to be picky, you fucking
need
us. But what you say is, “I don’t live in England now, I live in Australia.” And, at this, he shrugs.

Abdul’s close by, he’s been listening. And you think that even if you can’t defend your sister properly, even if you haven’t got the guts, he should at least try—it’s his
wife
, after all. But Abdul sort of shrugs too, as if in imitation of his master. And then he’s led away to start his day’s work.

Your sister has heard nothing of this. She looks so excited. “It’s all over!” she says. “The forms are signed. I’m getting married tomorrow morning!”

“I know.”

“I mean, I was always getting married tomorrow morning. But now I am, officially!”

“I know.”

“I’m so happy!”

You tell her you’ll be there, how much you’re looking forward to it, that you’ll give her anything she needs.

“The night before a Muslim wedding all the women get together, they celebrate with song and dance. But I don’t know any women here. It’s not strictly proper, but would you spend my last evening as a singleton with me?”

You spend the afternoon in the hotel. You don’t check your email.

“They call them henna nights,” Emma explains. “The bride has her hands and feet dyed with henna on the eve of her wedding.”

“Do you have any henna?”

“No.”

You didn’t bring any henna. You did, though, bring the contents of your mini bar.

“I’m not allowed to drink,” says Emma. “I’m a Muslim.”

“You’re not a Muslim until tomorrow,” you point out. So she takes a little bottle of Drambuie and downs it in one. You have a Courvoisier. She has another Drambuie. You have a Smirnoff. She has her third Drambuie. You have your first Drambuie.

“If you’ve got something to say,” Emma pipes up suddenly, “then I think you should just come right out and say it.”

“I haven’t got anything to say.”

“No, come on. Come on. Ever since you got here, no, come on. Look at me. Yes. If you don’t like Abdul, I think you should just have the balls to say so.”

“All right,” you say. “I don’t like Abdul.”

“There you go.”

“I don’t think he’s good enough for you.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I don’t think you should marry him tomorrow. He stinks and is covered in sand. He stinks of sand.”

She has another Drambuie. She’s got a real taste for Drambuie. You think maybe she wants to be rescued. Is that what this is? Is that why she brought you to Egypt? She wants you to rescue her?

“He’s a camel,” you say.

“Yes.”

“He’s just a camel.”

“Yes.”

“I mean, he’s not even a special looking camel. He’s not even some sort of super camel. He looks just like the other camels. And what’s this about you being a fucking
Muslim
?”

“If I’m going to be in Egypt, I want to live my life here properly, and it’s a very beautiful thing, actually, and I feel that in my soul. . . .”

“Don’t give me that. You don’t believe in anything. You’ve never believed in anything.”

“Just because
you’ve
never properly assimilated, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”

“Assimilated?”

“Assim. Oh. Is that right, did I get the word right?”

“I think so.”

“Fuck,” she says, and drinks the last Drambuie. “Because you don’t, do you? You don’t commit to anything. I mean, how long have you lived in Australia, and you’ve still got your English accent, you’re still holding on to your accent, what’s that about?”

“I like my accent the way it is.”

“You never commit. You never did. This wife of yours, and that kid, I mean, what do they get out of you?”

“I’m leaving Kirsten,” you say. “And my kid.”

“Well then.”

“You see?”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But don’t . . . don’t then start in on me about
my
marriage. When you can’t even. . . .”

“I wasn’t. . . .”

“When you can’t even . . . do it . . . with marriage. Yourself, yes.”

“I wasn’t. I wasn’t saying anything of the sort.” You pause. “I don’t think you even have a soul.”

Since there’s no more Drambuie, no matter how hard she looks, she settles for a Bell’s whisky.

“You couldn’t wait to run off to the other side of the world,” she says. “As far away from mother as you could get. You left me alone with her in London. After what . . . afterwards. I was the one, I have to be the one to visit, to see her every week. Most weeks. Don’t you criticize, I do my best, she’s not easy. And you took away the right to have an opinion when you ran away, I think so, I really do.”

“Well,” you say. “Well. Well, and what are you doing?”

“As far away,” says Emma, and throws the little glass bottle onto the growing pile, “as far away as I can get.”

You both sit there for a while.

You reach out, you put your hand on her shoulder. It feels awkward. It looks awkward. It was meant to be supportive, you think, somehow, or conciliatory, something nice anyway. You think it would be a mistake to move it away.

“So long as you’re going to be happy,” you say at last. “Because that’s all I worry about. Because I do worry, big sis. Because I love you. You know I love you, don’t you? I love you.” And you squeeze the shoulder a bit, you think with that you’ve earned the right to move your hand now. You do.

She says nothing to this. Then, “I want to see Abdul.”

“I didn’t think you were supposed to see the groom before the wedding. . . .”

“I’m not.” And she flashes you a grin, and you’re so grateful for that, and you smile back. “But it’s not as if Abdul is going to tell, is he?”

And so you creep out of the room, out of the house. You think you’re probably very quiet, all things considered, but you really couldn’t swear to it. Out to the garage.

And there is Abdul. And he’s shagging another camel, he’s riding her doggy style, he’s swinging about from side to side like it’s some fucking slow dance, they’re both braying away like there’s no tomorrow.

“Oh my God,” says Emma, and she runs out.

And Abdul doesn’t even bother to look ashamed, he just turns those big soulful eyes on you, and gives a slow and deliberate blink. And you can bet there’s a sticky smelly residue even now being secreted behind his ears—and it occurs to you that this lady camel couldn’t have ended up here by accident, Abdul didn’t just pick her up drunkenly in a bar, she must have been
brought
here—and my God, those Egyptians must
really
hate your sister.

You walk up to Abdul. Abdul doesn’t flinch. Abdul doesn’t care. Abdul doesn’t even slow down his rutting, the shit, no, Abdul is busy. “Shame on you,” you say. “Shame on you.” And you spit in his face.

You go outside. She’s standing on the pavement. She’s shaking. She’s wearing the burqa, she’s protecting herself. She’s smoking a cigarette, though, and every so often she has to raise the burqa to take a puff. You didn’t even know she smoked.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

She’s angry, she’ll say anything. So you stand with her whilst she finishes her cigarette. Whilst she fishes for another one, and she can’t get the lighter to work, her hands are all over the place, you help her.

“Thanks.”

“Well, I think he’s mad,” you say.

“Really?”

“Very mad. He’s the maddest camel I’ve ever met. To choose anyone over you.” And she smiles at this. “If I were a camel,” you say, “I would treat you right. If I were a camel,” you say, “I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you. Paws. Hooves. Whatever camels have.”

“Hooves,” she agrees.

“Hooves then,” you say. And you give her a little kiss on the cheek. She gives another smile, just a small flash of one, a thank you. She takes your hand. She sighs. So you give her another kiss, again just on the cheek, no grander or bolder than the first.

And somehow then you are kissing her properly, and
hungrily
, and she’s kissing you too, it isn’t just one way, it really isn’t. There are lips everywhere, and tongues, and it starts off gently enough, just a little exploratory mission around the gums—and you think, so
this
is what it’s like inside my sister’s mouth, and it’s just like all the other girls’ mouths, it’s just like Kirsten’s mouth. It’s nothing special, you know, but nor is it anything
wrong
, it’s just a mouth. But it isn’t, either, really, is it, and as you kiss something pops into your head about saliva, and that saliva contains your DNA, and that if someone swabbed the inside of Emma’s cheek right this second they probably wouldn’t be able to tell apart your tongue leavings from hers—and you fight off that thought because it really ought to be putting you off, but it doesn’t, strangely, anything but. And you kiss, and you wonder who it was who started the kissing, it must have been Emma, it can’t have been you, you’d never have given in to those urges—after all, you never have before.

And you’re pulling off your trousers, and you’re pulling off her bra, you’re right out there on the streets of Cairo and you don’t care, out plops breasts, out plops a willy, and there’s so much sand on the streets and you hope the sand doesn’t get into the cracks, the dirty sand gets everywhere, and you look down at the willy, and it isn’t great, but at least it doesn’t hook backwards, at least it’s
normal
—and the breasts look normal too, so very normal—and the shock appearances of one or other of these really very normal protuberances has an effect—“No,” says Emma, “no,” and she pushes you away.

“What is it?”

“No,” she says, and dashes back inside the house.

You follow her. She’s in her room, she’s breathing hard, she’s staring at the mound of little mini bar bottles as if she’s never seen them before and wondering how they got there. You want to take her hand and offer her some comfort. Just comfort, but you don’t quite dare.

“It’s just wrong,” she says.

“For God’s sake,” you say, and you try not to sound impatient. “After what Abdul’s been up to behind
your
back? I think you’re entitled, don’t you?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she says.

It takes you a moment. “Oh. Right. Of course.”

She picks up one of the empty bottles. She tips it into her mouth, just to see if there’s anything inside. She sticks her tongue in the neck, just to reach a few stray drops.

“It’s nonsense,” you say. “You know full well, give it a few years, having a relationship with your brother will be perfectly acceptable. God, you’re allowed to do it with the same sex now, you can do it with animals. Family members are right around the corner. All we are, we’re just a bit ahead of our time.”