Soueif - In the Eye of the Sun

Ahdaf Soueif

First published 1992

Copyright 1992 by Ahdaf Soueif

First published in paperback 1994

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN 9781408838280

Extract from Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear by Kal Mann and Bernie Love used by kind permission of Carlin Music Corporation, Iron Bridge House, 3 Bridge Approach, London NW1 8BD.

Extracts from 24 Hours From Tulsa by Gene Pitney, Do You Know Where Youre Going To and Touch Me In the Morning by Dianna Ross, and Youre a Native New Yorker by Nancy Sinatra used by kind permission of International Music Publications.

Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers

for Robbie

and we do not expect people to be moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling for all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrels heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

George Eliot, Middlemarch

Saturday, 28 July 1979

London

used to it although sometimes the very fact of my having grown used to it strikes me as the oddest thing of all! But then as Dada Zeina (and the vast majority of grown-ups) would say: one gets used to anything. So Chrissie, dear, Ive been notching them up again (although not at the moment, of course, with Khalu and Nadia both here) nothing serious just broadening my base, so to speak, and am looking forward to telling and hearing many stories in two months time (your children permitting of course), although I guess there may not be Arabiscos still for tea. Is it all really as different as I hear it is? Not everything can change though, can it? I mean, there must be some things that stay as they are; after all, its only been five years, and while thats very long for you and me it isnt long at all in the history of a country

Asya looks up from her letter-pad: her uncle sits in her new armchair with the vaguely Andalusian design in red and gold velvet and gazes out through the french windows and across the small south-facing balcony. What is he looking at? What can he see from where he sits? Only an elaborate arrangement of fragile lines and angles black against the clear blue sky: the aerials and the antennae on top of the Czechoslovak embassy building. Were he to stand up he would see the grey bulk of the Cromwell Hospital still under construction but functioning nevertheless. And in the foreground, between her house and the hospital, a long, white wall well on its way to being completely covered with green creepers.

He sits and stares without moving for a while, then raises his right hand and slips it under the back of his chequered beige wool shooting cap so that the brim falls at a rakish angle over his eyes and rubs the back of his head. He adjusts the cap and reaches towards the black ash table and picks up his diary once again. He smooths it out on his knee and holds it open with the heel of his right hand. Then he turns backwards one page, then two, then forward to where he had first opened it. He rests his palm on the diary and sits back frowning.

Asya moves from where she has been sitting at the old gate-leg table. She walks over to him and bends and puts her arm around his shoulders.

Ill make you some coffee, Khalu.

He does not look up but says, I seem to have lost a day somewhere Well, dont try to find it this minute. Youre still tired. She pats his shoulder. Come on, put the diary away. Do you want a biscuit with the coffee? Or some cake?

He looks up at her with her brothers eyes and her mothers. Where did they get these eyes? They arent her grandmothers; her eyes had been green. And they arent her grandfathers either. Ismail Mursis eyes had been black black: deep and shining and looking as though they were lined with kohl like Nassers. Typical Upper Egyptian eyes. His sons are a gentle hazel and she notes suddenly and with a slight surprise as she does each time slightly mismatched: the right eye now looks puzzled, anxious; the left eye is as usual blank.

Then he looks down at the diary. He closes it.

Lets go out. Lets go for a walk.

Do you think she hesitates. I mean, can you manage?

Of course I can.

An impatient, arrogant note has come into his voice. Her grandfathers. But her grandfather would have stood up and walked out. His son, Hamid Mursi, continues, Theres a place in Kensington High Street that makes good espresso. And you can have some ice-cream.

Asya smiles. I am twenty-nine, she thinks. But you are still my uncle; my only uncle. And I still like ice-cream.

She stands back and watches him lever himself up with his right hand, wait a few seconds till he steadies, then walk to the bedroom to find his shoes. He comes back with them on and carrying his jacket in his right hand. She takes it from him and stands behind him, holding it for him to get into. Then she comes round to his front and reaches up and straightens his tie a deep red silk with a scattering of tiny dark green circles and he says, I shant bother with the arm this time. So she does up the two buttons of his jacket and he pushes the end of his left sleeve into its breast with his right hand and she slides her own hand into the crook of his right elbow and they set off.

Outside, the sunshine makes them blink and she digs into her handbag and finds his sunglasses and hers before they start walking down the dappled Kensington streets. In Addison Gardens they stand aside for two young nannies in striped uniforms pushing their prams home from Holland Park. The nannies look up from their conversation and smile their thanks. What they see is a tall man in his middle age standing erect and looking a bit military with his left hand tucked into the breast of his jacket. His jacket is a beige tweed and he wears a white shirt and a tie and a woollen shooting cap on this warm July afternoon. He has on a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses and he is foreign of course. Darkish. Could be Spanish or Greek or Arab. So could the woman who holds on to his arm his daughter maybe? Or could be a young wife. She is somewhere in her middle twenties, goodlooking, with black eyes and lots of long black hair. She wears a loose blue cotton skirt and a sleeveless fuchsia top from French Connection and she has earrings, bangles, open-toed shoes and toenails to match. She carries a big bright mirror-work bag that Oxfam just up the road had in their window for three pounds last month and round her neck she has a single strand of pearls. Real ones. When the nannies look back a couple of minutes later they see the couple turning into Allen Street. They are walking slowly somehow more stately than strolling arm in arm, and do not alter their step even as they cross the road.