Souvenirs

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Your wife – what’s her name?’ was how his mother referred to Emma. She would not say Emma’s name. She would not “remember” it. It would have been the same if Emma had been Jane, Alison or Susan, any woman from “outside”. Outside that large pool of names his mother knew and could relate to. That was his punishment – nothing more, nothing less. He accepted it as the nomad bears the times of drought which come to starve his cattle, biding time, waiting for the tightness to run its course and the rain that must eventually fall. Manaal would smile in an embarrassed way when their mother said that. And as if time had dissolved the age gap between them, she would attempt a faint defence. “Leave him alone, Mama,” she would say, in a whisper, avoiding their eyes, wary, lest her words instead of calming, provoked the much-feared outburst. Manaal had met Emma two years ago in Aberdeen. What she had told his mother about Emma, what she had said to try to drive away the rejection that gripped her, he didn’t know.

For Yassir, Emma was Aberdeen. Unbroken land after the sea. Real life after the straight lines of the oil rig. A kind of freedom. Before Emma, his leave onshore had floated, never living up to his expectations. And it was essential for those who worked on the rigs that those onshore days were fulfilling enough to justify the hardship of the rigs. A certain formula was needed, a certain balance which evaded him. Until one day he visited the dentist for two fillings and, with lips frozen with procaine, read out loud the name, Emma, written in Arabic, on a golden necklace that hung around the receptionist’s throat.