Arabian Nights

Rising deliberately from her cross-legged seat, spine uncoiling lazily, the dancer held everyone’s attention. Fully erect, she paused. Then her body began a slow ripple from belly to toe, like a wave caressing a beach. A perfectly poised torso, arms fluttering only to complement the circular movement of her hips, highlighted the stillness of her shoulders. The soft, languid tones of the musicians began to increase pace. The dancer responded, her feet beating out a fast tempo in a call and response to the hollow resonance of the percussion. Stamping down on the parquet floor, she began a steady revolution. As the rhythm grew faster, so did she.

Swirling skirts of purple and gold spun in an eddy of delight. The dancer lifted her arms, releasing her delicate hold on the voile veil which rose like mist above a turbulent whirlpool. Graceful arms rose above her head, wrists crossed and rotating against each other as if summoning the forces of the vortex upwards towards the ceiling.

Candlelight twinkled, golden beams bouncing off sequins that glittered like stars on the night sea. As if giving a voice to the light the coins on her tightly fitted hip scarf tinkled above the primal boom of the hand drums.

Faster and faster she twirled until, with a sudden flurry of staccato beats, the rhythmic drums ceased. The dancer dropped to her knees. Head down, the waterfall of her dark hair hid her face. Her skirts pooled about her.

Slowly she lifted her head, one hand on her hip, the other fingertips balanced on the floor, as though she was claiming the earth. Gazing forwards, her caramel-coloured eyes seemed to drill into mine. Her smooth olive skin had a sheen, whether from oil or sweat, that served only to enhance her exoticness.

My heart thudded in my chest erratically, as I released my breath.

I hadn’t realised I had been holding it.

The heat of the evening seemed to portend a tropical storm, humidity rising from all the bodies crammed into the hall. Glasses clinked softly and whispered voices murmured distantly, the sound muffled as though being carried across a great sea.

I drew the heavily scented air deeply into my lungs. Revivifying. Resuscitating.

Something in me had shifted.

It felt like I had stepped into another world; another life.

The turbaned musicians seemed to be drumming a message of complicity, the pulses of percussion instruments and the gliding of the cymbals speaking to me on an elemental level. All around me the colours had brightened. Reds popped out energetically against gold fabrics that gleamed like sand and greens spoke of palm trees swaying gently in warm desert breezes. A memory of Arabian tales rose in my mind, long forgotten, but once much cherished with incalculable demands on my mother to re-read them as I snuggled in my childhood bed. I would be transported from the dull cement of London, and the long grey drizzly days, rushing from underpass to underground on the daily walk to school.

The surrealness of the moment, an Eastern paradise in an East London working men’s club, made me smile ruefully. I waited at the bar now crammed with the hens all calling for more “Sex on the beach” accompanied by suggestive winks.

“As-salaam 'alaykum”, a soft voice spoke beside me. I turned to see the dancer. Her seductive figure draped now in a richly embroidered shawl of reds and purple, streaked through with golden threads, she smiled warmly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Arabic” I replied, shrugging feebly. I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t respond appropriately, as I always did.

“My apologies” she countered, “I thought you were Arabic”.

She wasn’t the first to ask me this. I suppose my own complexion was similar to hers, and my hair didn’t carry the afro curl that all my siblings had. It had always been my assumption that I got my hair from my mother’s side more than my Dad’s, whilst all my siblings took after him.

“No I’m mixed race, Jamaican and English actually, but I often get asked.”

“Oh.” Her response was flat. Unconvinced.

She drew her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders as she seemed to consider her next comment, “You seemed really into the show. Have you ever tried it?”

“No.”

Feeling that my response was a little too brusque I made an attempt to engage in a conversation, intrigued by her whole presence, “But I loved it, yes. You were amazing, and the music was so hypnotic.”

“Thank you habibi. You are so kind.” A gracious incline of her head.

“Do you do many shows like this?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“No habibi. Normally our group only dances the Raks Sharqi for our family celebrations.”

“Oh I see.” I pondered a moment, confused.

“Raks Sharqi is what you call ‘belly dance’. In Arabic it means ‘Dance of the East’”, she explained in gentle tones. Looking at me quizzically, as though waiting for a reaction, head cocked to one side.

“Oh” I again muttered, feeling even more inadequate than I had at the start of this exchange.

 “So you don’t know the music or the dances at all?” she enquired.

Again all I could respond was a simple “no”.

“Ah, perhaps one day you will want to know more.” The statement, delivered so calmly, seemed undeniable.

“I must go now. I hope I will see you again one day habibi.”

Bowing her head in a gesture of farewell she pulled her shawl up over her head and turned away, her movements as graceful as on the dancefloor.

The encounter stayed with me all night and my dreams were punctuated with fragments of a recurring dream that I hadn’t had for years.  

I stood in a vast desert, undulating golden sand dunes hiding the horizon from my view. A compass in my hand spun wildly out of control and every path I took led me to a cavern filled with genie lamps. But I could never touch them. They would slide right out from under my fingertips and begin moving like a kaleidoscope so I could never grasp one, colour intertwining and shifting in a nauseating dance. I woke feeling frustrated and bereft.

Recalling that Dad would be visiting Mum later that day I called him at 9 o’clock sharp to catch him before he left for the market. His usual Saturday shopping trip for fresh fruit and vegetables. He was a creature of routine, steady and dependable. Tomorrow he would make curried goat for us for lunch, filling containers to take away so I would have two or three meals through the week. When we had finished our long lunch we would settle down for a fiercely competitive domino match, shouting and laughing as we slammed the tiles on the plank table he had built from left-over timber three decades ago, painted in a faded turquoise that he said reminded him of the Caribbean Sea.

Sometimes my brothers and sisters would join us with their children and the flat would echo with laughter and shouting, the banter relentless but always loving.

But there was forever a mum shaped hole now. A void in our centre that I had unwittingly started to fill. It would be me calling the family in November to organise the Christmas plans and swap present suggestions. Every Easter I would select the perfect lamb joint and fend off the hopeful, yet unhelpful, suggestions to try something different “just this once Aunty Gem”. It was my turn to be my father’s sidekick now, maintaining the balance he and Mum had brought to our little piece of the world, through challenge after challenge.

We arranged to meet at the nursing home at 3pm when tea and cake would be served. It was a warm sunny day, despite the showers the night before, and we took Mum to sit outside so she could enjoy the roses that were starting to bloom.

Mum was lucid today, patting my knee and calling me Little Gem, like she did when I was very young. A nickname that would always make me smile.

We chatted for a while about the past week’s activities which for Mum had included a ‘sound and movement’ class and bingo, which she hadn’t won, to her loud annoyance. Dad and I looked around in concern as she vehemently cussed the other ladies for cheating, though we couldn’t quite get her to explain how they had cheated at bingo.

Thinking to divert her attention, Dad gave a loud guffaw and chortled, “So Gem, tell us, what you get up to last night at the Social Club eh?”

Leaning over to Mum, he tenderly took her hand and said, “You remember Stacey Wilson, Linda? Gem’s best friend from middle school? She had her hen party last night at the Social Club. Yes, so Gem here had a late night. We’ll get her to tell us all about it!”

Thinking that my mum would love to hear about the belly dancer I launched into a full description of the night, leaving out my unease and sense of foreboding. I laughed as I told my parents that the dancer had thought I was Arabic and her suggestion I might want to consider dancing myself. Expecting mum to laugh, as I had been the clumsiest child and never took to dancing, it was a few minutes before I noticed the silence.

Both Mum and Dad looked shocked and then Mum’s eyes seemed to glaze over, the familiar shutters being drawn over the rich brown eyes so like my own.

Gazing into the distance she seemed to be staring at the rose bushes, merrily waving their buds in the light breeze, but I knew she didn’t see them.

“Noor ‘eini.” The whisper was barely audible amongst the cheerful birdsong and distant hum of traffic.

“Dad?” I queried as I turned my attention to him, sitting still and taut in the garden chair.

“Gem, my little Gem,” he sighed. And with that sigh he seemed to deflate, like a punctured lifeboat.

“Noor ‘eini. Light of my eyes.” Mum’s voice was tender yet wistful. Addressing a ghost from the past.

“Noor ‘eini? Is that Arabic Mum?” Turning to my Dad, “How does she know Arabic Dad?” My voice rose in mild hysteria. What the hell was going on?

“Gem, we were going to tell you, I promise. But everything was so wonderful as it was, and we didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me how?” I couldn’t process what was happening, or how I felt. All the deep emotions of the evening before came flooding back to me.

“You see darling, I’m not actually your biological father. Your mum was pregnant when I met her after a brief relationship with a Sheikh. And he didn’t, couldn’t, want to acknowledge either her or you. He had to go back to Saudi and marry someone there.”

My mouth was as dry as the sand dunes from my dreams, yet my brain swirled madly.

My eyes welled.

I gasped for air. To say something. But there were no words.

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a crumpled napkin to wipe my eyes.

A delicate cursive script caught my attention. I unfolded the napkin, cheap white and unbranded from the social club last night.

"Habibi. My number. Please call me. I believe you are my sister.”