The Confusion of Languages - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Siobhan Fallon  is the author of You Know When the Men Are Gone, which won the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction, the Indies Choice Honor Award, and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for First Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post Magazine, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, Military Spouse, The Huffington Post, and NPR’s Morning Edition, among others. She and her family moved to Jordan in 2011, and they currently live in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

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Part One

May 13, 2011

3:00 p.m.

We are close, so close, to Margaret’s apartment, and I feel myself sink deeper into the passenger seat, relieved that I have succeeded in my small mission of getting Margaret out of her home, if only for a few hours. The day is a success. Sure, I had to let her drive, something I usually avoid. Margaret is ­always too nervous, too chatty, looking around at the pedestrians, forgetting to put on her signal, stomping on the brakes too late. But today I actually managed to snap her out of her sadness. I have done everything a good friend should.

It’s not until we reach the intersection at Horreyya and Hashimeyeen that I realize my mistake. I’ve misjudged the time, something I never do. Friday prayers have already let out. We’d stopped by the ceramics house to pick up a box of pottery I’d ordered and Margaret, being Margaret, sat down for too long with the hijab-ed women at their worktable, letting them touch Mather, pinching his cheeks and thighs, rubbing silica dust all over his tender baby skin. Now the intersection ahead is congested, chaotic. I see men strolling from the mosques, climbing into the cars they triple-parked along the main road.

I sit up straight, the seat belt pressing against my chest.

The traffic light turns yellow as we approach and cars alongside us speed by. Margaret could step on the gas and easily make the light but both of us see a man on the sidewalk, waving his entire arm in the air.

“Just go—” I urge, but Margaret shakes her head, slowing the car, the corner of her mouth turning up.

“It’s uncanny how he always sees me.” She says something like this every single time and I usually reply, The man’s livelihood depends on his ability to spot the softhearted suckers. But today I am silent. Mather shouts from his car seat but she ignores him too.

Her window is down before we’ve come to a complete stop. The man reaches into the cluster of dented white buckets at his corner-side stand, pulls free a few dripping-wet bouquets, then dodges traffic until he’s at Margaret’s side.

He leans through the window, wearing a red and white checked kaffiyeh around his throat. Margaret’s wallet is on her lap, ready.

“Hello, baby!” the man shouts at Mather, avoiding looking at both of us women with our loose hair and bared elbows. His flowers are spread perfectly across his arm, inches from the very face he will not peer into. The car fills with the scent of crushed rose petals, exhaust, and his sweat, a faint mix of onions and soil. I do not point out that most of his offerings are wilted, tinged with brown. I notice the cluster of pristine white blossoms at the same time Margaret does, fragile, lacy blooms on very green stems, and she nods toward them, holding up her money. It takes only seconds.

As he passes the chosen bouquet to Margaret through the window, Mather yells again from the backseat, wanting something; that child is always wanting something. The man turns to the baby but he doesn’t stop there; he lifts his face and stares behind our car, his brown eyes widening with fear as he stumbles backward. Before I can look around, there is a ripping scream of brakes and our car leaps forward with a thud of crushed metal. Our heads rock on our spines and there are flowers in flight across the dashboard, white blossoms spread open like tiny, reaching hands.

May 13, 2011

3:33 p.m.

Margaret, this happens all the time.” We stand outside her apartment, her baby on my hip. I know I am too chipper for the occasion, that I am still on uncertain ground, but I am glad to be here. It’s been weeks since she’s invited me in, weeks since I have held her child close. I continue directing words at her as she digs through her massive handbag: “You haven’t really lived in the Middle East until you’ve been in a car accident.” She glances up and I see my attempt at humor has failed. Her blue eyes are so red she looks like a white lab mouse, worn and wary from too many experiments. Her gaze is naked, injured, disturbing.

“I should go to the police station with you,” I say. “It’ll be easier to find with the two of us.”

She shakes her head, lifting a fist of keys from her purse; loose Cheerios fall out on the floor. “No, the baby’s hungry, he needs a nap.” She watches her son for a moment before training those red eyes back on me. “I mean, if you don’t mind, I’d rather you stay here with him.”

I nod. Mather reaches for the large black garbage bag slumped at the side of the welcome mat and I swing him away, press a kiss on his sweaty little head. I want to ask Margaret why no one has cleared her trash away—that lazy boab of hers is always hovering about trying to get a glimpse down her T-shirts; where is he when she needs him?—but I notice her hands are shaking so badly she can’t get the key in the lock. I give her the baby, remove the key from her grip.

“I’ve got it,” I say as I twist the lock and then push the apartment door open.

“Thanks, Cass.” She doesn’t seem grateful. Instead she’s even more crestfallen, as if I’ve taken something from her I shouldn’t have. The ability to open her door? I’m confused and I step aside to let her scurry past into the blacked-out foyer. I watch her flick a few lights on. She usually keeps the windows wide and full of sun. It’s disorienting to leave the afternoon behind us and face something so dark, all the shades drawn. Her apartment also smells funny, not quite rank, but stale, used diapers and food that has sat out too long. I hesitate in the doorway, then kick off my shoes and follow her.

“Margaret, you should print out directions to the police ­station—it’s a mess down there,” I say as she heads into the ­master bedroom. She closes the door behind her, a solid click, a sudden Do not enter between us. I stop and wait for her to emerge, wait for her to shout to me, wait for anything, but there is only silence. Usually Margaret breast-feeds Mather wherever the inclination takes her, never bothering to cover up or hide the act, sitting on the couch, at the kitchen table, on the linoleum floor with her knees up and the baby on her thighs, kicking his feet. Not today.

After a moment, I head toward the kitchen, turning on more lights as I go.

The sink is a disaster, withered tea bags left curled around spoons, baby bowls caked with dried oatmeal and smears of yogurt. I begin to tidy up, stacking the dishes and peeling balled-up dishtowels from the countertops. We should have gone directly to the police station the way we were supposed to. The embassy fixer had come out to the scene of the accident, explained Margaret would need to file a report at the main headquarters in downtown Amman, sign a few forms. He even offered to lead us there in his embassy vehicle and act as a translator.

“Yes,” I’d agreed. “It won’t take long.”

“And the guilt fee is not so expensive,” the guard had said amicably. “Perhaps it is less than fifteen American dollars.”

That’s when Margaret lost it. She said she was taking her baby home, she was innocent, damn it, innocent! Didn’t he know what that meant? How could the price matter? The man stood there, baffled beneath his mustache.

Though I shouldn’t have been surprised....