The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

I DIDN’T RETURN to Jeddah till the very end of November, having left my book with an agent. Just before our leave I had met my Saudi neighbor, a young mother taking a part-time literature course at the women’s university. Education for women was regarded as a luxury, an ornament, a way for a husband to boast of his broadmindedness; Munira couldn’t even begin to do her assignments, and I took to going up to her flat in the late mornings and doing them for her, while she sat on the floor in her négligée, watching Egyptian soaps on TV and eating sunflower seeds. We three women, Yasmin and Munira and I, had become midmorning friends; all the better for them to watch me, I thought, and discuss me when I’m gone. It was easier for Yasmin and me to go upstairs, because to come down Munira had to get kitted out in full veil and abaya; again, that treacherous, hovering moment on the public territory of the staircase, where a man might burst through from the street and shout “Hi!” Yasmin was a delicate woman, like a princess in a Persian miniature; younger than myself, she was impeccably soignée, finished with a flawless glaze of good manners and restraint. Munira was nineteen, with coarse, eager good looks, a pale skin, and a mane of hair that crackled with static and seemed to lead a vital, separate life; her laugh was a raucous cackle. She and Yasmin sat on cushions but gave me a chair; they insisted. They served Nescafé in my honor, though I would have preferred a sludgy local brew. I had learned the crude effectiveness of caffeine against migraine; some nights, sleepless, pacing, I careened off the walls, and only the dawn prayer call sent me to bed, still thinking furiously of books I might write.

Ijaz rang the doorbell on December 6th. He was so very pleased to see me after my long leave; beaming, he said, “Now you are more like Patches than ever.” I felt a flare of alarm; nothing, nothing had been said about this before. I was slimmer, he said, and looked well—my prescription drugs had been cut down, and I had been exposed to some daylight, I supposed that was what was doing it. But, “No, there is something different about you,” he said. One of the company wives had said the same. She thought, no doubt, that I had conceived my baby at last.

I led Ijaz into the sitting room, while he trailed me with compliments, and made the coffee. “Maybe it’s my book,” I said, sitting down. “You see, I’ve written a book…” My voice tailed off. This was not his world. No one read books in Jeddah. You could buy anything in the shops except alcohol or a bookcase. My neighbor Yasmin, though she was an English graduate, said she had never read a book since her marriage; she was too busy making supper parties every night. I have had a little success, I explained, or I hope for a little success, I have written a novel you see, and an agent has taken it on.

“It is a storybook? For children?”

“For adults.”

“You did this during your vacation?”

“No, I was always writing it.” I felt deceitful. I was writing it when I didn’t answer the doorbell.

“Your husband will pay to have it published for you.”

“No, with luck someone will pay me. A publisher. The agent hopes he can sell it.”

“This agent, where did you meet him?”

I could hardly say, in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. “In London. At his office.”

“But you do not live in London,” Ijaz said, as if laying down an ace. He was out to find something wrong with my story. “Probably he is no good. He may steal your money.”

I saw of course that in his world, the term agent would cover some broad, unsavory categories. But what about “Import-Export,” as written on his business cards? That didn’t sound to me like the essence of probity. I wanted to argue; I was still upset about Patches; without warning, Ijaz seemed to have changed the terms of engagement between us. “I don’t think so. I haven’t given him money. His firm, it’s well known.” Their office is where? Ijaz sniffed, and I pressed on, trying to make my case; though why did I think that an office in William IV Street was a guarantee of moral worth? Ijaz knew London well. “Charing Cross tube?” He still looked affronted. “Near Trafalgar Square?”

Ijaz grunted. “You went to this premises alone?”

I couldn’t placate him. I gave him a biscuit. I didn’t expect him to understand what I was up to, but he seemed aggrieved that another man had entered my life. “How is Mary-Beth?” I asked.

“She has some kidney disease.”

I was shocked. “Is it serious?”

He raised his shoulders; not a shrug, more a rotation of the joints, as if easing some old ache. “She must go back to America for treatment. It’s okay. I’m getting rid of her anyway.”

I looked away. I hadn’t imagined this. “I’m sorry you’re unhappy.”

“You see really I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” he said testily. “She is always miserable and moping.”

“You know, this is not the easiest place for a woman to live.”

But did he know? Irritated, he said, “She wanted a big car. So I got a big car. What more does she want me to do?”