Excerpt
Helena is out of the shower and, while she gets dried off, she asks, “Who was
on the phone so early?”
Talal is not ready to answer. He puts two slices of bread in the toaster and gets
the marmalade out of the fridge. However, Helena is not the type of woman you
can get away from when she wants to know something.
“Let me guess,” she says, placing her finger between her lips which makes her
look even sexier and more playful. “Do you want me to make an educated guess,
my darling?”
“Yeah, go ahead.” He tries to be indifferent.
“It was . . . Emily.”
“What! Are you out of your mind, Emily?”
“Yeah, yeah, Emily. You think I didn’t notice her yesterday. She was not herself
all afternoon. She was always seeking your eyes, always trying to be around you. A
woman, my dear Talal, knows what she sees in another woman, trust me.”
“Rubbish,” he responds, trying to imitate her expression. “Are you going to
eat your toast?”
Helena is not prepared to let go just yet.
“My darling, Talal,wewomen know how to follow a man’s eyes everywhere.We
know when you guys look, we know why you look, we know every time, although
mendon’t give us enough credit for it. So tell me,my darling,was it Emily orwho?”
He is cornered now. He has to take a stand, to make a statement, to say
something that perhaps makes sense, but what? What is he to say?
“No, my darling,” he imitates her. “It wasn’t Emily, it was Ahmed.”
“Rubbish.” She flattens their conversation and eats her toast.
He smiles and doesn’t dare carry on, as he knows he can only lie so much. He
also knows that a lie takes ten more lies to cover the first one.
“What are the plans for today, darling?” he asks her.
“Definitely not church!”
Hakim and Jennifer are still in bed at eleven in the morning this
Sunday and the shadows elongate by the force of the September sun,
bringing inspiration to the poets, making the sprites dance in the imagination of
the fearful, and making gravestones sweat in agony.
Last night they had a good time at the Double Cherry with Talal and Helena
and Peter and Rose. They danced a while, they had a couple of drinks, and they
talked about almost everything. Hakim was jovial all night and made plenty of
fun of whatever happened. He hasn’t said anything to Jennifer about his newly
found fortune.
Libros Libertad 