unveiled

A beautiful blue sky and an evil wind. Her black skirt flapped round her ankles. She walked up the street just behind him, head slightly and strategically bowed but not enough to escape the incredulous, wide-eyed looks that followed them. They were, she was wryly aware, what could only be called A Sight, in black and white, complete with veil and headdress, a bit of Arabia transported from barren deserts and oil-built palaces and flat skies, to be deposited on a busy tourist street in this old town.

The street they were on thronged with university students in a rainbow of kaffiyehs, scarves casually thrown around necks and shoulders in every shade from virulent green to deep royal purple. Small, wiry-haired dogs yipped at each other across the street and the shops were an advertisement for minimalist design, as though offended by the mere idea that they sold anything. Exclusive pieces stood against stark white or insane, deep red walls, aloof and above it all. She pressed herself against the grey grainy wall like a shadow, carefully not window-shopping, and kept a step behind him, parting the scattered crowds with steadfast resolve.

When a dog came out of its way to press against her, she almost petted it, before she remembered herself and shrank back, looking nervous. Her husband attempted to act protective, stepping back to stand between her and the dog. She smiled secretly beneath the soft cloth, a flash of a smile as sharp as a knife.

They took a side street, passing less intimidating shop-fronts. A few more minutes and the graffiti appeared, writ large on the wall, in beautiful, passionate purple, and in pink and green and red. Words she could not quite decipher and symbols in jagged black. But, bigger than any of that and more eye-catching, a face with flame-red hair flung out like a banner and black-lined over-large eyes. Cigarette stubs littered the pavement like confetti, like flattened cork spongy with rain.

Her husband stopped and looked at the shop they stood in front of. Then, decisively, he moved in. She followed.

The jeweller opened his eyes very wide when they came in, eyes that were an eggshell blue and alarmingly large behind his stained, scratched glasses. She felt more than saw her husband’s smile as he nodded brusquely to the jeweller and steered her towards the glittering, glittering gold under the thin sheet of glass.

She took her time, keeping her black-draped head inclined and seeing her own disguised reflection stare back at her from the glass counter. She pointed, when she found something she liked the look of, and it was taken out with a lot of eager fumbling. She herself didn’t speak a word; she let her husband do the talking. It didn’t take as much wheedling as she’d expected for the arrangements to be made, against all rules and regulations. The jeweller was falling over himself agreeing, and chanting that the little grimy jewellers could and did and would deliver, right to the hotel room, no problem at all. Later, she leaned her head against the cold pane of glass, sitting at the back of the yellow taxi, listening to them talking.

She had six rings on her short fingers. She stood with her back turned, facing the window, facing away from the jeweller people, who hovered over the gold on the table like vultures. Two of them, all in black with tiny, greedy, nervous eyes. She watched the sparkle of the jewellery distractedly, turning the rings round and round on her fingers. She murmured a few words to him, and he nodded a few times. “Hmm, hmm.” He said, as though he was contemplating something very important.

She almost giggled. She bit her lip to keep it in. That would just not do. She had to remember who she was. She released her breath slowly, and kept her head slightly bowed and her back to the strangers.

He sorted through the jewellery with very careful, respectful movements. The vultures relax a little, settling down. He picked up the necklace, and brought it round for her to look at. It’s heavy and it weighs her down. She holds it in two hands and it rattles like a chain, a clash of metal like cymbals and like falling keys.

“Uhm” he says, as though he’s only just realised there’s a small problem. They stand there frozen, as she holds the necklace up to the light and waits for him to take it and he realises it can’t go on over her veil. He takes it from her anyway, gently. There is a strange little silence. The vultures, having seen the story unfold before them like a comic strip, like a silent black and white film, cough and shift and sigh, looking down at the tops of their shoes with uncomfortably twisted faces.

He turns towards them decidedly. “Er.” He said.

They nod at him, understanding his predicament, letting him know with their quickly blinking little obsequious eyes that they would, as far as they could, smooth his way.

He adjusted his headdress.

“Ah, if you would be so kind…you see, she needs to try on the…if you could, it would be…just to wait just outside the door…just a few seconds…” he gestures and trails off delicately and she watches, amazed, and mesmerised, as they nod as him in agreement and edge off crablike towards the door, eyes flicking from the necklace to her obscured face and back. They leave everything just exactly where it is.

The doorsshuts softly behind them. The vultures gather behind it, secure in the knowledge that there is only one door to the room, giving each other little amused looks. What strange people, they said, without saying anything at all.

As soon as the door clicks shut, there is an explosion of soundless movement in the room. The woman turns quickly from the window and pulls the black veil off her head. It slips into her hands and her orange-dyed hair licks out, crackly with static and wild as a bonfire in November. She uses the black material as a net, scooping gold rings into the muffling folds with quick, sharp, noiseless movements. As she’s finishing up, bundling the precious metal in her disguise, the man comes out of the inner room in a neat white uniform, a similar uniform to the one she had been wearing under the black cloak. He was pushing a cart. They placed the bag of jewellery in the cart and glanced at each other, a quick meeting of eyes. Moving in perfect, noiseless co-ordination, they open the small door which lead into the adjacent room, with its door opening out into the hallway where the vultures wait for a black and white shrouded alien couple with strange customs.

They pushed the cart through the bedroom, and opened the door to the corridor where the vultures were still standing, shifting from foot to foot and giving each other small looks, small smiles on their narrow faces, still sharing the joke of their strange predicament. The vultures do not give the uniformed hotel workers a second glance, as they disappear into the lift with the cart, and the jewellery, and their disguises inside.

11/07

tasnimx@hotmail.com