all.” Her sisterly expression seemed to imply that they were as frisky and prone to adventure as we Westerners.
I admired Gazi for the strength of character that drove her perfect poise, her perfect grooming, though in Posy’s opinion this was just self-preservation.
“He might take a second wife at any time, remember,” she said. “Then a third and fourth…” I couldn’t help but remember that Gazi was one of the luckier Saudi women, relative to the poor village women, even in Morocco, who were like beasts of burden, limping down the road under their bundles of sticks—little, invisible, bent, disposable.
All the while, I myself was feeling a little like a harem girl—sex in exchange for, in this case, the right to be here, to snoop into Ian’s affairs and those of his friends. I told myself that I’d be here anyhow, because of being in love with him, or as much in love as I could allow myself to be.
As a younger person, in Paris, I had plunged into all that you’re supposed to do there—lose your head completely over a man, learn how to read a menu, muster a barely passable French, etc. But here, now, in my new situation, I had no sense of the expectations and whether I was living up to them, and no sense of self-improvement.
And also, frankly, when he reproached me about Gazi, this admonitory side of Ian was new to me. Was it because I was now in the position of chatelaine of his house hold that he scrutinized me for perfection? Alas, I was/am so far from it. My ambivalence about Ian was complicated—as I guess ambivalence is by definition. The more I felt myself in love with him, the worse I felt about my exploitive double life, using him as cover. Thus I didn’t allow myself to be as nice as I wanted to be, or as in love as I wanted to be.
T rying to be nice, I began to interest myself in the details of managing the meals and the gardens, knowing little about either, but this wasn’t received very well by the competent employees: Rashid, Aisha, Miryam, and Mohammed. (“You can call anyone Mohammed here and have a fair chance of being right,” Posy Crumley had told me. “They’re all called that or Ali. Oh, don’t rule out Ahmed and Hassan, but that’s about it.” To me she sounded exactly like colonial Brits in novels by Kipling or Maugham.)
“I think that’s rather a good thing,” said her husband, “very leveling and democratic, the way Koreans are all called Lee or Park, or Kim.”
“The African way of giving everyone an absolutely unique name makes it very hard to remember what people are called,” Ian had agreed. “Is she Taisha or Kimmet or La Donna?…”)
In fact I had begun to realize that Ian’s staff mistrusted me or resented me. They bowed their heads or looked away when I came into the kitchen or asked questions about cooking or produce. Only very slowly did I begin to get the sense that it was moral contamination they feared: I was the unmarried mistress, the concubine, not at all the sort of person they should associate with. Of course this surprised me very much. Was it too late to redeem my character? The more I became aware that the house hold staff, especially the maids in their nurselike white head scarves and long, modest tunics, didn’t approve of me, the more concerned I felt to convince them of my goodness, my devotion to Ian (whom I presumed them to love), my standards of house keeping, my knowledge of gardening, my charm to his friends. But I could tell it wasn’t working. Their impassive faces, their politeness, the remarkable slowness of their movements conveyed their mistrust.
I discussed it with Posy. The cooks liked and talked to her, especially one, Miryam, a middle-aged woman who seemed to represent wisdom to the others. “They wonder about your relationship with your family,” Posy said. “They asked me about it. They think that having lost your virginity, you’ve been cast out by them. They notice that you seldom get letters.”
“How do
I admired Gazi for the strength of character that drove her perfect poise, her perfect grooming, though in Posy’s opinion this was just self-preservation.
“He might take a second wife at any time, remember,” she said. “Then a third and fourth…” I couldn’t help but remember that Gazi was one of the luckier Saudi women, relative to the poor village women, even in Morocco, who were like beasts of burden, limping down the road under their bundles of sticks—little, invisible, bent, disposable.
All the while, I myself was feeling a little like a harem girl—sex in exchange for, in this case, the right to be here, to snoop into Ian’s affairs and those of his friends. I told myself that I’d be here anyhow, because of being in love with him, or as much in love as I could allow myself to be.
As a younger person, in Paris, I had plunged into all that you’re supposed to do there—lose your head completely over a man, learn how to read a menu, muster a barely passable French, etc. But here, now, in my new situation, I had no sense of the expectations and whether I was living up to them, and no sense of self-improvement.
And also, frankly, when he reproached me about Gazi, this admonitory side of Ian was new to me. Was it because I was now in the position of chatelaine of his house hold that he scrutinized me for perfection? Alas, I was/am so far from it. My ambivalence about Ian was complicated—as I guess ambivalence is by definition. The more I felt myself in love with him, the worse I felt about my exploitive double life, using him as cover. Thus I didn’t allow myself to be as nice as I wanted to be, or as in love as I wanted to be.
T rying to be nice, I began to interest myself in the details of managing the meals and the gardens, knowing little about either, but this wasn’t received very well by the competent employees: Rashid, Aisha, Miryam, and Mohammed. (“You can call anyone Mohammed here and have a fair chance of being right,” Posy Crumley had told me. “They’re all called that or Ali. Oh, don’t rule out Ahmed and Hassan, but that’s about it.” To me she sounded exactly like colonial Brits in novels by Kipling or Maugham.)
“I think that’s rather a good thing,” said her husband, “very leveling and democratic, the way Koreans are all called Lee or Park, or Kim.”
“The African way of giving everyone an absolutely unique name makes it very hard to remember what people are called,” Ian had agreed. “Is she Taisha or Kimmet or La Donna?…”)
In fact I had begun to realize that Ian’s staff mistrusted me or resented me. They bowed their heads or looked away when I came into the kitchen or asked questions about cooking or produce. Only very slowly did I begin to get the sense that it was moral contamination they feared: I was the unmarried mistress, the concubine, not at all the sort of person they should associate with. Of course this surprised me very much. Was it too late to redeem my character? The more I became aware that the house hold staff, especially the maids in their nurselike white head scarves and long, modest tunics, didn’t approve of me, the more concerned I felt to convince them of my goodness, my devotion to Ian (whom I presumed them to love), my standards of house keeping, my knowledge of gardening, my charm to his friends. But I could tell it wasn’t working. Their impassive faces, their politeness, the remarkable slowness of their movements conveyed their mistrust.
I discussed it with Posy. The cooks liked and talked to her, especially one, Miryam, a middle-aged woman who seemed to represent wisdom to the others. “They wonder about your relationship with your family,” Posy said. “They asked me about it. They think that having lost your virginity, you’ve been cast out by them. They notice that you seldom get letters.”
“How do
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