Missing Out

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You’ve been here a whole year without praying?’

Yes, he had.

‘And Fridays? What about the Friday prayers?’

‘I have classes that day.’

‘Miss them.’

He sat up. ‘Don’t be stupid. Where do you think you are?’ the quick hurt look on her face made him regret that he had called her stupid. He took her in his arms and said, ‘It’s not as if I’m finding the course so easy that I can play truant.’

She smiled and was keen to brush away her disappointment. He suggested an outing and they went by bus to the Central mosque. There he bought her a red prayer mat and a compass which pointed to the direction of Mecca. She also picked up a booklet which listed the times of the prayers. Each month was on a page, the days in rows and the different prayers in columns.

Sitting next to him on the bus, she studied the booklet. ‘The times change so much throughout the year!’

‘Because of the seasons,’ he explained. ‘In the winter the day is very short and in the summer it is very long.’

‘So in winter I will be rushing to pray one prayer after the other and in the summer there will be hours and hours between afternoon and sunset.’ she said ‘I’ not ‘we’ and that seemed to him proper and respectful. She would forge ahead on her own whether he joined her or not. He was relieved that this outing to the mosque had satisfied her. Cheap and hassle-free. On a student budget, he could scarcely afford expensive restaurants or luxurious shopping trips. It was good that she was a simple Khartoum girl, neither demanding nor materialistic.

Still, she said that she wanted him to promise to change, to try harder and commit to the compulsory prayers. She was intent on influencing him but he was shy of the intimacy conversations about faith and practice evoked. After all, they did not know each other well and these were heady days of physical discovery, the smallness of the room making them bump and rub against each other. He was, naturally, the first man in her life and she was swayed between discomfort and pleasure, between lack of sleep and the feeling that all her girlhood and all her beauty had led to this. A honeymoon in London, her wedding henna still bright on her palms and feet. Majdy was, he had to admit to himself, captivated by the comforts and delights she offered, charmed by her looks and laughter. Then she would spoil it all by talking about religion, by reminding him that without these five daily contacts one was likely to drift off without protection or grace or guidance. Was he not a believer? Yes, in a half-hearted way he was, but he was also lazy and disinterested. Here in London, Majdy argued, praying was a distraction, an interruption and, most of all because of the changing times that followed the movement of the sun rather than the hands of the clock, praying was inconvenient. ‘Don’t talk to me about this again,’ he finally said, drawing her towards him. ‘Don’t nag.’