The Occasional Virgin by Hanan al-Shaykh

Author:Hanan al-Shaykh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408895702
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-04-28T15:49:04+00:00

4

Yvonne looks down at her dress constantly as she drives to St Ethelburga’s Church in the City of London to attend the wedding reception of a neighbour who is now a close friend, though he never became a lover. Was she wrong to wear the yellow dress instead of the turquoise one that Huda favoured?

Today Yvonne, by choosing the colour yellow, seems to want to tell herself and everyone there that she is like a daffodil opening in the warmth of the sun.

She parks her car ten minutes away from the church. The narrow passageway leading to the chapel is not really what she is expecting, but it opens out into a courtyard and garden behind the church, with guests everywhere. So this is where she is going to hunt for a man – no, not hunt, for the prey is never happy when it falls into the hunter’s hands. She will ensnare a man in this perfect setting. She has tried before on every possible occasion: funerals, doctors’ waiting rooms, social gatherings, at the supermarket, even in the underground when she started using it from time to time instead of driving her car; not to mention the countless clubs, gyms and dance classes she joined.

Yvonne pretends to be interested in everything she sees in the church garden except the men. She inspects the plants and even stops in front of a statue that doesn’t interest her at all, noticing out of the corner of her eye that the women are looking at her dress. She feels reassured, its beauty has become almost like protective armour, giving her confidence. She smiles and talks to people, telling some of them that she is divorced, her eyes following the men, transformed into instruments for distinguishing between the single, the married, and the gay. She bends down and picks up a little girl, and spins her around like a top, trying to make her laugh to attract people’s attention, as she has learnt from her mistakes that she should appear natural and happy even if she doesn’t have a man or a child. Gone are the days when she used to exchange emails with her friends and with women she didn’t know about the long wait for a boyfriend, feeling glad when someone wrote: ‘Don’t despair! Who knows? Lightning may be about to strike!’

She put those days behind her when she found herself with other women at a birthday party that changed suddenly from a joyous occasion into a kind of wake, all of them lamenting their bad luck and tears flowing freely, especially when someone played a Connie Francis song from the sixties: ‘Where the boys are, someone waits for me, A smiling face, a warm embrace, Two arms to hold me tenderly.’ Then someone else remarked, ‘Do you want to know how they thought of adding salt to chocolate? It was my tears falling on it.’

There was even a professional biologist in this circle of disappointed women, who tried to revive their hopes by explaining to them that love was like bacteria, both useful and harmful.

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