The book of other people - By Zadie Smith Page 0,40
at him. And in this look began the subsequent relationship of Laziz and Nigora. For Laziz was trying to look cool and unconcerned; while Nigora was looking anxious. Laziz was hoping not to be found out; Nigora was fretting - why had her body, now naked, rendered Laziz so nonchalant, so lolling? Where was his fire? His inner spirit? Where was the lust?
The lust, thought Laziz, was simply premature. It was not on time. The lust would therefore return eventually. He was young and healthy, after all. And so he thought that the crisis would pass. He trusted to a timetable.
But the crisis did not pass. Leaning on his hand, Laziz continued to observe his new girlfriend in distress. His pose was classical. It was picturesque.
Oh, the picturesque is no substitute for lust! And yet the picturesque was all Laziz could perform; everything else was beyond him.
This image - in which Laziz was picturesque, leaning on his elbow, and Nigora was distressed, lying naked beside him - is the image of their subsequent marriage.
Two years later, succumbing to the pressure of events, they left their country (a country to which they would never return).
Some Night-time Dialogue between Nigora and Laziz
L It’s a dodgy haircut, isn’t it? It’s dodgy.
N Well, yes, you could say that. It’s dodgy.
L You think so?
N Well.
L Oh, no.
N I’m only teasing you; I’m only tormenting you.
L Tell me you love me.
N Lazizjon.
L Tell me you love me. Am I handsome? Tell me I’m handsome.
N You’re handsome. You’re more than handsome. You’re a looker.
L But you don’t mean that.
N Yes, I mean that.
L Well, you shouldn’t mean that.
N Lazizjon.
Each night, these facts recurred to her: Nigora was thirty-four; Yaha was twenty-three. These numbers were suddenly becoming fraught for Nigora. She remembered them every morning; at her rising up, and at her going to bed. She remembered them when she went out, and on her coming in.
She was a married woman. She did not know if she still loved her husband. She did not know if she, a married woman, whose hands and breasts - whose every opening - had since her marriage known only one man, was now in love with someone else.
Sometimes, Nigora believed that if she only kissed Yaha, then she would be cured. Her pain would be relieved. Cupid’s arrow would be removed from her breast. But she was not sure.
Nigora was a housewife and a part-time secretary. Yaha was a reserve footballer for AHLY.
As she spoke to her immortal and all-powerful God - a God she had disconsolately adopted from Laziz - she reasoned in this way. That she was not to blame. That so long as no sexual acts occurred she was not guilty of any sin. That the definition of a sexual act was problematic. That it necessarily included introduction of the penis into her body; and necessarily included ejaculation of semen, whether inside or outside a female body; and also, necessarily, any touch of a man’s hand or mouth on the bareness between her legs. But at this point Nigora grew perplexed. She felt the need for guidance, and could not find it.
Her problem was the kiss. She could not define the moral status of the kiss. If she kissed him, thought Nigora, then maybe she would not want to venture into the unambiguously immoral; she would no longer be tempted by the temptations of his flesh.
Since she thought that the kiss might be her cure, she tended to believe that a kiss was innocent. It was just on the right side of morality.
Nigora was not convinced of the soul’s immortality. Laziz was convinced; but she was not. And since she was not convinced, she was also unsure of his belief in crime and punishment. Without the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, her actions were oddly depleted. They existed only for her.
In this way, Nigora was a libertine.
All Nigora’s temptations were now refracted through the immortal. Her body’s immortal longings were her anxiety, her worry. They seemed more important than the possibility of her soul’s immortal life.
And yet, and yet. How much pleasure could her body procure, she wondered? If they slept together, she would not give Yaha pleasure; when he remembered her, she worried, he would remember her only with amusement, with pity. Her memory of passion would be his memory of the laughable.
At what point, she wondered, could she act out of character? When would she have the courage?