Page 38 of There Are Rivers in the Sky

—H ZALEEKHAH

By the River Thames, 2018

F riday afternoon, Zaleekhah leaves work early to see Helen. They meet in a café in the gardens of Russell Square. Surrounded by plane trees and flowers of a deep saturated yellow hue, she finds it peaceful in here, though the rumble of the city is impossible to ignore.

Helen looks distracted, tired. The lines on her face seem elongated as she tells Zaleekhah that the doctors now have a diagnosis for her daughter.

‘It’s her kidneys. She might need a transplant.’

Zaleekhah leans forward, holding her cousin’s hand. ‘Oh, no, poor love. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not easy to find a donor.’ Helen’s expression collapses.

‘What does Uncle say?’

‘He’s sprung into action, of course, making calls everywhere. You know how he is. Extraordinarily supportive. I don’t know what I’d do without him.’

For a long time, they discuss doctors and hospitals and dialysis treatments and the risks of complications, should a matching donor be found soon. Helen’s husband is cutting his trip short and catching the first flight home. They talk, though briefly and with a feeling of unease, about other things, too, the gallery and the business, the Zen garden taking shape behind the Malek house, titbits of gossip, but every other subject brings them back to where they began: the kidney transplant.

Reaching for a napkin, Helen wipes her eyes. ‘Forgive my selfishness. I haven’t asked a single question about you, and it’s not as if you haven’t got your own troubles to deal with.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ says Zaleekhah. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I don’t see you smile any more,’ says Helen, studying her intently. ‘I mean, a big smile. You don’t look happy; it breaks my heart. There was a time when you were happy, wasn’t there? I mean, despite everything. When we were younger, you did laugh, and, when you did, your laughter radiated through the room. Sometimes I wish we could go back to those days, that feeling of lightness.’

Zaleekhah recalls those years differently, but there is no point in disagreeing. She glances down at her hands, her nails bitten to the quick, the skin around them red and raw. She considers telling Helen that, for weeks now, she has been unable to sleep properly, even with pills, and that she wakes up tired every morning, carrying around a feeling of loss. But she decides not to share any of this. She does not want to add to her cousin’s worries.

‘It was lovely to meet your friend the other day,’ says Helen suddenly. ‘I hope Nen wasn’t too shocked by my father.’

This is something they have in common, their mutual appreciation of Lord Malek in all his flawed but deeply human complexity, far removed from the public figure.

‘I liked Nen,’ Helen carries on. ‘She seems very grounded – at peace with herself.’

‘Yes.’ Zaleekhah tilts her head, thinking. She nods, as if arriving at some conclusion. ‘I like her, too.’

By the time Zaleekhah leaves the café, her head is teeming with thoughts. In the gusty wind, her hair blows about her face. For too long she has taken so little pleasure in life, invaded by a sickening, sinking feeling, even as she went through the motions of each new day, each piece of work. But now, as she sifts every word of her conversation with her cousin – how valiantly Helen is battling to help her little daughter recover – a part of her feels ashamed of her own ongoing depression, her habitual melancholy, her thoughts of suicide. People cling to life; small children fight for the privilege she has been willing, and silently planning, to throw away. Learning about what Helen and her family have been suffering leaves her confused and disorientated, her priorities upended. She wants to help them, she wants to be around for them, and, also, she wants to help herself.

The wish to rethink her life and the direction it is heading comes to Dr Zaleekhah Clarke not incrementally but in one sudden, inchoate rush. As she stumbles over a loose paving stone where rainwater has pooled underneath, she acknowledges, with a readiness that fills her with surprise, that she needs to change.

Half an hour later, Zaleekhah pushes open the door of the tattoo shop, making the bells jingle.

‘She’s not in, I’m afraid,’ says Nen’s brother.

‘Oh, okay. I’ll come back some other time.’

He regards her curiously, though not unkindly. ‘Check the museum – you’ll probably find her in the Nineveh section – that’s her usual spot.’

From the tattoo shop to the British Museum it is only fifty-five steps. A few minutes later Zaleekhah enters the majestic building, the light from the glass above catching in her hair. Nen is easy to find. Ensconced on a bench with a notebook, she is sketching a lamassu .

‘Hi!’

‘Hi!’

Today she is wearing a red dress with tiny flowers and puffed sleeves, unbuttoned from the waist down, with a pair of ripped blue jeans underneath and black Dr Martens. The combination puzzles Zaleekhah. Her female colleagues at the lab mostly prefer formal shirts and baggy trousers, which is also her usual choice, whereas her aunt and Helen like elegant pencil skirts and tailored outfits. Somewhere in her mind, Zaleekhah has separated these two worlds – monochromes versus bright colours, dresses versus trousers. She has never known anyone who clashes colours and styles like Nen, delighting in mixing and contrasting without worrying what others might think.

‘So you come here often, your brother says.’

‘Well, yes, whenever I get the chance to slip away.’

Zaleekhah sits next to her, and for a moment she observes the ancient sculpture without speaking. ‘I haven’t looked at a full-sized lamassu in a while. I had forgotten how impressive they are.’

Nen gives a nod. ‘I find them very therapeutic.’

‘You do?’

‘I doubt any therapists would send their patients to the British Museum, but when you’re next to something so impossibly old, it kind of puts things in perspective. Whatever is troubling you in this moment means little in the sweep of time. I think everyone should hang out with a lamassu every now and then.’

A group of tourists walks by, moving from one gallery into the next, wonder and fatigue meeting in their faces.

Nen says, ‘Did you know, when they were first discovered, Mesopotamian treasures were belittled in scholarly circles? They were deemed inferior compared with the Ancient Egyptian or Hellenic heritages. Their aesthetic power was denied, which I find utterly bonkers.’

Behind them on the wall are bas-reliefs from Nineveh, and now Zaleekhah turns in that direction. ‘There aren’t many women in these images. Is it always warfare and hunting?’

‘Mostly but not always. Take a look at that one.’ Nen points with her chin. ‘That is King Ashurbanipal and his wife having a nice little picnic in the palace gardens. Very blissful, the whole scene. But check the trees: there’s a surprise amid the branches. The royal couple are sitting beneath their enemy’s severed head. That’s what remains of the Elamite king Teumman.’

Zaleekhah studies the panel. ‘So he was cruel, Ashurbanipal?’

‘He was one of the most brutal Assyrian rulers. His destruction of Elam is regarded by many scholars as a genocide.’

‘I kind of expected better from a man known for building an amazing library.’

‘You’re far from alone in that assumption. But it’s actually a useful reminder that someone can be cultured and polished, generous, worldly, but still commit acts of startling cruelty.’

Behind them, they hear sibilant whispers as a group of students approaches.

Nen closes her notebook. ‘Come, let me show you something.’

They walk towards the lamassu that Nen had been sketching. Only then does Zaleekhah notice one of its hooves is scorched and burned.

‘I’ve been wondering how this happened,’ says Nen. ‘Did the giant sculpture survive a fire in Ashurbanipal’s palace? Was it caused by a flaming arrow during the siege of Nineveh? Who knows. But I’ve a feeling something terrible happened and this stone creature witnessed it.’

The silence extends for a few seconds as Zaleekhah’s eyes linger on Nen’s face. Then she asks, ‘Are people ever surprised by your interest in Ancient Mesopotamia?’

‘All the time. Even my own brothers think it’s a bit nuts. Correction. That I’m a bit nuts.’

Zaleekhah smiles.

‘But how do we find our passions?’ says Nen, as if debating with herself. ‘I really haven’t a clue. Most of the time it’s pure coincidence – a book we encounter in the library, a teacher who leaves an impression, a film we can’t forget … When I look back, I realize I’d have gone crazy if I didn’t have other places to retreat to – the further away from my own reality the better.’

‘And Ancient Mesopotamia was that place?’

‘Exactly,’ says Nen. ‘I guess what water is to you, history is to me: an enigma too vast to comprehend, something far more important than my own little life, and yet, at some level, also deeply personal. Does that make sense?’

‘It does, actually.’

‘So, yes, Ancient Mesopotamia is my sanctuary. When I was young, I wrestled with mental health issues and it got worse later on.’

‘Oh, I thought you grew up in a loving family –’

Nen returns her gaze. ‘You can grow up in a loving family and still struggle.’

They walk out of the Assyrian Gallery, and pass by the gift shop with its shelves loaded with books and ornaments. The café in the Great Court is packed. They search for an empty table beneath the soaring glass roof, not an easy thing, as it is brimming with visitors, voices vibrating in the open space, like the sound of waves breaking against soft sand. They manage to find two chairs and sit side by side, their backs to the postcard racks.

Nen’s face is at first unreadable, her features wholly concentrated. She says gently, ‘I feel like you’re struggling, too, Zaleekhah. I’m sorry for poking my nose in. I’ve been wanting to tell you … I think you’re a lovely person. It’s just so easy to feel lost when you feel low, like you’re drifting alone in endless floodwaters. But you’re not alone. There are many of us on this wooden Ark – sailing without knowing if there is land ahead. Sailing in hope nonetheless …’

If it were any other day, Zaleekhah might have changed the subject, uncomfortable with emotions that, like some unknown sea creature, rise from the deep. But not today. She won’t look away. So she says, ‘I think I’ve been depressed for so long that it became my normal.’

‘Not very fond of that word myself – normal ,’ says Nen.

‘The Ancient Mesopotamians – did they have a word for depression?’

‘They did, but they viewed mental health differently, as if some outside force, a god or a demon, caused it. There are fascinating descriptions on clay tablets – incantations, rituals, fumigations and potions. There is ashushtu , which is more like distress. Puluhtu , used for people who are constantly worried or afraid, or have phobias. Nissatu means “grief”. Gilgamesh says “grief enters my belly” when Enkidu dies. ?inīt ?ēmiis is the alteration of the mind, so that could be suicidal thoughts or severe panic attacks. And then there is hip libbi , the malady of melancholy – it literally means “shattering of the heart”.’

‘ Hip libbi? ’

‘Yes,’ says Nen, turning in the direction of the Assyrian Gallery. ‘For a long time, my hip libbi lived inside a bottle of gin – like a djinni in a lamp. I would glimpse her in my drink – sometimes she would be floating on her back, utterly still, at other times swimming, but always there, at the bottom of each glass.’

Zaleekhah listens, appraising her with thoughtful eyes.

Nen says, ‘In my twenties I prided myself on handling booze better than most. We’d go to pubs and all the girls would stop after a few shots, except for me – I could drink the men under the table and everyone thought that was pretty cool. In my early thirties, I was proud that I was a “high-functioning” drinker. I could easily go days and weeks without drinking. No problem! I loved proving that I had self-control, but I also knew there was a reward at the end. Drinking was how I motivated and calmed myself. Then things started to shift, but I still believed it was all fine. I had never been a mean drunk. Never argumentative. Never aggressive. I just got a lovely little buzz. Surely there was no harm in that. It was mild and mellow, except I could no longer have a good time without nursing a stiff drink. I had zero patience with people, unless I was tipsy enough, in which case I didn’t care. It took me a long time to acknowledge something was off. I’m telling you all this because during those years of ups and downs, my interest in Mesopotamia never waned. It was a place so unlike my own reality that I could go there and rewire my brain. I could find refuge in that storyland between the two rivers – except it was real and it was amazing. Broken and bruised and beautiful and sad and yet surprisingly resilient and profoundly inspiring … that’s what it means to me, Ancient Mesopotamia.’

From all corners seep the sounds of tourists, students, parents and children. An elderly woman carrying a tray with coffee and cake smiles at them and they smile back.

‘You know, Nen, if I believed in reincarnation, I’d say you must have lived in Nineveh in another life.’

‘Funny you should say that. One of my customers, she’s very sweet but a bit mad, is into this stuff and she keeps trying to convince me that I was a scribe on Ashurbanipal’s payroll.’

‘Quite. Although I can also imagine you taming lions in the royal menagerie.’

Nen laughs. ‘Maybe that’s how I died, inside a lion’s stomach.’

‘And that’s why you’re afraid of needles – they remind you of claws.’ Now Zaleekhah, too, laughs.

Nowhere does time slow down more gently than inside a museum, Zaleekhah thinks, appreciating how everything around them feels fluid, the borders between one region and another, one century and the next, turning porous. She says, ‘Today I had coffee with my cousin Helen, whom you met the other day. Her daughter is very sick. She needs a kidney transplant.’

‘Oh my God, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. That must be very hard.’

‘Yes, she’s devastated. When I listened to her, my own depression seemed self-indulgent. I wanted to change. Does that make sense?’

‘It does.’

The silence that follows is serene, peaceful.

‘Nen?’

‘Hmm?’

‘If I were to come to your shop one day, as a customer, I mean, not as a friend … and ask for a tattoo, what would you say?’

Nen throws back her head, her eyes brimming with mischief. ‘I’d be delighted – if that hypothetical day arrives, I’d ask you what you had in mind.’

‘And I’d reply …’ Zaleekhah looks away and back at her. ‘That sign on the biscuit. I liked it so much. Simple, powerful.’

‘Which one?’ Nen says and instantly pauses. She doesn’t need to ask more questions to know which sign Zaleekhah is talking about.

That evening Zaleekhah leaves the Forgotten Goddess, a slight, sizzling pain above her wrist. She could have had it anywhere, on her back, her upper arm, somewhere less visible where Uncle Malek would not notice it. But she chose this tender stretch of skin at the junction of her left hand and inner arm. It hurt a little, though not as badly as she’d thought it would. Now, as she walks to the Tube to get to her houseboat, she glances proudly at her tattoo.

Three marks in blue ink, the colour of lapis lazuli. The sign of water.