Will be my wife. Will be inshallah.

Inshallah.

That’s it, she said, we won’t be able to get married and just leave. We’ll have to stay a few days till the papers get sorted out. And the British Embassy … that’s another story.

I don’t understand what the problem is, he said.

Oh, she sighed, people have a wedding and they go off on their honeymoon. But we won’t be able to do that, we will have to hang around and run from the Ministry of Interior to the Passport office to the British Embassy.

I see, he said, I see. Do I need an exit visa?

No, you’re a visitor, you can leave whenever you like. But I need a visa, I need a reason to leave.

Right.

They looked at each other and then he said, I don’t think your brother likes me.

No, no, he doesn’t mean to be unfriendly … you’ll see.

The first time he saw her was at the Sudanese restaurant near the new mosque in Edinburgh. His old chemistry teacher had taken him there after Friday prayers. When she brought the menu, she said to them that the peanut soup was good, a speciality, but his teacher wanted the hummus salad and he ordered the lentil soup instead because it was familiar. He was by nature cautious, wanting new things but held back by a vague mistrust. It was enough for the time being that he had stepped into the Nile Café, he had no intention of experimenting with weird tastes.

He was conscious of her footsteps as she came from the kitchen, up the stairs. She was wearing trousers and a brown headscarf that was tied at the back of her neck. She had very black eyes that slanted. After that day he went to the Nile Café alone and often. It was convenient, close to the Department of Zoology where he worked as a lab technician. He wondered if, as she leant and put the dish of couscous in front of him, she could smell the chemicals on him.

They got talking because there weren’t many customers in the restaurant and she had time on her hands. The restaurant was new and word had not yet got round that it was good.

We’ve started to get a few people coming in from the mosque, she told him. Friday especially is a good day.

Yes, it was a Friday when I first came here and met you. She smiled in a friendly way.

He told her that at one time he had not known that the big building next to the restaurant was a mosque. There was no sign that said so. I thought it was a church, he said, and she laughed and laughed. He left her an extra tip that day; it was not often that people laughed at his jokes.