Stories of Ourselves: "Sandpiper" by Ahdaf Soueif

In this short story, a European woman reflects on her growing estrangement from her Egyptian husband.

Here are links to our lists for the short stories in Stories of Ourselves:
The Hollow of the Three Hills, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Signalman, The Happy Prince, The Yellow Wall Paper, The Son’s Veto, The Open Boat, The Moving Finger, The Door in the Wall, Sredni Vashtar, How It Happened, Her First Ball, The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, The Fly in the Ointment, The Custody of the Pumpkin, An Englishman’s Home, The Phoenix, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Prison, The Destructors, Meteor, Billenium, The Lemon Orchard, The People Before, The Enemy, Five-Twenty, A Horse and Two Goats, Report on the Threatened City, The Rain Horse, Ming’s Biggest Prey, The Village Saint, Secrets, The Stoat, Games at Twilight, The Taste of Watermelon, Journey (Patricia Grace), The Bath, My Greatest Ambition, To Da-duh, in Memoriam, Of White Hairs and Cricket, Elephant, Sandpiper, Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Um), The Third and Final Continent, Tyres, At Hiruharama, Real Time, On Her Knees, The Contest
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. contour
    any spatial attributes, especially as defined by outline
    I would sit inside one of these curves, at the very midpoint, fitting my body to its contour, and wait.
  2. frill
    a strip of pleated material used as a decoration or a trim
    It separates itself from the vast, moving blue, rises and surges forward with a low growl, lightening as it approaches to a pale green, then turns over to display the white frill that slides like a thousand snakes down upon itself, breaks and skitters up the sandbank.
  3. parasol
    a handheld collapsible source of shade
    The first summer had not been a time of reflection; my occupation then had been to love my husband in this – to me – new and different place. To love him as he walked towards my parasol, shaking the water from his black hair, his feet sinking into the warm, hospitable sand.
  4. resound
    ring or echo with noise
    To love him as he played backgammon with his father in the evening, the slam of counters and the clatter of dice resounding on the patio while, at the dining-room table, his sister showed me how to draw their ornate, circular script.
  5. precarious
    not secure; beset with difficulties
    I thought about our life in my country, before we were married: four years in the cosy flat, precarious on top of a roof in a Georgian square, him meeting me at the bus-stop when I came back from work, Sundays when it did not rain and we sat in the park with our newspapers, late nights at the movies.
  6. coax
    influence or persuade by gentle and persistent urging
    She would curl into a tight ball in one corner of my body until, lopsided and uncomfortable, I coaxed and prodded her back into a more centred, relaxed position.
  7. prod
    push against gently
    She would curl into a tight ball in one corner of my body until, lopsided and uncomfortable, I coaxed and prodded her back into a more centred, relaxed position.
  8. preside
    act as executive officer
    I arranged the flowers, smoothed out the pleats in the curtains and presided over our dinner-parties.
  9. seemly
    according with custom or propriety
    I hold her foot in my hand and dread the time – so soon to come – when it will no longer be seemly to kiss the dimpled ankle.
  10. billowing
    characterized by great swelling waves or surges
    I spread my arms out wide and gathered in the soft, billowing mosquito-net.
  11. fortnight
    a period of fourteen consecutive days
    We had parted at Heathrow, and we were to be rejoined in a fortnight, in Cairo, where I would meet his family for the first time.
  12. desolate
    crushed by grief
    For his part he wrote that after I left him at the airport he turned round to hold me and tell me how desolate he felt.
  13. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    In the market in Kaduna the mottled, red carcasses lay on wooden stalls shaded by grey plastic canopies.
  14. slate
    thin layers of rock used for roofing
    I press wet palms to my face and picture grey slate roofs wet with rain.
  15. colander
    bowl-shaped strainer used to wash or drain foods
    I open the fridge and see the chunks of lamb marinading in a large metal tray for tonight’s barbecue. The mountain of yellow grapes draining in a colander.
  16. minutia
    a small or minor detail
    My inability to remember names, to follow the minutiae of politics, my struggles with his language, my need to be protected from the sun, the mosquitoes, the salads, the drinking water.
  17. romp
    play boisterously
    Sometimes, as he romps with Lucy on the beach, or bends over her grazed elbow, or sits across our long table from me at a dinner-party, I see a man I could yet fall in love with, and I turn away.
  18. mirage
    something illusory and unattainable
    I told him too about my first mirage, the one I saw on that long road to Maiduguri.
  19. tread
    a step in walking or running
    Behind them will come the heavy tread of Um Sabir.
  20. irony
    witty language used to convey insults or scorn
    Later, when the rest of the family have all drifted back and showered and changed, everyone will sit around the barbecue and eat and drink and talk politics and crack jokes of hopeless, helpless irony and laugh.
  21. trousseau
    clothes and linens that a bride brings to a marriage
    I should take up embroidery and start on those Aubusson tapestries we all, at the moment, imagine will be necessary for Lucy’s trousseau.
  22. intently
    with strained or eager attention
    Yesterday when I had dressed her after the shower she examined herself intently in my mirror and asked for a french plait.
  23. plait
    a hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair
    Yesterday when I had dressed her after the shower she examined herself intently in my mirror and asked for a french plait.
  24. discreet
    marked by prudence or modesty and wise self-restraint
    I thought, so this is why they’ve sent us to Luxor, to burn up discreetly and not clog Cairo airport.
  25. protracted
    relatively long in duration
    On the plane there was perfect silence as we dropped out of the sky. And then a terrible, agonised, protracted screeching of machinery as we hit the tarmac.
  26. lucid
    transmitting light; able to be seen through with clarity
    And in that moment, not only my head, but all of me, my whole being, seemed to tilt into a blank, an empty radiance, but lucid.
  27. talisman
    a trinket thought to be a magical protection against evil
    When we did not die, that first thought: his name, his name, his name became a talisman, for in extremity, hadn’t all that was not him been wiped out of my life?
  28. extremity
    a condition or state beyond the norm
    When we did not die, that first thought: his name, his name, his name became a talisman, for in extremity, hadn’t all that was not him been wiped out of my life?
  29. subterranean
    being or operating under the surface of the earth
    The last of the foam is swallowed bubbling into the sand, to sink down and rejoin the sea at an invisible subterranean level.
  30. ebb
    the outward flow of the tide
    With each ebb of green water the sand loses part of itself to the sea, with each flow another part is flung back to be reclaimed once again by the beach.
Created on Fri Mar 09 09:19:53 EST 2018 (updated Fri Mar 23 15:41:55 EDT 2018)

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