Chapter 10

A few years before, when the Sultan and his government’s army retreated south over the mountains, the province welcomed new rulers: the two main northern tribes who had joined forces to rid the province of an oppressive leader and a feudalistic system. They had called themselves liberators. Optimism soon died, however, when the liberators failed miserably to govern and showed themselves to be nothing better than warlords. Now they had even given up that pretence and were little more than—extortionists, smugglers, and racketeers. In them, Fareeha Azziz found her hope.

Bashar Khan stood beside his Jeep, squarely on the pavement; two short stout legs supporting a barrelling torso, swathed in flesh, more on the front than on the sides. His head was like a rubber bung—it plugged the hole at the top of the barrel of lard. Reddened circles of skin separated the round eyes from his face. His cheeks and chin rolled together, and if there was a neck, it was indiscernible. His nose and mouth broke the puffy roundness of his countenance: nostrils flared on the end of protruding gristle and wide dark lips hid his teeth. Somewhere inside a khaki tee shirt, from that huge drum of a body, sprouted two thick arms, on the ends of which fanned stubby, fat fingers. He was not pretty.

Fareeha Azziz wiped her clammy hands on the tails of her headscarf as she retied it, keeping her tufts of black hair well hidden as she did so. She tried not to listen to her mind, in which repeated snippets of gossip and rumour from the bazaar about the way this man disposed of his enemies: luckily, from where she stood, she couldn’t see the citadel and those remembrances had nothing concrete to cling to. She swallowed and tried to work a little saliva into her dry mouth as she approached the ugly man, making sure that he saw her long before she reached him. She noticed his right arm reach for his weapon but he didn’t pick it up—not for a woman.

It was now a few days since she’d sat in her kitchen and onto an old food wrapper, with a leaky pen, had tabulated the sorry state of Sa’ An’s tobacco economy. During that time she’d kept the messy wrapper near her, studied it often. She’d even gone back to the bazaar once to double check and update, and try to fill in a few of the missing spaces.

Fareeha tried twice but formed no word. She coughed and then, gripping at her throat with a quivering hand, she managed to say, ‘Commander.’ She lowered both arms to her sides and rubbed her palms against the thick material of her long dress where it dropped over the tops of her thighs. She swallowed and tried to speak again. ‘I wish to speak with you, I am Fareeha Azziz, wife of Hassan, who is fighting for you in the mountains.’ She took a long breath, looked around her, and stepped backwards.

‘I know you, woman,’ grunted Bashar, ‘what do you want?’ He pressed a swollen finger into the bonnet of his vehicle, next to his weapon, and squinted at the bold woman before him.

Fareeha blinked several times into his scarred and dangerous face and after just one false start she said, ‘It’s business. I think I know of a way to make us both rich, Commander.’ She then watched Bashar widen his eyes—in avarice, she hoped, not contempt.

Bashar remained firmly positioned, still, as if at the slightest movement his fat body would melt in the heat and flow into the gutters. ‘What are you talking about, woman?’ he growled, as though he were in pain.

Fareeha’s legs suddenly began to feel wobbly and she scuffed her sandalled feet, hoping that it would help her remain upright. The sun beat down upon her and she could feel sweat dripping out of her armpits, and down the middle of her back. Her stomach bubbled.

‘Somebody should do something about it.’

She heard a voice whoop inside her head. She pulled her shoulders back and breathed deeply.

‘I . . . I think I know . . .’ She stopped and wiped her brow with the back of her hand; she looked around the square, anywhere but into that ugly face. ‘Tobacco,’ she suddenly blurted out, with another step backwards. She seemed to pick up a little confidence with the increased distance and went on with, ‘It’s far too expensive in this province . . .’

‘What are you talking about, woman?’ Bashar said, breaking her off. ‘This is not your concern. And this is a state now, not a province.’ He lifted up one of his stump-like legs and made to get in his vehicle.

Fareeha stepped forward and put out a hand; she didn’t touch the man but the gesture was strong. The harbourmaster’s words came back to her: a man would strike a bargain with the devil himself for the right number of dirhams. ‘Listen,’ she pleaded, sounding feminine rather than evil. ‘it could make you rich.’

Bashar left his second leg in the dust below the Jeep and pushed the woman back with his eyes. ‘Speak,’ he grunted.

Fareeha stared into the sweat-stained khaki tee-shirt that stretched over the cask of Bashar Khan’s chest. She noticed the pocket, bulged by a box that had been stuffed inside, the top of which peeked over the ripped hem: Lightning Strikes, she read. She seemed to draw strength and gathered herself, moving her eyes slightly to the left to two dog-tags the colour of tarnished silver that hung from a gold chain. She anchored onto them with blinking eyes and then, with tremulous words, began a brief monologue. For hours beforehand, she had practised the speech with a firm authoritative voice. But now all she could manage was to push out slow, disjointed sentences in a weak, quivering voice. And the masculine flourish she had planned to save for the end faded away in incoherent fragments and lost words.

Bashar raised his hand to his brow and looked away, around the square; he brought his eyes back to Fareeha and stared into her eyes—long enough to make her wish she had stayed at home, behind her flapping linoleum, out of the sun. He broke off with a belch; and then, lifting himself into the passenger’s seat, he farted—but he didn’t melt.

At a grunt from his superior, the driver did something to wake up the Jeep. The engine roared, angry to be disturbed, and then squealing tyres left Fareeha in a cloud of dust. She raised a sweaty palm to her tight chest where she felt her palpitating heart, squeezing in and squeezing out. The hand then continued on up to her forehead, where her fingers traced along scar tissue.