Chapter 16

The bag of flour was awkward to carry, especially along the rutted and cratered roads of Sa’ An in the fading light; and with each of her tired footsteps it was getting heavier and heavier. But Fareeha’s mind was not with the job and had long stopped thanking God that she would have something to eat for a week or so—something other than onions and tomatoes and beans. Her mind was back at the waterfront, in the harbourmaster’s office, where she witnessed again the interruption made by the gangly Englishman and grimaced at the bad timing. The old man had at last seemed to be listening to her when the strange doctor rattled the door and made his brief yet distracting appearance. After he’d left, Muzaffer’s attention lay more with his rotting teeth than with what she had tried to say; and for the remainder of her visit he gave her no more than a few yes, yeses, mumbled with his tongue stuck in one or another of his molars. Well, she thought, at least she’d managed to scrounge a few envelopes before leaving.

Fareeha tried to picture the Muzaffer of old, the Turk, wringing his hands over illicit crates of brandy and boxes of electronics, his sparkling eyes full of excitement. Those eyes had been drained of lust and now held water and nothing else and even the suggestion of easy money, dangled before them, had produced no more than a brief flicker. Granted, he was older, but a few years to break such a corrupt spirit? it didn’t seem possible. She considered his quadrupled responsibilities: he was now not only Sa’ An’s Harbour Master, but its Immigration Officer, its Customs Officer, and its Quarantine Officer. But the harbour was dead and there was nothing to do and she was sure that even without the assistance of her hard-working husband he could not be suffering from the pressures of work. His wife sounded fine, and although he most probably kept up his visits to the few remaining brothels around the port, their relationship seemed to be intact.

Whatever had happened she failed to get through to him. And then Captain Rashid had showed up, with his toxic odour and an armful of paperwork.

The sun dipped below the ancient citadel that capped the headland west of Sa’ An, taking with it the safety of daylight. Fareeha stumbled and her sandalled right foot barely missed a gaping pothole; a little flour dropped from the bag and speckled her deep blue dress. Her clutch tightened and she realised with a start that she was holding something that would make a much better curtain for her bedroom window.

Ten minutes later she was almost home. She raised her head in anticipation but didn’t notice the whitewashed walls of her house or the flapping sheet of linoleum over the doorway. Instead she saw a Jeep looming in the distance, parked up beyond the crater. Her heart bounced in her chest as she scuffed to a standstill, almost dropping the bag of flour. A skewer of self reproach stabbed in as her eyes leapt from side to side, searching for the grim owner of the vehicle. What madness had driven her to this man? And what could she offer him now?

Stepping slowly forward, however, she told herself that perhaps he had come to turn down her offer. She wouldn’t have to go back and plead with Muzaffer and she would never have to see Bashar Khan again—after tonight. Steeling herself for the reprimand he would no doubt inflict upon her for having wasted his time, she walked on.

‘Fareeha Azziz,’ someone growled from the shadows.

Fareeha froze at the voice. And at the sudden manifestation of Bashar Khan’s body, as it stepped forwards into the half-light, her jaw dropped. More white flour showered onto the dark fabric of her dress.

‘The last man who kept me waiting I took up to the citadel,’ he said.

She was still on the far side of the crater, but even from there his solid outline looked forbidding. She cleared her throat and after a stammer or two said, ‘But I didn’t know . . .’

He stopped her with a pace forwards and a raised hand and then menaced her with more grunted words. ‘A woman should not be out alone after dark.’

One of Fareeha’s hands released the bag of flour and went up to her head where it tried to pull the headscarf tighter. ‘I know . . . I . . .’ Her words fell into the gaping space between them.

‘I’ve come about the business,’ Bashar said. ‘Come closer.’

Fareeha gave both hands back to her load and began to step cautiously around the hole.

Bashar kicked up dust with the few steps it took him to reach his Jeep. ‘Here,’ he snapped. ‘Closer. I cannot talk to your shadow.’

Passing the flapping sheet of her front door, Fareeha tried to see if anyone had gone inside, but it was impossible to tell. She put the flour in the doorway and continued to the Jeep.

Bashar leaned his barrelling torso against a front wing and twisted himself around to bark orders at two gun-wielding henchmen, who sat like toy soldiers on the upholstered seats. He then waited as Fareeha, pulling the dark cloth of her headscarf tightly to her scalp, tiptoed up to him.

Fareeha dropped her hands and wiped them onto her flour-speckled dress, rubbing up a sticky dough. She noticed the weapon, lying as it had done so the last time on the bonnet of the Jeep and then wondered why he was taking such a long time to complete such a simple job. She silently pleaded with him to hurry up and scold her for wasting his time; make her cry if need be and send her running into her home; but just get on with it. Her fretting in the café about not having convinced him of the sense of the idea seemed ridiculous now. And thank goodness Muzaffer hadn’t given her much attention—she wouldn’t have to show her shameful face to him again. It would be over in a moment and she could get back to her routine: pumping bitter water, praying that the onions and tomatoes will come up in the garden, gossiping with Mrs. . . .

Bashar brought her back to the dark night with a fist thumped into the khaki metal that covered the engine of the Jeep. Fareeha jumped and the forced trip to the citadel that she had been preparing for herself suddenly came a day closer. Bashar Khan hadn’t come here tonight to punish her or even to yell at her; he had come to negotiate some of the finer points of her ill-considered idea.

‘You get thirty percent,’ he growled.

Fareeha felt the leather of her sandals push into the soles of her aching feet as the weight of a dozen sacks of flour bore down on her; her legs began to buckle under the load and she staggered back, trying desperately to hold herself upright. She opened her mouth but the desert had already blown in and her dry tongue and arid throat made no sound at all.

‘Thirty percent,’ Bashar repeated, ‘and don’t even think about getting more.’

Fareeha wanted to fall to her backside, take the unbearable load from her shaky legs. And her mouth! She would have welcomed even a glass of her own bitter well water.

‘That’s clear then,’ Bashar grunted. ‘You said that you had all the connections—then start using them.’ He turned around and put one of his stumpy legs into the Jeep. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said without turning his invisible neck.

As the Jeep roared away into the dark night, Fareeha looked west, up at the black shadows of the ancient fortification; and strangely, she conjured up an image of her mutilated body being sewn back together by a doctor—by the tall English doctor.