Chapter 35

Kicking her sandalled feet against the hot, dusty streets of the derelict city, Fareeha wondered why she had come back. Returning to Sa’ An was something few people ever did. Once out they stayed out. Even when the city was enjoying an intermission between wars, the flow was mostly in one direction. She had spent the previous dozen nights sleeping behind a locked door, on clean sheets, without the background noise of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. She had eaten regularly: wholesome, solid food; and best of all, she had drunk gallons and gallons of fresh, clean water. She swallowed and felt her dry throat, and then she glanced around at what was here to welcome her back: the ruined facades of buildings, with their broken windows and scorched brickwork; the potholed and cratered roads; the piles of rubble and uncollected refuse; shattered glass like gravel, scattered all around . . .

Her own house looked the same: it shimmered in the distance as she rounded a bend in the road. It seemed that no errant rocket had razed it to the ground in her absence—not that it would take a rocket to do that. She wondered for a second about looters—or scavengers as the locals preferred to call them—and then remembered that nothing much remained inside those four stark walls—and whatever there was had itself been scavenged from the neighbourhood. Her next thought was of refugees, fleeing from the countryside, who might have taken up residence inside; her house was at the top end of a major city thoroughfare which continued north towards the mountains, and anyone coming into the city from that direction would pass right by her front doorway. But then she realised that Mrs Sharwalla would have seen them off—that was if Farooq hadn’t incapacitated her again!

Home. She checked the linoleum but saw no new goat bites and wondered if Mahmoud had already left for the mountains. ‘Wouldn’t blame him,’ she murmured. The inside of the house smelt musty and the first thing she did was to draw the flour sacks away from the glassless window-frames; but the air outside was still and it made little difference. Waving her hand in front of her, she walked through the kitchen and out of the back doorway, Once clear of the planks that were still propped up in the gap, her eyes fell immediately on the row of wilting tomato plants and her placid expression changed to one of concern. ‘What on earth . . .’ She stopped, realising that Mrs Sharwalla might indeed be incapacitated: why else would she let a good crop go to waste?

Fareeha snatched up the bucket and marched over to the pump, where she threw the container under its spout and bore down on its long iron handle. She felt no pressure and produced only a gurgle. She tried again; nothing; and then again and again, with increasing vigour, until her whole body was pumping furiously. After five minutes of frantic work the only water she managed to produce was the salty drops that welled up from the corners of her eyes.

‘Fareeha.’ The voice came from next door. ‘Fareeha, is that you?’

Fareeha relaxed her shoulders and quickly fingered away the tears; she looked up just in time to see the face of her one-eyed neighbour appear over the fence.

‘Oh,’ Mrs. Sharwalla whooped, ’you don’t need to waste your time with the pump; water’s gone.’ She nodded her head towards the dying tomatoes, ‘Sorry.’

Fareeha straightened her back. ‘But . . . what can . . .’

Mrs Sharwalla cut her off with another shriek. ‘Don’t worry, girl, we can let you have a enough for cooking.’ She then glanced around and lowered her voice. ‘Farooq still gets a little irrigation water for his peanuts; we bring back some of that. The stuff we drink, though, I still barter for in the bazaar.’

‘Thanks,’ Fareeha said, turning her back on the pump. She kicked away the bucket as she trudged towards the fence.

‘You have been away a long time,’ Mrs. Sharwalla said.

Fareeha dropped her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘unforeseen circumstances.’ She hadn’t told her neighbour exactly where she was going, only that she might be gone for a week or so, to see friends along the coast.

‘We thought you might not be coming back.’ Mrs. Sharwalla said. ‘Wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t, mind.’ She whooped and without thinking added: ‘Who in their right mind would come back to this?’ She nodded over to the pump.

Fareeha didn’t feel slighted by the remark: perhaps she wasn’t in her right mind, and she kicked herself for not having stayed away.

‘Somebody should do something about it,’ her neighbour continued, with her one eye still on the iron handle of the pump and the toppled bucket.

Fareeha knew the refrain; she no longer wanted to hear it, however, and turned to go; but Mrs. Sharwalla spat it out anyway; and as she was giving a final relish, Fareeha remembered where her one last hope had come from. ‘The Armenian,’ she said, turning back to her neighbour, ‘Nisham; has he returned yet?’

Mrs. Sharwalla whooped then scowled, her single eye screwing up in its deep socket. ‘That horrid man?’ she said.

Fareeha nodded.

‘Probably not. I haven’t heard his vulgar mouth passing by in the night.’ She then relaxed her face. ‘You still waiting for a letter? Listen, girl, you know . . .’ She turned away before finishing and left her sentence hanging half way over the fence.

Fareeha knew what she was going to say. ‘Never mind.’ She shrugged. ‘He’ll be back soon.’

*

Fareeha sat at the old kitchen table, head low, shoulders hunched. She put both elbows onto the tabletop and clasped her head between her hands. She sat still for a few moments and then slowly began to pull off her headscarf. The chewed-up ends of her hair popped up as the cloth slid away. She ran a quick hand over her bare head and then drew her index finger through the scar on her forehead. That was when she heard the engine of the approaching vehicle. She closed her eyes, and when she heard the brakes and the skidding wheels, she raised them up to the ceiling. ‘Not already?’ she muttered.

Fareeha paused on her side of the linoleum to cover her ugly hair and by the time she slid outside, Bashar Khan had already planted his trunk-like legs in the dust. ‘Well, woman?’ he grunted ‘where have you been?’

Fareeha wasn’t upset by the greeting, but she was wondering how he had heard so quickly that she was back. He must have found out that she had left aboard The Maharaja and known that she would return with it. ‘Across the Gulf,’ she said, knowing the consequences of a lie, ‘and I have arranged everything.’

The red rims of Bashar’s pudgy eyes flattened. ‘Everything?’ he snapped.

Fareeha squirmed. ‘Well . . .’ her voice was unsteady and she stopped to clear her dry throat. She pushed her flattened palms against her hips, wiping away their stickiness. The letter, she told herself; if Hassan has sent word of any money, I’ll take it all, get myself back on Rashid’s boat, and . . .

‘What?’ Bashar growled, ‘Speak up, woman.’

Fareeha took a deep breath. ‘We still have to set a time for the first run, but everything else has been taken care of.’

Bashar’s fleshy face remained expressionless. He held her with his black eyes. Disbelief: Fareeha was sure of what she saw, knowing that Bashar Khan still regarded her with contempt and suspicion—not that he would have been be able to articulate that feeling much beyond, I still don’t trust that bitch. She looked away.

‘Do it,’ he said and turned for the Jeep. ‘I’ll find you.’