Chapter 37

Fareeha put one foot outside of the municipal building that housed the bazaar: not far enough to get away from its stench, but far enough to give her a clearer view of the cafés that faced it from the other side of the wide road. Under one of the tatty awnings she saw Nisham, holding forth to a table of hairy, leather-booted men. He was standing behind the only empty chair, moving his whole body as if he were recounting the story of some dangerous adventure in which he had barely escaped with his life. His head pouted, his shoulders heaved, his arms flailed, and his hands metamorphosed from shape to shape.

Fareeha pulled the bottom of her skirt away from the mucky floor and began to cross the road. It’s just a letter, she told herself as Nisham’s vulgar speech came into range.

‘. . . I had the bitch right where I wanted her,’ Nisham was saying, with his two hand clasped together in front of him as if he were ringing the neck of a chicken. ‘She squealed like a demon from hell until I . . .’ He broke off his monologue and looked up. ‘What do you want, woman?’

Fareeha froze, let go of her skirt, and raised both hands to the knot beneath her chin.

‘She wants you to put her right where you want her,’ one of Nisham’s swarthy friends said. The whole table crashed into uncontrollable laughter.

Fareeha dropped her eyes to the ground.

A moment later, Nisham wiped the smile from his face with a dirty cuff. ‘Speak,’ he growled. The hand went back up and he pulled at his black beard.

‘Just a letter,’ Fareeha said, ‘I wondered if you had a letter for me?’

Nisham pantomimed surprise then shoved a hand into his baggy trousers; he quickly pulled it out in the shape of a fist, which he held up and opened out so that Fareeha could see the shiny coins on his flattened palm. ‘Two lousy dirhams,’ he began, ‘What do you expect for two lousy dirhams?

‘But . . .’

Nisham clenched his fist on the money and shook it at her. ‘I do have something for you.’ He flashed his teeth at the seated men, a few of whom responded with grins of their own and muted chuckles. ‘But that lousy husband of yours didn’t pay a delivery fee, did he?’

Fareeha bit down on her bottom lip and tried to keep her body still.

‘Now, what am I supposed to do?’ He yelled at one of the muleteers, who lifted up a duffel bag, thrust in is hand, and pulled out an envelope. Nisham bent forwards and snatched it away. He then stepped closer to Fareeha, waving the letter in front of her. ‘What do you say, woman?’

Fareeha kept her eyes on the flapping white paper ‘I . . . I have no more money,’ she whispered.

‘Ha,’ Nisham cried. He turned to the table, ‘She has no money.’ The beards at the table opened and vented mocking groans of pity and sympathy.

Fareeha took a deep breath. ‘But I can pay you later . . .’ She knew before she said it that it was a stupid thing to say. If Hassan couldn’t even afford two dirhams for the letter, what chance was there . . .

‘Really!’ Nisham had returned his eyes to Fareeha. ‘Is that so? And how might one poor, helpless woman suddenly come into three dirhams?’

‘Three? But . . .’

‘Getting more dangerous up there,’ Nisham began. ‘Fighting’s fierce. I have to take more precautions. It costs money.’

Defeated, Fareeha looked down at the ground again.

‘But I wouldn’t worry about your husband if I were you,’ Nisham said. ‘He’s quite safe.’ He stopped to grin at the table. ‘To tell you the truth, he seems to be doing just fine for himself.’ Toothy grins again flashed out from all the beards.

Fareeha slowly began to raise her head. ‘What . . .?’

‘Why don’t we just say that you owe me.’ Nisham thrust the letter under Fareeha’s eyes.

Fareeha smelt the odour of animal dung waft over with Nisham’s rough gesture. She didn’t move.

‘Take it,’ he snapped.

She jumped back and looked up. The voice reminded her of the one she had heard the night before, yelling at a dumb mule in the black street outside her bedroom window. She raised a trembling hand and took the envelope.

‘Good,’ Nisham said with a wide, toothy grin.

Fareeha stepped away as Nisham raised a hand to the leathery flesh of a cheek, just above the limits of his beard. She then watched a black fingernail run along the groove of an old scar.

He leered. ‘I’ll come around some time to collect my payment.’

Fareeha turned and fled as the table of beards erupted in cheers.

*

Clutching the envelope in a damp hand, Fareeha scuttled along the road to the first side street she came to and turned into it: getting away from people in Sa’ An was not a difficult thing to do. It could be dangerous, but a few steps down any back alley would put a person well beyond prying eyes. Fareeha stopped in the doorway of a disused warehouse—it once stored dried fish for the market, by the smell of it. She squatted down and tore open the envelope. Holding up the single sheet of paper, she scanned the scrawl for any obvious signs: a number, a dollar sign, mention of a bank account, his parents names, a journey home . . . But she saw nothing, and reaching his name at the bottom, she returned to the top for a more careful reading.

The first half was almost a rant: a slurry of clichés about his regrets, his apologies, and his broken heart. She was shocked for a moment: Hassan had never used such words before. She looked again, half expecting the word love to appear on the page: it didn’t—to her relief. But the sentences as a whole made little sense and she had to reread one or two. She gave up on an idiom about forgiveness, sighed, and whispered, ‘Where’s the damned money?’ Soon, however, she came to the Hassan she knew, with his selfish view of the world, his high ideas, and his excuses.

Tears washed the surfaces of her eyes as she realised there was no money: he hadn’t even mentioned the word. And it was clear that he had no intentions of returning to the city—he even seemed fearful of the prospect.

Fareeha looked up from the letter and then, with her unfocused eyes staring into space, began to slowly crumple it into a closing fist. When it was tight, she tossed the ball of paper over her shoulder and into the stinking, empty building behind.

A voice called back from deep inside the warehouse: ‘And while you are over there, don’t forget to look up a real doctor.’ And the next second a gaunt, red-faced figure gangled into her mind: Phipps. She continued to look through her watery disappointment for a full two seconds before remembering the soil-tester.