Chapter 40

The flame had burned down the wick of the lamp and Fareeha had to squint through the dimness to see its weak flickering light on Phipps’s face. He was mostly shadows. He had steadily drunk off half a bottle of whiskey and was now slurring his speech so badly that she at last gave up her vain attempts to follow his story. Dropping his convoluted thread for the last time, she suddenly became aware of herself, sitting in a dark office, far from home, at such a late hour. Her eyes flashed to the uncovered window. Outside, the twilight had given way to another black night in the city. She heard the droning generators in the neighbourhood, but whatever illumination they powered made little effect on the darkness.

She tensed and turned back to Phipps; but he had stopped mumbling and his face, sitting upon his two fists, showed no animation apart from the shadows that played over its surface. His eyes had disappeared.

She sat up, angry at herself for again leaving it so late to return home, and seeing Phipps slumped at his desk in a drunken stupor, she wondered what had kept her there, wondered why she hadn’t walked out an hour ago, when there was still a little daylight to see herself home by.

She stood up, cleared her throat, and tried to say that she had to go.

Phipps stirred and muttered a few words about the falling water table.

That was her answer: she felt a sudden return of the excitement she had felt an hour previously when Phipps had led her out onto the steppe, including her in his bid to keep back the desert and restore the water. She made to sit again but before she could ease out her chair, Phipps’s head slid off his fists, down his arms, and came to rest on the desktop.

Fareeha sighed and stepped back from the distant and unfriendly Englishman—a drunk. She turned and groped her way to the door, anxious that she would have to accept another favour from Fahid and be chaperoned home by a boy with one leg and who could hardly breathe—but at least she knew she wouldn’t have to look far to find him.

*

The custodian clumped back from the door as she swung it open. ‘Missis Azziz . . .’ he said, his sheepish grin illuminated by a distant candle, ‘I . . .’

Fareeha raised her finger to her lips.

Fahid turned away to catch his breath.

Fareeha reached forward and rested her hand on his bony shoulder.

The boy flinched and tried to shrug off the hand. ‘I’m . . . alright,’ he wheezed as he freed himself. ‘And I’ll . . . have to drive you home Missis.’

Fareeha stepped back. ‘Are you sure, Fahid?’ She then looked away from his broken body. ‘I mean . . . it’s so late.’

Fahid attempted another shrug and said that it was not a problem. His right hand grabbed at something stuck into his belt.

‘Alright,’ Fareeha said, ‘lets get the cart.’ She was relieved that he seemed to have forgotten her little accident with the plate.

*

When they were at last clopping through the gritty streets, Fareeha spoke. ‘You helped him go through the archives,’ she said. ‘He mentioned something about it tonight.’

‘Yes . . . it was . . . a lot of . . . fun,’ Fahid replied, with a lot more air than words.

‘Fun?’

‘Any kind of . . . history’s fun, Missis. Even the history . . . of . . . irrigation and . . . flood control.’ He paused for breath. ‘The early records . . . are in English. He . . . could read them by himself.’ Another rest for air. ‘I had to help him with the . . . later . . . stuff . . .’ The last few words disappeared into heavy wheezing.

Fareeha wasn’t so intrigued by historical records; but what Phipps was doing out on the steppe . . . She spoke again: ‘So you think he can really help us?’

Fahid turned to her and without words failed in a feeble attempt to shrug his shoulders.

‘I found some pressed wheat in one of the rooms; what’s that?’

‘No idea,’ Fahid replied. ‘But . . . I don’t think it . . . has anything to do . . . with the water table or irrigation. He . . . keeps some of it locked up . . . in a cupboard . . . next to the mats where he sleeps . . . very . . . strange . . . ain’t it?’