Chapter 5

Damn,’ Fareeha cursed as the bucket knocked against the charred floorboard and water slopped out. She tried to kick the board out of the way but it fell against the others and they all collapsed onto the floor, completely blocking the doorway. She cursed again and tried to step over the heap and into her kitchen, but the manoeuvre was awkward and she spilled a lot more water. ‘Damn and damn,’ she cried as she stumbled into her home with the slopping bucket. Her top lip began to quiver and her eyes went blurry with tears.

She let the bucket thud to the kitchen floor and marched over to the mirrorless shelf. With one hand she pulled off her headscarf and with the other she picked up her magnificent ivory comb. She stabbed at her hair once or twice, pulling out knots and tangles, but then she gave up and threw the comb to the floor, next to the slopping bucket. As she stepped across to a battered chest of drawers, tears began to roll down both sides of her face. Opening the top drawer, she felt her stomach buckle and could do nothing to control the whimper that twisted out from her throat, and by the time she had snatched up the rusty pair of scissors the whimper had grown and her whole body was contorting as she wept, in liquid sniffles of despair. Without moving away from the chest, she began to cut: at first carefully—a snip here a snip there—but as her tears increased so did the ferocity of her untrained hand. Tufts of hair fell onto the woodwork, her shoulders, back, and onto the wet kitchen floor, each one looking as if it had been chewed from her scalp by the fangs of a rabid dog.

*

‘Fareeha,’ a voice from outside called. ‘Miss Chamoun! Is that you?’

Fareeha looked up and wiped a rough sleeves over her damp cheeks. She sniffed and then called out. ‘Yes, Mrs. Sharwalla, it’s me.’ She got up, stepped through the scattered remains of her beauty, jumped over the collapsed planks that once made up her back door, and went outside. She didn’t slip on the spilt water. Before continuing into the garden she quickly brushed at her shoulders and slipped a scarf around her head,

‘Thought I heard you earlier,’ Mrs. Sharwalla said as Fareeha appeared. She nodded towards the pump. ‘You’re still drinking that?’

Fareeha wiped her eye, tightened the knot beneath her chin, and looked up at Mrs. Sharwalla. ‘Yes . . .’ She stopped when she saw the new wound on her neighbour’s face, a purple bruise shining on her cheekbone. Mrs Sharwalla was trying to keep it turned away but it was on her good side, the unpatched side that she usually pushed forward, and she was getting confused. ‘. . . I don’t have much choice, Mrs. Sharwalla . . . eh . . . Jameela,’ she added, mindful of yesterday’s warning.

But Mrs. Sharwalla was in no mood for playful threats this morning; she raised a hand to her cheek and turned away; she then looked down at Fareeha through her black eye-patch. ‘I’ve been bartering Farooq’s peanuts for drinking water,’ she said; and then she let her face turn again, exposing her new bruise. ‘You shouldn’t drink it, you know.’

Fareeha looked away; she wanted to ask what had happened but instead she continued about the water. She glanced around at her pump. ‘I needn’t worry, it won’t last much longer. It took me half an hour this morning to get a bucketful for the tomatoes and onions; then another thirty minutes to get one for the house.’ She stopped then added with a frown, ‘Spilt half of that, though.’ She stopped again, this time for a little longer then looked back at her neighbour. ‘When it’s gone . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.’

‘Somebody should do something,’ Mrs Sharwalla said, but without her usual whoop. ‘Those horrible mules in the night!’ she then said.

Fareeha shuddered with the memory. ‘Ugh,’ she said, balling her sticky hands into fists, ‘you heard them too?’

‘I should think so; those awful, foul-mouthed men.’ She screwed up the good and bad sides of her face into a look of diabolical contempt. ‘Armenians!’ She spat the word at the fence. Mrs Sharwalla then paused and relaxed her expression. ‘But at least they are doing something.’ She began to smile, her eye widened and her grey teeth broke through her dry lips. ‘I might even buy a few of their cigarettes today down at the bazaar: try to soothe Farooq’s temper.’ Her hand came up to her cheekbone and unselfconsciously caressed the splotch.’

‘What do you mean? Fareeha asked, ‘I thought cigarettes were too . . .’

‘Expensive? Not for a day or two. That ghastly Armenian, Nisham, stealing into the city at night like a vampire. What do you think his mules were carrying? Pictures of the Sultan? Her hand came down to her side and she continued her smile. ‘Supply’s up, demand’s down: so the price should drop—for a day or two at least.’

Fareeha nodded, as if she had understood her neighbour’s thumbnail sketch of the black economy of Sa’ An. ‘Good,’ she said.

‘Is it?’ Mrs Sharwalla snapped. ‘Is it really? That awful man is half of the problem here. I only buy his cigarettes to keep my husband calm. They should open up the harbour again: that would really make a difference. Somebody should do something about that!’ She stopped and looked at Fareeha, as if she were using both eyes. ‘Somebody like your husband, my dear. Why on earth is he up there?’ she nodded up to the distant mountains, ‘when he could be down there?’ she nodded north towards the top of the city, the Gulf. ‘He’d see to things; get those cowardly ship’s captains to come back.’

‘He wasn’t in charge,’ Fareeha said quickly, ‘the Assistant Harbourmaster can’t do that much, can he?’

‘Well from what I hear, my dear, your husband was the one who did all the work down there, while that fat old boss of his schemed with the captains. Isn’t that right?’

‘No, no. I don’t think that’s fair at all; Muzaffer Hussein is a very kind, generous man. We both liked him very much.’

Mrs. Sharwalla tried to roll her eye and gave a heavy sigh. ‘Do it myself if I had both my eyes,’ she said; and then she turned to go.

‘Do what?’ Fareeha blurted out. ‘I . . . I mean what can a woman do in a place like this?’

Mrs. Sharwalla stopped moving away and turned back. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s not easy. The smart women have left already: every woman with a brain and half a chance has skipped out of this damn place long ago; and the men have caused so much trouble that us women left here are too busy cleaning up the mess to start anything of our own.

Fareeha frowned.

‘Men!’ Mrs. Sharwalla raised her hand to her face, the unpatched side, the shining mark of Farooq’s temper. ‘We’re going to starve with them and starve without them. I don’t know which is better.’

Fareeha slowly shook her head.

‘Anyway,’ Mrs Sharwalla said turning again to go, ‘at least I’ve still got mine and he hasn’t gone up there,’ she nodded up to the mountains again. ‘Most of them don’t come back, you know.’ She stopped, pulled in a sharp breath, and raised her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh I’m sorry, dear,’ she said through her hand, ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘That’s alright,’ Fareeha said, ‘really, it’s alright.’

Fareeha strangled her emotions until she was safely behind the pile of charred floorboards that was her back door. She crossed the floor with a quivering face and fell onto the rickety kitchen chair. ‘If only . . .’ she began to repeat her words from the previous morning, but broke off with a fist banged into the tabletop. Her top lip began to shake and she hit the table again. Cry because you love him, she told herself. Cry because you miss him and long for him to come back. Another fist rattled the table. But don’t cry because you hate him. Don’t cry because you’re hungry.

She put a hand up to the scar on her forehead, looked up towards heaven, and blinked her dry eyes.