Chapter 6

Fareeha spent the remainder of the hot morning in her kitchen. When she stopped feeling sorry for herself, she checked her coins and found too few for a decent breakfast. With luck, flour would arrive soon aboard the UN ship and bread would be cheaper for a day or two—better save her money for then and meanwhile beg crusts from Mrs. Sharwalla and eat beans and whatever came up in the garden. She needn’t go all the way to the bazaar just to scrounge a glass of dirty water—she had half a bucketful of her own.

Fuel had run out: she put the last piece of charcoal into the stove then turned to look at the propped-up floorboards that made her back door. ‘Something had better happen soon,’ she said out loud, hoping that she could get her hands on a little animal dung as soon as possible. Mahmoud flashed through her mind. Goat shit, she thought; better to burn it in the stove than in a pipe.

She then returned to the lonely company of her thoughts, the first of which was why she hadn’t jumped into the smoking crater outside her house several years ago, along with her mirrors and reminders of her husband, Hassan. Nothing had improved since that day and nothing looked as if it would change any time soon—not change for the better that was. Worse seemed to be always around the corner. And now she suddenly had the feeling that she would be alone for ever. She raised her eyes to heaven and brought a hand up to her scarred forehead. The will of God, it seemed to her at last, was far too cruel to trust. She lowered her eyes. Fate, she thought, was malicious and merciless, too dark a guide—especially for someone with both her eyes.

As the water came to the boil, slowly, she began to see the hell that her life had become: a rotting carcass of a squalid existence, in which putrefied fear hopelessness and suffering; and for some reason the flabby, smiling face of Muzaffer Hussein popped up to push away the despair. Mrs. Sharwalla’s unkind words perhaps had released the memory. Fareeha’s neighbour was right, of course, her husband had always done all of the work while the Harbourmaster sat back and . . . and did what exactly? Nothing good, she knew; but whatever it was, did it really matter? He was still happy. As the Harbourmaster he could have been one of the first to flee the war—but he hadn’t.

Fareeha raised her head into the hot, still air; she creased her brow, strained, but heard nothing: the guns had stopped. Midday, and the killing could wait until the heat subsided; sleep was more important for now. She lifted the flour sack and peered out of the window; nothing moved, apart from the tired breeze and the sides of things as they shimmered in the heat. She thought twice about venturing outside at this hour. The beginning of the dry season always seemed to be the hottest part of the year. It was as if the sun were exacting revenge for the humiliation that the rains inflicted upon it. It would rise early and simmer in the east, over the dessert, where it ought to stay. It wouldn’t, of course, and by the afternoon it had burned itself into a furious, bright fire, which sat directly over the city, waiting to scorch anyone reckless enough to go outside and tempt it.

*

Fareeha tempted it that afternoon; but she covered up well and moved slowly, hoping that her risks would not be taken in vain. The streets were quiet, deserted save for the odd goat and a few stray dogs; most humans stayed inside. She picked her way among the ruin that had once been a reasonable network of tarmac roads, negotiating craters and potholes, stepping over bricks and piles of rubble. All the while fixing her mind on her husband’s old boss: Muzaffer Hussein.

In the past, Muzaffer had liked to surprise her with his unexpected presence, even cajoling her husband into the game. Fareeha’s mind went back to one such late-afternoon visit . . .

‘Mrs. Azziz,’ she heard him call out, after a tapping at the front door (back in the days when the house had one).

Fareeha flourished her body in front of a mirror, thankful that she had put on makeup and a little jewellery and then trotted over to open the door.

‘Fareeha, you look wonderful,’ Muzaffer said, ‘It is hard for me to stay away.’ He produced something from behind his back, bowed gracefully, and handed it over. ‘I have brought for you a special gift.’

It was always something that he had confiscated from the customs house, but a welcome gesture all the same.

‘Don’t worry,’ he then said as she tried to look behind the obstacle that his huge body made, ‘I have also brought you your hardworking husband.’

Hassan crept out from behind Muzaffer’s car and made an appearance.

‘Ah there you are Hassan, shall we go in? Always such a pleasure to meet your lovely wife.’

Fareeha caught her husband’s eye before inviting the guest inside. ‘I have just made dinner,’ she said, and then she waited as the two men passed by so she could steal another look at herself in the mirror. Without being seen she shook back her long black shiny hair. ‘Would you care to join us?’

‘It would be my greatest pleasure, my dear, but sadly I have arranged to eat with my wife tonight up at the villa.’ Muzaffer tried to show his disappointment with a glum expression. ‘A quick drink together perhaps?’ he added, producing a bottle of brandy from a bag that he had kept well hidden till now. ‘Something from a very good friend of mine.’ He laughed, wobbling every part of his huge body, and then asked Hassan for glasses.

’I really shouldn’t,’ Fareeha said, quickly looking first at her husband then at the guest.

‘Don’t worry my dear, don’t worry.’ Muzaffer took three glasses from his assistant, arranged them on the old kitchen table, and poured. ‘Nobody will know,’ he whispered.

‘Here is to our friend Captain Gomez.’ Muzaffer raised his glass. ‘Salut, as he would say.’ A rocket exploded in the distance, underlining the toast.

Fareeha raised her glass but didn’t drink. She knew Gomez, a small man from Valencia whom she thought of as desert rat: golden skin, button eyes, and a protruding snout. Hassan had told her how Gomez kept Muzaffer supplied with Brandy and exacted small favours in return. Fareeha opened her lips and thought of that little man, trying to take her mind off what she was doing.

Muzaffer drained his glass in one go, belching with a satisfied smile as he replaced the glass on the table. ‘I doubt Paradise even has such pleasures,’ he said.

Her husband was a little less aggressive and took just a sip before stopping to reassure her. ‘Don’t worry about what you have been hearing in the markets. This nonsense will all end soon.’

‘Indeed it will,’ Muzaffer agreed, refilling his empty glass with brandy. ‘And then we can all get back to the normal way of doing things.’

Fareeha noticed the look that her husband gave to the back of his superior’s head, a look that she had never seen before, a look that Muzaffer would never want to see. She wasn’t reassured. She had heard the speakers in the parks and marketplaces, warning them into abstinence: ‘Drink and be damned,’ they said. Others warned them to wear their scarves, their long dresses. ‘Cover up,’ they said, ‘or face punishment . . .’

‘Drink, drink,’ Muzaffer entreated them. ‘One more and I must go . . .’

That distant evening drifted from Fareeha’s mind as she stepped over a storm drain. They had been fighting in the name of God back then. This time they had a different name, but the same fight. Her mind quickly returned to the Harbourmaster and she barely noticed the drain, which had been rent open, probably by the last flash flood of the wet season. She now wondered about Muzaffer’s wealth. The zealots that led the religious uprising hadn’t been able to touch it, she knew. They hadn’t even been able to stop him drinking, let alone cure his avarice. Now she wondered how he was faring under the new regime.

‘He’s a clever man, that Muzaffer Hussein,’ her husband said. ‘He knows how to control his greed.’ The words came back to her, as if they had been spoken yesterday. ‘He cautiously sticks his fingers in the pie; grows rich piecemeal. Still, he’s lucky to be alive.’ Fareeha slowed her step and repeated the words in her mind: lucky to be alive. She thought of the beheaded gangsters found in the citadel, the clerics torn apart by an angry mob, the bodies floating in the harbour. Her heart bumped under her dress and she stopped, her head a whirr of indecision. She should turn around, return home, forget this . . . Hassan was right: greed was dangerous. Greed: the word filled her mind like a blunt, threatening tool. ‘Greed will get you killed in a place like this.’

And then calming words came: ‘You can’t blame the corrupted,’ Hassan had said, ‘Greed is forever charging through our veins. Governments change but human nature never does.’ Fareeha didn’t blame Muzaffer, she never had. In fact, looking back, she wondered why her husband had never stuck his own fingers in the pie.

She stopped walking. Perhaps he had, she realised with a start. Her heart quickened and she raised a hand to her chin and the knot of her headscarf. Of course he had, she told herself . . . But she had never seen anything beyond the few dirhams he threw at her every week for housekeeping and had lived all the while in near poverty—and now she was hungry.

She pulled her headscarf tight, adjusted the fall of her dress over her thighs, and hurried on—towards the harbour.