Empire of Mud

by James Suriano

  The room had a carpet the color of summer tea leaves, and the walls were paneled in stained woods; it smelled of masculine cologne. A large flat television was set into the wall, and a leather couch had fur throws over the arms. The space was impeccably neat. My footprint disturbed the grain of the carpet, and I felt my legs wobble. I knew this was the room Ousha had told me to avoid. I backed out, wiping the carpet with my hand to pull the fibers back to perfection. I shut the door gently and stood in the darkness for a moment to catch my breath and regain my composure. I felt close to knowing something about Mohamed. And I didn’t want to stop until I found it.

  I pulled open more of the boxes inside the passage. More of the same, until I came to a box where magazines were rolled inside. I unrolled one; images of fit and handsome naked men. I paged through them; most of the men appeared to be from the West, with light skin and European faces. Why would these magazines be here? I put it back and arranged the boxes as they were, then traced my way to the ladder. Although I wanted to spend more time in Mohamed’s office, I didn’t have the courage.

  When I opened the door to the laundry room and pulled the basket of dirty laundry inside, the house was still quiet. While the laundry was washing, I headed outside to feel the sun on my face. Everything in the house seemed designed to keep the sun and heat out, which had a depressing effect on me. I slept in a room with no windows and spent most of my time in the kitchen and hallway, where Ousha wanted the shades pulled so the sun wouldn’t reach her skin.

  It was midday, and I loved the way the heat baked through me. I walked the perimeter of the pool, then stepped down to the seawall. There was a dock connected to it, with a set of steel stairs folded up. When I reached them, I saw a boat secured under the seawall. The stairs would reach the boat if they were lowered. Ousha had pointed to a cluster of boats in the middle of the water, which were still there. Mohamed must have parked his boat away from shore for depth reasons. I headed back to the pool, slipped off my shoes, and put my feet on the top stair, which was covered by water. The house felt expansive, like each room or section was a new world to occupy.

  “Shula?”

  I jumped up. Ousha stood in the doorway with two bags of food.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, but don’t leave the door open either. You’ll heat up the whole house. Come inside.”

  I ran inside and stood at attention next to her at the bar.

  “Didn’t you want to send something with me to the post office?” she asked.

  “Yes, but …” I felt grateful she had remembered something that was entirely my problem, and I wanted to show her how grateful I was, but this wasn’t an area where she would be able to help me.

  “But?”

  “There’s no way to mail money, and it won’t be useful to them.” I thought about the dinars of my salary. The people of Balapitiya would have no use for the colorful bills. I hadn’t thought of these complications when Khalid had sold me on dreams and a new house.

  “What town are you from?” Ousha asked.

  “Balapitiya.” I looked down in shame.

  “On the coast? Oh, how lovely.” Ousha put the last onion in the refrigerator, then came to the counter and let her hands rest. “I think it’s time we had tea. Why don’t you make sure the baby is comfortable so we don’t get interrupted?”

  Maryam was still sleeping soundly. I put a fresh diaper out and a bottle of formula next to her, so I could tend to her quickly if she woke, but I wasn’t going to disturb her now.

  “She’s still sleeping deeply,” I reported upon returning to the kitchen. The electric teakettle was on. Ousha had two cups out with satchels of tea inside them, along with a miniature bowl of sugar cubes. She pulled out a stool, invited me to sit, and pushed a cup in front of me. She poured the water and put out a plate of the biscuits she loved, shortbread with pieces of candied ginger and lemon.

  “It might seem confusing why you’re here.” She waited for me to respond.

  “No. I came because we have nothing at home. There is nothing confusing about my poverty.”

  Ousha took a biscuit in her hand and waved it around. “But this … what is going on here …”

  I thought about the narrow passageway behind the laundry room and wondered if somehow she knew I’d been in there, knew I’d been in Mohamed’s office. Was she trying to get me to confess?

  “Every family is different.” The thought seemed to be a consolation for her, an offering that her life was normal.

  “Mohamed doesn’t love me and I don’t love him. It’s an arrangement for the sake of his honor. His family is very”—she looked around the room for the right word—“prominent. As such, their first son must be married, with children.”

  This was more confusing; neither of them had shown any interest in their child.

  “I was born in the United States,” she said, “but my mother is Sri Lankan and my father is Jordanian but of the American type. If you saw him, his look would be hard to place. When he’s in Italy, people think he’s Italian. When we’re in Dubai, they think he’s Emirati, and with his ability to speak so many languages, he’s a bit of a chameleon. After the terrorist attacks in the US, the country changed, so my father moved here for a finance job. I went to school, then university and graduate school. When I finished my master’s degree in mathematics, my father thought a woman shouldn’t work, so while I was searching for career opportunities, he was searching for a husband for me. My father worked for Mohamed’s father, and I guess they thought us meeting would be a good thing. We met. I found Mohamed cold, detached, and knew he had no interest in me. He confirmed that on one of our meetings, when he said, ‘My father insists I see you, so I’m here.’ Even so, we agreed to honor our fathers. We would see each other a few more times, then come up with an excuse as to why we had to break it off. In the meantime, Mohamed’s father kept presenting women to him, and Mohamed kept lying and saying he was interested in me, not all of them. At the same time, my father thought that because we kept seeing each other, things were going well. He was pleased I had found a young man, and his employer, the provider of all we had in Dubai, was happy as well.”

  Ousha was telling me the story as if this were unusual, but arranged marriages were common in Sri Lanka, and my parents had chosen my husband. The love that came from an arranged marriage had evolved, over time, from familiarity and shared experiences.

  “After a year of this,” Ousha continued, “I was working in a hotel, managing the finance department, and Mohamed was working at his father’s company. It was easier for us to keep the charade going, and before I knew it, I was seated with Mohamed’s aunties around me, who were applying mehendi to my hands and feet in intricate patterns as I stared at the red-and-gold dress on a bust.” She bit into her biscuit and shook her head in disbelief.

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  “Two years.”

  “But surely you fell in love after? You got pregnant.”

  Ousha’s eyes narrowed, and the warm connection between us severed. I had crossed a line.

  “Mohamed’s father developed much of what you see when you drive over the bridge from the mainland and he gave us this house as a wedding gift.” The story had lost its momentum, and she got up from her seat. “I think the baby is restless.” She gestured for me to check on her.

  Maryam was sleeping soundly. When I returned to the kitchen, the tea glasses and biscuits had been cleared and Ousha was nowhere to be found.

  Gossip

  “And how long have you been here?” I asked a woman, older than me, wrapped in black muslin with heavy eyelids. She was holding infant twins and watching a toddler run on the artificial grass.

  “This time?” She was thinking it over.

  I nodded.

  “Five years. The first time I was here just over three, and then they sent me back to Sri Lanka to recruit other women. They give a few of us a good experience—what they sold us in the brochures�
�and then we return and rave about it, which creates a flood of women willing to come work. But when you come here, it’s a whole different experience.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  “I can’t. They have my passport, and they won’t return it to me. It was issued by this country anyway, so I’m not recognized as a Sri Lankan citizen.”

  She set the twins down to wriggle in the soft green. The toddler was on a slide now. The woman leaned into Maryam and tickled her nose.

  “Sure doesn’t look like an Arab baby. She looks like you.” She stuck her finger out at me.

  I tensed. This is exactly what Ousha and Mohamed would want. Should I correct her?

  “You and the sir been messing around?” She let out a cackle.

  The other women got a whiff of an interesting story and sidestepped to where we stood.

  “I …” I had no idea what to say.

  “So it is. He must be a handsome man.”

  “Ooooh, are you talking about Mr. Alwadiya?” the woman I had first seen walking by the house said.

  “She is. They had a baby together. You see right there?” This woman looked like she could have been my sister.

  “Stop that. It’s not true. I’ve only been here a few weeks. Don’t say those things.” They had made me angry.

  They ceased laughing and gazed at each other. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you.”

  As a child, I would sit under our tables and listen to my aunts gossip as they read through a local paper or magazine they religiously bought every week from a newsstand. Much of the time they didn’t mean any harm or believe half of what they were saying—it was only fun, a way to pass the time.

  “It’s okay.” The image of my village lingered in my mind. “What was your name again? I’m Shula.”

  “Minrada. I’m about ten houses down. We’re at the end of the street.” She swiped her index finger in the direction. “You can come by the house sometime if you like. Bring the little one. During the day it’s me and the kids. They have a housecleaner too, a lovely woman, but she doesn’t speak very much, so it’s lonely.”

  “Thank you. That would be lovely. I’d better get back. I’m not sure the Mrs. would want Maryam out in the heat for too long.”

  The other ladies waved and smiled. I felt I’d overreacted as I replayed the scene in my mind, following the sidewalk back to the house. The car was still gone. I heard myself exhale in relief. Ousha hadn’t come out from hiding since our conversation yesterday, and then she was gone before I got up this morning. I imagine she went shopping and eating at the fancy stores and cafés I had passed on the bus ride here. She always returned home with bags full of new clothes and accessories.

  I gave Maryam a bottle and let her drift off to sleep. I stood in my bathroom and washed the sweat from my face and neck. Thinking of the notes I had found, I looked at the small space behind the mirror where the bottom shelf and the back of the unit pried slightly apart. Enough to fit a piece of folded paper through.

  Tomorrow I’ll ask Minrada what she thinks. She’s older; she lived as an adult before the tsunami and dire poverty. Maybe she’ll know what the notes mean and can give me a reason for what’s happening here.

  I ran my fingernail in the space; I knew what I was doing: looking for more. My finger touched a piece of paper, folded over many times like the others, but it was too far to reach from this side. I closed the door to my room tightly and made the seven-step journey to the laundry room door, stepped inside, and moved the storage crates out of the way. It was routine now, where I stacked them to block the room to the hallway and make enough space so I could move around. After the hidden door clicked open, I turned on the flashlight I had stored in the cabinet above the washing machine and turned myself to the side, leading with my left shoulder into the darkness. I got to the point where I saw the spikes of light from my bathroom. This was where I had stopped before, taken by the knowledge that I was or could have been spied on. I ran my finger under the back of medicine cabinet and found the paper. It was a photograph, hanging from the white border of the picture, scratched from passing through the metal opening. It was of a boy from my country. He looked frightened and gaunt, with a forced smile. Written in dull marker were shaky words. I held on to the picture and swung my light deeper into the darkness, where I knew there were stacks of magazines. Then I bent down and picked one up: a handsome American on the cover with two letters on the top left, GQ. There was a full stack of them, different issues. I stepped over them. There were other bits in this space. The types of pieces that a person who lived here would leave in their wake. Small tears of paper, a patch of cloth, a bone from an eaten piece of meat. The copper pipe that led to my shower had deep scratches in it, as if someone had intentionally scraped metal against it.

  I left the passageway and stepped outside the laundry room. Beyond my bedroom door, the hallway ended in a circular shape and the ceiling bowed up into a lit dome. The air here smelled of dried flowers, and it was unusually cold. There was a flat handle painted the same color as the wall on the curve. I looked back, the light coming in from the laundry room had faded. It felt distant down the hall, in the way my children and home did. This piece of the house had a strange dilution to it. A space between worlds. I pulled on the handle; there was a click and then a loud whoosh. I jumped and my back bumped into the wall. On the other side of the door was the formal dining room. Mohamed showed me this the first day but I hadn’t been in here, only looked at it through the doors off the main entryway. The table was set for sixteen people. Thick oil paintings with modern strokes were framed on the walls, and hanging lights were surrounded by gems of glass and textured wallpaper. It was the showpiece room of the house, with sculptures of winged creatures, fantastical buildings, and dancing glass spaced behind each seat. The spotlights from the ceiling illuminated them. The world reset; the darkness fled.

  The hallway outside the two glass doors leading to the main entryway of the house was quiet. I hadn’t spent any time inspecting the individual sculptures and I wondered if each of them had a stand-alone story or a collective one which was told as one moved from pedestal to pedestal. My feet sunk into the carpet as I walked, and I heard the door click shut. I glanced to where I’d come through; the break in the wall had completely disappeared. I couldn’t see where it was. My mind flashed to the open door in the laundry room leading into the passageway. What if Mohamed decided to use his secret door and saw it was open? He would know it was me.

  I ran my hands over the wall, looking for a nook to grasp or a hidden space my fingers could get traction in. Not sure I was standing in the correct place, I brought my face closer. What magic had allowed this to happen?

  “Shula?” My heart dropped, I felt lightheaded. I hadn’t heard Ousha open the dining room doors.

  “Yes?” I turned around, looking guilty and clasped my hands in front of me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something.”

  “On the wall?” She wasn’t mad; it was more bewilderment in her voice. “And what is that in your hand?” She pointed to the picture I’d forgotten I was holding.

  She came to me and took it. As soon as she saw it, a heave of air came from her and she grabbed at her mouth. With tears in her eyes, she glared at me. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was in my bathroom.”

  “Where?” Her voice was louder now; she was upset. But her attention was being pulled into remembrance.

  “In the medicine cabinet.”

  “You’re lying.” Her face was red now, and she stepped into my space with biting force. “I checked in there before you arrived.”

  I shrugged at her insistence.

  “If you find anything else, please bring it to me.” She turned halfway to leave, and then her face morphed away from the pain. She pushed me out of the way, pressed on the wall with both of her hands, and the door sprung open. “The light bludgeons the darkness into mystery for a reason, and
unless you are looking to be annihilated, you should leave it alone.”

  Wicked Return

  Minrada and the other nannies were at the park, laughing together at 8:00 a.m. before the sun bombarded the city. Maryam had been restless during the night, and I barely slept. She was still squirming when I changed her before taking her to the park. I walked with her cradled in my arms, trying to entice her with a bottle. She opted for a pacifier.

  “Shula, we thought you weren’t coming,” the youngest of the nannies said. “We get worried with your bosses.” She didn’t look like she was from Sri Lanka; she was light like a British person, but she spoke perfect Sinhala.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Minrada jabbed her and gave her a warning look.

  I let it go. I knew Mohamed and Ousha were a strange couple; I’m sure it didn’t go unrecognized by the neighbors and their workers. I dug into my pocket, pulled out one of the folded strips of paper, and handed it to Minrada. “What do you think of this?”

  A man walked by and made eye contact with Minrada and they both smiled at each other but said nothing.

  “Who is that?”

  “My husband. Never mind him, he’s always checking on me.”

  She unfolded it and read it out loud. “‘I love you. When can we be together?’ She looked over her glasses at me. “Did someone give this to you?”

  “I found it in my room. I think it belonged to the last person who stayed there.”

  “You don’t want to dig into that past. Bad things will happen.”

  “What bad things?” It made me nervous that she—and possibly the other nannies—knew something so terrible she might not speak of it.

  Minrada pointed to a bench and yelled at her toddler, who was hitting another with a dead palm frond. She sat down and reached out to take Maryam from me. “I love them when they’re this age,” she said. “So full of hope and possibility, but they always turn out like their parents. Now, what I know is through a man, who one of my friends here was involved with. She told me about Inesh, casually at first and then some of the stories he’d recount. We all talk about our bosses.”