Empire of Mud

by James Suriano

  “I need someone to keep the house. Cleaning mostly. As you can see, we like everything to be perfect.”

  Ruka elbowed me. “How does she speak our language?”

  “Nothing more than study.” Fata came to Ruka and bent down to her. “My oldest is your age. You two will get along.” It sounded more like a command than the sweet musing it was supposed to be. “What is your name?”

  “Ruka.”

  Fata rubbed her head. I imagined her smiling behind her covering.

  I was having flashbacks to my first day with Mohamed. He had seemed so kind, their family so together. What horrors would this woman bring upon us?

  “I’m Shula, her mother.”

  Fata nodded. “There will be other jobs, like watching my daughters. They’re five and eight. They’ll be back in a few hours. Your room is at the end of the hall through the laundry. I was only expecting one of you, so I’ll need to order a uniform for Ruka.” She sent us off with a wave.

  The last door was actually the entrance to the master bedroom. The door to the left, however, led to a laundry room. Unwashed clothes were everywhere in piles, and at the other end of the room was a door. I pushed the switch. The room felt like a leftover piece of the building. We took three steps into the room before we were confronted with a support column wider than the two of us standing side by side. To the right of it was a cutout where a mattress squeezed between the two walls. The sheets were half on. Ruka and I moved around the column; there was a second mattress on the floor, more piles of clothes, and then another cutout in the wall closed off by a glass door. I saw a toilet, along with a hose for a shower. The floor and walls had been tiled. A fan was running overhead. It was more than we had back home.

  “There’s a lot for us to do,” I told Ruka. “Let’s get these sheets washed and our beds put together so at the end of the day we’ll have a nice place to sleep.”

  “How long are we staying here?” I wasn’t sure if Ruka was asking because she wanted to stay or because she was anxious to move on.

  “I don’t know. I still have these.” I pulled the wet passports from my dress.

  In the pile were uniforms that fit me. Ruka found a pajama set with yellow and purple fairies on it. We washed and ironed until the clothes were in neatly folded stacks on the shelves above the washer and dryers and laid out over the first mattress, which was now neatly made up with pink floral sheets.

  The clock in the laundry room read 8:30 p.m. We had worked for more than twelve hours in the windowless rooms, with only water to drink from the laundry sink.

  “We have to be careful when we go out there. Make sure we don’t disrupt their lives.”

  Ruka’s left eye twitched. Although she hadn’t received a shot in over two days, there was still a residual effect. I opened the door slowly; a young girl raced by, then slammed the door to her room. Smells of their dinner clawed at my stomach. We each carried a completed set of laundry; I wore an ill-fitting uniform. Fata was sitting in the living room watching television next to her husband, who turned when he heard us. I recognized him from Mohamed’s house; he was his assistant, Jaseem. I didn’t want to see him as an extension of Mohamed and what he represented, but my mind made disassociation impossible and made me feel like running away.

  He said something to Fata, who raised her voice slightly. “The house is yours to find your way. No place is off limits.”

  Ruka and I held the children’s clothes. I knocked on the doors and we entered the rooms. The older of the two girls looked at us for a moment, then returned to reading her book. I searched through her closet and drawers until I found the correct place to put the clothes.

  When we lay in bed that night, before sleep could claim us, I wondered about the young man I helped out of Mohamed’s house, and then if where we were right now was the life Khalid had shown us in the shiny laminated brochure.

  …

  Ferial was smaller than most five-year-olds I knew, but she was bright with energy. Her sister Raneen’s eyes had deep circles, her hair was brittle, and her skin had a sickly pallor. She plodded through her day. I asked them what they wanted to eat as they sat at the kitchen table facing us. They looked at each other and shrugged.

  Ruka took this as an invitation to entertain. She mimed out the options as I named them, making the girls break into laughter. They settled on poached eggs over toast.

  When Fata appeared in the kitchen, Ruka quickly set a cup of tea in front of her with a sugar bowl as we had discussed the night before.

  “Thank you, Ruka. Can I have the same breakfast as my girls, please?”

  I cracked two more eggs into the boiling water.

  “When the girls come home from school today, please take them to the park.”

  In my mind, Minrada was the first thing I saw, trying to get all the women to work her agenda.

  “Yes.” I knew that was the response all employers wanted to hear.

  “Is there anything else you would like us to do today?” I pulled an egg from the water, put it atop a piece of toast on the pat of butter, then sprinkled some sugar over it.

  “You’re off to a wonderful start.”

  …

  The girls arrived home from school at four and dropped their bags. I fed them a small bowl of rice each. When they were done, they stood at the door and waited with their trainers on.

  As we walked down the street, I knew it would be hard for Ruka not to play on the swings at the park. I decided to see what would happen if I just let her go. In her fairy pajamas, she stuck out from the other kids in their school uniforms.

  We were two houses away from the park when I heard tires slow and music from inside a car. “Shula.”

  It seemed I was under constant surveillance in this neighborhood. It was Khalid in the vehicle that picked me up from the courthouse.

  “You landed in a good place.” He raised his eyebrows and stuck his head out the window a bit to feign looking around.

  I acknowledged him and kept my pace.

  “It’s too bad Minrada is still around, though. You know she’ll hound you until you pay her back for her last favor.”

  What did he know of Minrada? He said nothing I was interested in replying to.

  Slowly he rolled alongside me in his car. “You know, Dubai is like a big family. Everyone is tied into each other’s business. Try not to make too many people angry while you’re here and you’ll be fine.”

  The three girls were at the park now; I saw a cluster of other children as well.

  I faced him. “What do you want from me?”

  Khalid grinned. “Ah, there’s my feisty Shula. I want to know what’s in that book you gave Minrada. She’s holding it tightly. I know she always likes to have a few more secrets than the next person. But she snapped at me when I asked to look. There must be something very valuable in there.”

  I knew precisely why she wouldn’t want anyone to see that book; a picture of her husband was in there.

  “It’s a bunch of faces. Everyone knows”—I looked up and down the street to make sure no one was nearby—“Mohamed had many men.”

  Khalid seemed somewhat satisfied by my response. “He’s unpredictable, among many undesirable traits,” he said. “I know you went back into his house. If I were you, I would steer very clear of him.” He put his window up, then back down again. “If there’s anything you think would be helpful to me, you know I’m the one who’ll be able to get you and your daughter home eventually.”

  He dangled the word “eventually” in front of me. I was in front of the park now; the other nannies were looking at me as if I’d risen from the dead. I headed toward them.

  “I thought you’d gone home?” one of them said.

  “No, it didn’t work out. I just switched families. Have you seen Minrada?”

  They all shook their heads. The same young Indian woman responded, “No one has seen her for a few days. It’s been quiet.”

  They all chuckled at the dig.

&
nbsp; “You now have these three girls? That one looks more like you.” The Indian woman tapped her arm. I knew she was referring to her skin color. Ruka and I were exactly the same tone. She also had my wide and perfectly set teeth, which our village doctor had marveled over.

  “Yes, three girls.” I broke from the group and went to push Ferial in the swing. Ruka and Raneen had made an immediate connection and were sitting on a bench using their hands to talk to each other. As soon as the other nannies heard Ruka speaking Sinhala, they’d know for sure she was my daughter. Even so, I felt it was better to tell them nothing. Each piece of news to them was like a tasty morsel they gobbled, and then they’d beg for more.

  Neighborly Friends

  A week passed, and it was beginning to feel like I had moved to a new neighborhood. Khalid and Minrada hadn’t resurfaced. If Mohamed came out of his house, it wasn’t when I was on the street, and Fata was kind and happy to let me run her household the best way I knew how. She was insistent on cooking dinner each night for the family, and she always made enough for Ruka and me, which we took to our rooms and enjoyed after we had cleaned the dinner dishes and set up for the next morning.

  When we opened the door from our daily trip to the park, the girls kicked off their shoes and burst into the apartment. Female voices came from the kitchen. I walked through the main reception and living room and turned left into the kitchen. A woman’s back was facing me, and I could see Fata’s face. They were drinking tea and eating sweets.

  “Did the girls have fun at the park?” Fata asked.

  “Yes. Can I get you anything?”

  “Would you mind chopping those vegetables?” Fata never asked me to help with dinner, but I was happy to.

  The woman sitting with her twisted toward me. “Shula?”

  My first instinct was to run, but there was nowhere to go. It was Ousha.

  “I didn’t know you worked here. I thought you …”

  Fata’s eyes bounced between Ousha and me.

  “Left? No.”

  Apparently, Fata didn’t know I had worked for her, and I didn’t want her to think I was a problem.

  “I had to come back,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “What a coincidence. Do you know Mohamed too?” Fata asked.

  I didn’t know what to say; I wanted Ousha to answer that question.

  Ousha blinked in rapid succession, tightened her lips, and barely moved her head.

  “Why don’t you come sit down?” Fata asked.

  …

  Time stood still as I relived the journey home and then back again. Fata knew about the court date where Ousha had come; it sounded as though it was a bit of epic lore already. They told me that Mohamed’s father had gone straight to the sheikh, who had ordered Mohamed’s release.

  “There is no justice for a man like Mohamed,” Ousha added.

  I left out the terror Mohamed had sewn into my life, as well as the bit about entering his house and finding him drugged up on the floor.

  Fata glided through the kitchen and refreshed our tea. Ousha didn’t seem to notice the glaring breach of protocol when Fata served me.

  “And what has your father done about all this?” Fata asked.

  “He retired from Mohamed’s father’s company as this all came to light,” Ousha said. “But with the marriage, there’s a whole ball of twine to unwind. It helps that I’m not Muslim; I get a bit of a pass for being estranged from him.”

  She seemed like a different person, the weight of the onerous marriage taken from her. I was delighted to hear that Ousha, through the traditional mores of Dubai, hadn’t been forced to return to him and she could escape the deep rut that centuries of tradition had dug.

  Dwehlli was walking in circles in the walled-off empty adjacent lot to our house. She dragged a stick through the sand next to her and was repeating a phrase in a language I didn’t understand. There was a cut-through in the walls between the lot our house sat on and the next. I stood in it and watched her. When she noticed me, she called me over.

  “Shula, find your own stick and walk with me,” she said.

  I was no more than ten. The earth where she walked looked like chickens had pecked it. Dwehlli’s stick had drawn spirals, and she expertly stepped between them, careful not to disturb the steady lines.

  “What are you drawing?” I was looking for a picture in it.

  “It’s a meditation. But come draw your own circle. Only one’s mind can understand what it creates.”

  I mimicked Dwehlli, because to me she was a divine incantation brought up by this place, with the breath of the spirit animating her. My stick dropped into the soft ground and trailed my path, marking where I wandered. My initial steps were an aimless journey through the lot. I kept my eyes open to make sure I didn’t trip over an upturned stone or the stem of a barky green plant. Dwehlli’s eyes were closed, yet the path she blazed was perfectly symmetrical.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. My parents’ words bounced in my head; the delights I chased ran before me in sparks, each one encouraging me to follow. Then toys covering my room and bed. The pitcher of water that sat next to my bed emitting a fresh scent. I felt my body lose its center and list, wandering in a jerky path. I listened for Dwehlli, but her path was silent to me, and then I caught the breeze, just over my ear, the high vibratory hum. It lulled me into a trance, and the spiral I was trying to imagine unwound and became a straight path with two white chalk lines on either side, outlining it in soft suggestion. Darkness was on both sides, not frightening, like when one walks into the forest at night, where things unknown are watching. Instead, it was the light which came from the known, inside of me, emanating from my chest, illuminating the path ahead. My feet stayed in the lines with no effort. I was lost in there for days or years or maybe a few lifetimes; it was forever in the moment of each second.

  “Shula, open your eyes. See what you have done.” Dwellhi’s voice called to me, and I had the strangest feeling she was acting as a vicar of the place I was immersed in, trying to urge me forward into a particular form.

  When I was ready and the chalk lines ended, I stood before the widest expanse. It was like looking out into the ocean on a windless day with a the horizon that goes on forever.

  “Put down your stick.” Dwellhi had laid her stick against the wall, near the entrance. She always used her whole hand to direct my attention to things. “Look at your spiral.”

  There was a line that looked like a small child had tried to write her name, and then it crossed over one of Dwehlli’s lines. From there it arced until symmetry took hold and my own spiral emerged.

  “You see where you made that transition? I’m sure you know when that was. You felt it.”

  “Yes. Why did I cross your line?”

  “Because we have the power to nudge each other into helpful or unhelpful thoughts. The trail of what we have left behind us continues to do the good work of the intention it was formed with. Your past is as powerful as your present.”

  There was a cadence to the conversation, which felt like sisterhood. Fata and Ousha looked at me like they wanted more.

  “How did you both meet?” I asked. They seemed more interested in what I knew than telling me their history, but they capitulated.

  “In the US … Washington, DC, to be exact,” Fata said, looking at Ousha. “There aren’t that many Sri Lankans in Washington. It’s easy to spot one another. Our mothers became friends while our fathers worked.”

  “What a coincidence that you ended up living on the same street.”

  “Not really,” Fata said. “When these islands were being built, Mohamed’s father, whose company developed five of the streets, was looking for buyers and having trouble finding them. So he made everyone at a certain level who worked for his company purchase something as a condition of their continued employment. The quicker they sold, the more chance of convincing the emir to give him more to develop. This street is filled with Mohamed’s father’s acquaintances and family
.”

  “My parents live two floors up from here,” Ousha said.

  Fata nodded. “And mine two floors down. My father and Ousha’s were hired at the same time. We decided we wanted to be close to my parents, so we bought too. Mohamed was so pleased when he heard we were moving in. Dubai is a small place.”

  “Mohamed’s father is on the next island up,” said Ousha. “He needed an end lot for his boat, which wouldn’t fit in one of the standard lots.”

  “His father must be livid about Mohamed. He’s a disgrace to the family.” I watched Ousha as I said this, in case I had pushed too far. She was still married to him, after all.

  Ousha shrugged. “Hardly. Rich men in Dubai face little consequences for their bad behavior. Plus, he’s one of five boys. There’s someone else to take over the company. His father was just happy when Mohamed found a woman who would marry him.”

  “So you knew about me?” I asked.

  Fata and Ousha looked confused.

  “That I was here finding my daughter?”

  “No,” Fata said. “It was a real coincidence that you ended up here.”

  The front door opened. Jaseem called out something. Fata looked at me and shooed me from the table. I knew she wasn’t trying to be rude, but Jaseem was an Emirati through and through, and he would have been appalled to see the three of us seated together. It was our secret, and I was happier because of it.

  Meetings of Unintended Consequence

  I watched the girls head to school in the back of Fata’s car. Ruka and I both waved. We stepped into the service elevator and rode to the tenth floor. When we stepped out, Ousha’s mother was knocking on the door to Fata’s apartment. It was too late for us to close the elevator door and go somewhere else. When she looked at us, her face turned sour.