The Water Thief

by Claire Hajaj

  ‘Just ignore them.’ He hoped he sounded authoritative, convincing. ‘They’re stupid anyway. They’re not worth it.’

  Madi shrugged, his shoulders like rails under his shirt. ‘OK. If you ignore your little piggy, I ignore my big cow. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ Nick hugged his legs, smiling into his knees. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Madi smiling too, gaze fixed on the gravelled concrete. ‘Here, mate.’ He offered Nick his drawing. ‘Keep it in your no-girls magazine.’ Mate. How strange, how cautious that English colloquialism had sounded on Madi’s tongue, screaming its need to belong.

  ‘You keep it,’ he’d replied, wanting to say more but not knowing how. ‘That thing’s a death sentence.’

  The bell rang as Nick handed it back, sending a hundred pairs of feet scurrying for their classrooms. Madi tucked the picture into his back pocket as he followed Nick into Miss Tinner’s, sliding into his chair. As he sat, the folded paper tumbled from his pocket on to the floor beside him.

  Nick quickly reached under the desk to pick it up – but it was too late. Tinner had already started striding down towards them, bending to snatch Madi’s sketch out of his hand.

  ‘No notes in class.’ She unfolded the page, scanning it. At once her sallow cheeks shaded to deep puce; she slammed the drawing down on Madi’s desk. The girl next to him gasped when she saw it, leaning over to whisper to her friend. Titters began to spread across the classroom, reaching Phil in the back row.

  ‘Yours, I take it?’ Tinner’s tone had dropped to a hoarse bass, dyed ringlets trembling around her eyes. Madi looked up at her in silence. Nick wondered where his thoughts were racing, along the long road here, the spoiling of a second chance. The boy’s fingers twisted the coloured bands tied at his wrists, rubbing them back and forth across his skin.

  ‘Well?’ Tinner demanded again. ‘Is this how they do things in your country, Madi? You’re in England now, you know. A civilised place.’ Another outbreak of laughter. Madi’s hands came together on the table, fingers clenched. He seemed about to speak.

  ‘It’s mine, miss.’ It was a moment before Nick realised he’d spoken.

  The class had fallen silent in expectation. Miss Tinner bent over Nick’s desk, her cleavage a dark slash as her stare drilled into him. Nick could still remember the thud of his heart as he returned it, unflinching.

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute, Nicholas,’ she said at last. ‘Detention, both of you. And I’ll be sending a letter home to your parents.’ But Nick had seen Madi’s head swivel as she marched past him, catching his eye for the briefest second, full of wonder.

  Now the desert road arced ahead of him, through a wasteland blank and empty. Nick gripped the wheel, pushing away the ache of longing. If wishes were horses, his mother used to tell him, then beggars would ride. What would Madi say if he could see what Nick was doing now? Laugh at me, probably. What’s the matter, mate? Tired of the good life? He heard his friend’s voice so clearly, it made him laugh despite himself.

  JoJo stirred by the window. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, mate. Just thinking.’

  JoJo’s eyes were visible in the rear-view mirror, glazed over with sunlight and exhaustion. For a moment they filled the sliver of glass with a half-focused intensity that seemed to pierce through Nick. Then they shifted back to the landscape.

  Dusk was falling when they reached home. Nick opened the garden gate as JoJo pushed past him, hurtling up the steps towards Margaret waiting at the front door.

  ‘Mama!’ he shouted, pulling off the governor’s cap and holding it out to her as she caught his hands, the day pouring out of him in a tangle of words.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, when the boy finally skipped off to his bedroom to change his clothes.

  ‘For what?’ Nick teased.

  ‘He has so little excitement here.’ Her face looked lighter than he’d ever seen it, without its usual wariness – JoJo’s delight in a more resonant key. ‘His father tries. But the old do not remember what excites the young.’

  ‘It’s a father thing,’ he said. ‘My mother could make me feel more with one painting than my father could with a hundred lectures.’

  JoJo’s high tones drifted down the hallway, summoning her. Margaret hesitated, her eyes still on Nick; she seemed to have more to say. But then she shook her head, her hand on her chest as if to quieten something there. He watched as she slipped away, feeling both pleased and disturbed. The day lay heavy on him as he collapsed on the sofa, emotions churning inside him. Dr Ahmed opened the front door a minute later, peering into the room to make his apologies – he’d planned some house calls for that evening and would miss the family meal.

  ‘Was it a productive day?’ he asked Nick. ‘Did Yahya behave well?’

  Nick gave his assurances and Dr Ahmed left, calling his farewell to Margaret. Soon the familiar song of dinner preparations surrounded them, the kitchen stove hissing over the concussive ring of pots. A warm rice smell unfolded through the house.

  Now JoJo wanted Nick’s attention – bouncing in and out of the sitting room to bring him sketches of imagined buildings, each one more fevered than the last. ‘When I grow up I will build them all.’

  ‘It’s a big responsibility to be an architect,’ Nick told him. ‘Architects take ideas and make them real.’

  JoJo was silent, absorbing this truth. Then he said, ‘You can teach me.’

  Nick laughed. ‘You’ll have to study hard.’

  JoJo shrugged. ‘I can.’

  Then let’s start with something small,’ Nick said. ‘Something we could build in the garden.’

  JoJo’s forehead creased. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. We don’t need to decide right now.’ A sudden absence of sound distracted him; the kitchen had fallen silent. Through the doorway he could see a fresh bowl of rice on the table, Margaret’s hand gripping the table’s edge beside it. Steam traced its way up a slender arm, in soft pulses like breath.

  JoJo took his drawings back to his room. Nick closed his eyes and relaxed back into the narrow sofa. The sour scent of rice blended with the vibration of the evening generators – a deep hum that soothed his mind, like a lullaby, floating him gently down towards sleep. Some drowsy part of him wondered when he’d started to feel like this – this comfortable ease. He could barely remember his first day driving here – how dazzled he’d been, how new and alive the world had seemed, its strangeness surging through him like electric shocks. Somewhere an unseen alchemy had been at work, blurring the line between them, reshaping each to the other.

  A sound startled him out of his thoughts. Margaret was framed in the hallway, something rectangular held to her chest, colour in her cheeks. It was a sheaf of papers, mottled with dark stains and bound with a ribbon. A title was visible on the front page, above the shadow of her folded arms.

  ‘The storybooks I made,’ she said. ‘When you helped me hang washing in the garden – you said you would like to see one.’

  ‘I remember.’ Nick read the title silently. The Thorn Princess. The upright letters were printed in a child’s hand – careful yet uncertain.

  ‘I made many as a girl.’ Margaret’s arms loosened as she bent to hand it to him. ‘Sarah loved to read them. But this is the only one I kept.’

  He took it gently. The pages were yellow and stiff. Uneven smudges of colour dotted the cover, as if the book had been left out in the rain.

  But when he opened it, the first image stunned him: a vivid silhouette in black charcoal, far too sophisticated for a child’s imagination. The girl at its centre was tall and faceless, her body a storm of dark lines and circles more conjured than drawn, the spikes of her crown shaded to razor-sharpness. She was set against a dream-like landscape of fantastical turrets and blood-red flowers. He flicked through page after page, each one holding an ominous power. ‘Margaret, these are magnificent.’ He looked up, simultaneously disturbed and moved. ‘It’s a work of art.’

  Her eyes m
et his. ‘Read it. If you like.’

  He cleared his throat, turning to the front page. ‘ “Once upon a time,” ’ he read, ‘ “a princess was born in a castle. But this princess was not like the nice ones from the stories we know. She was beautiful but proud and selfish, and her words pricked people like thorns. And so everyone called her the Thorn Princess, and soon no one was brave enough to be her friend.

  ‘ “Then one day, another girl came to live in the castle. Her heart was kind, so she played with the lonely Thorn Princess. She made braids for her hair and sang songs to make her smile. She brought two beautiful roses from her garden and gave one to the Princess. ‘We can be sisters,’ she said.

  ‘ “But the Princess wanted both roses for herself. So when her friend fell asleep in the grass, she stole the rose straight from her hand. At the same moment, the sleeping girl turned white as death. And every petal in the Princess’ garden fell to the earth.

  ‘ “Seeing the garden empty and dead and her friend lying so still, the Princess felt great sorrow and shame for her cruelty. She clutched the bare rose to her heart and cried, ‘Forgive me!’ The thorns pricked her skin to the bone and drew out great drops of blood. And to her great wonder, each drop grew into a new rose as it fell. She plucked them as they grew and laid them on her friend’s heart . . .” ’

  Nick broke off as Margaret stood, hearing a faint cry from the inner bedroom. ‘Nagode,’ she murmured. ‘She’s hungry.’

  JoJo appeared in the doorway, freshly washed. ‘Mama, Nagode is awake.’ The wailing grew louder; Margaret smoothed down her clothes and wiped her forehead, before vanishing into the dark corridor.

  The book remained on Nick’s lap. Turning to the last page, he read: ‘ “So the girl forgave the Thorn Princess, and from that day they were truly sisters. They played forever in their garden, and this was the start of many wonderful adventures.” ’

  The picture under the words showed two small figures, hand-in-hand against the light of a dark sun. Underneath, more lines ran down to the bottom of the page – an adult’s script, hasty and flowing. He squinted to make it out in the weak light.

  Sarah – this message is the only way to reach you now, since David will watch for any letters. Please don’t blame me for leaving as I did. You know what our house became. A prison. I could not stand it. And do not listen to David’s lies. I swear to you Ahmed never dishonoured me. He’s a good man, Sarah, an educated man. Does David think I am blind, that God is blind? If an honest Muslim like Ahmed is damned, then what about a false Christian who brings his whores into his parents’ bed? After we marry, Ahmed will buy a house near the diplomatic quarter – or maybe return to London. He has friends in all the best hospitals. They respect him. We will plant roses for Mama, and there will be a room there for you, Sarah. So be patient for just a little while longer. On Mama’s soul, I swear I will send for you the first minute I can. Until then have faith, keep on with your studies and say nothing. Don’t let David frighten you into a small life. God’s promise is bigger than they tell us, if we are brave enough to seek it. I will wait every day for your reply. May it bring me your forgiveness and your arms around me soon again.

  Nick closed the book, his pulse quickening. Evening shadows were pressing in from the desert’s emptiness. They moved through the small room like grey fingers, tracing the Quranic hangings, the stained walls and the rigid pillar of the grandfather clock.

  The note must have been written just after Margaret’s marriage, while they were still in the capital and the promise of their life together was still new. The ink was smudged with haste. He has friends in all the best hospitals. Understanding trickled into him, and compassion. Margaret had run from one prison to another, from the notoriety of a rebel to the invisibility of a silent helpmate. Thirteen lonely years cleaning an old man’s house, feeding his neighbours and bearing his children. The same desert road that had thrilled him coming here had probably filled her with despair, each mile bleaching the bright canvas of an imagined future.

  He felt a sudden, brutal urge to tell Margaret the truth: that England might have been even worse – that the eyes following her would have burned no less for being in suspicious white faces instead of Miss Amina’s or Aisha Kamil’s. They too might have offered contempt instead of welcome, made her feel stupid for violating one of their thousand provincial sanctities: standing too close in the bus queue, clasping someone’s hand too warmly. He still remembered the looks people gave Madi, the day after Miss Tinner’s detention, when he’d slung his long arm over Nick’s shoulder as they wound homewards through the village High Street. Queer. Nick could almost hear the word in people’s minds. He’d been so torn, loving the unfamiliar weight and warmth of the touch, but embarrassed, too. ‘Guys don’t do that here,’ he’d explained later to Madi, when they were sitting on the kissing gate. ‘People think it’s gay.’

  ‘But it’s normal,’ Madi had said, puzzled. ‘It’s a mark of respect. It’s not like I want to fuck you. Those people don’t know anything.’

  He’d tried to restrain himself afterwards, to keep a proper English distance even once they’d become inseparable, their arms swinging side by side on their way to school, to the beach with Madi’s football or to town to spend Nick’s pocket money on Dr Peppers and Quavers. But Madi, Nick knew, resented this unnatural restraint of soul and body. And sometimes he’d forget. Until once, when they were waiting their turn at the sweet kiosk checkout, Madi had unconsciously reached for Nick’s wrist. The assistant’s eyes had narrowed. ‘Leave off, poofter,’ someone had whispered behind them. And Madi’s fingers had dropped away, curling into a fist. ‘Fifty pence,’ the assistant told him. ‘And get out.’ It had been December, a bitter wind hunching them down into their puffa jackets as they’d walked out under a darkening sky. Nick had been painfully aware of Madi’s hands thrust deep into his pockets, his eyes fixed on the garish festoon of Christmas lights winding from lamppost to lamppost.

  ‘You just have to remember, that’s all,’ he’d pleaded, feeling shame burn against the ice in his lungs. ‘I told you.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘It’s embarrassing, that’s why.’

  ‘I don’t care shit about them. You shouldn’t either.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he’d lied. ‘But – I mean, you’re here now. You’ve got to do what people here do. What’s the point of making trouble?’

  Madi laughed, a bitter sound. ‘That’s what they used to say to my dad, before. So why did we bother coming to this country then?’ Nick couldn’t answer. Madi’s fingers suddenly closed on his wrist, hard as wire. ‘What you did for me with Tinner – that was so cool, man. Seriously. No one else here’s brave like that. We hang out every day – but why, if you think I’m what they say?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re anything.’ They were the wrong words; Nick meant to say: you’re braver and better than anyone in this place; I don’t know why you chose me for your friend; I can’t imagine life here without you. But the fairy lights were dazzling, the winter air a steel trap in his mouth, and he could only feel the cold bite on his wrist as Madi dropped it, watch as he pushed ahead into the swirl of passers-by: the sharp, hunched ridge of his shoulders, an island in a lonely sea. And Nick had been left alone under the sparkling Christmas lampposts: strings of seraphim blowing their jaunty trumpets over the heads of oblivious shoppers.

  Now Margaret’s shadow was moving through the hall, Nagode whimpering over the light tread of feet. It’s history repeating, he thought, in a rush of sorrow. Your new life broke its promises.

  He closed the book, but she passed through the sitting room without looking back. As she crossed the threshold, the baby stretched her arms over her mother’s back. For a moment Nick imagined she was reaching out for him, standing up in a blind impulse to answer. But then she was gone, vanishing through the doorway, her outflung arms making the dark silhouette of an angel’s wing.

  When I get home from school, Nicholas asks if our building can be
a castle. He says: ‘We can have a lot of fun making a castle. You can be the knight and your mother the queen.’

  Together we make the first drawing. This is called the schematic. I draw the lines with a ruler and we measure angles. We must calculate the load, Nicholas says. Load is how much something can carry before it breaks. He writes on the page – letters and numbers and lines. I tell him it looks beautiful. Then Nicholas smiles. ‘Yes, it does,’ he says.

  We collect rocks to burn for the mortar. Nicholas says these rocks are the right kind for cement. They are heavy in our barrow – but I push them home myself. Nicholas asks to help me many times. ‘But I am strong enough,’ I tell him. ‘I can see that,’ he answers. ‘Probably stronger than me.’

  Adeya and her mother are in their millet fields when we pass. Their patch is so small. But their crop is good. Each plant is fat and white. Adeya goes after school every day to pick the beetles and bring water. It is hard work. But Adeya, she does not tire. One time she told me she gave each plant a name, so she could call to it to grow. ‘They listen,’ she told me. ‘No plant listens, stupid,’ I said. But she smiled. She said: ‘They listen to me.’

  Nicholas sees Adeya and her mother working. He stops to call: ‘Good morning, Adeya! Can we help you?’

  Adeya, she looks up and sees me. She starts to smile at me. Hanan puts her shawl over her mouth and looks away. She does not like Adeya to smile at boys. She might beat her later. So I tell Nicholas: ‘Let’s go.’ But he says: ‘Friends should help each other, right?’

  So we go into Adeya’s field. Adeya, she is quiet at first. But Nicholas makes jokes with her, until she laughs. She shows him how to pick blister beetles from the leaves. She is patient even when he breaks the leaves by mistake. She tells him: ‘When it is time, we will cut this millet and hang it over smoke, so we can eat until the next harvest.’

  I wish Adeya would smile at me again. So I tell Nicholas that each plant has a name. She names them to help them grow. Nicholas asks her to tell him the name of each one he touches. When he picks off the beetles, he calls the plant by its name. He says: ‘Very nice to meet you!’ Adeya, she laughs. I come close to her by accident, to watch her fingers move. Sometimes I feel she is watching me. But when I look, she does not see me at all.