The Water Thief

by Claire Hajaj

  Dr Ahmed said nothing.

  ‘So when my uncle offered me his expensive manual watch, I said, no – I’m not interested in romantic systems. Give me something that works, that will not break, that can be consistent.’

  Now he turned to Dr Ahmed. ‘Out of respect for you, I agreed to this meeting. Now you come here asking me to break my word to the people of this region, to fracture our reliable system. Do you know where this path leads?’

  Dr Ahmed’s head was swaying slightly, as if under the onslaught of a fierce wind.

  ‘Why is it so unreasonable?’ Nick felt sweat pooling in his palms as he clenched his cutlery. ‘It’s just a temporary price drop. You haven’t seen the state of these people. They’re suffering.’

  The governor did not even spare him a glance. ‘Doctor, do you speak for yourself? I can forgive your age. But I cannot forgive a man who hides the face of another. So, tell me. Who do you speak for?’

  Dr Ahmed swallowed, eyes wide like JoJo’s. He was diminishing into a boy before their eyes, his dignity draining away.

  ‘I speak for myself.’ His voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper.

  The governor stood up. ‘Please, finish your lunch.’ He left the table, his men following in his wake. The door slammed shut, extinguishing their arguments like a candle.

  ‘Well, that went pretty fucking well.’ Eric lit a cigarette as they walked out into the white afternoon. Dr Ahmed’s head remained bowed. His frame looked disjointed under his faded brown suit – a discarded wooden puppet propped on a shelf.

  Nick reached over and touched the old man’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘He’s a monster.’

  Dr Ahmed looked up, his mottled eyes focusing with difficulty. ‘No, he is correct. I am foolish. I tried to prevent one bad thing, and I have made another.’

  ‘How can you think that? All that stuff about watches and reliable systems – he just wanted to intimidate you. He knows you’re right.’

  Dr Ahmed shook his head, weariness creasing his face. ‘Please, Nicholas. Let us go home. I am tired now.’

  ‘We’ll take you, sir.’ Eric slipped a hand under the old man’s arm, hoisting him up. ‘Don’t you worry. One door closes and all that.’

  ‘I’ll speak to J.P. before I go home for Christmas,’ Nick promised. Noise and dust roared around the rising building, copper wires protruding from the grey slabs like raw innards. Dr Ahmed stopped to look at it. For a moment Nick saw it through his eyes – a grotesque embodiment of struggle and consumption.

  Eric left to fetch the Jeep. Dr Ahmed leaned against Nick. His pupils dilated as he stared outwards.

  ‘My mother had a saying.’ His voice was hoarse in the high wind. ‘ “From sorrow we come, to sorrow we return. There is weeping at our birth and at our laying out. Sorrow is our midwife and sorrow is our priest.” ’

  Nick was wordless. The wind stung his eyes.

  ‘Islam teaches the same. Sorrow walks in God’s footsteps. We do not hide from sorrow. We open our doors and welcome it inside. We say: we have long been expecting you.’

  Nick turned away to hide his emotion. The ground beneath him was white, like a shroud.

  We welcome in sorrow. The months after Madi died had been filled with it, a river so deep he could have set sail and drifted away. He’d seen his self-disgust reflected in his father’s eyes, felt shame gushing out of him like a spring. And even here those bitter waters were still flowing. His father had joined Madi, under the unforgiving ground. Nick had abandoned his mother to silence. Dr Ahmed was shrinking into helpless old age. Adeya’s hands were cracking and hardening, like the land where Margaret walked with her ghosts.

  Eric pulled up the Jeep. As Dr Ahmed opened the door, he clutched at Nick’s hand.

  ‘Do not tell Yahya about today,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Nick nodded. He knew shame, too. For a moment their hands clasped. And then the Jeep was slipping away, beyond the governor’s gate and its soldiers, leaving Nick alone.

  It was late evening by the time Nick returned home, climbing wearily from the car. The click of the door sent black birds scudding into the air over Dr Ahmed’s garden gate.

  He was too tired for any encounters; he was sick and tired of them all: the governor, Eric, Dr Ahmed. Even Margaret. Margaret most of all. He’d had enough of helplessness – he could do nothing more to stop a drought or release her from her self-made prison. In a month he could escape back home to an English Christmas and to Kate, retrieving some perspective, forgetting sorrows that were not his to bear. His own were heavy enough.

  The evening breeze was unexpectedly sweet as he leaned on the cooling car roof, wrapping him in quietness. The desert had shed the day’s heat, stretching away in long, peaceful curves, gentle as a woman asleep. Colour pulsed over the wide expanse, pale waves deepening to hypnotic blue. The dust storms had cleared from a sky clear as water, small clouds dissolving into silver currents. Eastwards, gathering darkness swept across a horizon studded with faint pinpricks of light.

  He balled his fists against his eyes, sparks of colour shooting through the blackness behind the lids. They illuminated a ghost-image of Margaret’s face, the too-familiar arc of her smile, rare and breathtaking, her skin patterned with tiny stars. Stop haunting me. He tried to rub her away, opening his eyes to flashes of light. The stars were coming out, dazzling in their clarity. When you wish upon a star. His mother had loved that song when he was little: another of those sweet childhood lies, like notes for Santa and pennies for the wishing well. But he could sense a different well at his feet now, black and bottomless, pulling him towards its edge. And the wishes he longed to cast into its depths were not a child’s. He could not even name them – but he felt their presence in the dark privacy of his dreams.

  Enough. He walked up the porch and through the sitting room, following the warm scent of baking drifting from the kitchen. As he opened the door, warily, Nick nearly tripped over Dr Ahmed crouching on the floor. Nagode stood opposite, swaying as she clung to a table leg. Her round face was set in a determined frown.

  ‘Come, daughter.’ Dr Ahmed was beckoning with his hands. ‘Come on, be brave.’

  Nagode’s mouth dropped open as she looked up at Nick. Dr Ahmed followed her gaze, delight crinkling the corners of his eyes, the day’s setback apparently forgotten.

  ‘She walked just now!’ he said. ‘Watch – she will do it again. Once they start, there’s no stopping them.’

  JoJo came running in from the sitting room, bumping into Nick’s back. ‘Did you see? Nagode made her first step!’ He pinched his sister’s cheek and she slapped his hand away with a fierce, fleshy palm.

  ‘That’s amazing!’ Bitterness vanished. Nagode’s gaze fixed on Nick, caught between wonder and terror; baby fat wobbled as her toes kept their precarious grip on the ground.

  Margaret was at the sink, long arms beating a bowl of creamy mixture. Nick swallowed the familiar tightness in his throat, walking over to dab up a fleck that had fallen from the bowl’s edge. She fell still as he tasted, sweet and rich, with a hint of nutmeg. ‘Batter,’ she told him, ‘for pound cake.’

  ‘A birthday cake!’ JoJo was eager to tell him. ‘Nagode walked on her first birthday!’

  ‘My god – I totally forgot.’ JoJo had mentioned his sister’s birthday the week before, during their mathematics session. But no one had mentioned it since.

  Nick crouched down by Nagode. He stroked her cheek, where beads of moisture collected like tears. She squinted at him, suspicious. ‘Happy birthday, Nagode. I wish I’d bought you a present.’

  ‘Oh, no matter.’ Here Dr Ahmed was like a different man; a giant inside his own walls. ‘The only birthday we celebrate in Islam is the Prophet’s, peace be upon him. But one year is a milestone. Many parents only name their children on their first birthday, if they have survived. And Margaret has her traditions from her girlhood, which we must also honour.’

  ‘Any excuse for birthday cake,’ Ni
ck laughed. ‘I used to complain I only had it once a year. Every birthday my mother would ask: “Now, what shall it be this year – chocolate cake and candles or bread and water?” ’ He saw Margaret smile.

  ‘My wife will give you her recipe,’ Dr Ahmed said. ‘And you can pass it to your mother when you return for Christmas. And your wife.’ Dr Ahmed insisted on referring to Kate as Nick’s wife.

  Margaret’s busy hands paused to wipe her forehead.

  ‘I’ll only be gone for three weeks,’ Nick said, carefully. ‘We’re going hiking in the Lake District.’ He forced himself to look away from her. Remember how much you need a break. And Dr Ahmed, he suspected, would be politely relieved to be rid of him for a while.

  ‘No!’ JoJo’s anger rang through the kitchen, generating a sympathetic wail from Nagode. ‘You don’t need to go to England! It’s too long!’

  ‘JoJo, I have to.’ The boy’s outrage was almost comical. ‘I have to go to the capital anyway, to collect more money to pay the hospital bills. And I can even pick you up some new Top Trumps from London. The very latest they have. That’s a promise.’?He couldn’t help casting a glance toward Margaret. But her head was resolutely down once more while she worked the batter into a rich yellow. Disappointment cut through him. Maybe she really feels nothing, or cares nothing. Maybe she wants to pretend we never spoke.

  ‘England is beautiful in the winter,’ he said to Dr Ahmed, feeling a vindictive pleasure in projecting indifference. ‘There might even be snow in the Lakes. Kate and I go every year – we’re thinking of having our honeymoon there. And it’ll be fantastic to feel cool again. I’m not made for this heat.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Dr Ahmed clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I hope it refreshes you. To return home is life’s deepest instinct.’

  The warmth of his hand melted Nick’s pique. He could see Margaret’s arms moving over the bowl, remembering them outstretched between him and the mob, and Dr Ahmed looming in the foreground, so upright after his crushing day. His heart tightened with affection and remorse.

  ‘But I will miss you.’ He dared not look at Margaret again, not with Dr Ahmed standing so close. With all his heart he willed her to hear him. ‘And I’ll come back.’

  He crouched down near Nagode to hide his emotion, reaching out to tickle her bare tummy. She squealed, sending tremors through her firmly planted thighs. ‘Na!’ she shouted. ‘Na!’ She glared at him, each eye a lance of suspicion. Her legs twisted on the ground, muscles straining to respond to her will. Nick thought of falcons on display at the county fairs of his childhood, baiting desperately against their jesses.

  ‘Yes,’ Nick urged her. ‘Come on, Nagode. Come to Uncle Nicholas.’

  ‘Na!’ she shouted again, like a battle cry. The round fists released their grasp on the table to clutch at the space between them.

  And then she was moving, legs stumbling forward into a suddenly empty world, her face opening with astonishment. Nick caught her just as her delicate balance failed.

  Nick looked up to Margaret in instinctive delight. She had turned from the sink to watch them, her eyes wet, while JoJo clapped and hooted.

  ‘You see!’ Dr Ahmed slapped his thigh, taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes. ‘I told you, it was only the beginning.’ He spoke to his daughter from the depth of his feeling. ‘Insha’Allah, the first steps of many,’ he said. ‘And may they take you only to good places.’

  The next morning Nick decided to roll one last die for his well. Dr Ahmed’s surgery was empty and Nick was working from home. His head ached and the feeble trickle of water from the hose did little to make him feel clean.

  The night before he’d thrown the aquifer survey into the wastebasket. Now he pulled it out, smoothing it over.

  Forget about it, he told himself, re-experiencing the bitterness of yesterday’s meeting with the governor and Margaret’s persistent coldness. In a month you’ll be eating turkey with Kate in England. All of this will seem like a dream.

  On a whim, he picked up the telephone to make a reverse-charge call to the UK, carefully dialling the code J.P. had given him and he’d promised Kate not to abuse. It was expensive and unreliable – but after a few tries he heard a ringtone, tinny and distant. It was still early; he could picture Kate lying tangled in their ivory bedsheets, energising herself for the morning gym session.

  She answered after a few rings. ‘Nick!’ Her voice was distorted and sleepy. ‘I got your letter. Sounds awful. So glad you’ll be home soon.’

  He tried to remember what he’d written; his mind was blank. ‘I definitely need a break,’ he said, ‘I’m tired. It’s too much sometimes, this place.’

  ‘What?’ The line was crackling.

  ‘I said, it’s too much. I need a break.’

  He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him as she went on. ‘I’m going to book the hotel in Windermere next week. Sam and Julia went there last year. Said we’ll love it.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Suddenly all he could think of was how much Margaret had wanted to see Windermere. I wandered lonely as a cloud.

  ‘And I’ll schedule a visit to your mum – let me know when so I can put it in the diary. Lots to do.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Sorry, Nick, you’re breaking up so badly, I just can’t hear a word. Maybe wait until you’re here?’

  An immense weariness came over him. He imagined a different conversation – the kind they’d rarely had and couldn’t recreate, finding words that sank beneath the skin to touch heart and nerve beneath. She’d accused him of being walled-off and he’d always known she was right; but now he wondered if he wasn’t more like Dr Ahmed’s aquifer, waiting silently underground for someone to break through.

  A few minutes after they said their goodbyes the porch started shaking – hasty feet pounding towards Nick’s office. JoJo came bursting in, shouting, ‘Nicholas! Come!’

  Nick’s heart froze. ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘Our castle!’ JoJo gulped in exaggerated panic as he leaned on the doorframe. ‘Nagode broke it!’

  Nick laughed in relief. ‘Is that all? You frightened the life out of me!’

  A shadow dimmed the boy’s eagerness. Nick reminded himself that their castle was more than a game to JoJo. It was proof of something unspoken, of new hopes growing inside him.

  ‘OK, I’m coming,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll fix it.’

  In the back garden, the turret with Margaret’s flag on it was missing a chunk from its southern face. Nagode sat by the fractured edge, clutching the broken piece with an expression of grave satisfaction.

  ‘Oh-oh.’ Nick rescued it from her, despite her wail of complaint. ‘Look who wants to be an architect, too.’

  JoJo showed Nick a tub of white, sticky paste placed on a rock. ‘From Mama’s kitchen,’ he said. ‘Flour and water, to stick it back. Will it work?’

  ‘I think it will,’ Nick laughed. ‘Nice improvisation.’

  He knelt to help the boy steady the tower as JoJo manoeuvred the piece back into place. He wedged it with soggy mortar, and pasted dried grass over the join. Watching the deft hands at work, Nick noticed new changes in JoJo. Early manhood was filling out the awkwardness of his limbs and stretching his quick mind in new directions.

  It was slow work, made slower still by Nagode’s relentless assistance. She stumbled around the garden, shrieking in glee, going where she was least wanted. Small fists pushed broken edges out of their careful alignment, and when she stepped in JoJo’s bowl of flour and water, he and Nick both yelled in dismay. The sudden noise sent Nagode tumbling; she lay on the ground, howling her distress. Hanan’s face peered over the garden wall, on her way to collect the baby for her morning trip to market; JoJo thankfully handed the furious Nagode into her arms.

  After another half an hour, JoJo finally stood up, pleased. The old piece was wedged back, the flag restored to its summit. The dried grass made the tower look less English and more African, pale as a cloud on one side, the other infused wi
th the soil’s blood-deep red.

  ‘Perfect!’ JoJo crowed. He raised his hand to high-five Nick. Instead of returning the gesture, Nick found himself gripping JoJo’s shoulder. And to his astonishment, the boy responded, arms reaching around his waist, burying his face in Nick’s chest.

  ‘It is good you came,’ JoJo whispered.

  Nick returned the hug, deeply moved. ‘I’m the lucky one.’ He rested his chin on the boy’s head, feeling a dart of joy in giving what he’d never himself received. Does Dr Ahmed ever hug you? Or does he expect you to stand alone?

  He kissed JoJo’s tight black cap of hair, smelling warm earth.

  ‘You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,’ he told the boy. ‘You have a brilliant mind, you could do anything. You must always remember that, no matter what.’

  JoJo looked up at him, eyes fire-bright. ‘I want to be an engineer, like you,’ he said, his voice deep with longing. ‘I want to work for you.’

  Nick smiled down at him. ‘You can set up your own company. Then I’ll come work for you.’

  A strange expression crept over JoJo’s face, so sweet and young it made Nick’s heart constrict. He could see the boy’s forehead crease with anxious expectation. He’d seen that expression countless times, watching JoJo slope off to school each morning, his footsteps heavy as if he carried an invisible weight. Sorrow and doubt were there, and something else, too – a nearly unbearable hope.

  ‘Promise?’ JoJo said. ‘You’ll stay my friend? You won’t leave us?’

  Nick felt the pressure of JoJo’s arms around him, the tide of need blurring past and present, right and wrong. In a few weeks Nick would be home for Christmas; a few months after that, he’d be gone for good. He knew what he should say. But the words would not come. I’ll always be your friend, he’d pledged Madi on the kissing gate, as they examined the bruises against the dark skin of his arm. No matter what.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ he promised JoJo. ‘But . . .’

  ‘JoJo.’

  They both looked around. Margaret stood in the kitchen doorway, her hands twisting together. JoJo disentangled himself from Nick, sensing her strange mood. He pointed to the castle.