by Claire Hajaj
Somewhere, a woman was wailing. The sound raked his spine with ice-cold fingers – high-pitched, but with a strange, deep resonance. For the first time since childhood, he remembered being afraid of the dark.
I must get up. His head felt dangerously light – a balloon connected to his body by fraying strings of will.
Stumbling into the office past the radio’s silent hulk, he turned the handle. On the opposite side of the porch he saw Dr Ahmed’s front door standing open, candlelight throwing two strangers into harsh relief. The man looked strangely bulky, wrapped in a stained satin bathrobe. Light glinted off the grease on his hair. Tuesday?
Behind him, a woman in a pink dressing gown clutched at his back, her body bent almost double. Her hair was coiled into ferocious braids that shook as breath escaped from her in rapid bursts. Aieeee. The noise was halfway between a word and a scream. Aieeee. She clutched her stomach and squatted on the ground.
I’ve seen her before. One of Tuesday’s ladies, Nick remembered. JoJo had pointed her out in the salon a lifetime ago, braiding Aisha Kamil’s hair with bold, thick fingers.
‘Please, sir,’ Tuesday was saying to Dr Ahmed. His voice was hoarse. ‘Please, sir.’ His arms seemed to be wrapped around his waist, dangling at odd, floppy angles.
Nick willed himself to look closer. Those are not Tuesday’s hands. They were too small, too pale, tiny palms held upwards to catch the fading light.
Horror bloomed inside him, cold and sickening; the darkness yawned. He gripped the porch rail, wood flaking under his hands.
Dr Ahmed was speaking with quiet compassion. Nick didn’t need a translation. Somewhere in the emptiness those little hands had opened up and let life go. Meat, not flesh. Jalloh had explained the difference, one day. ‘Doesn’t it upset you to kill them?’ Nick had asked, as the living kids nuzzled into Jalloh’s hand. He had laughed. ‘While they live, they are my friends,’ he said. ‘But once I take up my knife, they become meat.’
Now Nick saw Margaret behind the candle flame, Nagode’s sleepy head on her shoulder. The wavering light painted shadows in the hollows of her eyes. He saw her reach over to the small body, tweaking aside a corner of the damp covering sheet. Whatever she saw made her step back. Her hand rose to cover Nagode’s face – an instinctive warding off. Bako’s bracelet was red against her skin. Her eyes found Nick’s, wide with sudden fear.
Dr Ahmed was trying to take the bundle from Tuesday. But Tuesday clung on. A fold fell back, revealing round baby cheeks and a thick knot of hair. The eyes were open, staring calmly upwards. ‘Please,’ Tuesday repeated. ‘Please.’
The braided woman was sitting on the ground now, her expression bemused. She studied her empty arms, manicured fingers curling like dried leaves.
As Dr Ahmed pulled desperately on the bed sheet, a faecal stench rose into the air. The doctor turned to his wife. ‘Remove Nagode into the bedroom. Do not come out.’ Margaret obeyed without hesitation, vanishing into the dark doorway.
Dr Ahmed stepped back from Tuesday, who seemed to crumple as the strong arms released him. He opened the door to his office and said, ‘Take him inside, Tuesday. Go ahead.’
So Dr Ahmed knew that Tuesday had a son. He’d probably handled the delivery and told no one.
The shopkeeper staggered in. Nick looked up at Dr Ahmed, helpless. The old man’s face was lined and grey. ‘Stay out here, Nicholas,’ he instructed. Then he took his candle into the deeper dark of the clinic, closing the door.
Margaret was waiting in the kitchen, Nagode on her hip. She pulled Nick close as he came in, forehead resting on his shoulder. Her breath burned his skin and he felt the wetness of tears; they anchored him to a world that was reeling away.
‘JoJo knows,’ she said.
Something cold trickled between them, freezing Nick’s heart.
‘What did he say?’
‘He saw us. I don’t know when. A long time ago.’
Nick felt dizzy. ‘And he didn’t tell anyone?’
Margaret drew back, raising her eyes to his.
‘He told us every day,’ she said. ‘But not in words.’
He held onto Margaret, unable to speak, mesmerised by the redness inside her lips spilling over onto her skin like falling blossoms. It reminded him of the jacaranda tree outside the village, on the brink of its glorious flowering.
Sounds came from the hallway. They stepped apart as Dr Ahmed walked in, drying his hands on a towel.
‘We have run out of iodine,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how we will get more, unless they open the roads.’
Nick cleared his throat, searching for words.
‘I didn’t know Tuesday had any children,’ he said.
Dr Ahmed sat at the table, a weary folding of his limbs.
‘You cannot sow so many fields without reaping a harvest in one,’ he said. ‘She pretended the boy was her sister’s. And Tuesday would visit and give him sweets. I told him not to. The child’s teeth were very bad. But love never listens.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ The words were useless. Dr Ahmed laughed – a humourless sound.
‘We will all be sorry soon,’ he said. ‘The boy had cholera.’
Nick heard Margaret gasp behind him. Another face appeared in the doorway. JoJo, his legs emerging from his shorts like stalks.
Cholera. On that terrible first day, the governor’s men had moved systematically through the village. They’d broken the well’s generator, tearing the hose and letting water drain uselessly into the sand. They’d looted the market and Tuesday’s shop and smashed Imam Abdi’s room beside the mosque. Hanan screamed as they shot the last of her flock. Wild dogs barked after them, driven to frenzy by the crack of bullets and stench of blood.
Aisha Kamil met them with insults and brandished a cooking pot. The butt of a gun slammed her in the stomach. They’d kicked the legs from under Mr Kamil as he raced to defend her, smashing boots into his teeth as he lay in the dirt. Then they’d riddled the water tank with bullets, sending precious liquid gushing over the roof tiles.
When they reached Miss Amina’s house, Dr Ahmed stood with his hand on her arm as they ripped the cloths from her porch and broke her chair. They moved on to Margaret’s garden then – boots stomping over Bako’s fragile cross and the remains of JoJo’s castle.
Nick had been forced to stand and watch them carry away his kerosene and diesel, rage expanding inside him. His senses were heightened; small details seemed vividly unreal – the crimson lines in a young soldier’s eyes, the dizzy contrast of his black and white scarf, the sharp, shadowed angles of his khaki shirt. Nick’s whole body screamed for vengeance – he wanted to fight back, like Aisha Kamil. Only Dr Ahmed’s strong hand and JoJo’s terrified face saved him from a gun in the stomach.
The soldiers set up camp by the well, using stolen fuel to power generators that roared into the night.
The village council gathered in the mosque, in a room that stank of fuel and sweat. Tuesday suggested going for help. ‘Who are you counting on?’ Dr Ahmed asked. ‘In the south, they will tell us it’s not their concern. And the ones to the north are already here.’ He pointed through the wall, out towards the well.
Tuesday tried. He wasted the last of his petrol, heading south in his brown Toyota with its leopard-print seats. Nick watched it sputter off in a cloud of dirt. But he returned before afternoon prayers. ‘They closed the roads,’ he panted. ‘They are keeping us here.’
As the sun sank over the village it stretched bloody fingers out in a wide circle. All directions now looked ominous and forbidding.
Before dawn on the second day, Margaret, Nick and JoJo went together to the lake, taking every bucket and container. The last of the fuel would be used for boiling and storing. They walked together without speaking, bubbles of thought colliding in silent friction.
The air by the lake was fetid and heavy, the water thick as it pooled in Nick’s bucket. The world seemed dead. Only the distant red curtain on Binza’s shack was alive, twitching wi
th the breeze like a heartbeat.
Nick felt the presence of the well, a mosquito pricking his back. Imaginary thirst crawled up his throat. Pure water, just a hundred metres beneath us. He’d punched through the earth to find it; he’d cast his old life into the depths. And yet still it lay there, unreachable. Stolen.
They boiled the lakewater and added the last of Nick’s water purification tablets, just to be sure. Dr Ahmed wanted to share them with others, but Margaret became hysterical at the suggestion. ‘Remember your son,’ she said to him, fists clenched. She wasn’t talking about JoJo, Nick knew. JoJo knew it too. The boy turned away as she spoke, striding out to wherever he went these days. Nick wanted to call him back – but his courage failed. He knows, Margaret had said.
Instead he spent the evening helping her to re-create Bako’s broken cross. The original was wounded beyond repair; only scattered shards left. The ground was hard and unyielding but eventually a makeshift replacement leaned out of the earth at odd angles, a twisted facsimile of mourning.
Later, in the silence of his office, Nick tried to call Eric on the landline. The generator was almost empty and the radio lay dead and silent. The phone clicked and whirred, until Nick hurled the mouthpiece onto the desk. He knew he should fire up the generator, turn on the radio and call J.P. But he was afraid. Remember that well you told me not to build, with the money I stole from you? The damage was done, the price would have to be paid – but J.P.’s part could be paid later.
As clouds massed in a thunderous evening sky, Nick imagined a huge form seated above them, leaning down to block the light. The governor just wants to teach us a lesson. In the end he’ll release us. And I’ll face whatever I need to face. Nothing would stop him taking Margaret to his mother’s garden where the roses would be newly in bloom. They would sit on the kissing gate together and look over grassy fields instead of dust. No price was too high for that.
The lake was now their only lifeline – a pilgrimage site for rich and poor alike, gathering in the cool of evening, fasting and sleeping through the days in a cruel parody of Ramadan’s voluntary abstinence. Adeya collected water for her mother and Miss Amina. Schoolteachers bent and filled alongside their pupils. Tuesday’s ladies came, painted toenails squelching into the mud. Aisha came with Hanan, their sandals dark with filth, and as they hauled grey liquid back to her house Nick saw fear scored into Aisha’s face around the dark red of her lipstick. He knew what she was thinking. How long before this too runs out?
Tuesday’s child was barely a few hours dead when the banging on the doctor’s front door sounded again. Dr Ahmed looked up from the face of his grandfather clock, polishing cloth in hand.
‘Ahmed!’ a voice yelled. ‘Open up! Open, eh!’
Mr Kamil appeared in the doorway, nose still red and purple from his beating. When he opened his mouth, Nick saw dark holes where teeth had been.
‘That rogue Tuesday has closed his shop and taken the food!’ Kamil’s voice squeaked through his wounded sinuses. ‘First we have thieves breaking into houses. Now Tuesday gives every last thing to that whore of his. I could take some men and retrieve his goods, what do you think? This is an emergency.’
‘His boy died last night, Kamil.’
The man’s eyes widened, one hand clutching at his chest. But then he drew himself up. ‘This is Allah’s judgement. He was an adulterer and a criminal.’
‘Cholera killed the child, not adultery.’ Dr Ahmed stood up to him. ‘We must stop people going to the lake. They have infected the water. We could have a big outbreak. Today even, or tomorrow.’
‘Where will they go, if not the lake?’ Kamil’s question startled Dr Ahmed into silence. Kamil rubbed his bent nose, his unwashed body reeking of desperation.
‘Danjuma will fix this,’ he said. ‘They are writing his name on the walls in red paint. He will come, any day now.’
‘Danjuma is powerless,’ Dr Ahmed replied. ‘By now he is in prison or worse. You know this as well as I. His goods will have been seized, his money taken. We might as well wait for Yahya to rescue us.’
Nick’s head had started to ring – a faint, rhythmic sound. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the shiver of the fever that seemed to come and go.
The ringing grew more insistent. He opened his eyes. ‘My telephone,’ he said, amazed at the overwhelming rush of relief he felt. Eric, at last. ‘Excuse me.’ He almost knocked over a chair in his hurry to get out.
The phone trilled on the desk. Nick grabbed the handset, his whole body aching. ‘Hello?’
‘Nick. Fucking hell, is that you?’
‘Yes.’ Thank god. He heard the crack of relief in his voice. ‘Eric, we’re in real trouble here.’
‘No fucking joke.’
‘A child died last night. Of cholera. That makes the governor a murderer.’
‘So, what did you expect?’ Eric’s voice was faint, drowning in static. ‘I haven’t been able to reach you for fucking days.’
‘They took our fuel and cut off the roads. It’s a siege. Does J.P. know?’
Eric snorted. ‘You need to find some juice for that radio and call your boss. It’s time to confess your sins, boy.’
‘My sins are the least of my problems.’ Nick felt the burn of frustration; lifelines surrounded him but each was sliding out of his grasp. ‘Children are dying here. I have to speak to him.’
‘To who? J.P.?’
The receiver had become heavy in Nick’s hand. ‘Not J.P.. I need to speak to the governor.’
Silence crackled down the line. Nick waited, his breath’s moisture oddly comforting on dry lips.
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
Cramps swirled through Nick’s bowels, clenching his stomach. He could still see the child’s hand flopping towards him in the shadows, spreading its curse to all of them.
‘You said I should confess,’ he said, swallowing down his nausea. ‘I will – but to him, not J.P.. He wants a pound of flesh – I’ll give him mine. He’ll see me, Eric. I know he will.’
‘OK.’ Eric’s voice was hollow across the miles. ‘Come to the north road checkpoint tomorrow at afternoon prayers. You’d better be on time.’
‘I’ll be there.’ Nick didn’t want to put the phone down; it was a precious link to an ordinary world turning blithely far away.
‘Eric . . .’ he said – but the static drowned him out. He heard a voice say, ‘OK, then. Tomorrow. ’Bye.’ The line went dead.
He stood for a moment, the receiver humming in his ear. The sound seemed beautiful to him, an almost sacred song. If only I could pray.
‘Who are you meeting tomorrow?’
Nick looked up in surprise. JoJo stood by the door. His T-shirt was loose on his body, the governor’s cap on his head.
He saw us, Margaret had said. He knows.
Nick set the phone down on the desk. ‘The governor,’ he replied. ‘I’m going to see him.’ Nausea and adrenalin chased each other around his veins; the boy’s outline filled the doorway, monstrously huge. I’m delirious. He wanted ice-cold water, to drink it down and feel its cool splash on his face.
JoJo nodded. ‘You are the governor’s friend.’
Nick leaned against the desk, pressing the heel of his palm into his aching forehead. ‘Why would you say that? You know it’s not true.’
JoJo laughed – an ugly snigger. ‘Yes. I don’t know anything. I am just stupid JoJo.’
How did things come to this? Nick forced himself to look at JoJo. The unstable light played tricks with the boy’s outline, dissolving and re-forming it. He tried to focus on the hands splayed on the doorframe, remembering with what assurance they had grasped a pencil to draw angles, or how he would rub his forehead with his knuckles while trying to solve a tricky equation.
‘You know that I love your mother.’
The words came from nowhere. They flooded out as if a dam had burst, finally overwhelming him.
JoJo straightened. A shadow crossed his face. He fo
lded his arms in front of him – a young, sombre judge.
‘Love,’ he echoed. ‘Like the people in Tuesday’s magazines.’
‘Not like that.’ Images confronted him, twisted and horrifying, sending shame through every channel of Nick’s being. I’m crying. The water burned his eyes. ‘You can’t imagine yet, JoJo. One day you will.’
Through the roar of the fever chills, he heard the boy say, ‘I don’t love anything.’
Nick tried to breathe in calm. ‘I know it feels like that now.’ His voice was cracking. He opened his palms, offering them upwards. ‘And I’m sorry, JoJo. I’m so, so sorry.’
Silence fell between them. Nick knew his words must ring empty to the boy – this young man – gazing at him with such contempt. What was the point of these justifications? Loving Margaret had been as inevitable as the tide coming in – and if time could circle back to New Year’s Day, he could not make a different choice: he couldn’t feel there’d been a choice to make.
There was no easy way to explain this to JoJo, but Nick felt he had to try. ‘When I was your age I thought I wouldn’t be able to love anything – not even myself. I thought my last chance had gone. But Margaret – your mother – she saved me from that.’
JoJo jerked his head on hearing his mother’s name, mouth twisting. His disgust pierced Nick’s heart, a brutal mirror to his own sins – the corrupting lies, the casual betrayals.
‘Please don’t blame her, JoJo. She’s suffered so much.’ The boy looked on, impassive as an angel. ‘This wasn’t her fault.’
JoJo laughed, an ugly sound. ‘But she says it was not your fault. So who is to blame?’
Nick shrugged, exhaustion stealing over him. ‘I don’t know. Fate, I suppose.’
‘What’s Fate?’
A wry smile crept onto Nick’s dry lips. ‘It means: how things turn out. Another word for God. Or luck. Or universal forces. It depends if you believe things happen for a reason, or if they just happen.’
JoJo’s eyes met his. ‘So Fate sent you to take Mama.’
‘No,’ Nick whispered. He felt dazed; the few feet between them could have been a hundred miles. ‘Maybe there’s a reason all this happened – but I can’t understand it yet.’
