Empire of Mud

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Empire of Mud Page 22

by James Suriano


  As she swiped at me, my mind cascaded through options to settle her.

  “I have something else.”

  “What could you have?”

  “I know where Inesh is.”

  It was a cruel move, one I instantly regretted.

  Her face melted, and her body sagged. “Really?”

  “After the tickets, after safety.”

  “Why would you?” But she knew why I would.

  Three Tickets, Single Journey

  It was a quarter to midnight, and we stood behind the front door.

  Ousha looked at us both. “Not a word. I’ll do all the talking.”

  We took four taxis to the airport, and Ousha paid in cash for all of them. When we were in the last taxi, she opened her purse and pulled out a passport for Ruka. It had a counterfeit name and a face that looked close enough to hers.

  “I’ll take mine back now,” she held her hand out.

  “Where did you get this?” I was happy to hand hers over.

  “With money all things are possible.”

  The gate agent put our three passports on the counter next to the three tickets and never once looked at us. We sat in the first three seats of the plane. Ruka stayed close to me, unsure if any of this was going to work. She held my hand over the armrest of our seat.

  When there was no one else around, Ousha leaned over the aisle. “Please tell me now.”

  I wagged my finger at her. The act of saying no to her was immensely satisfying.

  She ground herself into her seat and snapped her headphones on.

  She was asleep when Ruka whispered to me, “Do you really know where this man is?”

  “Yes.” I would have to explain to her later what I’d done and hope she would forgive me.

  I watched Ousha and tried to imagine everything that had led her to this place. Had it been her father, her marriage, or the strong arm of Abdullah? Was she as out of control of the situation as I was?

  …

  The UK passport control wasn’t so easy. The dour white man in his black uniform demanded that Ruka step out from behind me. Then he pointed at both pictures in the two counterfeit passports and at me. I knew what he was saying. He made a phone call, and then we were all pulled into a room together. They left us alone.

  “This isn’t working,” Ousha said.

  “I just want to get to Sri Lanka.” I didn’t care about entering the UK. This was all Ousha’s fault for dragging us here.

  “You made me come here.”

  “Tell them you took the wrong passport. Say you made a mistake.”

  The man returned with another young man from my country. He was slight, his gray jacket hanging off of him. He smiled and sat next to me. The original officer escorted Ousha out of the room.

  “Are you in danger?” he asked me. His eyes were sincere.

  “No. I just forgot to bring her passport and I grabbed both of mine. We rushed out.” I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say.

  “Why were you rushing from Dubai?”

  A million excuses zipped through my head. I kept seeing Mohamed being taken out by the medics.

  “We are just here for a visit with her parents, and then we are going to Sri Lanka.”

  “Do you have tickets onward?”

  I shook my head.

  He stroked his chin, then wrote something on a pad of paper.

  “You were working in Dubai, for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then she brought you here to visit her parents with a promise to send you home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  I flushed.

  The man called back the other officer and spoke to him in English.

  Then he addressed me directly. “We will give you and your daughter a five-day entry permit. But you must leave on time.” The officer left, then returned ten minutes later with words and numbers on a card next to a picture of Ruka.

  He leaned into me and handed me a card with a phone number on it. “Just in case you are in trouble.”

  …

  We stood on platform seven of Paddington train station after stepping off the Heathrow express. The lattice of metal and glass overhead shielded us from the weather, but more important, from what I felt was the ever-watchful eye of those who controlled all that was. The Abdullahs and Khalids. Those who controlled the seas and the hulking jets pushing through the skies, carrying out the wishes of their great masters.

  Ruka and I had followed Ousha this far without question.

  “The Sri Lankan embassy isn’t far from here. You can go there.” She began walking.

  “What about our tickets?” I asked.

  “You don’t get those until you tell me where Inesh is and I have the necklace.”

  What game was she playing? And why did the necklace matter so much? I suspected the jewels and money she had packed would carry her for years if not a lifetime. She approached a police officer and spoke to him in Mohamed’s language. She then circled her neck and pointed to Ruka and me.

  The officer said something in a different language and waved his hands in front of him, not wanting to get involved. He looked closely at us as we passed him but took no action.

  We were outside now, standing near a line of taxis and smokers.

  “Last chance,” Ousha said.

  “You must buy us onward tickets. We’ll be stuck here otherwise. I thought this was our deal.”

  “Give it to me.” Ousha threw herself at me, pawing my neck. I pushed her away. She screamed, throwing her hands up, then pointing at me. I turned red as the other train riders diverted themselves around us. The officer was back, helping her up. Another man who understood what she was saying approached us. When they were done talking, he encouraged her to move on. I couldn’t help but chuckle. We all looked the same here; these Londoners wouldn’t pay any more attention to us than any other person.

  “You’re making fools of us,” I told Ousha.

  “You’ve stolen that necklace from me and I want it back.”

  Ruka stayed behind me; I could tell Ousha’s erratic behavior scared her. I took a step toward her. “You know, we can help each other. I can help you find your love and you can help us return home. We need each other.” It seemed she had forgotten our deal and at moments only her animal instincts drove her. Inside me a knife twisted.

  For that breath, Ousha seemed to come into exquisite focus. “You’re right,” she said.

  …

  We broke into the sunlight together and climbed the ramp out of the station and onto Praed Street. The morning was crisp and our desert clothes let the cool air chill our skin. The human sidewalk traffic was building, something not present in Dubai.

  “I’m going to meet my parents here,” Ousha said after we had gone a block.

  She pointed to a café. There, she bought Ruka a hot chocolate and us tea and croissants. She took a sip of hers, then added a packet of sugar. When the last granule dissolved, she reengaged.

  “They aren’t far from here, but they can’t know you’re here with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it will create questions, and my mother thinks you’re a savage.” She lowered her voice. “She thinks you killed Maryam.”

  I looked at Ruka; she was staring out the window of the café with chocolaty steam drifting into her nose.

  I was starting to feel the thin connection between Ousha and me open. “Why don’t you just tell her the truth?”

  “My parents view truth as a reminder of what they’re not,” she said simply. “They try to avoid it at all costs.”

  “Where does that leave us?” I thought it was an honest question.

  “How about I meet you here tomorrow at the same time?” She got up and walked to the counter. She gave the man behind it a wad of bills and said something to him, then rejoined us at the table. “You can stay here until they close and eat two more meals.” Her suitcase bumped over the threshold of t
he door, and I watched her merge into the city.

  “Let’s see the city,” I told Ruka. I wasn’t going to sit here all day waiting for Ousha to return. I wanted Ruka to be a woman of action when she grew up. I wanted her to know the act of moving in and of itself could lead to solutions.

  I watched the faces of the people we passed on the sidewalk, wondering if they’d condemn us for the color of our skin or what we were wearing. I had grown accustomed to such remarks over the last few months, but it didn’t hurt as much because they weren’t my people.

  We stood in an expansive park. The trees were bare, with beds of wilted plants stuffed into the soggy beds, and the grass made a slurping sound when we walked on it. As Ruka danced around in the open space, brown droplets splashed onto her legs. She returned to me, and we continued on Oxford Street, under the illuminated angels hovering above the road, their colors bleeding onto us, their light merging with our own.

  In the few cities I had been to, I noticed a character in each, an agreement the residents had forged regarding how they would live in concert with the city. But this place was unique. It was a jostling closeness of difference. And no one seemed to mind. If it was up to me, this was a place I wouldn’t mind staying. It was a long time since I had felt a piece of something that wasn’t trying to spit me out.

  We kept going, my fingertips and nose refrigerated by the air, until we traced our steps back to the café, where we could warm up and eat.

  When the night had fully settled in and the customers stopped coming, the man behind the counter rang a bell and pointed to the door.

  “Where now?” Ruka’s eyes were sleepy, and I felt lumps in my stomach. I got two more hot drinks for us. I gave one to her so she could wrap her hands around it, and we stepped onto the sidewalk. I wrapped my clothing around her, and we walked to the station, for the benches and shelter. The wet coldness of this city made my mind seek shelter in the memories of home.

  I was lying on the wooden floor of our house. The neighbor had brought his wife to guide my labor. Pramith had left yesterday, to work a job in the next town. Ruka was next to me, kissing and rubbing my head. Mewan was coming. The heat of the exertion left me drenched, my sweat gathering in small pools on our floor.

  Vela, our neighbor, was between my legs. She had brought a clean mat for me to lie on, as well as water from the well. “Push, Shula. Push.”

  A mountain of pain struck through my opening body, and I thought my insides might seize up in retaliation. I gritted my teeth and focused on Vela, on doing what she told me.

  A short while later, a pillow was propped behind me, and a new baby was in my arms, Ruka’s head nuzzled close as she admired her new brother.

  Dwehlli appeared at the door, her wooden bowl heaped with steaming food and a smile that made her ears sit high on her shaved head. She set the bowl on our table, then came and wrapped her arms around all of us, speaking soft blessings over us for a full and comfortable life. I hadn’t seen her since Ruka was born. She had fled to the north of our country; before she went, she had told me the wounds of the war still needed healing and she had been called to attend to them. But she had come back somehow; words of our whereabouts had found their way to her. A few hours passed, and it was time for her to leave. She stood over us again, her empty bowl under her arm. “You’re a beautiful family,” she said.

  To Take

  There is nothing easy about a cold night on the streets of London. The police moved us out of the station at midnight, informing us it was closing. An officer pulled the gate to the ground after we stepped out. Ruka swayed with sleep, still tucked tightly in the folds of my dress as we walked. I heard some men approach from behind us; they were barking loudly and a bottle smashed near them. They said something else, pulled at my head covering, and slapped my butt, then ran past us howling with laughter. There were three of them, all university age. If others had been around, I might have felt humiliated, but now in the lonely night, it affected me as much as a subtle gust of wind.

  We hadn’t strayed far from the café where Ousha was going to meet us in the morning. I sat on the concrete, against the dirty crevice of the building and the sidewalk. I balled up the extra dress I had and laid my head against a pipe. Ruka was in my lap. The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was the dirt pushed up under my nails as they rested against a flattened piece of chewing gum on the sidewalk.

  …

  There were rough hands under my head covering. It wasn’t Ruka. I reached for them, and they pushed mine away. I opened my eyes; the morning had come, and a man I didn’t recognize was yanking at me.

  I backed away from him. A grunting yell left my lips. My eyes hadn’t been open enough to know if there were other people around me.

  “Stop. Stop. Stop.” I swatted at him. He put his hands on me again. Ruka shrieked. Her emergence from my clothes caught him off guard, and he stepped back and fixated on her. I took her hand, quickly stood up, and ran for the end of the block. Ousha’s face was looking around the building from an alley.

  “Ousha, help!” I called to her.

  The man caught me and pulled me back. I fell backward and landed in a sitting position. He dragged me, then ripped off my head covering, and his hands dove under my neckline. I clasped his wrists and pushed, but he was too strong for me. Ruka wailed at such a pitch that I wanted to cover my ears; she was standing back from me, pulling at her hair, immolated. I stopped fighting and let him do what he was going to do. His hand caught my necklace, and he pulled hard until the gold hook relented. When he had it, he took off running.

  Ruka sank to the ground. Her crying tore at me—that she had to witness such an act of violence against me when both of us were powerless to fight back. Ousha was there. Still watching. And then it made sense. She had orchestrated his. I patted Ruka’s head and bolted upright, charging at Ousha.

  “What do you think you’re doing to me?” I fired at her.

  She tried to back into the shadows, but I rounded the corner and caught her. I spotted a stone, which I picked up and pelted at her. The vehemence of what I wanted to do to her now inhabited me and made my rational mind mute.

  It caught her in the back of the head and drew blood.

  “Do you think you’re going to wear me thin until I snap or give in?” I screamed at her. “Or maybe you’ll frighten me into submission so I don’t expose the truth of who you are?”

  She held the back of her head and limped forward, trying to get away from me. Her fingers turned red. I caught her and jumped in front of her. She recoiled as though I were going to hit her again. And everything in me said to knock her dead.

  “You know what you are? You’re the softened scum of Dubai. Never a hard day to brandish a callous or strengthen your spine. But I’ve stood in greater tragedy than this. God knows you’ll never break me, because if even you strike me down, I’ll rise and strike you twice. Believe me, Ousha, I have the strength of ten of you, and if you walk away from me today alive, it’s only a testament to my daughter that she doesn’t see me murder someone. Because if we were alone, I don’t know what I might do.”

  “You’ll never get it back,” she hissed.

  “And you’ll never get Inesh back, because he’s dead. That’s where he is, burned to the heavens. Go live with that, Ousha. I hope the riches you sold your conscience on comfort you with that truth.”

  Her fortitude against me collapsed under the weight of the revelation. Then tears came. Ruka had caught up to me and touched my back. Her cool hand reminded me that I was an inferno of anger.

  I took my daughter by the hand and left her in the alley. We were moving, and I knew we’d eventually find our way home.

  The Edge

  The edge of civilization is where you stop being seen. Ruka and I walked for the day, wandering through the streets. I didn’t know what it was I was looking for, and my mind kept exploring avenues I should have taken, ways that wouldn’t have led me here. None of it mattered, though; we stood firmly in our
present. As we walked into the night, I saw women sitting on the ground with cups in front of them, pleading in languages I didn’t know, every person passing them as if they were a trash bin to be avoided. I wondered how many days away from that we were.

  “I’m hungry, Mama.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  The rain began to fall, and we stood against a cosmetics store, under the awning. Across the street a bakery was closing. I watched the workers inside. The warm glow bounced off golden pastries and long baguettes. One counted the money in the register, while the other pulled out all the baked items and put them in a black bag. The rain came down harder, ricocheting off the sidewalk and soaking our feet. They walked out, locked the door, and threw the black bag onto the curb.

  “Did you see that Ruka? All that food?”

  When they were out of sight, we crossed the street and I opened the bag. A few people walked by us, watching as I devoured a fruit muffin and Ruka chomped through a pie only the size of my hand. The rain soaked us, but our stomachs were full.

  I tied the bag, then carried it with me; there was enough food in here for a few days. My feet were wet and cold; my sandals, perfectly suited for Dubai, were a curse here. A grate in the sidewalk blew up glorious warm air, and we stood on it and let it heat our bodies and dry our clothes. Then we found a small corner, a dry piece of ground, and pushed our bodies into it. We huddled into each other and settled in for the night. Ruka was asleep within minutes, while I drifted in and out. Each time I heard footsteps or a car blow its horn, I straightened, looked around, and then my eyes would lose the battle with sleep.

  Suddenly there was a crack inside my head, like summer thunder. I opened my eyes, then the pain came, at the side of my face. I put my hand to it; I couldn’t touch it, but I knew it was starting to swell. I was going to walk to one of the windows and look at myself. Our bag was gone. I uncovered Ruka so I could stand up.

  She woke and looked at me. “What happened to you?” She was pointing to my face.

 

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