Far From My Father's House

by Jill McGivering

  Britta was breathing hard. Ellen sat quietly, waiting for her to recover. Had she come straight from the camp? It looked like it. Not very safe, surely, to be there so long after dark.

  The glass of orange juice arrived. Ellen peeled the paper wrapping off a straw, put it in the juice and pushed the glass towards Britta. Britta drank it off in one. Ellen ordered two more. Gradually Britta’s breaths became more even. The hard line of her shoulders softened.

  The two Belgians walked through the lobby, laughing and talking together. They were heading back to the lifts from the direction of the Italian restaurant. The young woman on reception lifted her head at the noise and watched as they stepped into a lift and disappeared.

  ‘Another one.’ Britta’s voice shook. ‘The girl you saw. Typhoid fever.’

  There was a short silence. So that was why she was so late.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ellen said. She thought of the small hand with its bitten-down nails. She should have held it.

  ‘I thought I’d caught her. She had high fever and severe diarrhoea but I put her straight onto antibiotics.’ Britta paused, remembering. ‘She started to fit. Some intestinal haemorrhage, maybe. Then she died.’

  Without her scarf and in the artificial light, Britta looked younger, perhaps still in her twenties. She probably hadn’t lost many patients. She hadn’t been a doctor long enough.

  ‘Two others are very ill. One teenage girl. One old woman. Both have high fever. Fatima is with them. She stays late too often.’ Britta raked her hands through her hair, shook her head. ‘It progresses quickly.’

  The waiter came with the sandwich and two more glasses of orange juice.

  ‘You should be careful.’ Britta mimed washing her hands. ‘Lots of soap, lots of scrub.’

  ‘Do you think they’re ill before they arrive?’

  ‘I think so. There must be carriers.’ Britta shrugged. ‘And in these conditions . . .’

  Ellen picked up a quarter of the club sandwich, a high stack of chicken, bacon, egg and salad. Enough to feed a family. She bit into it, oozing mayonnaise.

  Britta was staring into middle distance, her green eyes glassy with exhaustion. ‘She just didn’t respond.’

  Ellen nodded. She chewed slowly, thinking. ‘By the time they reach you, these women are exhausted,’ she said. ‘As well as traumatized. And you don’t know how long they’ve been ill.’

  Britta tutted. ‘Fatima says they’re afraid of the hospital. You know how rumours spread.’ She sighed. ‘Some woman saw the body being taken out this afternoon and caused a panic.’

  Ellen pointed to the sandwich. ‘You’re going to have to help me out,’ she said. ‘There’s far too much.’

  Britta looked at the sandwich, then at her hands. The creases in her palms were black with dirt. ‘Thank you, but I should go and wash.’ She didn’t move.

  ‘Is Frank still there?’

  ‘In the camp?’ She sighed. ‘I think so.’ She leant forward, bracing herself to get up, then seemed to lose heart and sank back into her seat.

  The lobby rang with a sudden burst of music, a brassy jazz rendition of ‘New York, New York’. The handful of diners looked around as the head waiter rushed to lower the volume and the music slid again under the low hum of conversation.

  ‘I spoke to my boss in Geneva,’ Britta said. ‘You know what he said? If many more people die, don’t tell about it.’

  ‘People need to know, Britta.’

  ‘Do they?’ She looked startled as if she’d only just realized that she was confiding in a journalist. ‘That big potato is coming. What’s his name? The British guy.’

  ‘Quentin Khan?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Khan. He’s very careful about his image. Too many deaths, he’ll be scared away. That’s what my boss says.’ Britta’s hand had risen to her cross and she was clasping it in her fist, tugging at it. ‘We need the money. Medicine International isn’t big. Frankly speaking, we had problems before this typhoid. As it is, I hardly have the money to pay for Fatima.’

  ‘You’re worn out.’ Ellen looked at the tension in Britta’s face. ‘Go and have a hot bath. Eat something. Sleep. You’ve done all you can for today.’

  Britta pointed to the laptop. ‘I can’t.’ She looked close to tears. ‘I have so much paperwork. Accounts. Orders.’

  She pulled herself to her feet, picked up her things and murmured goodnight. Her steps to the lifts were slow and heavy.

  At ten, Ellen paid the bill and went back upstairs. She was just getting ready for bed when the phone rang. The voice at the other end was playful.

  ‘Hey, Ellie. What’s up?’

  She smiled at her own fuzzy reflection in the television set, a woman on the brink of middle age looking back at her with bright, amused eyes. ‘I’m going to bed. It’s late. How’re you doing?’

  He snorted. ‘Just great.’

  There was a pause. The phone line seemed to magnify the sound of his breathing. She thought of all the hours they used to spend on the phone together, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet. A long time ago.

  ‘Am I coming up then? Just for a drink. No fooling around.’

  ‘Dead right no fooling around.’ She laughed. It was fun, hearing him again. ‘Give me one good reason why I should say yes?’

  He slowed his voice to a stagey drawl. ‘I got Scotch.’

  She drew back the curtains and switched off the hotel lights and they sat, side by side, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows across suburban Peshawar. The road alongside the hotel was a necklace of streetlights, studded with moving cars. House lights blinked randomly in the darkness. In the distance, a blue neon sign spluttered on and off. I should tape the window, she thought, in case there’s a blast. That’s a lot of flying glass.

  The whisky was smooth and mellow. She let it roll over her tongue. It stung slightly, then slipped down her throat. The lights outside began to blur.

  ‘So what happened?’ she said.

  He exhaled heavily as if he’d been punctured. ‘It’s a mess.’ He paused. She sensed his tiredness as he let himself start to unwind. ‘There’s lots more people on the way. And not enough food for the ones we already got.’

  ‘Any idea how many people?’

  He shrugged. ‘All we’ve seen is the first wave. The army’s barely in the foothills.’ He slipped off his sandals and crossed his legs, laying an ankle on the opposite knee and pointing the bare sole of his foot towards her. The black hairs above his ankles showed beneath the baggy bottoms of his jeans. He smelt clean, tinged with the perfume of hotel soap.

  ‘I saw a lot of boxes arriving.’

  He raised his glass to his lips, sipped. ‘Not as many as there should be.’

  ‘Well, there’s always a time lag. Once news of the appeal—’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ He was staring out into the darkness, preoccupied. She sipped at her whisky, giving him time. It burnt its way down her throat and into her stomach and spread there, warming and numbing. It wasn’t easy to get alcohol here. It was a treat. ‘Seems like there’s a ton of stuff missing,’ he said slowly. ‘Tents. Sugar. Rice. You name it.’

  She glanced at him. ‘Missing?’

  ‘Looks like we sprang a leak.’

  She turned this over in her mind. ‘Any theories?’

  The question took a minute to reach him. He was far away, muffled by worry. ‘It all goes through a central warehouse. Other side of Peshawar. Everything’s barcoded.’

  ‘So you can trace it?’

  ‘I’ll start spot checks tomorrow.’ He sat quietly for a moment, looking dismally into his whisky. ‘Some of those trucks must be taking a wrong turn.’

  He was etched with anxiety. His fingers were tight round the glass, his forehead creased. It must be more than the trucks. She wondered again about his sudden departure from the UN.

  ‘How’re your folks?’

  ‘Retired. Moved down to Florida.’ He grimaced. ‘Still crazy as loons.’ He nodded at her hand, a
t the wedding ring she was wearing. ‘That your mom’s?’

  She stared at him. ‘How’d you know that?’

  He didn’t meet her eye. ‘You said once. She’d told you guys, you know, the fancy ring for your sister, that one for you.’ He paused, suddenly awkward. ‘I’m sorry. That she’s gone.’

  She looked down at the ring on her finger. She was shaken. It was so strange that he knew that. That he’d remembered after so long. ‘Susan’s married. She’s got two girls.’

  ‘So you’re Auntie Ellie? That’s pretty funny.’

  He smiled and the strain fell out of his face. His eyes and skin were softened by the darkness and, for an instant, he was young again. Then he puffed out his cheeks in a long sigh and heaved himself to his feet, standing there, a dark shape against the window, looking down at her.

  ‘Well, see you tomorrow.’ He put the bottle back in its brown paper bag. She got up too and followed him to the door. ‘You heard about Khan coming to the camp tomorrow? Mr Mega-bucks?’ His breath smelt of whisky. ‘Get a ride out there early. Seven at the latest. Security’ll be nuts.’

  Once he’d gone, she put the safety chain on the door and locked it. She was glad Khan was coming. That would give the story a kick. He had a high profile in the UK.

  She rummaged in her bag for masking tape and drew a large X over the window. Housekeeping might not be pleased but she’d make it up to them.

  She left the curtains open and lay in bed, watching the shadows flicker on the ceiling. Someone was running a bath. The pipes gurgled and banged, adding their music to the steady knock of the air conditioning.

  It was unsettling, seeing Frank again. It stirred too many memories. She stretched her legs across the single bed. The sheets were cool and freshly starched.

  She and Frank had shared a single bed when they were students. A broken one that had pitched them against each other all night, forcing them to cling to a cliff face of mattress to escape each other’s elbows and knees.

  She turned on her side and looked out at Peshawar through the giant tape cross.

  There was a day, a spring day, when they’d walked by the Thames. Small children were pedalling past on tricycles, couples strolling, youths crashing their skateboards against concrete ramps. A duck flew long and low along the surface of the water and skimmed to a halt. Frank had been morose and she hadn’t known why.

  ‘You want to get away,’ he said. They were walking hand in hand like the other couples but now suddenly unlike them. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ A sudden hollowness grew in her stomach. His hand was warm and firm in hers. It was so familiar she barely felt it.

  ‘You’re gonna leave me. Aren’t you?’

  She twisted away to face the water. A police boat was pushing up the Thames, noisy, churning the river. ‘That’s not fair,’ she told the boat. ‘I never said—’

  He dropped her hand. He turned away from her, hiding his face. She stared at the broad contours of his back. His shoulders trembled. A middle-aged man, walking smartly along the riverside pavement, made a detour to avoid them.

  Frank moved sideways to a bench and sat down heavily at one end. He was still twisted away from her, one hand shielding his face, blocking her out. A young woman was sitting at the other end of the bench. She was drinking coffee from a polystyrene cup, a pram parked beside her. Her back stiffened but she didn’t look round.

  Ellen stood still, frozen. She stared at Frank as if he were a stranger. The young woman set her coffee cup on the ground under the bench and leant over the pram, fiddling with the baby’s blanket.

  She knew in a rush as she watched him, that yes, he was right, she would leave him. Life was leading her somewhere else. She didn’t know why. That was simply how it was.

  The young woman got to her feet and wheeled her baby away along the riverside. Frank’s shoulders tensed as he gathered himself together and sat up straight and she went finally to sit beside him, waiting rather than comforting, as the two of them looked out blankly at the river.

  Chapter 10

  After Ibrahim left to get help, the fighters fastened their fingers tighter round the throat of the village. Jamila watched the changes. Hamid, her brother-in-law, became drawn and silent. He carried guns constantly now, country-made weapons which had once belonged to his father. His eyes were red from lack of sleep.

  Each day, the Uncles and cousins struggled back from the orchards with baskets of fruit: peaches and plums. The women greeted them at the gate, then sat cross-legged on the ground and sorted: some for storing, others for marketing. The men’s faces were bitter. With so few labourers, much of the crop was wasted, they said, rotting on the ground. The best fruit vanished from the branches at night.

  One day, one of the young cousins came running to the compound, breathless, his hair in disarray. He refused to speak until the gates were shut and locked behind him.

  Soldiers were coming, he said. Into the valley. Fighting.

  The women pulled their children up onto their laps.

  Hamid questioned the boy. Who said this? Where was this fighting?

  The boy shook. Fighters had told him, he said. He was running an errand for his father and four men had barred his way. They were rough men with thick beards and guns. They’d jostled and teased him.

  ‘Tell your baba the soldiers are coming,’ one had said. ‘Tell him to get ready to fight.’

  The boy’s lip trembled as his fear came back to him.

  Hamid sat quietly. He had a stick in his hand and was drawing in the dirt at his feet. Hamid was the oldest man in the family and the other men stared down at the squiggles and waited.

  ‘Maybe this is not true,’ he said at last. His voice was tired. ‘Maybe these men are lying.’

  The women looked round at each other with big eyes to see if anyone believed this.

  ‘We’ll wait and see what Allah decides.’ Hamid got to his feet. The women shifted to clear a path for him, back to his own house. He has gone to pray, Jamila thought. This is not a burden he can bear alone. The men stared after him, uncertain.

  That night, Jamila sat at the window for many hours, looking out across the compound. She wondered where Ibrahim was sleeping. If he were taking proper care of himself without her there. If he had enough food to eat. If his hands were healing well. If he’d found anyone in the valley who could help them. The smell of the approaching monsoon was in the air. Another week and it would break. The moon was thin but the stars were clear.

  The men were sleeping, some inside, others lying in ragged heaps on the cots outside. In a corner of the yard, straw rustled with the scrabbling of a shrew or mouse. A shadow passed silently overhead. An owl was hunting.

  She wondered how many other women in the valley were sitting at open windows, smelling the static in the dry air. She thought of her mother and grandmother. They had tended this land, walked these paths, plucked peaches and plums in these orchards. How could they abandon the land? They were born in the valley and buried here and had never once left it. Why would Allah in His Wisdom force them now to leave? She wiped off her face with the edge of her chador and shook her head. It was everything. It was what they were.

  Somewhere out in the village, dogs were howling. An ill omen. It foretold sickness. Or death. Distantly, from somewhere far away on the valley floor, there was a deep, resonant boom. She listened hard. Thunder? It came again. Then a third time. A rhythmical, man-made noise. She drew her chador close and sat quietly, thinking of her family and listening to war creep nearer.

  The next morning, Hamid and the Uncles and cousins set off to the orchards as usual. Jamila made chai and sat at her window, waiting. When the men came rushing back through the gates an hour later, she already knew why. They dropped their baskets. Plums bounced out and rolled uselessly across the dirt. The men shooed their wives inside and snatched up their youngest children.

  Hamid strode into the house and threw open her bedroom door. His face was pale above his da
rk beard. You have prayed for peace, she thought, and a slow slipping into old age. You thought your strong sons would lift the load from you and give you rest. That is not what Allah in His Wisdom is sending you.

  She was trembling inside but she composed herself. Her chador was neatly pleated round her head and shoulders, her back straight and her face serene. ‘So,’ she said, ‘tell me.’

  His breathing was hard and thick. He and his brothers must have run all the way from the orchards. ‘The soldiers are on the road. They’ve already reached the valley floor. We must leave.’

  ‘All of us? The men too?’

  ‘Of course.’ He sounded short-tempered. ‘Pack what you can. Then help the others.’

  He banged the door behind him. She looked around the room. The heavy wooden cupboard was hand-carved, each door embellished with a single curving flower. A wedding gift. She had traced the lines of its petals a thousand times. For more than twenty years, she hadn’t slept anywhere but on this cot in this small room. It had formed a soft skin round her, taking on her shape, her smell. And now she must pack and leave.

  Voices came from the yard. Young wives were rushing to and fro, shouting to the children. She got to her feet and went to open the cupboard doors. If I were a man, she thought, if I had a gun, I would stay. This is our land, our soil. She lifted out a dusty canvas bag. She’d told them from the start. Crush these jihadi boys, make an example of them, before the serpent grows and becomes a monster. But no one had listened and now it was too late.

  Muffled booms of explosions were rising from further down the valley, echoing round the mountainside. She packed a clean cotton salwar kameez and a wool shawl. The battered copy of the Holy Book which her father gifted her when she was a child. A fresh block of soap in its paper.

  She crossed to the opposite room. Layla was stuffing fistfuls of clothes into her school bag. Her mother was hunched on her cot. Marva sat beside her, patting her shoulders.

  ‘You can’t take all that,’ Jamila said.

  Layla’s eyes were hard with anger. ‘What about Baba? If we leave, how will he find us?’