The Water Thief

by Claire Hajaj

  ‘Goodnight, Nicholas,’ she said. He thought – hoped – she might say more. Then she was gone, one light touch of her finger on his wrist before she disappeared behind the soft close of her door.

  He stayed at the window, hypnotised by tiredness and the pulsing lights. Margaret’s touch prickled on his skin. Below, the unknown swimmer was being rescued at last, water clinging heavily to her; even as they dragged her to safety, it threatened to pull her back under its glittering surface.

  Margaret’s door was still shut when Nick rose next morning. He hesitated outside it for a moment. His eyes felt hard as stones, legacy of a poor night’s sleep and muddled, guilty dreams.

  A telephone call had broken the news to Kate of his Christmas cancellation, made a week earlier from the hospital site. The connection, usually so precarious, had been brutally clear, magnifying every surprised catch of her breath. He’d described the fire and the riots, the village-council meeting and the governor’s intransigence – a story tailored to Kate’s mind, which liked its reasons served up black or white. Even as he was telling it, it felt like a lie, or maybe a child’s version of the truth. Sins of omission loomed large over his shoulder as he spoke – Margaret and JoJo, Madi and his father, motives too tangled even for him to fathom.

  ‘A well’s the perfect solution,’ he’d told her. ‘But I’d need to build it now, while there’s still room to make savings on the site. As soon as J.P. gives me the green light and things start moving, I promise I’ll come back.’

  Silence filled the line; then he heard her exhale, a weary sound. ‘OK, Nick.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m not sure.’ Her voice cracked, breaking over the speaker. ‘But you’ll do what you want. You always do. You can ask me to understand, but you can’t ask me to be happy about it.’

  ‘This is important, Kate. You haven’t seen how these people are living.’

  ‘I know. I get it. And I’m sorry for that burned girl and for everything that’s happening. I’m proud of what you’re doing, you know that. But our life is important, too. Isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not a competition.’ He tried to be gentle. ‘We’ll still be here, after the well.’

  She sighed. ‘Your mother’s been asking about you, you know. I’ve gone to see her twice. She’s fixated on that drawing she made of you, keeps trying to get me to send it to you.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ She knew his mother was his weakness, a guilty wound that never healed.

  ‘How can it be unfair if it’s true? She really misses you.’ I miss you. She wouldn’t humiliate herself by saying it, not when he’d just cancelled their time together. But he felt something twisting underneath the anger, the unwanted violence of hurt feelings.

  ‘You’ve never been completely settled in London.’ He could almost see the tears cupped in the corners of her eyes, pale lashes barring their escape. ‘I thought you missed the countryside – but it’s more than that.’

  He opened his mouth to deny it, but suddenly wondered why. He could see her on the clean, cool fabric of their sofa, his diamond on her finger. ‘This is not about me – or us,’ he said, at last. ‘It’s a small sacrifice for something bigger. Don’t you ever want to feel part of something good – to take a stand for someone else, balance the scales a little?’

  ‘Oh, Nick,’ she’d said. ‘Who doesn’t, sometimes? But not at any price.’

  They’d hung up shortly afterwards. ‘Good luck with it,’ were her final words, artificially bright. But in last night’s dreams she’d come at him, weeping, raking his face with curling fingers and filling it with blood. He cried out to stop her, grabbing her wrists as they turned dark, luminescent. They clung onto him, and he was drawn in, his terror turning to need.

  He left without knocking on Margaret’s door, heading downstairs to the pool restaurant. The air was damp from new rain. Dark birds roosted on the roof, under a wispy sky.

  J.P. was waiting for him with a coffee and The Economist. ‘Morning,’ he said. He wore his reading glasses, sunglasses pushed up over his forehead. ‘Sleep well? You look terrible.’

  ‘Not bad,’ Nick lied.

  J.P. snorted his disbelief. ‘Is there something I should know?’ He jerked his head up towards the bedrooms.

  Nick flushed, furious. ‘You have a filthy mind, J.P..’

  ‘Look, I would never blame you.’ J.P. sipped his coffee, made a rapturous expression. ‘She is magnificent. Not just the looks, which are enough, mind you. She has something else, really. Un oiseau volant. What a waste, to be stuck out there in the desert, cooking and cleaning for an old guy! Nothing against Dr Ahmed, but – well, there’s no justice in this world.’

  There’s no justice in this world. Margaret would disagree, Nick knew. All that comes to us is earned.

  ‘If you’re really interested in justice for Margaret,’ he said, ‘then listen to some ideas I have about our work there.’

  A waiter brought more coffee and some bread rolls. ‘God help us,’ J.P. said. ‘You are Mr Ideas.’

  ‘I thought that was a good thing?’

  J.P. put his hands to the sides of his head, palms flapping. ‘OK. I am all ears, as you British say. Oh, but first . . .’ He reached into a backpack by his feet, pulling out an envelope marked with nameless stains.

  ‘This is tranche number two. Thirty thousand dollars. For wages on-site and construction materials.’

  ‘Right.’ The notes lay heavy in Nick’s hand, slick with an oily sheen.

  ‘So, lots going on, eh?’ J.P. continued. ‘All on schedule?’

  ‘The first floor should be done by next month.’

  ‘That would be great.’ J.P. sipped his coffee. ‘So I’ll tell the governor end of January for the inspection.’

  ‘What inspection?’

  ‘No big deal. He wants to bring some of his guys, you know, the powers-that-be. A photo opportunity, he said, for the papers.’

  Nick had a mental image of silk-clad men lined up on his site, faces pampered and plump, while scarecrow workers choked on dust behind them.

  ‘We don’t have time for inspections,’ he said. ‘And we can’t guarantee to be ready by end of January. Put him off.’

  J.P. snorted. ‘Put him off – you’re kidding, right? These things are important for him and important for us, too. It’s just thirty minutes out of your day. Why make a fuss?’

  Nick spread his hands, unsure of how much to say. ‘I just don’t trust him. He’s using us, this clinic – for some agenda of his own. For his people, his soldiers and whoever supports him.’

  J.P. tapped the desk, nodding slowly. ‘That’s too simplistic, even for you. You don’t like the governor – fine. I told you he was a piece of work. Did he show you his degree from Brown?’

  ‘He showed me his degree, he showed me his empty hospital beds, he showed me everything he wanted me to see.’ Nick grew angry, remembering Dr Ahmed crumpling under the onslaught of words.

  ‘I never said he was a good man. They only exist in fairy tales. But he knows how to make things work. Which is a kind of goodness, frankly. The kind that money cannot buy and religions don’t teach.’

  Nick put the envelope down beside him. He could feel the weight of the notes, lumped together into blocks.

  He pushed the cash towards J.P.. ‘In the village just down the road from where we’re spending thousands on a PR stunt, crops are burning and water is running out. They wait for his trucks to arrive and pay money they can’t afford. Margaret – who you were enjoying fruit cocktails with last night – has to get by on a quarter of a tank a week. Her son collects water from the lake for their washing. The same lake that spread an epidemic in the village a few years back. Her baby boy died. So, tell me again about how there’s no justice in the world.’

  Nick’s heart was pounding; the resident crows shrieked and leaped suddenly skywards, woken by the warming sun. J.P. took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. Without them he looked vulnerabl
e: a child’s blue orbs nestled in a man’s lined face.

  ‘Nick, look. I’ve known these people longer than you. I remember the epidemic, don’t think I will ever forget.’

  ‘So.’ Nick tapped the envelope. ‘A few thousand dollars could balance the scales. They’re walking around on top of water they can’t reach. It’s not even the water . . .’ He was desperate now, looking for a way to explain. ‘It’s him. It’s the way he keeps them dangling in a noose.’

  J.P. cleaned his glasses and put them away in his shirt pocket. He pulled his sunglasses down from his forehead, turning his eyes opaque.

  ‘I agree, something more could be done,’ he said. ‘But let me be very clear with you. You are not in the Wild West – the Lone Ranger. You are part of something that involves many people who also have rights and expectations. Just because you do not eat dinner with them every night does not make them less important. We have committed to a project.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘No but.’ J.P. raised his hand. ‘We have committed ourselves to something that requires finishing. If you want to be a man of honour, then keeping your word is the first place to start.’

  I did give my word – to Margaret and JoJo. I promised I wouldn’t abandon them. It was a bond as real as the cement and mortar of their castle, as real as Margaret’s touch on his hand last night, as real as JoJo’s new-found faith in his future. Guilt pricked Nick, remembering how easily their conversations had slipped from when I go back to England into when we go back.

  ‘We could do both,’ he insisted. ‘We could finish the hospital and build a well with the money we’re saving.’

  ‘Any money saved must be returned so we can agree with the governor how to spend it in his region. I promise, I will even come myself and bring an army of experts.’

  ‘It’s not good enough, J.P..’ Nick stood up, furious. ‘We need to act now, not later. During the dry season.’

  J.P. sighed. ‘Listen to a wise head. Be upset if it makes you feel like a good guy. But accept: you are just one small corner in a big world of trouble.’

  Nick felt the cold prickle of sweat on his skin, an ugly premonition of failure.

  ‘They’re our friends,’ he said, in a last appeal against the dawning realisation that J.P. might not be persuaded. ‘If we don’t stand up for them, then who will?’

  J.P. got to his feet too, signalling for the bill. ‘If they are all like your lady,’ he said, ‘then I think they could well stand up for themselves.’

  Margaret met Nick at noon in the lobby of the hotel. She broke into the storm of his thoughts like a bird of paradise, brilliantly wrapped in a sky blue skirt patterned with crimson flowers. The white cotton of her blouse scooped low around her neck, baring dark shoulders, tiny filaments of light gleaming on them in the lobby’s chill. She’d taken off Bako’s bracelet, her wrist strangely bare without it.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said.

  Her smile was nervous. She smoothed back newly braided hair and plucked at the skirt as it rustled. ‘I wore this for Sarah’s school graduation,’ she said. ‘It was my mother’s. I preferred Western clothes. But Sarah is more traditional.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be thrilled,’ he assured her, holding out his hand. Margaret laid hers in his and squeezed it tight.

  The taxi drove them through the city’s chaos, following Margaret’s halting directions. On her lap she clutched a bag of gifts, an anxious frown on her face whenever she looked at them. Most were handmade or looted from old family treasures. JoJo had written a note to his uncle, including a careful drawing of a house under Nick’s guidance. On the bottom it read: Our family home where we will be pleased if you visit us. Dr Ahmed had sent his own, more eloquent letter and an expensive memento from his youth – a porcelain statuette of Mary and Child, bought years before at Portobello Market.

  Margaret had struggled the longest to find a gift she deemed worthy. But then she’d remembered a gold cross Dr Ahmed had given her on their wedding day, hidden in a cupboard for thirteen years away from Imam Abdi’s sceptical eyes. She’d told Nick how, on the morning of her conversion to Islam, before reciting the Shahada, the testament of faith, her husband-to-be had placed it quietly in her hand. ‘For solace,’ she’d said, running a thumb thoughtfully over its spiny arms. Dr Ahmed gave her permission to sell the cross at the capital’s central gold market, converting it into something new for Sarah’s neck.

  The gold merchant smelled of sweat; his stones glimmered with suspicious brilliance. Margaret was instantly entranced by a bird-shaped charm, its eyes bright with tiny rubies. She held it against the dark glow of her skin, admiring how the wings shone in the unforgiving neon light.

  ‘This is Sarah’s style,’ she whispered to Nick. ‘She loved birds, I think. I’m sure she did.’ Nick murmured his agreement, watching the gold wings dip and soar over the hollows of her throat. Un oiseau volant, he thought.

  The bird was wrapped in cream paper, the cross relinquished. Margaret’s delight was transfixing as she took hold of Sarah’s gift. ‘She will love it,’ she told Nick again, her body electric with emotion. She was laughing as they climbed into the taxi, slipping the gift into the bag. Nick caught a glimpse of bound yellow paper nestled among the offerings – her storybook, a red flower crayoned on the corner.

  They headed away from the city centre. Tall office blocks gave way to low villas with pink- and peach-painted stonework. Flowering vines tumbled over the walls, voluptuous as open mouths.

  Finally, Margaret leaned forward. ‘Please, stop here.’

  The car rolled to a halt outside a white bungalow. Its paved courtyard was bare, grass pushing through the cracks. A small fountain lay silent at its centre, a winged angel pointing skywards.

  The front gate was wedged shut. But Margaret slipped her hand under the trellised ironwork and Nick heard a sharp click as the lock gave way. ‘There’s a trick to it,’ she said. Her shoulders rose in a deep inhalation – and she stepped through.

  Nick stood behind the open gate, letting her walk ahead. The front door was brown and solid-looking, thick as the walls. She glanced back towards him for reassurance. ‘Go on,’ he urged.

  Margaret knocked on the door with the flat of her hand. After a few seconds a woman’s voice answered, muffled behind the wood.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘It’s me,’ she called back, pressing her mouth to the door. ‘Me. Margaret.’

  The voice said something indistinguishable. Then the door swung open, stopping halfway.

  A young woman peered from the gap: tall as Margaret, with the same haughty curve of cheek and forehead. Her face was larger, fuller, its skin smooth as new-baked bread. The tops of her breasts swelled over her blouse, hair fanning out behind her in a soft, dark cloud.

  ‘Oh my God.’ The woman put her hand to her mouth. ‘My God. Margaret!’

  ‘Sarah.’ Margaret was laughing, hands held to her chest as if her heart might burst out. ‘Sarah.’

  Sarah looked from Nick back to Margaret, the turn of her head echoing Margaret’s wild grace.

  ‘You returned,’ she whispered. And then she burst into tears, pushing through the door and falling onto her sister’s shoulder.

  Margaret stroked Sarah’s hair. Her eyes were closed, but Nick saw tears staining her cheeks. ‘Forgive me.’ Her voice was hoarse in her throat. ‘I never meant to be so long.’

  Sarah disentangled herself, her face red and swollen. Pale marks shone on Margaret’s arms where her sister’s fingers had gripped them. Sarah wiped her running nose on her wrist. Margaret lifted a corner of her skirt to dry her sister’s eyes.

  ‘Still not a real lady,’ she said, in a shaky voice. ‘Always without a handkerchief.’

  The same laugh burst from both of them. But it flickered out quickly in Sarah; she reached over to Margaret with the haste of fear. ‘Margaret,’ she whispered again, running her hands over her sister’s forearms, fingers clenching flesh, ‘you are not a ghost.’


  ‘No.’ Margaret grabbed Sarah’s hands, holding them to her throat. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Why did you not write to me?’ Sarah’s chest was heaving with agitation, her voice catching on the words. ‘I thought you had died.’ As she spoke, she craned her head over Nick’s shoulder, checking the road outside.

  ‘I wrote,’ Margaret said, and Nick thought of her desperate, unsent message. ‘But I could not post the letters. I swear I missed you every day. I call my daughter by your name in my heart.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ Sarah put her hand on Margaret’s stomach. ‘Meg, you have a girl.’

  Margaret put her hands on top of Sarah’s. ‘I have a girl,’ she laughed. ‘She looks like Mama.’

  Wiping her eyes, she smiled at her sister. ‘And now we can be healed,’ she said. ‘I will make amends to David. We can visit our mother together.’

  At David’s name, Sarah stepped away from Margaret’s hands. She clung to the doorframe, her eyes downcast.

  ‘He was so angry with you, Meg,’ she said, her voice low and suddenly accusing. ‘He forbade me to study. He said all you learned at school was how to be a whore.’

  Margaret tried to touch Sarah’s face again. But this time the girl jerked away. ‘You don’t know, Margaret. I stayed here with nothing, without even a man to marry me. You didn’t even tell me goodbye.’

  Margaret drew herself up, her head high. ‘I did not want you to stop me,’ she said. ‘I was too angry with David. He lied, Sarah, about so many things. And I thought . . .’ She bit her lip, dropping her eyes. ‘I thought that you could still be happy without me.’

  Sarah looked at her, incredulous. ‘How could you think so? You were like my mother.’

  The door remained half-open, Sarah’s tall frame blocking the entrance. Margaret reached out to touch her sister’s round cheeks, tears gathering around her fingers.

  ‘I’m thirsty, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Let’s go inside and drink while we wait for David.’

  Sarah raised her own hand to her face, laying it over Margaret’s. For a moment they were both still, a tableau of peace.