The Water Thief

by Claire Hajaj

  ‘The bar mitzvah,’ Nick said, automatically.

  ‘Yes, this one,’ the doctor said, shaking a fork in JoJo’s direction. ‘It means “son of the law” in the Hebrew tongue. It means a boy of thirteen can no longer hide behind the excuse that he is young. He must account to God for all his actions.’

  JoJo’s eyes were locked on his plate. Nick thought of the impulsive boy he’d first met – who would still run to his mother for comfort, who’d dreamed of driving a Jaguar and designing his own buildings. Growing up kills something inside us. He tried to remember his own adolescence, which began in a haze of grief and guilt. The knife that pierced Madi had killed him, too – or the person he was becoming.

  ‘Happy birthday, JoJo,’ he said. ‘For whenever it is.’ JoJo’s head came up; Nick saw lines hardening across his face, sensed some inner strain, as if powerful forces were wrestling within him. He had a sudden rush of pity – for JoJo, for his own thirteen- year-old self, for all children caught as life’s tide unexpectedly turns, sent surging out on journeys they’d never imagined.

  ‘One of JoJo’s friends has albinism,’ he said, trying to change the subject. ‘Does he get a hard time here or do people accept him?’

  To his relief, the question distracted Dr Ahmed. ‘Sadly, it’s true,’ he said. ‘We are a superstitious people underneath our pieties. A lady hereabouts also has this condition. They call her “witch”. They have called her this for so long that she believes it herself.’

  ‘Binza.’ Nick felt something in the room grow taut as he spoke her name. Margaret’s eyes flickered up to meet his.

  ‘It means witch in our local tongue,’ Dr Ahmed explained. ‘But I knew her before, when she was just a girl in this village, who never played with the rest of us or went to school. Children can be too cruel. Superstition drove her away to the Town, but she did not prosper there either. She married one of the governor’s bodyguards. But later I heard he accused her of witchcraft. He said she had seduced his patron and that their young son was not his blood.’

  ‘Binza had an affair with the governor?’ Nick was astonished.

  ‘These were only rumours.’ Dr Ahmed sounded sad. ‘Albinos are so easily accused and not easily defended. All I know is that she returned here beaten and bloody. The child she’d birthed – he was not with her. I don’t know what happened to him. But from then on she embraced this name: witch. She would not accept any help from me.’ He shook his head. ‘Progress is very slow, painfully slow.’

  ‘This Danjuma seems all for progress,’ Nick said.

  ‘They are all the same as each other,’ Margaret said, as Nagode tried to climb on to the table. ‘None have a drop of goodness in them.’

  She so rarely expressed her opinion on politics that Nick was surprised. She was looking at JoJo, he saw; JoJo just stared at the floor.

  Dr Ahmed spoke slowly. ‘My wife is right. There is no goodness in that man, no more than in the governor he hates so much. Hate is the first sign. Nothing good was ever built from hate.’

  They cleared the table. JoJo went to his room while Margaret washed up, Nagode at her feet. By now Dr Ahmed would usually be in the living room, reading or fiddling with the clock’s mechanism. But today he procrastinated, lingering in the kitchen. When Nick finally headed out to his office, Dr Ahmed followed him onto the porch.

  Generators were churning the hot darkness, a faint glow on the western horizon all that remained of the sunset. Dr Ahmed leaned on the porch’s wooden strut, looking out over empty miles.

  ‘When I was a boy,’ he said, ‘the millet fields were on the other side of the lake. It was much bigger then. We had an irrigation system. White birds would come every season to eat fish from the lake and small shrimp. You would not believe it, but it was quite a nice place.’

  ‘I do believe it,’ Nick said, his voice soft.

  ‘I had good memories.’ The old man sighed. ‘Maybe too good. I returned here because of those memories. I forgot to see what was before my eyes.’

  Nick felt the weight of Dr Ahmed’s weariness, filling the night around them. ‘You dedicated your life to this place,’ he said. ‘That’s a great thing. A good deed to be proud of.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Dr Ahmed looked up, the pale lights of the village reflected in eyes that were suddenly watery. ‘But even good deeds are not immune from consequences. Sometimes they are good for some but not for others. I love my wife, you know.’

  Nick was shocked to stillness. Guilt twisted inside him, sudden and brutal, driving home the scale of his betrayal.

  ‘I love her,’ said Dr Ahmed. ‘And I know that she is unhappy here. Love wishes happiness on the beloved. So how can I say I love her when I know she grieves and I do nothing to comfort her?’

  Nick wrapped his arms around his chest. The urge to unburden his heart had never been stronger. He could do it – confess everything, offer his life and a new start to Margaret and JoJo and Nagode, relieve the pain for all of them. The moment stretched out to fill the formlessness around them.

  Then Dr Ahmed sighed, his hand heavy on Nick’s shoulder.

  ‘You are a good man,’ he said. ‘You have a good heart. But do not make my mistake, I beg you. See what is really here, not what you wish could be here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Dr Ahmed’s arm weighed him down, pressing him into the earth.

  ‘The reasons you are digging this well.’ The aged voice was faltering, schoolteacher English growing uneven and jagged. ‘Maybe they seem good to you. But you are digging into ground that has not been touched for many years.’ His eyes gaped wetly into the failing light. ‘You do not always know what lies beneath.’

  Nick breathed against the racing of his heart, burning with words that he dared not say. See me as I am, he wanted to scream. A liar, a thief. But what did those names matter? Why should he care what he became, if it meant Margaret could be happy? An ache spread from his ribs, like the sharp cut of a blade. He willed it to grow, imagining a knife piercing through bone and muscle into some hidden rot, the poison of guilt draining out.

  ‘I’m not a good man,’ he said. ‘I never have been. But I can still do this one thing.’ A hot wetness was stinging his eyes; he rubbed it away with a fierce swipe of his hand. ‘You won’t have to pay the governor’s blood money for his tankers. Your children will be free from him. They’ll have clean water to drink.’ He rubbed his head with his hands. ‘Your white birds might come back.’

  Nick felt the old man’s fingers pressing through his thin shirt. He experienced a moment of dissonance, present clashing with past. It was his father’s hand on his shoulder, trying to steady himself during the breathlessness in his final stage of heart failure – an accidental connection that seemed to mock them both.

  ‘I do not want to discourage you,’ Dr Ahmed was saying. ‘Even I myself do not know sometimes.’

  Margaret put her head out of the front door, holding Nagode. She paused when she saw them both standing there. ‘There is tea,’ she said, subdued. ‘If you would like it.’

  Her husband looked up at her. Nick did not dare.

  ‘I would,’ Dr Ahmed said, releasing Nick’s shoulder. He bent his head – a half bow, his shoulders laced with tiny night-flies ‘Goodnight,’ he said. ‘Goodnight,’ Nick replied.

  Dr Ahmed eased past his wife and vanished inside. Margaret hesitated. She looked up at Nick; her eyes seemed full of unspoken fears.

  ‘Nagode wishes to say goodnight, too,’ she whispered.

  He walked over and clasped the chubby fist waving over Margaret’s shoulder. Nagode grinned, and for the first time Nick saw JoJo in that frank, astonished smile. ‘Ni,’ she said. Nick leaned in to kiss her forehead, smelling the rich sourness of buttermilk. She gripped his hair and pulled it with cunning tyranny.

  ‘She is perfect,’ he said to Margaret. She smiled, and he saw tension release its silent hold on her. She bent to rest her cheek on her daughter’s head. ‘She is,’ she murmured. ‘She came straight from God. M
aybe He was making His amends to me. Or maybe I have not yet paid for her in full. I do not know.’

  Margaret bit her lip and he brushed the mark with his fingers, forgetting for a moment where they were. Her eyes closed at his touch. After she went inside he stayed for a while, watching the desert sleep, listening as she sang Nagode into a fathomless ocean of dreams.

  Today I am thirteen. A man. Mister will take me and Akim into the desert for our test. Ramadan begins soon, Mister says, and after this the elections. The time for soldiers is almost come.

  Akim and Juma get money on their birthdays, always money. They buy sweets with it and magazines.

  But Baba, he never gave me money. Only books. One was a book called Peter Pan. Some boys lived with their leader in a land of magic. They never grew up. I thought this was the story of Robin Hood, which Mama told Bako and me, but Baba said it was not so. Peter Pan and Robin Hood are very different, Baba said. Peter and his boys love nothing except fighting. They are no better than those they fight. But Robin Hood loves the people of his land. He is not fighting against just one man. He fights for all men.

  When I woke this morning, I saw another book on the floor by my door. I picked it up. It had a thick cover, from leather the same colour as old blood. It smelled like Baba. An old-man smell.

  Inside the cover was Baba’s writing. I read the first line. To Yahya, my beloved first son.

  Then I could not read any more. I closed the book and put it down. I went to look in the mirror. There was my face, the same as the day before. How can you tell that you are a man? Where are the signs? If the outside is the same, can the inside be different? Mister says he can tell, always. The test is the proof, he says. After the test, I will know.

  Our test today is in the desert. We go out past the lake. The water is nearly gone. The sun has eaten it all. At home we drink only a little water each day. We all wash from the same bucket. Mama uses the same water two times to cook the yams and the rice. The yams taste of rice and the rice tastes of yams. All the food tastes the same, and all the faces look the same. When Nagode cries, I think how her tears would taste if I drank them from her face.

  Binza’s place looks empty from here. The red curtains move – but it is the wind. My eyes hurt from the light and the bang cigarettes that we smoked. The light is yellow and brown. It fills the whole sky.

  We come to a place where there used to be a lake. Baba told me that this old lake was once part of our lake, but then it died. Now it is just nothing, not even the ghost of a lake.

  ‘Look,’ Mister says. He points ahead of us.

  I can hear barking. There are brown dogs in the dead lake. They are eating something. A bird. One of them has the wing in its mouth. The feathers are black and grey.

  ‘They are hungry,’ Mister says. ‘They have started their dinner early.’

  Akim, he laughs. He says: ‘A stinking bird for dinner! Good food for a dog, eh?’

  Mister, he comes over to Akim. The sun is falling on him, and his face is white. I know the sun brings him pain. It is the pain that makes him strong.

  ‘You are a dog,’ Mister says. ‘We are all dogs. We all eat this meal every day. We eat worse than this.’

  Akim twists his head away from Mister. He fears him still. Mister knows. He laughs at Akim. He turns to me this time. He says: ‘What about you, boss? Would you like to taste dead bird?’

  I tell him: ‘I won’t eat it.’

  Mister leaves Akim and comes to me. He reaches behind him to show me what he carries in his belt.

  Danjuma’s gun. It is smaller than I remember. The metal is black and thirsty. It drinks the light.

  Mister says, ‘What about it, JoJo? If I tell you to eat, will you eat?’

  I am looking at the gun. I wonder where the bullets are. I wonder how it feels when they go inside you. Does it feel cold? I would like to feel cold, even for one second.

  ‘No,’ I answer him.

  Mister, he raises the gun and points it at me. ‘Eat, JoJo,’ he says.

  Akim starts to laugh again, but Juma hits him.

  I am looking only at the gun. The mouth of the gun is black and deep. It gets bigger and bigger. It goes deep into the earth.

  I am not afraid. I feel my heart beating so fast. But this is from the bang cigarettes. It pushes my fear somewhere else, with the dust and the light.

  ‘Well?’ Mister says. He is not smiling at me now. His hand is white on the gun, but his mouth is black. He is the mouth of the gun and I am the bullet.

  I look at him and I say again: ‘I will not.’

  Mister, he smiles and nods his head. He turns to the other Boys and says: ‘See, this one? He is nearly a soldier.’

  I think of the word that Nicholas used. The Hebrew word. I tell Mister: ‘A son of the law.’

  Juma, he laughs. He says: ‘JoJo the prophet.’

  I don’t look at Juma. I say: ‘It is what the Hebrews say when a boy becomes a man.’

  Mister, he nods. Then he says to me: ‘If you are a man, then prove it.’

  He takes Akim by his shoulder. Akim, he is restless from the bang cigarettes. I see him twitch and move his feet. He wants to be doing something.

  Mister, he says to Akim: ‘Your father thinks he is a big man. But he is just like that bird. The dogs are eating him every day. They will keep eating, until we take their teeth.’

  Akim screws up his face. He wants Mister to say he is brave like me. He shouts: ‘I will kill them! I am a soldier too!’

  Mister, he looks at me. ‘And what about you, boss? Can you catch me a dog? Or are you a boy still?’

  The light is too bright. It fills my mouth, and I cannot speak.

  Mister, he comes and puts his arm on my shoulder. Very quiet, he says to me: ‘There is only one law, JoJo.’

  He shows me Danjuma’s gun, black in his belt. And then he steps back.

  Akim is already running, into the place where the dogs eat. I wait and look around. The wind beats inside my ears, like a drum. The bushes here are sharp. They have needles in them. I bend and take two. They cut my arms as I pull them. I ask Mister for his knife to cut the second one. It feels cold in my hand.

  Now the dogs are running from Akim. Some are small, and fast. But one is bigger than the rest. Her teats sway near the dust, like a monster. Her mouth is open and she snarls at Akim. The bird has dropped from her mouth. I can smell it from here. Sweet, like cola. She smells like death. The smell brings vomit into my mouth. She is like Binza and Mister. She is one of the spirits.

  I give Akim one of the branches and say: ‘Go that way!’ He does not understand me, so I show him. He goes behind the dog. She runs to the side, but I run after her. She runs to the other side, but Akim is there. He shakes his stick at her. It makes a hissing noise, like Binza when she saw Mister.

  The dog tries to run back, but I follow her now. I am running fast around her. I reach out with the stick to hit her, so she will turn her head and snap at me. We are like brothers, fighting. I am Bako and she is me. I push her with the stick and she turns her head to snap at it. I run around her and make her turn until she is dizzy. The sun comes through the dust and we are choking, both of us. I can hear The Boys cheering us. The other dogs are close by. I can hear them calling their sister. They are calling her home, but I have her, and I will not let her leave.

  We go around and around. I swap the sticks from one hand to another. She will get tired soon. I am tired. Even with the bang cigarettes, I am tired. I do not know how to stop her from running. She is still growling and barking, but sometimes she whines.

  Then Akim, he comes, with his stick. He creeps up behind her, while we are chasing each other. He hits her hard, with his stick. He hits at her back legs. She is yellow like the dust, but I see red come where he hits her. She turns to him. She is ready to fight. I can see then that she is brave, even braver than me, braver than Akim or even Mister. She will not give up.

  But she stumbles when she turns. And Akim he comes in with his st
ick. He hits her again and again. And she falls onto the ground. Even now, she fights. She tries to get up. The legs at the back, they do not work. She pulls herself with two legs. She is trying to run away. Go, I want to say to her. Go. But it is too late for going.

  Mister, he comes up to us. Akim is so happy. He is dancing. He holds the stick out to Mister. There is blood on the end.

  ‘Here,’ Akim says. ‘I did it. Did you see?’

  He turns to Juma and the other Boys. He holds the stick in the air and jumps up and down. He shouts: ‘Did you see it?’

  Mister says: ‘I saw it. But it was JoJo’s plan first.’

  I am so tired, I cannot hold my stick. I want to sit down in the dirt, like the dog. I try to breathe, but the air is too thick. I feel water on my face. It is sharp, and it cuts me.

  Mister, he reaches over and takes the stick from me. He looks in my eyes. He says: ‘Now, we must finish it.’

  I know what he will give me. I do not want it. But it comes anyway.

  ‘Take it,’ he says.

  I cannot. I do not want to. Now The Boys are silent. Even Akim, he is silent. They all look at Danjuma’s gun.

  ‘Take it,’ Mister says again. ‘This is how we finish it, JoJo. This is the only way to finish it.’

  I look at her, on the ground. She is still moving. Her eyes are white. Her teats are so long. They are on the ground, in the dirt. Maybe this morning there were babies on them. Now there is only dust.

  I take Danjuma’s gun. It is so heavy, like a rock. Mister, he folds my fingers around it. My first finger is on the trigger. This is the only part I know. I know what happens if I move that finger.

  Then he pulls something back on the gun. And there is a sound, a metal sound. Nothing I ever heard before makes such a sound.

  He lifts my arm until it points at her. Then he moves away from me.

  There is nothing around me now. We are alone, she and me. But I do not think of her or of Mister or of the gun. I think of the book that Baba gave me for my birthday. I wonder what story was inside it.