by Vi Grim
‘You tell us,’ said Sarge. ‘We can guess what happened in the bedroom, but when we broke down the kitchen door you were in a pool of blood, all scratched up and covered with stings.’
Emily didn’t want to say that she tried to kill herself. ‘I got attacked.’
‘We can see that,’ said Sarge. ‘You’re lucky I’m a medic. You nearly died. Don’t move, you’re on a drip.’
She could feel a tube coming out of her arm. ‘Is my fanny okay?’ she asked.
‘It’d be okay. The doctor stitched you up. He says you’ll be as good as new, no lasting damage.’
She thought of Abdullah and shivered. ‘Is he here?’ she asked.
‘He’s away on business, he won’t be back for a while,’ said Sarge.
“But he’s coming back,’ she said, squirming.
I’ll escape out the hole before he finishes off what he started.
Sarge put a firm hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. We’ll look after you.’
‘The shooting,’ asked Emily. ‘Was anyone killed?’
He didn’t answer.
Apart from Sarge, Fazilah and the guard with the shy smile, no one would so much as look at Emily before. Now they chatted away happily as they took turns nursing her.
Minoo was smiley and always wore bright red and yellow. She was close to Fazilah. Emily thought she was her niece; there was enough of an age difference.
Yaya had been big, grumpy and purple. Not anymore, she was still big and always wore purple but with Abdullah was out of the house she was all smiles and laughter. She massaged oil into Emily’s stitches to help them heal without scaring. ‘You want to be smooth and soft down there,’ she said, with a sparkle in her eye.
Jaleela was about twenty-five and pretty. Emily didn’t trust her much, she had a sneaky look about her, but at least now she was nice to her.
Then there was Grace. It must have been wishful thinking when they named her because she had no graces. Emily could be a bit gross at times but Grace took it to another level. She badly needed to read Penelope. She picked her nose and ate it and farted and burped when they were eating dinner. Emily loved Grace’s dresses; she wore bright colours with matching scarf, shoes and big dangly earrings, even her knickers matched. Emily’s favourite was the aqua blue outfit; it was the same colour as the sea in Spain.
They talked about England and the desert. The wives told Emily about their lives and a little bit about Abdullah, or what they knew about him, which wasn’t much because he was such a slippery fish! He tried to seize power from his cousin in Palestine but things turned to custard and there was a price on his head. He escaped across to Egypt then up the Nile to Khartoum. He arrived with a suitcase full of cash, bought the apartment and set up business wheeling and dealing and acting as an agent for the camel trains.
‘Does he have any kids?’ asked Emily.
‘Not likely,’ said Fazilah, looking suddenly sad. ‘He’s firing blanks.’
Emily didn’t know quite what she meant but no kids was not a bad thing in Abdullah’s case. One sex maniac grizzly bear in the house was more than enough!
15.
After a couple of days Emily was up and about again. They wouldn’t let her do any housework so she brought her diary up to date. It was a bit tricky because she didn’t want to remember what happened with the grizzly bear, she wanted the memory to go away like it never happened. She drew the Lock Ness Monster bridge crossing the Nile with the white and blue waters swirling around underneath; Alton Towers with the junk piled up to the first floor and a goat balancing on an old fridge, bleating as pizzas rained down from the sky; Bob, the python stretched across five pages with a goat inside his tummy on page three and the chickens, rats and the three cats all down his tail end. She was going to draw Abdullah inside him but that was just wishful thinking.
She gave Bob a dead rat then while he was sleeping, got close and copied the mosaic patterns of his scales. Turning the page, she drew the missile leaning against the fridge, wrapped up in the grey blanket, crinkly like an elephant’s trunk.
16.
A new guard arrived. He was big and scruffy with wild, untamed hair and a crazed look in his eye. They called him Borneo.
‘Why?’ asked Emily.
‘Because he’s like the Wild Man of Borneo,’ said Egghead.
He was actually a gentle giant. He told dirty jokes that made the guards laugh. Squeezing his smiley bulk into the kitchen, and filling the small room with a spicy cloud of smoke, steam and swear words, he taught Emily to cook Sudanese cuisine.
‘Where’s the other guard,’ asked Emily.
‘He’s not with us anymore,’ said Fazilah.
He was nice.
‘Will we see him again?’
‘No,’ she said, in a very final way.
I hope he’s not dead because of me. He probably is.
Emily checked out Abdullah’s bedroom. They’d picked up the glass but the furniture was all smashed and there were bullet holes in the walls. If she stood in the right spot by the shattered mirror, she had eight eyes like a human spider.
‘Aren’t you going to fix it?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Fazilah. ‘He needs to remember.’
17.
Things were different. Before, the wives fought, trying to outdo each other. Now, apart from the odd little blip, everyone got along. They laughed and joked and all sat around the table having diner together. Everyone helped with the cooking and the wives cleaned up.
The day Emily’s stitches came out, Fazilah said, ‘Let’s have some fun!’
‘Fun?’ said Emily, looking as serious as she could. ‘Surely there’s a law against it!’
‘Yes, fun,’ said Fazilah, pulling up her dress and wobbling her big belly. ‘Belly dancing!’
When she was six, Emily did ballet-dancing. She had just one lesson. Her dad and mum thought she should have the opportunity but it wasn’t for her. When she said that she didn’t like it, her dad waited for her mum to get out of earshot, then whispered in her ear, ‘To do it properly you have to put your hair in a bun so tight that your eyeballs pop out, and stick a turnip up your bum then pretend you’re walking around on hot coals!’
She missed her dad and his wacky humour.
They moved the tables out the way and pushed the sofas up against the walls to make more space. The lights were turned off and they waited expectantly. Eerie Arabic music started one note at a time then drums kicked in, beating out a slow, trance like rhythm.
Click!
A light flicked on, illuminating Fazilah. She was wearing the coolest clothes ever, bright red baggy trousers with a matching bikini top with coins dangling from it and draped around her tummy. With a scarf wrapped tight around her head, and a mask over her mouth, just her eyes showed, bright and snakelike.
At first she stood there motionless, then her hands moved slowly and deliberately, this way and that, like Bob stalking a chicken, then she flicked one hip, then the other and she was away, wobbling her belly and gyrating her hips. She was big, she was magnificent, she had rhythm and, boy she could move!
Everyone looked on in amazement. The apartment became a special place, the only place to be. When she stopped, they all stood up and applauded. She did an encore then the other wives joined in. It was so neat.
‘Would you like to learn?’ asked Fazilah.
‘Do cows eat grass?’
Fazilah looked a bit lost.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Emily. ‘I’d love to!’
Minoo ran into her bedroom and came out with a package wrapped in crinkly plastic and gave it to Emily. ‘You might need this,’ she said. ‘It’s from all of us.’
Emily squished it. It was soft.
She shook it. It jingled.
She knew just what it was!
She tore off the plastic. It was a bright red belly-dancing outfit. She ran to the kitchen and pulled it on. It was a bit baggy but with her growing li
ke wildfire, in another six months it’d fit perfectly.
Fazilah taught her to belly dance, to move with the rhythm, to shake her hips and wobble my tummy. It was fun.
She sewed a little pocket on the inside of her belly dancing outfit to keep her diary safe, and stitched the desert glass on the front, covering her belly button like a jewel then she wore her it all the time, day and night. That way, whatever happened to her, she’d never lose them. She threw her old dress out the rocket hole.
She didn’t want to sleep. The grizzly bear could come back anytime and things would be like hell again. He’d jump on her again and she’d be wishing she’d jumped when she had the chance. She should have bitten just a bit harder; that would have left him with a bit of a limp!
Bastard!
When he did come back, he was on crutches and his arm was in a sling. Emily ran and hid in the kitchen. She wanted to go out on the ledge but that would give her secret away.
He came and found her. She was under the table shaking like a leaf. She peed herself.
He handed her a shopping bag. He didn’t say anything; not ‘hello,’ or ‘how are you,’ or ‘sorry!’
The bag was heavy. Emily could hardly lift it. It was full of books, in English! She guessed it was his way of saying sorry. That was a surprise.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked, curious about the crutches and the sling.
He turned and walked away.
18.
‘Bob, bob, BOB!’ shouted Abdullah. ‘Robert, where are you?’
Sometimes it seemed that Abdullah was more attached to the Python than he was to his wives.
‘Where’s my snake,’ he snapped.
He was best avoided when he was like this.
‘Where’s Bob?!’ he yelled, stomping around the house, opening cupboards and overturning couches.
He turned the TVs off, kicked the stereo and turned all the lights on.
The wives, the guards and Emily looked everywhere, then again just to make sure. Bob had gone. Emily wondered if he’d slithered down the toilet.
Abdullah hit his wives and threw the naked lady at the newsreader. Emily hid in the cupboard under the sink with the pots and pans.
Then the door slammed so hard that it shook the apartment and all was quiet.
Emily was posting bits of the smashed TV out through the rocket hole, watching them spiral down and smash on the junk below when she realised that there was something missing. It was too quiet. No cooing, no George, no Mildred!
Three days worth of crumbs were sitting on the ledge, the breeze chasing them around in circles.
Later, when Abdullah had gone out and everyone else was having a siesta, Emily squirmed out onto the ledge. There was no sign of George or Mildred. She sat on the ledge with her feet dangling over the edge. She liked it out on the ledge; it was fresh and bright and spacious after the stuffy confines of the apartment. Colourful laundry flapped in the breeze far below.
We should dry our laundry like that, not hanging draped over the sofas making everything damp and mouldy.
Emily shuffled her bum along until she reached a drainpipe, then getting up courage, she stood up. There were blood stains on the raw concrete.
My blood.
I should get a brush and scrub it off.
A wasp buzzed by. She hoped they wouldn’t attack her again, once was enough. She found their abandoned nest hanging on the wires. They’d moved out, their empty paper-mâché house looking like a derelict apartment block.
Sorry guys, you saved my life. I hope you’ve found new lodgings!
She knew where George and Mildred were, but where was Bob? She followed the ledge right around the building. No sign of Bob. Where could be have slithered off to? Maybe he fell off; he couldn’t be very streetwise after living in Abdullah’s apartment for years.
Was he sliding through the branches of an arcadia tree when he got caught, sold as a slave to Abdullah?
Maybe he went up the drainpipe. If he hadn’t slipped down a snake to be torn apart by the dogs below, he’d found a ladder and was up on the roof!
19.
‘Sarge, Sarge,’ called Emily, running into the living room. ‘The roof, the roof! Is there a way up to the roof?’
Two minutes later she was standing on his shoulders in the kitchen opening a trapdoor in the ceiling. She pushed it open and a cloud of dust rained down, coating them in orange like Red Indians.
‘Grab the string,’ said Sarge, and lowered Emily gently down to the floor, pulling the ladder down with her.
‘Ladies first,’ he said, bowing.
Emily scampered up with him hot on her heels. They both wanted to find Bob first. Long leggy birds squawked at them then flapped away into the hazy brightness. There were wires running everywhere connecting TV antennas and satellite dishes, most of them rusted and broken and all covered with a thick layer of orange dust. No one had been up here for yonks, except for Bob. He’d left a trail of diagonal slither marks in the dust, just like Emily had seen in the desert. They followed them around the dishes and whirring air-conditioning units until they found him coiled up in the shade. He hissed at them, feebly.
Emily hissed back, then nipped down and grabbed and bowl of water and two frozen rats from the freezer, carrying them by the tails so she didn’t freeze her fingers. He had a long drink of water then ran his tongue suspiciously over the rats, watching Emily and Sarge with unblinking eyes. They needed to catch him but he wouldn’t let them near him, he arched his back and hissed when they got too close. The grizzly could catch him; him and Bob were best mates but he’d never get up here with his leg in plaster.
It was wonderful on the roof. Even in the heat of the afternoon, there was a cool breeze and martins swooped and dived low overhead, flying zigzag through the antennas as they chased invisible bugs. Through the haze Emily could see silhouettes of towers, domes and buildings and there was a glimpse of silver where the Niles met.
I could dry the laundry up here.
Pulling the hose up from the apartment, Emily blasted the dirt and dust off the antennas, while Sarge swung a mop around cleaning everything then chasing the muddy red puddles across to the drain in the corner.
Sarge helped her rig up washing lines using the wires from the old antennas then disappeared down the ladder, arriving back puffing twenty minutes later with a large plastic washtub, bags of bright clothes pegs and two ice blocks.
Yum, yum!
They tore the wrappers off and watched them spiral away in the breeze. Emily’s got the furthest. She watched it until it was a speck of silver, then it was gone, lost in the patchwork roofs of the shantytown. Dangling their feet over the edge, they licked on the frozen juice, turning their tongues mango orange.
The next morning they tied a goat to one of the satellite dishes and watched Bob wrap it in his coils and swallow it whole. Soon it was just a big bump inside him, like he’d swallowed a suitcase. It was horrible but beat watching Arabic soap operas, hands down!
He slid off to the nearest patch of shade and slept. He wouldn’t be giving any trouble for a while.
It was laundry day. Before, Emily washed just one bed a week because the wet sheets took so long to dry in the dark airless apartment. Up here, they would dry in next to no time. She hauled all the bedding up and washed it in her bright red tub. She rolled up the legs of her belly-dancing outfit and stomped up and down until the bubbles were above her knees, then wrung and rinsed, and rinsed and wrung, and pegged them out to dry. By the end of the morning the sheets and pillowcases were all flapping in the breeze and Emily was sunburnt.
Her lily-white skin was now piggy-pink. She retreated to a shady patch and read Harry Potter while the laundry dried. She loved the story; he lived in a cupboard under the stairs and had magic powers he didn’t know about.
I wish I had magic powers; I’d be such an evil witch!
When she emerged from her book, the sun had lost his hard edge and was a shimmering red
ball dropping down behind the domes of the city. She ran around and collected up all the sheets and disappeared back down the ladder, being careful to shut the trap door firmly behind her.
Abdullah was being easy on her; less of a grizzly and more of a koala. He didn’t chase or cuff her anymore and gave her the afternoons off to read her books.
He’s going to sell me soon; I know he is, probably for a discount price!
20.
The Arab buyer is coming.
The wives cleaned Emily up, cut her nails, gave her a scrub behind the ears and brushed her hair until it was like golden silk.
When he arrived, he was a short little man, balding with round glasses balanced on the end of his hooked nose. He wore a silver grey suit and a bright pink bow tie. What an odd person.
He looked Emily up and down without so much as an introduction then opened his book and worked through a checklist of items from the top down: hair colour – natural blond – 10 points; eye colour and size – 10 points; nose –ski slope- 5 points; ears – I’ve never noticed them before, but he likes them – 8 points; teeth – mine are a bit wonky – minus 2 points; skin colour – piggy-pink – 8 points; body form – none - 3 points; boobs - none yet. Mum’s got gorgeous boobs. They sag a bit, that’s my fault! I want ones just like her but I’m not telling him – zero points; arse – no arse – 2 points; legs – stubby – 2 points; ankles – 5 points; toes – cute – 11 out of 10!
It’s like being up for sale at the meat market.
He shone a bright light in her eyes; he tested her pee, looked at her fanny, tapped her knees with a hammer, and then reached the item at the bottom of his list.
Before he could ask her any stupid questions, Emily snarled at him and said, ‘Fuck off!’ as politely as she could.
He put zero next to personality, and added up all the numbers.
‘Four hundred and twenty-six thousand euro,’ he said, polishing his glasses.
Not bad for a can of baked beans!
Abdullah put a copy of The Sun with the million pound headline on the table in front of the buyer.
‘Five hundred thousand,’ said the man. ‘That’s my top dollar. I can get a lot more girl for a lot less money.’