Dreams of Water (6 page)

‘Would you like to come and watch me play?' he asks her. ‘I'm very good.' Then he looks up and smiles at her for the first time.

It is mid-afternoon and Aneesa and Samir are alone together for the first time. They sit in a coffee shop on one side of a long wooden bench, elbows almost touching. Aneesa hangs her head and looks down at her hands encircling a large mug of coffee.

‘Thanks for agreeing to meet me here,' Samir begins. ‘I wanted to talk to you about my father.'

She looks up at him.

‘Salah?'

‘He seems to value your friendship a great deal.'

‘I know.'

Samir clears his throat.

‘You know I brought him away from Beirut just after my mother passed away. Too many memories there for him.'

‘You grew up there too, didn't you?'

‘I left a long time ago. This is where I live now.'

Aneesa nods. She is beginning to lose interest in the conversation.

‘Do you think my father is happy here?' Samir continues.

‘Wouldn't it be better if you asked him that yourself?'

He looks slightly flustered.

‘I just thought you might have discussed it with him,' he says. ‘You seem so close.'

‘We are. He is my best friend here.'

Samir lets out a harsh laugh.

‘A young woman like you? Surely you have plenty of friends of your own generation.'

She shrugs and takes a gulp of the hot coffee. Then she turns her face away, and gazes through the glass shopfront to the busy street beyond.

‘He seems to be growing more and more attached to you. Are you aware of that?'

‘But I feel the same way about him.'

Samir shakes his head.

‘He is an old man, Aneesa. My father is an old man and he has been through so much. He's very vulnerable and I don't want him hurt. Anyway, I'm not sure you really know him.'

She looks intently at Samir and waits for him to continue.

‘Maybe I don't know him too well any more, either. He seems very different from when I was a child. Something has changed and I cannot work out quite what it is. Do you find that strange?'

Aneesa shakes her head.

‘You're looking at him with different eyes, I suppose,' she says gently.

Samir smiles and his face is suddenly smooth and bright.

‘The first time I went back home I visited the old hotel in the mountains that my parents took me to every summer. In the late afternoons, just before dusk, they would come downstairs after their nap to sit on the terrace. It was spacious and cobblestoned and there were large clay pots filled with geraniums between the tables. We'd sip on lemonade for a few minutes and I would clamber down from my chair and walk over to the edge of the terrace to look out at the world.'

He turns away so she can only see his profile.

‘But things had changed,' he continues, shaking his head a little. ‘It wasn't so much the building itself, but the exterior grounds. They had installed a canopy in white and yellow stripes with curtains that opened out on to the view. At first, I couldn't quite work out what was wrong, until I realized, looking out at the setting sun, a brilliant haze of red spreading slowly over the sky, that there was a line of young pine trees in view, just below the edge of the terrace.' He looks at her again. ‘I was very upset,' he laughs. ‘Someone had taken the trouble to plant much-needed trees on the side of the mountain and I was angry because it made everything look different.'

Aneesa sees a small boy in a short-sleeved shirt tucked into starched white trousers. He stands alone, his dark hair combed back off his anxious face, and behind him, a man and woman are silent and waiting too.

She reaches up to place a hand on Samir's arm but he has already shaken off the memory.

‘I'll have to get back to the office now,' he says.

Aneesa draws her hand away and places it in her lap. Samir stands up abruptly so that the remaining coffee in his mug spills over on to the counter. She covers his hand with her own as he tries to reach for a napkin.

‘Don't worry. I'll clean it up. You go on, I'm going to sit here for a bit and finish my coffee.'

She clutches a handful of paper napkins to her chest and watches as he walks away.

Let me tell you about the boy who would be my brother, Salah
.

Ramzi sleeps on the bed closest to the window, where the sunlight comes through to wake him and, in spring, the scent of wildflowers. His clothes go into one half of a cupboard placed between his bed and the bed of the next boy down. The warm jacket Waddad bought him hangs neatly next to the two pairs of trousers he brought with him from home and his new trainers and best shoes are directly underneath on the cupboard floor. Shirts and sweaters go on a shelf and his socks and underwear are in the upper drawer
.

He does not mind sharing the cupboard because it is the first time he has ever had a proper place to put his things in. But his own bed is what he enjoys most about being here: sleeping without younger brothers pulling at the covers or kicking him in the shins so that he was always waking up; and sitting cross-legged on the bed during the day, the covers pulled tight beneath him, his shoes off and his books spread across its smooth surface, a fluffy pillow behind him against which to rest his back
.

The only time his mother has come to visit since she first brought him here, Ramzi showed her around the dormitory, pointing to his made-up bed and the neatly arranged clothes in the cupboard, and waited for her praise. But she only nodded and looked distractedly around her
.

I wish they'd agreed to take one of your brothers as well, she said, shaking her head. They're uncontrollable now that both you and your father are gone
.

Ramzi has felt afraid ever since that she would be back with a younger brother for him to take care of, or that she might even decide to take Ramzi away with her to be the man of the house again, just as he had been when
Father left home. But it's not fear that puts him on his best behaviour; Ramzi knows that these things, eating and sleeping well, school and other children and the sojourns in the orphanage playground, all these are the closest he'll ever get to an ordered life, and that is all he wants
.

Salah, Salah, what my mother does not know is that I came back not to find Bassam but myself
.

Salah is at the door with a large package under one arm. It is his first visit to Aneesa's flat.

‘Come in,' Aneesa says. ‘Come in. I'm sorry everything is such a mess.'

She has been packing and behind her he can see clothes and objects all over the floor and covering all available surfaces.

He steps inside and, before taking off his coat, hands her the package.

‘What is this?'

‘It's for you to take home with you.'

She tears off the brown paper and stares at the painting.

‘This is the one you brought with you from Beirut, isn't it?'

He nods.

‘I can't take it from you, Salah.'

The painting has a narrow gilt frame. Beneath the glass, a wedge of beige cardboard in a rectangular shape surrounds a dark but indistinct figure whose edges trickle into the colours beyond it in bold upwards strokes of yellow, white and light brown. Through the blurriness of it, in the undetermined shapes that surround the figure in the painting, Aneesa sees a circle of wings: two, three
or four, she cannot be sure, but feathery and marvellous nonetheless. She touches the angel through the glass with the tips of her fingers.

Salah reaches for her hand.

‘It would really make me happy if you took this with you, Aneesa. Please.'

‘I'll think of you every time I look at it,' she finally says.

She puts the painting down and takes his coat.

The windows are grimy and grey and the plaid coat she's worn so often on their outings together is thrown on the floor in one corner of the room. Salah bends down, picks it up and looks at it for a moment before laying it neatly against the back of a chair. He looks up at Aneesa.

‘I shall miss you, my dear,' he says quietly. ‘It won't be the same without you here.'

Aneesa begins to cry.

The bird clings to its perch. It is nervous and its feathers, green and white, are ruffled so that its head has sunk deep into its chest. Aneesa lifts the cage gently off the passenger seat next to her to look inside and then puts it down again. The car suddenly lurches forward. The bird begins to fly from one end of the cage to the other, hitting its body against the bars.

‘Shush, little darling,' Aneesa calls out in a singing voice. ‘We'll soon be there. Settle down now.'

She looks at the bird and thinks for a moment that she can see its heart beating in its little chest. Whatever possessed me to do this? she wonders. She remembers her parents giving her and Bassam a pair of green parakeets when they were very young. Neither of the birds had
survived very long. This one is blue. Hopefully it will fare better.

At the orphanage, Aneesa makes her way to the main office and asks to see the directress. She is shown into a bizarrely furnished oblong room with long French windows on one side and a row of green velvet sofas on the other. She places the cage on the floor.

‘Welcome.' A short woman with a bouffant hairstyle and high heels walks into the room and shakes Aneesa's hand. ‘Please sit down.' The woman glances at the cage and then turns her attention back to Aneesa. ‘Your mother is doing wonderful work here, you know,' she says.

‘She gets a great deal of satisfaction from being with the children and I am grateful to you for that,' Aneesa says.

The directress's teeth protrude slightly so that when she smiles, her closed lips stretch outwards as well as to either side of her small face, and her eyes, which are small and brown, narrow into slits. Aneesa feels a sudden affection for the woman.

‘You know, of course, that my mother has taken a special interest in young Ramzi?'

The directress nods but says nothing.

‘It doesn't concern you unduly?' Aneesa continues. ‘He already has a family of his own, doesn't he?'

The directress does not reply immediately.

‘How do you like your coffee?' she asks Aneesa.

‘I'm fine, thank you.'

‘The fact is, Ramzi's family can't take care of him right now,' the directress says. She lifts a hand to the collar of her dress before continuing. ‘Besides, what's wrong with your mother and that child taking comfort in one another's company?'

Aneesa hears the hushed sound of the flutter of wings coming from the cage beside her.

‘But it's just not true,' she protests. ‘What she thinks is simply not true.'

The directress stands up and points to the cage.

‘Is that for Ramzi?' she asks.

Aneesa looks down at the bird. It has moved to the middle of its perch and is looking around with quick, jerking movements of its head. She nods.

I understand Ramzi better now, Salah. He knows he is not alone in this world but there are times when he is suddenly aware of just how long he has been living at the orphanage, sleeping in his narrow bed by the window, the bird in his cage on the ledge, the breathing of other boys so close that he waits to synchronize it with his own, into a rhythm that finally puts him to sleep
.

His mother's visits are infrequent. She has gone away across the border, to the mountain of the Druze where her family is from and has promised Ramzi she will come back for him one day soon. But he has long stopped standing nonchalantly by the orphanage gate on Sundays, waving the other children goodbye and pretending he was waiting for no one. Instead, he spends his day taking care of the bird or exploring the woods that surround the orphanage, stealing away for an hour or two into a copse of trees to lie on his back in the dirt, pine needles pricking him through his clothes, and to watch the movement of blue and grey sky between the branches
.

When the idea comes to him, Ramzi is sitting at breakfast early in the morning. The dining room is full and
noisy, just as he likes it, and he is eating fried eggs and dipping his bread into a mixture of dried thyme, sesame seeds and olive oil. Just as he breaks off a piece of the thin mountain bread, folding it carefully into a cone-like shape to scoop up a piece of egg, Ramzi realizes what he must do. He eats quickly, sneaks out of the dining room and makes his way to the main office. It is too early for the directress to be there, so he asks the secretary if he can make an urgent telephone call. He slips her a piece of paper and she dials the number for him. Ramzi turns his back to the young woman at the desk as he listens to the ring tone. He puts a hand on his heart and feels it beating very fast
.

‘
Who is that?' he asks
.

‘
Ramzi, it's me, Aneesa. Is everything all right
?'

‘
I want to speak to Waddad
.'

I hear disappointment in his voice
.

‘
Can't you tell me about it, Ramzi? Maybe I can help
.'

‘
I … I just wanted to let her know that I've made my decision
.'

‘
What decision
?'

He clears his throat and I tighten my hand around the receiver
.

‘
Just tell her that I will come and live with her. There's no need to wait any longer. I will come and be her son
.'

After all the boxes have been packed and sent away, Aneesa takes her only suitcase out of the cupboard in the hallway and places it on her bed. Inside, there are a couple of empty plastic bags and a small padlock with its keys attached to it. She takes the things out and turns
to her wardrobe, pulling out dresses, trousers and tops, thick jumpers, scarves, shoes and jackets and packing them away until the only things left hanging are the things she will wear on her flight back home. She zips up the suitcase, ties a luggage belt around it and fits the padlock into the two holes at each end of the zip. When she pulls the padlock shut, it makes a tiny clicking sound. She straightens up and takes a deep breath.