SAIRA walked up ahead, the soles of her scuffed shoes kicking up the dust which layered the newly set concourse. Her new husband followed silently behind. Behind them Zarius laboured with a bundle of blankets on his shoulder, clothes for the wedding bed. The night sky was tinged green by the construction lights. The glare was so strong it hid the stars, which could be seen so clearly a few miles away in Sanaam.
Skeletons of new buildings towered over the waterside. It was difficult to tell whether the crane-topped structures were still waiting to come to life, longing for fabric that would make them real, or had stood fossilised, slowly decaying, for years. The clicks and whistles of countless unseen creatures clouded the night air.
Khalid had refused to give his blessing to the union. His warning still lingered in Jack’s ears. It would be almost certain suicide, he’d been warned. How could he agree to such a union after what had happened to his daughter’s previous husbands? However, grudgingly, after several long conversations with Zarius, the proprietor was present at the short ceremony in the workroom of his house. Since the wedding had primarily medical goals, there was no reason to delay. Jack was unclear about the exact words spoken; he nodded throughout and repeated the phrases he’d been taught. In contrast, Asif was delighted and insisted on singing the traditional chants.
They had already walked for an hour to the roller tube entrance. Somewhere far away, Zarius had insisted. The sickness wouldn’t come until they lay down to sleep. The hundreds of thousands who lived in Sanaam were dispersed far, working on projects around the city. The men and boys who played cricket worked on new hotels, apartments and entertainment centres. Between them they knew of hectares of unoccupied space. Jack felt the glass jar bounce awkwardly against his hip. He remembered its contents and what he was to do before the night was over.
They neared the tallest building on the palm-lined strip. In the distance was a fairground, long since emptied. Faraway loudspeakers played a strained electronic tune, haunting synthesised pipes echoed over the water. Up close and bathed in green glow, the half-finished cylinder with its unglazed windows looked even more distant and removed. Jack felt that he was someplace else, exploring the remains of a cold and distant civilisation, which like this concrete honeycomb was once mighty but now slowly decaying.
As his friends had described, the padlocked gates were dauntingly heavy. But the fence dipped over a gully creating a gap, one substantial enough for the trio to crawl underneath. Edging towards the honeycomb tower, he caught a glimpse of the deep pit, the foundations for an adjacent office which would perhaps be his burial ground. If you marry this woman, you will be dead tomorrow morning. But don’t worry we will give you honours, there is no shame to be buried in this fashion. In our religion, sooner is better. Standing at the edge of the opening, Jack shuddered. In a few hours, would what was left of him be lowered into that hole and sealed there forever.
Inside the yard, metal beams were scattered like straw. Distorted air danced over a still smouldering tank of tar. The acrid tang of bitumen was everywhere. Mounting the scaffold stairs, Jack took the lead with Saira now following behind. He reached the first platform and glanced down. His friend was still standing in the yard. The pair exchanged a glance. A cold chill crawled in his stomach. Zarius strained a smile but he too looked pale and fragile in the neon glare. Whatever was to happen, Jack and Saira were now on their own.
The fourth floor was unoccupied, simply a cold, concrete shell. It was here they would spend their first night as man and wife. Alone together, Jack was suddenly struck by a different fear. Here were they technically, if not in any other way, man and wife. He was very aware of the distance between the two of them in this huge space and he could tell that she too was conscious of his presence. Jack wanted to say a kind word or squeezing her hand, but this would be misinterpreted.
She threw the blankets over the cold concrete and lay down fully clothed, her back towards him. In silence he lay next to her. The walls and windows were unfinished and through the gaps opposing buildings were highlighted in the neon glare. The stench of the bitumen mixed with other chemical tangs.
He could feel Saira’s chest heaving in tight, controlled sobs. And yet there was nothing to be said. What would death feel like? Where will I go? What would it like for her to wake up again next to a lifeless body? He thought about Strang, his father Brown, whose name he still shared if not his blood, and his mother in a childhood distantly remembered thanks to the miracle of Nectar. All three, in his imagination, were marooned on an island, fighting sharks, being chased by dogs, mired by all manner of dangers. Perhaps the men were already dead - his mother was beyond this world - and soon Jack would join them.
As his eyes grew heavier, he realised there was something he had forgotten. Was it too late? Hastily, he sat and grappled with his jacket in the darkness until his fingers clasped the glass bottle. The organ had been stewed and strained by Zarius on Asif’s stove, producing a fiery red fluid with the consistency of runny, plum jam. In one swig, Jack downed the draft – bracing himself, but grimacing anyway at its septic fire. Keep it down, he had been told. No matter how bad it tastes, you must not be sick or it will give you no advantage. Saira was now lying still. Jack felt his head grow numb. He slept.
Dark, damp but warm, wherever he was, it felt comfortable. He was walking. It was somewhere familiar; an old school, perhaps? Maybe the one in America, where the new boys had to clean the toilets. His thoughts skipped back the sunlit room and the later stages of that chess match. The King’s Indian Attack. He had not known the stratagem at the time, but had known of the name afterwards. His pawn to g3, while black responded on the same rank g6. There had been bad news. Someone had disappeared. Someone important.
He was at the edge of a swimming pool. The pale tiles stretched out forever in each direction. Round and round, he circled the glass-still water. A women’s voice called out. It was light, musical, and deliciously familiar. She was calling his name.
Slowly he followed her voice as it travelled around each corner of the pool. Finally the sound appeared to rest on its surface, coming from deep below. He could not tell how deep the depths were. The might only be inches deep or it could be miles. There was no way of knowing. He increased his pace, walking faster and faster, now just inches away from the water.
Something at the back of his mind, some involuntary voice, was urging him to go closer and closer, bending his centre of gravity closer to the water, forcing his footsteps to veer closer to the precipice… trying to find the women and her familiar sound.
Now, in his favourite dark dressing gown, as he was staring at his reflection in the bath mirror. Had he been here once? It was so familiar; perhaps he had even had this dream before. The face in the mirror began to twitch and smirk in tiny rapid movements. Slowly his mouth, eyes and cheeks began to contract and bend. He could not control the hideous grimaces but somehow was not afraid. It was as though the muscles were taking their commands from a different brain. This feeling was familiar, it has happened before.
Now he was speaking to himself in a way he did not understand. The words were too fast and made references to things he had never read, ideas he’d never encountered. The contorted face in the mirror was now hideously ugly, almost unrecognisable. It was a stranger’s face, with only the slightest resemblance to someone he once knew.
The face was so contorted, so pathetic-looking, it filled him with disgust. He could feel his chest begin to tighten. It would be best to put this person out of their misery. And yet… and yet…. The contorted grey mouth in the mirror – full of fear and anguish – struggled to speak. Lips and jaw moved in slow spasms.
“L-l-l-eave m-m-mee…”
But Jack felt himself laughing uncontrollably, even though he knew it was himself that he was mocking and the weight on his chest grew heavier. “Is that the best you can do?” he roared back.
There was
nothing in his heart but disgust. He wanted to torment the creature in the mirror. If this weak fool was his true self, it deserved to be crushed and mocked, deserved for his body to be possessed and mind totally erased.
The figure in the mirror, its features more agitated and anguished than Jack had ever imagined himself. It sobbed: “Zarius! Zarius! Please… please.”
And as it cried, its voice became his own and the metal band which had been constraining his chest was removed.
The other voice spoke but this time it came not from the mirror, but from deep within the ground, shaking his entire body. “You will never have her – she cannot be twice-wed.”
Jack gasped for breath, sobbing in deep guttural bursts of oxygen. His eyes were wide open. The dark sky was lightening; the green neon glare of the building site had softened. Saira was beside him. Her breathing deep and regular.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO