Dreams of Water Read Free Page B

beyond the central reservation where flowery shrubs lie almost flush against the deep, dark earth, she sees a number of high-rise buildings that had not been there before she left.
    Along the water’s edge, fishermen stand in their plastic slippers on rocks covered in seaweed, their lines rising and falling with the movement of the sea. How many fish do they have to catch to make the effort worthwhile, Aneesa wonders?
    A man on crutches walks up to her and stops to extend a box filled with coloured packets of chewing gum. She gives him some money and moves on. The poor have always been here. That is familiar, as is the smell of the sea, a murky, damp smell that is welcome after all the years away.
    She reaches the end of the Corniche where the pavement becomes wider and curves around a bend in the road, and stops for a moment to watch as men make their way into a mosque across the street. They pass through a small gate, take their shoes off and enter at the front door to perform the noon prayer. Up ahead, between where she is standing and the buildings diagonally opposite, there is a wide two-way avenue crowded with beeping cars and pedestrians with umbrellas over their heads. Some of the trees planted in the central strip are high enough so thatshe cannot see through to the other side, but she can hear everything, life and her own heart, humming together.
    These are the hours of her undoing, long and sleepless, solitary. She shades her eyes and reaches for the bedside lamp. When she lifts herself off the bed, her body shadowing the dim light, she lets out a sigh and shakes her head. Her dreams, gathering all her fears together in one great deluge until there seems to be no means of overcoming them, were once again of water, the images behind her eyes thick and overwhelming, her pulse quickening and then suddenly stopping in the base of her throat.
    She tiptoes into the living room in bare feet, switches on the overhead light and stands still for a moment.
    â€˜Aneesa,’ Waddad calls out from her bedroom. ‘Are you all right?’
    â€˜I’m fine, mama . Go back to sleep now.’
    Her mother coughs into the night.
    â€˜Don’t stay up too late then, dear.’
    Aneesa steps out on to the balcony. Beirut in early autumn: the nights are getting cooler though the air remains humid. She wraps her arms around her body and looks down on to the street where there is absolute quiet. She feels a sudden longing for permanence and certainty, for the hardiness she has seen in large oak trees in the West, unwavering and placid too. For a moment, as a breeze comes in from the sea, she wishes she could fly back with it to anywhere but here.
    Months after her return, she is still unused to the feeling of always being in familiar places, indoors and out, as if enveloped in something almost transparent thatmoves with her, a constant companion. These streets, she thinks when she wanders through them, are a part of me, how familiar are the smells that emanate from them, fragrant and sour, the sun that shines or does not on their pavements, and when the rain falls I, umbrella in hand, mince my way through the water, through the cold.
    The first letter arrived not long after Bassam’s car was found abandoned and empty in a car park not far from the airport. My mother saw the white envelope addressed to her on the doorstep when she opened the front door to put out the rubbish. She brought the envelope inside, and sat down heavily on her favourite kitchen chair before handing it to me. Open it, she said .
    I tore open the envelope with trembling hands, pulled the letter out and began to read .
    â€˜ My darling mother. I cannot imagine how difficult it has been for you and Aneesa these past few weeks and I am sorry for it .’
    I looked up at my mother and she nodded for me to continue .
    I have already begun negotiating with my captors for my release. It’s a long process, mama, so it might be a while before I