Fava Beans For Breakfast Read online

  ‘They eat meat from your dog?’

  ‘If the meat is small enough they will.’

  Nayeema and Joan both looked up at the tree but the bird had flown away.

  It was the longest conversation they had ever had. ‘Well, I’d best get on with it,’ Joan said, picking up a bucket beside her feet that was half filled with weeds.

  ‘Bye-bye,’ said Nayeema, reluctantly. She turned to face the house, her home. She took in the grevilleas, the melaleucas, the enormous neglected yard, the red brick of the house, the shaded verandah, and let out a deep sigh, the ache of absence finding a way back inside, as she walked back towards the house.

  On the breakfast table, she found yesterday’s newspaper, strategically opened to a page that Fawzy hoped she might study. El professeur was encouraging her to spend the day improving her English. He had circled and underlined some words: to, in, at, from. Prepositions. Her body temperature rose. To the hell with Fawzy’s precise English.

  She tugged at her ears, flicked them, clicked them, and massaged them from top to bottom until she felt a little better. This village-town could go to the hell. No way were they staying here for two years. She had to find a way out.

  She grabbed her beach bag and umbrella and left Hungerford Place as quickly as she could. There was a walking track at the end of the street that led directly to the beach. Her sandals squelched against the sand and dirt. The air was heavy with salt and damp earth and something gone rotten.

  Through the slender channel of filtered light, low scrubby heath met unexpectedly with overhanging branches before the heath thinned out to an expanse of de-vegetated dunes at the shoulder of the beach. It reminded her of walking down a long and narrow street in Alexandria, made cool and dim from the buildings on both sides, before it opened to a piazza that blazed with sunlight.

  For the past week, she had swum at the beach every morning. As a child, her father regularly took her swimming. His strokes were long and graceful and sliced through the water effortlessly. He forced her into playing cat and mouse chasing games in the water but it was always Nayeema who did the chasing. Even with his face in the water, he seemed to be laughing and she’d feel the sea shaking with him. She would never play those games with her own children; there would be no games at all. No games. No children.

  Babies were not part of the deal. She’d made that choice when she chose Fawzy but, like a fool, she still secretly yearned. Like a fool, she reacted badly to conversations about her childless condition. ‘A young woman with a young husband should have her first child, quickly,’ her neighbour Nadya from the Paprika Triangle had declared one morning at the Hill’s Hoist, with a peg between her lips. Nadya lived two floors above. Her voice resembled a braying donkey. Nadya, with her sagging breasts and her brood of six girls, knew nothing of Nayeema’s yearning. It had taken Nayeema two months before she could speak to the miserable old hag, and even now, she hoped that Nadya’s annual campaign to produce a boy would fail, year after year, until her womb was shrivelled like a dried-out tomato.

  Nayeema dumped her bag heavily onto the sand, reefed off her cotton dress and threw it over her shoulder carelessly, without caring to see where it landed. The sand was warm under her bare feet. In a couple of hours it would be impossible to stand still without shoes for more than a few seconds. She tied back her hair quickly and fumbled for her goggles.

  A couple of young men were surfing. A few kids had skipped school and were stripped down to their underwear, their school uniforms and bags in a messy pile on the sand. Someone was fishing off the rocks. A few beach towels were lying about and a few heads bobbed in the water.

  This beach was entirely different to the beaches she had known in Alexandria. Along the Corniche in Alexandria, where the city met the Mediterranean, the strip of sand was narrower and teemed with people, though they were more likely to be eating roasted corn or almonds from a nearby cart than swimming. At Burraboo beach, strong currents churned the sand and made the water opaque. At first, she was afraid to swim past the breakers. Big waves crashed over her whether or not she was ready.

  She walked quickly towards the water’s edge and kicked away an empty plastic bottle that was curiously attached to a hose. White foamy water gathered around her ankles. She lunged below a wave as it was breaking and after it passed over her she rose to the surface. Salt water trickled from her nostrils into the back of her throat. Adjusting her goggles, she pointed her body away from the beach and began swimming, away from Fawzy and from Burraboo.

  Her arms pounded the water with long, forceful strokes. She remembered how, as children, she and Fawzy were always thrown together at her family’s languorous lunches. He was often invited to eat with them, especially on Fridays. He and his mother lived in the apartment below Nayeema’s. He had no father. He had no brothers or sisters. His mother spent all her days working in a cotton factory. ‘You must always be kind to the poor,’ Soraya had insisted to her children.

  Nayeema grunted her sorrow about her marriage aloud. The sound of her ugly squawking was fortifying. Each stroke, each bellow restored her. She whooshed and shouted until she was hoarse. Her arms ached but she continued to swim, stroke after stroke until there was only breath and the sound of her own straining.

  She stopped swimming when she noticed that her goggles were full of water. The sun was higher and the sky was beginning to be bleached of its colour. A quick look back to the strip of white beach told her she had swum further than ever before. Panting, she rolled onto her back and, with her legs spread out, she felt herself being gently pulled further away from the shore.

  The sun was sharp against her forehead and probed through the thin skin of her eyelids. She blinked back tears. Her situation with Fawzy felt, at times, hopeless. She loved him, dearly. If he needed her, she would not let him down; if he were criticised, she would leap to his defence. He had rescued her and she was suffused with gratitude. She simply wasn’t in love with him. With a sigh, she put her goggles back on. She had to swim back to the beach.

  Every movement was now a strain. The taut muscles in her arms wished to be limp. Her lips were swollen with salt and her swimsuit rose and twisted up her buttocks. She was forced to stop every few minutes to clear the water from her goggles, panting and huffing and treading with her legs. A wave carried her to within ten metres of the shore. Her mouth found air. The heat of the sun found the top of her head. Just one more final push and she would be back on solid ground. As Nayeema swam feebly towards the shore, the shimmering sand her prize, she heard a hoarse bellow.

  There was urgency in the sound. She turned with alarm. Tom Grieves had told her all about the sharks that roamed in these waters. He recounted these shark tales with so much pleasure that she could never tell whether or not he was serious. She heard the desperate cry again. She glimpsed the flailing arms of a bald man. She watched his head sink below the wave, his arms jerky with panic.

  Instinctively, she moved towards his thrashing form. He is not being eaten by a shark, Nayeema told herself. Bald man was more likely to be having a heart attack than a shark attack. Not so bad. Not as bad as a shark attack.

  Nayeema lunged towards the old man with long strokes. She found strength when she thought she had none. He was babbling incoherently and drinking in the ocean. His legs thrashed wildly. Nayeema offered her arm to support him. He whipped a hand around her neck. He tugged at her hair. He gurgled and thrashed with wild eyes. She saw in his ravaged old face what fear and rage looked like, how it twisted his mouth into a hideous open gash.

  ‘Help me,’ he spluttered.

  ‘Keep still,’ she shouted, but his jerky hands reached for her head. With the weight of his body, he pushed her down. Water filled her mouth and nose. Panicked, she kicked hard to the surface and rose coughing. ‘Stop,’ she screamed. His hands and arms grasped at her chest and waist, not knowing any modesty.

  ‘Stop,’ she screamed again. Yet his fingers gripped her arms. Thin splinters of red bulged over his swol
len eyes. ‘Calm down,’ spluttered Nayeema, as she escaped from his grasp.

  The old man wheezed, ‘Help me.’

  She couldn’t surrender this old man to the ocean. Swimming behind him, she roped her arms beneath his armpits where he couldn’t lunge for her. ‘Try relax,’ she shouted into his ear. He twisted his body around her with desperation until they were face to face. His sunken chest pressed against hers. His legs bucked and thrust. She was beneath the surface, beneath the old man. His knees knocked her in the nose. The jolt punched her lungs of air. His thighs wrapped around her neck. His grip was tight.

  I am going to die … I am going to drown indecently with this old man’s private parts wrapped around my neck.

  Nayeema looked up. Saw the quivering flesh of his belly and his pale swimming trunks. She formed a fist with her hand. If only she could reach his belly. I’ll punch him in the belly. I’ll punch him … She heard her father’s voice, felt a throbbing in her ears, gravel in her eyes, she felt him in her tendons. How quickly can you swim today? Her father’s voice teased. Catch me, Nayeema. She felt his pulse in her hair. Saw him swim away. Catch him up. Quickly! She couldn’t. She was never able to.

  The grip around her neck eased. The legs of the old man slithered down her body and rested for a moment in a straddle around her waist. Finally, his legs released from her altogether. She rose to the surface spluttering spit and mucous and tears. Something ran down her spine and pressed the small of her back. A billowing mane of golden hair was splayed in the water around her, turning the water golden with it. A gazelle was floating beside her, or perhaps was carrying her. The lustrous bronze fur of the beautiful creature cast a passage of light, as luminous as the sun. The gazelle stroked Nayeema’s neck with its horns. There was some shouting, but the voices were muffled, too far away for her to make out the words. An unbearable finger of warmth flushed over Nayeema’s face. She closed her eyes and smiled and curled her body into the gazelle.

  She coughed and rasped. The gazelle was gone. Sand everywhere, in her ears, her mouth, her hair. A stream of salt bled into her eyes. Her hands and the heels of her feet were rubbery with wrinkles. She wheezed.

  Someone stroked her arm. ‘You okay, love?’

  Sweet cold leaked onto her lips and down her throat. ‘More, please.’

  ‘What’s she saying, Len? That’s not English she’s speaking, is it?’

  ‘Hang on … yer right,’ said the man.

  ‘Something foreign,’ said the woman.

  ‘Give her some more juice,’ said the man.

  Cold sweet cracked her salt lips.

  She was rolled in the sand like a biscuit in caster sugar. Someone propped her up from the elbows and she sat semi-upright. She rolled her salt-grazed eyes, just a fraction. Her head was a coconut filled with salt meat.

  The golden gazelle was now a girl, braying on all fours on the sand beside Nayeema.

  ‘Pritchett’s girl doesn’t look so good, either,’ said the woman.

  ‘What happened out there?’ said the man.

  ‘I’m okay,’ wheezed the girl. Her golden hair shuddered off her shoulders. ‘I think Uncle Frank had an angina attack … he panicked … Probably hasn’t been taking his medication.’

  ‘Seems alright now, the old fella,’ said the woman.

  ‘Don’t need to talk like I’m not here,’ buzzed a mosquito in the distance.

  ‘I’m okay, too,’ croaked Nayeema.

  ‘What’s she sayin’?’ said the woman.

  ‘Dunno … Hey, wait on, Pritchett, leave some of that water for your girl. We’re down to the last drink,’ said the man.

  ‘Reckon she needs to see Doc Wilson,’ said the woman, stroking Nayeema’s arm.

  ‘I’ll take her to the doctor,’ said the girl. ‘I have to take Uncle Frank anyway.’

  ‘I think she’s with the new pharmacy guy. Must be his wife or somethin’. Is that right, pet?’ asked the woman.

  Nayeema nodded.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Nayeema,’ she mumbled. Crystals tumbled in her mouth.

  ‘I’ll take you to the doctor, okay? I’m Goldie.’

  ‘You okay to do that, pet?’

  ‘Yup. I’m fine now,’ said Goldie.

  ‘Well, I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one morning,’ said the man.

  Nayeema lifted her head and smiled weakly at him. The sky above was a warm blanket. She closed her eyes and saw her mother standing in Saad Zaghloul Street eating a piece of roasted corn. It was night. She should have been in bed. She ran towards Soraya. Her mother’s blouse sleeves filled with wind and she was suddenly lifted up, scooped off the ground like an air balloon. Her mother floated away from her, waving with both hands as she rose above the traffic and above the apartment rooftops. Soon Soraya was just a smudge in the sky. Nayeema waved back at her long after the wind had carried her away.

  * * *

  In Doctor Wilson’s small waiting room, Nayeema stared at the healthy toddler on the wall. Lovely rolls of pudgy, chubby, tubby baby skin. Arms and legs of silky toddler pointed to the sky in a moment of delight. Baby wore a nappy, but was otherwise naked, his big blue eyes gleaming at her, with a tin of powdered baby milk beside him. Babies. Everywhere. Even in sickness, she couldn’t escape the silent grief that sat swollen inside her chest.

  She gagged.

  ‘Are you okay, honey?’ said Goldie.

  ‘Yes,’ Nayeema said, feeling anything but okay.

  The girl patted her on the arm, with little feathery childlike strokes. ‘I’m sure your husband will be here any minute now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nayeema repeated.

  ‘You want the bucket again?’ Goldie nudged a plastic container near Nayeema’s foot. There was a little bit of sick inside it. Disgusting. Why is this Goldie asking her to touch this filthy bucket? Nayeema shook her head and the room rolled like a marble.

  On the other side of Goldie was the bald man from the ocean, Uncle Frank, the old man who had almost drowned Nayeema, the donkey fool who had danced with the golden gazelle in the ocean. During the drive to the doctor’s surgery, the old man had spoken to his niece as though Nayeema wasn’t sitting in the backseat. Where had the gazelle gone? It had been a morning filled with the greatest of mysteries.

  The old man tapped Nayeema on the knee with a bony finger. ‘Was real good of you to help,’ he said. His voice was deadpan; his eyes were like a dead mullet. They were his first words to her all morning.

  ‘Real good to help,’ Nayeema repeated. This is all he says? After pushing his private parts on her face and nearly drowning her?

  ‘Is she a bit simple?’ the old man asked Goldie. ‘Can’t she speak English? You know how I feel about those New Australians who can’t speak a word.’ He settled back into his seat, grunting ‘humph’, just like a donkey fool who scared a beautiful gazelle.

  ‘Uncle Frank! She’s probably in shock. She’s been sick, and she’s drunk half the ocean trying to keep you alive,’ Goldie scolded. She pinched Nayeema discreetly and gave her a flash of a wink. ‘Have a heart, Uncle Frank.’

  ‘My heart feels like it’s been minced.’ He rubbed his chest and frowned.

  Goldie looked beseechingly at the doctor’s receptionist, seated behind a large desk.

  ‘I’m sure Doctor won’t keep you much longer,’ said the receptionist. Nayeema hadn’t noticed her enter the room. Where had she come from?

  ‘A man nearly dies of angina and you keep him waiting this long to see the doctor. Humph,’ said Uncle Frank.

  Hah? A woman nearly dies for a stranger and you say nothing, Nayeema said to Uncle Frank, though apparently, not with her lips. But baby heard her. Looked at her, smiled even wider for her, his lovely baby limbs moving in delight. Nayeema shook her head and tried to focus on anything but the baby on the wall.

  The door to the consulting room opened. Doctor Wilson invited Goldie and Uncle Frank to enter. ‘I hear you’ve had a bit of drama out on
the high seas today.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Uncle Frank.

  Goldie turned to Nayeema. ‘Would you like me to stay with you a bit, honey?’

  ‘No, you go with your uncle, I am okay.’

  Nayeema watched Goldie walk into the consulting room with her uncle and the door closed behind her. She let her eyes rest for just a moment, and the moment she blocked out the vision of the chortling baby, she was startled to be shaken by Goldie.

  ‘Honey, you fell asleep. You’re up next. Go on, Doctor Wilson’s waiting for you. We’ll wait here until your husband arrives.’

  Nayeema’s knees felt unstable as she made her way into the doctor’s consulting room. She answered his questions, let him prod her heart, lungs, chest, ribs, throat, more questions, ears, eyes, more questions, when finally, Fawzy walked in. Suddenly, she was weeping. Hush, hush, ya butta, said Fawzy, holding her by the waist and leading her out of the room. He spoke to the doctor’s receptionist in her strange tongue. Nayeema looked around for Goldie and Uncle Frank. They were gone. Her heart dropped. They had left her. Just like that.

  ‘Your friends waited until your husband arrived, pet. Goldie left you a note,’ said the receptionist, who pressed a piece of paper into Nayeema’s hands.

  She looked down at the scrawl of letters.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asked Fawzy, as they walked out of the doctor’s surgery, handing him the note.

  Fawzy squinted. ‘Terrible handwriting. It says, “Sorry we couldn’t wait for you, Uncle Frank is tired. What a day! You saved Uncle Frank. How can we ever thank you? Meet me at the pier at Bishops Bay, next Tuesday, 11am.” And she’s left you a phone number.’

  ‘That’s all it says?’

  ‘Yes, ya butta, that’s all it says. Let’s get you home.’

  She thought of Goldie and her searing blue eyes, and in a strange moment, which passed faster than a thought, Nayeema felt hot breath pass behind her ears and up her legs, like a warm current.

  She looked up at the sky, a sharp crystalline blue punctured by a lump of lamb’s wool above her head, but straight ahead the horizon was brown and muddied with fine spots that seemed to move, like thousands of caraway seeds in the distance that quivered like a weeping mouth.