Glass Collector (8 page)

“Who did you kiss, then?” Shareen asks.

“I’m not saying.” Aaron adds a vague, sideways grin, as if recalling someone special.

“I know who it was!”

Everyone turns to Malia as she wipes her nose with the sleeve of her galabeya.

“Go on, then, Malia … Tell us,” another girl begs. “It was Rachel.”

Shareen nods.

“NO!” Aaron’s horrified by the mention of her name. “Found out. Found out,” they chant.

“Bet you gave her a Coca-Cola to get her to kiss you.” Shareen widens her eyes. It’s the ultimate trick to goad him into losing his temper, but Aaron knows her too well. She’s worse in a pack and, when he refuses to take the bait, she changes tack, secretly disappointed.

“Let’s go and ask Rachel.”

“How stupid,” Aaron fumes. “Go on, then.”

“We will,” Shareen says, laughing for the first time. “Yeah, well … ’bye.” Aaron tries hard to come up with something else he can say to stop her from embarrassing Rachel. But the truth is written all over his crumpled, anxious face.

It takes two seconds for Shareen to say what everyone’s thinking.

“Aaron loves Rachel,” she announces, with an edge of irritation in her voice.

His feelings for Rachel have been hinted at before and now they’re out in the open there’s little Aaron can do but die a small death and hope for a quick, painless escape, which is sadly thwarted by the sound of their hilarious giggling. Now they think he’s pathetic and in love, the rumours will spread like wildfire through Mokattam and he’ll never be able to give Rachel the bottles of perfume or look her in the eye again. Shareen was put here to drive him crazy and Aaron vows never to forgive her for this. Then another idea twinkles to life from the flicker of irritation that crossed Shareen’s face earlier.

“Let’s face it …” Aaron picks his ego back up. “Rachel’s the prettiest girl in Mokattam. All the boys are a bit in love with her. Not just me. The other day Jacob said Rachel’s beautiful on the inside too.”

Outright fury flashes across Shareen’s face faster than a guided missile.

“Well, no one’s asked Rachel to marry her, have they?” She stoops to pick up a stone, examining it for a moment before suddenly flinging it at her target: the feed bin. The stone pings loudly. “Unlike … me,” she adds firmly.

“Who’d marry Rachel?” Constance grabs a smaller stone, aims for the feed bin and misses. “Well, maybe Sami would!”

Everyone laughs. No one likes Sami from the secondhand electrical shop because he says unkind things about people. Aaron has even seen him refusing to help his own mother carry home a huge bag of flour: “It’s not that heavy,” Sami had said.

“She would never marry him,” Aaron says, then sighs. But no one is listening to him now. They’re too busy competing to hit the target—scaring the ponies into stumbling backward from the pinging noises, ears pricked for further signs of danger. Now that the girls are pretending to have lost interest in Aaron, he grabs the chance to slip past them and creep away.

A shiver of relief runs through him as he reaches the pale, wide, dusty walkway leading to the church, and just when he begins to feel safe again, he spots his best friend. Jacob, the kid with the curliest hair and most clownlike face in Mokattam, is racing toward him with his head in his hands, muttering to himself.

“What happened?” Aaron grabs him by the shoulders. Jacob’s in shock, trembling, stuttering wildly. Immediately, Aaron spots the problem before Jacob opens his mouth to answer. Sticking out slightly from his arm, directly beside the edge of his elbow bone, is the point of an old-fashioned needle. Without thinking, using two fingers, Aaron tries to tweak the brittle tip from Jacob’s smooth flesh.

“OW! You’re not supposed to touch it.” Jacob flinches as if he’s been bitten by a snake. The curve of his arm is covered in scratches and red marks. “I was going to look for someone with tweezers to pull it out,” he says. “Those needles were covered in blood. AIDS, hepat … ize, the lot. I’m going to die and so are you now.”

“Nothing gets through this skin.” Splaying his ridged fingers high in the air, Aaron almost blocks out the sunlight from Jacob’s eyes, his hands are so big.

“I fell on loads of used needles,” Jacob explains. “They’re not supposed to put syringes in the bags. They should burn the used stuff, but they don’t anymore. I’m dead, aren’t I?” His clownlike face droops and his lower lip sticks out as if he’s about to cry.

It’s a nasty moment. Plenty of kids in the hospital-waste clearing area of Mokattam have died of fatal diseases. Everyone feels sorry for them. These families are so far down the pecking order that hardly anyone questions the details of the horrible work they do, or asks why so many suffer illnesses that could easily be avoided if the hospitals disposed of the clinical waste in the proper way. Medical-wasting is a job that gives Aaron nightmares. His hands go clammy just imagining the constant fear that Jacob and his family live with.

“No. No, Jacob …” Aaron starts, but then forgets what he was going to say. He’s unable to take in the full horror of Jacob’s pleading eyes because there she is—Rachel—coming down the wide path, dressed in a blue galabeya, calmly frowning, as if trying to remember something important. His eyes are fixed on the vision that’s almost upon them. The last thing he wants to happen is for Rachel to run into Shareen and her mates.

It’s not until Rachel waves at them that Aaron regains some control of his wandering mind. “See, Jacob, someone … who was it? Well, anyway, someone told me that most of those syringes are, are … yeah, they’re used to stir the … the … red wine they give to the rich patients—whenever they run out of, er … spoons. Not all syringes are dangerous.”

“Eh?” Jacob’s more flustered by this mad explanation than he was by imagining an early death.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t worry if I were you.” Aaron slaps him on the back. “Hi, Rachel. Where you going?”

“To the church to say a prayer for your pony.” Rachel gazes past Aaron in that self-contained way that scares him. Does she blame him? “He was my favorite—your pony.”

Aaron follows her gaze.

“Why do you want to pray for his pony?” Jacob’s baffled. “It’s not sick, is it? Aaron? Is it?”

The dusty path seems to shrink and the distant towering hills push down on Aaron like a huge giant as he nods and watches the alarm creeping over Jacob’s face.

“Yeah. The pony died.”

“That’s a disaster,” Jacob says. “You’ve had it now.” “I know,” Aaron says.

Jacob shakes his head. “I’m going to find someone to help me.”

“Want me to come with you?”

Aaron is only asking to be friendly. He doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to leave Rachel here either.
Go on your own. On your own
, he silently prays.

“It’s OK.” Jacob grins. “Looks like you want to talk to her.” He makes a swift exit in the direction of the old part of the village.

“Do you want me to pray for the pony?” Rachel asks.

Aaron sighs. “What’s the point? It’s not going to bring the pony back, is it?”

Suddenly lights twinkle from the interior of the church, as if to say
you’re wrong
, and he shivers.

“But praying will help it get to heaven,” Rachel says, and smiles.

“How do you know that?” Aaron mutters.

“Everyone knows.”

“Well, I don’t. Here, you might as well have this.”

Aaron fishes a perfume bottle from his pocket and thrusts it at her. His fantasies about how he was going to present it to her disappear in an instant.

The dark liquid slides around the rose-colored glass as she widens her eyes. “Where did you get this?” she asks, staring at the bottle but not taking it.

She isn’t impressed. She’s never impressed by anything he says or does. He might as well not have bothered.

“I found it on the street. Do you want it or not?”

Aaron’s trying to act unsurprised by her cool reaction, but the force of his heart thumping against his chest gives him away. He starts to tremble unnaturally. Even his hand’s quivering.

“Well?”

In silence they look into each other’s eyes and the power there reels them together somehow. Linking something deep and unseen. When their eyes fall away, the sense of loss makes them instinctively glance back, but now, slightly afraid, their eyes slide over each other, as if neither of them dares spark that powerful feeling again.

Without a word, Rachel turns on her heel and walks hurriedly toward the church, leaving Aaron standing in the lengthening shadows of the low perimeter wall with sensations he can’t account for.

Did she feel what I just felt? Why didn’t she take the perfume? I didn’t get the chance to explain. Why did she walk off without saying anything? I was being nice, wasn’t I?

Time, space, gravity, the stars above, girls, Mokattam, the dead pony—it feels as if none of them really exist. Placing the perfume bottle back in his pocket, Aaron heads down the wide walkway, past the bright, open cavern of the church, which is empty, apart from three old women sweeping and cleaning the altar. Rachel isn’t there. She’s not praying for the pony.

Where did she go
?

Aaron eyes the deep darkness beyond the low wall. A moonless sky envelops the distant tenements. Beams of yellow light from the glassless windows stand out like sheets of yellow paper stuck to a huge blackboard, which he stares and stares at. When, one by one, the lights go out, Aaron turns his attention to the hard earth beneath his feet, searching for a good place to hide the perfumes.

He considers the corner where the brick wall joins the high limestone. It’s worth a try and he starts digging into the ground with his fingers. A side pit opens to reveal a concrete hole in the foundations the size of a small bowl. Thumbs firm against the bottom of the glass, intent on remembering the exact place, Aaron carefully pushes both bottles into the gap. It’s the perfect place. He covers them with cakes of soil, which he carefully pats down.

On the way home, Aaron pictures the bottles buried underground, safe and secure like hidden jewels curled up in a secret burrow. His burrow. That night he falls into a deep, sweet sleep—a sleep that not even the smell of his moth-eaten mat or the sound of Hosi’s snoring can disturb.

The next days and nights pass by in much the same way until on Friday morning Aaron opens his eyes to the surprise of a film of sand on his body, hair, and hands. The wind from the Sahara has gathered up limestone from the abandoned quarry and the yellow desert sand has turned dusty white. The mat, floor, stove, walls, sink, food box, and old clothes have been brightened and look brand new. Even the empty cup and crushed cigarette packet beside Youssa’s elbow are sculpted in sand. If Aaron hadn’t gone to sleep with his face in the crook of his arm, his eyelashes would be covered in the same pale grit. Luckily, the whistling sound of the Saharan sandstorm didn’t wake Aaron and cause him to change position when it blew through in the night.

Listening to the noises coming from next door, Aaron can make out the swoops of a bristle brush that Shareen’s using to clear the sand. The same
sweep
,
sweep
rhythm can be heard in every corner of Mokattam as women and children shake out the effects of the desert winds. Then Lijah’s and Hosi’s voices start up outside as the stink of garbage fills his nose. The memory of that wonderful feeling he shared with Rachel returns as Aaron stretches his arms. It’s enough to make his life worth living, with or without the pony and despite the fact that Shareen and her friends are trying to wreck his chances with Rachel.

“Big John is richer than anyone in Mokattam,” Hosi grumbles. His voice outside grows louder. “Tell him we’re starving.”

“What difference will it make? He won’t give me any more free bread or tomatoes,” Lijah says.

“For heaven’s sake, what are we supposed to do? Get that useless idiot off his mat. Tell him to go down to the market and ask for the bad fish, the bruised bananas, and a handful of flour. Tell him to search the bins for something to eat,” Hosi shouts.

The moment the mad activity of the lane reaches fever pitch, with the sound of ponies, rattling carts, and banging pans, Aaron forces himself to sit up. When he hears Lijah bounding up the concrete steps he jumps to his feet, quickly shakes himself free of sand, and runs to the tap to wash his face and hands and grab a few mouthfuls of water. He stifles the dread of another hopeless scrounging expedition to the city.

Aaron smears his mouth with a damp wrist and slowly turns around, sensing Lijah waiting angrily behind him. By the look of him, it’s clear he’d love to take out his frustrations on Aaron, but Hosi is outside listening. Not that he’s concerned about his son’s bullying, but he’s impatient to eat and won’t be happy if Lijah delays that.

They exchange cool glances.

As Lijah reaches for the dusty, blackened saucepan on the stove, which still contains a cupful of the green juice left over from the boiled
ful
beans they ate last night, the danger passes. Aaron had found the beans, still in their bag, at the doorway to the souk, and they’d eaten them along with the last of the soft tomatoes. It was the worst meal they’d had since the pony died. There are still up to two days to go before the merchant comes to collect and pay for the bags of sorted trash, and after that there’s no hope of any more money coming in.

Lijah greedily slurps the green juice, even though there’s sand floating in it. He’s pleased that Aaron will have to walk the streets without even this tiny portion of sour liquid to keep him going. At the smell of it, saliva fills Aaron’s mouth, and his stomach lurches as he watches Lijah licking his lips.

“Tough luck,” Lijah says, before dropping the pan on the stove with a clank and swaggering off, scratching his head as if to prove he’s got better things on his mind than food. The moment he’s gone, Aaron can’t help glancing at the saucepan to make sure it’s empty. It’s pathetic, he knows. The rough, black pan contains nothing but windblown grit. There’ll be nothing there at the end of the day either if he doesn’t find more than a bag of beans today.