Fatima used the serviette to polish the spoon, then unfolded it completely and placed it over her lap. The paper was so thin it was almost transparent. The lunch box was full of cold fried rice and vegetables. The leftovers, Ellen thought, from last night’s meal.
The shy local assistant, all elbows and knees, brought them both sweet milky tea in chipped enamel cups and then withdrew. Ellen sensed that it was a well-rehearsed routine. The breeze from the ceiling fan rippled the surface of the tea and thickened it into skin.
Ellen banged her hard-boiled egg against the table edge so she could shell it. The pungent smell rose.
‘Fatima, I need to hire a translator. I’d pay, of course. I wondered, is there anyone . . .?’
‘Speaking Pashto and also English?’ Fatima shrugged, spooning her lunch into her mouth with deft movements. She spoke as she ate, her free hand politely shielding her mouth. ‘That is difficult matter.’
‘Yes, but even so, there must be . . .’
‘No.’ Fatima lifted her hand to bat away the fly.
There was a short silence. Ellen ate the pieces of salad and chewed a few cold French fries. They were streaky with congealed fat. Fatima’s brown eyes were fixed on her food. She was frowning slightly, her thick eyebrows almost merging over her nose. Her hijab was immaculately pinned, covering her hair completely. She’s a long way from Egypt, Ellen thought, watching her. A long way from home.
A high-pitched mechanical jingle sounded outside as a truck reversed. Male shouts. A blaring horn. The rhythmical bang of a fist on metal, guiding the driver backwards.
‘For how many days you will be here?’ Fatima spoke through her food, without looking up.
‘I don’t know yet. Three or four.’
‘You’re staying in which place?’
‘They’ve booked me into The Swan.’
‘Of course. It is the best.’ She lifted her eyes for a second and gave Ellen a short, hard glance, as if to add: And the most expensive.
‘What about you?’
Fatima snorted slightly. ‘I am on local contract. I stay in a small guesthouse in Peshawar.’ She raised her spoon and pointed to her hijab. ‘I am Muslim lady. It is more safe here for me.’
Ellen didn’t reply. She chewed the last of her hard-boiled egg and wrapped the foil around the remaining cold fries. Fatima was trying hard to save face. But Ellen knew that anyone who worked with Westerners was a target, whether they were Muslim or not. If she was in a small guesthouse, it was simply to save money.
‘All your family is at home then, in Egypt?’
‘Cairo.’ Fatima scraped up another mouthful of food and chewed.
‘Are you married?’
‘I am widow. My husband is died. I have two babies.’
Ellen nodded, sensing an opening at last. ‘Boys or girls?’
Fatima inclined her head, still eating. ‘One is boy, one is girl.’
‘That’s wonderful, Fatima. How old are they?’
Fatima paused for a moment, as if considering the turn the conversation was taking. A stray grain of rice stuck to the corner of her lips. The tip of her tongue slid out and drew it into her mouth. She looked over to Ellen for a second and her eyes were uncertain. Finally, she set down her spoon, cleaned her fingers carefully on her napkin and reached down into her bag to bring out a purse. She extracted two small photographs and pushed them across the table.
They were school pictures, posed against a bright blue background. Ellen wiped her own fingers on a tissue and picked them up. One showed a girl of about eight or nine with a large nose, her hair neatly clipped in place. The other was a boy of about five, his brown eyes shy in front of the camera. His black hair was cropped close.
‘You must be very proud.’
Fatima broke into a smile. For a moment, her whole face was transformed, warm and relaxed. Then she straightened out her mouth again and the old stiffness returned.
When Ellen handed back the pictures, Fatima held them for a while and carried on studying them. ‘They are good children. They learn well, thanks be to God.’ She studied them a moment longer, then slipped them back into her purse.
Ellen bit into the peach. ‘You must miss them.’
‘They are with my sister. They are very obedient. I earn enough money to send them to a good school.’
‘That’s important.’
Fatima wiped off her spoon, placed it back in the plastic box and clipped on the lid. There was still rice inside. Enough for her evening meal, perhaps.
‘And you?’ said Fatima. ‘You have children?’
‘No.’ Ellen found herself looking down, wiping peach juice from her chin, aware of Fatima’s eyes. She thought of Frank with his crumpled clothes and tousled hair. ‘I’m not married.’
Fatima scraped back her stool and got to her feet. ‘Work.’ The plastic spoon rattled in the box as she placed it back in the fridge. As she passed Ellen again, on her way back to the ward, she stooped and said in a low voice: ‘I advise you to be careful. The Taliban has spying men everywhere.’
Without a translator, there wasn’t much more Ellen could do on the ward. She pulled her scarf forwards, tucked away stray strands of hair, and set off into the camp.
Outside, a fresh truck of supplies was being unloaded. Powdered milk for babies. High-protein biscuits. A group of men in shiny tabards had formed a chain, passing boxes from one to the other, grunting with exertion.
She walked through to an open area beyond the unloading bay. A few listless guards in baggy uniforms were standing around, guns held loosely across their chests. Pakistani aid workers were sitting in lines on the ground, processing the stacks of newly arrived supplies. She wrote some notes. The men were shaking the contents out into a heap on the earth, then rummaging through them and sorting them into piles for distribution.
A second cluster of workers was compiling starter kits, one for each family. A set of basic commodities, designed to feed five people for several days. Ellen bent down to see. Small tins of cooking oil. Bags of salt. Modest sacks of rice. Plastic screw-top containers for water. Vacuum-packed blankets. She weighed the rice in her hand. The rations seemed so meagre, barely enough to live on. If people felt they were starving, she thought, it would be hard to keep order in the camp. Hard to protect the weak. She thought of the listless elderly woman waiting outside the gates and the small girl lying motionless in her lap.
Further away, penned in by a rope and under the supervision of several armed guards, were about fifty dishevelled people. The men and women were queuing separately, the women with children balanced on hips and clinging to their trailing hands. They stood in silence without shade from the sun, waiting in the hope that some sort of distribution would eventually begin. Their faces were blank with resignation, their shoulders bowed. These were people who were already becoming accustomed to waiting for a long time in the hope of a little.
The Pakistani supervisor saw her watching and stepped across. He was a short man with glasses, plump with health and affluence. His clothes were neatly pressed and his trainers gleamed white in the dust.
He looked down at her notebook and pen. ‘Madam, you are journalist?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘On account of your pen and writing and the fact you are a Western lady here.’ His voice was theatrical and without irony. ‘Our camp is providing each and every thing.’ He waved a hand over the supplies. ‘Not only eatables. All things – necessities for the family.’
He was smiling through crowded, crooked teeth. A man itching to be interviewed.
‘Ellen