Page 10 of Under the Arabian Sky

Frustrated I slammed the old handset down on the phone cradle.

I tried to swat a fly away from my face and ended up slapping myself across the cheek.

“Ow! Fuck!”

I began to pace between Cavendish’s tiny bedroom and his tiny office, picking up a random notebook and using it to fan myself since the ceiling fan seemed to be doing sweet fuck-all as the heat of the day really kicked in.

On one of the bookshelves there was a souvenir thermometer, a little mercury stick in the shape of a shisha pipe. The temperature was hovering around the forty-five degree mark, still ten degrees off the day’s forecast high.

I felt the heat clogging my pores. My clothes were sticky with the salt air from the boat and the dust from the city and my own sweat. I felt the drenched fabric of my shirt sticking to my armpits and lower back. I plucked at the collar, flapping my shirt open, trying desperately to get some air to my skin.

I needed a shower to cool myself down, and I needed it now.

I found a clean towel in Cavendish’s closet and rummaged through my suitcase for a fresh set of clothes.

I opened the door to the office and made my way down the hallway to find the small shared bathroom that Akbar had mentioned. I had no idea exactly who I was sharing the bathroom with. There were other doors along the hallway. How many people actually lived in this old building in the middle of Muscat, or were they just using it as office space? Or perhaps like Cavendish, this building served both purposes.

Again, I felt out of place.

Lonely and alone.

In the bathroom I undressed. The pipes wheezed and groaned like an old man as they strenuously drew water, seemingly from the very centre of the earth itself. The water that eventually trickled from the showerhead was hot and brown with silt.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I let it run, hoping that the murkiness would soon clear.

That’s when a voice from behind me boomed so loudly I almost had a heart attack.

I couldn’t understand the words that were shouted at me, but as I turned, I saw a chubby, hairy Arab, shaking his fist at me. At least he had a towel wrapped around his waist, which was more than I could say for myself.

As he continued to yell at me in Arabic, I frantically tried to cover my crotch with my hands, unable to reach my own towel which I’d hung on a hook a short distance away.

“I’m sorry! I don’t know what you’re saying! I don’t understand!”

The man stopped shouting, gave me a gruff look then reached past me—his sweaty, hairy body rubbing against mine— as he shut off the water supply.

“Do not waste water!” he told me in an accent thick with rage. “We are in the desert! Water is more precious than you could possibly know! Do not waste a drop!”

“But it was dirty! I was waiting for it to clear.”

The man didn’t seem to want to sympathise. Instead, he grabbed my towel off the hook and said, “Shower… or do not shower. It is your choice. But donotwaste water.”

Timidly I took my towel and wrapped it around my waist. “Perhaps I’ll try again later.”

Like a berated child I scurried away, enviously listening to the sound of running water once more as the man in the bathroom turned the shower back on to use it for himself.

Even from Cavendish’s office I could hear the man singing in the shower, somehow happy to wash himself in the silty water while I pulled off my towel and dressed in my fresh clothes despite how much I desperately needed to wash.

I had to get out of there. No matter how hot it was outside, I needed air.

I needed space.

I grabbed my camera.

I sifted through charts and grabbed a handful of maps.

I snatched the keys to the Land Cruiser off the desk, then left Cavendish’s little corner of the earth and set out to discover what was beyond Muscat.

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