Dreams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar

Author:Nada Awar Jarrar
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Salah and Aneesa are having a picnic lunch on a park bench. It is sunny and warm and a large group of children in the playground close by are making a lot of friendly noise. Salah bites into his sandwich and peers closely at Aneesa. She is looking happy and beautiful, her cheeks turning pink in the sun and her hair shining.

‘Will you have children of your own, do you think?’ Salah asks her once he has finished chewing.

‘Do you think I should?’

Salah turns to look at the playground and laughs.

‘It would be like nothing else you have ever done.’

When Samir was born, a tiny bundle of dark hair and tears, Salah had thought him a stranger at first. But it was not long before, through holding him and watching him awake and asleep, Salah began to feel something between them, a connection that could only grow stronger, his heart claimed and kept for ever.

Aneesa gathers the sandwich wrapping and their napkins and gets up to throw them away. When she returns, Salah takes a thermos out of the plastic bag beside him and pours coffee into two plastic cups.

‘Here you go, habibti,’ he says, handing Aneesa one of the cups and taking the other for himself.

‘You always make the best coffee, Salah.’

‘The secret is in the beans. I get them from that Middle-Eastern bakery by the house. They’re freshly roasted and I only ever grind them just before making the coffee.’

‘Mmmm.’

The two sit happily sipping their coffee and watching the children in the playground. Some of them are playing in the sand pit, others are on the swings and on the climbing frame. They move from one to the other with seamless purpose, the transition from one activity to another, from one feeling to another, effortless and true. Aneesa leans forward on the bench beside Salah, resting her elbows on her knees. She has to lift her head up to see the playground and then bend it forward again to drink her coffee. He loves this naturalness about her and the ease she feels in his presence. When she sits up again, Salah takes the empty cup from her and places it along with his own in the plastic bag with the thermos. They both stand up, Aneesa stamping her feet on the ground and Salah looking back at the bench to make sure they have not left anything behind, and in that moment it comes to him. I am in love with all this, he thinks to himself with astonishment.

‘They are lovely, aren’t they?’ Aneesa says, pointing to the playground.

Salah looks at her and nods.

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