She entered the open toilet, listened for a cough, the customary decorum of a shared toilet. The person first there alerted the incomer of their presence. There was no one. She crouched. Then, a jet of water splashed against the grass behind her. Saba leapt to her feet and ran away.

THE OPEN TOILET

Saba shuffled on her stool next to the open furnace. She wanted to ask her mother just how long they had been here. Days? Weeks? She could see time passing on her own body, on the people around her. People in the square had said this was a temporary place and the day of return would not be far off. For now, though, life itself was suspended, quietly churning like milk in a goatskin. Soon it would curdle.

The family of three sat down in a circle on the round thatched rug Hagos had woven together days before. In the middle of this gathering were a jerrycan, a tin of sardines, tea made from the black powder which Saba had bartered from a neighbour in exchange for sugar, and himbasha bread which their mother had baked before leaving their hometown and rationed ever since. It had hardened, but water dissolves even mountains, said their mother, as she sprinkled it over the bread, mumbling prayers.

The hut smelt of fish. Saba closed her nostrils. Eat, the mother said. You are losing weight.

But no matter how big she was, Saba thought, she would never fill her mother’s eyes.

Eat, the mother said. Eat.

You are like a little girl, the mother said. Eat. Here, take some of my food.

Saba looked at her mother, who had paid for her daughter’s schooling by working as a servant. Saba now had to come up with something else to compensate for all her mother’s hard work. She needed to put on weight, Saba thought, to offer something tangible to sell to men. Saba stared at her mother’s hand. Her three fingers – the thumb and the middle and index fingers that made an elegant hand-spoon for a lady – held a small piece of bread. The food in her hand was barely visible. It was a skill Saba had failed to inherit. The invisibility that a woman ought to inhabit. Saba was heard and seen. She argued. Talked. Laughed. She left traces of her presence everywhere. At home, for not being girl-like. At school, for being the best. Even at the market, where she fought back. Once she’d squeezed a man’s bottom, to repay the compliment, she said. The man, an off-duty policeman steeped in tradition, slapped Saba for stooping so low, and for turning, he said, our culture on its head.

The faint light seeped through the window of the hut. Behind her mother, she saw slippers, a plastic stool, the open furnace. Next to pots and cups, there were the jute sacks, where they kept their clothes. They had exchanged vows not to look into each other’s sack, as if they were locked, keys deposited with their respective owners.