“Wait, I don’t know anything about you. Do you study here? Newcastle or Northumbria? What is your major?” Jim was clutching at straws as she got up and nodded to him.

“Newcastle, PhD Psychology of Death and Grief. Goodbye, Jim.” The door slammed on this strangest of mornings. The vacuum created by her sudden departure emptied every sense.  He could have been on the far side of the moon, not a bustling coffee shop in the city.

Chapter Three

Jim stared at his empty cup, as devoid of anything as his own consciousness. Something had happened to him in the last thirty minutes or so. The warm, comforting feeling was still there. What she’d said came back to flood his vacant mind.

When the brain suffers fatal trauma, most of these are lost.

Gradually, the grief of her departure was replaced by the words she’d spoken. Jim reassembled the puzzle in his head. Marguerita had left him with the means to contact the dead, or what remained of them. When the final picture became clear, as he inserted the last piece of the jigsaw, it was like the map of a new country, or was it a new world? Then the questions began. The absence of answers opened the door to his melancholy. The familiar feeling of missing his wife. 

Jim closed his eyes and tried to summon her image again. The noise of the shop was overwhelming, and his retinas burned with fire. At that moment, his chin began to itch beneath his stubble. As he raised his hand to alleviate the irritation, something stopped him.

When the first one touches you, do not treat it like an itch. They become offended and move on.

He placed his hand slowly on the table and concentrated. 

What you do is close your eyes and welcome it in.

The irritation abated, followed by a relaxed feeling different to the one he’d experienced in Marguerita’s presence. More like immersing oneself in a freshly run bath.

‘Hello Jim. I’m a recipe for Yemeni Mandi. I hope you like me,’ the voice came from his own head.

“Hello. Who are you?” The next voice was his own, but his lips were tightly shut. A list of ingredients followed, along with a brief method for combining them, all of which were etched in his memory.

“May I ask who you are?” He repeated, or someone did, using his intonation.

‘My name is Fatima. I was crushed in the rubble of my own home. I lived for three days after the Saudi jets left. During this time, I asked the Lord, why me?. He didn’t answer.’ Then the presence was gone like the steam from a kettle.

Jim opened his eyes, and the world hit him like a stampeding crowd. Voices, cutlery, crockery, the hiss of the coffee machine all combined in a deafening cacophony. He grabbed his bag and jumped up, almost spilling the full cup of coffee left by Marguerita.

Exiting the coffee shop, he looked left and right at the flow of people from each direction. He needed peace and quiet. His craving for alcohol and company had vanished. Crossing the cobbles, he headed for the University library.

The feelings and emotions flooding his head were alien to him. Is this what insanity is like? He waited for the nightmare to end, to wake up in the warm bed he’d been imagining all morning.

***

The sliding doors parted on the presentation of Jim’s student card, still valid over two months after his graduation.

The library was sparsely populated with the usual smattering of international students. The sight gave him some comfort from the morning’s events. He selected a booth and took a deep breath. For some reason, he was compelled to record Fatima’s words. Jim took his notebook from his bag and began to write as if possessed. Possessed, he thought.

Recipe for Yemeni Mandi:

Ingredients.

Hawaji spice.

Ground cumin

Ground coriander

Ground black pepper

Ground cardamom

Ground cinnamon

Ground cloves

Turmeric powder

Red chilli powder

Combine the spice ingredients and set aside in an airtight container.

Chicken.

Mix some of the spice with soft butter.

Rub chicken thighs and legs with salt and brush on the spice mixture. Set aside to marinate for as long as you like. After marinating, bake the chicken in a tandoor for thirty five minutes covered and a further thirty five minutes uncovered.

Jim’s mouth began to explode with saliva as he pictured the list of spices penetrating the cooking chicken. His pen glided across the page. He stopped momentarily to take several gulps of water from his bottle, then continued.

Rice.

Heat olive oil in a heavy pot. Add sliced onions and fry until translucent. Add chopped tomatoes and chopped green chillies and fry for a further four minutes. Stir in some dry Hawaji and fry for a further two minutes. Pour water into the pot and season with salt. When the water boils, add the rice, bring back to the boil and cover. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible and simmer for fifteen minutes. Stir to mix the rice and cover. Simmer for a further fifteen minutes or until the water has gone. 

Serve with the roasted chicken, toasted almonds and sultanas.

The pen stopped. Jim stared at his own distinct handwriting on the page, even though he’d had no part in its composition. He didn’t have a clue what Mandi was and barely knew where Yemen was. Furthermore, the words of the Yemeni woman evaporated from his mind the way the spirit had. Spirit? Had he really encountered one? The way Marguerita had explained?

Jim took out his laptop and selected the search engine. He typed “War in Yemen” on the search bar.

The screen before him displayed the typical search engine page. 

Yemeni Civil War

2014 – present

Date: Tue, Sept. 16, 2014.

Below the banner appeared several thumbnail photographs, accompanied by blue hyperlink headings.

• Houthi Insurgency
• Yemeni Crisis
• US-UK Airstrikes in Yemen
• Red Sea Crisis

The final photograph, of a typical Saudi man in a red and white shemagh and white thawb, came with a heading which stunned Jim.

• Saudi intervention in Yemeni…

The hyperlink brought back Fatima’s words from deep in his consciousness.

‘I was crushed in the rubble of my own home. I lived for three days after the Saudi jets left.’

Jim’s hand trembled over the mouse pad. He selected the headline and clicked. The images that filled the screen varied between those of Saudi military hardware, fanatical-looking rebels waving Kalashnikov rifles, and harrowing scenes of decimated buildings.

The latter pulled him into the screen, and he imagined the terrified young woman, her broken body tangled in the concrete and steel reinforcement of her former shelter.

Jim closed the laptop and lay his head on it. The soft hum of the machine’s fan and its residual warmth enveloped him, and the tears came. He didn’t care who saw him. What business was it of theirs? He silently challenged anyone to acknowledge his sorrow, to no avail. Good, he thought. You don’t deserve it.