Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  Robertson walked away, leaving the door open.

  Is that it now? For fifteen years? Maybe there’s some other way, legally. ‘Boss!’ he called from the doorway. ‘That lawyer. He doesn’t want me out. To win the appeal. I need a new lawyer?’ Farood’s voice could not deny the desperation.

  Robertson halted. ‘It’s not my job, but I can do it. Come back to the wing with me.’

  Robertson told Farood to go straight to the dinner queue while it was short. Next to officer Scully, behind the server, dressed in whites, was Atif. He’d been given the critical job of dispensing chips. It was Robertson’s idea, his way of diffusing tension. He didn’t keep rivals apart; he brought them together and wouldn’t entertain gang segregation on his wing. Inevitably there was violence, but usually there was a truce soon after. Atif’s right eyebrow was stitched and covered by a white plaster. The eye itself was beginning to open to a slit. Farood presented his plate to the good eye whilst Robertson calmly looked on from some distance.

  Scully savoured the tension. ‘Gonna give him a portion, Atif?’ he said helpfully.

  Farood looked away and the chips skidded onto his plate.

  Across the dining area Atherton half nodded. Farood sat at a table alone. He ate slowly, watched Atif throw down his whites and head for a table of Asian lads.

  ‘Atif!’ Farood was on his feet. His body and voice were apologetic.

  The Asian lads were wondering which way Atif would turn; he went to Farood.

  ‘How’s your eye?’ asked Farood.

  Atif shrugged. ‘How was the block?’

  ‘It was a rest from here. I saw you from there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a car. Leaving the jail.’

  ‘Oh. I was going to the hospital, man. Having stitches put in my face. Some fucking Afghan burst my eye.’

  ‘What was that like?’

  ‘I was chained to an officer.’

  ‘The whole time?’

  ‘Not when I was having my stitches put in. I was with a nurse. She was nice. Yeah. I wouldn’t mind a week in hospital.’

  ‘I’ll try harder next time.’

  Farood told him about his failed appeal, about Khalid and Sabana. Atif already knew about his sentence, as did most people in the jail. He told Farood what he was in for and what he was going to do to the people who had put him there when he got out. Atif said he owned property in Pakistan and his plan was to own a lot more. Swapping stories was customary on the wing. Prisoners began where they liked and fictionalised in the middle, redrafting as they were moved from prison to prison. Atif knew someone who knew a good lawyer, knew someone who would lend him a phone. He wanted to know why he ate with Atherton.

  ‘He’s a kaffir, Farood. White garbage.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘I don’t need to. You can’t trust him.’

  ‘He can’t trust me, but he doesn’t know that yet,’ confided Farood.

  Atif smiled, holding his fist out for Farood to press his against. ‘You coming to prayers?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Except he wasn’t. Scully turned Farood around at the wing gate, telling him the imam wasn’t prepared to have him back for a while. Farood wondered if Atif had played the devout victim. As a consolation for missing prayers Robertson granted him the extra Friday shower.

  When he got back to his pad Atherton was manoeuvring an unruly floor-buffer along the balcony. ‘What yer sayin’, Roodie?’

  ‘How’s it going, Atherton?’

  ‘I’m a cleaner, man. I’ll put in a word for yer. What you doing, banging out Atif?’

  ‘We’re okay now. We’re friends.’

  ‘I heard your appeal got knocked back.’

  ‘When are you out, Atherton?’

  Atherton didn’t know when he was out. He was waiting on a new court date for another armed robbery, ‘an armed’, that the CPS had found evidence for. He had a daughter who he’d seen for a grand total of six days: he didn’t do visits.

  Farood switched on the television and turned the volume down. ‘You’re right about Atif. He can get hold of a phone.’

  Atherton nodded and followed his buffer along the balcony.

  Ten

  Lancashire

  Sabana was making the already-overfamiliar train journey north. She enjoyed visiting him, the solitude of the journey. The visits were important to him, though he’d never complained when she’d been unable to come. She already knew about the appeal and expected a difficult visit. Khalid had pretended to break the news to her sister. He was adept at giving people bad news. She remembered when Farood had rung her to say that Khalid had just given him some bad news, he’d have to work that evening, and they were supposed to be going out to dinner. She promised to wait, until Khalid had decided his shift was over. By then it was too late to eat, so they went to his flat. A room and a bathroom. The furniture was a bed and a wardrobe. She’d never seen such a narrow bed before. She could feel the floorboards beneath the carpet. The room was darkened and when he opened the curtains it was barely lighter. It wasn’t a place she felt comfortable in. But it was his home and he wanted to show it to her. He knew what it was.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  He told her to take a seat, but there wasn’t one to take. She sat on the corner of the bed, which dipped beneath her. Below them a television reverberated up the wall. Her palms cradled the coffee mug. ‘Are you cold?’ She shook her head, smiling; he pulled out an electric heater from under the bed.

  ‘Please don’t put that on. You’ll have to work for another twelve hours if we have it on for ten minutes.’

  ‘Khalid pays the bills for me.’

  She could tell he had no experience of girls. He only had experience of talk from the likes of men around Khalid, men who talked about women like they talked about cars, who would say that someone who washes dishes doesn’t deserve to have a woman. He leaned into the heat. She placed her coffee on the floor and put both hands on his right hand. To him her unblemished hands were too slight; they made him feel ashamed. She folded her head onto his shoulder.

  Sabana was often the only Asian girlfriend in the waiting room at the prison’s main gate. There were plenty of Asian mothers and brothers, and brothers in the sense of gang members, by the looks of it. There were a lot of children, even though the people inside were yet to grow up. She smiled at a prisoner’s mother holding a baby. She looked back at Sabana, uneasy and angry. Farood stood up as soon as she entered the visits hall. There was a moderate embrace across the table. When he got on to the subject of the appeal, he could tell she already knew.

  Then she had some news for him. ‘Someone’s shot Khalid.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No. He’s okay,’ she said. ‘It was only in the shoulder.’

  ‘Who shot him?’

  ‘He won’t say. But my sister heard him shouting down the phone that he’d already paid compensation. Which means—’

  ‘It’s the guy who he shot.’

  ‘Sounds like it,’ she concluded.

  ‘This proves I’m innocent.’ His voice was climbing the decibels. ‘Why else would Khalid pay compensation, unless he’d shot someone?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What do you mean, maybe?’

  His voice was raised and angry now; he was leaning across the table. Sabana clutched her bag defensively and one of the officers on a platform locked his eyes on them.

  ‘All it proves,’ she replied, ‘is he paid someone some money. Doesn’t mean it was compensation, doesn’t follow that he shot him.’ Her voice too was angry.

  He clenched both fists. ‘Your sister’s got to go to the police.’

  ‘She can’t.’

  His head was in his hands. Sabana reached across the tabl
e and held on to his arm. It wasn’t even her or her sister he was angry with. He brought both fists down on the table hard enough to stop conversations around him. An officer was standing next to him before they’d started again. Farood stood to meet him. ‘What?’

  He was taken back to the wing. Atherton was slouched under the wing television watching The Jeremy Kyle Show.

  ‘Back early, Rood.’

  ‘You’re gonna have to get me out of here,’ announced Farood.

  Atherton laughed. ‘Who do you think I am?’

  ‘First thing is, I’ll get you a phone, then I’ll tell you the rest.’

  Atherton muted Jeremy Kyle, looked hard at Farood. It was on.

  Eleven

  Quetta, Pakistan, 2002

  No wider than a corridor, the room was full again. It would have overflowed if those inside had been able to open the door, or force the one tiny, barred window. They were in a long purpose-built outhouse, at the rear of a Baloch family home which served as a terminus for people being smuggled into Iran. The agents were two Baloch brothers, for this was Baluchistan as much as it was Pakistan. The three from Baghlan were waiting – waiting with other Afghans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis. Farood had lost count and lost sight of the people that had come and gone. Only when the door opened was there light enough to see his own feet. He had memorised the different tribes and as many names as he could; he had also tried to count the days – so far there had been twenty-three. They had been told they would only be there a night – two at the most – then back into another Mercedes bus for a day’s drive to the border.

  Farood, Misha and Jamal sat by the door to catch the occasional rush of air. It would open a few times each day for one of three reasons: to bring food and water, to bring or take people away, to bring or remove the slop buckets. Occasionally there was a fourth reason. They had been delivered into Pakistan at the border town of Chaman late at night. As expected, the driver paid over the odds to the border guards. Rastin, the chief agent in Kabul, wasn’t pleased when the driver returned with the news of the dead Hazara. If passengers went astray in Turkey or further west it took time for families to find out and expect their refund. He could bank the money for a year or so. But this time, they hadn’t got as far as Kandahar. It was bad for business and for his reputation. The Hazaras were within their rights to ask for compensation. Other agents would seek to step in, to cash in on his failure. So Rastin withheld the driver’s cut for two people. Then he had the driver beaten and told him he wouldn’t be used again. He would find another driver that was more persuasive, more belligerent or just luckier.

  The two Baloch brothers had adopted a policy of maximising economies of scale any way they could. At Chaman they had put all seven into one Toyota Avensis, making good use of the generous boot. Farood almost passed out en-route to a trailer park near the railway station. When the boot was eventually opened, the air was thick with diesel supplies for NATO forces. They were unloaded into the trailer and left with the fumes and a bucket of warm water. They were warned to be silent, which no one found hard. After two days of dizziness and vomiting, a steel wall gave way to an avalanche of light. Crawling back into the car, they were taken to the concrete container at the back of the Baloch house, on the outskirts of Quetta. At least the room wasn’t an oven at night. Some prayed with their backs against the shafts that silhouetted mosquitos – no one kneeled or scarcely bowed because of the pools of urine. After a few days no one spoke except for Misha, who, despite his torn gums and dryness of mouth, was a voice that could be counted on in the darkness.

  ‘I don’t think America will stay as long as Russia.’

  The room was hushed while he waited for a response. Someone from the far end of the room: ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘They can’t afford it.’

  Two or three people laughed.

  ‘Whether they can or they can’t, the Taliban will hide and wait until they’ve left. And when they come back, they will be worse.’

  Jamal elbowed Misha. ‘How do you know what America can afford?’

  ‘I don’t mean money. They can’t afford to have their soldiers killed just to save miserable Afghans.’

  ‘I like the way they saved us on the way to Kabul,’ replied Jamal.

  ‘That only proves my point. They’re scared,’ insisted Misha.

  Farood wasn’t listening; he was still watching the Hazaras. They were huddled opposite, holding their grief and shock. He could just make out some of their Farsi.

  You are too old to fight.

  Who will look after your grandson?

  The Americans have my son. They won’t give him a burial and I have run away.

  Farood closed his eyes, remembering a room in his village mosque. He was outside, peeking around the door, watching his mother and brother wash his father’s body. He could see his father’s face, mouth agape beneath the beard. His father’s right arm was gently raised; his brother sponged his side. His father’s torso was as white as stone. Farood had rarely seen his father’s unclothed body: after he had dug a well once and his arms were coated in mud, the first time they had gone into the mountains to graze the sheep together and he watched the giant of a man standing underneath a waterfall. The arm descended, limp and lifeless.

  Farood breathed; Karam turned around. ‘Get out of here, Spider.’

  Farood stared at the wooden table behind his brother, the place where part of his father was missing.

  In the concrete room the unspoken consensus was that Afghanistan would always be at war because that was the one thing it was good at. Jamal reminded Misha that he was a Turkmen and therefore excluded from passing comment on the country. He had already been warned by the agents for talking too loudly. For the first few days, while there was space, Misha had paced about in the darkness. He didn’t seem to tire. Despite everything that had occurred so far, he persisted with a propaganda level of optimism.

  ‘This is the hard part. Once we get out of here, the easier it will get. This is a poor country, that’s all. Turkey will be a lot more comfortable. I promise.’

  As new people entered, he greeted them like a concierge, introducing himself and others in the room, explaining about the rations, telling them about his plans. When a Baloch brought in a crate of tomatoes, he said something in Brahui that Misha didn’t understand before kicking Misha to the ground. He kept kicking him and pointed to the slop bucket, and Misha finally understood that he should be quiet and take out the bucket when told to.

  The numbers were getting serious now; if they were heard and found by soldiers or police, people would want paid off, and paid off every month. Misha’s eyes stung with the contents of the slop bucket and with the daylight as he carried it the short distance to the open sewer. The water situation became critical, and when people heard the padlock click or the bolt slide, they began to rush and jostle round the door, pulling Farood out of the way by the collar. This was a Pashtun room and Pashtun order was soon established.

  The padlock was set free; the bolt slid and Farood looked to his left at Jamal. He was asleep, finally, in a position only the dead would find comfortable. He moaned and Farood decided to ask for a little water to give him. The water was wheeled in in a steel drum with a lid and steel cup on a chain. The water boss made sure no one took more than one cupful and was always the last to drink. Everyone understood their place now and waited for the Pashtuns to take their turn ahead of them. At the back of everyone was the Hazara woman with her father in front of her. The son – the orphaned Hazara boy – stood where his grandfather told him, in front of Farood, the top of his head under Farood’s chin. Everyone’s lips and tongues felt tacky, their eyes fixed on the water. The grandfather studied Farood, who didn’t speak to the Hazara boy but did accept him. Misha was first in line behind the Pashtuns. Some Bengalis had made it to the water and were loitering. They drank slowly but knew they daren’t drink more. T
he last of them dropped the cup into the emptying steel drum.

  ‘Always there are more people but never more water,’ said one.

  ‘Go tell the Baloch,’ said Jamal.

  The Bengali put his finger in the face of the Hazara boy. ‘He needs less water.’

  When it was the boy’s turn the water boss pulled him out of the queue and beckoned Farood forward. Farood drank.

  The Hazara grandfather raised his palms. ‘He was next. Get your hands off him. Don’t touch him.’

  Farood emptied the cup, looked up at the water boss. ‘The Americans killed his father. I was there,’ pleaded Farood.

  ‘One less Hazara,’ said the water boss.

  ‘They also killed mine. Can I have some more? Please?’

  The boss refilled the cup and Farood handed it to the Hazara boy.

  ‘Oh, you’re in charge now, are you? Where are you from?’ asked the water boss.

  ‘From Baghlan. So’s Jamal too, but he’s sick. Save him some water, please.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked the water boss.

  ‘The Taliban beat him. Then the Americans.’

  ‘Why does everyone like him so much?’

  ‘He likes to argue.’

  ‘He won’t get much further if he keeps on like that.’

  The bolt slid again, and a Baloch man heaved in a crate of tomatoes and flatbread.

  Before his back straightened, the Bengali was digging a finger into his shoulder and shouting in broken Urdu. ‘This is not enough water,’ he said. ‘This is the same amount of water as last week. Now look at all these people. You want me to start banging on the door? I paid you. I paid for this water. I want more.’

  He swore in Bengali. The Baloch said nothing and left the room.

  ‘Leave it!’ was the instruction from the water boss.

  Once everyone had drunk the water, the drum was carried over to Jamal. He was given two cupfuls and only then did the boss drink. People murmured their prayers: Surah Fatiha, hands cupped to their breasts, the Hazara Shi’a’s hands left by their side.