Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  When he was sentenced, the judge talked about all the things that this country had done for him – giving him a home, an education, a job, hope – only for him to shoot a man over a dispute about a slot machine. Farood looked across at the woman standing in a robe, the court usher. Her eyes had been on him all week. She reminded him of his foster mother, and her face was asking questions of him as the sentence was read out. ‘The maximum of life imprisonment with a minimum term of thirty years.’ He did not drop his head, for everyone was watching him. Sabana stood with everyone else, Khalid a moment or two after, straightening his jacket and pulling down his cuffs as if he had just finished a business meeting.

  Farood cut through the bus station to the other end of town, brushing past two policemen. From over his shoulder he saw them halt. One of them spoke into a breast pocket radio. Farood darted off to his destination, near the council offices, next to the Super Pound Plus Store: to the Karachi King Restaurant. He sat on a raised flower bed nearby, noticing the new frontage, the neon signage above the walls of plate glass. It was 6pm. A family group wearing football scarves were flicking through menus. The waiters had matching waistcoats now. Behind the door, watching the street, smiling at passers-by, was a schoolboy waiter, an Afghan, maybe. Farood surmised if he walked in the front door and asked for Khalid, the police would eventually arrive. If he sat down and ordered a meal, it was unlikely that Khalid was going to bring him a plate of poppadoms. He went into the pound store and bought a knife with a short blade. Then he made his way round the back of the shops to where he used to take the bins out and once or twice tried smoking with the other waiters. The back door, a grubby white fire door, could not be opened from the outside. He waited close by, listening to faraway football chanting, his phone announcing another urgent message from Atherton. A dog trotted between rubbish skips. It looked thin and greasy. He considered he would miss England, but he would not miss the dogs. English people regarded dogs as something more than animals, as children, almost. They gave them seats and kisses, gave them fresh meat from the butchers, food that many people back in Baghlan were unlikely ever to eat. The animal trotted towards him and circled the restaurant skip. It looked up at Farood and its eyes pleaded for a charity that he had never acquired. The back door crashed open, a burly chef in stained whites carrying black bags shouted at the dog to ‘do one’. Before he had turned around, the door was closed with Farood on the inside.

  On his immediate left was the kitchen. To his right the stairs that led to the toilets and Khalid’s office. He tiptoed to the top of the stairs and set his phone on record. Out of habit he knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He entered. The office was empty. On the wall to his right was a television with a film on pause. Two wealthy people frozen in a Bollywood courtship. Below the chef was thumping the back door. Farood sensed a trace of aftershave in the air and noticed a jacket over the back of the chair. He stood behind the open door and waited until Khalid walked in, closing it after him.

  ‘What the fuck?! How did you get in here?’

  ‘That was the easy part.’

  Khalid switched off the television and turned his astonishment over to a smile, then a laugh. He opened his arms for an embrace. ‘They let you out?’ asked Khalid.

  ‘I let myself out.’

  ‘You escaped?’ Khalid laughed.

  Farood found himself laughing along.

  ‘You fucking escaped. That’s really something. My God. Sit down.’

  His old boss, his former master, was elated and wanted details. He lit a cigarette mid-narrative. ‘Show me your wrists… my God.’

  Farood was the junior waiter again, the Saturday boy reporting for duty.

  ‘What about Sabana, where is she in all of this?’

  Farood’s head dropped; he talked to his shoes. ‘We’re not in touch anymore.’

  ‘That’s for the best. I said that, didn’t I? She’s not right for you. So, what are your plans?’

  ‘I haven’t really got any.’

  ‘I can get you out of the country. Set you up. Put you in a business.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Karachi. I’ve got people going back there all the time. I’m not the Karachi King for nothing. Listen, I’m going to order us both something to eat and I’ll get you a first aid kit so you can change the bandages.’

  Farood stared at the door after Khalid left the room. He felt as he had felt when left alone in police interview rooms. He turned around the framed photograph on the desk: Khalid in a white suit, on his wedding day, next to his bejewelled bride. He needed to steer the conversation his way.

  ‘Here.’ Khalid handed him a first aid box. ‘Keep it.’

  ‘You know, Khalid. That day at the arcade, I didn’t know you was going to shoot him. I was really surprised.’

  Khalid, though silent, was suddenly no longer his paternal friend.

  ‘It might have been better if you had killed him. Better for me, don’t you think?’

  Khalid nodded and smiled in reply to the question. He stood, ending the interview. ‘Let’s eat.’

  Farood was invited down the stairs ahead of Khalid. Waiting at the bottom was the burley chef, a carving knife in his embrace. Khalid’s shove in the back further clarified the situation. They took him out back; Khalid forced him up against the wall. The chef put all his weight on a wrist and rested the carving knife on the thumb. Khalid went through Farood’s pockets until he found the phone he was looking for, recording every word.

  ‘What’s this? You think this would do you any good? Anyone would believe this?’

  He stamped on the phone. The chef’s eyes let it be known they were awaiting instruction.

  ‘Do you know how much it cost me to pay Samir off? To get him to stand up in court and point at you? Hardly anything. Know why? We don’t want your kind in this country. You shouldn’t have come here. You should have stayed in that stupid country of yours, the begging bowl of the world.’

  A dubious-looking VW glided past the skips, chasing the dog in their direction and sounding its horn by way of a greeting. Atherton and Vinnie revealed themselves from behind its blacked-out windows. The crotch of his denims sagging towards his knees, Atherton approached and put one foot on the kerb. ‘What yer doing?’

  Khalid emphasised with polite menace, ‘This is not your business.’

  ‘You don’t know what my business is, mate,’ replied Atherton.

  Vinnie splayed out his palms in surrender. ‘Look, Khalid, we’re peaceful people, us, and we need our friend to have all his fingers.’

  ‘How do you know me?’

  Vinnie half smiled then swallowed it as the chef broke his silence. ‘You wanna keep your balls, old man, get back in the car.’

  It was on. Almost, except Atherton’s eyes were on Khalid’s feet. ‘Oi, is that your phone, Vinnie?’

  ‘Where…?’

  ‘Down there—’

  ‘That better not be my fucking phone.’

  ‘It is, yer know.’

  The Bible-sized Nokia was crumpled, its grey innards strewn by a back-alley breeze.

  ‘He smashed it, stamped on it,’ volunteered Farood.

  ‘Fucking Paki bastard, ye,’ with which Vinnie reached to the top of his arse crack and withdrew a nine-millimetre pistol. The casing was gold and for a moment looked like a cigarette lighter – until it was pressed against Khalid’s temple. Atherton unbuttoned his snub seven millimetre from a leather ankle holster and pushed it into the chef’s face. The stray dog began chasing its greasy tail as Atherton asked,

  ‘What d’ya reckon? Shall we kneecap ’em, Vinnie?’

  The loosened grip was enough for Farood to take the carving knife and draw it slowly across the chef’s backside to laughter from Atherton.

  ‘Fuckin’ stitch that, mate.’

  Vinnie pushed Khalid’s head to the ground as
Farood, one hand on Khalid’s lower back, stabbed the blade into his buttocks like a plated turkey, umpteen times.

  *

  The carving knife was thrown into a coppice by a slip road off the M65. The two firearms taped behind the front-door panels.

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘There was a tracker setting on the phone. It’s useful if you have a child who might go missing.’

  The vehicle was thick with cigarette smoke and commercial radio.

  Vinnie put his arm around Farood and left it there. ‘We didn’t want to lose you, Farood. We’ve got work for you, boy.’

  Part Two

  Twenty-Two

  Rotterdam, April 2012

  Farood hoisted himself from the sleeping bag with the determined thought of opening a window. His tongue itched with cigarette smoke and his nostrils clenched against the odour of stale, heavy-sweet alcohol. He stood, coughed, then drew the curtains that tinted with April light. A willow tree was poised across the road, its skirts puffed out as if to present a better view of itself. He had been in the Rotterdam apartment for three weeks, but he hadn’t noticed the tree before, not like this. It glowed, as if storing up light for this particular morning, projecting across the road towards him. He pulled up the window, letting birdsong enter the room. No traffic could be heard, just the quiet pattering of a ball off a pavement. Leaning out of the window into the Sunday of an unbending road with its queues of apartment blocks, with thousands of people living around him, he believed he would never be found. He walked over to the kitchen area to make some coffee, inhaling its aroma. Vinnie entered the room in his boxer shorts, revealing more of his blurred tattoos.

  ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ volunteered Farood.

  ‘Good lad.’

  ‘You want me to make breakfast?’

  ‘No need, son. We’re going out for breakfast. And we’re gonna start working.’

  Vinnie spoke about starting work most days without ever saying what the work was.

  ‘Vinnie, why don’t we decorate this room? Brighten it up a little. What do you say?’

  ‘It’s not ours, is it?’

  ‘Will he mind. Your friend?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s not worth the trouble, is it?’

  Every day for the last few weeks had been filled with TV, films, shopping, drinking, prison stories, traveller stories and the occasional bout of sean-nós singing from Vinnie. Neither Atherton nor Vinnie had attempted to persuade Farood to drink. He was left to watch their voices slow and swerve, their tempers soften and fray, their eyes widen and moisten with every swig. Some nights would culminate in Vinnie stripping to his boxers, bouncing off his toes and challenging either of them to spar with him. Farood would swing kicks against Vinnie’s forearm blocks and needle jabs. When the lightbulb broke, they sat in the darkness concurring that prison was a joke, too soft, and as such had let them down. On the ferry they had played cards riotously, inviting other passengers to join them until they were required to leave the bar area because of their choice language. It was an overnight journey and Vinnie interrogated Farood about his journey from Baghlan to England.

  ‘Did you know, Farood, that same route was used thousands of years ago? It was called the silk road back then.’

  ‘I heard that. An agent told me that, I think.’

  ‘They’re clever people, these agents.’

  Before leaving England, the brothers stated they needed to be ‘cashed up’ for the trip. For Atherton and Vinnie, this meant ‘an armed’ on a brothel: these were cash-only establishments that tended not to ring the police. Inspecting the back pages of the mid-week Evening News they circled some south Manchester parlours before heading out on the Friday afternoon. They were back by tea time with fish and chips, and anecdotes of how Atherton had to ‘slap a bitch’ to open a locked drawer. It seemed no more trouble than returning a Christmas jumper without a receipt. The cash had been kept in a bin-liner and by now smelled heavily of aftershave.

  Vinnie sipped his coffee then flexed himself in the mirror. ‘Let’s go, boy.’

  Having left his lorry in a lorry park they caught a tram back to the docks. The water was a board of grey, sometimes corrugated, sometimes reflecting the towers of containers waiting under the clutches of cranes. Leading Farood to a ballroom-sized cafeteria where departing drivers chewed away the hours, Vinnie ordered falafel specials and eased into a booth with English newspapers. An American soldier had gone door to door in Afghanistan shooting people – women, children, any Afghans would do.

  Farood stabbed the paper with his forefinger, spinning the newspaper towards Vinnie. ‘If I was there now, I’d fight. I’d join the Taliban and fight.’

  ‘Those mad bastards?’

  ‘I know who they are; they stole my country and they stole my religion, but someone has to make America pay.’

  ‘Or you can think about how you’re going to be paid,’ replied Vinnie.

  After the feature-length breakfast, they swapped newspapers. Drivers glumly came and went; the radio station was switched from Dutch to English and Vinnie tapped the table impatiently. Farood looked at the girls behind the counter. They looked like English girls, like they lived without God.

  A cup was placed on their table; a short man in a grey overcoat and scarf sat down, enquiring of Vinnie, ‘I take it he’s with you?’

  ‘He is,’ replied Vinnie. ‘He’s sound.’

  ‘How was your trip?’

  ‘It was long enough.’

  ‘We all have to work, Vincent.’

  ‘Do you like this country? I don’t like this country. Flat as fuck everywhere you drive. Canals all over the place. No wonder everyone’s on drugs.’

  Leaving the café, they walked along the quay. Vinnie’s classic blue and white stripe Adidas trainers, symbolic of his eternal youth, flashed bright against the cobbles. The other man, Farood considered, was not a lorry driver; he was too slim, too refined. He dropped behind yet remained in earshot.

  ‘I couldn’t control the last consignment. They nearly got me bubbled and I can’t be having that.’ Vinnie sounded insistent.

  ‘It won’t happen again. The guests I have are well behaved. I’ll speak to them.’

  ‘You can speak their language?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘I can always make myself understood.’

  Vinnie halted, did an about-turn, pointing at Farood. ‘My lad here. Afghan. He’s done the route, from as far back as it goes. Can speak all manner of languages. He can explain to them.’

  ‘He can do that when I bring them to you.’

  ‘No, no, Mustapha. We’ll go to the house and talk to them there.’

  ‘We’ve been through this before, Vinnie. No one goes to the house.’

  ‘It’s too late when they get in the lorry. There can’t be no talking then.’

  Mustapha gazed out to the horizon for a moment. ‘I need to make a call,’ he said.

  Farood watched Mustapha, conscious of whom he was ringing, of what was probably being asked and granted at the other end.

  Mustapha drove them in his faded Mercedes with full ashtrays back towards the suburbs they had come from. They glided along Steenwijklaan until it became something else and crossed a line onto streets with graffiti and furniture on grass verges, children playing on the roads. The Mercedes made a succession of turns into a cul-de-sac where people were sitting on living-room furniture in front garden spaces. The vehicle glided to a halt and a teenage girl waved from a balcony.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Vinnie.

  ‘This is the house and that is one of your passengers,’ answered Mustapha. ‘Aren’t you lucky?’

  ‘Who are you? Captain fucking obvious?’

  ‘Calm yourself. Nobody minds round here. Nobody’s watching,’ said Mustapha.

  The girl opened the patched-up front
door and greeted Mustapha like an uncle.

  He stopped on the stairs, delving into his pocket for some chocolate. ‘These are the people you’ll be travelling with. They’ll take good care of you.’

  ‘Hi.’ She smiled shyly before springing up the stairs ahead of everyone.

  The apartment at the top was a blank space crammed with people, sitting on mattresses and sleeping bags. Mustapha made apple tea whilst a husband and wife explained to Farood how they had all helped knock through to the apartment next door.

  Vinnie stepped over people, counting from room to room. ‘Is this everyone?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a few not back.’

  Vinnie cursed.

  ‘You know your problem, Vinnie?’ cautioned Mustapha. ‘You need to relax. Being on edge will only put them on edge. How many can you take?’

  ‘Five, maybe six.’

  ‘I need you to take more; as you can see, I’ve got a house-full here.’

  ‘Two houses, apparently. I don’t work for you, Mustapha; I just provide a service.’

  A man clumped up the stairs with two bags of shopping. Farood took a guess and greeted him in Pashtu, relieving him of a bag. They exchanged introductions and accounts of their journeys. The man had spent a night at sea; the memory of his approaching death wouldn’t leave him alone, he said. The agent here lacked connections, made promises that no one believed. He had people working in a food factory, making sandwiches day and night to pay for the apartment. Back home in Herat he had a wife and children who he wanted to join him in the UK, but not in Holland. And he had paid for the UK.

  In the room next door Vinnie was explaining the travel itinerary to the next five passengers. The thermal blankets, fifteen hours in a coffin-sized box, plenty of air but bring your own water.