Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  They walked in the direction of the line, the captain estimating the number of boatloads ahead of him.

  Misha asked, ‘Is Libyan money any good?’

  ‘We can take it to the government side. American dollars always best, anywhere.’

  Farood wondered why everyone had agreed to be herded, why they hadn’t paid proper agents and gone their own way.

  Along the touchline of the football pitch goats nibbled the grass, then a mass of makeshift bivouacs made of cardboard and plastic sheeting – and men, lying on their backs and their elbows. Women sitting with children in their arms, older children standing and waiting for some event, some conclusion. At each corner flag of the pitch there were soft-top jeeps serving as low-level lookout towers. The procession of fifty or more that walked ahead of them were looking for a space to settle down, the African man with the child in his arms still arguing with his escort.

  The captain picked out a senior-looking militiaman from the half dozen surrounding the camp. Before he approached, he ruminated to Misha and Farood. ‘I saw a couple of boats at the jetty. And I didn’t see any people waiting on the beach. So, what do they want all these people for?’

  ‘Maybe they exchange them for prisoners. Do a swap,’ said Misha.

  ‘Does either side here take prisoners? Taliban never took any,’ said Farood.

  The captain put on his sunglasses and the three walked over to a jeep, slowly, the captain showing the two men leaning against the dusty vehicle his open palms. The taller militiaman raised his head slightly by way of interrogation.

  ‘I have a boat,’ said the captain.

  ‘Congratulations. You should go for a sail, it’s a nice day.’

  Farood took a step forward. ‘We’ve just sailed all the way here. We want to pick up some passengers from you,’ he said.

  The militiaman levered himself off the jeep, clasped his rifle. ‘Then you’ll need to buy them from me.’

  The captain only had to turn his head towards Misha, enough to prompt him to drag Farood back two steps. Misha’s tone was hushed. ‘You don’t talk for the captain. You should know that.’

  Behind the guards, a squabble over water was taking place. An old couple had some, a younger family didn’t. A child was crying and two men had their hands on the same two-litre bottle. Both were shouting.

  ‘You buy each one from us, American dollars,’ said the militiaman plainly.

  ‘But how do I know they’ll have any money left to pay me?’ replied the captain.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘Why don’t I give you a cut of what I take from them instead? There’s plenty more from where they came.’ He needed a deal.

  In the background, the younger man grabbed a knife out from his boot and stabbed the old man. His wife began screaming. The militiaman turned and took a few seconds to read the plot behind him. ‘You see that?’ he turned to ask Misha.

  ‘That one there, stabbed the old guy.’ Misha pointed.

  The militiaman nodded in gratitude before walking over and firing two rounds into the chest of the younger man. He returned, examining the knife taken from the corpse. ‘So how many do you want?’ he asked coolly.

  ‘Fifty,’ said the captain.

  ‘You must give me five hundred dollars up front.’

  The captain sighed demonstrably. ‘Let me think about this, maybe come back tomorrow.’

  The militiaman shrugged and spat on the ground.

  On the way back to the town, they crossed another escorted procession on its way to the camp. The captain noticed the suitcases, the polish on the shoes under the dust. The three of them stopped and observed the scene like a film unravelling.

  ‘They look like they’ve just left a hotel. They haven’t come far, maybe we should get beyond the reach of the militia.’

  ‘The government side of the war?’ asked Misha. ‘Isn’t it further away, longer to sail to Crete?’

  ‘But we might not have to pay for our own passengers,’ was the captain’s answer.

  When they got back to the tearoom there was a small crowd outside. A group of men gathered around a table. A game of draughts, perhaps, with spectators. Through a gap in the huddle, a grey-haired old man could be seen sobbing, his head heavy with grief. Another man was standing, reading aloud from the Qur’an, beside him another pressed record on his phone, moved to one side, zooming in on the two men pressing down on a forearm above a tourniquet. The old man stood and wept, pulling his son’s head into his breast as a cleaver was raised and plunged down. Farood and Misha rapidly walked away, crossing the road; the captain remained. Someone brought a bucket to the table. The man reciting the Qur’an walked off down the street, yelling, ‘Allahu Akbar.’ The teenage amputee was carried into the tearoom.

  It was dusk when the three of them got to the jetty; there were twenty to thirty migrants waiting on the beach under guard, all men.

  ‘You two okay?’ asked the captain.

  ‘We should get out of here, boss, we really should,’ said Misha.

  ‘We will. But I don’t want to be driven out by these savages. Let’s see if we can’t get a boatload to Crete. Then we should move the hell away from here.’

  He rang for the launch to collect them. Farood climbed down from the jetty onto the other side of the beach, made his way to the incoming surf, crouched, and washed his face and arms in the sea.

  ‘I’m going for a walk, I think,’ he shouted up.

  Misha was incredulous, embarrassed by Farood’s behaviour in front of the captain. ‘Where? We’re not in Paris. This ain’t no tourist town, bro.’

  ‘Well, I don’t feel so good, and I don’t fancy returning to the boat just yet.’

  The launch tilted towards the jetty and drifted to a halt.

  ‘Stay away from the teashop,’ shouted the captain.

  Farood set off along the beach then up onto the strand until the end of the town. He was shivering; the sunset was blood and bone. He closed his eyes and he could still see the boy carried into the tearoom – his stump wrapped in a towel. There was a checkpoint ahead, so he turned left down a side street. The captain had watched the butchery like a tooth was being pulled. What else must he have seen? The street he was in had only shadow; he could taste blood in his mouth. He spat. He thought about returning to the beach, bathing in the sea.

  His phone rang; it was Misha. ‘Farood, come back here, I’ll fetch you. We’re having a drink, helps clear the mind.’

  Farood hung up; his own voice wasn’t under his command. He carried on walking. A raptor’s wings, black, beat above, sailing in the same direction.

  ‘Hey, mister… Hey, what you doing today?’

  The question echoed. A woman’s voice, from a rooftop, maybe.

  ‘Hey, hey, up here.’

  He spun around, looking upwards – an orange and black scarf drifted down. It passed his eyes and he saw a dark-haired woman leaning from a window. He caught the scarf; he could smell its musk, he wanted to press it to his face.

  ‘Bring it up to me.’

  She spoke as though he knew her. A buzzer sounded on a door nearby. He went in, trod slowly up concrete stairs. On a wall beyond a window frame, there was a spray of pockmarks, gouged by gunfire. As he turned for the second flight of stairs, he saw her waiting for him at the top. Her hair was thick, coal black, down to her shoulders; her face was warm and strong, and she had one hand on a door and another on her hip. She wore an orange floral skirt and a purple blouse, and he wondered how she was allowed to dress that way, that maybe he was in a place that the militia did not know about, some kind of a sanctuary. He took the second flight more slowly, stomping a little, all the time watching her half-smile that broadened when he reached the landing. He presented her scarf to her as a gift. ‘Come,’ she said, holding the door for him behind her.

  They walked down a da
rkened corridor, his eyes following her shoulders as they ruffled her blouse, the rocking of her hips. He smelled her scent again, walked its path. There was music behind the doors they passed, Arabic and English pop music. They turned right along the black and gold carpet, to a rust-coloured door with dried drip marks. She looked over her shoulder to make sure he was still there. When she opened the door, a man in a black leather jacket rose to his feet. He was bald with a closely cropped beard. He was waved away.

  ‘Have a seat,’ she said to him.

  He sunk into a wicker armchair. There was shelving with books and CDs, a cactus and a lava lamp changing from green to purple. The light from the ceiling didn’t reach the walls, barely made it to the floor. There was a permanent coldness in the room.

  ‘You want a cigarette?’ He shook his head. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Farood.’

  ‘You’re an Afghan?’

  ‘How did you know?’ He presumed an accusation.

  ‘We have a few in town,’ she said, sitting down on the bed, her back against the headboard, her shoes kicked off. ‘They’re very religious. Except when they come here.’

  He picked up a magazine, flicked past the photographs of cruise ships, banquets, and dancing.

  ‘Where did you learn your English?’ Then she exhaled cigarette smoke, silvering the light.

  ‘England. Where did you learn yours?’

  ‘University. Come and sit next to me. I’m not going to jump on you.’

  He dropped the magazine, stood by the bed and waited for her to make room for him. She raised her eyes to him instead. He shuffled himself next to her, with one leg dangling to the side, his hands resting on his other knee, his eyes upon the rug on the floor, the mattress bowed under them.

  ‘Are you tired?’ she asked. ‘I’m tired. You look tired to me.’

  She lowered her head to a pillow beside his lap, her eyes gazing up at him.

  ‘Where’s your gun? You don’t have a gun.’

  ‘I don’t carry it all the time.’

  She put a hand on his thigh. He didn’t move, but her fingers felt his muscles tense. He wanted to go, but he would not run away. He was a man now, moving people from one part of the world to the other. He stretched out, folded his hands behind his head.

  She began to stroke the back of his neck. ‘Nothing to be uptight about, is there?’ she said quietly.

  Her leg overlapped his; her lips came to his. He let her kiss him, half responding, waiting for it to stop, but it didn’t. Then her hand reached for his waist; he swung away and stood up, spoke angrily. ‘Why have you brought me here, what do you want from me?’

  He left the room, closed his eyes and took a breath. He wanted to walk away silently, but she was behind him, reaching for his hand.

  ‘Do you want a shower? You should have a shower.’

  ‘I have to get back, people are waiting for me.’ His voice was formal, strange to him.

  ‘There is someone I want you to meet. Someone nearer your age, younger than you.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘The daughter of a friend of mine. She plans to go to England. I wondered if you’d speak to her, tell her what it’s like.’

  She led him to a door around the corner, knocked softly. ‘Salma?’ she queried, opening the door. ‘This is Farood. He’s been to England, a long time. He can tell you all about it.’

  The room was smaller than the last, little more than the length of the bed upon which she sat neatly. She was black, like the American soldiers he had seen back home, fourteen, maybe, her hair a small afro. She wore jeans and a black singlet.

  The woman with the scarf left; he faltered next to the door. ‘She says you want to go to England.’

  ‘Have you been to England?’

  He nodded. ‘I lived there a long time. It’s not how you think it is.’

  ‘How is it?’ She was eager, yet respectful.

  ‘It is a hard place. People pretend that they will help you, but they don’t.’ He let her think on that and added, ‘How will you get there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was with my father and brother, but the soldiers brought me here. I need to find my family first.’

  As she spoke Farood could hear remnants of youthful optimism. He sat down on the bed next to her. She was a captive there, he knew, from having been one himself. He knew also that she couldn’t have been there long, for she hadn’t realised yet that she would not be allowed to leave the apartment and would never see England.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.

  ‘Few days,’ she said, the words weighted with shame. ‘They said I can leave, day after tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do for you. I work on a boat, but I don’t think we’ll be going to England.’ He got to his feet.

  ‘It’s too soon to go. If you go now, they might be angry with me. You have to say you enjoyed your time with me.’

  She took his hand and he sat back down.

  ‘Okay, I’ll say I had a good time, if you like.’ Then he smiled, moving his mouth in to kiss her. She stiffened a little, leaving her lips tight, but she did not oppose him. He pushed her shoulders down and straddled her. He pulled up her singlet, feeling her elfin breasts in his palms. His forbidding eyes saw a redness about her throat he hadn’t noticed before; this momentarily interrupted his strokes. He pulled off her singlet; he laid himself down next to her.

  ‘Can you do something for me?’ she asked him softly.

  He smiled. ‘Course.’

  She took a photograph from her jean pocket and showed it to him. ‘If you see my father, will you tell him where I am?’

  He took the photograph from her – a family of four having dinner. He saw something in it. It was the man and the boy being taken to the camp, outside the teashop, who asked about his daughter. She was there too, with shorter hair, a broad smile.

  ‘This is your father?’

  His incredulity gave her hope. ‘Yes, why? Have you seen him?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. You all look so happy, that’s all I was thinking.’

  He lay back and stretched out his arms; she fell inside them.

  ‘It was taken when we were on holiday, in Tunisia. We stayed in a hotel, a man there took it for us.’

  ‘What happened to your mother?’

  ‘She stayed behind.’

  He looked at her blankly for a moment then dragged her jeans off her. He entered her roughly, but not violently. Before, in the basement of Berzan’s club, when he had raped, it had been so brief an act – an attack on a stranger. Fights in prison had lasted longer. On this occasion, he deferred his climax, but not for long. He slept until his phone rang. He didn’t answer it but accepted that he had to return to the boat.

  ‘I have to go; I hope you find your father.’

  ‘Please, may I use your phone? To ring my father?’

  Her plea embarrassed him. They would have taken her phone. He gave her his phone; she turned her back to Farood and waited for a reply.

  She shook her head. ‘His battery must be dead. He wouldn’t have switched it off.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  He nodded and left the room. At the main door to the apartment stood the woman who had invited him in and the man in the leather jacket, who held out his hand.

  ‘Twenty dollars.’

  ‘She could be a good friend to you,’ said the woman.

  Thirty-Four

  Libya

  It was almost dark; there were no streetlights outside the apartment block. He heard a scream, a man shouting in Arabic, a gunshot from somewhere else. He headed back to the jetty, the way he had come, up the street, then along the strand. They would be angry with him. He rang Misha to let him know to send the launch. There was a new checkpoint. Two men, one in gangster apparel, another i
nside a shalwar kameez, a pakol balanced on his head. It reminded him of the gift he had left home with. They saw Farood approach and stepped apart but then turned as a moped rattled from the other direction. They waved it down with torches. Farood was close enough to see that the passenger riding on the back was a woman, in jeans and jumper, a scarf around her neck rather than her head. The taller man under the pakol pulled her off by the hair onto the ground. She got to her feet; he kicked her legs and pointed her away. The moped snarled on past Farood, who advanced, undeterred, towards the checkpoint. He had less fear of the militia than Misha or the captain, the Taliban being part of his childhood, and being an Afghan would almost make him above suspicion. He would talk to them, wish them well. Of the two, the Westerner in jeans would be the more dangerous, for he would have made his way from Europe to know what it felt like to kill someone.

  As he got within twenty yards they shone their torches in his direction.

  ‘As-salāmu ʿalaykum,’ said one.

  ‘Waʿalaykumu as-salām,’ said Farood, guarding his eyes.

  A torch still fixed on him; he was questioned by shadows, in Arabic first. ‘Where is your beard, brother?’

  He shrugged at this, replying in Pashtu. ‘I had to shave it off to get a job.’

  ‘You won’t need to do that anymore, make sure you grow it back,’ said the Afghan militiaman.

  ‘Okay, boss.’

  The torch was switched off; he was in the clear. Heading past them into the gloom, the Afghan militiaman called after him. ‘Hey, Pashtun, what’s your name?’

  Even before Farood could utter his name, some recognition began to surface. ‘Farood.’

  ‘And you don’t recognise your own brother?’

  The militiaman lit up his face with his torch. It was yellowish, severe, but familiar. ‘I know you, brother,’ he said. ‘It’s been ten years, but I know you.’