Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  He sat down on the ground and patted the ground for her to join him. The grass was cold and dewy, but they both knew they must sit until it was talked out. She rested her head on his lap and took his hand, laying his palm on her cheek where she had been punched.

  ‘Are you in charge of the route now? From here to London?’

  He nodded. ‘I take the money and pass it along.’

  ‘And you could arrange for us to be looked after on the way.’ Lifting her head, she raised herself onto her knees. ‘You buy your mother a nice house and come and join us.’

  They kissed.

  The following day Abdi was summoned and told to bring the men from Kokan. Some supplies were bought for them: a little food, jackets and shoes, rucksacks to carry them in, all by way of compensation. The two girls were given phones and introduced to the men, who were told to be sure to look after them along the way. If anything happened to either of them, he would have them both killed, no matter who was to blame. Then he told Salma to look after his sister as Yashfa said goodbye to her mother, who thumped the ground as she wept.

  Farood took his mother and uncle to Pol-e; he bought them clothes and bought food and fuel. On the way back Farood talked about buying a house in town; it would happen by the spring. Outside of town, they came across an American army checkpoint. Farood joked with a soldier, asking for some of his gum, which he was given and for which he slapped the soldier’s palm, his uncle cursing from the front passenger seat. Farood considered he had kept his word to his family as best he could. He did not have the money as yet, but he had the means to acquire it, then he would be able to buy a house that was better than the one destroyed by a drone ten years before. He had tried to find the money in England and failed, but was succeeding in the business that his brother had sent him to be part of when he was a child. It was his path now and he had a right to be proud of it.

  The four miners came for him just before dawn, Yashfa’s former groom at the head of the group. They walked along in a line, fitfully, like startled sheep. The uncle was awake for their arrival, lifting a creaking latch on the door. His friend went straight into the door-less bedroom, his rifle pointed towards Farood from waist height. The smell, the heat off the miners woke Farood. He sat up, stretching out his arms in a pretence of waking, reaching for his pistol under the pillow. The miner brought his foot down on Farood’s arm; two other miners ran into the room swinging their rifles. He was dragged out into curdling light, his arms held tightly behind his back; he bent forward, facing the ground. His mother awoke and began to scream.

  ‘He has taken my honour,’ the miner shouted. ‘Your family’s too, you know that.’

  He placed the end of the rifle barrel at the top of Farood’s neck. Farood’s mother ran as best she could to throw herself on her son, but her brother grappled her to the ground. Farood looked across at her. He was leaving her again, looking at her for the last time, once more, and she was weeping again. The trigger was pulled; his body jolted forward before rolling to one side.

  *

  Salma and Yashfa, plus two men from Kokan, had been in Kabul for three days, waiting for someone to take them over the border. They were happy to wait, for the house in Kabul was a joyful place. There were two older women in the house, and Salma and Yashfa played contentedly with their children. It was a detached building with a steel gate surrounding it, leaving a yard at the back and a parking port at the front. It was a bright winter’s morning. From behind a window it looked like spring, but outside, in the cold truth, it felt like snow might come.

  They were playing sangchil: throwing a pebble in the air and picking up another from the ground before catching the first pebble; then picking up two, then three. Yashfa was on a four-pebble throw. She steadied herself, then leaped a little, throwing a white piece of flint up towards the blue; she dipped to her knees and scooped up pebbles with each hand before opening a palm to catch the falling circle of light, but it bounced off her hand onto the ground. The others laughed; Yashfa kicked the stone away. She had switched her burka for a headscarf and would often stand outside alone in the morning with her head bare.

  Salma asked one of the Kokan men about Quetta.

  ‘We shouldn’t have any trouble,’ he said. ‘People go through there all the time. It’s a normal thing. Iran, they say, is harder.’

  The owner of the house watched the four from an upstairs window. He checked his phone again, took another photo from the window and sent it to Farood’s number. This, he thought, will be my last year in the business. There were so many unreliable, unprofessional people muscling in these days.

  Snowflakes tumbled onto the window; below Yashfa clapped her hands around them as they fell. She and Salma were in winter coats, the two men under shawls. The owner went outside, smiling. The four gathered round him, anticipating, but it was he who had the question.

  ‘Have you heard from Farood?’

  Salma shook her head. ‘Have you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, still smiling. ‘You need to go back and find him. I can’t send you on to Quetta without the money. And the next agent will need to be paid too, and the one after that. It won’t take long. There’s a car going back tomorrow.’

  The following morning, they waited at the other side of the building. The driver emerged from a side door of the house, yawning and limping. He unlocked the car for them and then slid the steel gates apart. He drove out, leaving the engine running as he closed the gates behind. Salma looked across to Yashfa while silently opening the back door – the older girl’s eyes beckoned. Yashfa glanced away for a moment – when she turned back, Salma was gone. The driver shouted after her and slammed the door. He got back behind the wheel and looked in his wing mirror to see Yashfa running down the street after her.

  Acknowledgements

  During the research for this book I spoke to many people who had made their way to the UK as asylum seekers, refugees or simply as migrants, but all of them through unofficial means. I am grateful to them and hope wherever they are now, they have somewhere they can think of as home. I would like to thank Clive and Eleanor Worley for their feedback on an early draft of the manuscript, and Mary Ellen for editorial work on later drafts.