Her mother slapped her hard across the face. ‘Do not say those words.’
Mahtab fell back against the bed, her cheek burning.
‘Why not? You must think so too.’
‘I do not know what to think. I just know who I am and that I am to look after you all and protect you.’
Mahtab dropped to the floor and drew her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them and hid her face, rocking, silent.
Mahtab watched her little brother and sister. Farhad still spent most days with Ahmad and Hussein, but their wild, joyful games grew fewer and fewer. One day they fought, wrestling in the dust, pushing and shoving, each grabbing the others by the hips, the shoulders, the neck, rolling over and over while other, bigger boys cheered them on. A guard, the woman who had shown them to the room the first day, laughed too. She threw her head back and the sun gleamed off her bright red lips and the flashes of gold in her teeth. The pink-and-ginger guard came then and spoke angrily to Hamida and to Mahtab’s mother. He brought with him the translator, who said that they must control their sons or the boys would be put in special rooms by themselves where those who broke the rules were sent.
They had heard of these rooms. The prison within the prison. One of the Iraqi men from the boat, the one who had struck his wife, was there. He had attacked a guard, cursing him and his country, using language that Mahtab’s father had once said belonged only with sailors and common criminals. For ten days he was alone there while his wife and his children begged the guards to let him out.
‘They wouldn’t do that to a child, would they?’ Mahtab’s mother wept as she spoke to the translator. He just rolled his eyes. ‘It’s a warning,’ he said. ‘Tell them.’
So the boys were made to listen as their mothers told them in great detail of the risks they were taking.
‘You will be alone with no one to talk to or to play with,’ said Hamida. ‘They will feed you only bread and water – the bread they have here which you don’t like. You must be friends. You must support each other. We will not be here for ever.’
After that, Hamida and Mahtab’s mother made sure that every day one of them was watching. If it seemed a fight was coming between the boys they broke them apart. When they felt that older boys, bored in the long, hot day, goaded the younger ones to brawl they spoke harshly to them and brought Farhad and Ahmad inside. Sometimes they felt nervous when they saw the older men watching their boys.
‘They are just missing their own children,’ said Hamida. ‘Our husbands would be the same.’
‘Maybe. But I trust no one,’ said Mahtab’s mother and she watched all the more closely.
Chapter Eleven
ONE LUNCHTIME THEY were sitting in the dining room, stirring their rice and vegetables, talking of nothing in particular, when they heard loud screaming. A woman burst into the room, shouting and crying. Other women jumped up and ran to her and the guard grabbed her hand and called for a translator. The woman didn’t wait but pulled the guard with her back through the door and in the direction of the shower block. Mahtab joined the crowd that gathered near the door. Two of the Iraqi women came out, carrying a girl. She was the one they had seen the first day, the girl who walked the wire. Her wet scarf hung almost to the ground. Her eyes were closed, her face a sickly grey.
‘She drank the shampoo,’ whispered one of the women.
‘The whole bottle?’
‘Why?’
‘Crazy.’
‘This place is enough to do that.’
‘We will all end up like her.’
Mahtab watched as the girl was carried away towards the sickroom. She turned, thinking of shampoo creeping into her closed eyes, stinging, spitting out the tiny drops that got in her mouth. How could she? A whole bottle. She walked back to their room, her lunch forgotten.
Now there were days when English lessons weren’t enough, days when Mahtab stretched on her bed and could not be drawn from it.
‘Come on,’ said her mother one afternoon. ‘I’ve found the chess set, the one we made in Pakistan.’
Pakistan. Was it only months away? Mahtab felt she had lived in this centre for ever.
‘Come on,’ Farhad joined in. ‘I want to play. Mum says you have to play with me.’
‘Go away. Play by yourself. Play with Ahmad.’
‘He doesn’t know how.’
‘Teach him.’
‘Come on,’ Soraya climbed on the bed beside her sister. ‘Show me what to do. I’ve forgotten. Tell me where the queens and the castles and the pawns go.’
Mahtab rolled over and pushed herself from the bed. Her body was a dead weight: an anchor resting on the bottom, needing some other stronger person to lift it. She shook her head, trying to focus.
‘Are you all right?’ said her mother from the doorway. ‘I’ll get Catherine.’
‘No. I just need a minute.’ She took deep breaths and pushed the air from her lungs with as much force as she could muster. ‘Where are we playing?’
The next day, after breakfast, Mahtab sat on the step. Soraya had gone with their mother to help Hamida with the baby. Farhad was there too with Ahmad. She stared at the fence that was about fifty metres away. When she let her eyes go out of focus, the wire mesh faded and she found herself concentrating on the red dust beyond it. A breeze had started and it whipped the dust into a circle. At first it stayed low and then it turned into a tube that rose higher and higher, gathering more and more dust into it, dancing, teasing, blowing quickly every which way before her eyes. The dark redness of it grew paler as it moved upwards until the top disappeared, floating into the air. She stood up and ran to the fence. She gripped it, twisting her fingers through the spaces between the wire joins. Then she let go and moved along, trailing her fingers, her eyes still on the dust swirling, leaping, flying free in the hot morning air.
Gradually, it died. She stayed there, not moving. Would it return? It would. It must. She stared out at the wide, red land. Come on, wind. She moved along the fence a little. Maybe it would start up in another place. She walked further and further. The air was still. She heard but took no notice of the voices in the yard behind her: the quarrelling children, the softer talk of men with each other, of the women. She saw only the land: the broad, flat, treeless hugeness of it. She reached the place where a building blocked her way. She could go no further. What if the dancing wind had come again, behind her back? She turned and walked the way she had come, staring, still staring.
Some time later, her mother found her there. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t be silly. Come back to our room.’
‘No.’
‘Come and talk to me.’
‘No.’
‘We could do some English.’
‘No.’
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Out there.’
‘There’s nothing out there.’
Mahtab didn’t answer. She pulled her veil across her face and followed her mother to their room.
The next day she went again to the wire. She pressed herself against it, searching the land beyond it for anything that moved: for dust, for a bird, for a wavering blade of grass. Nothing. She began her walk. Step by step she counted her way, ‘One, two, three, four…’ She counted the words out loud: ‘Five, six, seven…’ At one hundred and fifty she reached the building and turned around. One hundred and fifty brought her back again and this time she went further. Two hundred steps took her to the place where another fence cut across the one she was travelling along. She turned again. She looked up and saw high above her a black speck against the blue of the sky. Two specks. Black birds hovering, their wings spread wide. The land below was still. She kept walking, counting, walking, counting, walking.
Late that afternoon, Catherine came to their room.
‘Are you all right, Mahtab?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw you walking today. Do you want to tell me why you do that?’
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Mahtab didn’t answer. It was a stupid question. Why did anyone walk? You walked to get where you wanted to go.
‘Your mum is worried about you.’
Still no answer.
‘You know you can come and talk to me if you want to. I’m not a guard here. I’m the nurse. I’m your friend.’
Friend. Mahtab let out a long, slow breath. Leila was her friend. Her only friend. Together, days after Aunt Mina’s wedding, they had painted their feet with henna and danced for Grandma, who had clapped and fed them sweet sugared almonds from Paris.
‘You do know that, don’t you?’ Catherine stood up and moved to the door. ‘You can trust me.’
Mahtab stared at the tiny jar on the shelf. A shaft of sunlight came through the window and bounced off the earth inside it. The flecks of quartz gleamed shiny, silver. She was still staring at it when she heard Catherine quietly close the door.
The next day she walked again. And the next. She saw a coach approaching, racing towards them on the hot, dark bitumen. She did not turn to see it enter the camp and spill its load of new arrivals.
Days later as she stood in the hot midday sun, her head began to ache. She pushed it so hard against the wire that when she lifted it, she could feel the pattern of the strands was pressed into the skin of her forehead. Her mouth was dry. Strange flashes of light appeared at the corners of her eyes. She stumbled across the yard. ‘Mum,’ she called. ‘Mum.’
Hamida caught her as she reached the steps.
‘Mahtab, what’s the matter?’
‘Mum.’
‘She’s at the laundry. Let me.’ She led Mahtab to her room and helped her onto the bed. She brought a mug of water. The flashes were still there, behind the closed lids.
Then her mother was there, putting her cool, wet hands on Mahtab’s forehead. ‘You’re so hot. No more getting out in that sun for you.’ She wet a corner of a towel and sponged Mahtab’s face. ‘Try to sleep. I’ll stay near.’
All through the afternoon, she kept replacing the cool towel. When Soraya and Farhad came noisily into the room, she shooed them out. ‘Go and play with the baby. Mahtab’s not well.’
Mahtab missed dinner. That night she slept fitfully. She found the shell that she had placed under her pillow. Her hand closed over it and would not let it go. Then dreams began, but just as the images formed in her mind, she woke to find her mother watching over her. When morning came she was still hot.
‘I think we should get Catherine,’ said her mother.
‘No. It’s just the sun. That’s what you said.’
All morning she tossed on the bed. Sweat gathered in the creases of her neck, her elbows and behind her knees. Her hair was wet and tangled. She was hot and sticky.
Some time in the afternoon Catherine did come. She sat beside Mahtab on the bed and took her hand. She ruffled Mahtab’s hair. ‘I’ll call in and check on you. You’ll be right as rain by the end of the week.’
Mahtab heard her through a strange mist. One moment she felt heavy, her body pressing into the mattress as if dragged down with heavy stones. Then she was floating, weightless above the bed, looking down on herself as she lay before her anxious mother.
Her head ached. She was so hot she wanted to throw the blanket from her, then she felt as frozen as she had been in the snow country. No blankets in the world could make her warm again.
For days she lay like that. Barely realising it, she allowed her mouth to be opened to take sips of water or spoonfuls of mashed-up food. Her mother and Catherine gently bathed her. All day, Soraya or Farhad stood beside her bed fanning her with the dampened towel. She wanted to reach out and speak to everyone but before she could form the words they had slipped from her brain and she could not call them back.
On the third night she seemed hotter and more restless.
The dreams came again, but like nothing she had dreamt before. They began with the child who was calling, who was Soraya but not Soraya, the face was different. She disappeared and there was a mountain and Mahtab knew she had to climb that mountain even though there was snow and she had no shoes and her feet were cut and bleeding. She could hear the voice again and she cried out I am coming, I am coming but no sound came from her voice and she knew she had to turn up the volume but her switch was broken and she couldn’t find it then she was gathering dirt and stones for her mother, to remember the place by, every stone she saw she had to put it in her pocket but her pockets were full and the stones were heavy and still the voice was crying to her as she was bent beneath the weight of the stones, their sparkling silver quartz was making her eyes water so she took off her veil and wrapped them but she knew the black turbans were somewhere near and so she tossed the stones aside and she was in a truck riding in the front and it was her grandfather who was driving and he turned and said to her we are nearly there now, nearly there, and he was gone and it was her mother who was driving but she had a face that Mahtab didn’t know and she was singing the La La song and she said sing with me, sing with me and Mahtab opened her mouth but no words come out which was strange because she was making the words in her head. Her father was driving now, driving through the red dust, and the truck was leaving the ground behind and it was rising higher and higher like the red dust and outside the window there were people waving, Leila and Hamida and then the baby and it was saying something but Mahtab couldn’t hear her.
Later, or maybe it was the same dream, the same night, she was on a boat and her mother was there and she was saying something about her father that he is a good, good man, no he was a good, good man for he is dead and Mahtab tried to scream no, no he cannot be but again no sound came and then she was gone and Mahtab was alone and she knew that Farhad was somewhere and she had to find him but the rain had come and snow too and she was running on the boat and there was an earthquake, for the boat was rocking, rocking and it began to go up so maybe it was an aeroplane but it was just a whale, a lovely whale, and she wanted to lie down and stroke its head but she was Sinbad and she was falling, falling, falling.
Her eyes opened. The dark room was lit by a candle. Catherine and her mother were there watching her.
‘Farhad and Soraya, where are they, where?’
‘Sshh. Everything’s all right. They are with Hamida. You have been very ill.’ Her mother patted her forehead.
Catherine was crying. ‘I am so sorry, Mahtab. So sorry. You have been so sick. I had nothing to give you.’
‘Dad? Is Dad…? You told me…’ Mahtab reached for her mother.
‘I haven’t told you anything. You’ve been dreaming. What did you dream I said?’
‘That he is dead. That he…’
‘Nothing has changed, Mahtab. You’ve been gone from us for a few days. Your fever has been so strong. That is all. We still don’t know.’
Mahtab lay back. She opened her clutched hand. The tiny shell fell from her outstretched fingers.
Chapter Twelve
THE NEXT DAY Mahtab sat up. Her mother knelt behind her, brushing her hair and then plaiting it and winding it up off her neck. Every now and then she leant forward and wrapped her arms around her daughter. ‘I was so scared,’ she said. ‘So scared that you were really, really sick and you were going to leave us.’
‘You mean die?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I thought so too, Mum.’ She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, ‘Mum, you know how I said one day that Dad was dead. Do you think he is? Do you think they’ll send us back?’
‘Only in my worst, my darkest thoughts. And then sometimes I am certain that he is alive. He is out there, somewhere in this country, and he is thinking something has happened to us. Maybe he is locked up too. Maybe he is in a city and he has telephoned Pakistan and they have told him we set out for Australia. He will be worried too, not knowing where we are. Some boats have sunk, you know. Catherine told me.’
‘What can we do, Mum? What can we do?’
Her mother held her tightly. ‘We wait. We wait and w
e get you well and then we stay strong and we believe that he will come. He has to come. He will come.’ She started to rock then, slowly, rhythmically, humming the La La song for a very long time.
Two days later, Mahtab got out of bed for a while. She sat on the step in the sun and watched the yard, her face sheltered behind her veil. Catherine came to join her, squatting in the dust at her feet.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘A bit better.’
‘You gave everyone a fright, you know.’
‘So Mum tells me.’
‘You Afghani girls must be made of very tough stuff.’
Mahtab laughed.
‘That is the first time I’ve heard you laugh,’ said Catherine. ‘I’m going into town for the weekend. Can I get you anything?’
‘Are you allowed to do that? Really?’
Catherine shrugged. ‘I do what I do.’
‘I’d …I’d like a book,’ said Mahtab.
‘A book to read?’
‘No. To write in.’
‘You mean a diary.’
‘I suppose.’ A book to write in, every day. As Dad had said. If he came or if he didn’t come, she would write down and remember.
‘OK,’ said Catherine, rising to her feet and brushing the dust from her jeans. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
All weekend, Mahtab waited. She played a game of chess with Farhad, surprised to find that he had developed skills and tactics beyond those she had herself. She told the story of the kangaroo to Soraya twice and she watched Hamida’s baby as she kicked and gurgled in the morning sun. She had a name now, Arezo, and Hamida said, ‘One day, when we are all together with her father, and with yours, we will celebrate this new name properly with sweets and chocolate.’
Mahtab blew kisses on the little one’s belly and stroked her arms, delighted at her skin as soft as velvet.
Catherine returned. ‘I couldn’t find a diary,’ she said, ‘it’s too late in the year. So I brought you this.’ She handed Mahtab an exercise book. ‘You can put in the date yourself.’
It was a thick book, with a white spiral spine. Mahtab flicked through the lined pages and turned it over. On the back were tables of measurement: weights and distances in different systems and a yellow map of Australia. She knew it from the book her father had shown her.
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