Akram's War

by Nadim Safdar

  Bobby, his face sombre, wheeled in a plain wooden coffin on a trolley. He stood and watched, humming a naath.

  Mustafa and I lined the casket with three sheets of white linen that draped generously over each edge. After bringing the trolley up parallel to Faisal, with a great heave we carefully lifted his body into the coffin. We wrapped the sheets over his body, tucking them into the sides and tightly over his forehead to conceal the entry hole, leaving an opening so that his face could be viewed. Finally, we placed the cover on the casket and from the green bottle scattered incense over the lid.

  As Bobby wheeled the casket away I felt suddenly tired. We had worked in a period of suspended grace and under a veil of hypnotic chant, but now I realized that I was drenched in sweat and that a sort of coffee-grind treacle had rubbed off Faisal onto my hands and arms. I had worked hunched awkwardly over the trolley, my weight borne on one leg, my stick discarded on the floor by my feet.

  As though reading my mind, Mustafa reached down for my stick. A single tear tracked down his cheek as he said, ‘I hope you are cleansed of the British, of England’s green and pleasant land. Here lay no savage beast.’ His tears flowed more heavily, and he added, ‘I chose you because I knew you would have respect for a fighting man, and I now know that you see what I see, the sacrifice, the nobility of our kid’s martyrdom.’

  In the anteroom, Bobby helped me out of my gloves and apron. Taking a wet soapy sponge, he slowly wiped my arms and then dried them with a towel. I said nothing, shivering at his touch.

  16

  Grace pours tea as we sit facing each other across a small kitchen table. She pushes a mug towards me and raises another to her lips. She blows on the hot surface, takes the tiniest of sips and puts it down.

  ‘After the child protection conference, I got a surprise letter from the council offering me an old brick house in a proper street. This house! I jumped at the chance to get off the estate. No place to bring up a kid. Nothing happened for ages, no one visited, and although I dreaded the postman, no more children’s department demands arrived. Britney was doing well, and after all the fuss I avoided the doctor’s. My mind was good and we got out once a day to the park and to the shops.

  ‘One day we were walking along Cradley high street, window shopping – I was skint – and a policeman literally bumped into me. He helped me up and then stared at me. “Grace Booth?”

  ‘“Yes, sir.” I saluted him, all jokey.

  ‘“We’ve got a picture of you on our wall. We’ve been looking for you.”

  ‘“How strange to be famous,” I joked. “I’ve been home.”

  ‘Turns out I was in contempt of court. They had been writing to me at the old address. I went to see a solicitor, Mr Ingram, who told me not to worry and that I was entitled to legal aid. The worst part was the waiting. Mr Ingram was waiting for the other side to photocopy the paperwork, which he’d then photocopy and send to me. It took a month. A van turned up. A man got out, loaded three heavy boxes of papers onto a trolley and wheeled them into the house. Surely some mistake. I telephoned Mr Ingram in alarm.

  ‘“There’ll be much more paperwork yet,” he said. “You’ll also receive several letters advising you of appointments, with Cafcass and a psychiatrist. You must keep all of them.” He was about to put the phone down when he added, almost as an afterthought, “I’m afraid there is bad news. Although I’ve fixed it so that you’re no longer in contempt, there have been court appearances in your absence.” I asked him what that meant. There was a long silence over the phone. Then: “All is not lost, Miss Booth.”

  ‘Over several appointments, the psychiatrist asked me about my childhood. It wasn’t a good one and I cried once or twice. Cafcass were more interested in what went on around me: Who were my mates? Boyfriends? Did I know so-and-so from the estate? Was my house tidy? How much did I spend on cleaning products, milk, fags? Britney had her own appointments, and sometimes I’d take her and be told to wait outside. She told me that one time she was asked to draw a picture of Mummy and at another they played dollies. At the back of my mind were Mr Ingram’s words: All is not lost. I tried to push them to one side but sometimes they got the better of me.

  ‘The court hearing kept getting put back. Twice, reports weren’t ready. Once the social worker didn’t turn up, and another time Mr Ingram said we weren’t ready. I suppose he had a job to do and wanted to get everything perfectly right. All this time I had Britney. Sometimes I’d look at her and burst into tears. I treated her special, as though every day was Christmas Day.

  ‘Finally Mr Ingram called me to say there was a court hearing. It was listed for five days. Britney was almost three by now.

  ‘I had two lawyers, Mr Ingram and his barrister friend, and we sat on the right. The Social had two lawyers that sat on the left, and even Britney had her own official solicitor, a serious-looking bearded man who sat between our side and their side. Behind us sat the social workers, Cafcass officer, and doctors. Two young men, dressed in tight suits with short trousers like something straight out of Oliver Twist, wheeled in two trolleys full of papers. The judge had a plait wound on top of her head like a blond crown. She carried a bronze leather holdall, and before she said a word she pulled a lipstick out of her bag and smeared it on.

  ‘The other side’s barrister stood up and listed all the people he would be calling to give evidence, their jobs and qualifications. He finished with, “Ma’am, our position is fully stated in the paperwork.”

  ‘The judge briefly took off her glasses. “You really expect me to read all that, Mr Ellis? This court is concerned with expediency and outcomes. I have read the pertinent documents, but really, Mr Ellis, any more paper and I fear the floor beneath us will collapse!”

  ‘My side stood up and spoke for ages about how the system sought to sever the link between a daughter and her mother. After another five minutes of non-stop talking, he said, “Therefore, ma’am, we seek not to rely on the Cafcass reports, those of the psychiatrist, and the medical reports prepared on behalf of the child.”

  ‘The judge frowned. “Mr Duncan, what are you saying? In a nutshell?”

  ‘My side went very red, mumbled something about taking further instructions, and sat down.

  ‘Britney’s barrister said only a few words. He described her as a bright, mostly happy child, but then he said, “There is, however, an overwhelming body of evidence that the child repeatedly presents with injuries not con­sistent with unexplained spontaneous bruising, if indeed such a condition does exist.”

  ‘I had to stand up. “Your Honour, my daughter had blood given to her. . .”

  ‘The judge took off her glasses and smiled at me. I stopped talking and smiled back. “Miss Booth,” she said in a soothing voice, “you will get your chance to tell the court your side of the story. I know this is hard, but please be patient.” Abruptly she seemed to change her mind. “Why don’t we start with our first witness.” She turned to the usher. “Escort Miss Booth to the witness box, please.”

  ‘The usher took me to a small wooden enclosure and with the Bible in one hand, I read an oath written down on a card in front of me.

  ‘“You may sit,” the judge told me.

  ‘My side stood up. He called me Grace and asked me my name, address, and if I had an occupation, and I said no. He then asked me about the birth and I was allowed to talk about the blood transfusion that Britney got in her first hour of life. I told them that had started all the trouble. I described our house, what we did each day, what I ate, what I fed Britney. Her room, toys and books. It was like having a pleasant chat with a friendly uncle.

  ‘The other side was next. Even though the barrister was asking me personal questions his eyes were cold. “Miss Booth, what impact does your mental illness have on your relationship with your daughter?”

  ‘Britney and I were okay so I really didn’t know what to say to him. Don’t they tell you not to say anything in court? Keep silent? Deny?

  ‘“I do apologize.
Perhaps if I word it differently? Do you sometimes lose control?”

  ‘I shook my head vigorously.

  ‘“Is it possible that sometimes you lose it, and you’re in some sort of daze, and afterwards, even though you were never asleep, you seem to wake up? Is it possible that you don’t even remember losing your rag?”

  ‘I was trying desperately not to cry. I stammered, “I-it’s something to do with the blood she got.”

  ‘“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Miss Booth. I’ll change my line of questioning.”

  ‘I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘“Miss Booth, is it true that between the ages of seventeen and twenty, you sought clients for sexual services?”

  ‘I shook my head. What else could I do?

  ‘“I refer the court to page six hundred and thirty-one of bundle four.’ He had a really good memory of his files. “It was recorded on the police database as a non-crime.” He bit his lip and waited for an excruciating amount of time. “No further questions, ma’am.”

  ‘I slumped back in the chair.

  ‘Britney’s barrister was last. “Miss Booth, if I was Britney, your precious, beautiful little girl, and I could talk honestly and like a grown-up, what would I say to you? Would I say, ‘Mummy, please stop hitting me’?”

  ‘I was crying my eyes out.

  ‘The judge spoke. “Miss Booth, I am sorry for you but you will see that there is a compound of evidence against you. No one here is thinking anything bad about you. We are simply here to decide what is best for Britney.” She turned to the others in the room. “I think that’s enough for now. Adjourn for one hour.”

  ‘In the waiting room outside, Mr Ingram put an arm around me. “You shouldn’t have to sit through that all week. They’re offering two hours a month supervised. It’s better than losing her altogether.”’

  *

  I have never known a comfort such as this and never will again. It has come late, and even now, as I squeeze her hand, I wonder if her warmth is a comfort I can own. Does not this scene, Grace’s hurt and pain, which I can do nothing to alleviate, and she with it, belong to Adrian Hartley? Could Adrian, Britney’s father, have helped her? Adrian, where all seemed to begin, my earliest memory, and all will end.

  It is not a picture of Adrian that comes to me but that of another fighter wrapped in an ISAF-branded body bag, cold and waxy, scrubbed clean and smelling of rosewater. After finishing Faisal’s ghusl, I was near to collapsing from exhaustion. Somehow, by mid-afternoon, I had limped home. I scrubbed myself for half an hour, then without a word to my new wife I fell fast asleep. I didn’t wake for eighteen hours; when finally I did, I was in pain far worse than the previous morning. My thumb throbbed sharply. I shrank back from the sight of it as though it offended me. The pad of my thumb was hot and swollen around the laceration by the glass bead, and yellow-green pus oozed from the wound. I recoiled at the thought that it had become infected from contact with Faisal’s body.

  As my eyes adjusted to the morning light, I saw Azra standing beside the bed and leaning over me. She buttoned up the face part of her burqa, her eyes staring at me through black mesh. That small act seemed to stir the air around her, and I caught a waft of her scent, containing oud and something else, a reminder of Afghanistan, something I couldn’t place.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We have a duty.’

  I dressed quickly and followed her outside. She walked fast and I struggled to keep up. I felt light-headed and thought I might also have caught a fever. The exertion brought the throbbing in my thumb to an awful, sickening intensity.

  Azra shivered inside the burqa. Turning to me, she said, ‘I can’t breathe in that house of yours, it’s so small and cramped.’

  ‘Are you cold?’ I asked. It was warm out.

  ‘My father told me it was better here,’ she said, gazing along the terraced street.

  ‘These houses were built for workers.’

  ‘My father said that in England the government gives you a house and money.’

  ‘Here you can earn more in a day than you can in a month in Pakistan.’

  ‘You earn nothing!’ She spat out the words with contempt. After a moment, she gave a loud, exaggerated sigh.

  As she scanned the rooftops one foot absently slipped out from beneath the hem of her burqa. Dark and slender with toenails painted red, it was gracefully encased in a gold strappy sandal, and the malleoli at her ankle jutted out sharply. I watched her foot move about as though it was testing the tarmac. It accidentally struck the base of my stick and quickly retreated back under the black robe.

  ‘If you earned,’ she added, ‘you wouldn’t live in a house like yours.’

  ‘This is a civilized country,’ I argued. ‘Everyone who needs it is looked after.’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘It must be hard for you,’ I continued, changing the subject.

  ‘Nothing is hard after what I have seen in Pakistan.’

  Azra and I arrived at Mustafa’s, a semi-detached new build. There were many like it in the street, and save for a white-plastic imitation Greek porch guarding the door it didn’t stand out. His mother answered our knock. A diminutive woman, she was as wide as she was tall, not fat but square. She had a dark moustache that I couldn’t help but stare at.

  ‘Assalamualaikum, Aunty,’ I said.

  Aunty returned our salaam, kissed us both on the hand and led us into the front room. Two sofas were placed either side of a coffee table. The sofas were covered in transparent plastic and the coffee table had a glass top. Above the mantelpiece was a picture of the Great Mosque in Mecca and below that was a familiar-looking clock, green plastic in the shape of a mosque with a painted golden dome. Like an alarm it could be set to ring the azan five times per day.

  ‘Allah’s will,’ I said to Aunty.

  The women, as though speaking as one, repeated my words. ‘Allah’s will.’

  Relieved of formalities, we all sat down. I put my hands before my chest to pray and the women followed. Azra wore slim black gloves with a gold ring on her left middle finger. I whispered a short prayer for the deceased, and finished by swiping my hands down my face from forehead to chin. The women did the same.

  ‘I’ll fetch tea.’ Her feet found her slippers, and Aunty left the room.

  ‘This house is better than yours,’ said Azra, looking around at the freshly painted interior.

  I whispered, ‘Because we all contribute to jihad they’re loaded.’

  I noticed a framed picture on the wall, of Mustafa on the day of his university graduation. He must have blinked as the camera flashed and in his hands he gripped a paper scroll. There were other pictures dotted around, of Mustafa and Faisal, of countless small children side by side on a string charpoi, their little legs dangling off the sides.

  ‘I wouldn’t want a son,’ Azra said. ‘The war will go on.’

  ‘Chance would be—’

  She interrupted. ‘I couldn’t let him go. Naturally he would want to martyr himself. It’s selfish of me, but that’s how I feel.’

  ‘What do you want, Azra?’

  ‘Daughters. Eighty daughters to replace my girls at the madrasa. And I want back the years you took from me.’

  My thumb throbbed and I tried to laugh off her words. ‘Who could afford the dowry of eighty daughters?’

  ‘It would take a rich man.’ She stared straight ahead.

  ‘Could you really replace your students?’

  ‘Girls are like mules, owned and transportable,’ she said angrily. ‘You of all people should know that.’

  In the silence that then pervaded I could hear Mustafa’s mother in the kitchen. A kettle boiled and porcelain clattered against porcelain. Crinkle wrapping was torn apart. I pictured biscuits tumbling onto a plate.

  ‘Why are you here, Azra?’ I said finally.

  ‘Because you sent for me.’

  ‘I thought that for a wife her husband comes first?’

  ‘Al
lah comes first.’

  ‘Then the husband is next?’

  ‘The infidel is last,’ she replied sharply.

  A waft of brewing tea caught my nostrils. All four walls of the front room were wallpapered with a dark paisley design and as I traced its complicated outlines it hurt my eyes.

  There was a knock at the front door, and slowly I raised myself onto the stick and answered. Ali seemed surprised to see me, but quickly recovered, handing me several boxes of sweetmeats. Without a word he returned to his van, the engine still running. I put them on the coffee table and slumped back onto the sofa next to Azra.

  ‘Take off your burqa so Aunty can see you,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have known her all my life and she would want to see my wife. And try to smile.’

  Aunty returned to the room with a tray that she placed on the coffee table. On the tray was a plate of assorted biscuits and three steaming mugs of English tea. She saw the boxes of sweetmeats on the coffee table and opened one. Gazing kindly on the newlywed couple, she smiled and implored us to eat. As she settled her ample weight on the sofa opposite, she blamed her cholesterol for her not joining us. ‘My son Mustafa,’ she added, ‘has forbidden me from making desi tea, even for guests – he says I will not be able to resist a cup!’ For a moment she tried to laugh. ‘He is such a thoughtful boy.’ She paused, deep in thought, and then gave a short sharp wail. Tears ran down her face and she blew her nose violently into a handkerchief.

  I reached over the coffee table and placed a hand gently on her head. ‘Faisal is with Allah, you must believe that.’

  The tears stopped abruptly and she looked up. ‘I am destined to lose both sons.’

  ‘You don’t know that, Aunty,’ I said.

  ‘It is sawab,’ said Azra. ‘Your boys are blessed and you are selfish to cry; even a mother must give way to Allah.’

  I shot Azra a stern glance. Again I wished she wasn’t wearing a burqa. I wished I could have seen the impression my anger had made on her hypocrisy.