Refuge

by N G Osborne

  “Lift him under arms,” Shamsurahman says. “I take other end.”

  Charlie gets behind Wali’s head.

  “One, two, three. Lift.”

  With Mike guiding them, they carry Wali back to the village. Someone has lain a tarpaulin beside one of the Land Cruisers, and they place Wali on it. Charlie pulls the shirt away. It’s sodden with blood. With each of them working on one leg, Charlie and Shamsurahman clean Wali’s wounds before packing them with gauze. Charlie looks up and sees Derek reach the edge of the undergrowth with the two trembling boys.

  “Ready?” Shamsurahman says.

  Charlie nods. Mike opens the Land Cruiser’s trunk and drops the back seat. Charlie and Shamsurahman lift Wali up and place him on his side.

  “I’ll drive,” Charlie says.

  “No,” Mike says, “you get in with him.”

  Charlie climbs in. He turns to see Kenneth standing there with his hands clasped in prayer.

  “Kenneth,” he shouts. “I need you.”

  Kenneth’s eyes snap open, and he jumps in beside him. Charlie grabs some sleeping bags and elevates Wali’s legs.

  “Press on the end of his left leg,” Charlie says.

  Kenneth does as he’s told. Charlie presses down on the wound on Wali’s right leg. The engine revs. The Colonel runs over.

  “Good luck,” he says.

  The Colonel slams the trunk door shut. Mike hits the gas, Shamsurahman in the passenger seat beside him. They speed along the dirt road, the speedometer rarely dipping below fifty. Mike does his best to steer around the road’s potholes and on the occasions he can’t, he shouts a warning, and Charlie and Kenneth hold Wali down as the SUV crashes up into the air. It takes forty minutes to get to the main road. Once on it Mike pushes the Land Cruiser over a hundred miles-an-hour.

  Charlie puts a finger on Wali’s neck and feels his pulse. It’s weaker than before. He looks through the front windshield and sees the border at Torkham approaching.

  “Don’t stop,” Charlie says.

  “We have to,” Shamsurahman says.

  The SUV screeches to a halt, and Mike and Shamsurahman jump out. The startled mujahideen guards wave their guns at them until they recognize Shamsurahman and start running up to the Pakistani side of the border. A group of Khyber police rush towards their pick-up. Mike and Shamsurahman sprint back to the Land Cruiser.

  “Still with us?” Mike says.

  “Just,” Charlie says.

  “Do your job and he’ll make it.”

  For the first mile Mike stays behind the police pick-up, but as soon as the climb begins the pick-up starts to labor.

  “Fuck this,” Mike says and swings into the opposite lane.

  The pick-up tries to match their speed. The two vehicles head side-by-side towards a blind corner. A train of camels come around it. Mike swings the wheel left barely missing them and slips in front of the pick-up. The pick-up soon disappears from view. Once past the high point of the pass they hurtle down other side, the bare, ominous Khyber mountains pressing in on them. Kenneth and Charlie do all they can to brace Wali as they careen around the slew of tight corners. And then just like that the road straightens up. If there’s a record for getting down the Khyber Pass, Mike has surely broken it.

  “Want to take him to Red Crescent?” Mike says.

  Shamsurahman nods. Mike cuts in and out of the afternoon traffic. Charlie checks Wali’s pulse for the hundredth time. He can’t feel one. He tries again. Still nothing. He twists Wali onto his back and puts his ear to Wali’s mouth.

  “We’re losing him,” Charlie screams.

  Charlie straddles Wali’s chest and tilts his head back. He gives him mouth-to-mouth and begins pushing down on his chest.

  “You’re not dying on me now, motherfucker.”

  Kenneth places his hand on Wali’s forehead.

  “Dear Father, we pray that Jesus meets this man, Wali, in his moment of death just as He did the thief on the cross—”

  Charlie shoves Kenneth’s hand away.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Charlie says.

  The Land Cruiser screeches to a halt, and Charlie is flung into the back of the seats. The trunk door opens, and a couple of nurses lift Wali out. Kenneth gazes down at Charlie, his hands and shirt-sleeves drenched in blood.

  “If that boy goes to hell he’ll have you to blame.”

  Kenneth staggers away. Charlie stares at the ceiling of the SUV. In the distance a muezzin calls the faithful to prayer.

  “You good?” Shamsurahman says.

  Charlie gets up on one elbow. Shamsurahman stands there, a red neon crescent flickering behind him.

  “Never better.”

  Shamsurahman lights a cigarette for each of them, and they smoke as the light seeps from the sky. Mike comes out the hospital entrance. Shamsurahman extends his pack. Mike takes one.

  “He’s a fighter, that’s for sure,” Mike says.

  “He’s alive?” Charlie says.

  “He’s in surgery. Best thing any of us can do is get a good night’s sleep and come back in the morning.”

  “I’m going to wait.”

  “Maybe hours before he gets out.”

  Charlie stares at the both of them. Shamsurahman shrugs.

  “Then I wait also,” Shamsurahman says.

  It isn’t until nine that Charlie gets in to see Wali. At first glance he looks bizarrely normal with just a cotton wool patch taped over his right eye and some IVs snaking into his arm.

  “Hey buddy,” Charlie says. “How you doing?”

  His words seem ridiculous. Charlie edges closer and pulls back Wali’s blanket. Wali’s right leg is gone while his left looks like a bandaged baseball bat. Charlie backs out of the room and finds Shamsurahman in the corridor.

  “Let’s go,” Charlie says.

  TWENTY

  NOOR SITS ON the lowest bough of the oak tree and swings her legs back and forth. Through a gap in the leaves she spies her father in the sitting room. He reads under the warm glow of an antique, brass lamp, his feet resting on a well-worn ottoman, a glass of iced water and a bowl of almonds on the side table next to him. He looks so peaceful, she wishes he could stay there forever. She tiptoes along the bough and shinnies her way down the trunk. She walks across the lawn and into the house. Her father looks up.

  “Ah, there you are,” he says, “I was wondering where you had gotten to.”

  “You look so at home.”

  “And so I am, at least for a couple more nights.”

  Noor scans the book shelves. She sees a tatty old copy of Jane Eyre and pulls it out. She sits down and tries to focus on it. It’s impossible.

  “Baba, why aren’t you more worried?”

  “I think it was my old friend Mark Twain who once said ‘I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened’.”

  “You can stop trying to shield me from your fears. I saw how scared you were yesterday.”

  “Is that what you believe I do?”

  “I think you believe that if you’re endlessly optimistic that it’ll improve my life somehow, make everything else we endure seem insubstantial.”

  “Without hope man has little to live for.”

  “And without honesty a man is living nothing but a lie.”

  Noor sees a look of unimaginable hurt in her father’s eyes. Aamir Khan picks up his book, but she knows he’s just staring at the words. She sits down on the arm of his chair.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean—”

  “To think that I pride myself on being the most honest man I know.”

  “You are.”

  “No, I am no less a hypocrite than any other. You must understand though, my primary concern has always been to protect you and Bushra.”

  “There’s just no need to protect my feelings anymore.”

  Aamir Khan nods as if acknowledging a whole new chapter in their relationship.

  “I’m going to go to L
ahore,” Noor says. “We have enough for the train fare.”

  “And then what? How do you expect to survive?”

  “Tariq’s after me, not you and Bushra.”

  “No, we stick together. There’s a hostel on Ganj Bazar Road, it’s cheap and if I recall correctly safe—”

  “We only have enough money to stay there a week, two at most.”

  “And that is all we should need. I have heard talk that the Prince is about to return to Afghanistan. Once they leave we can go home.”

  “And when they come back?”

  “You will have this scholarship, inshallah, and be gone.”

  “And if I don’t.”

  “There will be nothing to worry about. The Prince has his pick of every unmarried woman in Pakistan. Trust me, he will be looking elsewhere within a fortnight.”

  “Tariq will be furious.”

  “Undoubtedly but there is nothing he can do.”

  The two of them fall into silence. Noor looks around the room; at the ten foot long satin drapes, the stone fireplace, the fine rugs on the floor, the array of cushions and lamps and endless little ornaments. It’s almost surreal to be in such surroundings. Aamir Khan takes a sip of his water.

  “I forgot how pleasurable a glass of iced water could be.”

  “We’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

  “All the more reason to get reacquainted with them this weekend.”

  “We’re here to hide, Baba.”

  “Yet that doesn’t proscribe us from taking delight in what this house has to offer, now does it? What are you so afraid of Noor? That if you sleep in a bed or have a shower that you will enjoy it too much.”

  Noor doesn’t want to admit to him that the less she takes advantage of this house the less she’ll feel in Charlie Matthew’s debt.

  “Go and have a shower,” her father says.

  “I washed myself thoroughly this morning.”

  “It is not the same. Now please, for my sake.”

  “Only if you insist.”

  “On this one occasion I do.”

  Noor sighs and makes her way to the downstairs bedroom. The blankets she slept on the night before are folded on the floor. She goes into its bathroom; it only has a bathtub. She takes a towel off the rack and heads upstairs. She’ll use the shower in Bushra’s room. When she reaches the landing, she sees Bushra’s light is off.

  She must be asleep.

  Noor continues on down the hallway into her father’s room and finds its bathroom only has a tub too. There’s only one more option‌—‌the bedroom at the far end of the hallway. Mukhtar had pointed it out on the tour he’d given them. It’s the one room, he’d said, that Mr. Charlie didn’t like him going into.

  Presumably because it’s a mess.

  Noor can’t help but be drawn towards it. She steps inside and is met by the pungent smell of male body odor and cigarettes.

  What a surprise.

  In the dark she fumbles for the light switch only to discover his sheets at perfect right angles, his shoes lined up by the balcony door, and the floor swept.

  She wanders over to his writing desk, and next to some CDs she spies a sketch pad. She picks it up and flicks through it. Most of the sketches are rough, but she cannot deny they have a real sense of life to them; a man pushing a cart stacked high with watermelons, an old man weeding a flower bed, some men in demining outfits waving mine detectors.

  At the back she comes across a series of attempts at drawing a woman. It takes her a moment to realize they are of her. Some he’s abandoned after completing the outline of her face, in others he’s concentrated on her eyes and the bridge of her nose. In some her look is intense as if she’s pondering some deeper mystery while in others she stands tall, her hair flowing behind her as if she’s in the midst of the monsoon. She stares at the sketches in fascination. As far as she’s aware no one’s drawn her before.

  But then a thought rises up. A thought that grows in fury the more she dwells on it.

  This is a violation. No more acceptable than if he’d spied on me. I mean, God knows what he’s thinking when he’s drawing me.

  She looks up and sees a framed drawing on the wall. It’s of a woman lying in bed, her head angled towards the sketcher, her eyes closed, the slightest of smiles on her face. The woman seems vulnerable as if the artist has intruded on the most personal of moments.

  Was this a lover? Or just another woman he became obsessed with?

  She puts the sketch book down and sees a stack of books and magazines on his bedside table. She goes over and picks up the first one. ‘Oh The Places You’ll Go’ by a Dr. Seuss. On the worn cover is a little boy in yellow pajamas standing on a multi-colored cone. Noor leafs through the eccentric drawings. She can’t help but think it odd that a twenty-four year old man would read such a book.

  Maybe there’s something wrong with him on a psychological level. Some sort of stunted development.

  She reaches the inside cover and sees a written inscription.

  “To my darling Charlie, may your life be filled with adventure. I know you’re going to move mountains. I love you, Mommy.”

  She looks through the rest of the books. A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Firm, A Confederacy of Dunces. She is ashamed to say she hasn’t read any of them and from the considered reviews on their back covers it seems like none of them are pulp.

  Could he really have read them all?

  She begins to feel as if Charlie’s set her up. As if he placed them there to play a cruel game on her.

  The last book is a Lonely Planet Guide to Pakistan. She flips through it; he’s written something on the inside cover.

  (1) Never help women! (2) Crazy place filled with crazy people!

  She feels her righteous indignation return.

  Of course, what else should I expect from such a patronizing, egotist.

  Galvanized, she picks up the pile of magazines and starts rifling through them. There are a few motorcycle magazines, a couple of New Yorkers, a copy of a magazine called Rolling Stone, and right at the bottom‌—‌Playboy.

  Noor gasps. On its cover are two identical bronzed blondes, related she assumes given that the caption proclaims them to be the Barbi Twins. As if compelled by some strange force, Noor opens the magazine. It flips to a centerfold of a woman with dark frizzy hair lying on a zebra skin rug with her hips arched upwards. The woman has voluptuous breasts, a tiny stomach, and impossibly long legs, but what Noor can’t help but be drawn to is her neat patch of pubic hair and what is the merest hint of her vagina. Noor’s face burns up, and she throws the magazine to the floor. She grabs her towel and heads for the bathroom. She’s never felt dirtier in her life.

  She pulls back the shower curtain and turns the knob. Water shoots from the tap, and after several failed attempts, and with her shalwar kameez now drenched, she manages to get the water to flow out of the shower head. She takes off her shalwar kameez, pulls off her yellowed underwear and steps into the tub. She gasps; the water is freezing. She finds a bar of soap and scrubs her body with it.

  Of course he has pornography. Given how he represents every other reprehensible trait of the West, why should I be surprised? God damn him, it’s images like these that make men delirious and convince the zealots that the only way to protect women is to cover them from head to toe.

  She works her way down her body and by the time she reaches her calloused feet, she has convinced herself that Charlie’s responsible for the burqa, arranged marriages and the enforced subservience of all Muslim women.

  I wish he’d seen my feet first. Perhaps then we’d never have had to go through this ridiculous charade.

  The water warms yet it does little to soothe her temper. She turns the shower off and steps out. It’s the cleanest she’s been in ten years, and yet she still feels as dirty as when she stepped in. She dries herself with her towel and sees her wet clothes lying on the floor.

  It’s alright, no one
’s in the house.

  Noor wraps the towel around her chest and opens the bathroom door. She screams. Charlie is standing in the middle of the bedroom. She slams the door shut and looks for a lock. There isn’t one. She sees a plunger behind the toilet and grabs it.

  He won’t have me.

  She holds the plunger out as if it were a sword and waits. A horrific thought enters her mind.

  Maybe he’s flicking through his sex magazine, getting himself worked up before coming for me.

  Her arms begin to tire, and she feels her towel slip from around her breasts. She puts the plunger down and spies her shalwar kameez.

  Better to fight clothed.

  Noor wrestles into it, the damp fabric sticking to her skin. She hears a muffled sob come from his room. She picks up the plunger and edges towards the door.

  Is this a trick, a way of enticing me out?

  She continues to listen, and the sobs get louder.

  If it is, it’s an extraordinary performance.

  She eases the door open and creeps into the bedroom. Charlie is lying face down on his bed.

  He’s drunk. Or perhaps on drugs.

  Charlie begins breathing so fast she’s afraid he’s having a seizure.

  “Mr. Matthews?” she says.

  He doesn’t respond.

  She inches up to the bed. For the first time she sees his t-shirt’s stained with blood.

  He must have been in a brawl.

  She bends over him.

  “Mr. Matthews?”

  He turns his head to the side, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks streaked with tears.

  “It’s all my fault,” he says. “It’s all my fault.”

  He turns his head away as if he’s too ashamed to look at her and is wracked once more by sobs. Noor unfolds his blanket and lays it on top of him. She turns out the light and heads downstairs. Her father has already gone to bed.

  In the morning we’ll leave. There’s no way we can live under the same roof as this man.

  She heads to her bedroom and locks the door for good measure. She puts on her one other shalwar kameez and slips into the bed. Enveloped by a set of clean sheets and with her head resting on a firm pillow, she lies there and wonders what could’ve happened to provoke such distress.