We spent twelve hours there – long enough to realize that there were other women. Some were Africans, one who looked definitely Middle Eastern, a Chinese woman and a couple more who looked Eastern European.
Mulling over Abdul’s words afterwards, I realized he was right. I had no grounds to judge them. I was too young to fully understand what hell they were in or on their way to, but I had an idea.
At about 10 o’clock that night the place emptied out, with the men in the front rooms leaving. A couple of hours later, and my little group of four and the other fifty people in the room with us were told we too were on our way.
Outside the building was a large cattle truck with a canvas roof. It certainly didn’t look big enough for fifty-four people but we were ordered in anyway. Climbing up was hard because it was so high, but I didn’t want to show I was scared so I didn’t ask anyone to help me. All sad thoughts of the poor women had vanished. I was too busy worrying about my own safety.
We crammed inside. Men were squashed into every free space, guards using fists and sticks to make sure no room was wasted. The four of us clung to each other so we didn’t get separated. I balled down into a shape as tiny as I could make between Mehran’s knees among a forest of legs and fetid feet.
I only knew Istanbul was the destination, but how far that was I had no idea.
After five sweaty, painful and cramped hours, the lorry pulled over. A heavy-set Kurd in his mid-twenties got out of the passenger’s side of the cab, adjusting his sunglasses and trucker’s cap. He opened the canvas. ‘Yallah.’
Men started jumping off, and we were pushed towards some nearby trees, where some guides were waiting. The chief guide carried a large staff, just like a shepherd. ‘Follow me. Walk fast.’ He started walking uphill. And, just like sheep, we followed him.
I wanted to be sure my friends and I stayed close. It was around 3 a.m., and still dark. I took it upon myself to be the organizer: ‘Baryalai, I’ll hold your hand. Abdul, you hold Mehran’s. And let’s stay to the front.’
I looked back to see the truck driving off into the distance.
We didn’t know why we were walking or what was coming next. The mental anxiety of not knowing where I was going or when the walking would end made every step harder: it’s easier to walk for miles on end if you know where you are heading.
The terrain was a bit like the border-crossing from Iran into Turkey – very rocky and steep. I had the distinct feeling that we could be ambushed and arrested – or even worse – at any moment.
We stopped to rest and drink from a little stream. It was so brief that those following up at the rear didn’t have time to sit down; by the time they caught up, we’d already been ordered to get up and keep moving. My instinct to stay close to the guide at the front had been the right one.
After two hours of a forced march, we came down a little gulley into some farmland. The lorry was there waiting for us, and we were ordered back into it.
I was too tired to work out how the lorry knew where we were, or how the guides had managed to bring us to the right spot.
We drove the whole of that day. It was baking hot under the canvas, and we were so thirsty and hungry. Occasionally the driver would stop and throw a couple of bottles of water into the back. They didn’t give us any food.
I was grateful for the water, but the driver didn’t seem willing to stop for toilet breaks – presumably because we’d have been seen. I tried to drink as little as possible so that I didn’t need to go. Some men, however, were so desperate they were peeing into the empty bottle. It smelled so bad. Eventually I had to try too, as my bladder was really hurting, but I just couldn’t do it.
‘Get over it, Gulwali. What’s your problem? Just do it in the bottle.’
‘I can’t.’
Baryalai laughed at me. ‘In our company, you will become knowledgeable.’ Another old Pashtu saying.
I tried to smile. But I still couldn’t do it in that bottle.
Thirty hours later, and we were on our third truck drop and hike. To the side of us we had been able to see that we were walking past some kind of checkpoint: we could hear dogs barking and make out queues of vehicles and soldiers. We were walking in order to skirt past them.
I understood what was happening now: the trucks drove as far as they could along the roads without meeting the police. As we got close to the police posts, they ordered us out and into the woods so that we could walk around the checkpoint. The driver would pass through the checkpoint with an empty vehicle and all his official paperwork intact. He would then drive a safe distance away, pull over and wait for us to find him again. Then we would climb back into the truck and continue driving.
I was so thirsty and weak now that only Baryalai kept me going. He kept urging me on, taking my hand when I couldn’t put another foot in front of the other. My feet were bleeding and I just wanted to lie down next to the path and sleep. But that would have been fatal. ‘Come on, little man.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You must.’
I could not.
Our column had thinned out; I had dropped right to the back of it. Only the weakest and oldest hobbled past us now. I knew my situation was getting critical when one of the eldest men in the group wheezed by.
‘Kaka, uncle, help me with the child.’ Baryalai’s voice was desperate.
‘I can’t.’
‘Help us. Look at him. He’s almost done.’
‘I can’t. If I help him, who will help me?’
‘Come on, Gulwali. Get up. We’ve got to go. Up. Move. Move. Move.’
‘I’m sorry,’ gasped the old man, shuffling off.
Baryalai exhaled a long breath. ‘Here, drink.’ He presented the last mouthful of grey liquid from a creased Sprite bottle. ‘Come on, boy. You must. What would your mother say if she saw you being so weak?’
That was the right thing to say to me. I started to gather what few mental resources I had left and I kept going. One footstep at a time. Left, right, left, right – I just concentrated on the rough ground immediately beneath my feet. Left, right, left, right.
On and on and on.
After walking for four hours we came to a place where the truck was waiting for us again. This time we drove for three hours before getting out and walking again.
I don’t know how I kept going.
I was so grateful to Baryalai looking out for me the way he did – I couldn’t have made it otherwise.
In total we did the drop and walk four times. On the penultimate drop, we sat and waited for so long for the truck to return that the sky went from late afternoon gold to the stars punctuating the sky. I stared up at the beauty of the twinkling pinpoints of light, wondering if the truck would ever return and if that night would be the night I died of cold.
The next morning, our driver dropped us by the side of a fast-flowing river and told us to drink and relieve ourselves. No sooner had we got out than two more trucks roared up in a cloud of dust. Five men climbed out and started shouting in Kurdish.
For a minute I thought their anger was directed at us, but then our driver and his mate pulled knives and ran at them. A fight broke out. We just stood and stared as those seven men punched and lunged at each other. They were like wild animals – ripping off their shirts to reveal huge, hairy chests and pulling off studded leather belts, which they waved over their heads like lassos. There was a lot of shouting, screaming of insults and blades glinting in the air. I was certain someone would get stabbed.
It appeared to be over when our driver screamed at us all to get back in the truck. I’d never been so happy to oblige.
This was a turf war. It turned out the smuggling gangs would occasionally hijack each other’s groups, especially when they wanted to settle a score.
The driver got back in with a second man, who told us to be quiet and stay calm. This ma
n said that Malik and he had had a disagreement and so he was taking us as his revenge. He told us to sit tight until he was ready to order our driver where to go.
We sat there inside the truck, parked by the river, for maybe four or five hours. Waiting, expecting the worst at any second. We didn’t know what to think. We thought that maybe because we’d complained to Malik about the chicken coop he’d set the whole thing up. Or maybe the second man was lying? Perhaps Malik had sold us to him? Perhaps the driver was in on it?
We all huddled in the back whispering frantically to each other.
‘Should we kill them?’
‘Let’s run for it, while we still can.’
‘Just wait. Don’t do anything rash.’
I didn’t know which way to turn. I could only hold Baryalai’s hand for comfort.
In the end, after what seemed like for ever, the second man got out and we continued on our way as if nothing had happened. We didn’t know how the dispute had been resolved.
We were still very afraid and shaken when, a couple of hours later, the driver pulled into a remote set of farm buildings. We were told to bed down in a dirty cow shed where huddled groups of other migrants already lay. There must have been over 300 people already there, plus our truckload. I had absolutely no idea where we were.
There were no mattresses, just straw on the floor. We were human cattle. It was a beautiful, bright autumn day but inside the sheds it was dark and dank, smelling of cow dung. We didn’t understand why we were there or for how long we’d have to stay.
It had echoes of the chicken coop all over again.
My life couldn’t have felt any more out of control. Just over a month ago, I had been an ordinary schoolboy interested in my books, looking after my family, collecting firewood, teasing my aunts and sleeping in my grandparents’ bed. Those happy days already felt like a lifetime ago.
But at least my original companions, Mehran, Abdul and Baryalai, were still with me. We’d made friends with Shah and Faizal but lost them so quickly. I was beginning to learn that people came and went, and there was no way of controlling that. And so, while I was determined to stay close to my friends for my own safety, I was also steeling myself for the inevitable loss. I didn’t see the point of trying to make new friends. I didn’t have the energy.
In the afternoon of the next day, one of the drivers made an announcement in the cow shed over a loudhailer: ‘Stay ready and alert. Your trucks are coming back this evening.’
Sure enough, that evening we continued onwards, driving past the outskirts of a city someone told me was the Turkish capital, Ankara. Finally, after three very long days and nights, we reached Istanbul – the city that bridges east and west.
Chapter Ten
Struggling to balance on top of a flaking steel-framed school chair, the glory of Istanbul – the city famed for being a melting pot of ancient and modern – lay like a patchwork blanket before me.
I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Blue Mosque – one of the city’s iconic sights, and a place Black Wolf had told me about. His eyes had misted over when he’d described it as one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. But I had no idea if we were even anywhere near the mosque. All I had been able to see of Turkey’s largest city for the past two days was a narrow segment of it, through a small, greasy window, a segment that was visible only when I stood on the chair. Mostly I could see just satellite dishes, television aerials, air-conditioning vents and clothes strung across crudely erected rooftop washing-lines. I could just about make out a few minarets, but they seemed too small.
‘Get off there, kid. I’m not going to tell you again.’
It was the Turkish owner of the apartment we were staying in.
I hurriedly jumped down.
The night we had arrived in Istanbul, we had been taken to what looked like a shanty town. As we had disembarked from the truck, we had been greeted with the question: ‘People of Malik?’
I supposed that meant we were under Malik’s ultimate control now that we were in Turkey.
The area was a clutter of temporary shelters made with metal poles, tin roofs and tarpaulins. It was situated near quite a busy road and wasn’t hidden by fences, so was in clear view of any passing motorists. I was amazed that undocumented migrants would be left to wait in so obvious a place – but at least there we were able to pray, go to the toilet and walk around the space quite freely.
We waited in the shanty town for a whole day – it seems the business of smuggling takes time to organize. Malik apparently needed confirmation that we had arrived in Istanbul before he paid the drivers; then the agent in Istanbul needed to get the OK that it was his turn to move us. Abdul, who was good at using his quietly calm ways to obtain information from people, had managed to glean this from the driver who had brought us here.
Once all was in order, the fifty-four people who had been in the truck were split up into smaller groups and moved off to various safe houses. Luckily, I was grouped with the three men who had been my friends since Mashhad.
The apartment Baryalai, Mehran, Abdul and I stayed in was an anonymous-looking, two-bedroom flat in a medium-sized block in a quiet suburb. We four shared one room, and another group of five shared the other. We stayed there for two weeks, not going out and getting very bored and frustrated until, without warning, we four were moved on again, to a not-dissimilar apartment a couple of blocks away.
This time it seemed we’d been passed on to three Afghan business partners who lived in Istanbul. They didn’t give us much information about our situation. ‘We’re working on a plan. You’ll be in Greece soon – that’s all you need to worry about.’
I was even more confused when they gave me US$150. ‘Qubat sent it, for your expenses.’
To date, Black Wolf had been the only agent who had ever bothered to take the time to try and explain things – I often fantasized about how nice it would have been to stay at his farm. I could have helped him with the dodgy oil business and made myself useful. Even if I’d had to muck out his horses, it would have been preferable to the situation in which I now found myself.
By this time I was in a perpetual state of confusion that made relaxing properly, even for one night, impossible. We just never knew when we’d be told to be on the move again. I was constantly exhausted, living on adrenalin and fear.
For the first few days we were locked inside that apartment on our own, but the three Afghans had left a few basic groceries – rice, salt, oil, tinned chickpeas – which we cooked for ourselves on a little electric stove in the kitchen. I had never so much as boiled an egg before – male children weren’t expected to know how to cook in my family. Thankfully Baryalai, who had lived for several years in a refugee camp, was a master at creating a tasty meal out of nothing.
The trio of Afghan agents popped in every couple of days to check on us:
‘Are you men staying quiet? Do not alert the neighbours.’
On their third visit, one of them took me outside with him to get the shopping.
I was delighted to have a taste of freedom, even if only for an hour. Istanbul was enthralling, more diverse and exciting than Tehran, which now felt sterile by contrast: the vibrant noise of the city; the smell of grilling kebabs; long rows of high piles of spices and fresh herbs and vegetables outside the shops; large, smart modern blocks situated next to preserved historical buildings; and thumping pop music booming from cars. Music had been banned in Afghanistan under the Taliban as unIslamic; after they fell, pop music – mostly Indian or American – had exploded in popularity in Afghanistan. But this Turkish music was different: it was a real mixture of Arabic and Western sounds.
I was able to change a small amount of the dollars my mother had given me into Turkish lira, and I used a little to buy some treats: a new T-shirt for me, and a box of delicious dates and a bag of Turkish sweets to share with the others. I was so disapp
ointed when the shopping trip ended and I had to go back to the house.
Climbing the stairs, I could feel the walls closing in on me once more.
The following day, we were all dozing when the mobile phone the agents had left us for emergencies started shrilling.
Baryalai picked it up.
I could hear yelling down the line. ‘The police are coming for you. You all have to get out of there. Now.’
We were given an address, told to split into pairs, and walk calmly down the street to it. We shoved our meagre belongings into our bags and rushed to leave the flat. I walked with Abdul, and Mehran was with Baryalai.
The new address wasn’t far away. I wondered how many other houses and apartments across Istanbul were also hiding the displaced and desperate.
For the next month we were moved around a lot. Everywhere we stayed there was always a succession of bitter, angry, tearful migrants who found themselves sliding downwards on this game of Snakes and Ladders, on journeys that that had stalled or gone awry, or were going backwards as they were forced to return to their homelands. They couldn’t wait to share their tales of woe and warnings of what was to come for the fresher-faced hopefuls.
One man we met in the basement told us he’d recently escaped from a kidnap situation in Kurdish Iran – where we’d just come from. He had been forced to write home to ask for more money, but no one had replied and the smuggler wouldn’t release him. It had taken three months for him to sort it out so that he could reach Istanbul and continue the journey. Others had been tricked into paying whatever cash they had left to take fake routes, or pay for transport that never arrived, leaving them stranded. Others had faced arrest and deportation. Some had been immersed in this nightmare for so long they had almost forgotten who they were or where it was they were supposed to be going.
The Lightless Sky Page 10