He carried on screaming insults at them, which one of them took as justification to punch him in the guts.
Satisfied, they shook hands with our guards and drove away in their blue and white Hilux.
Zabi told us his story: ‘When I went to pee, I just ran. I walked for ages. People kept looking at me but I carried on. I was trying to find the bus station.’
Everyone had questions for him.
‘Did you have money?’
‘Why didn’t you ask me too? I would have run with you.’
‘You fool. Now you’ve put us all at risk. They will be angry and sell us to the mafia.’
The guards weren’t happy. ‘Shut up. Don’t talk to him.’
It was late when we got to the actual border. We didn’t go to one of the main border crossings; this one was just some kind of a military checkpoint. There was no traffic – a single man on a motorcycle droned through like a blowfly. Other than the half-dozen Turkish soldiers standing around, there were no people there.
The guards came towards the bus, carrying a large a box of zataar – hot Turkish flat bread sprinkled with fresh thyme. It smelled delicious. ‘We can give you this now, or you can eat it before you cross. Your choice, but we suggest you eat it later.’
In my world ‘later’ could mean anything, but the general consensus was to go with the guards’ advice. Bad idea, because we never did get to eat it.
We were put into a series of army jeeps and driven along a road, down one side of which ran a very high, barbed-wire and electric fence. Every so often along it there were lookout posts with bored-looking solders inside. We were told to get out of the jeeps and wait by the fence. Suddenly, a lot of chatter and noise came through our guards’ radios, and the soldiers who had been driving the jeeps rushed to the wire, unclipping a long strip of electric fencing. They told us to wait but get ready.
It was dark by now, made more so by heavy clouds which obscured the stars and moon. Then the soldiers turned the jeep headlights off, making it even scarier.
Mehran turned to Abdul and me. ‘Why would they do that? Do you think the Iranians know we are coming?’
Abdul looked tight-lipped and grim. ‘Maybe they know the mafia are there.’
There was one man on the bus who spoke fluent Turkish, an elderly Pakistani man from Peshawar. He’d spent most of the bus journey chatting happily to the immigration officers. They clearly liked him and, I suspect, felt a bit sorry for him. As we prepared to move, one of them handed him a large knife in a leather sheath.
‘Here. You take this. Be safe.’
It was a nice act but it didn’t make the rest of us feel any better. They clearly knew full well they were sending us into danger.
‘Go. Go. Go.’
When the order came to walk, Mehran held me back.
‘Don’t be first across.’
A few men had already started to walk through the gap in the barbed wire into Iran.
I had no idea what was waiting for us out there in the dark. My legs were like jelly.
‘Go. Move.’
It was all I could do to make my feet move. Mehran took one of my hands and Abdul the other. I was slightly reassured to see that the old Pakistani with the knife was right next to the three of us.
Everyone by now had started walking. We were in small groups but in a disciplined horizontal line, like soldiers coming out of the trenches in the First World War into no-man’s land.
People walked slowly at first, gingerly, carefully. Then suddenly they started running, going in all directions.
We broke into a run with them.
Then we saw some police waving at us. ‘Come this way. Over here.’ There were eight of them, all carrying horsewhips.
We started to run towards them, but then we heard other voices, shouting at us. ‘No. Not that way. We are the police. Come here. Over here.’
‘It’s the mafia.’ a frightened voice shouted. ‘The Kurds. They’re in police uniforms. Run.’
‘Where do we go?’ I was panting both from fear and from the running – the weeks in the prison had left me exhausted and weak.
As everyone ran in panic, I lost hold of the others’ hands as we were knocked and buffeted, swept along with the frightened herd. The ground was rough and rocky, and I thought I would fall and be trampled. My chest was hurting so much I couldn’t catch my breath.
Headlights appeared, then a few men wearing uniforms and carrying torches walked towards us. Suddenly there were more cars, trucks, motorbikes. The men with the horsewhips were upon us, their whips making cracking, splintering sounds as they struck at the running bodies. They managed to corral maybe half of us into a semi-circle.
‘We were informed you were coming. Stay calm. Do not move.’
Some people tried to break free. A whip cracked through the air.
‘Do not run. Do not run.’
I had no idea who these men were but I truly hoped they really were the police. One of the motorbikes moved round behind us, as the half-dozen men with the whips ordered us to walk forwards.
As we walked on, dawn began to break and it was possible to see a little more clearly. Up ahead I could make out a one-storey building. There was an Iranian flag flying above it, and soldiers standing outside.
My breathing began to return to normal. We were with the right men.
As we approached the building, I realized for the first time how cold it was. We had been in a stuffy bus for days, but now on this flat, rocky plain with spiky bushes and mountains ringing the distant landscape, I shivered. It was definitely winter, maybe February by now. It could even be March. I really had no idea.
The one storey-building appeared to be the first Iranian checkpoint on this side of the barbed wire border. Watch towers stood to either side of it. It was still semi-dark, and moths fluttered around a fluorescent light above the doorway. As we arrived, three more police officers spilled outside.
‘Line up. Now. Hands on your head. Faces to the wall.’
We placed our hands on the front of the building.
‘Slowly turn around. Empty your pockets, take everything out.’
They spoke to us in Farsi but their accents were heavily Kurdish. I guessed we’d crossed the border back into another Kurdish dominated area.
Some people were not cooperating with the order and didn’t want to empty their pockets. As a result of that, we were all ordered to take off our shirts, even though it was freezing cold.
The old Pakistani man had tried to hide his knife but he was rumbled.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘In Turkey. The police gave it to me.’
‘Liar.’ The slap rang out clear in the crisp air.
Why was it that every time I thought I was about to feel safer, the opposite happened?
I had $250 dollars still: $50 was in my bag; $100 was hidden in my underwear; and another $80 in my socks.
From my pocket I took out a $20 bill.
A policeman looked at it, took it, pushed me then put it in his pocket.
His friend began rifling through my bag. ‘Got any drugs or guns in here?’
The policeman who had taken the $20 laughed. ‘Don’t you know it’s good manners to bring gifts when visiting others?’
I was furious. We might as well have been taken by the criminals.
‘Look at this,’ his friend exclaimed. ‘What a little discovery. Green’s my favourite colour.’
My heart sank.
He scrunched the $50 note like an autumn leaf. It was the very same note I had had stolen from me in prison, the note that had only been returned to me because Congolese Marrion had beaten another man on my behalf.
I knew I wasn’t getting it back, but this time I didn’t care. It felt toxic to me now. Maybe this was God’s punishment for what had happened.
And at least my $180 was safe in my pants and socks.
We were still standing there, freezing and half-naked, when a series of cars arrived and parked by the entrance. Several men jumped out. The police officers walked over to them as if they were old friends. All of them stood by the cars, speaking in rapid-fire Kurdish as they argued and negotiated something.
‘They are bloody plotting to sell us. These guys are mafia,’ someone whispered.
My Kurdish was good enough by now to pick up a few awful words.
‘…depends how much…’
‘Let them rot in…’
‘…risk…’
‘Families pay…’
‘Your share…’
I felt sick with fear.
Mehran was trying to reassure me. ‘It doesn’t make sense. If they wanted to sell us, why did they bother to come and save us?’
‘Money,’ said Abdul. ‘Why does anybody do anything to us? We are just another dollar for these people.’
I wanted to run: ‘We have to escape.’ But even as I said it, I knew there was no way to escape. They all had guns and I was not physically strong enough to risk anything stupid. I’d barely eaten anything in days.
Abdul read my mind: ‘How? Even if we could get out of here, do we just run into the hills? No water, no food? We would be dead in two days – even if they didn’t just capture us again.’
Just then, the low hum of an approaching vehicle could be heard. The voices at the entrance changed, becoming more urgent.
I tensed. This was bad.
A young man with epaulettes on his shoulders got out of his car. He looked like a boss. His smart officer’s uniform strained around his belly as he shouted at the other policemen.
He spoke in Farsi: ‘You think I don’t know what you are doing? Meeting your gangster friends in the middle of the night. This lot’ – he waved his hand in our direction – ‘like chickens ready for market.’
My legs started to shake with relief.
‘Tell your other friends to leave. If I see them here again, they too will be in the cells. Is my order clear?’
With that he strode inside. The men in the cars left, but only after handshakes, hugs and apologetic looks from their police-officer friends.
We stood waiting by the wall for over an hour in the cold, but at least we were allowed to put our shirts back on.
I think the boss must have called people he knew personally to take us, because different cars came. Not police cars, but what looked like local people on their way to market. We were ordered into them. A couple of the police officers came with us.
The car I got into had a trussed-up goat in the back. It bleated at me pleadingly as we drove away. I knew just how it felt.
Chapter Fifteen
The mountains.
After a while they start to look like bones. Jagged knuckles, bare of flesh.
I felt as though all life had been stripped from me.
My face felt like granite, sharp and hard – washed clean by storm after storm. I tried to sleep – I was exhausted but, as ever, I was the smallest person in an overcrowded car.
From the border we had been taken to an Iranian town called Maku where we spent the night in a local police station. We still hadn’t eaten and I was faint with hunger.
In the morning we were put into police cars and told we were going to court.
The land around Maku was crisscrossed with apricot orchards and vineyards, watered by a network of irrigation canals.
‘It is very ancient here,’ said the police officer in the back. ‘It is very beautiful, do you not think?
I didn’t care. I ignored him.
We drove through a gate in a high stone wall.
‘Look,’ the driver spoke. ‘Look at this tower.’
A seven-sided tower loomed, ornate and strong; maybe a grave for a whole dynasty.
‘Maku is famous for its architecture, as you will see.’ Then the driver laughed until he coughed.
They took us to a golden-brown coloured court building – it made me think of bread. My knees wobbled as we were led inside. I didn’t think I could face another interrogation like the one in Turkey.
Many of the court officials and local police spoke only in Kurdish, not Farsi. We were given documents to read in Farsi, but the language was so complicated I couldn’t really work it out. I was just about to ask Abdul to try and explain it to me when we were told to get up and walk over to a counter. There, we were told to write our names, ages and countries of origin in a big blue ledger.
I wrote my age, twelve, in big clear letters. I hoped they might take notice of it.
The whole court process was over in a few minutes, however. Escorted by the police, we were made to walk from there to a prison nearby. There, the police did some kind of official handover to the prison officials, showing them the court papers. Abdul said he thought the court papers were permission to detain us. I prayed someone would notice my age and do something to help me.
The prison was some kind of old military barracks made of mud and stone. Now I understood why the driver had laughed so hard. The barracks were indeed ancient, with no running water. We had to file under a carved archway and down a little step to get into the dungeon-like cells. On the border it had been so very cold, but now it felt so hot in the airless cell I was assigned to, sharing with ten others. There were no beds, only mattresses on the floor, packed in such a tight row that you had to step over them to reach the ones closest to the far wall.
There were about twenty-five prisoners, all migrants, already there.
‘Welcome to the luxury hotel.’
It was what was by now becoming a familiar story: they told us if you couldn’t afford to pay for your own deportation, you rotted in that jail. Some of them had been there weeks, some months.
The governor was a fat man with a uniform that looked fit to burst whenever he moved. To cheer myself up, I imagined how funny it would be if it did, his buttons popping everywhere.
He issued us our instructions: ‘During the day you will be outside exercising or resting in the yard. At night you stay in your cells. If you want to get out of here, you can pay from amongst yourselves for the cost of a coach to the city of Zahedan, on the border with Afghanistan. The authorities will help return you to the hands of your government. The Pakistanis among you can go home from there.’
This caused consternation among the Pakistanis of the group. Afghanistan was not a safe place for them, especially with no papers.
‘There is no food for you here. If you are hungry give us money, and the guards will go and get it for you.’
The first thing we did was pool some resources and send out for some chicken and rice. I was delighted to finally get something to eat.
Each morning the guards turned us out into the yard. There was no shade, and this fact was made worse by hundreds of dive bombing mosquitoes, which filled in the gaps of misery the sun could not reach.
The guards sat and watched us bake from the shade of their watch towers. They made us do endlessly humiliating squat jumps with our hands on our heads. My head swam in the heat. Each breath scorched my lungs so painfully that I felt my whole body might burst into flames. My arms and thighs sang from the pain, but they kept forcing us to do more and more until we were on the point of collapse. Only then did they let us rest.
We had little food the week we stayed there. I had money and so did Mehran and Abdul, but we couldn’t afford to use all our cash to buy food for everybody. As we felt guilty eating in front of hungry people, we mostly stayed hungry ourselves. One afternoon, after the forced exercise, a guard threw a crust of bread – the remains of his lunch – into the yard. Two desperate men jumped on it.
I knew I had to get out of there as fast as I could. I took it upon myself to try and find enough people with money to help p
ay for the coach to Zahedan. The governor had made clear that the coach to freedom was only permissible if it was full; the journey to Zahedan was far, and he would need to send guards with us. He said it would cost us US$20 per person.
A man named Raheem and I began to negotiate with him. In the end, the governor agreed on $10 per person.
As there were fifty-two of us in total, that made $520 dollars for him, minus the bus fee, of course. But there was one condition: ‘You take everyone. I cannot listen to the complaining a moment longer.’
With Raheem’s help, I became the organizer. As a child, people were more trusting of me not to cheat them. I walked around the yard trying to get people to cough up. Some were genuinely penniless, begging me to help them; others had money, but wouldn’t admit to it. Some were willing to pay for themselves and a friend only. Others refused to pay at all.
I had to use all of my powers of persuasion.
By the end of it, I was $50 dollars short of the $520 we needed. I used my own money to make it up. That left me with just $150 to my name.
It was worth it, though, the moment we boarded that coach.
From Maku, the coach headed to the city of Shiraz; from there it would go on to Zahedan and the border with Afghanistan.
It was a very long way but I didn’t care – at least I was out of that prison. The bus was ancient, fiercely hot with no air conditioning, but the windows opened and we were in the shade most of the time. Two prison guards were assigned to travel with us.
‘Behave and cooperate, and we will treat you with respect,’ they told us curtly.
Every now and then we stopped at a small town along the way for food and toilet breaks. A guard went around collecting money and returned shortly with tea and bread for all of us. I was touched when one of them paid for our food himself on one occasion.
They usually let us get out of the bus when they were eating themselves. I think they felt embarrassed to be eating in front of us because they had nicer food than we did, and they knew we were hungry.
We had stopped to rest in some small public gardens. We stretched out in the shade of a low tree and ate hungrily. As usual Mehran, Abdul and I stuck close to each other.
The Lightless Sky Page 14