As we sat chewing in silence, we all looked at each other. The same thought – escape – passed between us unspoken.
‘If we are going to do this, then we must do it right,’ I said, knowing that failure meant the police would probably shoot us.
‘It is madness,’ said Abdul. ‘Don’t be so stupid as to even try.’
I looked at Mehran.
He nodded to me. ‘I’m with you.’
I can’t remember how many days we had been on the road by then. I think maybe three days and two nights. We had a feeling this could be our last stop before we arrived at Shiraz, so this was as good a chance as we would get.
‘Raheem is a brilliant Farsi speaker. He can help us get across Iran.’
I looked over at Raheem. He nodded in agreement.
‘I’m not helping you get yourselves killed,’ said Abdul.
‘Come on, man. Let’s stick together,’ Mehran pleaded with him.
‘Nor me,’ said the old Pakistani man, the one who had been given the knife in Turkey. ‘I am too sick to run. But I can distract the guards for you.’
‘But that’s the point – they don’t expect us to run. They think we are far too exhausted and hungry,’ said Raheem.
My mother’s disappointed face was scarier than the police and their guns. For the first time since I had set off on this journey, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
‘And that,’ I said, ‘is exactly why we must run. We must run now.’
Chapter Sixteen
I really didn’t want to be deported, but I could sense the others were unsure. After all, I was a twelve-year-old trying to persuade grown men to escape a prison bus with me.
I knew I had to convince them that this was a risk we needed to take; I tried by pushing the most obvious button you can with Afghan males: by calling their bravery into question.
‘If I am not scared, why are you? Isn’t it better to try than regret?’
Mehran nodded enthusiastically. He was as keen as I was.
No one else said a word. A couple of people looked at their feet or picked at the grass.
Abdul was still adamantly against it. ‘Are you crazy? You’ll be shot.’
Mehran sat quietly for a few seconds before weighing up his options: ‘If they send me home to Afghanistan, I am dead. If they keep me starving in one of their prisons, I am dead. Europe is the only chance I have.’
Our kindly decoy, the old Pakistani, climbed to his feet, brushing his trousers clean. ‘May Allah be with you. Are you ready, boys?’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked him. We all knew he was risking punishment for us.
‘Yes. I’ll try and make sure you get a head start.’
‘How will we know?’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll know. Just run as soon as I reach the bus.’
He walked towards the parked bus, screened from our view by a bed of tall shrubs. The prison officers were sitting on the other side of it, eating. We had all behaved so well for the past few days that they had begun to relax and let their guard down a bit more than they should have done.
And then it happened. ‘Guards,’ our old friend cried. ‘A dog just stole my bread. Tried to attack me.’
‘What are you talking about, old man?’
‘I think he might have rabies, sir.’
‘Rabies?’ said the officer. ‘Show me where it went.’
And the old Pakistani gentleman led the guards in the other direction.
We seized our chance.
I looked around at the nervous faces. Abdul shook his head. Raheem stood up.
‘Let’s go.’
This was it.
Mehran and I both sprang to our feet and ran through the park with Raheem following right behind us. We dashed out of it and into a narrow side street.
My one abiding regret is that it all happened too fast to say a proper goodbye to Abdul – until the very last second, I don’t think he believed we were really going to do it.
Until we ran, I wasn’t sure I had believed it myself.
‘Where are we going?’ Mehran cried.
‘The fields,’ I shouted. It was the first thing that came to mind. ‘We’ve got to get away. They’ll never find us in the fields.’
We ran through a series of narrow alleys lined with tightly packed houses, trying to avoid the main streets where there was more traffic, and a group of sprinting, breathless, wild-eyed males would be quickly noticed.
It wasn’t a big town, but there was much confusion about which way to go. There were fields ringing the town, which we’d seen from the bus window, but we had no idea how to get there. I half expected to feel a bullet in my back at any moment.
I was pretty confident the prison officers would not come after us because they had to stay with the rest of the group, but I knew they’d call the local police, who could be waiting for us around any corner. Suddenly, I realized that the houses were giving way to shops and there were more people around.
We were running into the centre of town, not out of it.
‘Wrong way,’ Mehran panted breathlessly, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of what we’d done. ‘Where now?’
‘Look normal,’ Raheem murmured to us both.
We slowed to a walk, trying to look as casual as possible, but it was hard, and my heart was pumping with fear. It was clear we were distressed, dirty and scared – we looked like the escaped convicts we were.
Quick-thinking Raheem asked a passer-by where we could find a taxi. Luckily, we got one almost straight away and, to our joy, the driver was an Afghan immigrant.
‘Please take us to Shiraz.’
I think he guessed something was up, possibly even realized we were illegal migrants. He reassured us with a single sentence. ‘I understand. You are lucky to have found me.’
The city of Shiraz was where the prison bus was headed for an overnight stop before moving on to the border town of Zahedan and the planned deportations, but we knew it was a big enough city not to be seen, and with a lot of non-Iranians, especially Afghans, wandering around, it would be easy for us to blend in. It was also the nearest city to this little town we were in, which we had to get away from fast if we stood any chance at all.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I sank into the black vinyl back seat of the taxi with Mehran.
Raheem got into the front and spoke to the driver. ‘Kaka, we don’t have any Iranian money. We only have US dollars.’
The driver looked slightly frustrated but was still kind: ‘Give me your dollars. I will exchange them for you.’
Raheem gave him $250.
At the bus station in Shiraz, the driver exchanged Raheem’s money at a little kiosk. As he drove off, he offered us some sound advice: ‘Don’t get lost again. You might not be so lucky twice.’
The station was buzzing with people. We were able to relax a little bit because there were migrants everywhere. Shiraz is a little bit like an Iranian version of Dubai, with lots of people from neighbouring countries going there to work.
We weren’t really sure what to do next.
‘Do you know anyone in Iran?’ I asked Raheem.
‘Not anyone I can call. You?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Mehran. ‘What about the place we stayed in when we first came here, in Tehran? Where we met Shah and Faizal. The place was run by that nasty guy – the one who took our passports.’
‘Why would we call him?’ I still had bad memories of that guest house, which stank of boiled meat.
Remarkably, Mehran had the phone number: he had meticulously stored all of the different agents’ numbers in a notebook in his backpack. I was amazed – he was the joker of our pack; he’d never struck me as particularly organized, or even that intelligent.
I didn’t think for a second i
t would work. It had been several months ago that we had stayed there, at the end of October 2006. Now it was late spring in 2007. I didn’t think the man would even remember us.
The only other place we had stayed in this country, aside from the Maku prison, was the smart hotel in Mashhad when we had first arrived from Afghanistan last October. Mehran had written down the telephone number for that too, but not the name of it. Besides, Mashhad was at the opposite side of Iran to Shiraz. If we were to avoid deportation and make it to Europe, we needed to get away from border cities and to the north of Iran, to Tehran.
I stood lookout with Raheem as Mehran made the call from a public phone booth. He spoke as loudly as he dared to make himself understood over the noise of the street. ‘We are people of Qubat.’ His eyes darted around nervously as he spoke. ‘Three of us. Escaped from the prison bus. We need help.’
I shifted anxiously and scanned the street for police or anybody who might be taking an interest in us. It was the early evening rush hour, and tired commuters were busy rushing home from work or running for buses. Thankfully, no one took notice of three paranoid illegals.
After Mehran had hung up, we walked to a quiet corner where he repeated the conversation to me and Raheem: ‘He said we have two options. If we go there, he’ll send a friend to get us. He says he is too busy to help us himself. Or he says he knows someone in Shiraz we can stay with, but he said that would be more risky.’
‘I don’t trust a word he says,’ I said. I hated that man.
‘Me neither, but he’s all we have,’ continued Mehran. ‘The good news is that he told me he’d call Kabul and inform Qubat of the bad news that we are back in Iran. He said it was up to Qubat to decide what the next plan was. If Qubat agrees to pay him, he can help us himself, and we can go to stay at his place again.’
‘I will look forward to that,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Maybe we can get our passports back.’
‘I think they were sold for a tidy profit long ago, my friend.’
The day was fast disappearing into a warm and sultry night. We used some of Raheem’s newly exchanged Iranian money to buy tickets for an overnight sleeper coach to Tehran. It wasn’t leaving until midnight, some six hours away.
We were absolutely filthy. We had spent a week in the prison at Maku, and three days on the hot and sticky bus journey, all in the same set of clothes. I worked out that I hadn’t had a shower since the prison cell in Istanbul, about fifteen days ago.
Raheem was worried that the state of us might arouse suspicion. I got his point. Mehran and I sat on a bench and waited while Raheem wandered across the street to a small shopping mall. He came back with three new shirts and trousers for us all, as well as socks and underwear. With a look of triumph, he then produced a small glass bottle from a plastic bag. ‘We can’t shower, but I brought some cologne. It might help.’
We managed a quick wash as we changed in the public toilets. The cologne, a cheap musky sandalwood, might have made us smell stronger but it certainly didn’t make us smell any sweeter. But I felt quite grown up as I looked in the mirror and copied Raheem, who was splashing it all over his neck and behind his ears. I had never worn cologne or aftershave before.
We threw our old clothes in the bin. It was so good to wear new clothes – but Raheem had managed to bring me jeans one size too big. I didn’t have a belt, so I kept having to hook them up as I walked.
‘You two look like Bollywood stars – especially you, Gulwali.’ With that, Mehran did a silly dance of the type we’d seen in the Indian DVDs we’d bought.
‘Shut up. I do not.’ My face burned red. I was a bit sensitive about the fact I had watched and enjoyed the movies back in Istanbul. For me, it still felt a bit haram, forbidden. Remembering the films also made me think of Baryalai, who we had left behind in a Turkish prison, accused of being an agent.
Feeling more secure in our new clothes, we ventured out of the bus station to try and find a restaurant. The last time I had had proper food had been back in Istanbul, before I went to prison there. That had been well over a month ago. In that time, I’d been to two different jails in two different countries and survived on either tiny amounts of rations or nothing.
To our delight we found a tiny Afghan restaurant tucked away behind the station. It looked just like the restaurants in Jalalabad used to: Formica tables, metal chairs, plastic roses in vases and mirrored tiles on the wall in angular patterns. For the first time since leaving home we had proper Afghan food: Kabuli pilau (rice friend with onions and raisins); kebab and bolani (a type of fried pasty); all with freshly baked naan, washed down with salty lassi (yoghurt) with cucumber and mint.
I so badly wanted to enjoy this rare treat, but my stomach had shrunk and was painful from the previous lack of food. I had to force down every mouthful, and eating it made me feel instantly bloated. I was so disappointed, and soon in a lot of pain. We wrapped some of the kebab in napkins to take with us for the journey.
The bus journey to Tehran from Shiraz took about eight hours. Iranian coach services are generally of superb quality – air conditioned and comfortable. We were thrilled to discover that this one was a proper sleeper, with seats that reclined into beds. It even had a TV screen above the driver’s seat showing movies. It was the most luxury I had seen in months.
I slept soundly, only waking when we stopped in Isfahan for breakfast. Esfahan is famous for its architecture, with many beautiful palaces, covered bridges, mosques and minarets. There is a famous saying about it, ‘Esfaha¯n nesf-e jaha¯n ast.’ (‘Esfahan is half of the world.’) It was a place I had seen in picture books as a child, and while I was scared of being arrested any second, I did still enjoy seeing this wonderful place.
When we reached Tehran, we called the number Mehran had been given for the man who was supposed to come and pick us up. I was so scared that the number might be a hoax, and that no such man existed. But, thankfully, someone did turn up.
He was Afghan and said he worked in Tehran legally, labouring in a warehouse. I got the impression he wasn’t used to dealing in this migrant business – I think he’d been co-opted in to help us by the guest-house owner.
He took us on the metro. This was truly exciting: I had never seen such a magical thing before. The carriage was made of glass, and I was amazed by how it was we were standing in the same place but the carriage was moving. It was beautiful.
After half an hour on a couple of different trains, we arrived at the other side of Tehran. The man walked with us to a local park where he left us and told us to spend the day. He said he needed to go to work and would come and pick us up in the evening.
We spent the day trying to relax but it wasn’t easy. Every time someone walked past us we were nervous because we thought they were staring at us. I felt as if I had the words ‘Escaped convict’ tattooed on my forehead. Fortunately, Raheem still had some Iranian currency left so we were able to buy drinks and snacks to keep us going. My stomach was still not used to normal food, though.
When the man returned in the evening, as promised, he took us to his house. It was a very basic one-room hut on a scruffy farm on the outskirts of the city. He explained that the farm belonged to an Iranian friend of his and that he was allowed to stay there in return for keeping an eye on the place when the man was away.
We ate and slept on the hut’s flat roof. It was the only place where there was enough room for four people, but it had the added advantage of offering us a good vantage point should police cars come looking for us.
Our benefactor was, as we had suspected, neither a paid smuggler nor an agent: he was helping us as a favour to his friend. I don’t know if he’d been put under pressure to do so, but he was very gracious about it and we were grateful to him for putting himself at risk to shelter us.
He told us most Afghans living there, even the ones who were legally allowed to work, lived in poverty and struggled to survive. ‘It
’s tough, but it’s better than home. At least we are free from bombs.’
In the morning his friend, the guest-house manager, called and asked him to let us stay another few days. It seems that he had contacted Qubat, who refused to pay him for the intervention or hire him to move us on again. Qubat wanted us to go to one of his different – we assumed more efficient – agents. But this guy was refusing to let us go. He insisted that because we’d called him from Shiraz we were now de facto ‘his’ for as long as we were in Tehran. He insisted Qubat owed him money, at least for the help he’d given us so far.
In our minds, if anyone deserved money it was the man whose hut we were sitting in, not the guest-house owner. But, of course, our host had no direct connection to Qubat himself – he was just a poor Afghan caught up in the middle of all this.
The whole thing got even more confusing when two other migrants arrived. They had only just left Afghanistan and this was the first step in their journey to Europe. Jawad, in his forties, was from Nangarhar, the same province Mehran and I came from. Because of that we nicknamed him ‘cousin’.
Jawad was very sad. Usually people didn’t say too much about their background stories or personal reasons for leaving, and he didn’t tell us the full whys and wherefores. But he often spoke of his little son who was just six. He was missing him and his wife like mad.
‘Will I see them again? I can’t bear it.’
The other person was Tamim. He was very young but had lost all his hair due to stress, although he liked to joke it was because ‘I think too much.’ He was a tailor from Jalalabad. Somehow, he and Mehran worked out they were distant relatives by marriage. They decided to call each other ‘cousin’ too, which meant overnight Mehran and I suddenly had not one but two new relatives.
Tamim told us he had been threatened by the Taliban and that’s why he’d left. Why exactly, I don’t know.
On the fourth day it seemed the argument with Qubat had been settled because our host was instructed to take us to the side of the field running alongside the farm, later that night, when it was dark. A deal had been struck with a bus conductor who would stop to pick us up.
The Lightless Sky Page 15