He wasn’t annoyed by my doubts. ‘Trust me. On this game, even my own brother will be going in the boat to Greece with you. You don’t think I would betray my own brother, do you?’
This news did reassure me. But, of it were true, I had yet to see any evidence of a brother.
Before I knew it, a different man was ushering us into the back of a white transit van.
‘Gulwali.’
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Sitting there in a group of ten others was our old friend, Baryalai.
He was a little cool: ‘You guys left me in prison. What kind of friends are you?’ He looked at us, hurt. ‘Because of you two I got myself into big trouble. I kept asking what was happening to you two, and they thought that made me an agent. I got six months.’
‘Oh, no, I am sorry.’ I felt awful for him.
He continued: ‘I know you told the police officer I was your agent.’ He held up a hand in the face of my denial. ‘Don’t lie, they told me. You two deceived me.’
Mehran and I were shocked he could think this. ‘No, no. We didn’t. We promise.’
‘Don’t lie.’
‘We didn’t.’
At this Baryalai couldn’t contain himself any longer: he burst out laughing, giving us both a big bear hug. ‘I’m so proud of you both. Tamim told me all about the prison escape.’
‘Tamim? How do you—?’
A second voice spoke up from the gloom in the back of the van. ‘You little traitors left me as well.’
Tamim was there too. I couldn’t believe it. Two of my friends, there, in the van.
Mehran was already interrogating Tamim: ‘How did you get to Turkey? Why are you with Baryalai?’
Tamim brushed away the questions. ‘I walked, didn’t I? But enough of your questions. Where’s Jawad? You left him too, right?’
I looked at him guiltily. ‘Er, yeah.’
As usual, I had no idea where the van was taking us, but at that precise moment I didn’t really care. I couldn’t have been happier to see Baryalai and Tamim again.
Next stop in our tour of Istanbul was an open-sided shelter tucked away in woodland. It was vile. Not far from it was an Afghan-style toilet. Judging from the smell of this spattered latrine drop, thousands of people had come and gone without it ever being filled in or cleared. The stench was overpowering.
Including the twelve from the van and those already there, we numbered around 130 – mainly Afghans, but with a smattering of Pakistanis and Iraqis. Baryalai introduced us to some of the men from the van: Engineer was a clever, geeky type of guy in his early twenties; Ahmad, who the others teased because he had some kind of skin disorder and spots all over his hands, was nicknamed Gerasim, ‘germs’. There was also Hamid. He was a hugely charismatic, good-looking young man.
No one was happy to be in that shelter: it felt way too exposed and, as was so often the case, there was no food or water. Nothing made sense. Shir Aga had promised we were going on the boat, so why were we still on the outskirts of Istanbul in yet another filthy shelter? And where was Shir Aga’s brother?
There were a couple of Pakistanis guarding us. They told us their boss would come soon.
This new agent introduced himself as Yassir. Instinctively, none of the Afghans liked being controlled by a Pakistani – our countries have long had an enmity and difficult history.
Mehran couldn’t hide his distaste. ‘Why would an Afghan hand us over to a dhal eater?’
It felt like a humiliation.
Yassir tried his best to convince us, and was polite. ‘I understand your concerns. This place is not appropriate for a long stay. We were supposed to leave tonight but there has been a problem and we must stay here one day. You Afghans are always in a hurry – such impatient people. But please let me assure you your worries are unfounded. I am working in your interests.’
Everyone began trying to talk over him at once. He raised a hand and asked us to nominate one person to talk on our behalf.
‘Baryalai, you do it,’ I whispered to my friend.
Baryalai was just about to stand up and say something, but before he could get to his feet, Hamid had begun speaking to the guy in fluent English: ‘We were promised to go straight to Izmir. We demand to travel tonight.’
The agent and Hamid conversed in English for a while. I was really annoyed – Baryalai was our spokesperson; this Hamid guy was half his age, not much older than me. Who did he think he was, speaking like this? And showing off with his English skills, too.
After he’d finished, Baryalai added a couple more points.
Yassir’s response was curt: ‘You will leave when I say it is suitable. Why are you Afghans so angry? I gave you my word, didn’t I?’
A few people still complained.
‘Fine. If any of you want to leave, be my guest. Go. There are too many people here anyway, which makes it dangerous for me.’ He looked around at us in exasperation. ‘Or you could be sensible and wait until the morning when, I guarantee you, you will be on your way to Izmir.’
Another day, another guarantee from an agent.
But this time, at least, he hadn’t lied. After a sleepless, hungry night, the Afghans were loaded on to four different vans, thirty people in each. I was crushed into a tiny corner in the back, my body pressed up uncomfortably against the metal. The ten or so Iraqis and Pakistanis stayed behind. I assume they were given different transport.
We travelled most of the day in the darkest, hottest, most confined space imaginable. It was hell, and I honestly thought I might suffocate to death it was so hard to breathe. We were thrown out into a valley at one point, where we rested for a few hours.
In the evening some men came. One, a black-haired man with crazy looking eyes, said he was our new agent. The other three worked for him. They walked us through the trees, to the top of a cliff.
From there, I could see the sea.
We were exhausted and thirsty, in no fit state to trek for hours. Worse, the sun had just set, so we’d be slipping and sliding our way through a pitch-black forest. But what choice did we have?
As we walked, I tried to grab on to branches for support, but thorns ripped at my hands and made them bleed.
It was around 3 a.m. when we finally reached the edge of the forest and started making our way down a small, winding track that would take us to the Aegean sea. Out in the open air, I was reassured by the bright half-crescent moon in a cloudless sky.
As we snatched a few minutes’ rest I stared up and, as I often did, wondered if my family was seeing the same moon that night. Were they also thinking of me? And what of Hazrat? Had he passed this way?
Tears sprang to my eyes. The past few weeks, since coming back into Turkey, had all been too much. I’d been on the move so often I really wasn’t sure I could keep going. ‘Stop it, Gulwali. Don’t be soft,’ I chastised myself. But I couldn’t quell my overwhelming sadness: every particle of my being wished I was near home and hearth, food and comfort.
I got wearily to my feet as we all moved off again.
As we got closer to the seashore, I could occasionally make out the shape of moored boats, bobbing on dark water. This was my first time seeing the sea, and the size of it was terrifying to me, all inky blackness.
Hamid translated for us: we were to walk down to the sea, take off our shirts and get in the water when the time came.
We made our way down on to a small beach. As we waited there for three or four hours, we saw a police patrol boat. I sat in my dark hiding place, watching the red and green navigation lights go past. A piercing spotlight on the bow probed the shoreline for signs of life.
No boat came. Instead, I just listened to the terrible crashing of the waves on the shore.
I didn’t want to get in the sea.
During that night, I found myself warming to Hamid. Even in the dark, he could tell tha
t I was scared of getting in the water.
‘Relax, I will take you on my shoulders. I am a good swimmer,’ he said.
Then, ‘Get down,’ someone shouted.
The agent looked panicked as the lights of a police car flickered in the distance. We all crouched behind a wall. The car slowed, but kept on going. One man near me whispered that we should walk in the same direction as the car, rather than risk this terrible water.
‘Shut up and do as I say,’ hissed the black-haired agent. His manic eyes had a way of piercing through the darkness.
No boat came that night. Before dawn, we walked back up to our vantage point among the trees, cold and hungry, and exhausted from lack of sleep and spent adrenalin. No one knew when we would next have to do that again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
One thing about life on the run is, just when you think you’re as miserable as you’ll ever be, life manages to laugh yet more loudly in your face.
I shifted my head against the rock I was using for a pillow – it was a waste of time trying to get comfortable, but it was better than the ground, where insects might climb into my ears. A tree root jabbed me in the small of my back. I swallowed my frustration and tried to roll over, but accidentally knocked into one of the sleeping bodies lying near me.
My thin jacket and jeans were no match for the clammy, damp earth beneath me, despite it being a sunny afternoon. I reached into my little bag and pulled out a T-shirt, covering my face to block out the light.
‘Gulwali, stop moving about. You’ll wake them all up.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered back to Baryalai. ‘I’m cold.’
‘I know. Try to rest. Don’t make these guys angry, OK?’
He was right to warn me. Tempers had been really fraying. We were all desperate, hungry and increasingly angry. The nights were the worst. It was always hard to sleep. But, fearful as I was of the trees and unknown landscape, I was more fearful of the other men.
Since returning from the seashore, the Kurds had just disappeared and left us there, for three uncomfortable days and nights. People were at their most cold and tired, so almost anything could set them off. Even if someone said something nice, the others shot him down. We were huddled in a small clearing, and there were a lot of fights about who would get the softest bit of ground.
During the daylight hours, we slept on the ground with only the trees for shelter; at night it was too cold to even attempt sleep, so instead we played cards. Tamim, Mehran, Baryalai and I huddled together for warmth. The only comfort I had now was being reunited with these friends, especially Baryalai, who had always looked out for me.
Since talking to Hamid that night at the sea, I had grown to like and trust him very much. He, Ahmad and Engineer had a bond, much as my little group had, but we all became kind of allies.
Everyone was too miserable to talk much but we gleaned little bits of information from each other. It turned out that Tamim, Ahmad and Engineer had been briefly kidnapped by our old nemesis, the drunken bully, Amiri. Our friendship was almost undone when we worked out that they’d paid the price for our running away: it seems Qubat had refused to pay him and had refused to send any more migrants his way. By way of revenge, he had held the three of them hostage for a few weeks.
Tamim didn’t see the funny side. ‘Not only did you little shits leave me on the border, you got me kidnapped too. If the Taliban don’t kill you, I swear to God, I will.’
Mehran and I thought it was hilarious.
‘We were just lucky. Stick close to us next time, and we’ll keep you safe,’ Mehran teased.
I couldn’t help joining in: ‘You bring us bad luck. Because of you three, we are stranded here. As much as we like you, are you guys really to our advantage?’
It was September 2007. I had left my home in October the year before, making me an undocumented migrant, an illegal, for nearly eleven months now. Only now was I getting closer to Western Europe.
At no point in this journey had I any idea how to go about claiming asylum, even if I had wanted to. None of the three countries I’d been stuck in for the past few months – Turkey, Iran or Bulgaria – had felt safe enough for me to want to stay. Prison or deportation was all they could offer me. I knew I had to keep going, keep moving – and hope that the promised lands ahead did actually offer safety and security.
I was glad my mother would never have any idea of the times I had felt so lonely or cried so hard and so often my eye sockets ached – full days lost to tears and headaches, sorrow and emptiness. But I think, on that cliff top, even among my friends, I started to feel sadder and lonelier than ever before. As I struggled to sleep on the hard ground, with a grizzling empty stomach, I couldn’t help but let the memories flood in – memories I usually tried to block out. I’d dream I was back at home, teasing my cousins or listening to my mother hum softly as she folded our laundry, the house filled with morning light and smelling of freshly baked naan bread – only to wake cold and hungry to yet another lightless sky above the forest canopy.
What scared me most right then was that we’d been there for three days. The agent with the manic eyes and his trio of accomplices had failed to return.
The agent had thick black hair covering his hands. It matched the hair on his head and the little tufts poking out of his ears. Between the hair and those eyes, he reminded me of a spider.
Mehran and I decided to find out if Shir Aga’s brother really was among us. We began by trying to find someone who looked like him – no one did. But we were so hungry, our vision was blurred anyway.
People tended to congregate in small groups. As a child it was easier for me to go and talk to others: ‘Excuse me, I am looking for the brother of Shir Aga.’
No one seemed to know him.
Later, I was talking to Mehran when a young, green-eyed man with red hair approached us. ‘Why are you looking for Shir Aga’s brother? What’s your business?’ His tone was tough.
Baryalai noticed and bristled. ‘Little man, is everything OK with you?’
I think I knew this was our guy. ‘It’s no problem. I know this man.’
Baryalai still looked suspicious. ‘Then sit, my friend, and join us. Any friend of Gulwali’s is a friend of mine.’
The young man sat down and spoke in an urgent whisper: ‘Look, stop asking questions about me. If some of these guys know who I am, it will make big trouble for me.’
I used this to threaten him: ‘If you don’t do what I say, I’ll make a public announcement. You need to contact your brother and find out what is happening.’
I noticed Baryalai giving me a surprised, but slightly admiring glance. I’d grown up a lot since we’d last been together.
The young man looked desperate. ‘I don’t have a phone.’
‘So find one.’
We’d been warned by Yassir not to carry any mobiles with us because the police could use them to track us down. The only time I’d ever had a mobile in my possession was briefly in Istanbul – the one we’d stolen from Amiri. But that had been left with Jawad.
Somehow, the young man managed to find one and call his brother, Shir Aga. He came back with a slightly arrogant air: ‘My brother says to relax. He’s working on the plan. It’s guaranteed. There is a new boat, and he’s negotiating with the captain as we speak.’
I hoped he was telling the truth because, by the next day, people were beginning to think we’d been abandoned. There was talk of leaving, and everyone was arguing with each other. Some people wanted to try to walk to a road and find help; others told them not to risk being seen and arrested.
I knew for certain that turning ourselves in would be a huge mistake: ‘Do you want to go to prison? Some of us here have been. It’s no joke.’
‘You know nothing, boy. Shut up. Children don’t speak over their elders.’ An older man raised a fist at me in warning.
I knew none of them would listen to a child, so it was better to let the others argue it out. I knew Hamid and Baryalai would make good decisions on our little group’s behalf: I prided myself in making sure I made friends with the smart people. But I think, deep down, we all knew that if the Kurd didn’t return by day four or five, we’d have no choice – it would be starve or surrender to the police.
Every hour that passed that day, I prayed and hoped he would return as I tried to quiet the rumbling pain in my stomach and quell my nauseating fear.
About eight o’clock on that third day, when we were sitting in silent hopelessness praying for a miracle, four or five of them came back. They were carrying crates of tomatoes and several loaves of bread, as well as two large 10-litre bottles of water.
I was so hungry I could have easily eaten several loaves all by myself. The crates of tomatoes might have looked a lot but after they were distributed, there was only one per person. While it was the best tomato I had ever tasted in my life, it did nothing to quiet the howling in my hungry stomach – just a pebble thrown into an empty well.
The Kurd watched us eat with a look of distaste. Filthy and starving, we snarled and whimpered like a pack of wild animals. For him this was nothing new; every week he probably witnessed scenes like this, bringing in a new batch of dirty, hungry, desperate people – scum, in his mind. But we were the scum who would make him rich.
Finally, when the last crumbs had been sucked from beneath filthy fingernails, he gave us the news we’d been waiting for.
We were going to Greece.
When we reached the water’s edge, it was close to midnight. The Kurdish guides started to push people in the direction of a small speedboat.
‘Look.’ Hamid translated for the smuggler as he pointed to a boat bobbing on the horizon. ‘Get on the small boat and it will take us to the big boat.’
I didn’t know much about boats, but even I could see that what he called the ‘big’ boat wasn’t very big, and certainly was not large enough for 120 people.
The Lightless Sky Page 20