by Hamed Amiri
I rushed back to the toilets. This time I was determined to finish my task. If I had to use my hands, I thought, I would.
I got back into the toilets and counted – one, two, three doors from the left – there was the cubicle I’d been in. I pushed the door. Someone was in there! Panicking, I stood back by the sinks and waited, trying not to draw attention to myself. Just as I was wondering what I was going to tell Dad, the door to the cubicle opened. I rushed in – and realised that it was the wrong one.
I wandered back out of the cubicle and waited. By now there was a queue of people behind me, and the person next in line was wondering why I wasn’t going in. I smiled and gestured at the door, telling the guy next in the queue to go in before me. There was nothing else for it – I’d just have to wait until the right cubicle was free.
Minutes passed, and each time another cubicle became free I smiled and let the person behind me go in it. What was happening in my cubicle? Why wouldn’t the person come out? And how long before people thought I was up to something, letting everyone go before me in a queue of people?
Finally, the right door opened. But the person who’d been in there all that time wasn’t a passenger. It was an airport security guard. My stomach dropped. He must have seen the cover pages of the passports and that’s why he was so long! We were done for.
My mind racing, I slipped past the security guard and into the toilet. Then it hit me. The reason he was so long in that cubicle wasn’t because of our passports – it was because of his lunch. A quick glance down the toilet and I could see that the passports had definitely vanished. Without wasting another second I rushed out of the toilets to find Dad.
‘It’s done,’ I panted, when I finally saw him.
‘Definitely?’ he asked.
‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘And I don’t think anyone will go in there for a while.’
Now that we’d got rid of the fake passports we had to wait in arrivals until it was safe to go through passport control. Dad said the mafia guy told him we should wait at least a few hours, as that way they’d be less likely to track where we’d come from. If they found out which flight we’d come in on they could just send us straight back. Which would be interesting, because we didn’t even know where that was ourselves.
When enough time had passed, we were to go through passport control. At this point the authorities would see we had no documents and officially declare us refugees. The mafia guy had taught us all how to say the word in English. From that point on, Dad said, people would view us differently. We wouldn’t be the Amiri family any more; we wouldn’t even be James or John. We’d be invisible: a number, a statistic on a spreadsheet. That’s what the word ‘refugee’ did to people.
Despite Dad’s doom and gloom, we were impatient. ‘How much longer?’ I pestered. Once we’d ridden the escalators a few times and looked at all the vending machines, the airport was boring. Mum and Dad tried to sleep on the uncomfortable plastic airport chairs and we watched people come and go.
‘A few more hours, just to be safe,’ Dad muttered.
Mum told us to stay close by. Even in an airport she was worried we’d get into danger. She was always trying to protect us – especially Hussein, but we were pretty savvy by now. We were a team.
After a few more hours, Dad called us over and said, ‘It’s time’. Dad said this a lot. It meant that something was going to change, but we didn’t know what. It could be better or worse, but it was always different.
We took our bag and queued up at the little glass cubicle. A grumpy-looking passport guard called people one by one to show their passports, and as each person handed over their documents he would look up and stare at them, matching their face with the photo in the passport. Sometimes he would ask a few questions before waving them through.
We stood in line nervously. We had no passports other than the Tazkira, no photos and no documents. All we had was that word: refugee.
‘Next,’ called grumpy man. Dad seemed nervous, although he was trying to hide it. We approached the glass.
The man seemed annoyed that we’d come in a group. ‘Only one at a time,’ he said. ‘Passport.’ He stared out at us. Dad took a breath and shook his head slowly. Grumpy man just stared. Dad shook his head again and held up his hands as if to say ‘no passport’. Then, in his best but broken English, he said the word he’d been told to say, the word that would change our lives forever: ‘Refugee.’
CHAPTER 8
‘Refugee’
For a minute, the man in the cubicle didn’t say anything. Then, after a while, we started to wonder whether Dad had said the right word after all. What if ‘refugee’ meant something else? What if the handler had been pulling our leg? Dad raised his voice and said it again: ‘Refugee.’
The grumpy man shifted, then broke his stare and called over one of his colleagues. After a short conversation with them, he turned to us.
He said something to us in English, but we couldn’t understand him. Then we realised he was pointing towards a set of chairs in a corner of the airport terminal, and we presumed he wanted us to sit there.
I was surprised. Shouldn’t we be arrested or something? Was that all we had to do – sit down? Dad, still not knowing whether they’d understood him correctly, said ‘Refugee’ again, this time looking into the grumpy man’s eyes to see if he understood. ‘Refugee. Refugee,’ he said. The grumpy man nodded. ‘Yes, sit down please.’
We could feel the eyes of everyone in the airport on us as we walked over to the chairs. We knew we didn’t belong here, but where did we belong? What’s a family supposed to do when it has nowhere safe to go?
We see people every day and we don’t know their story. We don’t know why they do things, or what they’re running from. What do we know about what’s happened to complete strangers? None of those people staring at us in that airport knew why we’d left our home and family behind. Did they think we wanted to sit, embarrassed, on those plastic airport chairs? Dad was right: ‘refugee’ changed everything.
After we’d waited for a little while we noticed that grumpy man was talking to someone else at the glass counter. He was pointing to the plastic chairs again. Then more people came, and he pointed them to the chairs as well. One by one they all came over to where we were sitting and sat with us.
The longer we waited the more they came, and after a while we were surrounded by others, who must have been refugees too. It was as if they’d been waiting for us to get there first.
Eventually there weren’t any more people, and we started to wonder what was going to happen to us all. Then a guard came over. He called us into a side room, and again Mum told us to stay close. I think one of the things she was most scared of was us being separated from each other. Back in Afghanistan we’d always been taught to stick together, so it wasn’t like we were going to split up. But Mum must have known something we didn’t, because as soon as we got near the waiting room the guards took Dad aside, gesturing to another door.
‘Look after them,’ Dad managed to say to Mum as he was taken away, as if he needed to tell her. Then he added, ‘Keep telling them Hussein needs medical attention.’
We went into the side room and sat down. Mum cried. Thankfully, after only a few minutes Dad was allowed back in to join us.
‘I think they’re fetching a translator,’ he said. He told us that the man had spoken to him in German a lot, and all he knew was that his name was Lukas. Dad had managed to tell him that our name was Amiri, that we were from Afghanistan and we spoke Farsi. After that Lukas had brought him back to us and left.
‘He seems to want to help,’ said Dad. ‘And he seemed to understand that I’d want to come and wait with you.’
We realised it might be a while before they could fetch a translator, but before long Lukas came into the room with some water and food for us. As he gave it to Dad he said something in German. Dad smiled. When he’d gone, we asked Dad what he’d said.
‘No idea,’ Dad said. �
�But it sounded kind. I think he’s on our side.’ Maybe we were going to be okay after all. It would be a first – the only people who’d helped us since we’d left Afghanistan were people we’d paid.
We waited some more, and I watched as Hussein fell asleep on Mum’s shoulder. His mouth opened and he started to dribble. I nudged Hessam and we giggled. Hussein had looked paler and more unwell these last few weeks. He looked thin too, but I guess we all did. He never seemed ill, but I knew he did a good job of hiding it when his heart played up, so who knew how he was doing really? I started to daydream about finding somewhere new to live, somewhere that was not only safe but where Hussein could get better.
I was about to fall asleep when suddenly Lukas came back into the room, smiling. Mum shook Hussein awake.
The translator had arrived. Lukas brought him in, but before he could say anything, Dad turned to him and said in Farsi, ‘Can you do me a favour please? Can you thank him from me and my family?’ He pointed at Lukas.
The translator nodded. ‘Er möchte dir danken,’ he said to Lukas.
Lukas smiled again, then took Dad’s hand and shook it. I thought he was probably a dad too.
With that out of the way Dad started talking quickly at the translator, explaining everything about our situation and where we’d come from. Suddenly he stopped. ‘We don’t even know where we are,’ he said.
The translator smiled and said, ‘You’re in Austria.’
A huge smile spread across Mum and Dad’s faces. What was so good about Austria? Whatever it was, they seemed pretty pleased about being here. Maybe it was because we were in Europe. The UK was in Europe.
I always wondered why Mum and Dad were so set on living in the UK. Surely anywhere in Europe would have done? Yes, back home everyone thought of the UK as somewhere safe, somewhere we’d be welcome. But it wasn’t until later that I found out the UK had the best healthcare system for Hussein, somewhere he could get the operation he needed.
Finally, after what felt like hours, the questions and talking were over and it was time for us to leave. But where were we going? As we were escorted out of the airport to a waiting van Dad told us what was next: ‘We’re being transferred to a refugee camp.’
‘What’s a refugee camp like?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
As we got into the van, it still felt strange not to have to hide in the boot. We pressed our faces up against the windows, looking out at the greenery shooting by as we sped down the motorway. Travelling in daylight was a novelty for us too, and there was so much to see.
‘Where’s the refugee camp?’ asked Hessam suddenly.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Dad, ‘it will be safe.’
‘Safe’ was the word we’d been running on for months. Was ‘safe’ actually happening now? I could definitely sense Mum’s tension dropping as we sat in the back of the van heading down the motorway. We hadn’t felt safe for so long. It was like we’d made a bubble around us, and inside it we’d stuck together. Even growing up in Herat, I’d never realised how much I’d taken safety for granted.
As I looked out of the window at the fields and hedges, I wondered what our home in the UK was going to be like. Would we be able to sleep and eat in peace? Right now, that was all I wanted: to stay in one place for a while and not feel like we were always being made to move on. I looked at Hussein. Time was running out for him. We all knew that.
The van slowed down as it reach a security barrier. Behind it we could see buildings and a huge open area, like a campus. There were people of all ages – families, old people, children and teenagers – milling around in groups. But in the background I could see something else, something I’d only ever seen on TV. It was a football field.
I couldn’t believe it. After all this time, this was waiting here for us? You could forget the UK. This place was where I wanted to be. It was like heaven: not only would we have a roof over our head and food in our tummies, but we had a playing field out the back.
I thought back to the families we’d trekked through the jungle with. Had they made it to somewhere like this? Had Zara and her family found a camp like this one? Or were they still on the road?
I was still taking in the amazingness of our new home when the van stopped and we were told to get out. We all breathed in the air as if we’d been holding our breath for months. I didn’t care what the future held – as long as we could stay here.
Although Hussein and I were itching to get on that playing field, we had some more waiting to do. First there were all the checks that had to be made on new families, and then it seemed to take them a long time to work out which part of the huge camp we were supposed to go to. There were lots of questions. Then we had to wait some more until they brought us some towels, toiletries and toothpaste.
Finally we were allowed out. We raced around that playing field until our legs hurt. That night, eating dinner almost felt like normal. The weather was warm, and the table was outside, so we all sat and looked at the dark sky as we ate. I was a bit proud of us for getting here. We’d worked as a team. All the horrible things that had happened had just brought us closer together, and I felt like there was nothing we couldn’t do. Yes, there had been a few close calls, and some other times when we’d been really lucky, but this just made me think there really must be someone up there looking after us.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew that the tough times weren’t over and that this couldn’t last forever. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. I just wanted to lock this moment in my head and never let it end. It had felt so long since we’d been somewhere nice that I wanted to remember that feeling forever.
As we fell asleep that night the moon came down through the little windows of the room and I slept well for the first time in ages. In fact, I slept so deeply that I could hardly bear to get up the next morning.
I was still sleepy when Mum came to tell us to get dressed. This wasn’t a holiday camp, she said, and breakfast wouldn’t last all morning.
At this we all started to move. It was a long time since we’d had a proper breakfast. We made our way to a large hall and got in line. Seeing the crowds of other families, we realised for the first time how big the camp was. Then suddenly, among all the chatter, we could hear people talking in our own language, and I had a sudden pang of longing for home. Were some of the other families here from Afghanistan too? Dad went over to say hi and Mum started to chat to some of the other Afghan women. We tried to make friends too, but the other children were much quieter than us and didn’t seem to want to play.
That first full day was amazing. We played with some of the other kids on the field, while Mum and Dad drank tea outside, and before we knew it the sky was getting dark. Mum still watched us closely, but they seemed more relaxed now we were surrounded by people who could speak our language.
Over the next few days we had the same routine: breakfast in the morning followed by chores in our room, then football until lunch. After lunch we would play some more until the sun went down and it was time for the evening meal. Then Mum and Dad would drink tea with the other Afghans until they called us in to bed. I could have stayed in that camp forever. But we also knew that we didn’t have time on our hands, and Hussein was getting weaker every day. Somehow, we had to press on and try to get to the UK – we couldn’t leave it in the hands of the Austrian authorities. As much as we all wanted to spend some time at the camp recovering, we couldn’t forget that we were still on a journey. And we still had a long way to go.
CHAPTER 9
Box Boy
In our journey so far, we always knew when we were about to move on, as Dad would start to make calls. He said this part of the journey would be more straightforward. We just had to get from Austria into Germany and from there we could try to find a way into the UK. In fact, he said, the next part of the journey wouldn’t be difficult at all – it would be luxury. Excited about not having to hide in boots or be thrown around in a four-by-four, we w
aited impatiently for moving day. Little did we know what was to come.
When the day arrived, Dad got a call from the handler and it was time to say goodbye to our little slice of heaven. I’d never been so sad to leave anywhere in my life. We’d had fun, freedom and – most importantly – football. I’d also made some good friends. But we all knew it wasn’t permanent, and it wasn’t going to make Hussein better.
The camp gates were always left open during the day, so after leaving our room we waited at the entrance. After a while a car pulled up. It was a Mercedes! Dad wasn’t wrong about it being luxury. The driver called us over and told us to get in.
I gave a quick glance back at the camp. ‘Don’t you want to say goodbye to your friends, Hamed?’ Mum said. I shook my head.
‘No. It’s time to go.’
Mum knew not to push it. I didn’t want to think too much about what I was leaving behind. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost friends, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. We had to get going, so there was no point feeling sad about what we’d left. It was how I coped. I guess I wasn’t like other boys of eleven.
Within a few minutes of being on the road the camp felt like a distant memory. We were used to moving on, so I started to think of what lay ahead. I could hear Mum praying under her breath, like she always did when we moved from one place to another.
Before we knew it the city became one long road. Then this road turned into a wide motorway with lots of lanes. We were going so fast the white lines on the road began to look like a blur. I’d never been in a car driving that fast before. I was scared, but I liked it at the same time.
‘What’s the rush?’ Dad asked the driver.
‘No rush,’ he said mysteriously. ‘Just testing the speed of the car.’
I felt the mood in the car change, and looked at Mum. She was nervous, and I could see her trying to catch Dad’s eye. Something was wrong.