by Hamed Amiri
As we continued along the path, the bushes suddenly opened up. I could just about make out a sort of pit between the trees. My eyes were used to the dark by now, and I could see a group of people – they looked like families – standing in the clearing. They were waiting, each standing in one corner of the pit, almost hiding. Behind the pit were some more bushes and then a lorry park, like a lay-by at the side of the road.
‘What is it?’ I whispered, my curiosity getting the better of me. Dad shushed me, and Mum squeezed my hand as if to say ‘be quiet’.
What we saw then was a bit like a play, with everyone carrying out their different role.
After a while, one of the handlers would flag down a lorry to make it stop in the lay-by. He’d approach the driver’s cab and say he needed to check documents. He’d then direct him to a parking spot near the pit area, where the handler would ask to see his licence and passport. While the driver was searching for his papers, the handler would make small talk about where the lorry was going. As soon as the driver told him his destination, the handler would give a sign to one of the families hiding in the darkness. They would then go behind the back of the lorry, where another handler would put a ladder up to the top of the lorry.
The family would climb up the ladder and onto the roof of the lorry. Up they went, onto the soft top of the vehicle, until you couldn’t see them any more. Then we’d hear a quiet rip. This was them cutting a hole through the soft top of the lorry with a knife so they could climb down into the container.
We watched this happen over and over again as the handlers pulled more lorries into the lay-by. Each time a different family would disappear up onto the lorry and drop down inside it. What happened to the family after that? How long were they in that lorry? Did they ever get caught? It seemed to work like clockwork but I didn’t think it could be that easy.
One thing I noticed was that the handlers didn’t really seem to care where the lorries were going. In fact, I saw them tell one family their lorry was going to the UK when I’d heard the driver say he was going to Turkey. This was so unfair! How could they tell them they were going to the UK when they knew the family were going to end up thousands of miles in the wrong direction? I didn’t want to think about it too much, but I also knew that people died in these lorries – I had overheard stories of customers at the takeaway, and heard the parents whisper to each other when we were in the jungle in Russia, and thought we weren’t listening. I suddenly imagined being stuck in a container for days, never reaching your destination and watching your parents and siblings slowly die in front of you.
But we didn’t have much choice. Neither did the other families in the pit. One by one more lorries were stopped, and the group of people got smaller and smaller. At one point one of the handlers came over to Dad. We thought it might be our turn, but instead he started shouting at him. It turned out it was about our luggage – we needed to make sure we could easily fit into a container so we needed to get rid of some of our stuff.
How could we get rid of some stuff when we only had one backpack for the five of us? Mum opened the bag to see what we could take out. I noticed she didn’t touch the photos she’d stuffed in the back of the bag. I knew Mum, and there was no way she was going to leave those behind. Instead she brought out some of the spare clothes and added them to a large pile that was forming at the side of the pit. We helped her, and it was hard not to look through some of the things other people had left behind. Clothes, bags, toiletries, but also photos and jewellery. These were memories. How could people leave them behind at the side of the road?
Finally, there was only us and a couple of other families left. The sky was starting to get light, and I wondered what would happen to us if we were still here at dawn. As it got bluer and bluer overhead, Dad started to look worried. I was scared of travelling in the back of a container lorry, but I also knew that right now this was the only option we had. We didn’t have a back-up. Time was running out.
Another lorry was flagged down, and as a handler spoke to the driver Dad was called over by another. The man handed him a big knife and motioned to us to go with him.
‘Stay close to us,’ Dad whispered, and ‘Look after Mum,’ he added to me.
I could feel the familiar rush of adrenaline as we went round to the back of the lorry. The sky was really light now. What if the lorry driver noticed we were climbing up a ladder onto the back of his truck?
Then the handler talking to the driver made a signal to us. That meant the destination was good, or so they said. Now we just had to wait to be told when to climb up to the top of the lorry.
I could hear Hussein’s breathing getting heavier behind me. It didn’t sound good. It was rasping, and I knew that meant he was struggling to control his heart rate. I had to calm him down somehow. I looked around, and suddenly spotted a beautiful black horse in the field on the other side of the pit. We always talked about having a horse one day, so I nudged Hussein and pointed to it on the other side of the bushes. It worked. I saw him focus on the horse, controlling his breathing and slowing his heart rate. That horse helped me too, as it took the focus off what we were about to do for a minute.
‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ Hussein was muttering. I don’t know whether he was talking to me or himself. After a few minutes I could hear his breathing return to normal.
While we were looking at the horse the handler must have given the signal to climb the ladder. Before we knew it, Dad was pushing us towards the lorry and we tripped towards the back wheels. I didn’t know what to do, and was about to start climbing the ladder when the handler suddenly turned around to face us. ‘Stop!’ he whispered loudly.
Why did we have to stop? Confused, I waited at the ladder, my foot on the bottom rung. What was going on? Why did we have to stop? He came and grabbed onto me, holding me back from going any further. I could see Dad looking around wildly.
‘No signal. No go,’ the handler was saying. We’d misunderstood.
And that was it. The time was up. The window was closed and the sky was getting lighter and lighter. The handler grabbed the knife from Dad and put it away.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘hopefully.’ And with that all the handlers just wandered back into the bushes and left us, abandoning us in the middle of nowhere by a busy road.
‘What are we supposed to do now?’ asked Mum in despair.
‘No idea,’ said Dad. But the sky was light now, so the first thing we needed to do was find somewhere to hide. We were standing right out in the open and the lorries were whizzing past us. If anyone saw us we’d be arrested.
‘Let’s go that way,’ said Hussein suddenly. He was pointing away from the pit and out of the line of sight. Mum looked concerned.
‘Why that way?’ she asked, but I could see why. It was the field where we’d seen the horse a few moments ago.
It seemed as good a place as any, so we all traipsed through the bushes and towards the field. As we came through the hedge we could see there was some kind of town, or at least some streets, on the other side of the field. Perhaps we could get some food. I suddenly realised I was starving, as we hadn’t had a proper meal for a couple of days.
Keeping a close eye on the group of horses, Dad led us through the field. Hussein and I both loved horses. We tried to find an excuse to get closer and closer to them, but I could tell Mum just wanted us out of there.
As we got alongside the horses Dad started picking up the pace, heading for a wooden gate at the far end of the field. But as he speeded up we also started to walk quicker, and before I knew it I’d broken into a run. Hussein and Hessam followed and suddenly we were all running through the field towards the gate.
I’ve never been scared of horses, but being in the field with them didn’t feel quite right. Seeing us start to run like that made them agitated, and they started to move towards us, getting faster. Soon they were galloping crazily through the field, and as they got closer, we ran even faster. It wasn’t until we were nearly at
the gate that I realised Hussein was no longer behind me. I smacked my forehead. Why had I not stayed behind him like I normally did? I looked back, and I could see him crouched on one knee in the middle of the field, rubbing his chest.
I swore. ‘It’s okay!’ he was trying to shout, as usual trying to convince us there was nothing wrong. I could see the blood rushing to his head. ‘Mum!’ I shouted.
But she’d already seen what was happening. She shouted, ‘Hussein!’ and I saw her start to run back towards him. It was awful watching him on the floor, struggling for breath – was he going to have a blackout? They were rare, but had started to happen more frequently.
Time seemed to slow down then, but the horses didn’t. They were really spooked, and started to rush towards Hussein in the middle of the field. That was when Dad took charge. He ran to Hussein and shouted at Mum to take Hessam and me out of the field. Mum looked back at Hussein but did what she was told, grabbing us and starting to pull us towards the wooden gate.
But I didn’t want to leave Hussein. I’d been protecting him all my life. I wasn’t about to let him die in a field of horses.
‘I’m going,’ I shouted, and managed to break free of Mum. Dad saw me rushing back into the field and shouted at me to go back. I think he thought I was messing around.
The horses were still rushing towards Hussein, and while Dad ran to help him, I decided to do what I knew best: cause a distraction. I waved my arms around and shouted like a maniac, hoping I could get the horses to turn their attention from Hussein to me. Dad reached Hussein and scooped him up, and I suddenly realised my plan had worked. The horses were heading straight for me.
Then it didn’t seem like such a clever idea. As the horses galloped towards me I could feel my legs shaking. But I stood still, waiting, waving my arms until Dad had got Hussein over the gate.
Then I was really scared. As soon as Hussein was clear I bolted, running faster than I’d ever run before away from the charging horses. I could see Mum at the gate, her arms open and ready for me. I reached the gate just as I felt the vibrations of the horses’ hooves behind me.
I quickly realised there was no time to climb over, but I remembered something I’d seen on a TV show back in Moscow, where the hero flings himself through the gap in a gate. So I fixed my sight on the gap between the wooden bars and hoped for the best. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
As I got to the gate I knew I just had to go for it, so I screwed up my eyes and threw myself into the gap. Dad shouted an incoherent sound. I landed on something soft.
When I opened my eyes I could see the stubble on Dad’s chin. I’d jumped straight into his arms and was now pressed up against his face as we lay on the grass. We were both breathing heavily but managed to stand up. The horses had run right up to the gate and were looking at us wildly.
Mum cried and hugged me tightly as I untangled myself from Dad. ‘I’m alright,’ I said. ‘I think.’ Hussein, who was slowly managing to get his breath back, stood up from the ground too. As soon as he could talk he reached over and flicked me on the head.
‘Nutter,’ he said.
CHAPTER 12
Lorry cargo
Now that we were safely through the field, we had to find somewhere to wait until nightfall. We also really needed some food.
We headed for what looked like the small town and found a local corner shop. Dad bought as much as he could carry in his arms and we ate it sitting by the pavement.
Now we just had to keep a low profile until it went dark. If any police saw us they could ask us for our documents and we’d be in trouble.
We wandered around, feeling exhausted. Hussein’s episode in the field made us realise how much worse he’d become and how little time we had left to get him to a proper hospital. The longer we spent out in the open with no shelter and not enough sleep or food, the worse he would surely feel. I noticed that he was much less talkative these days, and I knew that meant he was tired from the extra effort his heart was having to make to keep him going.
Hussein never let on that he was struggling, and he kept the spikes in his heart rate mostly to himself. But I would see it sometimes – a change in the colour of his face or a shortness in his breathing. He tried to cover it up but I could tell that he felt like his heart was popping out of his chest.
We decided it wasn’t a good idea to stay near the shops as they were too out in the open. Dad said we didn’t look like other people in the town. I asked if it was because we were Afghan. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s because you and Hussein are covered in mud.’
So we headed back towards the fields. We definitely didn’t want to go near any horses, so we aimed for a bushy area that was away from houses and shops.
As we traipsed back through the undergrowth, Mum prayed. I just wished it would get dark, which was funny, because Hussein and I spent most of our lives not wanting it to get dark. Back in Herat we’d be out playing football in the alleyway, hoping the evening would stretch a few more hours until curfew.
Eventually we came to a bare patch in the undergrowth and Mum found a muddy log we could sit on. We spent a few hours there, bored out of our minds and impatient for the next part of our journey.
We huddled in a circle like we used to around the sofra. Suddenly I began to laugh. ‘Did you see me dive through that gate?’
Hussein caught the giggles too. ‘You should have seen the look on your face with those horses running up your ass,’ he said. Mum rolled her eyes, and we all joined in. Dad ruffled my hair. Whatever happened, I knew we’d always have this.
We spent the rest of the afternoon teasing and joking with each other and jumping on and off the log, but we were glad to see the light fading in the sky. Dad kept his eyes peeled for police patrols, and he also told us to watch out for any sign of the handlers who’d ditched us the night before. As night started to fall he seemed anxious to get back to the pit. We had to make sure we were first in line this time.
Suddenly Dad whispered, ‘Shhh.’ We could hear people nearby.
‘Get behind Mum – by that tree,’ Dad said, pointing to a big tree a few feet away. We didn’t know if the rustling was the handlers or local police, so it was best to be on the safe side.
From behind the tree I could see Dad stepping carefully towards the noise, looking around him for something to use in self-defence. After our journey so far, I didn’t blame him.
Mum gripped onto us tighter as we peeked out from behind the branches, and I saw Dad pick up a log.
But Dad soon realised a log would be no use. We heard a voice say, ‘Drop that,’ and suddenly a group of men came out of the bushes. Some of them had machetes. Outnumbered and out-armed, Dad had no choice but to drop his weapon to the floor.
‘Who are you and what are you doing?’ asked one of them firmly. He seemed a bit cross. I held my breath as Mum came out from behind the tree.
‘Please, don’t hurt us,’ she said.
‘We were left behind last night,’ Dad explained quickly, realising these must be traffickers. The men looked at one another. I looked at their faces to see if I could recognise any of them, and to see if any of them would recognise us.
There was a long pause, and I could see Dad frantically thinking of a way out, probably by offering the little money we had left. Hussein held on to Hessam and me tightly, as if stopping us from making a move that could make the men even angrier.
‘Wait,’ came a voice suddenly from the back of the group. Dad tried to see where it was coming from, when rustling through the bushes came another man. He stopped, looked at all of us, whispered into one of the machete men’s ears and then disappeared back into the trees.
Dad looked desperate. He started to put his hand in his pocket to count how much money he had left to bribe the traffickers with. It wasn’t a lot.
One of the men waved his hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Stop.’
Dad looked confused. Did that mean they recognised us from the night before?
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sp; ‘It’s okay,’ he repeated, and brought his machete down. He called us over. Slowly, we came out of the bushes and headed towards Dad. They remembered who we were. The traffickers motioned us to the pit, and once again we arrived at the lay-by at the side of the road.
We weren’t the first there. We could see several other families already waiting. Not wanting to take any chances, Dad headed over to what looked like the main trafficker and started to speak to him. He was determined not to spend another night in this pit.
When Dad came back to us, we settled into our groups and waited where the traffickers showed us. Before long the lorries started to stop. It was just like the night before, but this time we weren’t so scared about climbing onto that lorry. We just wanted to get away.
As we waited in the pit, Hussein and I played the fool together. Most of the time we acted like normal brothers. But we weren’t normal brothers – we were about to cut our way into a truck.
While we played, Dad and Mum seemed stressed, and the men got on with their work putting traffic cones at the side of the road. A few hovered towards the back of the pit with the knives and ladder. We waited.
The sky was totally dark now, and all the families were in groups in different parts of the pit.
We hoped and prayed that we’d be the first to go. We’d been waiting since last night, and were one of the first families here. Dad paced around, making sure the traffickers didn’t forget he was there.
Suddenly came a ‘Shhhh’ from one of them, and Dad stopped pacing. Was it us? Was it our turn now?
‘You,’ said the man, pointing to the group right next to us. Dad sighed. Why not us? It wasn’t fair.
The chosen family were taken to the edge of the lay-by, given the knife and the ladder was leaned against the lorry. All this only took a few minutes, giving us hope that things would move quickly tonight. Perhaps we’d be next.