by Anna Perera
By the time Khalid’s back in his cell, his mind flipping in and out of the abuse he just witnessed, he’s in no mood to talk to the fair-haired man in jeans and red bomber jacket who’s wandering down the hangar with a bulging white plastic bag under his arm. Accompanied by one of the military policemen, this guy is a picture of happiness. Greeting each prisoner in turn with an Arabic phrase or two, he’s giving out paper and pens and a small plastic cup with a red cross on the side. When he gets to Khalid’s cage, he gives him a proper smile before saying with a posh-sounding American accent, “I’m with the Red Cross. Do you want to write a letter to anyone?”
“A letter?” It’s the first time Khalid’s thought about it. “Just one letter? Can’t I do more?”
“However many you want!” The soldier opens the cell and hands Khalid three pieces of paper and a black pen. Plus a cup which holds a card with a number. His is 256.
“I’ll be back later,” the guy says, smiling.
“Wait a minute.” Khalid grabs the door of the cage as it’s being locked again. “I shouldn’t be here. They’ve made a mistake. I’m a schoolkid.”
The man looks at him for a while. “OK, I guess you don’t look so old,” he says after giving him the once-over. “But you’re not a prisoner of war now—the term is ‘enemy combatant’ as the military like to say. I’m afraid that’s the situation at the moment.” He nods.
The last drop of hope drains from Khalid the second the man’s comforting smile disappears.
“The letters won’t get there, will they?” Khalid shouts after him, watching him quickly move on to speak to Abdul in Arabic.
“What was the point of that?” Khalid whispers to his friend when the man’s gone.
“Doing job.” Abdul shakes his head. “Red Cross—they have power to do nothing. America making all rules. Finish for us.”
“Enemy combatant! Me?” Khalid laughs. “How mad can they get?” Nevertheless, he sits in the corner, paper on his lap, to write a letter to Mum and Dad. Even though he doesn’t know for sure where they are, it’s worth trying to reach them. He half suspects Mum won’t return to England without her husband and son. But then, neither will Dad if he’s turned up at the aunties’ somehow. He won’t leave Karachi without knowing what’s happened to Khalid. Or maybe he’s here in Kandahar, somewhere in another building. Who knows where he is?
Either way, it’s hard to decide where to send the letter. A letter that probably won’t arrive anyway, because the Red Cross will most likely hand it over to the Americans. Then Khalid has an idea to write to Mr. Tagg. And maybe Mac, his neighbor. The Red Cross man has given him three pieces of paper. One of them might get to his family. If not, there’s a chance someone out there might read the truth.
“So this is how it happened when I went missing,” Khalid writes. Describing his abduction in Karachi, before quickly adding details about the trip he made to the flat, looking for his dad. Finding once he starts remembering, the words stream out.
A feeling of being someone else watching his own life overtakes Khalid as he scribbles as fast as he can. The first page fills up before he says anything about Kandahar, leaving him no choice but to draw an arrow pointing over the page, with the words STORY CONTINUES written along the edge.
Sadly, the blue airmail paper is too thin to take the strong black ink of the pen he’s been given and the words on the other side jumble into those on the first page. So much so, Khalid gives up after adding quick kisses for Aadab and Gul.
Going over the final words, “How can this happen? I didn’t do anything wrong!!!!!”, he sits back to read what he’s written. Just how well he’s described his situation, he doesn’t care. This is urgent.
There’s a sudden feeling of panic in his chest as he realizes he’s left no space for the address. Unless it’ll fit along the bottom of the first page under the arrow he’s drawn. He sucks his bottom lip and frowns as he tries to squeeze the address in and, weirdly, the words “9 Oswestry Road, Rochdale, Lancashire, UK” fit perfectly at the bottom of the page. He worries they might not notice the address down there, so he goes over it several times with the pen to make it stand out. Then does the number 9 again in case someone thinks it’s a zero.
Khalid’s tempted to quit worrying and start again on the next page. But he’s only got three pieces of paper and he might not be given any more. Trying all the while not to wind himself up by fretting that the letter won’t reach them. But when it comes to what to say to Mr. Tagg, the tip of the pen hovers over the blank page like a fly.
Mr. Tagg’s a teacher, after all, so he’s going to notice the bad sentences and misspellings, isn’t he? All this worrying cramps Khalid’s style. After several crossings-out, he decides to give it a rest for a while and go back to the letter when he’s clearer about exactly what he wants to say.
Glancing down the cages, he watches one man toss his cup in the toilet bucket, while another jumps on his. The cup feels and smells like the foam they stuff boxes with, but Khalid keeps it anyway.
When the Red Cross man finally comes to collect the letters, Khalid still hasn’t got round to deciding what to say to Mr. Tagg and Mac. Instead, he gives him the letter for his family. A horrible feeling inside warns him it’ll never get there and a split-second picture in his mind of Mum crying her eyes out at the kitchen table, Gul’s arms around her neck, brings tears to his eyes.
12
WADE
The boiling-hot days fold into each other, passing by without notice. Once a week, Khalid’s taken for a shower. Once a week he writes another letter and hands it to a soldier to give to the Red Cross guy, and one by one the months pass by.
“September 2002,” he recently heard a guard shout in answer to one of the men’s questions, and still there’s no sign Khalid will ever go home. The familiar sounds of trucks and whirring engines, squeaking leather boots and the humming generator settle at the back of his mind, like a TV permanently left on in another room. Today the smell of petrol mixed with a whiff of vegetable soup reminds him he’s woken up in the wrong place again.
Now and again, one of them is taken away for questioning. The same routine each time. First the military policemen call out a number so that person knows it’s his turn. Then the soldiers drop by with an armful of shackles to bind him to himself.
Today it’s Abdul Al-Farran’s turn.
“Good luck,” Khalid whispers. The poker-faced soldier forces Abdul to get down on his knees, legs crossed, hands behind his back while he applies the shackles. Abdul quietly prays the whole time he’s being clanked and locked into the chains.
Two hours later and he still hasn’t come back. Lunchtime and more boxes of food are thrown at them. Fish-paste sandwiches in foil wrapping and a packet of salted peanuts. The calorie content is written clearly on the side. Information telling him the peanuts come from Texas.
The squares of daylight at either end of the building begin turning a rich navy blue. The noise of the planes and trucks outside at last begins to die down. Only the annoying drone of the electricity generator fills the night air when they bring Abdul back. He’s bent double, head almost on his chest, as they lead him down the aisle between the cages. Khalid kicks the wire fence, making it wobble noisily. Anxiously, he watches his friend’s slow progress. Feeling cross because he can’t see Abdul’s face properly until he’s pushed inside and the soldiers finish undoing the restraints and leave.
Once the desert boots have marched angrily away, Khalid creeps to his side of their adjoining fence. Abdul’s in the same position they left him in—on the floor, knees bent, legs crossed, hands on his head. He looks up, meets Khalid’s gaze as if he’s a stranger and not someone he’s spent hours talking to. The tears rolling down his face make Khalid back off.
It’s way past dinnertime but a box of food is thrown at Abdul and lands in his lap. He gingerly picks it up, looking at it from every angle as if he doesn’t recognize the box. Khalid watches him eye everything written on the side before
opening it with his teeth. Then Khalid turns away, trying to give his friend some privacy as he chews on tuna, cold pasta and beans. Eventually he stops crying. But it still takes an hour or two before he leans in to the shared wire wall to whisper to Khalid.
“They say I do spy. They take me interrogate. One man—he say, ‘Admit you be a spy. You spy. Say you spy.’ This happening me—not right. They say me, I looking secrets. How they know this?”
There’s nothing Khalid can do but shake his head. Abdul can’t stop repeating himself. Going over and over the accusation because he cannot believe anyone would think he’s a spy. Words of sympathy escape Khalid. What do you say to someone who looks so broken he can barely lift his head from his chest?
A knot of fury forms in Khalid’s stomach as he starts walking round his cell. Endlessly walking to prevent his friend’s words from touching his heart. Moving in small, trance-like steps to rid himself of the horrible certainty that he and Abdul will die here.
After a few minutes of mindless trudging round and round the wire fence, the same military policeman stops again outside Khalid’s cell. Catching sight of Abdul sitting cross-legged, head in his hands in the next cell, murmuring to himself, he seems upset and gazes at him with concern.
At this point, Abdul becomes aware of the guy standing there and smiling down at him. He lifts his head, his face a mess of conflicting emotions, and straightens his back. Then something breaks in him and he leaps up to batter the fence, yelling, “Death to America!”
Good for him, Khalid thinks at first.
A gang of angry voices soon join in. The sound of rattling fences begins to take hold all the way down the building. Lengths of wire pop with bulging fists. A chorus of “Death to America!” grows louder and louder.
Khalid’s tempted to join in, but then he thinks, How can you kill a whole country? And why do they hate America? It should be George Bush and his mates they’re angry with, not the country whose action films, rap music, TV programs and sneakers they all like.
Wade races up from the side. For all his niceness, he’s actually trembling a little. Hands slightly shaking as he points his machine gun at Abdul. Suddenly Wade’s surrounded by a horde of soldiers who stare anxiously at the rippling fences as if they’re about to crash to the ground.
It’s then that Khalid realizes Wade’s just another human being. They all are. Khalid lets go of the fence and retreats to the far end of the cell to sit on his mat. He places the shawl over his head to block out the nervousness on Wade’s face. Then he hears Abdul being dragged screaming from his cell.
A soldier yells, “Shut up!”
Eventually the banging and shouting stop. Fingers uncurl from the cool wire fences and the hum of the electricity generator dominates the building once more.
The next morning, Wade stops by again with another soldier. A tall guy of about twenty who smiles shyly.
“This is my buddy, Michael!”
“Where’s Abdul?” Khalid asks, uninterested.
“He’s OK. He’ll be back soon when he’s calmed down,” Wade says.
“How can you do this?” Khalid questions Michael. “He hasn’t been found guilty of anything.”
“Hey, man, I’m a part-time soldier. A reservist,” Michael says. “They gave me a few months’ training a while back, that’s all. I only serve for six weekends and a couple of weeks a year. I thought it would be fun this time, I’d get to see Germany or somewhere in my two weeks, you know?”
“You’re here for two weeks?” Khalid can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “They put you in charge of us lot? Aren’t we supposed to be evil terrorists?”
“I had no idea I was coming here,” Michael says, sharing his disbelief. Shrugging at Khalid to show this isn’t his idea of fun either. Then his radio bleeps and he turns away to answer it. Talking in number-speak, which confuses Khalid.
“Eighty-four, two-one—in five. OK, Bob. I got that. Sun, right.” Wade turns to Khalid to explain. “It’s time for a trip outside.”
“Why?” The look on Michael’s face suggests the trip is a good thing, but Khalid has no reason to trust this weekend soldier and, when he doesn’t answer, Khalid’s sure “sun” is some kind of code to take him for interrogation, like Abdul Al-Farran.
Then someone starts shouting from the other end. Footsteps rattle down the row and, much to his surprise, Khalid watches a chain gang lining up in the middle of the row. Hearing the reason why from another soldier nearby.
“Y’all need to stop ya complaining about no sunshine.”
Khalid is amazed that anyone has bothered to complain and even more shocked that something’s happening as a result.
Suddenly excited by the simple thought of seeing the sky, he wonders if Wade had anything to do with the fact he’s been included. Reminding himself to thank him the next time he sees him—because “y’all” aren’t actually going outside, only about twelve of them are being shackled and attached to a joining rope that smells of cats.
It’s a sad scene to witness in the twenty-first century: prisoners standing in a line, roped one behind the other. Heads bowed. Ready to be led away to work on a railway?
Following the long drawn-out procedure, the line finally crawls outside. It’s the first time Khalid has been allowed to enjoy fresh air since he arrived here six months ago. Apart from being hurried through cool shadows at the side of the building to the showers and then the barber’s, he’s never been allowed to just stand in the sun. For some reason the excitement of going outside reminds him of a digital photo Tariq once sent of himself sitting on a rock in his garden in Lahore. The picture was so bright, the window of the concrete house behind him sparkled like water and had a kind of inner power that looked odd. Tariq loved that photo. He said the glass had become a river of energy because of the power of the midday sun. Khalid smiles at the memory of the picture in his mind. Tariq? Where is he? Was he kidnapped from his computer too? Is he being led from a prison cell into the sunshine—like him, right now? Khalid gazes at the sky as if for the first time and the sudden, searing light makes him feel drunk as anything. It’s so wonderful and perfect, Khalid can nearly taste the feeling of infinity it brings. Everyone else shuffles from chained foot to chained foot, blinking hard with half-closed bleary eyes at the brown trucks and concrete buildings, as well as at the caged men in the barn opposite. It seems to Khalid that only he can see the thin streak of cloud with a petal shape at one end. Only he can hear the distant bird flapping its wings and singing to itself.
Standing here doddering around is all very well, but the blazing-hot sun on Khalid’s head for the first time since it’s been shaved is making his skin prickle. The growing stubble demands to be scratched and he can’t move his hands. In Khalid’s mind, his bare conk looks like a turkey’s head and the ugly picture destroys the nice feeling he had when gazing at the sky.
The odd sensation soon passes when a voice shouts, “Move on!” bringing Khalid back to the shuffling chain gang, which is slowly being led back to the building after the smallest, shortest glimpse of fresh air and sunshine known to any modern prisoner. He can’t believe they’ve gone to all that trouble to shackle and tie them up just to give them about four and a half minutes outside.
Next day, when the soldier asks, “Anyone for a trip out?” Khalid firmly shakes his head. All that stupid effort for what? No thanks. He’d rather sit here and be eaten by maggots than go through all that crap again.
Abdul Al-Farran still hasn’t returned. Much as Khalid questions Wade, he never gets a straight answer. He’s gone forever, Khalid can feel it in his bones, knowing the truth for certain when they bring another man into his cell.
His new neighbor is puny and wiry, with nervous eyes that dart here and there as if he expects to see a gap in the fence. Just once he pauses to stare at Khalid for a moment before falling on the mat to pray. Something he does incessantly. It drives Khalid mad. Mostly because his voice is a whining, unpleasant one, but truthfully because he wi
shes he was Abdul, or even Masud from Karachi, whom he’d hoped to meet here, or someone, anyone, he can pass the time of day with. Maybe someone like the man a few cells down, who, he’s just noticed, the military seem to respect more than the others.
Khalid doesn’t know his name, but he appears to speak several languages, including English. They look at him differently. Giving him bananas and occasionally a carton of orange juice, which none of the others have received.
Khalid never finds out who he is, because the next day Wade announces, “You better come up with the goods, dude, or your name will be added to the list for Cuba.”
“What’s in Cuba?” Khalid panics.
Wade looks at him strangely. “Kandahar is a way station, a holding place, midway point before Guantanamo Bay. Camp X-Ray’s now closed and the new facility there, where you’d be going, is Camp Delta.”
He hands him a piece of unwrapped spearmint chewing gum. “I’m on leave—going home. Good luck.”
Khalid’s still absorbing the information as he mumbles a thanks. Guantanamo Bay? They can’t send an innocent person like him there, surely. He puts the gum in his mouth and chews slowly. The familiar taste is a nice surprise. So nice, he keeps chewing away at it until it resembles a piece of leather and all thoughts of being sent to Cuba are stored in a no-go part of his brain.
Later, after a revolting dinner of gray meat and sloppy potatoes, Khalid slips into a place he’s never been before. Begins singing to himself in a language he doesn’t know. A language no one knows. The same babbling nonsense babies conjure up.
“Wooeee, chucka, chucka,” Khalid yells to the three soldiers who come for him in the middle of the night. “Doody, doody. Fish eyes doody! The three doody boys. Dude one. Dude two and fish dude, head of dudes, number three, doody boy.”
“Shut up, moron!” one of them screams. “You’re going straight to hell!”
“On your knees!” another guard yells. “Hands on your head.”