by Anna Perera
First I will tell you what happen to me in Karachi. It is a long story but I know you must be thinking of this many times. Perhaps you been imagining I’m not in this world any more. So I tell you about it so you don’t worry. I was walking down the street when a bike came into me there. Knocking me to my feet. A young man took me inside his house and offered me tea. I’m thinking this is kind and of course I was still in shock because actually my leg was painful and I was feeling dizzy at the same time. But something bad he put in the tea and then he robbed me and locked me in the basement. This is sounding like a film, no? But it is true. Every bit.
There I remained for three days until the man returned. He was most shocked to find me still alive. He freaks out, as you would say, then he runs off. Extremely weak and ill, I manage to make it up the steps and then it’s too much for me and I pass right out. For how long I’m there, son, I’m not certain, but when I wake up I’m at home in my sisters’ house. Luckily, a neighbor went by and when he glances down on the steps for no reason he recognizes me. Everyone was knowing I’m missing from the house. Almost dead I am. Then, son, when they brought me home and brought me back to life, Fatima says by feeding me her special spicy chicken curry, I eventually got myself better again for you. Only informing me when I was well enough to sit up that you had gone missing soon after me. I looked down every street for you. I walked and walked until I became sick from worry. I could not eat. I could not sleep. None of us could. Your poor mum, every day she cries and cries.
Now we don’t understand anything about why you are there. Nobody tells us anything at all. It was only much later when [BLACKED OUT WORDS HERE] who is a friend of a policeman, who was talking to his wife about a boy called Khalid who was held in Karachi at that time, that we were able to put the numbers together. That was after we [THE REST OF THE LETTER IS BLACKED OUT]
Choking back tears, Khalid holds the letter up to the light in an effort to see what’s written under the black crossing-out, but no words are visible. How dare they wreck Dad’s letter? Staring at the clear, round writing, Khalid fixes on the certainty that, yes, Dad wrote this—to him. The loving words force him to climb back into all the things that have happened since he last saw him. All the horrible cruel things. But now he knows Dad’s alive, he’ll never care again if anyone tries to hurt him. He’ll never care if anyone likes him or doesn’t think he’s special. Nothing matters except his dad’s safe, he’s alive and he’s out there fighting for him, and so are all his family.
“Where did you go, cuz?” Once more, Tariq whispers from the corner of the cell next door, anxiously pleading for a quick answer. “Cuz?”
“A lawyer called Harry came from England to see me.”
“WHAT? Why?” Tariq’s shocked.
“He brought me a letter from my dad. He’s fine and Harry’s going to help me.” Khalid still can’t quite believe it himself.
“Why all of a sudden, though?” Tariq asks. “What happened to bring him here?”
“I dunno,” Khalid says. “I think they had to let the lawyer in when they found out how old I was. Or maybe they read all my letters and saw I was innocent. Or maybe Lee-Andy helped me and loads of lawyers are coming here. Who knows? Perhaps they’re closing the place down and letting everyone out.”
“That would be cool,” Tariq says, a bit deflated. “Can you ask him if he’ll help me?”
“Yeah, course. Didn’t have time today, but sure I’ll ask for you. He’ll help you if he can, I promise.”
“Thank you, cuz. Thanks!” Tariq sounds thrilled at the idea of an English lawyer helping him.
Barely able to sleep, bleary-eyed and weak from all the excitement, Khalid’s in a state of disbelief when morning comes and the call to prayer sounds across the camp.
Stumbling to wash himself quickly, Khalid unrolls the white towel and faces the wall to join the hundreds of prisoners looking towards Mecca. Only this time as he prays Khalid gives thanks for his family, for Tariq and Harry and for the chance that, one day, he might go home. A thought he gave up on a long, long time ago.
Soon after breakfast, when the smell of stale bread has left the cell, a weird and wonderful thing happens as Marvin tells Khalid, “Time for your visit.” Like those words are normal around here.
“Already?” Khalid’s standing in no time.
“Good luck,” Tariq whispers. Which gives Khalid another chance to pause in front of his door and wink and smile, as they always do, but today his head’s so full of questions, he wishes he’d taken the time to write them down and he barely notices Tariq.
Luckily, Khalid remembers a few.
“When can you get me out of here?”
“I wish I could answer that.” Harry sighs, scraping the metal chair closer to the table. A whiff of shampoo from his freshly washed hair fills the short distance between them.
“Parts of my letter from Dad were blacked out—how is he? And Mum? And my sisters?”
“I didn’t get to talk to him until the end of last year for the first time. Since then I’ve seen them many times. At first they were greatly disturbed by your disappearance, fearing they’d never see you again, but now your dad is back at work in the restaurant and your mum at the school, which is helping them cope much better than they were. The Muslim community and many others in Rochdale have rallied round your family to fight for your release. I can’t tell you how excited they all were by my coming here to see you. Aadab and Gul send you hugs and kisses, as they all do.”
Khalid lowers his eyes in an effort to stop himself from breaking down completely.
“Why did it take you so long to come and see me?” he whispers.
“It took a great deal of legal wrangling to get permission to visit Guantanamo,” Harry says, moving on quickly to explain that international law, including the Geneva Convention, requires certain conditions that still haven’t been met here. Including the one that child prisoners must be separated from adults and receive education while in detention.
“But I haven’t had any education!” Khalid says, wiping his tears.
“I know.” Harry shakes his head. “But US federal law has similar requirements, so you should have been receiving something.”
“This is all rubbish now, unless I can sue them.” Khalid likes this idea.
“Well, it seems they’ve only just accepted you’re seventeen.”
“Seventeen, yeah. I’m seventeen. I didn’t really care the other day when I figured it was my birthday but hearing you say it feels weird. They have to let me go now that they know I’m young?”
“You’d think so. But you signed a confession saying you planned with a number of accomplices to bomb various cities around the world,” Harry says.
“But it was a game. We weren’t gonna really do that. I was stupid to sign it.” Khalid still hates the part of him that gave in.
“Yes, it was an innocent computer game, and there’s nothing stupid about you from what I’ve heard. Can you tell me what happened, Khalid?” Harry clicks his laptop open, ready to record his story.
From now on, Khalid wants to be seen as honest and sincere, brave, forgiving and kind, so he thinks hard. Knowing once his words are taken down, they’re written in stone and he never wants to be caught out again.
“I didn’t even read the confession after I signed it,” Khalid begins. “They gave me loads of copies, about eight pages, I think. I should have read them. I only pretended to read them. They had the stuff printed out, ready for me to sign when they dragged me from the room after trying to drown me. That was after loads of times they took me for questioning . . . interrogation, I mean. They left me on the floor without any water or anything to eat. Like about the fourth time I thought I was gonna keep being taken there until I said what they wanted me to. And I was right. Some of the guards, it wasn’t their fault. One gave me some chewing gum and another gave me some chocolate and tried to help me. But the others, the ones in Afghanistan, they tried to—they pushed me upside down on a pla
nk to drown me. That’s why I signed.”
Harry stops tap-tapping the shiny white keyboard for a second.
“Do you want to tell me about that?”
“No. Yeah. But not right now, or I might start crying.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Khalid, there are other young people here, some as young as twelve, who are in a worse situation than you. I don’t know their full names yet, but I’m trying to track down their families, who live in various places in the Middle East. In my experience, you did the right thing by stopping the torture.”
“How can they do this? That’s the bit I can’t understand, man.” Khalid sighs, gazing at the glowing white logo of Harry’s laptop. Still slightly stunned by his caring attitude.
“That’s the bit I’m trying to understand too.” Harry smiles, fully understanding Khalid’s weary glances.
“They tied me to a ring on the floor like I was a cow or something and put the air conditioner on until it was freezing. I was shaking and they kept blasting me with the same questions. Saying stuff like, ‘Just admit your part in the plot and we’ll let you go,’ until I was gonzo. They kept me awake for days until I was so wasted, man, I wanted to, like, chuck up. I didn’t know what the hell was happening and there was no one to talk to. Once I needed to take a leak and they wouldn’t even untie me.”
“Thank heavens you got through it,” Harry says.
Finally, Khalid smiles. “Yeah, I ain’t weak no more. Or stupid.”
“No.” Harry nods. “Many people haven’t made it through. Isolation is a tough thing to deal with. There were two suicides last week in Camp Echo.”
“Does anyone care about them, though?” Khalid asks.
“People do, Khalid. They do,” Harry says. “We must remember that once we divide the world into good and bad, then we have to join one camp or the other, and, as you’ve found out, life’s a bit more complex than that.”
“I know,” Khalid says.
“Right now it’s important to collect the evidence to close this place down,” Harry says firmly.
“Yeah, and they said they knew me from the demonstration in Karachi where someone was killed and they have a photo of me next to some guy they’re after.”
“Yes, it’s in the confession. I must say when I read that, I laughed, because the man next to you in the photo, we found out, is an Afghan doctor who agreed to attend the demonstration in case there were casualties. If you look closely you can just see the black doctor’s bag under his arm.” Harry nods. “He’s disappeared.”
It dawns on Khalid that Harry might just help him get out of this hellhole.
“So where are all these maniac terrorists, then?”
“That’s a good question, Khalid. No doubt there are some, and that’s why we have courts of law to decide who’s guilty and who’s innocent. From now on, what I can say is that you must be taken for exercise each day and given access to other prisoners, plus some form of education. Is there anything I can bring you next time I come?”
“When will that be?”
“Soon, I hope,” Harry says.
“How about bringing me my coursework and schoolbooks? Yeah, big laugh that would be, wouldn’t it? I should be working on A-levels now, not bloody GCSEs. Too late. Forget it. Who cares?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Harry scrapes the chair back and carefully folds the laptop under his arm.
“Maybe some sweets. More letters. Any more books by that Harper Lee guy and yeah, books, loads of books.”
Khalid’s sorry to see Harry go. He’s a nice guy. He likes his soft voice and restless, jittery hands.
“You’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird? It’s one of my favorite books!” Harry smiles.
“It was in one of those old Reader’s Digest things,” Khalid explains.
“Ah, I see.” A smile spreads over Harry’s face. “Like you, I thought Harper Lee was a man’s name when I first came across it. But I’m sorry to have to tell you, that’s the only book she ever wrote. Pity, isn’t it?”
“It’s written by a woman? Wow. Shame there’s no more of them. I really like that story.”
“Now, what I’m going to do, Khalid, is try and get you some more books and perhaps even a teacher.”
“Thanks.” Khalid smiles.
Then the door slides back right on cue, as if someone’s been listening the whole time. The guards quickly unlock the restraints bolting Khalid’s ankles to the floor and lead him away.
It’s only when he’s back in the cell that Khalid wishes he’d asked Harry to bring him some of that lane cake that Harper Lee mentions. Coming up with plenty of other things he wanted to say as he sits on the bed to think things over.
“Khalid, what happened?” Tariq whispers again.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” Khalid says, anxious to go through everything himself first. It’s not until he’s said the last prayers of the day that he moves to spread his hands on the wire mesh door to fill Tariq in on Harry’s visit.
“So what did you tell him about me?” is the first thing Tariq asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, let me think!” Khalid kicks himself for forgetting to mention Tariq. What’s wrong with me? How could I forget? So much for kindness.
“Sorry, Tariq, I forgot. I’ll do it next time. It went right out of my head,” Khalid humbly admits.
“No problem, cuz. You always were a dorkhead. Don’t let me down next time, eh?” Tariq says.
“On my mum’s life, I promise I won’t, man.” The muscles in Khalid’s face tighten as he tries to smile. “My hand’s on my heart, you know that?”
“Yeah, brother, mine is too.”
25
ECHOES
Ten days later and Harry still hasn’t returned to see Khalid, who’s growing increasingly anxious to tell him about Tariq. No word arrives, leaving him cross and angry, more ashamed than ever for forgetting to mention his cousin. The only easy thing about the situation is that Tariq doesn’t pester Khalid about anything, not even his lack of help.
A postcard has arrived for Khalid since he last saw Harry, a picture of Rochdale Town Hall from Mum and Dad, via the Red Cross. A postcard that reminds him they’re doing all they can to get him home. They leave out the precise details, because even they know by now that the military reads the mail first before deciding whether to pass it on. The old-fashioned card is a welcome link with home and Khalid places it on his bed and gazes at it all day. Once he even held the card out through the hole for Tariq to see and even he agreed that the town hall is an “impressive building.”
Khalid had given up writing letters a long time ago. He never received a reply so what was the point? But now, every day, he writes and writes to whomever he can think of, always mentioning Tariq. Some letters he gives to the Red Cross man to deliver, but now and then he passes one to the soldiers, knowing everything’s seen by them anyway. Whether they’re mailed on afterwards is anyone’s guess. Tariq says they aren’t—they’re destroyed.
All the same, Khalid is sure some must get through. Either way he’s left in limbo, waiting each day for a reply. But no letter, card or lawyer ever arrives for his cousin, and he feels bad about this, even though Tariq manages to hide his feelings.
“I’m certain my family is thinking I am dead until Uncle—your dad—tells them about you. Then they will cry, ‘Ah, so this is what might be the case with Tariq. It is possible he is alive in the same place. We must keep up with this idea.’”
“Something will happen soon,” Khalid tries to reassure him.
“Of that I have no doubt,” Tariq says. “What, though? All we can do is trust in Allah.”
Thanks to Tariq, Khalid now speaks a little Arabic. His cousin’s endless patience has helped him learn the prayers. When dawn breaks, at midday, mid-afternoon, after sunset and at nightfall, Khalid and Tariq unroll white towels kept clean for this reason and, facing Mecca, pray to Allah.
A feeling of peaceful connection soon descends on Khalid and he re
alizes that the religion he once ignored and avoided because he thought it was uncool has become a major source of comfort, giving him something to turn to. A reason to forgive himself for all the hurt he’s caused in his life to his mum and dad, to his sisters, to random teachers, and the rest. And when he remembers everyone who’s ever hurt him, he never wants to feel that pain or inflict it on anyone else again. Day after day of going through each incident and forgiving himself and others has brought its own deep peace. Plus he’s learned the true value that small things—a piece of chewing gum or a bar of chocolate—can bring. Acts of kindness he will never forget.
Whenever the call to prayer begins and he turns to the back wall, round, long notes echo from Khalid’s throat as if he’s been doing this all his life. The sudden rise in tempo makes him feel blissed out as he pauses mid-flow to lower his voice for a moment before a longer, higher note starts up. Singing so high nearly takes his breath away. He carefully draws out each n-nnnn-n and mmm-m-m and breathing r-rr-r-rrr into the gray walls, while sudden kk-k sounds smack the humid air, creating a chemical reaction in his veins that feels like heaven is coming his way.
A few minutes later Khalid rolls up his towel and places it at the end of the bed, ready for the next prayers. He sits down to share a moment’s silence with every person in the camp—prisoner and jailer alike. Whether they know it or not, they are all embracing peace for peace’s sake. A feeling of calm instead of the pain, bitterness and rage this prison has created. So it’s doubly unexpected when two guards come to take Khalid away.
“You’re being transferred to another block,” the big lump of a guard announces. “Get your things.”
“No!” Khalid panics. “I’m staying here!”
“Dude, move yourself. That’s an order,” he says with a wide, laughing face.
Jumping up to collect Dad’s letter and the postcard, Khalid grabs his library book and turns back to pick up his copy of the Qur’an, plus the new toothbrush Marvin brought after Tariq had a word with him. Imagining if he leaves anything behind, it will stay here forever. Not that Khalid has much else to gather up apart from a few sheets of paper and the blue pen the man from the Red Cross dished out yesterday.