Red Leaves

by Sita Brahmachari

  ‘All secure!’

  She stood stock still until the men’s voices and footsteps finally receded into silence. She thought of the homeless girl lying on the pavement by the shop. Maybe Aisha would be safer in the shelter of these ancient trees than roaming the streets, at least for tonight and maybe for longer if the wood was going to be closed off for a while.

  She took her first steps deeper inside and pulled out her torch. It was as if someone had turned up the volume on the woodland. Perhaps she was disturbing the sleeping creatures with the glare of her light because she heard life all around her: scurrying through the undergrowth, rustling leaves, bats diving, and now she thought she heard someone singing or something like a woman crying. She had not felt this kind of fear since the day she’d been forced to let go of her abo’s hand and he’d handed her over to her guide; that had been the first time she’d understood how it felt to no longer be under the protection of someone who loved you.

  Aisha walked further into the wood, away from the hum of the road. She followed a rough path cautiously until the scattering of light from the street lamps was completely swallowed by the thick leaf canopy. When she shone her torch into the darkness the fiery red leaves of autumn shone back at her, the wood ablaze for a second with colour. For the first time in ages the vision of her village burning to the ground came back to her . . . Aisha covered her eyes. She took a deep breath as she’d been taught to when the memories threatened to overwhelm her. But the sights and sounds would not leave and the image of her friends and family tearing out of their houses with fire eating at their skin was searing into her again.

  The stench of charred flesh filled her nostrils. Lalu, her aunt was somewhere inside one of those burning houses. Aisha hid, playing dead, watching it all happen and desperately trying to block her ears from the yelps and screams of pain and the men with guns who came to destroy. She lay on her belly, in the sure knowledge that if they found her she too would be taken by the men and shot, she did not dare to breathe. A young boy stood in front of the marauders with flames licking his hair pleading for water, for mercy, and she could do nothing but sit by and watch in horror as his captors laughed and spat in his face.

  Aisha tried desperately to tune in to the sounds of the wood, to bring herself back. As she returned to the present she realized that she was lying face down in the earth and that the light of her torch had died. Why didn’t I check the batteries? Frantically Aisha clicked the switch off and on again. Nothing. Her heart sank at the thought of having to lie in that position until dawn. She felt in her rucksack for her sleeping bag. At least the weather hadn’t yet turned cold and the earth she was lying on was soft and dry.

  Once she was snuggled inside the sleeping bag, Aisha opened her eyes wide – maybe her vision would sharpen as it adjusted to the darkness. Gradually, gradually, she seemed to focus, picking out the tiniest contrasts of dim light between the branches. A shadow dipped and fell towards her, accompanied by a swooshing sound. Bats. They were flying around the wood now as if they owned the place, diving at her head, sensing her there. She covered her scarf with her coat and began to pray. But through her prayer came the sound of an animal, as it drew closer it felt about the size of a fox. Now it was walking over her legs it seemed even larger. She held her breath and did exactly as she had when she’d hidden outside her village. She did not move a muscle, but the animal seemed to sense her fear and climbed on to her stomach. It was kneading her with its paws trying to pierce the thick down of the sleeping bag. Now it was panting and sniffing around her. She could hold her breath no longer and a sob escaped from her mouth. She expected the beast to sink its teeth into her skin at any moment. She prepared herself and was grateful that she could not see it. Then a soft whimper came from the animal as it pawed at her chest as if trying to stir her, but she would not move, could not move. The animal whimpered again, backed away and lay on the ground beside her. Then came another sensation of something scurrying over her body, a long, thin tail trailing. She heard the squeal as the larger animal swiped it away and then positioned itself close by her side, close enough for her to feel its breath. She made a pact with herself. If, Insha’Allah, she was still alive in the morning, she would fast as she had wanted to do at Ramadan. But for now, all she could do was attempt to control her breathing.

  She searched and searched her mind for something that would bring her comfort, and it was Liliana’s voice that came to her, reading Hansel and Gretel . . . It seemed as if she was hearing the story for the first time. She had often felt embarrassed about wanting those stories, because she supposed that they were meant for young children, but she had always sensed that there was something beneath the surface that had to do with the kind of wounds that she had suffered . . . now listening to Lilana’s voice in the dark she grasped exactly what that was . . .

  The stepmother had left the children in the wood because they did not have enough food. Aisha could believe that. She had seen what the swell of an empty belly could do to people. And as for the witch, she’d been hungry and maybe lonely too, and she’d lured the children to her house of sweets but then the children had managed to outwit her and escape, so the children had won over hunger, the children were survivors. Two small people are taken into a wood and abandoned. It’s how I feel right now. It’s happened to me once before. How am I supposed to feel when the person I trust most except for my abo is willing to let me go? Now, as she felt the animal stir by her side, Aisha understood that the story was really about the terror of being left alone in the world, of being eaten up by your worst fears, by the wild animal sitting by your side waiting to attack.

  Zak woke to the sound of a heavy engine labouring in the street outside his window. Lorries had started arriving with new furniture. By the time his mum returned the house would seem sorted compared to how it had been. Zak hated all this new stuff. It felt like living in a hotel. Why couldn’t they bring the old table with them, the one they’d all sat around together for so many years? He peered out of his bedroom window to see two police cars parked outside a house further up the road. The woman he’d seen having a picnic in the woods – Liliana, was that her name! – was standing in a doorway, crying. A police officer was attempting to calm her. Zak got up, put on his school uniform and attempted to slip out past Shalini.

  ‘Breakfast!’ she called through to him.

  ‘No time!’

  Shalini hurried out and thrust a croissant and a carton of orange juice into his hand. ‘Eat on your way to school then. I will pour water on your head tomorrow if you don’t wake up in time!’ she joked, ruffling Zak’s hair affectionately ‘Your Ma will be telling me off for spoiling you when she gets back!’ She laughed and pushed him out of the door. Shalini always seems as relieved as me when she knows Mum’s coming home. Zak was still smiling as he jogged down the street, only slowing as he passed Liliana’s doorway.

  ‘No, no, I think she’s run away, because of the note I showed you,’ Liliana was saying.

  ‘At least that’s better than someone taking her,’ the police officer attempted to reassure Liliana.

  ‘You don’t understand! The child’s had enough trauma in her life as it is. You’ve got to send more people to look for her. If only I’d insisted on her coming with me. I was just an hour or so up the road with my grandchildren. It was the first time I’ve ever left her in the flat. I wish I’d never brought up the adoption thing. She was happy with me before . . .’ Liliana broke off, sobbing.

  ‘Nobody’s blaming you for anything, and we’re doing all we can,’ the police officer comforted.

  Zak tried to walk past unnoticed but he caught Liliana’s eye.

  ‘Wait. Wait up!’ she called after him. ‘Can I give you some leaflets to hand out?’

  The policewoman peered at Zak. ‘Are you a friend of Aisha’s? Have you any idea where she might be?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t really know her,’ Zak mumbled.

  ‘You’re that boy who wanted us to feed the homeless
woman, aren’t you?’

  Zak nodded and took the flyers from Liliana’s shaking hand.

  ‘Her friend Muna made these last night, brought them round first thing. Said she couldn’t sleep worrying about her. Maybe I should ask old Elder if she’s seen her too. The more people looking out for my Aisha the better. The Somali families are searching . . . and the school teachers. They’ve even put a message out in the newsletter.’ Liliana was burbling now. ‘May God help me if anything’s happened to that child. She put her trust in me, you know.’

  She clung on to Zak’s blazer. ‘You will keep a look out for her, won’t you? Pass those around for me, pin them on trees, in shop windows, school noticeboards. Please, please, just ask everyone,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I will but I’ve just moved in. I don’t really know anyone,’ Zak explained. He felt in shock too.

  ‘I’d go myself but right now I’m not feeling too bright. Ask around won’t you, love?’ All the blood had drained from Liliana’s face and she seemed to collapse into the policewoman, who placed a comforting arm around her shoulder.

  ‘You’re best off staying here in case she comes back. They often do of their own accord. We’ll be pasting posters everywhere ourselves. But you know, we have a lot of success through social media these days, Twitter, Facebook . . . we’ll get the word out,’ the police officer assured Liliana as she led her inside.

  Zak looked down at the poster of Aisha. It must be a recent school photo. She was wearing her uniform with her familiar blue headscarf and smiling. The strange thing is that he’d walked through the wood every day since the picnic, hoping he might see her again, and never even caught another glimpse, and now it turned out that they’d been neighbours all along.

  Zak walked to the main road and down the hill past Kalsis Woodland Store. He was relieved to see that Iona was not sitting outside today. He’d only been into the shop a few times for bread and milk, but Shalini had already made friends with the couple who owned it.

  Mr Kalsi stood at the counter.

  ‘Excuse me. Would you mind putting up this poster?’

  Mr Kalsi took it from Zak, studied it, then called out to someone in the back room. Mrs Kalsi appeared from behind a stack of boxes, puffing and panting and pushing her glasses up on to her nose.

  ‘Oh! Oh! Not Liliana’s girl?’ she groaned, tapping the flyer.

  Zak nodded.

  ‘This is too worrying. You are one of her friends?’ Mr Kalsi asked kindly.

  Zak didn’t know how to describe what this girl was to him. This complete stranger, whom he’d seen in the wood only a couple of times but whose face he’d found himself sketching, whose name he had memorized and who now turned out to have lived just up the road from him . . . How could he explain that? So he simply nodded.

  ‘Good boy, good friend!’ Mrs Kalsi squeezed his arm as he left the shop.

  ‘You keep looking for her. City is a dangerous place for young girl on her own. We will ask everyone we know and pray for her. Must look after our community, nah?’ Mr Kalsi said as he stuck the image of Aisha up in his shop window. Then he followed Zak outside and pinned another one on the noticeboard that opened with a key. He took down an old advert for a fundraising event that had long past and replaced it with Aisha’s picture. When he had lowered the Perspex screen and locked it up, he placed the box of drawing pins in Zak’s hand. ‘Here, take these with you!

  Zak thanked Mr Kalsi, but as he walked away he heard raised voices between husband and wife.

  ‘What do you mean, CCTV not switched on?’ Mrs Kalsi shouted.

  Mr Kalsi mumbled something about ‘not enough hours in the day to do what he needed . . .’ but his wife’s voice came booming back at him.

  ‘You think of drawing pins, but you can’t remember important business? We could have seen the girl on camera, which direction she is going in.’

  ‘Maybe, and maybe not!’ Mr Kalsi replied.

  ‘Well, we won’t know now, will we? What is point of installing it in first place? You want to have another break-in? Not one time when we have needed it has this useless camera been switched on.’

  The morning sun filtered through the trees just as it had on the day when Zak had first passed Aisha walking along this very same path. He stopped at a tree parallel to where he’d seen her and pinned up a poster. Why would she run away? Zak supposed you could never tell what was going on inside someone else’s mind.

  Zak bent down to pick up the pile of posters and felt someone approach and stand behind him reading out the message . . .

  ‘“Missing, Aisha Eshun, aged twelve.”’

  Now he knew where the snake coil girl had come from in his dream. Iona read on and then whistled in surprise. ‘Twelve? Is that all? She looks older than that! She your girlfriend? What have you done – frightened her off?’

  Her voice was back to how it had been before – all twisted and sharp.

  ‘You won’t find her round here anyway. I saw her last night heading towards the city! Good luck to her I say. You don’t want to know what a girl that age could get caught up in. Looking all innocent and everything with her veil too. She’ll need all the protection she can get.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Iona scowled and looked Zak up and down as if he knew nothing at all about life. ‘Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Been on the streets since I was fifteen myself.’

  ‘How old are you now then?’ he found himself asking.

  ‘Seventeen. You?’

  ‘Nearly thirteen.’

  ‘Thought so.’ Iona sneered and stared at the image of Aisha. ‘She could be taken for my age, but you’re both just babes in the wood! Ha! Literally!’ Iona laughed and then her expression changed. ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you? I always say I’m older. It gets them off my case . . . Anyway, you seen my dog?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m Zak, by the way.’

  ‘I know your name. Elder’s been chanting on about you and this Aisha girl with the blue scarf for days now! You’d better watch out . . . Once you get inside her head you never know where it’ll end!’ She patted Zak on the cheek and he flinched and pulled away. ‘Don’t look so scared! She’s harmless enough unless she’s off on one. I’m only joking!’ Iona laughed again, a deep warm laugh that seemed to belong to someone else.

  ‘You think she might know where Aisha is?’ Zak asked.

  ‘Unlikely! You’re probably just names wafting through her head!’ But I’ll do you a deal. If I look out for your girl – even ask Elder, if you like – then you’ll keep an eye out for my Red?’ Her mouth trembled as she spoke the dog’s name.

  Zak nodded and watched Iona trail away into the trees.

  What was going on? It was as if he was becoming entangled in the branches of all of the stories that were taking place in this wood . . . He felt in his pocket for the old map he’d taken from the library. Finding Albert’s name in the plasterwork seemed to have loosened more than dust. Zak looked up through the splayed branches and half expected to find Elder sitting in watch.

  ‘I hope they find her,’ Iona called.

  Despite her sharp manner, Zak felt sorry for Iona as she walked away, shoulders slumped, dreadlocks swinging, calling out for her missing dog. Everyone must need someone or something to love, he thought as Iona’s voice drifted off into the distance.

  ‘Red, Red! Come back, girl.’

  The road from school was busier than usual and a police van was now stationed outside the Kalsis’ store. The woman officer Zak had seen in the morning with Liliana stopped and questioned people as they passed. She held a poster of Aisha in her hand.

  ‘Any news?’ she opened her notebook hopefully.

  ‘I saw that homeless girl Iona on my way into school. She said she’d seen Aisha last night, heading for the city.’

  The officer closed her notebook. Clearly she’d logged this information already, but thanked Zak anyway.

  She pointed at the sky above their heads
where a helicopter hovered. ‘Well, we’re covering all bases anyway,’ the officer explained as she stepped into her car.

  Zak felt slightly sick as he walked home; the intrusive drone bombarded his mind as the helicopter circled the same patch of ground like a persistent bluebottle. Please don’t let anything have happened to her, Zak repeated over and over in his head as the blades whirred.

  Shalini was waiting on the doorstep. She held out her arms to give him a hug. Zak read the tense expression on her face and turned cold inside.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, shrugging her off.

  Shalini’s hand gestured softly on the air as if conducting an orchestra to play more smoothly, quietly. She only made this odd little movement when she was trying to calm herself down.

  ‘Come inside.’

  ‘Is it Mum? Tell me,’ Zak demanded.

  Shalini took hold of his arm and led him into the hallway.

  ‘They called from the news team and yes, there has been some kind of disturbance. A number of journalists were missing when the flights took off. They are trying their best to find . . .’

  Zak threw off Shalini’s hands, sprinted up the stairs to his room and switched on his laptop for a full update of the news. He watched the images of children being shot and gassed, terror in their eyes. If his mum was caught up in all this . . .

  Zak ran to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of his churning stomach. He washed his face and drank some water, but the vile acid taste lingered. He stared at himself in the mirror. How could people do that to each other? What kind of god could look over a world like this? Zak heard Mr Slater’s voice in his head reading the poem about the soldiers in the trenches. I hate it all, Zak spoke to his own washed-out face in the mirror. If being a pacifist means refusing to have anything to do with killing, then that is what I am.

  He found himself replaying his mum’s report of walking with the procession of children towards the refugee camps, reporting from the rubble. At least she had been safe then. She’d sounded calm and strong. As he listened to it over and over, his throat tensed again and he began to cough.