Dalila

by Jason Donald

  As her documents are printing, Phil leans over his desk and types on his keyboard. He prints another document, signs it and hands it to Dalila. Here, you should put this with your file. It can only help.

  He gives her a cardboard folder for all her papers and then reads over what she has.

  This is good, Dalila. It’s good. It’s going to help, Phil says. He gives her a letter. It’s on headed notepaper with the Solidarity Centre’s logo and address. The letter states that Irene Dalila Mwathi is a valued member of the centre and has integrated and contributed to the local community. Glasgow should be proud to have her and if she should be granted Leave to Remain in the UK, her academic and interpersonal skills would be an asset to the city.

  Thank you, she says. Thank you so much, you are very kind to me. She feels the tears rising again, but Phil cuts in before she can display any more emotions.

  Right, so, you have everything? Are you all set? You look ready. How do you feel?

  Dalila holds the folder up to her chest. With her statement and supporting articles, her letters of support from Kenya and from the Solidarity Centre, and in this outfit, it is the best she can do.

  I am ready, she says.

  Dalila exits Festival Court. Ears burning, her heart wedged high into her throat, as she strides out of the gate under the bored stare of the security guard. She breaks into a run, pointing her hot face into the cold wind. Her head is crawling with cicada beetles, buzzing, shrilling, filling the space inside and around her.

  As if from afar, yet whispered, the questions of her inquisitors return to her.

  Miss Mwathi, you suggest that the tragedy which befell your family was somehow masterminded by your uncle, a Mr Kennedy Mwathi. Do you have any proof of this theory? Something to link him to those murders? Is there anyone who can support your claim?

  The handsome face of Ms Colgan reappears before her. She remembers shaking hands, and the smile on her case owner’s lips. She can still feel the silence in the room while the three questioners read her statement, the supporting documents and letters of support. Then that telling moment when Ms Colgan put down the papers, lifted her eyes and something in her face closed over.

  Miss Mwathi, if you suspected that your uncle had a hand in your family’s murder, why did you go with him to his house? Why not go directly to the police?

  Dalila slows to a brisk walk. The tower of the Science Centre points up towards the darkened clouds. She heads towards it. She remembers entering the interview room. The three of them waiting for her. The hard plastic chair. The coarse brown carpet tiles.

  Miss Mwathi, in your statement you claim you were physically and sexually assaulted by your uncle. Yet, in your initial interview in Croydon, you failed to mention this? Why have you changed your story?

  She sees him, her questioner. One eyebrow raised, his pen tap, tap, tapping on the desk. That is when she knew and that knowing feeling remains, lingering on her skin, in her bones.

  Miss Mwathi, you came directly to the UK to seek safety from your uncle, yes? However, when you arrived at Heathrow you failed to claim asylum immediately. In fact, you said you were here for a holiday, to visit your aunt for twenty days. This was lie, was it not?

  She walks, stooped towards the oncoming wind. At the top of the road she turns left into more oncoming wind. As she crosses the park the buzzing in her head becomes the swirling, rushing of wind through the trees. She passes behind the BBC building and stands on the bridge. Cold river wind from the Clyde. Cold in her knees, cold toes.

  Something is not the same. A shift has happened. She delivered her report. She told her story, all of it, left nothing out, gave them every shame-filled detail. But underneath all the talking, under the questions and answers and assurances and polite tone, something had become apparent and then become something else.

  Miss Mwathi, you claim you were assisted in entering the UK. Is that correct? Could you provide us with the names and contact details of the people who assisted you in getting all the documents necessary for entering the country?

  Miss Mwathi, it would be helpful if you provide us with the names of the people with whom you stayed in London and the address of that flat.

  Why do you keep asking me about that? I don’t know anything about those people, she finds herself saying out loud.

  The wind whips the water. She crosses the concrete space between the BBC and the Science Centre, alone, head bent against the wind. Now the rain comes, thick and wind-thrown, darkening the concrete with bloated full stops. Too far from home to run, she resigns to the wet, accepts the cold. All around her, rain weeps across the city.

  Miss Mwathi, you claim not to know the address of the flat nor the names of the people you stayed with in London. Are you asking us to believe that, having arrived in a foreign country, you willingly went to stay with people you had never met? Indeed, you didn’t even know their names?

  She walks on, the rain slanting against her. Her woollen hat saturates. The wet gathers at her coat collar, slips down her back. Her sodden trousers cling to her shins. The wet seeps through her flimsy shoes and settles around her toes.

  Under a tree, still rain.

  All of it cold. All of it very cold.

  Miss Mwathi, you have described your uncle as a volatile and violent man who kept you as a prisoner in his large Nairobi home. You claim he is an active member of the Mungiki sect. And yet you say that one of his devoted followers took pity on you and provided you with money and documents. This man helped you escape and took you to the airport. Could you perhaps describe for us, again, how all this is possible?

  I don’t know how it’s possible, she says aloud.

  Dead, damp leaves against the fence, shivering. Wet wheelie bins guarding wet houses. At the kerb she hops across a puddle.

  Her building looms, the top disappearing into the grey. She clenches her house key in one pocket and her phone in the other. The phone vibrates.

  Hello? Dalila?

  Yes?

  This is Phil, from the centre. Just checking in to see if everything is okay, because you didn’t sign out this evening. Is everything okay?

  I don’t know.

  Are you still in Festival Court? Did they detain you?

  No. No, I am okay. But I think it was bad.

  Your interview?

  Yes. They asked me many strange questions. I think they were angry, but I don’t know why. Even, I told them everything but they . . . I don’t think they listened.

  But you’re safe, yes?

  Yes. I am nearly home.

  These interviews are tough for everyone. It’s horrible, I know, but don’t let it get to you.

  She has nothing to say.

  Have you got someone you can visit? Maybe chat things over with a friend or something? That might be a good thing to do.

  I have a friend in my house. Ma’aza.

  Good. Good. It’s better than sitting in the flat by yourself all night.

  She doesn’t know what else to say and her silence grows across their connection.

  Okay, so I’ll see you tomorrow at the centre, will I?

  Yes. Maybe, I will come tomorrow.

  Alright. Glad to hear you’re safe.

  She ends the call.

  Squinting against the rain, she looks up at the tower.

  In the middle of the night she wakes. Did she hear Ma’aza come home? She listens for footsteps. For a long time, listening, but there is nothing. Ma’aza isn’t here.

  She pulls back the covers and stumbles down the dark hall to the kitchen. She pours herself a glass of water and as she drinks she becomes aware. They are here with her. All three of them. Her brother and father stand together on the balcony, staring out across the city lights and the auburn under-lit clouds hovering over the world.

  Her mother is here too, sitting by the table, looking down at her hands.

  In the silence, Dalila sits and stares at the shape of her own hands.

  Back in her bedroom, Dalila
removes her three photographs from her handbag. She squats down till her armpits rest on her kneecaps, and holds the photographs out in front of her. The first one is of her by the cook fire with her mother. In the photo, her younger self stirs the food and in her left hand she has a torn piece of cardboard for fanning the flames. The kale and onions whisper their scent to her. She remembers the day this was taken. Her father was beginning to make a little money and he had just bought a small pocket camera. He was snapping everything. Her mother thought it was a wasteful extravagance and she flapped her hand at him, telling him to point that camera elsewhere. But then she would exchange a secret glance with Dalila and try not to smile.

  Dalila brings the photograph closer to study her mother’s expression. There is love in her eyes, maybe a touch of playfulness too, but her arms look thin. She looks exhausted. For many years her mother worked in the flower factory, walking the long rows of flower beds inside the polytunnels, weeding, prepping the soil, cutting roses, lilies and carnations and wrapping them to be flown to Europe. That’s how her parents met. She had been told the story many times. Her father drove a delivery truck and saw her mother at the gates of the compound. He had rolled down the window and asked, How could a flower be tending all these weeds? That’s always been her favourite part of the story. After they got married they lived together on the compound where her brother was born. But with all the chemicals sprayed in the polytunnels her mother had developed breathing problems. There had been complications with the pregnancy and her mother was told she could never have children again. She, Dalila, was born small and fragile, with her eyes wide open. So the story goes.

  That’s how she got her name. Dalila – the delicate one.

  These stories had been told and retold. They were facts she could easily recite. Yet, looking at the frail woman in this photograph, Dalila wonders how well she really knew her mother.

  There was always a cool air about her mother whenever she met other women and children. She had a meek, straight-lipped acceptance that she had been given so few children. But hidden in this mood there lived an unspeakable longing. The silence of this longing unsettled Dalila, even as a little girl. She remembers working extra hard in school and studying every afternoon. Every year she was always in the top group of her class. She cooked and did the laundry and fed the chickens without being told to, as if to compensate for her mother’s lack of daughters, as if by working extra hard, by doing the work of two daughters, she might prove herself to be twice as worthwhile.

  Dalila lays the photograph on the floor and studies the next one.

  It’s her father, as a young man, hoisting up her brother.

  Did her mother take this photo? Perhaps her uncle took it. There is something so uninhibited about her father’s expression. Most photos of him are too staged. He is often well dressed and serious, posing, putting forward his business self, his persona as a provider. But this photo shows a truer self, the father Dalila knew in private. He was a gentle man, good in a way that makes her proud. His arms are strong and he is clearly delighted by his son. Her brother, still just a toddler, has his arms up and his head back, completely secure in the embrace.

  She remembers being held like that.

  She touches her finger to her father’s smile, to the gap in his front teeth. It’s so genuine Dalila smiles too. She can almost hear her father’s laughter. As she hears it, the giggles take over and she can’t stop. Giggling breaks out of her. It’s so funny and wonderful and heart-wrenching. Through the tears she sees her brother’s baby face and he seems to be laughing too, frozen in his laughter, and her father is holding up his only son and they are both so beautiful, so tremendously beautiful that she can hardly breathe.

  Her sadness is sudden and powerful, rising from deep in her chest, from even deeper down, choking the air out of her. She sobs and sobs. Deep, unrestrained, howling sobs, till she is emptied out but weeping keeps washing over her, eroding all parts of herself till nothing is left upright.

  She wakes up and finds herself lying on the carpet. She shields her eyes from the glare of the bare light bulb. Raw misery sits so heavy in her she doesn’t have the strength to switch the light off. She drags the duvet from the bed and covers her head.

  In the blackness, she drifts.

  She sees her brother. He is walking the path towards the bus station. When the troubles started he went straight home, but she stayed. She stayed because she had exams, because her brother was the eldest and it was his job to take care of their parents’ worries.

  But in this darkness all those meticulously painted lies hold no colour. There is only the truth, cold and hard as stone. And the truth is she stayed because being the best in her class was more important than being with her loved ones. She stayed because she’s a vain and self-centred girl with grand dreams. She stayed because she is truly a worthless daughter. A disgrace. The pollution in her family’s story.

  She cries for her mother, for her dignified father and for her brave brother. More than anything she wants to go back to Kenya, to feel the sun on her shoulders, to stand at the graves of her family and apologise.

  From within the folds of sleep, Dalila hears keys in the lock. The front door closes and the security chain is slid into place. Ma’aza is in the flat, Dalila thinks, and her thoughts are so stark she wonders if she spoke them aloud.

  The faint voice of the TV whispers down the hallway. Dalila tries to move but her body drags with heaviness, as though each limb is bound to her but belongs to someone else. She remembers Ma’aza coming into her room and looking down at her, yet distrusts this memory. It feels more like a wish. But when she pulls the duvet from her face she notices her light has been turned off. She heaves herself onto her bed and hides under the duvet. Curling her body around the pillow, she begins sinking down, down.

  In her dream she stands in a house, staring out of the window. The sun shines orange as it sets. A great leafless tree is silhouetted on the plain. In the tree sits a dog. Its ears pointed straight up, watching the house. Higher up in the tree a hyena, stooped and powerful, stalks up behind the dog. The dog sees the hyena and leaps from one branch to another as the hyena gives chase. To the other people in her house, to her family, she says, Look. I think that dog is going to fall.

  And the dog falls, yelping as it hits branches on the way down. The hyena, too, loses its footing. Both animals land badly in the dust. The hyena’s jaw snaps, only just missing as the dog scrambles to its feet. Limping and desperate, the dog runs towards the house for shelter with the hyena giving chase.

  She stands at the window, watching them come.

  Close the doors, she screams to her mother. Close the doors. They are coming.

  But no sounds leave her throat.

  There is a voice. She can’t make sense of the words. Dalila senses a person nearby.

  Ma’aza tugs back the duvet covering her face. She opens the curtains, allowing a sharp light into the room.

  Come, says Ma’aza. Wake up.

  Dalila covers her eyes with her elbow.

  For two days, you cry and sleep, says Ma’aza. This is good. Everyone makes like this when they come to the UK. Now, crying is finished.

  Dalila rolls away from Ma’aza.

  I will put water in the bath, says Ma’aza as she leaves the room.

  A strong wind howls outside. It buffets against the window.

  Water starts pouring into the bath. Dalila covers her face with her hands. The great gnawing sadness is still with her but no more tears will come.

  Ma’aza returns. She sits down on the bed and says, Come, Dalila.

  I want to sleep.

  I know this feeling, says Ma’aza, to sleep and sleep and wish to sleep for ever. And when you wake you sit the whole day waiting for something, you don’t know what. This is a life for a plant, not a person.

  Ma’aza takes Dalila’s wrist and peels her hand away from her face. Later, you can sleep. Now you must come.

  Too tired to resist, D
alila allows herself to be pulled to her feet and guided towards the bathroom.

  The bathroom is thick with steam. Water gushes from the hot tap while the cold tap only lets out dribbles. Ma’aza tugs the cord on the extractor fan and it drones to life, then she turns up the cold tap.

  When the water is ready, get in, she says, closing the bathroom door.

  Dalila stares at the steam rising off the water. She feels weak, teary. A lump in her chest is making her nauseous. She can feel it with her hand, right there, above her stomach and below her ribs, right in the centre of herself, a knot or a ball that she can’t massage away.

  Her mother is in this room. She can feel her. Her father is here too, sitting upright on the toilet lid, waiting. They want to talk and she knows they want to ask, Why were you not at the funeral? You never said goodbye. Why didn’t you say goodbye? They are waiting for her to say something. Tears well up again as she pictures her brother. The time when they were little, how they spread picture cards face down on the back step, turning them over two at a time to see if they were the same or different. He always won at that game, because he was older, but she remembers hating him for it and now she only has herself to hate.

  She breathes in, deeply, trying to inflate her chest, to expand that collapsed sensation around her ribcage. She wipes the condensation off the mirror and knows she should try to calm down, perhaps go for a walk later. But she remembers Markus just standing by the sofa, staring down at her. Markus. He could be here right now, waiting outside her building. He could be right outside the front door. If she goes out Markus could grab her at any time. She won’t let him take her. She will not let that happen again. She will not be taken, not by Markus or her Uncle Kennedy or the Home Office. Except there was that look on Ms Colgan’s face. She can’t get it out of her mind. For the whole interview that woman’s eyes carried the same look. A look that says, You lied. You’re a liar. You lied to us and you’re lying to yourself if you think you can stay. You got yourself into this. Whatever happened to you is your own fault. You’ve only got yourself to blame.