Tender Earth

by Sita Brahmachari

  ‘I phone your mama. Pari makes me promise I don’t tell you of birthday tea. But now Laila is here, I am changing promise . . . this is what is friends for. Why not you celebrate together?’

  Pari’s kitchen is a mini oven with a kind of hob to cook things on the top, a rusted metal sink, a microwave oven and a mini fridge. To the side of it there’s a tiny table with a shiny blue top and two plastic garden chairs. The kitchen doubles as a living room – like ours but nothing like ours, because our kitchen living room is pretty much the size of the whole of Pari’s flat. There are no curtains and two sides of the room are glass windows smeared with grime and something moss-coloured on the outside. The inside of the flat is sparkly clean but it’s hardly got anything in it. The sofa area under the windows is really pretty. It looks like a mattress laid out on the floor, covered with a patterned cloth and a few huge flat cushions in different colours.

  ‘You girls eat cake at table. I will sit on my comfort cushions here.’

  Pari spoons some yogurt on to my plate. Leyla keeps looking over at me, checking that I’m enjoying it.

  ‘Laila likes?’

  I nod.

  ‘Then Leyla is happy!’

  I take another mouthful, trying to identify all the flavours. I think it’s cinnamon, honey and nuts I can taste. The combination is delicious.

  ‘So say it! Why is cousin’s feet naked?’ Leyla asks.

  Pari smiles and shakes her head at her mum.

  I explain to Leyla about Janu’s orphanage and his fundraising and she seems really interested.

  I try the yogurt with the cake.

  ‘You don’t have to have everything. Sure you like the taste?’ Pari asks. She’s wearing that on-guard expression, the same one she had when I insulted her pride and she ran out of our house. Even if I hated this cake I wouldn’t tell her. I take another bite. I’m glad I don’t have to pretend though.

  ‘I love it.’

  It’s spicy and sweet at the same time and a bit warm, so the yogurt’s perfect with it.

  ‘If you’d said it was your birthday I would have brought you a present.’

  ‘You’ve already given me those books!’ Pari says.

  Leyla claps her hands, holding up the one she’s reading.

  ‘The books! Thank you, thank you. I am becoming a teenager again!’

  ‘Mum’s reading them too,’ Pari explains.

  ‘I’ve brought a few more with me, if you want them.’

  ‘Yes, not enough books. I nearly finish this! Leyla is reading Laila’s books! My friend says my English improves, especially language for teenage romance . . . Some are quite nice actually.’ Leyla laughs.

  ‘They’re my sister’s books,’ I explain.

  ‘Don’t try to cover!’ Pari’s mum shakes her finger at me and laughs. ‘I think you have soft romantic heart like me and my Pari!’

  ‘Muuuuuum!’ Pari groans.

  ‘And how about your cousin?’ Leyla asks. ‘Is he married?’

  ‘Mum! This is what I was worried about!’

  ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘Maybe naked feet is making them run away! Instead of businessman they are thinking he can’t afford shoes . . . Well, let them think. There are many ways to be rich. My Nuri, my husband, and I have only one child. I want more but . . . Nuri is not so well, even now.’

  ‘Mum! You promised.’ Pari’s smile has disappeared.

  ‘I’m not complain. One child is my riches.’

  Then Leyla says something in Arabic and Pari gets up from the table and kisses her on the forehead. Leyla is talking now but looking down towards the cushions like she doesn’t want me to see her face.

  ‘She says she wants you to feel comfortable here. She wants you to feel like you are in your own home.’

  ‘Yes, feeling like home,’ Leyla repeats, and she raises her hand and flicks her fingers at us, like she wants us to leave the room.

  ‘Come on! I’ll show you what my dad made me for my birthday.’

  In Pari’s room, the double bed that’s pushed against the window takes up nearly all the space. At the end of the bed as you walk in the door there are fruit crates stacked on top of each other, all painted in bright clashing colours: red, yellow, green, pink and orange. They’re like the crates you get from a fruit market, but they look really pretty stuck together like this. Inside are the books I’ve given Pari and a few big art books with school library stickers on.

  Inside another crate is a small TV.

  ‘My dad’s started doing carpentry. He’s making something for the kitchen next. Mum fixed these up for my birthday. Before today my things were all on the floor – this is the grand shelf unveiling!’ Pari says. I’ve never seen her chattering on so nervously.

  There’s a bright green-and-gold bedspread and curtains in the same colour hemmed with a line of tiny, even stitches. The same careful stitches I’ve seen on Pari’s uniform labels. I don’t know how they managed to get the bed into this room because there is no space around it at all.

  Pari climbs on to the bed and crawls over to look out of the window. I follow and kneel beside her. We are so high up it feels like my head is floating.

  All along the window ledge are jam jars with little battery nightlights inside. There’s just one photo, in a plain glass frame. It’s of Leyla when she was younger, and I suppose that must be Pari’s dad holding baby Pari. Her dad looks like the smudgy charcoal drawing she did at our house, as if he’s only half in the photo. Pari’s definitely more like her dad though, even as a baby. He is tall and slim with the same oval-shaped face as Pari’s, the same dark eyes and thick black lashes.

  ‘This is my favourite place right here!’ Pari says, looking out of the window. ‘It’s something like your landing place, where I come to watch the birds and think.’

  I reach in my bag. ‘And . . . eat chocolate!’ I say, opening the box.

  We munch our way through half the box.

  ‘Bet you feel on top of the world up here!’ As soon as the words come out of my mouth I imagine Kez shaking her head at me.

  Pari gives me an I doubt it look, then turns around and sits down on her bed.

  ‘Top of Lighthouse Two, I suppose! Want to watch some TV?’ she asks.

  She flicks through the channels. The news is on and Pari switches over straight away.

  ‘Hate the news! Don’t you? Mum’s always watching it and getting me to translate stuff she doesn’t understand!’ She switches to a programme where someone really needs to have their house done up and can’t afford it so this team of people comes in and changes it.

  ‘What if they don’t like it when it’s finished?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter! They’re just supposed to feel grateful.’ Pari flicks over to a quiz show.

  ‘Dinner!’ Leyla calls to us. ‘You girls enjoy. I go to shower.’

  Dinner is laid out on the little blue table with paper serviettes and a flowery tablecloth. Leyla’s even tied balloons to the chairs. It’s pizza, orange juice, a different kind of cake and biscuits.

  Pari laughs when she sees the table and shouts something to her mum.

  She calls back through the bathroom door.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’m not a baby. I didn’t need balloons!’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She said . . . you are still my baby!’

  We tuck in and I help Pari clear up afterwards. She leaves it looking perfect. Leyla’s still in the bathroom when we’ve finished.

  Just before nine o’clock Leyla knocks on our door.

  ‘Sorry, girls – lights out in Lighthouse!’

  ‘Mum! Please don’t do it tonight,’ Pari pleads.

  ‘Sorry, Pari. Get in sleeping bags, under duvet, heads inside to stay warm.’

  ‘Hang on then.’

  Pari lights the battery candles all along the windowsill.

  ‘How will you manage, Mum?’

  ‘I will be OK. I have mattress, cushi
ons and blankets and new-moon curtains,’ she jokes, looking at the sliver of a crescent-shaped moon through the window.

  ‘It is not problem for me to stay one night on my comfy cushions! I can dream all happy birthdays from thirteen years.’

  ‘Mum, do you have to?’ Pari groans, but she kneels up on the bed and gives her mum a long hug.

  In a few minutes the fairy lights and TV cut out and the only light in the room is from the nightlights on the windowsill.

  Pari climbs into her sleeping bag and kneels at the window with her nose against the ice-cold glass. I do the same.

  ‘When the lights go out in here I look at the city ones,’ Pari says. ‘Lots of people in the Lighthouse blocks switch off at nine. Sometimes we can’t afford to keep the electricity on all night long. Remember when Mrs Latif asked if anyone knew what “ironic” means? I thought of this! A lighthouse with no light!’

  I look to the right and left at the other blocks and it’s true, most of the windows have gone dark.

  ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘It’s how it is.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper.

  ‘Why are you sorry?’ Pari asks.

  I don’t answer. I can’t answer. What can I say? It won’t make her feel any better or her flat any warmer if I say what’s in my mind: I can’t stand it that you live like this, and I live how I live and Kez too. How can any of this be right?

  ‘The city never goes dark, so there’s always some light,’ Pari says, staring into the distance.

  ‘I feel bad taking your mum’s bed. Shall we swap with her?’ I ask.

  ‘She wouldn’t.’ Pari shrugs. ‘By the way, you need to wear socks.’

  It’s true; my feet feel like ice blocks already.

  I reach down to pick up my socks. One of them’s slipped further under the bed. I feel around for it and an aerosol can rolls towards me. There’s something else under the bed too – a packet of incense. It smells just like the lift.

  ‘It was you! You lit incense and sprayed over the graffiti in the lift, didn’t you?’ I ask.

  ‘So now you see why I didn’t want to invite you!’ Pari stares out of the window, rubbing the frozen tip of her nose, while I pull on my socks inside the sleeping bag.

  ‘Your mum’s made it nice inside,’ I whisper.

  ‘She does her best,’ Pari says. ‘I like the new moon the best! Just when you think it’s going to be dark forever this tiny slice of light comes through and you know it’s going to get brighter!’

  Pari takes my hand. ‘You’re so cold!’ she says. ‘It’s because you’re not used to this.’

  I’m trying to hide it but I’ve already started to shiver. Our breath comes in icy wisps that mist the glass. Pari rummages under her pillow and brings out two woolly bobble hats.

  ‘Hats on!’ She laughs, handing me one and pulling on hers.

  ‘Mum knitted these for us, for tonight! My favourite red colour. Look! Birthday pom-poms and everything!’

  Pari switches off the battery lights in the jam jars and closes the blackout curtains while I put my hat on and wriggle deep into the sleeping bag. Pari pulls the duvet and a blanket over the top, and we snuggle right down under the weight of the covers.

  It’s so dark in here with the curtains closed. This is when she tells me. I was never going to ask if she didn’t want to talk about it. I think she knew that, but I don’t think she ever would have confided in me if I hadn’t come here.

  ‘You want to know why Mum and I live here, like this. I’ve seen all the questions in your eyes. You want to know where my dad is. I’m going to tell you the whole story, now, in the dark, and then I never want to talk about it again. Understand?’

  ‘Yes! But you don’t have to,’ I whisper.

  ‘I do,’ she whispers back and snuggles up closer to me. Curled together in our sleeping bags under the duvet, the two halves of our bodies make a circle.

  ‘I don’t remember any of it. I didn’t exist! It’s just what Mum’s told me. It was that time that your nana was marching against bombing our country . . .’

  She reaches out for my hand, squeezes it tight, and I squeeze hers back.

  ‘Our whole town was shelled . . . flattened. You’ve seen those pictures on the news? Grey rubble and dust, houses turned into coffins. My grandmothers and grandfathers were buried there, and my cousins. My mum said we had a beautiful garden with pomegranate trees. Everything was killed. Everything died, even the plants, the fish in the pond, the birds . . . everything. Nothing left to stay for. Mum says that the only precious thing she had she carried with her . . . and that was me!’

  I pull my arm out of the sleeping bag and Pari pulls her arm out of hers and we hold each other’s freezing hands in the dark.

  ‘My mother was three months pregnant with me when they left Iraq. She won’t talk about how they got away. When I was little she used to make up magic stories like legends and she would put me in them. When I ask her how we travelled here she used to say, “On a magic carpet of hope!” Now I’ve seen how people really travel, I prefer the fantasy. Every night my mum dreams of drowning. She doesn’t tell me, but she talks in her sleep. From what she says, I know we must have come across the sea. When I ask her, all she tells me is, “You travelled in safe, clean waters.”’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to,’ I whisper.

  Pari ignores me.

  ‘I’m telling you so you know this is why we’re here like this. I’m going to get us out of here. I’m going to be the best at things. I’m going to be a teacher like Mrs Latif and find somewhere good to live for my mum and dad, and my dad’s going to get better and come back to live with us. Then my mum will be happy, not just acting happy for me, and she’ll be able to work again . . .’

  I can feel her tears dripping on my cheek, and my tears mix with hers. We don’t even try and wipe them away.

  Pari’s all breathless, as though if she keeps speaking, imagining good things, her words will fill up all the unknown spaces in her future.

  I squeeze her hand and she calms down.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me . . .’

  ‘It took them six months to get here. The way Mum tells the story, a lorry driver dropped them at the doors of Homerton Hospital and two hours later I was born. She makes it sound easy!’

  ‘So that’s the photo of you all together. It was taken in the hospital.’

  ‘My mum always ends the story the same way – “And you, Pari Pashaei, were born on British soil.” – like I should stand up and cheer at the happy ending! I think I was four years old when we got our refugee status. The papers finally came through, and soon after that my dad became ill . . . in his mind. That’s why no one came over on playdates from primary while he lived here. His heart was so sad I used to think he turned the sky grey. Now he stays in the hospital. Sometimes we go and see him. We’re going tomorrow with some cake. Mum thinks maybe he might be starting to feel better, because he’s building things again – I don’t know. She waits for him to get better. We are waiting for new housing. She’s seen some flats with little roof gardens up the road. She has this dream of Dad coming home and sitting on a little balcony surrounded by flowers and vegetables . . .’

  ‘Pari . . . I—’

  Pari shakes her head. ‘I don’t really know him. Let me tell you everything. Then it’s finished.’

  ‘We have to keep the flat really clean. We need to. I think you’ve noticed. It’s not just me; it’s Mum too. She thinks it’s because she was worried about getting an infection when she travelled here. She was always trying to wash her hands and be pure to pray too. It was hard for her. The social worker thinks I’ve caught the clean bug off her.’ Pari laughs. ‘Funny, isn’t it? People think about catching an infection from dirt, but I’ve caught the clean infection.’

  I wait for more . . .

  ‘That’s all.’ She yawns. ‘I’ve never told anyone all of this before. I can’t talk any more now, Laila. Do yo
u mind if I sleep? I feel so tired.’

  Pari falls asleep first. I hear her breathing change and I snuggle up closer to her to keep warm. This is the saddest, happiest birthday I have ever shared with anyone.

  ‘Breakfast is ready. Eggs with toast. Come on, wake up . . . it’s nearly ten o’clock! Laila’s cousin will be coming to collect her and we must be ready to visit Nuri . . . your father.’ Leyla opens the door, sits on the end of the bed and looks at us as we peep our bright red bobble-hatted heads out of the sleeping bags. Leyla giggles at the sight of us.

  ‘Looking like seal babies in London Zoo!’ She laughs.

  ‘I don’t think they wear bobble hats!’ Pari smiles.

  ‘Same with four big, beautiful open eyes! Wondering of this world!’

  I turn around and peep through the curtains to see what kind of a day it is. There’s frost on the ground for the first time. No wonder it was so cold in here last night. The morning sun is dazzling bright. A golden-coloured shaft of light falls across the bed. Leyla switches on the TV and clicks on a news channel. Pari raises her eyes towards me as if to say, ‘I told you!’

  ‘Mum, it’s so rude! Turn it off!’ she says.

  They’re talking about another march that went on yesterday through the centre of London. It’s a Unite Against Racism march. The screen splits to show it happening in lots of different countries. There are people from all over the world, chanting and carrying banners, playing music and looking so peaceful walking together. A family sitting on a statue of Gandhi is watching and clapping. They’re holding up a poster:

  HERE WE STAND AGAINST HATE.

  Pari’s mum starts clapping as we sit on the edge of the bed and watch.

  ‘Mum, please can you switch—’

  ‘Wait a minute. Can I see?’ I ask, crawling to the edge of the bed.

  ‘If Nuri was well, we would go together.’

  ‘You could go with me, Mum,’ Pari says.

  ‘I’ll come too!’ I say.

  Leyla turns to Pari as if she’s never thought of it before.

  The crowds of people make this incredible noise, like an enormous chanting choir filling up the streets. I imagine Nana Josie, Simon and Hope marching somewhere in that crowd, holding up their banners. I wish I was there too, with Pari and her mum, Bubbe and Kez. Maybe one day we will all march together. I catch a few of the messages on the banners – ‘Support the Human Family’, ‘Unity not Hate’ – and then I see a little boy on his dad’s shoulders carrying a banner with words painted in gold: