Far From My Father's House

by Jill McGivering

  However much money his baba might have, she thought, staring in disappointment, it won’t be enough to make up for having such a weak, girlish husband. Why is the older brother already taken? Why do I get this one? She was still pouting when he reached the gate.

  Her father went to scatter the chickens to the side and unfasten the bolt and the boy turned and looked back, right into her watching face. He broke into a broad smile and she, seeing the look in his eyes, thought, Well, that is the kindest face I ever saw, he will do very nicely for me after all, and went quickly into the sitting room to admire with her mother the quality of the white lace and eat her share of the sweetmeats before her brothers finished them all.

  Now, so many years later, she folded away the burqa and sat beside him on the cot. She lifted the book out of his hands, closed it and set it on the ground. He looked up.

  ‘Old Auntie told me one of her old stories. The one about the donkey.’

  ‘The donkey?’

  ‘Who tries to change his shape and ends up forgetting who he is.’

  ‘Ah.’ He took off his spectacles and rubbed them against his kameez. His watery eyes gleamed in the half-light. ‘That is called an allegory.’

  He replaced his glasses. She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to say: Please, my clever husband, what is an allegory? Instead she frowned. ‘It’s a warning, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Did her grandmother really tell her these stories?’ he said. ‘Or does she just make them up?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter about the story, about the donkey. It matters about us. What are we going to do?’

  He shook his head sadly and looked at the ground.

  ‘It won’t end here.’ She counted off the problems these strangers had caused. ‘First they stop the music, the barber. Then they shut women in their compounds. They call away the young men and give them guns.’

  ‘Hush, lower your voice.’ Ibrahim looked round the courtyard.

  ‘In my own house? What nonsense. You men sit together, whispering like frightened girls. They will drive us off our land. Don’t you see? They will take everything.’ She was shaking and close to tears.

  Ibrahim rubbed his hands down his cheeks. ‘There are too many of them.’

  She reached for him in the darkness and grasped his arm. ‘What must they do to us, what crime so terrible, that you’ll finally do something?’

  He didn’t reply. Jamila’s brother-in-law, Hamid, came out of his house and lowered himself onto a charpoy on the other side of the courtyard.

  She sat with her hand on her husband’s arm.

  ‘You must go and get help,’ she said. ‘You must fight for what is ours by right.’

  Ibrahim turned away from her.

  Across the courtyard, Hamid struck a match. It flared at his face, lighting his cupped hand and the cigarette between his lips, until the match died and the end of the cigarette pulsed red.

  They won’t stop, she thought. You men are blind if you can’t see it.

  Jamila had wondered what it would take for Ibrahim to act. Her question was answered when the fighters destroyed his beloved school. He left the village at once, his beard singed and his hands raw with burns, to seek help in the valley.

  Chapter 8

  Ellen sat at the overcrowded desk in the small office at the back of the women’s ward and looked over her notes. Britta had already given her a lot of information; the first deaths from typhoid and the threat of more. That was vivid and a strong top line. She had general detail too, about eye infections, skin diseases and the chronic malnourishment which seemed to affect most of the women who’d fled from the mountains. She underlined one of Britta’s quotes. Behind her, a fly was buzzing, banging against the inside of the tent.

  It was a start but it wasn’t much. She needed drama. She needed personal stories. First-hand accounts of life under the Taliban and the terrifying flight. Ellen clicked the end of her pen in and out with her thumb. She was weighed down by the dull ache in her limbs, her bruised face. It was almost one o’clock. The sun was fierce, beating down on the canvas around her and setting it alight with a white glow. The air conditioning unit hummed and coughed in the corner but the air inside was stale and thick with heat.

  Fatima came through from the ward and started slightly when she saw Ellen. Britta had been called away to a staff emergency meeting organized by Frank. For now, if Ellen needed help, she was reliant on Fatima. She didn’t have high hopes.

  Fatima took a plastic box out of the fridge and set it on the table. She gave Ellen a quick, tense glance. ‘You have got lunch?’

  ‘Actually, I have. Thank you.’ The Islamabad guesthouse staff had handed her a packed lunch when she checked out. That seemed a long time ago. She dug the battered cardboard box out of her bag and opened it up. It didn’t look appetizing. Cold French fries in a clutch of silver foil, a sliced cucumber and tomato in another piece of foil, a hard-boiled egg, a peach and a plum.

  Fatima didn’t reply. She seemed pleased that she wasn’t obliged to feed Ellen. She pulled up a stool and sat down at the desk, clearing a space amongst the papers and files. She unclipped the lid of her lunch box and drew out a plastic spoon, a cheap white serviette and a small pink carton. Rose-flavoured milk, the packet read. Most delicious.

  Fatima used the serviette to polish the spoon, then unfolded it completely and placed it over her lap. The paper was so thin it was almost transparent. The lunch box was full of cold fried rice and vegetables. The leftovers, Ellen thought, from last night’s meal.

  The shy local assistant, all elbows and knees, brought them both sweet milky tea in chipped enamel cups and then withdrew. Ellen sensed that it was a well-rehearsed routine. The breeze from the ceiling fan rippled the surface of the tea and thickened it into skin.

  Ellen banged her hard-boiled egg against the table edge so she could shell it. The pungent smell rose.

  ‘Fatima, I need to hire a translator. I’d pay, of course. I wondered, is there anyone . . .?’

  ‘Speaking Pashto and also English?’ Fatima shrugged, spooning her lunch into her mouth with deft movements. She spoke as she ate, her free hand politely shielding her mouth. ‘That is difficult matter.’

  ‘Yes, but even so, there must be . . .’

  ‘No.’ Fatima lifted her hand to bat away the fly.

  There was a short silence. Ellen ate the pieces of salad and chewed a few cold French fries. They were streaky with congealed fat. Fatima’s brown eyes were fixed on her food. She was frowning slightly, her thick eyebrows almost merging over her nose. Her hijab was immaculately pinned, covering her hair completely. She’s a long way from Egypt, Ellen thought, watching her. A long way from home.

  A high-pitched mechanical jingle sounded outside as a truck reversed. Male shouts. A blaring horn. The rhythmical bang of a fist on metal, guiding the driver backwards.

  ‘For how many days you will be here?’ Fatima spoke through her food, without looking up.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Three or four.’

  ‘You’re staying in which place?’

  ‘They’ve booked me into The Swan.’

  ‘Of course. It is the best.’ She lifted her eyes for a second and gave Ellen a short, hard glance, as if to add: And the most expensive.

  ‘What about you?’

  Fatima snorted slightly. ‘I am on local contract. I stay in a small guesthouse in Peshawar.’ She raised her spoon and pointed to her hijab. ‘I am Muslim lady. It is more safe here for me.’

  Ellen didn’t reply. She chewed the last of her hard-boiled egg and wrapped the foil around the remaining cold fries. Fatima was trying hard to save face. But Ellen knew that anyone who worked with Westerners was a target, whether they were Muslim or not. If she was in a small guesthouse, it was simply to save money.

  ‘All your family is at home then, in Egypt?’

  ‘Cairo.’ Fatima scraped up another mouthful of food and chewed.

  ‘Are you married?
’

  ‘I am widow. My husband is died. I have two babies.’

  Ellen nodded, sensing an opening at last. ‘Boys or girls?’

  Fatima inclined her head, still eating. ‘One is boy, one is girl.’

  ‘That’s wonderful, Fatima. How old are they?’

  Fatima paused for a moment, as if considering the turn the conversation was taking. A stray grain of rice stuck to the corner of her lips. The tip of her tongue slid out and drew it into her mouth. She looked over to Ellen for a second and her eyes were uncertain. Finally, she set down her spoon, cleaned her fingers carefully on her napkin and reached down into her bag to bring out a purse. She extracted two small photographs and pushed them across the table.

  They were school pictures, posed against a bright blue background. Ellen wiped her own fingers on a tissue and picked them up. One showed a girl of about eight or nine with a large nose, her hair neatly clipped in place. The other was a boy of about five, his brown eyes shy in front of the camera. His black hair was cropped close.

  ‘You must be very proud.’

  Fatima broke into a smile. For a moment, her whole face was transformed, warm and relaxed. Then she straightened out her mouth again and the old stiffness returned.

  When Ellen handed back the pictures, Fatima held them for a while and carried on studying them. ‘They are good children. They learn well, thanks be to God.’ She studied them a moment longer, then slipped them back into her purse.

  Ellen bit into the peach. ‘You must miss them.’

  ‘They are with my sister. They are very obedient. I earn enough money to send them to a good school.’

  ‘That’s important.’

  Fatima wiped off her spoon, placed it back in the plastic box and clipped on the lid. There was still rice inside. Enough for her evening meal, perhaps.

  ‘And you?’ said Fatima. ‘You have children?’

  ‘No.’ Ellen found herself looking down, wiping peach juice from her chin, aware of Fatima’s eyes. She thought of Frank with his crumpled clothes and tousled hair. ‘I’m not married.’

  Fatima scraped back her stool and got to her feet. ‘Work.’ The plastic spoon rattled in the box as she placed it back in the fridge. As she passed Ellen again, on her way back to the ward, she stooped and said in a low voice: ‘I advise you to be careful. The Taliban has spying men everywhere.’

  Without a translator, there wasn’t much more Ellen could do on the ward. She pulled her scarf forwards, tucked away stray strands of hair, and set off into the camp.

  Outside, a fresh truck of supplies was being unloaded. Powdered milk for babies. High-protein biscuits. A group of men in shiny tabards had formed a chain, passing boxes from one to the other, grunting with exertion.

  She walked through to an open area beyond the unloading bay. A few listless guards in baggy uniforms were standing around, guns held loosely across their chests. Pakistani aid workers were sitting in lines on the ground, processing the stacks of newly arrived supplies. She wrote some notes. The men were shaking the contents out into a heap on the earth, then rummaging through them and sorting them into piles for distribution.

  A second cluster of workers was compiling starter kits, one for each family. A set of basic commodities, designed to feed five people for several days. Ellen bent down to see. Small tins of cooking oil. Bags of salt. Modest sacks of rice. Plastic screw-top containers for water. Vacuum-packed blankets. She weighed the rice in her hand. The rations seemed so meagre, barely enough to live on. If people felt they were starving, she thought, it would be hard to keep order in the camp. Hard to protect the weak. She thought of the listless elderly woman waiting outside the gates and the small girl lying motionless in her lap.

  Further away, penned in by a rope and under the supervision of several armed guards, were about fifty dishevelled people. The men and women were queuing separately, the women with children balanced on hips and clinging to their trailing hands. They stood in silence without shade from the sun, waiting in the hope that some sort of distribution would eventually begin. Their faces were blank with resignation, their shoulders bowed. These were people who were already becoming accustomed to waiting for a long time in the hope of a little.

  The Pakistani supervisor saw her watching and stepped across. He was a short man with glasses, plump with health and affluence. His clothes were neatly pressed and his trainers gleamed white in the dust.

  He looked down at her notebook and pen. ‘Madam, you are journalist?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘On account of your pen and writing and the fact you are a Western lady here.’ His voice was theatrical and without irony. ‘Our camp is providing each and every thing.’ He waved a hand over the supplies. ‘Not only eatables. All things – necessities for the family.’

  He was smiling through crowded, crooked teeth. A man itching to be interviewed.

  ‘Ellen Thomas, NewsWorld.’ She managed to smile back. ‘You’re doing such good work here. It must be very difficult.’

  ‘Madam, it is so difficult.’ He puffed out his chest. ‘We are working, all of the day and night also.’

  Ellen nodded sympathetically. ‘Are the workers local people?’

  ‘Most are local, yes, madam. From Peshawar itself.’

  Her camera was in a side pocket of her bag. He made an elaborate show of modesty when she brought it out, flapping his hand in front of his face as if he were not worthy. ‘Please, madam. I am doing my duty. That is all.’

  ‘Would you mind? I’d love a picture.’ She framed it with her open hand. ‘With the workers in the background.’

  He wagged his head, turning pink with pleasure. The guards standing near him turned to gawp. He picked up a sack of rice and a blanket sealed in polythene and posed with them in his hands, adopting a sad but thoughtful expression for the photographs. She wrote down his name, title and email address and promised to send him a copy.

  By now he was overwhelmed with pride. ‘When life goes out of gear,’ he said, ‘here all the people can find succour. Until and unless normalcy is restored.’

  She thanked him again, thinking, You’d never let your own family end up here. You’re too well connected.

  As she turned to go, she hesitated and turned back as if she’d just remembered something. ‘I don’t suppose you could possibly help me.’

  He beamed. ‘Anything, madam.’ He pointed down at the supplies. ‘Some eatables, maybe?’

  ‘Actually, I need someone to help me translate.’

  His eyes lost a little of their sparkle.

  ‘Just for an hour or so,’ she went on. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

  He clapped his hands and shouted to a thin young man who was standing with a clipboard, ticking off boxes as they were processed. He came scuttling across, his eyes anxious. His boss laid a paternal hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Ali will be helping you, nah? He’s very good fellow.’

  She handed Ali a bottle of water from her bag and opened a second for herself. The heat was intense. The sun was beating on the dried mud, splitting into white shards wherever it struck glass or plastic.

  Ali explained the layout of the camp. She tried to draw a diagram in her notebook as they walked, to get her bearings. The main facilities were clustered close to the gates. The brick building with the broken flagpole was the administration block and storeroom. That must be where Frank was holding his meeting. Beside it stood the two large tents which served as segregated male and female medical wards and a third which doubled up as shelter and office space for the aid workers. Nearby was the mud circle of the unloading bay, large enough for the trucks, with their brightly painted metalwork, to reverse and turn.

  The rest of the camp was low and sprawling, a formless expanse of row upon row of shelters stretching across the open landscape, dwarfed by the distant mountains. Those erected in the rows nearest the gate were proper tents; large sheets of off-white canvas, stretched over a central wooden spine, then swooped
low to the ground on either side. They made her think of a child’s drawing of birds in flight.

  One tent was open at the front, the flaps tied back to let air circulate. A heavy, rusting bicycle was propped on one side. Two chickens, tethered to a stick, pecked at the dirt. Several pairs of tattered shoes, big and small, were piled nearby.

  Ellen looked into the gloom. A young man was lying listlessly on a low wooden bed. The charpoy was the only piece of furniture in there and dominated the space. The sunlight pressed through the canvas, dappled on his body. Two young children were heaped against him, sleeping. A pair of eyes glinted. She looked more closely. A young woman, the wife, was sitting to one side in the shadows, her shoulders hunched.

  ‘Could we speak to these people?’ she asked Ali.

  He looked embarrassed. ‘They are from a village,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so . . . that they’ll allow it.’

  Ellen crouched down and smiled at the woman. She gazed cautiously back.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ she said over her shoulder to Ali. ‘Would you ask this lady—’

  But Ali had already moved on. Ellen was beginning to wonder if he’d had any personal contact at all with the people he was helping to feed. She got to her feet again and followed him down the narrow paths which ran between the rows of tents.

  The smells of sewerage, unwashed bodies and sweating plastic stirred so many memories. People were endlessly different but there was a dreary uniformity about relief camps which always depressed her. The overcrowded shelters. The squalor. The endless queues of people, patiently waiting for handouts in the misery of heat or rain.

  It was more than a decade since she’d first covered a refugee crisis. That was in East Timor. Tens of thousands of people had fled fighting and were huddled inside camps, too frightened of the Indonesian militias to go home. It had been one of her first big stories.