Tension had still been high. She’d driven into the camps with an older journalist. Both of them wanted eyewitness accounts of the recent violence. It had been a new experience for her and an intense one. The poor conditions, the threatening young men wielding guns, the families, cowed and afraid, desperate for food and clean water. She’d felt like a champion of the people, filing impassioned reports to London and railing against her editors when the pieces she’d filed were hacked down.
‘Three hundred words.’ She was outraged. ‘That’s all they used. Can you believe these guys?’
Her fellow journalist, more cynical, had laughed. ‘War’s like sex,’ he said. ‘The first time, it seems like a big deal. Then you get over it.’
She looked around now at the camp. Two young girls with matted hair were rolling together on the ground, shrieking and tickling each other. A toddler sat beside them in the dust. He had the severed arm of a doll in his hand and was sucking on its plastic fingers. His nostrils were black with a moustache of flies.
Her colleague all those years ago had been wrong. She still cared. She would force London to pay attention to what was happening here. That was her job. Frank was feeding them and giving them clean water. The least she could do was write about them. But to make an impact, she needed stronger material.
Her clothes were sticking to her back, her arms, her neck and the cut above her eye was throbbing. She lifted the bottle of water to her lips and drank, then stood, thinking, and inhaled the faint smell of plastic. Two young boys careered onto the path from between the tents. They skidded to a sudden halt when they saw her. Their clothes were filthy, mouths and noses encrusted with dirt. They turned, their eyes following her uncertainly as she walked on, looking for Ali.
The further she moved from the entrance gates, the poorer the shelters became. The off-white canvas soon ran out and was replaced by makeshift structures made from salvage and imagination. Faded grain sacks, torn open, were tied with twine round knobbly sticks. Torn sheets of plastic sweated in the heat. Pieces of brown cardboard, which had clearly once been aid boxes, had been bent round to form screens from the sun.
Smoke was rising. She walked towards it. Three women were crouched together on their haunches outside a shelter. A grandmother and two daughters-in-law perhaps. They’d built a small fire inside a triangle of mud bricks. One of the daughters was poking it with a stick. A battered metal kettle was perched on top and a row of tin cups stood by, waiting. The grandmother had a fan, stiffly plaited straw nailed to a rounded stick. She was fanning herself energetically to keep off clouds of flies.
The young woman who was tending the fire lowered her head and blew on it, scattering sparks. There was a sickly stench. Ellen looked round. The women were just by a row of latrines. The toilets were simple wood frames, raised a foot or so off the ground on bricks and nailed round with hessian for privacy. It was clear where the women had found bricks for their fire.
The grandmother saw Ellen and lifted a hand to greet her. She said something in Pashto and laughed and three isolated, stained teeth showed in her mouth. Ellen put her hand on her heart: Salaam Alaikum.
The old lady patted the ground beside her. A daughter shuffled along to make a place. When Ellen sat down, the grandmother fanned her with such enthusiasm that droplets of sweat flew off her arm, speckling Ellen’s shoulders and neck.
The kettle rocked as it boiled. The daughter wrapped the end of her chador round her hand and poured out sugary milky tea. Ellen took the plum from her bag and broke it into pieces, coating her fingers in juice. The flesh was mushy and heady with sweetness and they sucked on it noisily, smiling round at each other. When she lifted her fingers to her nose, the rich smell of the plum juice blocked out everything else.
She was sitting there amongst the women, drinking tea, when Ali found her. He walked right past at first, then did a double take and stopped dead. He looked so shocked at the sight of her, tucked in with the village women, that she had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. It was pointless, she could tell at once, to ask him to join them and translate. From now on, she would have to fend for herself.
Later, she started back through the camp on her own. The aid trucks were just coming into view when she heard a noise, a stifled cry, off to one side between the rows of tents. She turned to look. A thin figure. A man. Leaning against a wooden strut down the back of a shelter. He was bowed as if in pain. His shoulders were trembling, his face low and hidden in his hands.
She stepped off the main path and approached him cautiously.
‘Ab caisse hai?’ How are you?
He stiffened but didn’t reply. He was wearing a salwar kameez which might once have been cream but was now streaked grey with dirt. A round tribal hat was tipped forwards on his head.
She tried again, a little louder: ‘Ab tik hai?’ Are you OK?
He raised his head. His face was long and thin and lined with anxiety. His pointed beard was almost entirely white. Thin wire spectacles sat on the bridge of a pinched nose. They were lopsided, their spindly arms hooked around his ears. His myopic eyes, light in colour, were watery and anguished.
She stepped closer. ‘Do you speak English?’
He squirmed, embarrassed, and turned away.
She groped for the right words: ‘Ab English bol suk—’
He turned back to her and interrupted, with a hint of defiance: ‘I know English.’
Her eyes fell to his hands which were sticking out from the sleeves of his shabby kameez. They were raw with burns. The flesh was bloated and blistered, scored through with pink creases. ‘You need a doctor.’ She pointed to them. ‘Let me have a look.’
‘You are doctor?’ He looked at her with suspicion.
‘I’m a journalist. My name is Ellen. I can take you to a doctor.’
He shook his head and sighed. He held up his damaged hands and considered them with sad detachment, as if they belonged to another man.
‘Madam,’ he said at last, ‘this is not important.’ He lifted off his spectacles with slow, clumsy fingers and wiped his wet eyes on his sleeve.
When he’d replaced his spectacles, he turned his shoulder and she sensed that he was about to walk away. She moved closer at once. He mustn’t. This was the first refugee she’d found who had some English. There couldn’t be many here. She spoke in a rush, trying to use her questions to pin him in place.
‘Tell me. Please. Have you just arrived? Where did you come from? What happened to you?’
He drew himself to his full height. ‘I am schoolteacher. My name is Ibrahim. I hail from the mountains. From Mutaire.’
‘Ibrahim.’ She bowed her head to show respect. His pale eyes seemed utterly exhausted. In a camp bursting with large families, he seemed, like her, to be all alone. She reached out and handed him her bottle of water. He drank it, shyly at first, then urgently. There was a narrow strip of shade running along the edge of the shelters. She sat down in it, practically at his feet, and raised her face to him. ‘If you talk to me,’ she said, ‘maybe I can help.’
A shift in the light made her look past him. A young man had stopped on the path and was watching them both. He was a broad-shouldered teenager with a downy beard. She expected him to move on when she stared pointedly back. He didn’t. He stood his ground. She pulled her headscarf forwards to conceal her hair and forehead. When she looked again, he had disappeared.
Ibrahim had decided to trust her. He lowered himself and sat a small distance away. He crossed his legs under his long kameez and stared at the mud.
‘So Ibrahim-ji,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’
When his words finally started to flow, they came out in a torrent, only just intelligible. ‘My family. My daughters. My old daughter, she cannot walk. How can they come down from the mountain? But so much fighting is there. That’s what they say. The army. The Taliban also.’
He put his head in his hands and his shoulders shook. Ellen leant forwards. ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘Ibrahim. Let me
help you.’
Finally he became quiet and blew his nose noisily on his kameez. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were red rimmed.
She listened to the soft gulp of his breathing, the rattle of moisture in his throat. ‘What happened in your village, Ibrahim?’
‘Mutaire is high in the mountains,’ he said, ‘part of the Valley District. Two days walk from here.’
His knees trembled as he spoke, making their cotton tent judder. ‘They came some time ago and everything changed.’
‘Who came?’
‘Them,’ he said again. When he raised his eyes, they seemed angry. ‘The Taliban. Their commander, he is named Mohammed Bul Gourn.’
‘How did things change?’
He shook his head. ‘Every day, they were holding religious courts. Accusing some fellow with cut beard. Some fellow who was listening to music.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper, forcing her to lean in close to him. ‘All night we heard screams.’ He paused to remember. ‘In the morning we woke to find bodies. Our own people.’ His face contorted with horror. ‘Hanged, sometimes. Or beheaded. The stones all around red and sticky with blood.’
He sat in silence for a moment. Ellen prompted him softly, ‘And then what happened?’
‘All this we suffered and did nothing,’ he said. ‘But then they burnt down the school. My school.’ He looked her full in the face, outraged. ‘Fifteen years I am teaching there. Young men in our village who can read and write and do sums, I am the man who taught them.
‘Late in the night, I heard fire. I ran through the darkness of the village towards the school. The classroom was already blazing. I ran inside. The door was ringed in red with fire. The paint was burning on the wood, flames were curling through the air towards me. When I pulled at the handle, it was so hot, my skin stuck to the metal. The whole door fell on top of me. I couldn’t breathe. I just grabbed as many books as I could, carrying them outside, rushing, rushing.’
He put his burnt hand to his face. ‘The cleaner’s boy found me. Lying on the grass. The school was finished.’
She imagined the school blazing in the pitch darkness and the angry schoolteacher risking his life for books. ‘Is that why you left?’
‘I came to Peshawar to get help. To beg the army to come to the valley to save our families and our village.’
‘And you came here, to the camp?’
He tutted. ‘Not at first. I went to many places for many days, trying to get help. To the army cantonments. To the mosques. To the police stations. Finally I saw one police captain. He told me the soldiers are already going to fight. Bombs are dropping. Everyone is fleeing.’ His face crumpled again and he gave a shuddering breath, composing himself. ‘Everyone is leaving. That’s what they are saying. Carrying whatsoever they can. Every brother and uncle and cousin is there in the selfsame boat. Women and children also.’ He gestured around at the camp. His face was sorrowful. ‘But my daughters? My wives? They have not left the valley once in their lives. It is not our custom.’
Ellen calculated. ‘Where do you think they are?’
‘I don’t know.’ He gave a shrug of despair. ‘I heard about these new camps for affectees. Now I am searching, walking one to another. Searching everywhere in case they come.’
Ellen reached towards him, and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Maybe I can help, Ibrahim. There must be registers at the camps. We’ll find your family.’
He opened his mouth to speak but his lips trembled and he clamped it shut and sat, his mouth in a rigid line, his hand clutching her arm with the grip of a falling man.
Chapter 9
Ellen gathered with the international staff at the entrance to the camp. It was early evening. The sunlight was rich and deep. A breeze was blowing unimpeded across the desolate mudflats, fingering the canvas tents and making the edges of plastic sheets flutter. It carried the smell of wood smoke and boiled rice. Families of refugees gathered around low fires and pots, taking their last chance to eat before night plunged the camp into darkness. Outside the entrance, a long desolate trail of families was still in the open, huddled together around bags and belongings, waiting for permission to enter the camp.
A convoy of jeeps arrived, trailing clouds of dust, and the workers piled inside. There was no sign of Frank. Ellen found herself squashed in the back with two Belgians and a Norwegian who spent the journey to the hotel arguing about where to dine that evening. The Chinese restaurant was not good, the Norwegian said; the soup was salty and the noodles were greasy. One of the Belgians had tried the Italian restaurant. He wouldn’t go there again. Pizza, he said, how can anyone go wrong with pizza? What do you need? Dough, tomatoes, a bit of cheese. What’s so difficult? Show him the kitchen, he’d make it himself. The others laughed.
Ellen let the conversation swirl around her. She was thinking about Ibrahim. He had a blanket now and a space inside a communal shelter, just until he found his family. A young aid worker had treated his hands with antiseptic cream and said the burns weren’t severe, they should soon heal.
The driver blasted the horn as he swerved past slower, lower cars and forced young men, perched on motorbikes, to bounce off the dirt track completely and loop out into the scrub.
If she managed to track down Ibrahim’s family, it might make a good piece. It was a human interest angle, a way of getting into the broader refugee crisis. She thought of his wire spectacles and sad eyes. His family could be anywhere. She gripped the roof strap as the car swung off the road.
They’d reached the entrance to The Swan. She’d stayed there before but not for years. Now it was so heavily fortified, she barely recognized it. She peered out at the rows of concrete blast blocks in front of the gates. A reminder of the threat of suicide bombers, she thought. A constant danger now. An armed guard in a badly fitting uniform rapped on the driver’s window, forced him to lower it, then peered round the inside of the jeep. The Belgian next to her stiffened. He muttered something to the Norwegian under his breath.
She looked ahead down the sweeping drive to the hotel itself, a faux French chateau. It was shabbier than she remembered. The stone fountain had run dry, its statues speckled with patches of black and green.
A younger guard, his cap pitched down over his eyes, walked round the jeep with a mirror attached to the bottom of a pole, angling it to check underneath the vehicle’s bodywork for bombs. She wondered how much training they’d had and if they’d recognize a bomb if they saw one. They looked like village boys.
When she finally managed to check in and find her room, she stood under a hot shower for a long time. The cascade of water streamed through her hair and splashed down her body. The tiny bar of hotel soap, the shape of a shell, worked up a good lather. The shampoo was fragrant with jasmine. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about Ibrahim and the others in the camp. The foaming water circled her feet in swirls, then ran off between her toes. She stepped out and groped through the steam for a towel. It was thick and warm.
Afterwards she took a piece of fruit from the complimentary bowl on the coffee table and boiled the kettle for tea. The guilt was familiar. I’m not here to be a refugee, she told herself as she rubbed herself dry and put on a hotel bathrobe. I’m here to report.
She lay on her stomach on one of the twin beds, reached for the television remote and started flicking through the channels. She wondered where Frank was and what time he’d be back. She wanted to talk to him about Ibrahim, to ask his help.
The first three channels were in Urdu: a news broadcast with film of the United Nations; a cartoon; a badly acted soap opera. She could invite Frank to dinner. Her treat. One of the hotel restaurants. Easier and safer than venturing outside.
She found CNN. A panel discussion about the war on drugs. She listened for a minute or two, trying to identify the speakers. Frank must be busy. He’d said they were overwhelmed. She hadn’t seen him since they’d arrived at the camp. She clicked through several sports channels and found HBO. A teen film. Preppy American
girls leaning against their lockers in a high-school corridor, giggling together. Maybe Frank wouldn’t feel like meeting up. She’d better leave it. She switched off the set and went to type notes into her laptop about Ibrahim and the never-ending human exodus.
By eight o’clock, she was hungry. She rang down to reception and asked them to put her through to Frank’s room. No answer. She powered down her laptop, realizing she felt disappointed, she’d been looking forward to seeing him.
She headed downstairs. It had once been an imposing lobby but now the fake marble floor was scuffed and cracked. A long reception desk ran down one wall. A glamorous young Pakistani woman was lolling with her elbows on the counter, reading a magazine. Above her, a row of brass-rimmed clocks showed the time in Beijing, Paris, London and New York. Nearby there was a faded marble water feature. A polished ball slowly turned, veiled by a constant curtain of water.
Ellen headed towards the far side of the lobby. An informal dining area had been set out there, carpeted and bordered by a low artificial fence which was threaded with plastic creepers. She chose a table which gave her a good view of the main entrance and ordered a club sandwich and an orange juice.
Most of the tables were empty and the atmosphere was hushed. A compilation of bastardized Western pop was playing, just loud enough to take the edge off the silence. An orchestral version of ‘Yesterday’ flowed over her as she opened her notebook and looked at her rough diagram of the camp.
A few minutes later, Britta came striding in through the main entrance. Her face was strained as she headed for the lifts.
‘Britta!’ Ellen waved her over. She closed her notebook and set it on the table. ‘Come and join me.’
Britta flopped into a chair, dropping her bag, laptop and keys onto the table with a clatter. Her face was flecked with dust. Without her scarf, her hair fell in springy curls round her face, sticking in damp clumps to her forehead and temples. She pulled open the top button of her kameez, loosening the collar. A gold cross on a chain swung at her neck.
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