Ellen hesitated a moment, surprised by his interest in Khan. She shrugged. ‘To help people.’
He smiled and his teeth gleamed in the half-light thrown by the cheap electric lamp. ‘Just this? To help people?’ The smile widened.
Ellen nodded. ‘He wants a good reputation. He wants people to think he’s generous. People in England.’
Mohammed Bul Gourn clicked his tongue against his teeth. The amusement in his eyes cooled and hardened. He looked her over. He seemed to be thinking, considering whether she was telling the truth. She held his gaze.
‘He wants power,’ he said at last. ‘All men want power. But he is a fool if he tries to buy it here.’
He stretched and yawned and scratched his belly. He seemed suddenly bored. After some moments, he lifted his head and gave an order to the guard who, also sensing the change of mood, was moving his weight from foot to foot. The guard opened the door a crack and passed the command to someone outside.
Her legs were shaking. She lowered herself to the floor and sat, head bowed, feeling the tiredness in her limbs. It was late. She wanted to be back in the cell, away from this man, and to sleep. The quietness of the room, broken only by the low hum of the electric lantern and the pulse of her own breathing, settled around them. They were waiting for something to happen. She didn’t know what it might be.
Footsteps outside. The door opened again and her bag appeared, passed in to the guard. He handed it with reverence to Mohammed Bul Gourn.
It was odd to see her rucksack in his hands. He tugged open the zip and picked through the contents. She saw the white front of her notebook rise and be pushed aside as he rummaged, followed by the dark rectangle of her phone. He pulled out her medical pack, marked with a red cross and the NewsWorld logo, and opened it up on the floor in front of him. It was neatly packed with a pouch for each item: clean syringes, sterile dressings, antibiotics, creams and a series of tablets.
‘I can show you what the girl needs.’ She hesitated to move towards him. ‘I think she has typhoid fever.’
‘Fever?’ He was pawing through the sachets and packets, exploring. ‘What is for fever?’
‘That one.’ She pointed to the antibiotics.
He opened it and held the foil blister pack up to the light. When he’d satisfied himself that it was only medicine, he pushed it back into the cardboard sleeve and sent it skimming across the floor towards her. She bent forwards and scooped them into her hands.
‘Allah is merciful,’ he said. ‘Maybe this girl will become well. Inshallah.’
He lifted his hand and signalled to the guard. He kicked at Ellen’s feet. She scrambled to get up and he led her back to the cell, leaving Mohammed Bul Gourn on the floor sifting through her possessions.
Layla was lying curled on her side on the floor, flushed with fever and shivering. Her breath was rattling in her chest. She had soiled herself and the smell filled the room. When the guard untied her hands and left, Ellen used her cotton scarf to try to clean her. Layla was barely conscious, tossing her head and murmuring in Pashto. Ellen held her lips apart to swallow down the first dose of antibiotics. She cradled her in her arms and rocked her, trying to soothe her into sleep.
The walls pressed in, malicious with shadow. The shape of the cell seemed to shift as she stared. The floor narrowed and the walls grew taller. The window, a high grey square of darkness, all she had of the outside world, receded and shrank.
She was shivering. She wondered if anyone knew yet that they’d been taken. Britta might raise the alarm. The embassies would be alerted. They’d call Phil. She imagined him in his office, cursing and bouncing his pen on the desk, debating with management how to respond.
Layla shifted and settled her head on Ellen’s thigh. Her breath was ragged and stale but she was sinking deeper into sleep. Ellen stroked the stray hair from her forehead and temples. Layla’s body had the same distinctive vegetal odour as the child on Britta’s ward. She’d smelt it when Fatima washed the child on the ward, shortly before her death. She’d deteriorated quickly. She thought how small her stiffening body had looked under its sheet.
Ellen shifted her weight, trying to stretch out dead muscle. The concrete was rough and dug into her skin. She closed her eyes and started to drift at last into sleep.
A scream tore the air. Distant but piercing. A high-pitched animal cry. Ellen sat up straight, suddenly wide awake. The horror of it shrank her skin. She blinked in the half-light and waited, straining to hear. The cell was tight with silence. Some minutes passed. It was just an animal’s cry, she told herself, a terrified animal. Nothing more. Her heart slowed again and her body gradually came back to her. She lifted Layla’s head so she could rub the cramp out of her legs.
A second scream burst, followed by a long, tailing moan. It was a man’s voice, a cry of pain. She clenched her jaw, trying to resist the sound, screwing her eyes into lines. One hand supported Layla. She raised the other to her head and ran it through her hair, breathing hard.
When the scream died away completely, she lifted her eyes to the high window. They’re keeping us alive, she thought. They could have killed us by now. In some other part of the building, there was a metallic scraping followed by heavy footsteps. A thud. Silence. A third scream, weaker, more pitiful. The same man. She let her head ease back against the wall until her face was turned to the dark ceiling. It could be anyone. She felt herself flushing hot, then cold. She tried to steady her breathing and let her eyes fall closed again. Please God, don’t let it be Frank.
It had ended abruptly between them, all those years ago. She had just come back from her first commissioned assignment, a one-week trip to cover an arts festival in Budapest. Many of the performers were appearing in London that summer. She’d been previewing their acts and writing some short pieces about life in Hungary a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She flew back into Heathrow Airport excited about the people she’d met, the things she’d seen. She and Frank had arranged to meet at Waterloo Station. As she emerged from the depths of the tube, she glimpsed him through the crowd. He was waiting in their usual place, under the vast four-faced clock suspended in the centre of the great Victorian rail concourse.
He hadn’t seen her yet. His head was tilted back, gazing up into the long symmetry of the iron girders and glass panels which formed the vaulted roof. She stopped in the crush of moving people, and tried to see him as a stranger might, as if for the first time. His clothes always looked thrown together. His shoes were scuffed, his trousers crumpled and the full-length coat which fell in folds around his body needed a good clean. His features weren’t striking but he was good-looking. A strong profile, full mouth and bright, curious eyes. It was hard to look at him and not feel better about life.
He turned, saw her and broke into a smile. He waved. She dipped her head to pick up her bag again, embarrassed about being caught staring. The moment had passed. He was striding towards her now, making his way through the throng, rushing to hug her and to take her bag. She followed him across the concourse to the first-floor balcony of a café where they could sit for a while and overlook the scurry and bustle below.
They drank coffees. She told him everything about Budapest and he listened with a smile, indulging her. He plucked one of the paper napkins from the holder on the table and shredded it, edge by edge, into frills, nodding as she talked.
It started to rain. Water beat on the glass panels of the roof far above their heads. The people flooding into the concourse furled umbrellas and shook off wet hair and headscarves. Small puddles of water gathered and were spread by shoes and boots.
They sat in silence for a while, watching. A crowd had gathered in front of the main departures board, waiting for platform numbers to appear. Delays, she thought. The elderly newspaper vendor was resting his elbows on his stack of papers, whiskery chin in his hands, staring out morosely at the milling public. Two young girls, teenagers, staggered onto the concourse together on high heels, screeching and clutching
each other, willing the world to notice them. She looked down at them and smiled.
Frank reached out. He put his hand on top of hers on the table. His hand was warm. The surface of the table was cool Formica, gritty with sugar.
‘You know what?’ He was watching her closely. ‘I found us the perfect place.’
She tried to keep the smile on her face.
‘One bedroom, modern kitchen. Great location,’ he said. ‘You’ll love it. Let’s go see it this evening.’
She felt a wave of panic. She didn’t know what to say. They’d never talked about living together. They’d always had their own places, their own space. She wanted to travel. ‘We should talk about it.’
‘What’s to talk about?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘You know how fast good places go. I’m telling you, it’s a gem.’
She looked out at the crowd, the blur of hurrying, pressing people. He was squeezing her fingers, trying to get her to look at him.
‘What?’
‘Just, it’s a big step.’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, we never—’
He pulled his hand away. ‘I talk about it. You don’t.’
His mood had changed. She couldn’t look at him. She’d spoiled everything.
‘I stay in this country for you. Don’t you get that? I could just as soon go home. It would be good to get a little something back.’
She couldn’t speak. The paper napkin with frilled edges was lying on the table between a stained salt cellar and a yellow plastic cone of mustard. The silence stretched. I should say something, she thought. I should know what I want and just say it, one way or the other.
‘I get the feeling sometimes that you just don’t want this, do you, Ellie?’ His voice was hard with hurt. ‘Not the way I do.’
He pushed his cup aside and sat, turned away from her, looking down at the concourse below. The streams of people were trudging wearily back and forth, in black and grey and brown, laden with bags and cases, exhausted and despondent and longing for home.
Chapter 21
I was sleeping and waking and sleeping all night and the two were so tangled, I didn’t know which was which. I woke to find the Britisher leaning over me, speaking in English. I was too tired to understand. My body was stiff and aching from the hard floor. She moved out of sight and I saw the ceiling above which was grey with flecks of dirt hanging from it in drops. The morning light was weak on the ceiling.
I started to remember what had happened and about Baba being kicked on the ground. If I were a child again, I would have wept, but the pain went so deep that I couldn’t cry it out. Instead I blinked and looked at the watery sun. I wanted Mama and she was gone. I wanted Baba and I didn’t know where he was. It was such a heavy crushing sorrow that I didn’t think I could bear to carry it.
The Britisher made me swallow down medicine and eat bread although I had no appetite. I closed my eyes and rested my head on her knee and pretended to sleep but all the time I wished I could fade away and die and asked God’s forgiveness for such wicked thoughts.
When I did sleep, I had a strange dream. Mama and Baba were there, young again and happy, and we were picnicking by the stream. Mama handed out delicious eatables and Baba joked and teased her and Marva came with me down to the water to play and I cried out: Look, Marva, you’re walking! and she just smiled as if I were a foolish girl and splashed right into the stream itself. Under the clear water, the stones were the most beautiful bright colours, purple and green and yellow and blue, and the fishes darting there were red as blood and happy to play with us, they were not afraid.
Then my head started to pound and I became hot and frightened and the dream dissolved until Mama and Baba and Marva and the fishes were gone and all I could hear was moaning and whimpering and I finally realized that the noise came from me. Another sound grew and it was the voice of the Britisher humming and it echoed round the walls. My body ached, every limb, and first I was cold and then hot and then cold again, dipped between flames and ice. The Britisher soothed me, patting my face with a cloth. She made me drink and I knew she was kind but wished she would mind her business and let me alone to die.
Later a voice spoke to me in Pashto. His voice, my Saeed, talking low. I opened my eyes to look. His face, his brown eyes and handsome nose, hung so close to mine that I could see specks of dirt on his eyelashes and my own small self looking back at me in the round black circles of his pupils.
‘Saeed?’
‘Layla.’
He said my name gently. It made me think of the times he followed me to school and how simple life had been. I had been an innocent young girl who understood nothing about sorrow and change.
I stared at him. ‘Why are you here?’
He urged me to get to my feet and cross the cell to the far corner, away from the Britisher. My legs were rubbery. I leant heavily on the wall, handing myself along, step by step. The Britisher had a metal cup of tea and a plate of rotis. Saeed had brought these things to keep her busy while he and I talked. She ate but she also watched us at the same time.
‘You seem very sick.’ He looked at me gravely. ‘How are you?’
I nodded. ‘I’m alive, thanks be to God.’
I sank to the floor. Fingers of light reached in from the high window and dappled my clothes. He settled a little apart from me, proper and respectful, and didn’t touch me.
‘I have terrible news.’ His eyes were solemn. I didn’t understand but I began to feel afraid. ‘About your baba.’
He looked at me, then he looked at his boots. I looked down at them too. They were strong boots with cracked leather. Shreds of newspaper were packed down the sides. One of the laces was brown, matching the leather, and the other was a ragged piece of string.
‘What about my baba?’
He carried on looking at the boots and didn’t speak and the answer came rushing at me in a great wave.
I lifted my hands to my ears and closed my eyes. I thought about clambering on Baba’s knee when I was a small girl and the warmth of his big hands when he settled me in his lap to read to me and how he let me pull at his spectacles and set them crooked on his nose. I thought about Baba teaching inside the school, standing at the front of the classroom with arms wide, conducting us as we chanted out our letters or sums.
‘The men who did it will be punished,’ Saeed said. ‘The commander is displeased. He did not order it.’
My hands were at my face now and I was scrunched over into a ball. I wanted to weep but the tears wouldn’t come. I was thinking: I knew, I knew all the time that Baba was gone but I kept fighting it, hoping I was wrong.
‘I condole you.’
His condoling seemed to me such a thin, weak word. I wanted to shout at him, to hit him about the face with my fists and say: What wrong thing did my baba ever do to you? He was a great man, a good teacher and husband and father and how will I live without him and without Mama as well? But I couldn’t speak. Instead I pressed my face into my raised knees and breathed in hard gulps, shaking and listening to the pounding in my head.
We sat in silence for a long while. On the outside, I was still, but inside I was in turmoil. I thought: This is Saeed and I longed to see him but I never knew it would be like this. Then I thought of the cause of it and Baba, my baba, can he really be gone and will I never see him again, not once more in my life, how is that possible? Allah have mercy. I thought about that night in the clinic when I fell asleep against Baba on the plastic seats and prayed so hard to Allah not to take Mama, to take someone else but please not Mama and now, remembering, I thought: He has taken Mama anyway and Baba as well and it is all too late to put right.
‘I can help you,’ Saeed whispered to me. ‘Commander Saab is a good man. He favours me. You hear? He favours me. I’m not a nobody from the shacks any more. He has plans for me.’
‘I never thought you were a nobody.’ I looked again at his boots and they seemed changed, as cold and bleak as everything else.
He carried on. ‘Commander S
aab says we are all brothers and sisters of Islam, here on this earth to serve Allah and to do His will, thanks be to God.’ He spoke rapidly, gathering pace. ‘He wants us to go back to the way Allah in His Wisdom intended for us to live. To have Islamic justice and decency and equality before God. His teaching is a great blessing.’
I had never heard him talk so much about God. His face was flushed. I thought, He loves this Commander more than he loves me.
He paused, watching me closely. Then he said, ‘Even the faithful and strong must be on their guard against sin.’
I thought, Baba wasn’t sinful but killing him was a great sin and Allah will seek out the man who did it and punish him.
He saw my expression and let out a long, blowing sigh. ‘I am sorry about your baba.’ He spoke slowly, groping for the words. ‘I will try to protect you, Layla.’ He looked around the room, rolling his eyes as if he were searching for answers in the bricks.
He moved onto his knees and rolled back the sleeve of his kameez. His arms were dark with hair and hard with muscle. He pulled the kameez right back to his shoulder and twisted his body to show me. I stared. Part of his underarm was missing. A whole fleshy bite had gone and the skin inside was raw and red and gnarled with black stitches and scabs. I shrank back from it.
‘I was shot.’ He said this with pride. ‘I almost lost my arm.’
I shook my head at the horror. I wanted him to roll down his sleeve and hide it away and be whole again.
‘One of my comrades tended the wound but it went bad. I had to leave them and go down to the plains for help.’
I started. ‘To the plains?’
He nodded. ‘I saw you once, in that camp.’
He put away the wound and I was glad.
‘I get information from there for Commander Saab. He trusts me.’
I looked at my hands, limp in my lap. I thought about Saeed and the commander and all the pain they had brought. I thought about the burning school and Baba’s swollen hands and the terrible wrong they had done in ending his life. My thoughts were suddenly clear.
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