Yes. So. Azira and I fell in love, as simply as falling into water. I suppose I loved her before I knew her. Knowing her, though, made me love her more. Such a quick, bright intelligence. So funny. So hungry for learning and debate. That is one thing I will thank my brutalised country for. Without our wars and troubles, Azira would have been shackled to a fat old man instead of me. But, lacking parents, dowry, roots, she was allowed to become a boatless fisherman’s wife. And oh my God, how I loved her. Was consumed by her.
Still am.
‘The other countries we might move to,’ I said in answer to her question. ‘This place is not our home.’
‘Where is our home, Abdi?’
‘I don’t know. But here is good for now.’
At Paolo’s house, we had flourished. We, who had known no stability, were able to work and learn and laugh and raise our beautiful daughter. The day Rebecca was baptised, I was baptised also. Azira didn’t want to be, but that was fine, because she was still deciding: I had a wife who was not commanded, who decided things. Very odd, I know; I was seen as an object of derision – yes, but by men who’d never known a freely given kiss, nor a woman who would reach for them because it was her choice. So I didn’t care.
It was three days before Paolo returned. He was quiet, drawn. We shared some shaah. Even Rebecca sat up at the table with us, to drink a cup of milk. A table is a European thing; at first it was awkward to be so high and straight. Food took too long to drop down to my belly. But then I liked it. The table became a place to study and to share. To have a table was to be . . . was to have some impetus, I suppose. To be higher out of the dust.
When Rebecca was in bed, we ate the food Azira had prepared and Paolo told us about his meeting. His job was pastoral, educational, he was advised. It was a valuable role, to be shared amongst many. And, as such, it was important he be seen as an ‘impartial resource’. Consequently, his employers had warned him that he was not allowed to be directly involved with any individual or specific family’s welfare.
Azira had made spaghetti. It was cooked too long, and there was very little sauce. We struggled on, all of us chewing and sucking, Paolo talking haltingly in Somali.
‘What they really meant is that they cannot – or will not – guarantee my safety within the camp if I’m seen to be “taking sides”.’ Paolo’s fingers made little pounces in the air when he said that. ‘They say . . . Abdi, they say you are a thief. And that you assaulted a policeman.’
‘Father, that is not true! Abdi was protecting –’
‘Have we to leave?’ I asked.
‘No! You’re my assistant schoolmaster. I told them it’s vital to my work that you’re available to support me. And I know you wouldn’t . . . But I don’t know how . . . I’m not sure if I have a strong position any more.’
‘You mean the next time the police come to bully us, they might not leave. Ugh,’ Azira pushed her bowl away. ‘I’m sorry. This is disgusting. We’d none of that tomato paste you like. I thought this would taste all right.’
‘Azira, please. It’s fine,’ I said.
Paolo speared another forkful. ‘It’s delicious.’
There was a moment’s pause, each of us caught in a little arc, before we started laughing.
‘Father Paolo,’ said Azira, pulling his dish towards her. ‘Today I learned the word “patronise”. There is a good way to patronise and a bad way, yes? You must only do the good way!’
I was so proud of her that night. Her wit and her courage. Paolo told us his plan. If Azira was to convert to Christianity also, he might be able to argue that we were being religiously persecuted in the camp, that our lives were at risk.
‘But they are,’ said Azira. ‘They play with us, pick us out. Three times in a row, I’ve been refused my rations. They say my papers are wrong, but they’re not.’
‘Yes, but police harassment isn’t a recognised category. It does not exist, you understand? If I could get you away from here. To some other country. At least to another camp.’
And he did. Eventually, we were moved to a camp in Sudan. God bless him, Father Paolo arranged a teaching job for me there, said I was working with his Christian charity. But we were still stateless refugees. We stayed there ten months, until the school was burned. Anti-Christian sentiment. Those bloody Muslims . . .
Azira was still a Muslim. Every time I raised the subject, she would brush it away. Mutter about jinns and bad luck and I’d say: ‘Don’t be stupid. Look at me – I’m still here. We got away from Dadaab, yes?’
‘Look at your stupid school all burned, huh? Where was your baby Jesus then? Shows how much use a nunu God is.’
Rebecca was almost four by the time we came back to Dadaab. All Christian families were being moved out of the Sudanese camp, there had been too many bouts of ‘sporadic’ violence. Ach, the sick slump of us as we trundled back through those gates. Dust more bitter, the stinging, thirsty, knowing sun burning up our steps. I imagined its voice like sing-song children chanting rhymes. See you come; see you go. See you live; see you die. But I couldn’t imagine God above it, watching us and doing nothing.
Father Paolo had gone from Dadaab by then; no one at the school wanted to know me. I wrote to him, though, to say we were back. The tin church he’d preached in was gone too, but I sent the letter to the charity headquarters, in case it might reach him. I’d no hope he could do anything more to help us, I just wanted him to know. Keeping in touch, you call it. We were given an even worse hut than before, this time in the Christian section. Beside an open sewer; the hut stank day and night, but I think we were immune to bad smells by then. Our nostrils knew little else. My Rebecca had never tasted the sea air, never stood on a hill and breathed crystal sky. I missed my table. At least we were far on the other side of the camp. Anonymous and small – that way is safest.
And it was. Until the day of the haphazard door.
I found it swinging on its barbed-wire hinge. The three of us had been for rations; me to queue, Azira and Rebecca to gather any leavings from the ground. I’d fashioned our door myself, from scraps and splinters, but it was good. Strong. It would take tough boots to break it open. Inside our hut, everything had been smashed. Clean clothes were trampled in the dirt, the little blue pot Paolo had given Azira when we left was in a thousand pieces. A dead chicken, its belly slit, lay in the middle of our bed.
‘Ah well, at least we have a good dinner, huh?’
There was a lilt to Azira’s voice, but her eyes held fear. And rage. She had made Rebecca a dolly out of rags. It too had its belly slit.
The cycle began again. Spitting at our feet on the way to market – but this was fellow inmates, not police. No rations, papers wrong. Being stopped and searched by police as we left the Christian area – Azira as well as me. Your neighbours say you are thief, gaal. Well then my neighbours are liars, sir. Slap. Being made to stand one day in the heat with my hands on my head for six hours. Each time, we surfaced full of anger and despair. Each time, we did nothing. Except I prayed. What way is there out of chaos? The tattooed uniform was gone; I do not think my fame was so great it had preceded me. And it was not only us; other of my neighbours suffered in similar ways. But there is no solace in that.
A month after our chicken dinner, I received a visit, from a white lady. She had worked with Father Paolo, at his new mission in Malawi. I was delighted he’d sent us greetings, and from so far away. The tight kernel of my heart relaxed a tiny, tiny breath. God never gives you more than you can bear.
‘Is Father Paolo well?’
‘He is better. He had a little fever, but he copes better now.’ Even though she’d come with her own armed guard, her every move was uneasy. Furtive, you might say. We spoke in Italian, although her accent was very strange. ‘I understand you’ve had some . . . trouble here?’
‘How do you know?’
‘That’s not important.’
‘Please. I am not a troublemaker. If you ask Father Paolo . . . before . . .’
‘Gaal? Yes, sometimes.’
‘You’re all Christians, Father Paolo tells us. Is that right? Even the little one?’
‘Oh yes. She and I were baptised together.’
‘And your wife?’
‘Um . . . she believes what I believe.’
‘But she is not baptised?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Ah. That might be a problem.’
‘For what, please?’
The lady was a Catholic. She was arranging a transfer of forty Christian refugees, a hurried, rushed affair because they had intelligence a raid was being planned.
‘We can make no formal application, as that would implicate our source.’ All the time, this stilted, formal Italian, and her head dipping back and forth like a nervous bird. ‘But there is evidence to suggest raiding parties have been granted – or paid bribes for – access to other camps. Especially to areas at the periphery, like this.’
‘But why?’
‘There’s an unfounded belief Christian families receive considerable alms and support from the Church, which makes them attractive to robbers, as well as fundamentalists. Now, we can’t suggest that the Kenyan police are complicit in this . . . but they certainly seem powerless to prevent it happening. And it’s happening far too often. I mean, Christians are supposed to be housed in with the other vulnerable groups –’
‘Ma’am, we are all vulnerable in this camp. Irrespective of our faith.’
Azira arrived back then, with Rebecca. She offered the lady coffee – a good wife. I should have thought of that. In clumsy Somali, the lady said thank you, then, reverting to Italian, told me she’d no time. I couldn’t translate in case our neighbours heard, but Azira knew some Italian by then.
‘We leave the camp tomorrow evening. From here, we plan to go to Mogadishu, and then get a flight to the UK. Father Paolo was very keen that you come with us.’
Azira gasped, then busied herself with pots and water, telling Rebecca to fetch some beakers. A good wife. Then she had to tell her again: Rebecca would not stop staring at the mzungo lady who was in her house.
‘I’m sorry,’ the lady continued. ‘This is all very cloak and dagger. The UN know . . . But,’ she shrugged, ‘we can’t set any precedents. I can take only Christians.’
‘I am Christian,’ said Azira, in Italian.
‘You are?’
‘Yes. Every night, I read Bible. You ask me, ask me any story about Bible.’
‘You read?’
‘Hm. My husband teach me.’
‘Well. That’s very . . . but you’re not baptised?’
‘You do. Make me now.’
‘Oh no, dear, I’m not . . . I mean. Well, you –’
‘You bring me priest. Or take me go to one, now.’ Azira fell to her knees, pulling on the lady’s sunburned arm. ‘Please, lady. Please.’ Weeping openly, all the frustrations pouring out of her like brown water in our sewer.
The shock gathered in me, swinging in bolts, in punching fists. Since the haphazard door, we had been light and evasive, saying little and laughing lots. Strung together in tender wires. I hadn’t realised her desperation to get out of here was even greater than my own.
I knelt beside her. ‘Azira, baby. Don’t.’ Holding each other hard, her face wet in my chest. Then Rebecca was pushing at my armpit, nuzzling to get in too.
‘Please.’
On my head, I felt the pressure of the lady’s hand. Her hand, my daughter’s hands, my wife’s hands. All pressing on to me, me, me. And a feeling like communion. ‘You are a Christian family. We will take you all.’
The atmosphere inside the Refugee Council is flat, yet buzzing. Sad gossip lingers behind hands, my roses wilting under the scrutiny of frowns and pursed-up lips. It feels like someone’s died. I can see Debs at one of the booths. She’s on the phone, but she waves me over. A fat woman in a mighty kaftan tucks her hands under the folds of her breasts and tuts.
Debs mouths: Hiya.
‘Hello.’
I take a seat. Today Debs is in a brown, short-sleeved dress, sprigged with little creamy flowers – ha! My flowers match her dress. I’m smiling at her with irrepressible pleasure, I know I am, and it feels too bright in this sombre room. But I can’t help it. She finishes her call.
‘These are for you.’
‘Thank you! For why?’ She sniffs them, her eyelids lapping shut. ‘Mmm. They’re gorgeous.’ Then she looks at me. ‘Och, Abdi, I told you, I’d nothing to do with you getting your new house. It was that Sergeant Heath.’
My smile widens. ‘I think you both helped. And I don’t think she would like the flowers.’
‘Nah. She’d probably eat them. And you. But we should send her a wee note anyway, eh? So, you all ready for the big day? And the painting party – we’ll do that the week before you move, OK?’
‘Debs – I have to move by this weekend.’
‘What? Why?’
‘They need the flat we are in now.’
‘You’re joking!’
People say that a lot here, usually after you’ve said nothing funny at all. And they often follow it up with ‘by the way’, which is via in Italian and makes no sense to me whatever.
‘No. It is no joke. It is real.’
‘Aye, well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’ She tapped some keys on her computer. ‘Shit. Still nothing. Actually, you probably are better to grab it now. Quick as possible, after what we’ve heard this morning.’
‘What? What has happened?’ The knot in my tie seems to tighten, I am swallowing, swallowing. Of course I will not get this house. Of course I will not get this job.
Stupid refugee.
Debs twists her chair away from her computer. The swing of her is assured. She looks as though she fits here. Behind her looms a stack of files, which she begins to dig through. ‘Sorry, Abdi, I need to . . . Ah.’ She pulls a sheet of paper from the file. ‘Sorry. Yes. Well, the UK Border Agency and Glasgow Cooncil’ve had a major fall-out over who pays what to who. They’ve just terminated their accommodation contract with the city. Boom. Just like that. We’re waiting for them to put some kind of a statement up on their website, but everyone’s going crazy. Hundreds of folk are going to have to move, this place’ll probably shut.’
‘Shut?’
‘Well, if Glasgow isn’t housing asylum seekers any more, there’ll be no need for the Refugee Council, will there? At least, not here.’
Flashing pictures of gates, of clanging, dull barred doors. Of Debs being lost in a sea of struggling faces. To her, all is casual speculation. The Refugee Council will close and she’ll go back to her smart house and her memories, her visit to the poor complete. She dipped her toe in, did her best. Do I sense relief in there with the smooth movements? Shaking us off like troublesome drops of water. But what about me? What about me?
‘Hello there.’ The wide-hipped kaftan woman shimmies into Deborah’s space. ‘Debs, check your PC again. One of the news agencies is running a story. Try PA first.’ She bares enormous white teeth at me, leaning forward until I can see the twin peaks of her cleavage. ‘And who is this fine-looking gentleman?’
‘Gamu, this is Abdi.’
‘Ho, so this is Abdi. You kept him well-hidden, girl.’ She offers me a fat, firm hand. ‘Hello, Abdi. And you bring flowers too? Now don’t waste your time with her, my love. Come talk to me. I‘ll sort all your problems.’
‘No, no problems,’ I smile back. ‘Only good things today.’
‘Yeah? Well, that is a nice thing to hear, my love. Especially today. You keep your good things close, OK?’ And she gives me a huge long wink, in case I’m too slow to sense the dripping innuendo.
I wink back. ‘I will.�
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Debs is very quiet. She can’t be jealous, surely? I smooth out my tie, look over to see what she’s doing. She’s frowning at her computer. ‘Here, look, Abdi. See for yourself. Jesus. Thank goodness you’ve got that flat. They did confirm it, yes? You’ve definitely got the letter?’
‘Yes.’ I squint to read the screen.
‘I mean, it shouldn’t affect you at all. It’s the asylum seekers that’re going to suffer.’
Together, we read the news website.
Over a thousand asylum seekers in Glasgow will have to be rehoused after the government terminated its contract to provide them with accommodation.
The UK Border Agency has failed to reach an agreement with Glasgow City Council over charges for asylum seeker accommodation, which it states are already the ‘highest in the UK outside London’.
According to the Scottish Refugee Council, concerned asylum seekers have been ‘pouring’ into their offices for help. A spokesman for the charity said: ‘Many of these people have fled traumatic situations involving persecution, torture and violence and have already faced a great deal of uncertainty while waiting for the outcome of their asylum claim.’
Glasgow Council has been providing housing and support services for asylum seekers for 10 years. An insider commented: ‘It’s a matter of great regret that UKBA has terminated its contract for the council to receive asylum seekers.’
A spokesperson for the UKBA said, in the face of current cuts to government budgets, it could not continue to pay Glasgow Council’s high charges: ‘We will work with other providers to ensure all asylum seekers currently housed under contract with Glasgow Council continue to be properly accommodated while their asylum claims are considered and their appeals to the courts are concluded.’
Charity groups have expressed doubt that other housing providers in the city will be able to offer enough accommodation, and speculation is now rife that Glasgow’s asylum population may be dispersed across the UK with only a few days’ notice.
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