Divinity Road

by Martin Pevsner

  Now, for the first time since my return, I feel some relief. My bedroom is now bare, and before I open the paint pot and dip my brush in, I set up my new music player, and slip on the Alemayehu Eshete CD. The music is fluid, tantalising. I hum along as I slap paint onto the walls. Everything is getting better, I think, and I am convinced that these are more than vacuous words. It feels like a golden beginning.

  It is now evening and I stand in my room surveying my work. The blue reminds me of the sky at home and, by extension, of you, my flower. Together with the music, which I have not stopped broadcasting since midday, I feel I have everything in place to make contact with you. I am waiting, my sweet...

  ***

  Two days have passed. Yesterday I had just finished my early morning prayers and was filling the kettle when two of my Eritrean acquaintances called in. They have been trying to phone me. I do not tell them what I have done with my mobile. I lead them into my kitchen. They comment on its tidiness with, I suspect, a note of envy.

  I fix the tea and we make idle conversation. I am careful to listen vigilantly to everything they say, to comment on their stories and even add one or two of my own.

  I borrow a mobile and text Doreen. I tell her I am going on a short holiday with some of my friends, a two-week tour visiting compatriots in Birmingham, London and Cardiff. I tell her I will contact her when I return. When my visitors leave I agree to meet up today at a café in town run by a sympathetic Sudanese family.

  It is odd, but since I stopped taking the pills, I have felt more vibrant, more full of energy than ever in my life. I am aglow, riding a wave of positive vitality. I feel I can do anything if I put my mind to it. Oh, my darling, I know you are so very close.

  It is a beautiful afternoon, chilly but bright. I have been playing your music on a loop since I first bought it. I have left the Tesegue-Maryam Guebrou CD playing in my bedroom and hum a refrain as I wait at the bus stop. The guitar plays like fingers down my spine, the drum caresses the nape of my neck, the saxophone whispers lewd suggestions in my ear. A middle-aged woman in fur-lined boots and a red anorak sits next to me nursing her shopping trolley and I have to fight off an urge to break into song, to tell her about its significance, about you.

  At the café we are served tea and chickpea cakes. I eat a little out of politeness. There are ten of us, fellow Eritreans I have not seen for months. They have all heard of my hospitalisation. They are solicitous in their enquiries, and I find their consideration touching.

  I question them about their latest news, making a point of asking after their families and then, shortly before I make my apologies and leave, I tell them that my friend Derek, has invited me to his home in Scotland for a few weeks, that I will get in touch on my return. I tell them about my misplaced mobile and promise to text them my new number once I buy a replacement. Walking down the street towards the bus stop, I feel an enormous sense of release.

  Back at my house, I am busy changing the CD when I notice that the blue of my walls is changing, that it is darkening, becoming more intense. I stand up, back off, then move in close, run my fingers over the surface. There is no doubt in my mind. The red underneath is pushing through to the surface. It is seeping out of the pores of the wallpaper, tainting the purity of my soft pale azure.

  I run through to the kitchen where I have stored the paint pot and brush. I haul them into my room and begin slapping on a fresh coat. I do not stop until every surface is glistening wet.

  I clear up, return my room to its bare simplicity and sit at the table with a cup of black tea and this notebook. I am restless with excitement. I have cleared the decks in every way, tied up all my loose ends. Now all I have to do is wait.

  ***

  A month has passed since my last entry. A month of killing time. For what? Of course, I thought I was waiting for you, but perhaps in all honesty I knew that this was just a fantasy, that actually I was waiting for something else. For some other, more realistic conclusion.

  I have never felt anything more exciting, more addictive, more all-consuming, than that sweet rush of hope I was experiencing. It superseded all my more trivial needs, hopes and aspirations. Its raucous screams of delight drowned out all the humdrum voices around me. Its dazzling explosions of colour blinded me to the scenes of everyday life. I closed my eyes and clung on as I was taken for a glorious, devil-may-care ride. I accelerated and felt as if I was travelling upwards at the speed of light. And then, the inevitable, I peaked, then faltered and finally began the free-falling plunge towards reality.

  That, my dear, is what I have been through. Two weeks of frenzied mania. During the day, consumed by a need for action, but unable to leave the house for fear of missing your arrival, I sought out projects to burn off the excess energy.

  I sketched the towers and castles of my fantasies, copied out lists of English vocabulary, made copious notes from my architecture books and my Bible. I discovered a bag of abandoned tools in a shed, a pile of timber, and built a tree house for the horse chestnut at the bottom of the garden. I stripped off the grimy, cracked lino in the bathroom and sanded the floorboards below by hand.

  The only dark cloud on my horizon was the red seeping through my paintwork, and time and again I felt compelled to apply another coat of paint, then another, racing off twice more to buy extra tins. At night I could not rest and did not even attempt to sleep. When I could not contain myself in the confines of the house, I hurried onto the streets of Manchester for hours at a time, returning only at dawn. These were the occasions when I would eat, lamb curries or kebabs from all-night takeaways.

  Eventually, after several days of this frenzied agitation, I would find myself able to doze on and off in the early hours of the morning. Then, my energy recharged, the cycle would begin again.

  I can remember little of these weeks beyond a sense of urgency, of impatience, of restless anxiety.

  When the crash came, it was sudden and brutal. It seems to me that there was no single event that prompted it, no clear-cut trigger, just, perhaps, an accumulation of despondency. A clash between hope and helplessness, my imagination fertile with thoughts of you and the children, my reality barren and desolate.

  This time, when I woke from my light doze, I found myself unable to rise, to wash for prayers, to brew my tea and play my CDs. This time I was struck down, bereft, crippled. All my anxieties, my loneliness, my fears seemed to gang up on me. It was a complete mental and physical paralysis.

  I stared up at the ceiling. My plans to read two chapters of my architectural textbook, to wash my laundry in the bath, to clear some of the flowerbeds of weeds, now seemed ludicrous, the madcap projects of an eccentric stranger. I needed to urinate yet even carrying out that action seemed overambitious.

  And so from dynamism to lethargy. I found myself straitjacketed by my exhaustion, my depression, this stupor of lassitude. I did eventually crawl to the toilet to relieve myself and managed to repeat this several times a day, but that was more or less the sum total of my productivity over the following fortnight. By the time help arrived, I was a stinking, unwashed, unshaven sloth cocooned in a nest of my own fetid squalor.

  The end to my suffering, my rescue from this paralysing despondency, occurred yesterday. And my rescuer, the eagle swooping down to liberate me from the flames of my own personal hell? None other than my cellmate from Glynbourne House, Kalil.

  Later on, he tells me how he traced me through Refugee Welcome. He was given the name and number of one of my compatriots who passed my address on to him. The first I know of this, though, is when he knocks at my bedroom door. I cannot muster the strength to call out, can barely turn my head on the pillow to face the door.

  He pokes his head inside my room, sees me, smiles then frowns as he realises that all is not well. He squats down beside me.

  Your front door was open, he says. You should be careful.

  He bends down, lifts my feeb
le head. I feel his breath on my cheek.

  How are you? he asks in Arabic, his voice barely a whisper.

  I am well, thanks be to God, I answer. For some reason, my reply is met with a rich chuckle. Despite my weakened state, I feel a stab of irritation.

  Where is your medication? he asks. Your tablets?

  Gone, I say, and shrug. I cannot summon the strength to explain.

  Would you like some more? he asks. Shall I get you some more?

  Yes, I croak. Please.

  Before he goes, he cradles me in his arms. I hold on to him with all my strength, hold on to my brother, my saviour, and I cry myself dry.

  When he returns it is late afternoon. I have not moved. I do not know how he has managed it, but he is holding a paper bag from which he pulls out a box of pills. He removes two of the red and green capsules.

  Here, he says. These were the ones, eh? I remembered, see? He passes me the tablets and goes off to fetch a glass of water, but by the time he returns I have swallowed them dry. As he fills me in on his release from detention, temporary freedom until his case comes to court, and tells me about his successful hunt for me, I lie back and wait for the chemicals to take away the here and now.

  When he finishes his story, Kalil tells me he has been shopping for food. He is going to cook for us. I drift off to sleep with the smell of roasted chicken and rosemary in my nostrils, sleep straight through to the following afternoon, today, when I write this extract.

  ***

  Another month gone. The return to my medicated existence has ended the rush and brought back my old befogged and sluggish self. I idle away my days in bed, carried over the hurdles of daily existence and cushioned from harsh reality by Kalil, my protector. In the early days he carts me from bedroom to bath, soaps away the grime, towels me dry before dressing me in freshly laundered clothes. When my skin erupts in an eczema-like rash, he buys ointments and ensures they are applied three times daily. He sorts out my repeat prescriptions, cooks fragrant dishes of chicken or lamb, comes around every day to check on me, to tell me stories, to read to me from the Qur’an and to join me in my daily prayers.

  I remain in bed for the first week, rising only for physical needs. I sleep all night, most of the day. Sometimes I lie on the bed, waiting for the knock at the door, the arrival of immigration officers to take me off. The pills help to turn this fear from acute terror to mild anxiety, but it is nevertheless now an ever-present possibility.

  During the second week, I venture around the house. My projects, boldly planned and professionally executed in my mind, now appear shoddy and wretched. The bathroom floor is uneven and splintered. The tree house, an arborial palace in my imagination, is a pathetic, slapdash piece of workmanship. Never before have I felt so pitiable, so shameful. I deserve no more, no less than what I have got. I hide the Ethiopian CDs at the bottom of my wardrobe and disconnect the music player.

  I prefer the lifeless melody of silence. It offers no false hopes. At first Kalil comes and goes using my front door key.

  By the third week I notice that he has made up a bed in the Chinese room. He continues in his attempts to turn this sterile house into a home, there is an ever-present aroma of roasting meats and appetising spices. The place remains spotless. There is toilet paper in the bathroom, fruit in the kitchen. He has brought in two combined TV and DVD players, a large-screen one in the kitchen, a smaller one for my bedroom. I thank him for his kindness but as soon as he leaves the room, I switch it off. This week, there has been a change. I notice it first one late morning. Coming round from my sleep, I hear the sound of people talking. I think initially it is the TV in the kitchen, then recognise first the rhythm and intonation of Arabic, then the tone and tenor of Kalil’s own voice interacting with another lower-pitched one. A little while later, Kalil enters with a cup of tea, followed by a burly fellow with cropped hair and a week-old beard who Kalil introduces as Tariq.

  And this is Aman, he adds. He has not been well recently, he continues. But we have high hopes for him.

  This visit sets the pattern for the time being. First Tariq, then Iqbal and Lazar and Asif and the others. They sit in the kitchen drinking tea and sharing meals. I hear their voices, usually a quiet hubbub, occasionally raised, but I seldom join them. I suspect some of them may stay overnight. They may even have moved in permanently, as I find them present whenever I emerge from my bedroom whatever the time of day or night. I know that being alone for those previous weeks was not good for me, so I suppose I should be grateful for the company.

  Kalil continues to care for me, though my needs are minimal. I feel like a machine on power off, on physical and emotional standby. My appetite remains irregular, a hot meal once every two or three days. Other than that I require nothing more than black tea and tablets. On Kalil’s insistence I bathe every day. He has cut my nails and hair, has bought me a toothbrush and supervises my ablutions.

  Occasionally my emotions break through the ice. Today I receive a letter from the Red Cross. They have made no progress in locating you. They tell me my case will be kept on file, that it will continue to be monitored in the future. But I can see that they are giving up.

  I am standing by my bed as I read the words. I let the letter fall, feel myself crumple inside, cannot control the heaving sobs, the hot wet tears. Kalil must have heard my anguish. He comes to me, puts his arms around me. He is talking to me now, his voice is soothing.

  A little later, as I begin to regain control over my emotions, I am able to hear what he is saying. He is mumbling, his words of comfort little more than murmurings, but I can just about make out his words.

  The Garden or the Fire? he is saying over and over again. What is it to be, brother? The Garden or the Fire?

  ***

  I am regaining a little strength, enough to resume my reading. I have abandoned the anger of the Old Testament, have made a start on the New Testament. I read in Matthew:

  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword.

  Then in Luke:

  He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

  As if on cue, Kalil enters. When he sees what I am reading, his eyebrows rise and he frowns.

  Do you know what that is? he says. He does not wait for an answer. His voice is hard, tight with an anger I have forgotten but instantly recognise. It is an instruction manual for a war against Islam, for the crusades. Have you heard of the ‘Milites Christi’, the Warriors of Christ? Soldiers dedicated to destroying the followers of Allah? They are nothing new. Did you know that the idea of a ‘bellum sacrum’, a so-called sacred war against Islam, was first ordained as long ago as 1095 by none other than a Pope, Urban II? Kill a Muslim and your sins are forgiven. And of course these attacks on our faith, on our brothers are still going on today.

  I say nothing but this seems to add fuel to Kalil’s rage.

  You have been too unwell to play a part, my brother, he says, eyeing me with a mixture of contempt and pity. But you are getting better now. It is time to show a little bit of commitment. Principles are something to fight for, not just to live by. He continues to stare for a few seconds, then the door bell goes and he has gone.

  ***

  Kalil still takes responsibility for my wellbeing, overseas my healing. He encourages me to get out of bed, to join him and his friends in the kitchen. The men speak sometimes in Arabic, sometimes in English, usually a hybrid combination of the two. They discuss their families, their jobs, everyday matters. They tell each other about cheap insurance deals, give each other advice about where to buy second-hand cars, swap tips on how to climb council housing lists. We read the Qur’an and pray together.

  But when I return to my room, the conversation at these meetings changes. Sometimes the door is left ajar and I eavesdrop. There is a trial going on in London, eight men accused of conspiracy to set off bombs on flight
s to America, explosives hidden in soft drink containers. They follow the course of the case with enormous interest. Every aspect is analysed and discussed at length. Someone has brought a DVD of the defendants’ martyrdom videos, and they play it over and over again.

  ***

  The Bible has been taken from my room.

  ***

  My skin condition has worsened. Blisters that I scratch have become infected and now leak an angry, foul secretion. Kalil continues to treat them with tender care.

  My sores remind me of the Surah called Al Fil and the story that it refers to, the one set in Yemen when it was ruled by Abyssinian Christians. Do you remember the tale, how the governor, a man named Abrahah Ashram, led an expedition to target the Ka’bah at Makkah? It was a mighty force that included elephants, an army that many thought invincible. But just when it seemed that defeat was inevitable, a flock of birds rose miraculously into the sky and showered the invading troops with stones. As they hit their targets, sores and pustules appeared on the soldiers’ skin, and these spread like pestilence.

  I recall how fond Kalil was of this Surah in our old detention centre days. He would argue that we should all see ourselves as birds of such a flock, ready to rain destruction down upon the enemy.

  ***

  I sit at the table as Kalil feeds me day-old stew and bread. He fills me in on some of our fellow Glynbourne detainees. He has already washed and dressed me. Iqbal is present, and a new arrival named Hamid. From my room earlier I’d eavesdropped on another court case discussion, this time a group of men accused of organising terrorist training camps in Britain. I overhear fragments of the conversation, half-sentences and words, ummah, and kafir and shaheed, the language of conflict, of division. One of the accused, it seems, has dismissed killing fifty of the enemy as less than a decent breakfast for him. Iqbal finds this wonderfully witty. He repeats it three or four times.