One Single Thing

by Tina Clough

  I mark the place and decide not to mention it to Dao yet.

  We are at the breakfast table doing what we do in the mornings: I am reading news online and Dao is probably reading about some esoteric form of mathematics. There is an email from Noah, with two attachments.

  ‘Check the email from Noah I’ve just forwarded. He’s sent us those stories of his sister’s. Let’s read them now.’

  ‘Hunter and Dao, thanks for letting me talk to you last night. Please read the two attached stories from Hope’s “journal”. If you want to talk to me again you can reach me on my cell phone, number below. I would prefer not to discuss this via email. Noah.’

  THIS TIME IN PAKISTAN

  I concentrate on north-western Pakistan, visiting the shelters I have managed to find out about. I want to talk face-to-face with the women who live in these sanctuaries for so-called shamed women. The ‘dishonour’ women, the ones who have escaped being killed by their families. Before I left I tapped into my networks of friends, NZ refugee centres and immigrants I have known for years. Many of them used their connections to find out where the shelters are. Mostly they are just a house like any other; anonymous and without any external sign of what they are – a refuge.

  In Pakistan I always wear shalwar kameez; the traditional long tunic and wide pants. And a dupatta, to cover my head and shoulders like a big loose cowl, so I look like a Pakistani woman – black hair, local dress and sandals. I look down as I move around or wear sunglasses – or my blue eyes attract attention. I don’t use taxis unless I have to, just local buses. I try to avoid being noticed as an outsider when I visit the houses.

  In the first town I walk from a bus stop; I have memorised the route by studying it on Google Earth. A street of narrow houses with shuttered or barred windows on the front and small courtyards at the back. There is a little market along one side of the street. I walk along stalls selling melons and vegetables, pass for a local in the crowd. I count front doors without being obvious about it, move slowly along, occasionally stop to look at something on a stall.

  The woman who owns the house is called Aghala. She has been told to expect me. I take my sunglasses off and greet her by name when she opens the door. The house is one room and a passage wide – three rooms and a lean-to at the back for cooking. The first room has worn rugs and a scatter of cushions on the floor, a couple of low tables and six women sewing and embroidering. Aghala sells what they make in the markets; it is their only income. They hardly ever go out: a couple of them are hideously disfigured and all of them are terrified of being recognised.

  I progress from that house to other towns and other safe houses. I sit for hours with damaged women, listening to their stories and asking questions, very carefully and slowly. Some let me video or take photos of faces and bodies damaged by fire or acid. I ask all of them to choose an assumed name for the articles they know I will write. I have planned exactly how I will get the photos and my notes through airport security. The material I am collecting would be regarded as critical of the culture and the regime; if it is found I will get arrested.

  I meet eighteen-year old Samika, in hiding since she was thirteen. She allows some photos of the petrol burns that scar her upper body, her neck and face. She has no hair on one side of her head and practically no ear. Samika brought dishonour on her family, as they say, by secretly meeting a boy from her village. She was promised to a much older man from another village – but she got pregnant.

  The pictures of Samika’s damaged body are hard to look at. Her father and oldest brother took her some distance outside the village and near a cluster of scrub and trees they set fire to her – they thought they had strangled her first, but she was alive.

  They left her lying on the ground – they thought she was dead. She knew her mother and her aunts would come to get her body later on. She rolled to put out her smouldering clothes and hair as soon as the men had gone. She was in agony and shock and just managed to crawl away among the bushes.

  Two women with a donkey cart collecting firewood heard her crying. They took her on the cart to their village, covered with sacks – not the village where she came from. They knew of a woman who was part of the shelter network and Samika was smuggled away. She nearly died from the burns and she lost the baby. The shelter is her life now, forever. Nobody will ever want her, but she is alive, and she is safe

  Those women were born into a culture where girls and women are possessions and the so-called family honour is paramount. Women’s lives can be disposed of at will by their men, if religion and custom deem it right. Sometimes their mothers kill them. It is illegal, but it goes on all the same. All those lives that end in pain and terror at the hands of the very people who should protect them – it seems deeply primitive to me.

  I wanted the personal stories, so I could make the issue come alive for the readers, to create greater awareness. Their stories will be part of me forever. I cannot file them away, I cannot un-remember them. I might never be able to go back there once the articles are published. This sixth trip to Pakistan might have been my last. I thought I had perfected my ability to distance myself from the things I investigate, to maintain a professional separation, but this time it feels too personal and too real to tuck away in some recess in the back of my mind.

  ‘Have you finished reading the first one?’ Dao looks up from her laptop, sad and serious. ‘It’s awful, cruel. At least it wasn’t my own family who abused me.’

  She rarely refers to what she endured during her decade of captivity. She knows I will not let anything happen to her, if I can possibly prevent it, but Hope’s story has brought back the past.

  ‘It’s a brutal culture in some ways, very different from ours,’ I say slowly, feeling my way. I want to establish a point of difference between her situation and the girl in Hope’s story. ‘We were briefed on this sort of thing before the army sent us to Afghanistan. They regard daughters and wives as possessions, just as Hope says. The man who enslaved you had no cultural or religious so-called excuses – he was a criminal and a sadist, unacceptable in our society.’

  She nods, and we read the next story.

  ABDUL AND AFIA

  Occasionally I get valuable information and introductions from someone who has heard third or fourth hand that I am interested in something. They pass my email along and I get another piece of the puzzle from a person I will never meet. But today was different. I was sitting at my desk, eating lunch and reading something I had just written when an email notice popped up in the corner of the screen. For a moment my mind was blank, but then I remembered. I had talked to Abdul Malik and his sister Afia on the phone, a few weeks before I left on my trip; they came here from Pakistan several years ago. I got a message from someone in my extensive network saying that a young couple would possibly get in touch. And then Abdul and Afia called one evening and said that they had contacts who might be helpful. I never met them, but they provided some useful information over the phone.

  The email message was very brief: ‘Afia and I would like to hear about your trip. Can we meet somewhere? Abdul.’

  I replied, ‘Come and see me. I work from home, so you can come nearly any time, but I am out all day tomorrow (Sat). The contacts you gave me were very useful. Let me know when it would suit you to come.’

  We made a date for Sunday morning. They called from the street and I gave them the door code and waited on the landing as they climbed the stairs. They were very alike, slim and good-looking, both wearing jeans and sweatshirts.

  ‘Khush aamdeed, good morning,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely to meet you finally. Come in and sit down. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’

  Afia handed me a little bag with a strong scent of cardamom. ‘This is for you. We hope you like them.’

  ‘Gulab jamun, my favourite! Thank you. I always buy them when I’m in Pakistan. Did you make them?’

  Abdul laughed. ‘No, I made them – Afia is too impatient to wait for
the milk to reduce, she only makes things that are really quick. She’ll have to marry someone who is a good cook like I am.’

  I talked about where I had been and showed them some of the pictures I had taken on my trip, without mentioning anything specific about which shelters I had visited or the stories I had heard.

  ‘The contacts you gave me were really useful, so thank you for that. Most people were helpful and I have a lot of material for my articles. I have just started working on them, but it’s a bit slow at the moment. I can only type for an hour or so and then I have to rest my arm, but at least I can work. I shouldn’t moan about it.’

  ‘I noticed your arm. What happened?’ asked Abdul. ‘Did you have an accident while you were away?’

  ‘Yes, but it was right at the end, luckily. I fell on some broken concrete. But it’s not serious, just a bad sprain and some cuts.’

  I had no idea what the Maliks did for a living, or whether they were refugees or immigrants. ‘How did you end up in New Zealand? Did you emmigrate, or did you feel you had to leave – were you refugees?’

  ‘No, we came from choice,’ said Abdul. ‘We both found the social expectations hard to live with and at the time we left, the general political situation was changing – things were getting even more restrictive.’

  ‘Abdul is a baker,’ said Afia, ‘and he’s gay, so living here is better for him. And I teach French, so I can get a job nearly anywhere. We have residency status now and will get citizenship in another couple of years.’

  Dao looks at me over the screen of her laptop, puzzled. ‘Why did he send us these? Is he hoping to make us realise how special Hope is, to make us feel more like helping him find her?’

  ‘Maybe. Or perhaps he’s worried that she got into trouble over there, upset someone in Pakistan or someone from Pakistan, who lives here in New Zealand.’

  ‘It must be connected somehow – or at least Noah thinks it is. Will you help him?’

  I know she wants me to. My only reservation is how it might affect her. She made incredible progress right up to the trial of Bramville’s accomplice Mint, the drug delivery man. During the trial details of Dao’s enslavement and some of the subsequent events became public knowledge. Not all of it through the court proceedings, possibly by police or others talking about her. The rumors and the media attention caused a setback and I want nothing to drag her down now.

  ‘I think we should, Hunter. Someone must try to find her.’

  ‘OK. Not that I know what we can do, but let’s see if we can think of something.’

  I know why she wants to help Noah. Because nobody searched for her; she just dropped out of sight and lost ten years of her life.

  In the evening I call my sister, Willow. She went back to her law firm last year when the twins were a year old, and they promptly made her a partner. I imagine they wanted to make sure she was back to stay.

  ‘Missing persons,’ I say. ‘Say an adult disappears? The family knows nothing. Some of the circumstances are odd – a computer was left on and the front door was open. Wouldn’t you expect the cops to take it seriously?’

  ‘I imagine it depends on who it is and what else is going on in their lives. And also on who reports it. Do you know someone who’s disappeared?’

  ‘It’s the sister of a guy I know. He got fobbed off by the cops for some reason. They told him adults are free to take off whenever they want to – it doesn’t mean they are missing. When he went back a second time with some new information it got a bit weird and they still wouldn’t help him.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Hunter!’ says Willow impatiently. ‘What does that mean, “it got a bit weird”? Tell me exactly what happened.’

  ‘As soon as he said what it was about, they got someone from higher up the food chain to come out to the front desk and this person did a snow job, fobbed him off. He has no idea why.’

  ‘It does sound odd. But I can’t make enquiries just out of the blue. Has your friend got a lawyer? Someone making an official call might get more answers.’

  ‘I haven’t asked him. Can I give him your number if he needs help?’

  I call Noah as soon as I have finished talking to Willow. ‘You should ask your lawyer to talk to the cops. I presume you have one.’

  ‘Yeah, kind of, but he’s a patent specialist that I’ve used – I invented a couple of things. I don’t think he’d be interested. But I can find someone.’

  I hear a tapping noise in the background, little clicks at regular intervals. Even at home in the evening he is fiddling with things and making noise; the most restless person I have ever met.

  ‘You can call my sister Willow if you like. She’s a lawyer and she’s extremely good at her job. I’ve told her about your problems with the cops, didn’t mention any names. I can text her number to you.’

  ‘Thank you, that would be great.’ His voice is muted and tired.

  When I come down the next morning Dao is already at the table with her laptop.

  ‘I’m searching for stuff about Noah. I want to know what he invented. We don’t even know what he does.’

  By the time I have made porridge she is done.

  ‘Noah has registered patents for two inventions, both electronic things.’ She looks at her screen. ‘He has a business called Barber Innovation and quite a nice website. One invention is a kind of switch that reacts to various things like barometric pressure and wind speed and some other things. It’s a safety thing that you can attach to machinery with something called a controller. I haven’t read all the details. The other patent is for – this is a quote – an embedded software control unit for robotic processing of very small components. He’s on LinkedIn and he studied electronic engineering at Auckland University. He is not on Facebook or Twitter. He also works for a company that makes electronic stuff. His own business must be a background job.’

  We are still sitting there reading and discussing the news when Willow calls. Suspecting it might be about Noah, I turn the speaker function on so Dao can hear what she says.

  ‘Your mate Noah called. I didn’t realise you’ve only just met him. Not very coherent, is he? I got his permission to keep you informed, not that I have anything much to tell you, but I have called the cops and asked for a progress report on Hope’s case. The response was slightly unusual, so I’ll try to find out why. I’ve got several appointments this morning, but I’ll get on to this after lunch.’

  ‘What was it that seemed unusual?’

  ‘Same thing that seemed odd to Noah – evasive answers, platitudes. I think he’s right about the police stalling, but I fail to see why. I would have thought the open door and her bag left behind should be enough to make them take it seriously. Even if they think she might have committed suicide somewhere, they should have investigated her flat first. Noah says not to email him or you about this, so I’ll call tonight. Talk later, bye.’

  Dao is intrigued. ‘Why doesn’t he want us to use email?’

  ‘I was thinking about it earlier when I read his message. Perhaps he’s one of those people who don’t trust anything and constantly think they are being spied on. Paranoid.’

  She frowns. ‘I wonder if he’s just unusual or if he is scared of something. I got a feeling that he hasn’t told us everything yet, that there’s something else that he knows or suspects.’

  Over the last year and a half of police interviews, a court case and various discussions about what happened at the place we refer to as ‘the island’ I have learnt that Dao is very precise about how she words things. If she says, ‘There’s something else that he knows about,’ then it’s best to pay attention. She is right more often than not. If she is uncertain or guessing she will say so. And if something she says carries an implication of more to come, then it is useless to try to extract it from her until she has worked it out.

  When I found her nearly dead in the forest and brought her to my house in town, she knew nothing about the world as it is tod
ay. She had been isolated and deprived for a decade. One night when she could not sleep, she said, ‘There is so much I don’t know. You must teach me everything or I might never catch up.’

  I promised I would. Since then she has also taught me more than I would have thought possible. The fact that she is eighteen years younger than I am, and still catching up, means nothing.

  Chapter five

  We are doing the Takapuna to Milford loop walk with Scruff when Noah calls.

  ‘Thanks for putting me in touch with Willow. She’s good. I’ve just talked to her. She got the same treatment from the cops that I did … kind of evasive. She’s going to try some other … avenues.’

  Dao and Scruff are playing a noisy game of catch-me around my legs. I put a finger in my free ear, so I can concentrate on Noah.

  ‘It’s pretty strange, all right. Any new developments?’

  ‘Not really. Willow is coming to see Hope’s flat tonight after dinner. Just to see it, you know … to sort of understand how strange this is. I mean, that she should have just left or run away. Could you come too? I’d like you to see what I found – how unlikely it is, this idea that she left voluntarily.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll come. Where is it?’

  ‘I’ll text the address to you. I’m meeting Willow there at eight – I’m going to my flat after work to pick up some clothes and stuff first. I think I told you I’ve been staying at Hope’s place.’

  I text Willow and say that we’ll pick her up after dinner.

  We arrive as dusk is deepening into night. The weather is changing; the air feels damp, like a too early foretaste of autumn. The street looks deserted. It is in the eastern part of Eden Terrace, a mixture of light industries and small businesses. There is little to indicate that Hope’s building is residential. An upholstery business has the main part of the ground floor and a smaller space on the corner seems to be a dressmaker’s studio. Close to the other corner is a solid-looking wooden door with a key pad. Noah enters a code and leads the way up the stairs.