Then he laughed and opened his arms, and Farood realised it wasn’t a trap; he entered the welcome embrace of Karam, his older brother, breathing in the scent of him, remembering the forgotten power of his grip, his laughter.
‘You were supposed to be a rich man in England by now, and I find you wandering through a battlefield.’
‘And I come across you, armed to the teeth. You were supposed to be looking after our mother, what the fuck, Karam?’
‘The Most High called me. I was with the Taliban and then I understood the struggle was greater than just our home.’
‘Fight them until there is no more, fitnah,’ called out the other militiaman.
‘Are you here to fight?’ probed Karam.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Farood, not hiding his distaste.
‘So why are you here – holiday?’
‘I’m working on a boat, taking people to where they want to go.’
‘Really? For money?’
Farood heard the launch in the distance and saw the glow of a headlamp close in on the jetty. ‘I have to go, Karam, to my boat.’
‘There’s a curfew, you know,’ said the older brother.
‘What? On the sea?’
‘I have to see to it.’
‘Why?’ asked Farood. ‘It’s just a boat.’
Karam bid goodnight to his comrade and followed Farood, who was running ahead, shouting Misha’s name.
‘Your brother? What the fuck is he doing here?’ asked Misha.
‘He’s in the militia. We haven’t seen each other in ten years. I can’t believe it.’
Neither did Misha, who was so incredulous that when they got in the launch he wouldn’t start it. He believed the coincidence to be part of some scheme. Farood too must be with the militia. An Afghan fanatic all along, or maybe he became one in that English jail.
Karam held out his hand, smiling. ‘Karam, pleased to meet you.’
‘Misha… You’re bringing him aboard the boat?’ he asked of Farood.
‘Yes!’
The launch kicked into motion.
‘The captain’s gonna like you even more,’ said Misha.
‘It’s useful to know someone with a rifle.’
‘Just as long as he doesn’t want to cut some poor bastard’s hand off.’
‘Misha and me, we were on the road together. All the way from Baghlan. Now we’re agents, like the people who took us. Except we’re a bit fucking nicer than they were. You spoke to Mother recently?’
Karam shook his head ruefully. ‘She’s living with her brother in Khomri,’ said Farood, observing his brother’s expression. ‘You didn’t know that?’ Karam didn’t have to shake his head. ‘When did you leave home?’
‘Not long after you,’ confessed Karam.
‘You were supposed to look after her. And your sister. All this time I thought you were at home, caring for them, after our father was killed.’
‘All this time, we thought you were working in England. We didn’t hear from you, your mother praying every day that you were still alive. I left to avenge our father’s murder, to kill infidels. Is this as far as you got?’
‘I got to England. And ended up in jail.’
They were sent down to see the captain, who at first glance thought Karam was part of a militia boarding party.
‘Boss, you’ll never guess who this is.’ Farood grinned.
The captain’s face remained blank, as if he wondered whether the bearded man in his cabin, with an automatic rifle, was a celebrity jihadist. ‘No, Farood, I don’t know who he is.’
‘This is my brother, Karam.’
Karam put his rifle on the table and reached out his hand. The captain didn’t consider the likelihood of this coincidence but saw instead, someone who might be able to help with business. He made everyone some tea while Farood acted as interpreter.
‘You’re with the militia?’
‘I’m the commander of an Afghan brigade.’
‘Seasoned fighters.’ A compliment Farood passed on with pride.
‘You take people to Europe in this boat?’ asked the commander.
‘That’s right.’
Karam held something under consideration for a moment. ‘Where to – Italy, Greece?’
‘From here to Crete, which is Greece, it’s in the EU, so you can go anywhere. All the way to London.’
‘You don’t have to sneak across the border at night, you can just drop people off there?’
‘More or less.’
There passed an exchange between the two brothers, a rehearsal for what was about to be said, though the captain already knew the script.
‘Can you take me?’ said Farood, translating for Karam.
‘Of course I can,’ said the captain, ‘but not just you. I want to take fifty people from the camp, but when I went there, they wanted five hundred dollars, before I had taken any money for myself.’
Farood and Karam argued in Pashtu, not about money the captain believed, but about Karam’s travel plans.
Farood got to his feet; for him the meeting was over. ‘He says he can help us at the camp. That we won’t have to pay much at all if we agree to take some fighters across to Crete. We’ll go with him tomorrow.’
‘Good. And what do you think of that, Farood?’ enquired the captain.
‘I think it’s just business. And if we don’t take them, someone else will.’
Karam lay on the floor next to his brother’s bed, Misha in the bunk above, trying to sleep. Farood and his brother argued through the night.
‘You should be heading the other way. Instead you’re going to Europe to start a war. Everyone we take on this boat, they’re risking their lives on the road to escape war. You want to bring it with you.’
Karam’s voice was calmer, having come to terms with his new direction. ‘Farood, you must go back to Mother, for both of us. Take the money you make from this work and give some to her and our crazy uncle. I will avenge our father.’
‘How many times have you avenged him already? I saw what your people did to someone today, outside a teashop. They cut off his fucking hand. Made me sick to my stomach. You were never going to stay and look after Mother, were you? You just wanted me out of the way before you left.’
‘Alright, alright,’ shouted Misha in English. ‘You know what, at first, I didn’t believe he was your brother – now I do. My God.’
Misha lit a cigarette and, in the light of the flame, saw the disapproval in Karam’s eyes.
*
In the morning the three went along with the captain back to the camp on the football pitch. Karam spoke with the militiamen in the truck, whose demeanour, the captain noticed, was a lot more cooperative than the day before. Farood relayed Karam’s negotiations to Misha and the captain.
‘We pay a hundred dollars and we pick the fifty ourselves. Also, we have to take some more militia with us. That’s the deal.’
‘Thank your brother for me,’ said the captain, preferring not to shake hands with Karam himself.
Farood and Misha went through the crowd with carrier bags and moneybags, hawking a passage to a better life. Misha shook his bag in the breeze, remembering his market-stall days in Mazar.
‘We are taking people to Greece – do you want to go? Come on now, what will you give for your last journey? How much is too much for freedom?’
He sought out the eyes of younger, single men. When they couldn’t speak English, he called over one of the militiamen. ‘Tell them they won’t need money anymore. They’re going to the EU. They will be looked after there. When they land in Greece, there will be people to meet them. It’s how it works.’
Misha took cash in any currency, plus watches and necklaces; he even helped women get their rings off. When people had paid, they were directed to the captain, wh
o sat them in rows. Farood saw the black man with the boy, the man who had asked the militia about his daughter, the father of Salma. He wasn’t stepping forward to buy a place on the boat, he was sitting on the ground, stroking his son’s head and watching others haggle with Misha.
Farood approached him respectfully. ‘You want to go to Greece? We’re taking passengers.’
Salma’s father waved a palm up at Farood.
‘You understand me, you speak English?’
The man looked ahead, not up, waiting for Farood’s shadow to move away.
‘Your son would have a future there.’
The man looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘I have lost my daughter – she’s too young to be here alone. I can’t leave here until I find her.’
Farood swept a few plastic bottles aside with his foot and sat on the ground beside him. ‘You know, I think she is already in Greece.’
‘How can you know this?’
‘Because we took a black girl across the other day.’
Salma’s father bowed his head and seemed to be weeping. As happened before, his boy began to cry. ‘No one knows where she is – one man says this, another says that.’
‘She was wearing a black singlet, jeans, about this high. Her hair, quite big, like this, no?’
Salma’s father showed Farood his face. ‘She would not have gone without me. Or her brother.’
‘Maybe she thought you had gone without her.’
Her father sobbed now.
Farood placed an arm around his shoulder. ‘Look, you don’t have to pay. You can go on the boat for free. Come with me.’ Farood tried to lift him to his feet.
‘You’re sure, you’re sure it was her?’
‘I spoke to her, that’s why I remember. Hang on, she told me her name. It was… it was, her name was Salma. Is that right?’
He grabbed at Farood’s shirt, pushing his face towards him. ‘That’s her, that’s her. You spoke to her. How was she?’
‘She seemed fine; she was okay. You’ll see her soon, I think. Wait by that man.’
It was almost a day to Crete. Farood and Karam barely spoke during the journey, Karam occupied in conference with other militiamen. Farood asked himself if he had ever really known his brother, even when he was a child in Baghlan. The captain waited off shore until light began to break, and then Misha and Farood took up to twenty at a time in the launch to a beach. When it was Karam’s time, he sat next to his younger brother, who raised his voice above the buzz of the motor.
‘I don’t understand why you want to do this. Why can’t you just join a mosque, become an imam?’
‘You think that’s enough?’ replied Karam. ‘They insult the prophet every day. Their television, their music, their sodomy. The way they let their women live. They can change or they can die.’
The launch rushed up onto the Cretan shore. Beyond the shingle, through splinters of orange grey light, they could see landed refugees. Karam hurried out of the launch and didn’t look back. Salma’s father followed him, Farood passing his son into his arms. He shook Farood’s hand, turned and began to wade through the pebbles, looking up at the road above the beach.
Thirty-Five
Libya
They returned before dawn the next day, mooring at the jetty this time.
The captain brought everyone to the galley. ‘We get some sleep, then we get some fuel, then we leave this place.’
Farood and Misha had become used to the smell of oil in their cabin but not the headaches. The pipes that ran over the walls, that were either cream or dirt white, coughed even when the ship was anchored and yet the cabin, which Farood considered was the size of a double cell at the prison, was always cold. They sat playing chess on the bottom bunk.
‘Mish, you think we made much money today?’
‘No. Not enough. That’s why we’re trying somewhere else. We did a lot better in Greece. You know what, Farood? I don’t think we should have made a deal with those fuckers. I know he’s your brother, but they’re just going to bring a war to wherever they end up. I mean, did he say what he was planning?’
‘No.’ Farood rested his hand on a knight. ‘You know where I was the other night? I was with a girl.’
‘I didn’t know there were any left alive.’
Farood slid his piece into no man’s land. ‘When we were in Berzan’s cellar, did you ever think, I’m not going to get out of here?’
‘Once or twice, maybe, but not for long.’
‘Same here, and you know why?’
‘Because we’re soldiers, Farood.’
‘Because you were not alone. We had each other’s backs. This girl, they’ve got her, they’re using her, and she’s all alone out there.’
Misha dropped his head into his hands. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘you’re planning to help her escape? And all because you feel bad about your brother?’
‘No, because they’ll kill her in the end. Come on, Mish, it’ll be easy.’
Misha nudged a pawn and opened up a space for Farood’s knight. ‘It’s not why we’re here, bro. We’re here to make money. Unless we’re being paid to move people, we don’t. Nobody looked after us on the road. Not for free.’
Farood leapfrogged his knight onto a square facing Misha’s castle. ‘Can I borrow your gun?’
‘I don’t have it, the captain has it,’ replied Misha.
‘It’s under your mattress,’ said Farood quietly.
Misha picked up his castle and stamped it back down on the same square. ‘You know what, Farood, I reckoned I owed you after Berzan, so I got you on this boat, but I’m not going with you on this one.’
‘No?’
‘No. You’re on your own,’ reiterated Misha. He went on, ‘The captain will kick my arse off the boat if he finds out you held up a brothel. And if I lose this job, what do I have?’ Misha fetched the pistol from under his mattress. He released the clip. ‘There’s three men in the clip, the captain will know that. If you have to shoot anyone out there, best kill them. They’ll cut your fucking head off on TV if you’re caught. This is the safety catch, on and off. That’s all you need to know.’
A few hours later, Farood crept off the boat, hurrying into the chill of the dawn. Reaching the road, he looked both ways. There was no one in sight, no checkpoint, only sea birds wheeling in the assembling light. To his left in the distance, a funnel of smoke spiralled into the heavens. He turned right and walked west up the strand. On the beach beneath was a body; blood soaked into the sand under the head. Whatever the man had done, he figured he was guilty of the same. A fighter jet appeared in his eyeline, a ubiquitous rumble left in its wake. He turned left down the street where Salma was being kept. So narrow the street, so high the buildings, dawn was struggling to squeeze itself in. He buzzed the door, but there was no answer. He buzzed again, long and angrily.
The woman in charge appeared at the top window, her eyes opening and closing. ‘It’s early, what do you want?’
‘Salma.’
‘You need to come back.’ Her head pulled away and the window began to come down.
‘I’ll pay double,’ shouted up Farood.
The door buzzed; she was waiting at the top of the stairs like before, but this time she was older. She placed her bulk in front of the entrance door. ‘Money first.’
He handed over the money willingly, believing his exit with Salma would now be easier.
She counted it and made way for him. ‘Don’t you sleep?’ she sighed.
‘Things on my mind.’
He watched her return to her room before entering Salma’s. He woke Salma softly. ‘Salma, it’s Farood. Get up, get yourself ready, we’re leaving.’
She looked up as if he were part of a dream.
He needed her collusion and whispered into her ear, ‘Quickly. She won’t be expec
ting it so soon.’
‘Can I wash?’
‘No time.’
She dressed behind him, facing the wall.
‘Get a scarf for your head. Have you got a passport?’
‘No, she took it, the manager.’
‘The woman?’
He opened the door and checked the corridor. He led Salma out the front door onto the landing, a forefinger across his lips. Then, half silently, ‘There’s a side street opposite. Hide down there. I’ll be right there.’
He wondered about the man in the black leather jacket. It didn’t look like he lived there, but he might be in the manager’s room. If he was, he would kill him first. One bullet to the head. She would hand over the passport without hesitation. He clicked the safety catch off and on and tucked the gun down the back of his trousers. He rushed her door, went in and closed it behind him.
She was alone, awake and smoking. ‘Everything alright, Farood?’
‘I want Salma’s passport.’
She was on her feet directly but took a moment to reply guardedly. ‘I don’t have it – I have to hand them over.’
Farood snatched out his gun, shoved her down on the bed, pressed a pillow over her face, speaking calmly down into it. ‘A bullet would be quicker, but it will wake the neighbours, so it’s going to have to be like this.’
Her arms waved about wildly, her legs kicked and there was a baritone humming from behind the pillow. When her back arched he lifted the pillow. Her eyes were bulbous; she grabbed at his shirt as if he were oxygen itself.
He suspended the pillow above her. ‘Passport,’ he commanded.
She breathed in heavily. ‘Take me with you, I come as well. Please.’
‘Only if you give me her passport.’
She waved a finger in the air; he looked over his shoulder to the wall behind, at a chest of drawers. He dragged her off the bed and from her knees she placed a palm on the middle drawer. He pocketed Salma’s passport and took a moment to collect himself before his exit. The woman at his feet was not about to shout the house down. As he stepped over her, she tugged at his ankle; he shook her away and the door swung open and there he was – the man with the black leather jacket stood before him in white underwear. Farood raised his gun. The man stood his ground, just shifting his weight a little. There was a smell off him, vinegary and pungent. He said something in Arabic, a sentence that included a curse. It sounded like an invitation. The man watched Farood take the safety catch off with his thumb; his eyes expanded in disbelief. Farood waited for the man to move out of the way, for a reason not to shoot, but nothing changed, so he shot the man in the chest before pushing his stumbling body down onto its back.
Baghlan Boy Page 30
