Red Birds

by Mohammed Hanif

  Colonel Slatter had continued as the rookies in our workshop covered their mouths and giggled. ‘Because if you are lucky, sure there is a pond full of warm piss and some shrub too. Well as far as you and your starving ass is concerned it is paradise on earth, a little gated community with canals full of milk and honey, a valley of sex-starved girls and eternal erections.

  ‘And your mother’s name is sweet Mary and your father is Joseph who never ever touched her.

  ‘What you’ll find is a goatherd. If you’re lucky you find a camel-herd, because they tend to be a bit aloof, like their herd they are well fed and patient – maybe occasionally vicious but patient – also, whatever their reputation, screwing camels is a major inconvenience. Also camels have long memories. No camel-herder messes with their camel. It says so in their book. Their ancient poetry is full of how you shall not mess with your camel. And definitely not with someone else’s camel.

  ‘So with your luck, you’ll meet a goatherd with a flute, playing some stupid sad-ass melody that’ll make you homesick. And he’ll welcome you because he is bored of the fucking goats and bored of the constant whine of his own flute. He is an artist without an audience and hates himself for playing that flute. In the end he’ll butcher you like he butchers one of his goats every few weeks, but before that he’ll bugger you. And although the first thing you are thinking is that our great nation’s honour is getting soiled at the hands of some sad-ass, flute-playing goatherd, it will be more personal. It will hurt. He’ll not give you any water after that first cup he gave you. He’ll just encourage you to bend down and slurp it from the pond, to be one with the blasted nature. And he does it not because he is a nature lover, no he hates nature, he wants to escape nature and live in that porn movie that he once saw, with the foam mattress and two Russian women; no, he has asked you to slurp the water from the pond so that he can check out the thing that he has been waiting to bugger, that pale, grateful butt of yours.

  ‘You’ll be wondering, where did those dancing girls disappear to? Maybe they’re preparing a feast for you or maybe their culture doesn’t allow them to prance semi-naked in front of a starving white zoomie. And the shepherd will start playing his flute again to get himself in the mood while you’ll be slurping that piss-coloured water, and you’ll think you are somewhere safe. You are finally about to taste the legendary hospitality of the desert folks. You know what this hospitality business is, right?

  ‘You are about to find out.

  ‘There’s a ninety-nine per cent chance he’ll slaughter you. The remaining one per cent chance is that he’ll want to invite his friends over, have a little party and the last one to bugger you gets to decide if they should slaughter you now or gift you to some other fellow goatherds.’

  Colonel Slatter would announce a coffee break at this point, so that we could contemplate these images for another fifteen minutes over decaf and cookies.

  This was the core module of Cultural Sensitivity.

  I look through my binoculars once again. The sand is still floating around my knees; no storm, but at the edge of my sight sand is swirling. I can’t see any red smudges anymore, I can only see a whirl of sand moving slowly, determinedly towards me, as if a bit of desert is looking for an oasis and has found it in me. From this swirl emerges Cath, in a white shimmering kaftan, her arms open and inviting. She has finally come to take me away. I try to run towards her and then she isn’t there anymore. Things appear and disappear. Like Cath was once here, on the sofa, in the bed, on the phone, across the restaurant table, choosing baby names, looking at adverts for properties near good schools; then in the ambulance, in the hospital and gone but still here, everywhere. The most common myth amongst unhappily married people is that one day their spouse will die a not-very-horrible death and they will come back to an empty home from the funeral with a grieving heart, aching to start a new life. But when they do come home they usually find their partner sitting on the sofa, asking them where they’ve been.

  You believe in this mirage, you believe in anything.

  CHAPTER 5

  Momo

  I’ve been dreaming of a man falling from the sky. He’s not falling as a man thrown from the sky would fall, like a stone hurled by a furious god. He is floating down, like a flower petal plucked and dropped by a god in a good mood. As he approaches the earth, his eyes widen; he’s falling to an earth that he recognizes from a bad dream. I have got my hands up in the air to catch him, or at least to steady his fall. His weightless body floats into my hands, the earth beneath my bed shudders and I wake up.

  Mutt is trying to drag me out of the bed even though it’s still dark, his wet nose in my ear, his paws tugging at my chest. It’s days before he takes a hit during our training and disappears into the desert.

  I give him a sleepy hug and wonder if that’s what’s gonna happen to me now? Am I gonna go back to God? When I was twelve and a half I turned into a proper God’s man. I had my hand on his pulse (or whatever God has in place of a pulse). I could pray with such intensity that I’d get proper fever. I would borrow Mother Dear’s rosary and speed-read all His names: the creator, the destroyer, the forgiver. . . Mother Dear would look at me with pride and give me an extra biscuit with my glass of milk as Bro Ali looked at me with disdain. ‘Look at you using God’s name to get an extra biscuit.’ But I was beyond his taunts. I would go to sleep shivering with His fear and wake up in His warm embrace and, despite my morning erection, feel His holy presence. Now I know that everyone goes through that phase in their early teens. The pleasures of the spirit visit us before the pleasures of the body. The awakening of the soul occurs just before we can learn the ecstasies of rubbing our own flesh.

  Am I gonna become a relapsed teenage fanatic? I don’t think so. Because He ruled himself out of the game one day. That day.

  Let’s say God was kind to me and I was His humble servant, but then Bro Ali didn’t come back from the Hangar. I prayed with extra care, appealed to His sense of fairness – O solver of all problems, O revealer of all those who are missing, O the most merciful, please, please, please – and then I said what the hell. No Bro Ali, no God. Simple as that. No deal. There are others who’re still at it, reciting His names and hoping that He’s gonna bring back their sons and fix the electricity. I hope one day they’re gonna meet Him up there in the sky, then they can ask Him if He had a plan or was just having some fun with his favourite people, the people of the desert.

  Bro Ali was prepared to go. I have to admit that he was a bit bored with life around here. He didn’t see any potential in this place. He had no business acumen. When I started my Sands Global project he went all patriotic on me. ‘This sand is the earth you walk on, it’s like selling your mother,’ he would taunt me. And I would say what about all those countries that sell oil? ‘Are they selling their mother’s milk?’ I would ask him why was he going around giving them targets. ‘Did you ask them to bomb our house so that you could prove your loyalty and get a job with them? Is that your idea of being patriotic?’ And he would pull that you are too young to understand face and walk away. Some people are born to be slaves. He had to become a corporate slave. And slaves, by the very nature of their profession, are not supposed to be very good at bargaining.

  What do you want to do in life? I asked him.

  I want to see the world.

  What does he wanna see the world for? It’s the same everywhere. Mothers, fathers, junk shops, schools, Hangars. You know what I wanna do with the world? I wanna own it. Or at least I wanna own some nice chunk of it.

  I was in class and after I had drawn a pitcher and written an essay on the topic ‘The Happiest Day of My Life’ I raised my hand and asked the teacher: ‘How do you build a supply chain?’ I read in Fortune 500 Annual that what makes a business great is not production, not distribution, not HR, but a great supply chain. Teacher was surprised.

  ‘If I need to own a yacht, I need to have my own business and a business gonna need a solid supply chain. Can you tea
ch me how to build it?’

  Science teacher, of course, had never had any ambition. ‘What do you need a yacht for? Have you even seen an ocean?’ He is not even gonna become a Newton because he thinks there are no apple trees around here. I have seen the ocean in Jaws 2 but there was no point telling him that. Later I asked Bro Ali the same question and he was no help either. He thinks I lack morals.

  ‘Why don’t you say you are going to grow up and become a thief, like the rest of them,’ he said.

  It seems he disappeared in the middle of our argument.

  Here, Mother Dear is gonna correct me and say your father sold him like sheep. Let me correct her. Father Dear has never sold sheep. Father Dear has never sold anything. Father Dear has no entrepreneurial skills. Father Dear is a mere accountant and not a very good one at that. He also thinks he is a social worker, a sex-education professional. He thinks he is the best. Nobody laughs at his jokes.

  I am still trying to calm Mutt down, still trying to remember the features of the man descending from the sky, his fear still infecting me. What am I gonna be afraid of? A man falling from the sky? The sky itself could fall and I’m gonna stay right here; I would figure out a way to turn it into part of my business portfolio.

  In the morning Father Dear brings home Lady Flowerbody.

  Let me clarify that I have no interest in insulting nicely dressed working ladies who I assume also must smell nice and do nice things and have nice manners. It’s Mother Dear who calls her Flowerbody, her way of saying that the early-morning visitor is no more than a common slut. And her proof is that Father Dear presents her as a co-worker of sorts. That’s the kind of father Father Dear is, he has no work but he claims to have co-workers. Nobody ever answers his petitions but he carries his files around as if they contain all the answers to all the mysteries of our universe.

  Mother insists on calling her this Flowerbody even after she is introduced as the new Coordinating Officer for the Families Rehabilitation Programme. I hate to insult a woman based on her character, let alone her looks, after all they are born with their faces and bodies and everybody needs a job, but Mother Dear is certain that we have a dubious character in the house. Look at that hair, look at that make-up, what is she doing here anyway? Mother Dear’s fingers are frozen around her rosary. ‘Shouldn’t she be taking care of her own family rather than trying to wreck other people’s families?’ she says.

  We’ve had researchers before. They were these nice-smelling do-gooders who would give us powdered milk and ask about our feelings then note them down in lovely, leather-bound notebooks.

  ‘She is the new Coordination Officer for. . . ’ Father Dear clears his throat. He has spent a lifetime clearing that throat only to realize that he has nothing to say.

  He also coughs gently, as if coughing gently makes him the voice of reason. They disappear into the kitchen. Yes, that same kitchen where Mother had a last chat with Bro Ali and shoved me out. She never told me what they talked about. I am not gonna ask because that’ll bring more tears and she’ll start spitting God’s names at me. Mutt sneaked in and, although you can rely on him to find long-lost items, he doesn’t know much about how family works. He came out howling. I am the only family he has ever had, and I am the only family he is ever gonna have.

  There is a whispered argument in the kitchen, escalating into a whispered fight that nobody is supposed to hear but everyone does. Mother Dear’s trademark whack to Father Dear’s shoulder followed by his threats of divorce and murder. It’s all audible from where Lady Flowerbody is sitting outside in the courtyard on a plastic chair, eyeing up dried-up plants in clay pots, admiring the green glass shards covering our boundary wall. It’s obvious that she can hear it but she is looking into the distance as if she has nothing to do with this raging domestic squabble. I try to distract her by introducing her to Mutt who seems to be saying yes, alright, your mother might be pre-judging her character but this woman is trouble.

  It’s quite obvious that part of her training is to ignore conversations about her role in this world. I myself appreciate good training; if my schedule was not so packed I would start training Mutt all over again. Nothing can replace good, old-fashioned training. But it’s useless here; Mutt’s brains are fried. This whole nation’s brains are fried. You live in this compound, your brains are fried. We can train them all their life and then when it comes time to put it into practice they gonna forget their training and go back to God. When it’s time to run to the trenches or evacuate in case of a fire or even form a simple queue to get their rations, half of them start shouting God is great, the other half starts cursing each other’s ancestors. Their sons keep going away and they keep waiting for them hoping they will return one day bearing goody bags from a better world.

  ‘Who is that woman?’ Mother Dear has dragged Father Dear out and is interrogating him in front of Lady Flowerbody. ‘And what in God’s name is she doing in my house?’

  Father Dear is unfazed, as if giving a job interview on her behalf. ‘She is a USAID consultant. She works with the families affected by raids and is conducting a survey on post-conflict conflict resolution strategies that involve local histories and folklore.’ Father Dear is cradling his stack of files that contain all the petitions he has ever sent.

  ‘Why is she calling us names, why is she saying families affected by this and that? Why doesn’t she say his name? How has she come here? Can she walk in the desert with those shoes?’

  I was beginning to appreciate her taste in shoes. Those could double as weapons in hand-to-hand combat situations. I was thinking her blue-tinged, shoulder-length hair and the pulsating mole on her upper lip were a welcome change in our drab household. Three parallel wrinkles on her forehead speak of an intelligent mind. The ones who came before her never smelt this nice. And they stopped coming anyway when the Hangar shut down. It was simple, they bombed us and then sent us well-educated people to look into our mental health needs. There were workshops called ‘Living With Trauma’ for parents, there was a survey about ‘Traditional Cures in a Time of Distress and Disorder’. Our Camp was the tourist destination for foreign people with good intentions. I tried some of my business ideas on them. They were hopeless.

  ‘I am here to work with teenagers,’ she says, trying to spare Father Dear some embarrassment. The mole on her lip turns into a red dot.

  ‘He is not a teenager, he might act like one but he is no teenager. He is a good-for-nothing old man. That black hair is dyed.’ Mother Dear is not done with Father Dear yet.

  Lady Flowerbody smiles an understanding smile, as if she gets paid per insult.

  ‘My PhD thesis is on the Teenage Muslim Mind, their hopes, their desires; it might come out as a book called The Children of the Desert. But I am trying to extend my academic work, I want to put my ideas into practice,’ she says. ‘I intend to use this community as a laboratory for testing my hypothesis about how our collective memories are actually our cultural capital. . . ’

  You need to be careful about what you read. Bro Ali read many books and it made his mind a place of trouble. If this lady writes a book about my mind who is gonna read it? Not me. Whenever I have the urge to read I go back to my copy of Fortune 500 or turn on the TV and hope there’s a signal and Secret Millionaires is on. . .

  And now I am thinking is there money in this? Is this lady gonna provide another revenue stream? Can I get her to be part of my very own rehabilitation plan?

  Mutt gives her a sniff and comes back shaking his head. He has marked her as a spy. As far as Mutt is concerned anybody who doesn’t kiss his wet snout is a spy. But if she is a spy, then better to have her under one’s own roof, get her to see what you want her to see. I am never gonna be a spy myself but I know how it works. It’s spirituality for people who are otherwise completely, hopelessly practical.

  Tea is served. More tears are shed. Many more of God’s names are uttered. The argument has moved on. It’s about sleeping arrangements.

  ‘Can you have
a single, unattached woman sleeping under your roof when we have a young man in the house?’ Mother Dear is talking about me. Mother Dear is talking about our house, the house I built. Bro Ali was the lead builder but my input was more than substantial. We built it with the rubble from our old house and a little help from USAID. It may not seem much to Lady Flowerbody but it’s a palace as compared to the other houses in the Camp. It’s a combination of standard-issue prefab and what survived of the old house. When they gave us the same blue plastic corrugated sheets for the roof I protested – can’t we have another colour at least – but the prefabs came in the same blue for everyone. Bro Ali felt responsible so he worked extra hard. Bro Ali rescued the tiles from our bathroom, the solid wooden doors were pulled from their hinges and sawed off and recycled as windows. The kitchen is a chrome cooking hob, a gas cylinder and an open-fronted cupboard for Mother Dear’s brass crockery from her dowry. The master bedroom has a carpet and a real spring mattress. In the corner of the living room there’s a TV that Mother Dear covers with a bed sheet as if it was a chick who needed to do purdah because of young men in the house. The courtyard is massive and Father Dear had the bright idea of lining the boundary wall with shards of broken glass, remnants of a container of empty J&B whisky bottles from the Hangar. Two cabins are installed at the other end of the courtyard for guests. A rainbow of nylon washing lines stretches across the courtyard. One day there will be drawing and dining rooms, a gaming room, a boardroom for business meetings, a four-car garage for my personal fleet of vehicles – but right now it is what it is. And it’s not a dump. It’s gonna change soon, but as Mother Dear reminds us, I am still a young man.