Red Birds

by Mohammed Hanif

  You get the feeling they have this exchange every evening. It’s their version of ‘Honey, I’m home’.

  At least they’re too busy fighting with each other to do anything about me. Momo is probably the designated assassin in the family but even he’s fussing over his dog. He’s laid out a small sleeping bag with US ARMY SURPLUS NOT FOR SALE inscribed on it and put the mutt on it.

  ‘Doctor should be here any time now,’ Momo reassures the mutt, picks up a football and goes out of the house.

  ‘I think you must have guessed by now, the kid is a bit spoilt,’ Father Dear whispers. ‘We should never have taught him to drive that UN jeep. Now just because he can drive he thinks he is the commander of this Camp.’ This man is quite a good storekeeper of his own regrets.

  ‘Teenagers are the same everywhere,’ I say, finally relieved that we are talking man to man. I wonder where the real commander of this Camp is. I should be sitting with him and not with this nice but lowly incompetent junior official who can’t keep his son grounded or make his wife keep her mouth shut.

  ‘If you are a father and if you are a fugee, what can you do?’ Father Dear looks at me, waiting for a response.

  ‘Nothing, I guess.’

  ‘Right you are. We are fugees and we can’t do a thing about it. We have been fugees for such a long time that it’s difficult to tell today’s kids that we were not always fugees. We were like normal people. We were nomads. We had goats and buffaloes and we followed the rains and stored our own grain in our own stores. We were becoming better, we built houses with flushing toilets, we bought tea sets and sofa sets and we bought electric fans because electricity was about to arrive, and it did come for a few seconds, and we all remember those few moments and are waiting for it to return. Now it’s all gone – the house, the job. I think I still have my job but they have shut down my workplace without any warning – they were supposed to give six weeks’ notice. It’s not like them to ignore the SOPs. Thank God, we still have some goats and camels, but even they behave like fugees. They eat USAID grains, get USAID injections. These children think there was nothing before it and there will be nothing beyond this Camp. Well they know there is the desert but that’s also like nothing. I mean when it rains, it livens up a bit, but it’s not really Disneyland, is it?’

  So here it is. Foreign. Fucking. Culture. All that Cultural Sensitivity racket. Parents moaning about their kids. Wives grumbling about their husbands. Why does anyone ever leave home?

  But don’t get too comfortable here. Go home.

  ‘So have you been able to communicate with USAID? Any air drops? Surely they pick up their mail?’ I’m charting my escape in my head. I don’t want to ask directly about any existing connections to the outside world.

  ‘No, but I have everything here on the files. There have been no air drops for seven months. Bombs stopped falling, auditors stopped coming.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. There must be other fugee camps. Probably worse off than we are. Actually, if you look at it we are doing OK. They must be very busy people. Probably busy in other parts of the world.’ He bends towards me and lowers his voice. ‘But there are some urgent matters, maybe you can suggest a way. . . ’

  Before I can answer him, Momo returns sans his football and starts giving Mutt a medical examination. The devious mongrel is whimpering, enjoying it.

  I stay quiet and imagine a world that is so busy that it has forgotten me. No rescue parties, no airborne radar-carriers cruising the area, no woman hugging my picture on Fox & Friends, no flowers and candlelight, no vigils, no signs along the highways saying BRING HOME OUR BOY.

  ‘You don’t look well,’ says Father Dear, pretending he wasn’t about to start a conversation on an urgent matter.

  Thanks for noticing, I’m about to faint with hunger.

  Even if they are planning to slaughter me, I’d expect some food first. Is that too much to ask?

  ‘I haven’t eaten in so many days.’ I try to keep my voice calm. Not complaining. It wasn’t his fault I had not eaten in so many days. But he could do something about it now. And what is he doing? Sitting here, complaining about missing auditors and wayward teenagers.

  ‘As you can probably tell, dinner is being cooked. There won’t be any salt though,’ he says apologetically.

  I nod as if I understand the problem. I’ll be happy to live on a salt-free diet for the rest of my life.

  Fuck salt, fuck this politeness. Can’t they just give me a piece of bread to begin with? Maybe some butter. What kind of hospitality is this? I survived eight days in the desert and now I am starving at the doorstep of a kitchen.

  ‘I was lost in the desert,’ I say to no one in particular.

  ‘This happens quite often,’ says Father Dear. ‘Specially when people venture into it without enough preparation. Sometimes people get lost for weeks.’

  ‘I was lost for weeks,’ I say. ‘Well, more than a week. Slightly more than a week.’

  ‘Desert forgave you then, sometimes desert forgives and makes friends. The desert is immense but it’s also lonely. It doesn’t always kill, sometimes it just makes someone lose his way because it needs some company.’

  ‘I am not sure if I needed that kind of company,’ I say, and then remember my ‘Basic Good Manners With Tribals’ module which states that you must appreciate their local knowledge, their love for nature. ‘You seem to know the desert like the back of your hand,’ I say.

  ‘What else is there to do? There is only one TV and Momo hogs it when we can get a signal. That’s all the education he is getting. You know the interesting fact about the desert?’

  ‘Go ahead, enlighten me,’ I say, indulging my host, and then add, ‘Although I’m never going that route again.’

  ‘Women never get lost in the desert. In the history of this desert – and trust me it has a very long history – a woman has never lost her way in the desert. It ejects them, it doesn’t let them spend even one night. The desert makes sure they are out by sunset.’

  ‘Maybe women have superior navigation skills. Maybe they are not foolish enough to venture into it without first mapping their route.’

  An empty stomach can make a man argumentative and forget his ‘Good Manners With Tribals’ in which it was emphasized that you must not mention women in any context.

  Momo comes running, shouting. ‘Mutt is dying, if the doctor doesn’t come Mutt is gonna die. His blood will be on your hands.’ He points towards me. And then towards Father Dear. ‘And yours. And this will not be the first blood on your hands.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Mutt

  I don’t mind the pain but I do mind the fact that there are no painkillers. What is a better painkiller than unconditional love? You can say, what’s better than Momo’s arms around me? A bit of morphine, maybe. I know we are at war so maybe just a little aspirin. No, this is not delirium caused by exploding pain in my lower half, I have not gone sentimental after breaking a leg. No, I haven’t fallen in love with my tormentor all over again. I realize how ugly life is out there. The world is not as big as they promised it was. You can call me whatever you call me. But I am not sentimental. Things they have tried to call me: Max, Charlie, Duke, Buddy. Buddy? As if by naming me after a white man, they can raise my status – or maybe their own? Things they say about me on the street: Mutt, kutta, son of a bitch. Now I am ready to be called a lame dog for the rest of my life. I don’t care.

  They can keep saying, there goes the dog who has had a dog’s life and will die a dog’s death, oh such a miserable dog-eat-dog-eat-dog world. Trust me I don’t, I’d rather eat organic potatoes. Doggie style is not my style. This is what I do, this is all I can do. That’s who I am. They are lowlifes but I don’t bother with them because in the end they know that I am Momo’s Mutt. Look who has got his head in Momo’s lap? There is someone who cares about me. Look at the rest of them in this household. This white man doesn’t even smell of anything. What kind of life is that? Lad
y Flowerbody is a bouquet of jungle smells that waft in and out of this house but she is out in the field. She is lonely at heart. Her heart was broken once by a boiled cabbage and she believes only a boiled cabbage can mend it. I don’t blame her. Look at the role models in the older generation. Father Dear once loved Mother Dear when she wasn’t Mother Dear, but that love has gone sour now, he wants to be appreciated for things he can’t do. He wants to be worshipped for being who he is. Mother Dear could have led this pack but her heart is tangled in longing for her son, my son, my son. . .

  It’s only Momo who cares about me. And really, you are lucky if you have one person in your life who does. When in pain, ask yourself who cares about you. And if you can think of one person, that pain is worth living through.

  And that still means something in this world infested with ghosts, in this purgatory where the living wait upon the dead, where when shadows lengthen hearts sink, and when a bird takes flight a precious part of your soul flies away with it. Maybe it’s delirium. Maybe I am dying. But the place is increasingly full of things that I can’t smell. Yes, they will say that old Mutt is finally losing his marbles. But I would like to be proved wrong.

  One must suffer pain, one must feel joy, one must die, one must live. Sometimes I used to think they should just stay home and leave the outside world to me, I feel I can manage it better than them. I could take them for an occasional long walk, I wouldn’t even put them on a leash, not even a collar. I’d let them run around the place and make sure they didn’t get into fights that can be avoided with a few carefully delivered yelps. But their desires are complicated, always multiplying. They pick fights they can’t win.

  A few days after Bro Ali went into the Hangar and didn’t come back, a three-vehicle convoy crawled through the main street. Children don’t chase them anymore. Some parents stood in their way, waving, asking the soldiers in helmets to stop. Guns were waved, asking them to clear the way. Most people moved aside, still murmuring and cursing. A fourteen-year-old stood in front of the lead vehicle, his face inches away from the barrel of the gun.

  ‘We don’t want money, where is my brother? Bring him back.’ He grabbed the barrel of the gun as if about to snatch it from the American. Idiot didn’t realize that the gun was mounted, attached to the armoured vehicle with a lot of metal. Father Dear, who had watched the situation with increasing panic, shouted at the boy to let go. The boy ignored the shouting, trying to dismount the gun with the craziness of a fourteen-year-old boy.

  As you can see, this was all bound to end in tragedy. Father Dear lunged towards the boy, a stray kite shrieked above in the air, a very short rattle from the gun and the boy had two large holes in his face. He stumbled before falling, a bit surprised at this sudden turn of events.

  More crackling of the radios, and the convoy turned around and headed back to the Hangar, as if they had just realized that they didn’t need water from our pond anymore.

  There was nothing more to be done here, no alarms calling for survivors to be taken by ambulances. A father was standing over his dead boy, wailing. I went for a walk and when Mutt goes for a walk, Mutt goes for a walk. When Mutt chews a bone he is not acting out some suppressed violent fantasies. When Mutt humps he is not thinking of posterity. When a Mutt dies he stays dead.

  I think I have come back to this house because I am a bit like them. Like all those who come here, to this house, the alive and the dead and those who are not sure whether they belong in this life or the other. The man with no smell keeps saying he wants to go home. Home is in the Hangar buddy, yes Buddy, I can call you Buddy can’t I? Home should be in the Hangar. Why don’t they take him there, blow up the gates, knock down the watchtowers, dig up the runways. Give them what’s theirs, take back what’s ours. Yes, I admit this is delirium speaking, it hurts, but you don’t become a prophet just because you are suffering. There are all sorts of things they must do, go through life with an eye on sinners and salvation. I am just a Mutt, yes go ahead, say it, I’m a lame Mutt now.

  Doctor is doing what he can, but can’t he hurry up? He is one lazy messiah. I know he can’t take the pain away, but can he take the edge off it. He doesn’t want to. He believes in suffering. He is surely some sort of prophet. If you believe in suffering must you inflict pain on others? Why can’t he score some drugs from Lady Flowerbody? Sometimes she smells like a sack of raw hashish but hides it well under a perfume called Opium. It doesn’t smell anything like opium.

  I can understand why she does it. Lady Flowerbody is fine, she is a working lady. They are different. They have a different rhythm. Their day starts and their day ends and sometimes the loneliness descends but she gets up the next day and gets on with it. Sometimes she says things which are not true but she believes them. I don’t know anything about young Muslim minds but I know a thing or two about mutts. We don’t go near drugs. Some of my comrades from good families have actually become expert at catching drugs. They give them two litres of milk every day and soft duvets to sleep on. I think Lady Flowerbody wants what everyone wants, I think if this was Nat Geo she would jump on Doctor’s bike and they would speed away from this planet, a giant ball of fire. But there is something about her that tells me she’ll be updating her CV. I don’t think I’ll figure in that.

  This is how I see the world ending. Doctor will hang in here in the desert humping his Mother Earth, trying to impregnate it, but the rains won’t come. The rains won’t come, maybe more bombs will come. But, Doctor, can you hurry up and do what you are supposed to do. What are you saving those aspirins for?

  CHAPTER 15

  Ellie

  I am dying of hunger but everyone here’s busy with the mutt’s medical emergency.

  Doctor finally arrives on a very old model Triumph, a creased leather bag slung on his shoulder. Hunched over the handlebars, he comes very close to the plastic chair where I am sitting and listening to Father Dear’s family woes. Doctor has the sunken eyes of a recovering fanatic, and the drooping cheeks of a malnourished child. He stops his bike but doesn’t get off it and keeps looking at me as if he’s lost his way and wants to ask me for directions. Bent over the handlebars he seems like an old woman kneading dough. A limp Red Crescent flag adorns the motorbike’s rear. An array of blue and pink plastic shopping bags hangs in piles around his bike. It’s probably his hospital on wheels.

  ‘He thinks he is the Red Crescent rep here,’ Father Dear whispers. ‘That’s why he insists on flying the flag. Although Red Crescent has not paid him for more than a year. I am not even sure if Red Crescent is called Red Crescent anymore. Or if it’s red or gone some other colour. Thank God I work for USAID. Whatever they do I know they’ll never change their name.’

  Doctor is wearing a shabby white coat with ink stains on it and smells as if he has been sleeping in his medicine cabinet.

  Getting off the bike he demands to know, ‘Why did you send for me?’ As if he could perform functions other than those related to medicine. He avoids looking at me. I am hoping for some medical attention for my blisters, for my parched throat, a little debrief about the impending Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but most of all something for my stomach, which seems to be on fire, hunger seems to have been replaced by a blaze which is devouring my innards. But Doctor ignores me and sits down on a chair with a loud sigh.

  Momo arrives wearing a baseball cap, embossed with I HEART NY in bold letters.

  ‘Your patient is here,’ Momo says to Doctor who has an unlit cigarette between his lips and is rummaging for matches in his leather bag.

  ‘And that is the thief who tried to steal him.’ Momo points towards me. Doctor takes out a matchbox from his bag, lights his cigarette, two quick puffs, then produces a small pair of scissors from his pocket, clips the cigarette and puts it back in the pocket. ‘Defeating cancer one puff at a time,’ he says and smiles.

  ‘I told you I stopped doing animals,’ Doctor adds, mournfully. ‘I am not trained for it. I have my oath to think of. And with my current job, th
ere might be a clear conflict of interest.’

  Momo listens to him impatiently, pulling his cap over his eyes, then adjusting it back. It seems the boy has seen this act before.

  Momo takes Doctor by the hand and goes to the mutt. ‘Mutt has broken a bone, he is injured. Bone is same, man or animal. Bone breaks, you set it, what’s the difference? Is Mutt bone not a bone? Is Mutt pain not like man pain? Can’t you see he is suffering?’ Momo talks to Doctor as if explaining the perils of playing with fire to a child. ‘Do we have anyone else in the Camp we can call a doctor? Do you need orders in writing before you can save someone’s life? Is Mutt’s life not life?’

  Momo has the making of a great preacher. He can accuse and plead in the same sentence.

  Doctor looks towards me conspicuously, as if this is all my fault. Then he sighs and moves towards Mutt. He sits beside him in the dust and looks him over carefully without touching him. ‘You’ll have to hold him for me,’ he looks up at Momo who’s standing beside him, attentive; he has smoothly transformed from a bullying preacher to a doctor’s caring assistant.

  ‘Make him numb first,’ says Momo. ‘Rub some spirit on him. He doesn’t like pain.’

  ‘Who likes pain?’ Doctor says without looking up. ‘We haven’t got any anaesthetic. I filled in a request form to replenish the stocks seven months ago, it’s still pending action. This is how the world works. Remember the time when we had too much spirit and no gauze. Now we have so much gauze that we can wrap it around the earth and still have enough left over for all the injured mutts in the world.’

  ‘He is not just any Mutt,’ Momo protests. ‘He is a golden retriever, just the wrong colour. When he grows up, he’ll turn golden.’

  ‘He is grey, he will stay grey. He is called Mutt because he is one,’ Doctor mutters. I feel claustrophobic. Why are they bent over an injured dog debating his pedigree instead of providing him some pain relief?