Red Birds

by Mohammed Hanif

  They are hanging out in the Hangar as if they were invited for a Sunday barbeque. Slogans like NO FEAR are scrawled in electric bolts all over the walls. It doesn’t seem like they intend to put up a fight. They are not afraid of dying. They are not looking for cover. They are not interested in giving each other cover. They seek death. They are already dead but they want to be released. They want to be obliterated. I am gonna give them their heart’s desire. For now they are acting as if they are in a circus and are perched over tanks, hanging from the barrel of a rusting artillery piece, one of them brandishing not one but two M16s and a much later model than the one I have. Some of them are huddled around a buffet table contemplating their food. Ellie’s there, all back-slaps and high fives: ‘You are welcome but who allowed these other people in? It’s authorized personnel only.’

  Ellie is the authorized personnel. I am gonna show them who is the authority around here.

  When you are fighting ghosts, wouldn’t it help to have one on your side? But this is not how life works. You protect an asset, you cultivate an ally and when the time comes to put them to use they cross over to the other side. How do I know if my own Bro Ali is with me or with them? We have heard about birds who refuse to fly away even when the cage door is left open.

  No ghost is gonna care about their blood relations.

  It doesn’t bother me that the deserter has turned out to be a ghost. What really matters is that he is not on my side. I’m not gonna lie to you, this is a setback.

  My land, my people and now they are telling me I am not an authorized personnel on my own land. I am here though, so let’s see what they are gonna do about it. I am gonna take Bro Ali home but before that they are all gonna fry.

  CHAPTER 39

  Ellie

  Colonel Slatter has thrown himself a farewell party. We must look like an all-you-can-eat buffet to them. I can see them now. Friends turned enemies. Comrades-in-arms who want to turn their guns on you. Ex-commanding officers wanting to show you who’s the boss. I never had much appetite for these fist fights but here nobody’s asking for my permission. We are in it so we are in it. Do or die, why ask why when the only answer you are going to get is a punch in the gut or teeth in your jugular? How do I know? We’ll have to wait and see.

  They are all waiting for some news, waiting to be told it’s over. Wait some more. See some more. Then die.

  You wouldn’t have that problem if you were already dead. Calm down, learn to talk. You can’t threaten them. You can’t motivate them. Maybe you can plead with them? Maybe they are worried about posterity. They are probably thinking we were good guys fighting good wars and now we are dead guys. There has to be something beyond this.

  Maybe I can plead with Colonel Slatter? He still looks the same, precise movements, no syntax. Sir, I am so glad we found you. We have been looking for you for five months, I want to say something reassuring, something suitably banal. I hear ghosts take language seriously. No cuss words. There was a time when if Slatter said fuck your fucking mother, your mother stayed fucked. But Slatter has cleaned up his act. He hasn’t grown wings but Slatter is polite as an angel. Angels are polite because they have nothing to lose.

  ‘Ellie,’ he shouts. He looks more normal than I had ever seen him when he was alive, his head shiny and freshly shaved. Maybe people become themselves after they die. Maybe that’s what we mean when we tell people to ‘be yourself’. ‘Ellie boy, did you think war was a picnic?’ Then he tears off a pancake and starts to chew slowly. ‘But this is.’ He grunts. I move towards him. To shake hands. They used to say drink like Slatter and one day you may fly like Slatter. Nobody said anything about living like Slatter or dying like Slatter.

  When you were in trouble nobody ever said go talk to Slatter. Now I have got no choice but to go talk to Slatter. There is the small matter of this boy that you hired, his family is here to see him, maybe you should just let him go, eh Slatter?

  He looks at me and waves a gun towards me: ‘You too, Ellie, you too.’

  CHAPTER 40

  Momo

  In the end it comes down to this: a man and his sweet 16. All ready to go. There is chaos in here, as if we have gatecrashed a bachelor party. It looks like the kind of place where runaway car thieves stop to buy Coke and burgers and then, seeing the place is run by an old woman, decide to rob it. And then get stoned at the scene of the crime.

  Something odd though, some of them are stuck to the roof, others are leaning against the walls. A bald man with a shiny head runs around the Hangar wielding a machete. He seems to be the main troublemaker, others are minding their own business. A crazy white man is better than a crazy white man who says I used to be crazy but now I am fine. I am gonna start the fight with him. I am gonna blow some neat holes through his bald head. He seems like the head of this rogue unit; I am gonna chop the head off this monster. My sweet 16 has a gun-sight with a cross hair that reduces the risk of error, but even a blind man could take out a target at this distance – specially when the target is a head so big, so shiny and so repulsive. And Ellie is with him, whispering into his ear, exchanging high fives, seems like a proper reunion, good old-fashioned white-on-white action.

  We are here for a purpose. The enemy is pretending as if we are not here to collect our debts, as if we are here for leftover rations.

  I believe in battle as a soccer game. It’s not always the sharpest shooter who wins, it’s the one who sees a gap and can find the right angle. The game is won by people who know how to use their elbows.

  Their leader is in my cross hair now. If only Mother Dear would move out of the way. She is blocking my sight and all I can see is a swirl of red hair.

  I am not even thinking about where Father Dear is. He is probably lurking at the back. That’ll be his real legacy. Lurker at the back. Waiting for the battle to be decided before choosing a side. This time he might be too late.

  CHAPTER 41

  Mother Dear

  I know my Ali is here. I can smell him. He still smells of my milk. And my son is not a ghost. I am looking at these ghosts and my heart melts, because they all look like lost sons. They are probably homesick too; knowing that you are never going to go back doesn’t really help you get over your homesickness. My Ali could cure homesickness, a disease worse than love. They are still reluctant to meet their maker. Life barely began, how can life be over so soon in a place so far away? But they can’t go home, even when their mother has left the door open for them. No son, you are dead. You are in her dream. They look like the kind of people who are not sure they are done with this world yet. But the world is done with them. There is no point in lingering.

  I think I can cure them of their homesickness. I have got a dagger carved out of a pink slab of salt. The blood doesn’t stick to it.

  I think they are hiding him. I think they need our help. I think we can get out of here with my boy without shedding some poor mother’s son’s blood. I wonder if these ghosts have blood. I realize that Momo is raring for a fight, I fear he’s going to mess it up. We are not here for revenge. We are not here to save our national honour, we are not here to save our national anything. They are soldiers. OK, they are ghosts but they are still wearing their tattered uniforms and medals, their families are still getting pensions. I’ll hold on to my dagger but I’ll talk first. There can be no victory if I don’t take my firstborn home. My son’s safety is my victory. That’s my entire war plan. That’s my ideology. That’s my tactics. That’s my strategy.

  You have to cover all bases so I have brought my rosary with me. My left hand praising God, my right wielding a dagger, just in case.

  I decide to stand between Momo and them. This is the only way to ensure order and avoid unwanted casualties. No, I am not saying shoot me first, I am not saying kill me before you harm my son. God knows there are enough of these man-martyrs, always ready to embrace death with open arms. I am bringing some home economics and common truths to this arena.

  They seem to have a lot of foo
d here. I hope they have been feeding my boy properly.

  CHAPTER 42

  Mutt

  People looking for human qualities in me and my clan are actually giving themselves a backhanded compliment. Look at this mongrel, so intelligent, so compassionate, so human; can jump through fire hoops, can do basic arithmetic, can give you a fairly objective overview of history and can smell the whiff of garlic on a bone from a mile away even when half asleep. What a marvellous creature. A bit like us really.

  They don’t realize anthropomorphism can work the other way round too. You want to see the qualities of a Mutt in a man? The urge to sniff other people’s privates, to pick food from other people’s plates, never to think of the universe or how it came into existence and where it’s headed, or ask where all the rivers of one’s childhood went, but always wondering what’s for lunch and can I take this ball and run to the end of the earth. Mutt will stare deep into your soul and smell all the base canine urges.

  Momo is sad and scared, and when a man is sad and scared he first takes it out on his own mother, and Momo is irritated with his Mother Dear.

  Momo is irritated by her rosary. He thinks it’s a godless world and sometimes he gets into debates about God this and God that. I disapprove of these debates about God; Momo says silly things like God is dead, and who gave birth to God in the first place? And if God is everywhere then why isn’t he here? What does he eat? What does he drink? What kind of car does he drive? Is he allowed to go anywhere? Does he also live in a camp that he is allowed to leave but he doesn’t because he knows this is home? Is he needed anywhere else in the world? Is he too busy starving his own children on the other side of the planet?

  I try to tell him there’s no point in trying to speculate about the moods of your maker. There’s no way of telling if we are a manifestation of His despair or if we are His joyous dance or His impossible itch? Little does Momo know that there is no point looking for God in a loaded gun or on the tip of Mother Dear’s dagger. No point looking for God in her red flaming hair. God is not done with us yet, and He created this world but He didn’t promise us discounts on tinned beef and fresh vegetables – or the safety of our siblings – and there is no point in looking for Him in your foreskin or the design of the womb, or in the tiny arms of a baby when he hangs around your neck.

  Look around. He is here. Don’t look too hard. He is busy elsewhere.

  CHAPTER 43

  Momo

  These people are not paying us any attention. They are whirling around the Hangar like bad ideas in my head. We need clarity. We need to cover our flanks, I need to marshal my troops. And now Mother Dear steps forward.

  Mother Dear is here with her red hair and her pink stone dagger in one hand and now she has raised her other hand and what has she got? The blasted rosary.

  ‘Not the rosary, Mother Dear, not the rosary please,’ I say. ‘I am sure your rosary has its uses but this is not the place. Do you remember when I was young I used to work that rosary like a crazed-out rosary monster? Look where it has got us.’

  We are not gonna sort this mess out with a million-beaded rosary. But she insists on carrying her old-fashioned one with ninety-nine beads, one bead for God’s every name. Cheap, plastic beads on a nylon string are not going to win us any victories. What does she recite on it? God this and God that, God up and God down, God above our heads and God under our beds, God in lovers’ hearts and God in our enemy’s plans, God living and God dying, God writing cooking recipes and God going on a fast, the provider and the taker, God writing travel books and God breeding the fastest horses, God the creator of Mutt and God the creator of his smelly breath, God on long interglacial journeys and God staying home at the speed of light, the most merciful, the most ruthless executioner, God who is gonna free us all, and God with his biggest furnace, the manufacturer of heaviest chains, and God the enabler and the inventor of polio, God who breathes fire and converts our hearts into arctic wastelands, the rosary keeps moving, moving, moving, oh God, the giver of multiple orgasms, and God prolonger of agonies of death, God the provider of reason and the master of sorcery, God the timekeeper, capable of infinities.

  She keeps dropping the beads, there are only ninety-nine beads, but she keeps going as if it is her only response to the monster aimed at us, the gun that is gonna fire 330 bullets per minute and bring to an end her silent cries of oh-god, oh-god, oh-god, help us, help us.

  CHAPTER 44

  Mother Dear

  Why does Momo think he has to do everything? That he knows everything. Look at what he has brought with him. One look at them and my heart sinks. Can they get my boy back? Between them, they probably can’t even make a meal for themselves but they think they can get in a jeep with their guns and their petitions, enter the Hangar and bring my boy back.

  Look at the people Momo has got together.

  A petty bureaucrat who sold his own son in the hope of job stability. A white soldier who doesn’t even know what he is doing here. Momo himself, a teenager who still wets his bed. And that horny little Mutt who humps anything he can hump. He wants to be my son too. Would you like to be rescued by a team as illustrious as this? They need a leader of course. They need a firm hand. They need someone with a cool head.

  Do you know how to keep your head cool?

  Henna. Put some henna on your head. It will make you a redhead for a few days. I have never understood why anyone would want to be a redhead. I can give up on the looks but I can’t give up on my son. So henna in my hair to keep a cool head and a rosary in my hand to keep my heartbeat steady. And with all of God’s names on my lips.

  CHAPTER 45

  Ellie

  You can’t blame all of Central Command’s follies on one man. But you can see all those follies in one man. Say hi to Colonel Slatter, the man who missed the miracle.

  Zero-zero ejection seats are the miracle cure in long- distance wars. Here’s the guarantee: activate your Martin-Baker zero-zero ejection seat and you’ll be fine. Some people do have second thoughts, especially if they are forced to eject over an area where they have just deposited a few tons of the world’s finest explosives. But when you got to, you got to. Whatever your misfortune here’s the thing: all you get is – and only if you’re an unlucky bastard or have bad posture, or just a well-hidden panicky personality – a sprained ankle or a hurt back. But mind your posture and you are as safe as a camel’s cunt. Would you rather save your ankles, your back? Do you love your machine so much that you’ll sacrifice your life for it? There really wouldn’t be any point in that. They wouldn’t even be able to show your proud, patriotic face to your beloved family because they know your beloved family wouldn’t want to see your face with your eyes melted out of their sockets. These five-hundred-pound bombs don’t just go away quietly. They are designed to cause a little inferno. Your fireproof jacket and that twenty-thousand-dollar helmet won’t stop you from turning into a lump of twisted coal. Not the kind of coal that lights up your campfires. It would turn you into a piece of coal without any of the positive attributes of coal.

  But all that can be avoided if you deploy your Martin-Baker in time. This little beauty will scoop you up like a mother scoops up a baby in his sky-blue sleeping suit. You could be in your sandals and pyjamas and it will still fire you up and bring you down gently. Better to have your boots on because you don’t want to break your ankle. If your choice is between getting killed or getting a hairline ankle fracture, you wouldn’t think twice. You don’t need to go on a survival course to figure out that a cast around your broken ankle is slightly better than your ass in a sealed coffin.

  You’d be right to ask how someone like Colonel Slatter, who flew as if there was no gravity and always came home wanting to take off again immediately, made such a basic mistake. Slatter, who dispatched people to the farthest corners of the earth, lost his own way in his own cockpit. Nature, he used to say, and guts, not these blinking screens. The horizon, he would say, out there, not on your laser gyros. Turn, p
ull, bang – here he would cup his balls – not on the bloody bang-o-meter; here, feel my bang-o-meter. How can I believe in Oneness when I have a pair?

  And during his self-chosen mission to take out the remotest, the last remaining scum on the earth, this sad-ass bunch, he went on a night mission and he pulled and pulled as if trying to pierce through the mother-ship clouds that had darkened the sky over the desert and then he realized that he was actually pulling towards the desert and not towards the sky. Inverted flight can cause that kind of confusion but what kind of zoomie can’t tell between the earth and the sky? Say hullo to Colonel Slatter. He was not an idiot, he tried to eject and it wouldn’t eject because the zero-zero ejection seat wants you to be cruising straight, it wants to take you up before it can bring you down, but if you are headed into the ground it tells you to straighten up fast so that it can save your ass.

  When they found Colonel Slatter, he was strapped to his ejection seat, burnt to cinders. Mission Barbeque Tonight, is how that night is remembered now.

  And here he is now, jolly as fuck, only grumbling about the intruders, telling me to join the party.

  CHAPTER 46

  Lady Flowerbody

  There is one woman on their side in the Hangar and it has to be her, right? I knew Cath wasn’t a cover story, not a shimmer in the desert of his mind. Not an imaginary wife as Momo kept insisting. But someone more substantial, someone who lived and died. Someone mildly famous. I can tell they have slept together. They probably tried to make babies together and then gave up. Sure they had their issues, but why bring her here? He showed me a paper clipping, an old picture of a sickly young girl, more famous in death than in life. Now she has followed him all the way here.