Hidden

by Miriam Halahmy

  Once all the food’s ready, I take in sandwiches and tea to Mum and Kim and gobble mine down really quickly. Then I mutter something about checking that the gas is off. Mum is glued to the telly and Kim gives me a thumbs-up so I nip out the door. Back in the kitchen I pile the food onto a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee laced with spoonfuls of sugar, and I sneak out past the living room. I manage to get upstairs with the tray and knock on the bathroom door. There’s a pause and some whispering. Then the door opens a crack and Samir’s face appears. He looks relieved when he sees me and opens the door wide, holding out his hands for the tray.

  But I get such a shock I nearly drop it.

  Mohammed’s standing stripped to the waist, his back to me, shaving in the mirror. But my eyes are riveted to three great ragged stripes slashed deep across his back, yellow pus oozing from the ends and beneath them a big burn, blistered and going black. And I realize that’s why he can’t stand properly upright.

  A great spear of fear and pain and anger stabs into me. I must have made a sound because he stops shaving and glances over his shoulder. His good eye catches mine and then his head dips quickly away.

  My eyes fill up with hot stinging tears and I thrust the tray into Samir’s hands and rush into my bedroom, kicking shut the door. I’m scared and angry and confused all at the same time and those horrible wounds are dancing in front of my eyes.

  Why isn’t Grandpa here? I need him to explain all this to me. And where’s Dad when I need him? I pick up my cell phone and start to call the police, but I stop after the second 9. I can’t betray Mohammed, and Samir would look at me with those pleading eyes if the police turned up and I’d feel like such a louse.

  I have to make the right decision and as usual there isn’t any time.

  17. Being Invisible

  There’s a tap on the door and I look up. It’s Samir. “Can I come in?”

  I turn my face away; it’s so red and blotchy. “You okay?” His voice is very quiet.

  I don’t answer. I’m sitting on the bed and I just go on picking fluff off the duvet cover and flicking it onto the floor. Samir goes over to the window and stares out. How does he manage to stand so still? He’s like one of those ice sculptures. Even his breathing is silent, as though he practices being invisible.

  Then I say, “I didn’t realize . . .” I stop. Those wounds, they’re horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it. How could anyone do that to him? To anyone? They’re just animals, they’re sick. We can’t leave him like that any longer.

  “Look, Samir,” I say, trying to sound reasonable, but my voice is really shaky. “We must take him to the hospital, can’t you see? He needs to see a doctor very soon or he might . . .” die, I think.

  Samir goes on looking out the window and I think he hasn’t even heard me.

  Then he turns and says, “Mohammed is terrified the police will catch him and send him back to Iraq.”

  His dark eyes are very sad and serious. “He’s just so desperate and so are his parents. They used up all their savings getting him out of Iraq.” Parents? That feels reassuring.

  Samir has this way of flaring his nostrils when he talks, which makes him look sort of passionate and angry all at the same time. He comes over and sits on my bed and he’s leaning toward me as if he’s determined to make me understand. He smells slightly of tobacco and also the soap he uses and it’s a nice combination.

  “Mohammed can’t believe what’s happened to him. He keeps saying, ‘I’m just an ordinary person.’ ”

  “So how come he got into trouble? I mean, Saddam Hussein has gone and the British and American armies have been in Iraq for, well, ages now, haven’t they?” At least I think they have. To be honest, I don’t watch the news much.

  “Just because Saddam has gone doesn’t mean everything’s safe in Iraq. It’s been four years since he fell—2003. I was ten years old. We were living in England by then and we watched it all on the news. But nothing has gone right in Iraq since. The West got it all wrong after they got rid of him. They sent the Iraqi army home and they thought they could control the country themselves. But instead, militias took over, terrorist groups, kidnapping people and killing them. And they all want different things. So it was like another war on the streets. You must have heard about the bombs? Suicide bombs, roadside bombs, car bombs?”

  I nod but I still don’t get it. Samir’s face darkens as he sees me look a bit less alert, so I crease my face into an intelligent frown and try to look as if I’m thinking.

  “Auntie Selma wants to go home. But Uncle Sayeed writes all the time and tells us to stay in England, finish our education before we think of returning. He tells Auntie Selma to look after me and Naazim; they don’t have any children of their own. Last week Uncle Sayeed went out for bread, and a bomb went off on the next street.”

  He looks at me and I try to imagine a bomb going off by the local shops but it’s impossible.

  “That’s very scary,” I mutter.

  “Very,” says Samir. “Saddam has gone and there’s a new government and we thought . . .” his voice trails off and his shoulders slump.

  You thought you’d go home, I think, which seems perfectly reasonable. I want to say, If it’s not safe, surely it’s better to stay here in England, but I can’t bear another dark look from Samir. I’m going to watch the news every night from now on and try and fill in the gaps myself.

  So I say, “What happened to Mohammed, to get those awful wounds?” My voice wobbles at the thought of Mohammed’s wounded back.

  “Mohammed and his brother helped the British army when they were in Basra. They were both university students,” Samir says. “Thousands of Iraqis did the same because they wanted to bring peace more quickly to Iraq. The British couldn’t have managed without them.”

  “What’s the problem with that?”

  Samir gives a little snort and shakes his head. “The militias accuse them of collaborating with the enemy, they call them traitors and spies and they hunt them down. If they catch them, well . . .”

  Samir stops and he’s fiddling with the edge of my duvet and I know that look now. He’s retreating back into his ice man world, shutting off because something bad is going on inside him, and I don’t know what to say. I reach out like I did in the hut and just sort of pat his hand and even Trudy seems to know something’s wrong because she pushes up against his leg.

  This seems to melt Samir a bit and he looks up at me and says, “What many people in Iraq want is to be left alone to sort out the country themselves. But other people say they are scared what will happen in the streets if the British and the Americans leave. Will the Iraqi army be strong enough to keep them safe and bring about peace? Can Iraq become a proper democracy so that everyone has the same rights? Me, Auntie Selma and Naazim sit every night and talk about it until we get sick of it. We are so far away and we don’t see anyone from Iraq, ever. Sometimes I feel like I’m marooned on a desert island.”

  “So it’s sort of good you met Mohammed?” I say cautiously. Samir doesn’t answer.

  I start to imagine Mohammed going to live with Samir and Naazim and Auntie Selma and telling them all about everything they’ve missed in the past few years while they’ve been living in England. I’m really beginning to cheer up thinking about how great this will be for Samir and what a bit of luck it is that we were the ones who found Mohammed, when Samir says in a very quiet voice, “Mohammed and his family managed to get through all the bad times and stay safe on the streets. But then one of the militias kidnapped his brother.”

  Samir stops speaking and the room goes very quiet as if we are sealed off from the rest of the world. I watch the red spot on my bedside clock pulse out the seconds until a whole minute has moved on.

  Then Samir says, “They killed him.”

  God. I almost stop breathing. I daren’t even meet Samir’s eyes. He’s staring at the floor and I’m feeling very scared and it feels as though there’s an elephant thundering through my in
sides. How can just words do that to you?

  Then he says quietly, “They beheaded him and wrote on his back, This is the destiny of spies.”

  The room spins and I feel as though I’m going to faint. I rush over to the window and throw it open, gulping down the freezing air. I can hear the shrouds jingling in the morning breeze over at the yacht club, and the Brent geese that come here every winter from the Arctic are bobbing about on the sea, their white tails flashing up and down.

  Everything out there is just the same as it always is. Only nothing’s the same anymore.

  I turn back into the room. My voice doesn’t really want to work and when I speak it sounds like a frog croaking.

  “They must have been terrified.”

  Samir is looking very hard at me. It feels as though the temperature just dropped indoors.

  It’s as if all those pictures from the telly just appeared in my bedroom and I stare and stare at Samir and he stares back and I don’t know who’s more terrified right now.

  He drags a hand across his face as if he’s really tired and then he says in a dead kind of voice, “After they killed his brother the militia came for Mohammed. He only helped the British army for a few months but they kidnapped and tortured him. Those wounds on his back?” I nod, feeling numb with all the horror of it. “They did that to him. They hung him upside down for three days. Then his family bribed them and they let him go.”

  “He should go to the police and tell them all this stuff,” I say, because it really does seem that simple to me.

  But Samir shakes his head angrily, “It doesn’t work like that. Mohammed asked for asylum in Britain. But the embassy said you have to prove you worked for them for a year, so they rejected his application. Someone said they could get him to England secretly. His parents used up all their money paying the people-smugglers to get him away safely. Now his parents have no money and no sons to support them.”

  “That’s so unfair! Of course he should be allowed to stay, he helped us, so we have to help him.”

  “You read the headlines. The British are terrified of being swamped by people like Mohammed and me.”

  That’s ridiculous, I think, remembering Mr. Spicer’s millions on the white board. So few of the world’s refugees even get to Britain. Then Lindy’s nasty voice rings in my ear, “Two percent too many.”

  I’m staring at Samir’s sneakers, which have broken laces and a hole over the big toe on the left foot. He really does need a new pair. What do refugees do for money if no one will help them?

  “It’s just not fair,” I repeat, and I sound like a little kid who’s dropped her ice cream on the beach.

  “In England,” says Samir, “you think that everything has to be fair and if it isn’t you go on the telly and make a huge fuss. It’s not like that for us.”

  I don’t trust myself to speak again.

  Then he says, “Once there was a bombing three streets away and my uncle found a human finger in the garden. Life isn’t fair.”

  Samir takes two cigarettes out of his pocket and offers me one.

  “What about Mohammed?”

  “He’s in the bath, he’s okay for a bit,” says Samir.

  I glance at the door to make sure it’s properly shut. Kim’s keeping Mum occupied so we should be okay. I feel myself relax and say, “Only if we lean out the window. If Mum smells smoke she’ll go ballistic.”

  Samir smiles almost his entire special smile and lights my cigarette for me. We push open both windows and dare each other to lean out farther and farther until Samir is practically hanging on to the drainpipe.

  “You’ll fall!” I’m laughing so much I choke on the cigarette and then he waves his arms about as if he’s swimming. The air is bitingly cold but the smell of sea and salt clears my head. I grab his jacket and pull him back in and then I throw the half-smoked cigarette onto the grass below.

  “I’m in training,” I say, “don’t want to clog my lungs up with that stuff.”

  “My foster mother used to say, ‘Smoking’s good for you sure enough, Sammy, keeps the germs away,’ ” says Samir, grinning. I laugh at his attempt at an Irish accent.

  “I believed her when I was little. But now I’m hooked.” He smokes right down to the filter and then stubs the end on the outside wall.

  “Chewing gum?” he’s offering me a wrapped stick and we sit there for a while chewing, the minty taste refreshing my mouth.

  “Do you think people can read minds?” Samir suddenly says, and I feel a chill flit down my spine. I thought we were over the weird stuff.

  “Not sure.”

  “After my father was arrested,” he says, “I was even too scared to think sometimes in case Saddam Hussein could read my mind.”

  “Will you ever go back?”

  Samir shrugs. “Naazim says life in Iraq will get better. He says one day the Iraqi government will bring peace, and life will be as safe there as it is here. But for now we must work hard and make something of ourselves. Then we can go home and help to rebuild our country. My parents wanted me to be a doctor . . .” and his voice breaks up.

  I feel tears welling up and I don’t want Samir to see, so I bury my head in Trudy’s soft, warm fur.

  He gives a little cough to clear his throat and says, “Naazim wants to be an architect.”

  Naazim, a student? That’s hard to imagine. Nasty Naazim with his greasy overalls and broken English.

  Samir guesses what I’m thinking and he says, “Naazim was top in all his classes in Baghdad. But he was forced into the army at fifteen when our father was arrested. He’ll catch up one day. He’s much cleverer than me.”

  My face goes red and I turn away. Trust me to get it wrong again. So I change the subject. “What do you think Mohammed wants?”

  Samir gives me a worried look. “To be safe again. But his wounds feel worse every day. Do you think they’re infected?”

  I shrug, I haven’t a clue. How much longer can we go on before we give in and call an ambulance? A foghorn sounds in the Solent and it makes me feel so lost and lonely sitting here in my bedroom with Mohammed’s awful wounds between us, like some enormous beast waiting to pounce.

  Then the door opens and Kim comes in. “Is it time to go back?” she says.

  Samir stands up and I say, “You take Mohammed to the hut. Kim and me will go to the pharmacy and get something for his wounds.”

  “But you’ll come straight back?” says Samir anxiously, and he’s frowning toward Kim.

  “Of course,” I say.

  18. Chips and Smugglers

  The sun’s shining as Kim and me pedal up the road, seagulls whining overhead in the clear air. A helicopter buzzes over the Solent and there’s the roar of a motorboat setting out from the boatyard at the end of our road. I’ve given Kim my mountain bike and I’m on Mum’s old shopping bike so I get out of breath quickly, what with trying to keep in a straight line and filling Kim in on Mohammed’s story.

  “What do you think would happen if the police found out?” says Kim.

  “Dunno.”

  We have to go into single file as some cars come past. When we’re back side by side I say, “If you read the papers it looks like everyone hates asylum seekers.”

  “We don’t.”

  “No, but the trouble is we don’t know who else thinks like us.”

  And that’s the problem, I think. If me and Kim don’t know who to trust then how on earth can Mohammed and Samir hope to feel safe?

  We cycle along the front and then Kim calls out, “I’m starving, it’s ages since we had that sandwich. Jaxie’s working at the pub today, shall we go up there and get some chips?”

  I hesitate. It’s almost two o’clock and then I think, Mohammed won’t die if we’re another hour and it’s so great being in the open air, hanging out with Kim after all the insane stuff of the last few days.

  So I say, “Cool, let’s go.”

  We pump our pedals north through the Island and onto the bridge across
Langstone Harbor to the mainland. The sea stretching out either side of the bridge is a choppy gray color whipping into little white flurries, and I can see the water lapping right up to the seawall. The tide is still high and won’t turn for another couple of hours. When we get to the pub people are already sitting in the sunshine on wooden benches, throwing crisps and pork scratchings to the ducks and a single swan bunching up on the water.

  Jaxie comes out to collect glasses and seeing us calls out, “Hiya, how about some chips?”

  She disappears and comes back carrying a tray with two enormous portions of chips, ketchup, salt and vinegar and two glasses of cola, with ice and a slice of lemon.

  “Hope you remembered the vodka,” says Kim cheekily, and Jaxie messes up her hair, which Kim hates.

  “Thanks, Jaxie. We’ll clear some glasses for you when we’ve finished,” I say.

  She gives me a big grin and says, “You’re all right, Alix. How’s your mum doing?”

  “Okay,” I mumble through a mouthful of chips, and Kim and I settle down to watch the yachts bobbing about on the swell.

  A boy rows up and takes a packet of crisps and a couple of cans from a man on the quayside and I think how great it would be to sail around Britain, stopping in pubs for chips and never getting off your boat. I’d just started to learn how to sail with Grandpa when he had his first stroke, and after that he couldn’t take the boat out anymore.

  The sun on the benches gets warmer and Kim stretches out, pulling her jacket around her, and dozes off. I collect up a great stack of plates and glasses and wander around the back of the pub to the kitchen door. Trevor, the cook, is taking a cigarette break in the little garden and no one else is around. Must all be busy serving, I decide.

  The sink’s piled with dirty stuff so I clear it, and squeezing loads of frothy dish soap, fill the sink and start to scrub the greasy plates. The pub’s very old, with low ceilings and thick oak beams, and I imagine I’m a cabin boy in the galley of one of the old sailing ships, slaving away all day, adjusting my legs to the roll of the ship. Maybe I’d be part of the Langstone Gang.