by S A Tameez
“Are you okay?” Maryam asked, looking colourless.
“I... I’m fine...” Ahmed responded faintly. He was drenched in sweat. It took him a few moments to get to grips with where he was and what was happening, and by that time Jane had come skipping back, bringing with her the delicious aroma of warm food. Three foiled containers, filled with cooked rice and vegetables, three cold bottles of mineral water and a cherry flavoured lollipop.
“This is for you.” Jane smiled as she held out the red lollipop to Malik.
Malik didn’t move. His eyes glued to the lollipop.
“Go on, son, you can take it.” Ahmed said, with a nod of gratitude at Jane.
Malik reached out to take the lollipop, but Jane pulled it back.
“Not before your food though…” She raised her eyebrows.”
Malik nodded. Jane’s smile grew as she handed it to him.
“Thank you...” Ahmed said, his mouth watering.
“You’re welcome – it’s my pleasure.” She handed him the food boxes; they felt more valuable than bars of gold. “Now eat up, it’s still warm.”
“Thank you so much, you’re very kind.” Ahmed said, when receiving the food.
Jane said, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold...”
“It would be a merrier world,” Ahmed interrupted. “J.R.R. Tolkien.”
“Yes,” Jane said with wide eyes and an animated grin, “it is, Tolkien. Have you read his work?”
“Yes, I love to read.”
“That’s great, me too. There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”
“Pelham Grenville Wodehouse,” Ahmed said confidently.
“Wow, I’m impressed,” Jane seemed stunned that he was so well rehearsed in literature.
Suddenly, Jane became more solemn as she glanced at Maryam’s foot. Blood was starting to seep through Maryam’s bandage.
“We need to get that foot sorted... wait here, and I will see what I can do.” But before she could leave, Maryam reached up and grabbed her arm.
“Thank you, thank you so much for everything,” Maryam said, her bottom lip quivering.
Jane put her hand on Maryam’s. “It’s my pleasure, honestly. Now, get that food in you and I will be right back.”
The food tasted so good and judging by the way Malik and Maryam scoffed it down, they thought so too. Ahmed smiled to himself, recalling his wife’s complaints about them eating too fast. Chew your food, don’t vacuum it! she would say. And now here she was, clearly not following her own advice.
Ahmed didn’t eat much – he didn’t eat much generally – he would always eat and drink just enough to keep him functioning. He held that over-eating was the cause of most health problems.
Eat to live, don’t live to eat, he would often preach.
He didn’t preach today. He didn’t say a thing.
He looked around at people eating, some were even getting stuck into their second box, eating like they may not see food after this for a while. He drifted off into deep thought about food, the need and desire for it. It is astonishing that irrespective of how much food was available for us to devour today, we would still be hungry tomorrow, he thought. In fact, we could have the entire world’s food today and eat from it more than we have ever eaten and yet still feel hunger the next day. So, if one wakes up with food, clothing, and a roof over their head, they are rich. A strange kind of rich – an ungrateful kind of rich.
It was a strange, unbalanced concept that some of the world had so much food they were obese, throwing away millions of pounds of food, as if it meant nothing. And yet some of the world will die from starvation. It was cruel.
“What happens now?” Maryam asked, waking him from his thoughts.
“I… I’m not sure…” Ahmed looked around at the scene on the beach as if looking for the answer. There was no answer. Gazing at all the people’s bewildered faces, he imagined that they knew about as much as he did.
“Hey guys,” Jane said as she came back with a first aid kit, “I’m just going to open this up and have a look, okay?” Maryam nodded but didn’t speak.
Malik stared at the woman, intrigued, while she put her gloves on. “Here,” Jane said, holding out another pair that she had taken from her coat pocket. Malik hesitated and immediately looked at Maryam.
“It’s okay, you can take it,” Maryam reassured. “You can help the nice doctor examine my foot.”
Malik remained reluctant.
“Hey, it’s okay. I tell you what, I’ll put them right here on the floor, and if I’m not around and your mum needs help, then you put on those gloves and help her.” She smiled at Malik. “Can I rely on you to do that?” Malik nodded. Ahmed noticed that his son seemed to be careful to not make any eye contact.
“Sorry, he is very shy,” Maryam said putting her hand on Jane’s arm.
“Oh, that’s ok, it’s perfectly fine. He is a brave boy – handsome, too.” Malik blushed at the compliment.
Jane was still smiling as she unravelled the bandage, but her expression became more serious as the foot was revealed.
Ahmed looked at her severely infected foot and gulped. It looked terrible.
“It’s infected, isn’t it?” Maryam asked, shivering. “How bad is it?”
“It’s pretty bad and its spreading fast. Do you have diabetes?” Jane asked.
“No, I… well, I don’t think so.”
Jane said no more, and stepped away, a concerned expression on her face. Ahmed saw her speaking on her mobile phone.
“I need to get this woman to a hospital now…” Jane was saying. She seemed to notice that Ahmed was listening, and walked further away. Ahmed couldn’t hear what she was saying, but from her expressions and body language, she looked frustrated.
A moment later, she came back, her look, apologetic. She said to both Maryam and Ahmed, “I have arranged for a wheel chair, but we need to get to the refugee camp and get your paperwork looked at before I can get you admitted to hospital. The camp isn’t far from here.” She didn’t look confident in what she was saying and kept observing Maryam’s foot.
“How far has it spread?” Maryam asked, “I can’t feel my foot at all. All I feel is pain.”
“It’s spread across half of your foot… I…”
“Oh my God… I could lose my foot! Couldn’t I?”
Maryam eyes were filled with tears and her hands trembled. It was strange that although she was a nurse herself, it appeared she had forgotten everything about medicine.
“I... I must be honest, I am not sure... but it doesn’t look good. We need to get you—”
“There must be something that we can do, right?” Ahmed interrupted.
“Just sit tight and I will chase up that wheel chair.”
Just as she said the words, Antonio hurriedly brought a wheel chair.
“Hey! Here... let’s get her on here...” he gasped. “I have some clean clothes and other items in these bags for you.” Antonio handed them the bags. Which was great as all their luggage, except Ahmed’s waterproof bag with paperwork and money, had been lost at sea.
Jane was right, the camp wasn’t far – it only took them about half-an-hour to get there, walking.
“What’s going on?” Antonio asked one of the men standing guard at the gates of the camp.
“You’ll have to get in fast, because I lock gates now—”
“What do you mean, ‘lock the gates?’” Antonio asked, looking perplexed.
The man moved closer to Antonio. “There been terrorist attack... I don’t know details, but I have been ordered to lock this place down.” The man’s bushy eyebrows raised. “So, you get them in, now.”
“I need to get this lady to a hospital... her foot is badly injured. When will the doors re-open?”
“Not for while.”
“That’s ridiculous, she will need to get straight to the hospital after the paperwork is checked in.”
Ahmed saw that Jane was shocked at the attitude of the guard. She took a breath in as if she were about to say something. Antonio put his hand on her wrist. She released her breath and then took in a smaller one.
“Please go inside, there is an office inside,” Jane said in a calm tone, pointing in the direction of a makeshift building inside the camp. “Go there and ask for John, tell him that I sent you to him, and tell him about your foot.” She turned to the man guarding the gates, “Hey! I need to take her in and get her sorted, I mean... look at her.”
“No chance! No volunteers allowed in there now. So, if you not mind, get the hell out of the way... before I move you out of the way!” By the look in the man’s beady eyes, he seriously meant business.
“It’s fine.” Ahmed stepped between them, his arms, lifted, palms outwards in a gesture of peace. “We’re fine. We don’t want any trouble. Thanks for all your help, Jane and Antonio, we’ll take it from here.”
Jane looked as if she wanted to punch the man in face, clenching her fists by her side. “Thanks a lot jerk!” she remarked, before stepping out of the way.
Ahmed pushed the wheelchair through the gates but then paused for a moment when he saw Malik turn back and give wave goodbye to Jane and Antonio.
The walk to the office felt long, the ground uneven and the wheel chair struggled over few pot holes, but eventually they reached the office. Behind them, they could see volunteers being ushered out of the camp, like visitors being asked to leave a prison facility. The guards had machine-like faces. Although human, they no longer responded to reason and dutifully followed only the instructions transmitted over their radios. Robots programmed with strict instructions.
“Wait there!” A man in an army uniform ordered. He was standing rigidly at the entrance of the office. His eyes, like scopes on a rifle, locked on Ahmed ominously.
“Remove your bag,” he instructed, “Slowly does it.”
Ahmed saw him clench the hilt of his pistol, tightly, still in its holder on his belt.
There was something in his expression that suggested that he was ready to fire without hesitation.
“Now open the bag, slowly, and remove all the contents... slowly!”
As Ahmed began taking out the contents, his arms began to pulsate and he suddenly felt weak, he almost couldn’t do it – he was so shaken up that he felt nauseous. But he knew that he couldn’t show this; not to his family, who relied on him, and not to that stupid robot, who looked like he would enjoy putting a bullet in someone. He looked even sillier wearing those sunglasses on a dark grey day.
After Ahmed removed all the contents of his bag, he turned it inside out to show that there was nothing left inside. The man stood staring silently, he almost seemed disappointed.
“We need to speak–”
“Shut up!” the man yelled. “You stay quiet and stay back, or I will blow a hole straight through you!”
Maryam grabbed hold of Malik tightly and began to cry.
The man demanded that Ahmed repeat the process with all their bags before stepping forward, by which time two other armed guards came out with four people from the office. They must be volunteers. One of those must be John, Ahmed thought. He wanted to scream out to him for help, but it wouldn’t have been any use, they were kicking out all the volunteers.
“What’s the meaning of this?” one of the volunteers demanded. He was a short man with grey hair and a short grey beard.
“Hey, we’re just following orders,” the guard escorting them responded.
“That old chestnut! Don’t you fellas ever come out with anything new?” the grey-haired man said heatedly in a strong British accent.
The guard with the dark glasses who’d forced Ahmed to empty their bags, looked at him, and asked threateningly, “What are you looking at?” He got right into Ahmed’s face, and Ahmed could smell the man’s warm breath on his cheeks. “I said, what—are—you—looking—at?”
Ahmed was startled. He didn’t know how to react or even if he should react.
“Please… we don’t want any trouble,” Maryam intervened.
“I wasn’t talking to you, so shut your mouth you little—”
Ahmed was horrified. “Hey, let’s just try to—” He felt a hard blow on the side of his face. The man had struck him with his gun.
A flash of bright light sparked in his eyes and his knees became weak. The adrenaline running through his body postponed the excruciating pain for a moment, and then he fell to the ground.
Maryam screamed and Ahmed felt his wife throw herself on top of him; to protect him, he hoped, and not because she, too, had been assaulted. Something pushed down on them, and Maryam cried out in pain, as if the guard had stamped on her back. Ahmed heard Malik whimpering and felt so helpless. This was not how it should be.
As Ahmed felt he was about to pass out, he heard a loud authoritative voice demand, “What the hell is going on here?”
The guard must have lifted his foot off Maryam, for Ahmed felt a sudden lightness on top of him. “They – they weren’t complying sir,” he heard the guard reply.
“Did you just have your boot on this woman?” came the other voice. There was no response to the question. “You’re a disgrace! Get out of my sight! If I see you again you’ll feel my boot where the sun don’t shine!”
“Sir! Yes sir!” the man who’d assaulted Ahmed, responded.
Ahmed heard the officer repeat his order. “Why are you still standing here? Get lost, now!”
Ahmed, feeling a sense of relief as the man marched away, lifted his head off the ground and caught a glimpse of someone’s arm helping Maryam to her feet.
“Are you OK?” the man who had come to their rescue asked.
“I’m OK, thank you,” Maryam sobbed. Malik was frozen in fear and tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Someone reached down to help Ahmed up. As he stood to his feet, Ahmed saw the man who had intervened. He appeared to be in his fifties and had a scar running down the side of his face – a scar that told a thousand stories. He was accompanied by three other men wearing similar uniforms. Black combat trousers, black shirt under a black bulletproof vest. They looked and behaved like soldiers.
“What about you, young man?” the officer asked Ahmed, “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Ahmed responded. He wasn’t, his jaw felt like it had been moved out of place and his head was about to explode. In his mouth, he tasted blood, and he felt two of his teeth were loose. But that wasn’t hurting him as much as the thought of someone stamping his boots on his wife – that really affected him. Immediately, he began visualising himself having anticipated the unprovoked attack and stopping the guard and beating him to the ground instead.
The man nodded at Ahmed and turned to his men and ordered, “Let’s get these people settled… and make sure those bloody gates are closed!” He pointed at the large metal gates that they came in from. “No one gets in, and no one gets out!”
This was an alarming thought, no one in… and no one out, it was like the rules of a prison. Ahmed no longer felt safe. There was no sign of John, and he did not know whether they would ever see Jane or Antonio again.
4
Acres of dead earth, scattered with people longing for sanctuary, stretched around the perimeter of the campsite. Dirty puddles were like small murky lakes among the makeshift houses, making it appear like some sort of cheap and nasty holiday site, except no one was enjoying themselves, bar the children who were running around, splashing happily in the mud-filled puddles. The children couldn’t have known the terrible situation, they were in. They were probably just relieved to be able to play outside without the awful sound of explosions and the risk of getting shot.
Food and water in the camp was limited. Housing was atrocious, hygiene, a problem, and the dreadful smell of sewage was suffocating. But the most striking part of all – there was a sense of
safety and hope that maybe they could somehow rebuild their lives.
Many of the refugees were well-educated professionals. Some were engineers and had teamed up with local volunteers to work on solving the sewage problem. Others were previously architects, or had worked in construction, and were building various housing solutions from bits and bobs donated over the months.
There were women knitting and sewing clothing, some were cooking and some had been there long enough to grow their own crops. A school had been set up and most of the children were attending everyday using materials that had been donated. So much was going on – thousands of strangers, all united, working together to stay alive.
Within moments of walking into the camp, Ahmed was instructed to go and see a man called Khaleel, who had unofficially been elected as some sort of leader. Ahmed had been told that he was an educated man who knew how to get things done. He had come to the camp over nine-months-ago, when there was nothing except lifeless land. He soon realised that they might have to stay for a while, especially with the vast numbers of refugees turning up every day. He’d teamed up with dedicated and caring volunteers from all occupations and began developing the area to make it habitable.
Ahmed approached the building that Khaleel lived in. It was smaller than all the others, and very ramshackle. The door was wonky and it looked like it was going to fall off its hinges any minute.
Ahmed took a deep breath before lightly knocking.
“Come in,” a husky voice emerged from behind the door.
Ahmed looked back at Maryam and Malik, and nodded, indicating them to follow.
Ahmed entered and was struck by how empty it seemed. White walls, a plain concrete floor, with a few large cushions to sit on, an oak coloured desk that had a lamp and some books piled high on it. A man, whom Ahmed assumed was Khaleel, sat behind the desk, almost hidden behind the pile of books. Only the top of his head was visible.
