Guantanamo Boy

by Anna Perera

  Khalid wonders why he hadn’t noticed Dad’s lack of conversation earlier this evening. Why he hadn’t guessed something was wrong. Perhaps because he was too pleased with himself over his B plus? Enjoying the family’s praise too much to notice Dad’s serious face. Now he feels ashamed and too embarrassed to apologize or ask for his father’s forgiveness.

  Aadab clatters dishes in the sink one after the other, while Gul runs around for no reason. In the end Mum ushers them out of the kitchen. And Khalid sits and sits, fiddling with the stainless-steel salt cellar. Moving it up and down, around and about, waiting for the lecture from Dad to begin. He doesn’t dare leave the table before him, but Dad doesn’t say anything at first, just looks at him for a long time in a way that makes him feel bad. Then he gets up, pushes the pine chair back and pauses for a second. Khalid feels the hesitation bearing down on him and twists in his seat.

  A moment passes before Dad turns and quickly walks away. Khalid bites his lip to stop himself from saying something silly to lighten the mood.

  That’s how it’s been lately between them. Pretty distant. Both of them have been suffering from strong emotions that are too complicated to find words for. Even harder to share. Nico’s right: he’s more like a grandfather than a dad. Old-fashioned. He’s nothing like his mates’ fathers, who swear and have a pint like other people. Khalid wishes he could talk to his dad about the things that matter to him, like Tariq’s computer game for example, but even imagining doing that flashes up a picture of Dad tutting and frowning. “Games are not what life’s about,” he’d say.

  If only he’d come down the park just once to see Khalid play football. If only he’d ask about his mates. Dad’s never horrible about anyone, not ever, but he seems to live in his own world and sometimes Khalid thinks he might as well not be here. Plus he’s so irritating these days, where once Khalid had thought him funny and basically a nice guy.

  For instance, Nico’s dad always wears baggy jeans and T-shirts and has recently had his head shaved and a five-centimeter tattoo put on his neck which says “Defend Her.” “That’s awesome,” his mates say. “So cool for a guy his age!” While Khalid’s dad wears a white shirt and black trousers every day, as if he’s a kid going to school. Black hair neatly combed with a side parting makes him totally boring too, but in actual fact he’s far better-looking than Nico’s dad. Everyone can see that. If only he’d get a nice haircut or do something different apart from cook at the restaurant, then come home, clean his shoes and watch TV. Or chat to Mac next door about cars.

  Khalid tidies the spectacular mess of salt he’s made with his fingers on the table and is scooping it into his cupped hand when Mum appears at the door.

  “I can see you’ve been thinking about your rude behavior,” she says.

  “Nah, I haven’t been thinking about anything, actually,” Khalid says with a slight tone of irritation in his voice.

  “I see. Khalid, please don’t be the way you are around these friends you’re always with. Understand family is the only way to live. Family is thicker than friends.”

  “Blood’s thicker than water, Mum!” Khalid smiles, his irritation gone.

  “That’s what I said.” Mum’s expecting Khalid to argue some more, but instead he bites his lip.

  “I didn’t know she died, did I?” he tries explaining.

  “Submission to your parents shows respect. You know that, Khalid.”

  “Only said that ten thousand times before, Mum. Will you really not let me see Tariq if we’re going to Pakistan anyway?”

  Mum sighs. “Lahore is too far from Karachi. Going there would only add to the cost.” She starts playing with her hair in a childlike way, her big brown eyes staring into space as her mind races elsewhere. Then she rushes to get the notepad and pencil from beside the phone. Quickly, she makes a list of things she must take to Pakistan for Khalid’s aunties. Once she starts writing, she can’t stop.

  Khalid slowly, very slowly, gives up hope of a nice Easter holiday hanging out with his mates as he glances at Mum’s boring list:

  1. Shampoo

  2. Soap

  3. Hairbrushes

  4. Toothpaste and toothbrushes

  5. Nail files

  6. Hand cream

  7. Moisturizing cream

  8. Pencils

  9. Paper

  10. Books

  The list goes on and on, the only interesting item being “21. DVDs.” Khalid smiles. Oh no. Surely Mum isn’t going to bring them her favorite film, The Sound of Music?

  Soon he drifts off to the computer on the table in the corner to google Karachi. It’s a place he knows nothing about. The first page tells him it has a population of fifteen million and lots of international restaurants and high-rise office buildings, as well as a beach called Sandspit, which makes him laugh. He learns that 69 percent of people in Pakistan don’t have access to running water or a flush toilet. There is massive unemployment and water pollution, as well as a high rate of illiteracy, which turns him off the whole subject. Helps him switch his search to the Spanish Inquisition, before Mum says, “Run to that new shop on the main road for chilli powder and tamarind paste, Khalid, please. We’re totally out.” She hands him some money.

  “Do I have to?” Khalid moans.

  One look from Mum sends him running to the door, jamming his school shoes on without a backward glance. When Mum narrows her eyes in fury like that she usually just shouts for Dad.

  “Hiya, Kal,” voices call from behind as Khalid reaches the shiny, bright shops. It’s Holgy and Tony, lounging about outside Rashid’s Electricals. Khalid hoped to run into them at the park on the way back. Not here at the shops.

  “There’s been a right punch-up at the park. Some nerd’s in the hospital. Don’t bother going down there later, because they’ve locked the gates early.” Tony jumps off his swish bike, chewing gum madly. Black hoodie pulled low over his round, innocent-looking face. Dance music twittering in his earplugs.

  “Yeah? What’s gone on?” There are always fights round here after dark. Khalid hopes it’s no one he knows. Holgy pulls a face. Tony shrugs. Neither of them care much, knowing bad news always travels fast. If it was a mate or someone close they would have heard by now.

  “By the way,” Holgy says, laughing, “Mikael’s parents are bunking off somewhere on Saturday so he’s having a party.”

  Khalid’s about to get the details, as he’s never been to Mikael’s before, when a commotion starts up outside the fish-and-chip shop a few doors down. A slim woman in a gray tracksuit and gym shoes, about thirty years old, is arguing with the steroid heads from school.

  A slightly tubby kid swigs from a bottle of beer. Behaving like an idiot, he starts jumping up and down as if bouncing on a trampoline, while the others surround the woman, grabbing her chips and flinging them in the air. “There goes another one—wooeee!”

  Taunting her with a blizzard of daft hand movements, they pump her space with their shoulders so one of them can dip his hand in her tracksuit pocket to steal her mobile.

  They’re at it again, thinks Khalid. “Hey!” he screams at the top of his voice. Being the kind of kid who likes a beer now and then, has stolen a couple of things from the stalls down the market for a bet, he often finds himself pretending to be wilder, more confident and stronger than he really is to prove he can hold his own with some of the older kids. But today resentment at the steroid heads’ stupid behavior rises in him like never before.

  Holgy and Tony laugh their heads off as Khalid angrily runs over to push the kids aside. “Give it here!” He knocks the mobile out of the little fair-haired one’s hand, then grabs the bag of chips from the tubby one, who now has them.

  “Sorry,” Khalid tells the woman as he hands back the phone. “They’re a bunch of losers.”

  She thanks him briefly with a nod and refuses the remaining chips with a sour expression. Gives him the feeling she doesn’t want his help, then strides off proudly, swishing her ponytail as if she
was never in any danger in the first place.

  “Whaddya do that for?” One of the kids frowns. “We were only having a bit of fun.”

  “Push off, you jerk!” Khalid says. “Do that again and I’ll thump you.”

  When he turns back to Holgy and Tony, they are still killing themselves laughing.

  “What are you like? Fess up, Kal. Didn’t you see—ha-ha-ha—how pale she went—ha-ha—when you screamed at them?” Holgy says. “I mean, you’re pretty tall, Kal. She was more scared of you than—ha-ha—of that lot.”

  “If you had a beard, you’d be a dead ringer for Bin Laden, mate,” Tony adds, and both of them crack up again.

  “Yeah?” Suddenly it dawns on Khalid that the woman maybe thought he was a terrorist or something. “These are dangerous times for Muslims,” his dad said the other day. And he was right. That much he does know.

  It’s pouring with rain by the time Khalid turns the corner to the new Indian grocery shop. A teenager from school, Matt Garwell, shouts to him from the pavement opposite. He does a mental dance to show how wet he is, his brown, stringy hair falling like worms over his pug face.

  “Hiya, Kal. I’m freakin’ soaked.” As Matt runs off, Khalid reads the message written in large black words on his flapping white T-shirt: SMALL-MINDED FLAG-WAVING XENOPHOBE. Eh? Khalid stops for a second to wonder at the meaning of the word “xenophobe.”

  Hands tucked deep in his pockets, Khalid stands under the green canvas of the shop, staring at the display of grapefruits, cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, ginger and garlic, suddenly unable to remember why he’s there. Unable to remember anything but the look of contempt on the slim woman’s face and Tony’s words, which he knows were supposed to be a joke, but even so . . . It’s the first time world events and George Bush’s so-called “War on Terror” really come home to him.

  A sudden shiver rises up his spine. A damp, fearful chill spreads over him, sinking deep inside, until a weird kind of paralysis sets in. He’d run out of the house in his open-necked school shirt and trousers, thinking he’d be back home in ten minutes. But in that time one event has changed his life. Being resented and feared for what? For having brown skin and black hair? For being a Muslim? A bitter, nasty feeling opens up inside, making him angry with himself for helping a woman who can’t look beyond the surface and see he was only trying to help.

  In the end, the owner of the shop pushes the door open and waits stock-still, hands on hips, gazing out at the passing traffic, pretending not to notice Khalid, who’s been staring at a pile of plump grapefruits for quite a while.

  Finally, their dark eyes meet.

  “It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong,” Khalid says crossly.

  “No.” The man stares at him, stroking his modest gray beard. “I can see that.”

  “Sorry!” Khalid is cross with himself now. There’s no need to take it out on this old guy just because that woman made him feel like a lump of dirt.

  “I’ve got an old fleece jacket upstairs if you want it,” the man says.

  “Nah, I’m cool. Thanks, mate.” Khalid gives him a quick grin. “I do need some chilli powder and tamarind paste, though.”

  Pleased he’s all right, the man nods him into the brightly lit shop and insists on getting him some hot tea. Disappearing behind a blue striped curtain to fetch Khalid’s drink, he beckons him to sit on the wooden stool beside the till. The counter is crammed with chocolate, soft mints, chewing gum and scratch cards. There’s a smell of ginger mixed with carpet cleaner, which adds to the strangeness of it all.

  “Kindness is the quickest path to heaven,” the shopkeeper says when he returns, as though Khalid’s thoughts were written all over his face. Then he tells him his name’s Nasir and he’s been in England for twenty-five years but here in Rochdale for only three weeks. “I always wanted to be my own boss. Now I have a shop.”

  Khalid snaps out of his trance. Wishes his dad could be more like that.

  The youngest of six children, Nasir grew up in a mountain village in Pakistan, where his elderly mother still lives, growing her own vegetables and keeping chickens, just as she’s always done.

  “Does she live far from Karachi?” Khalid says.

  “About fifty miles,” Nasir answers. “Why?”

  “We’re going there for Easter to see my aunties.” Khalid half smiles.

  “I’m thinking you must be careful, lad. My wife’s family have plenty of friends who live there and they say the Americans are paying people big bucks to report anyone suspicious to them. US soldiers came with guns in the night and kidnapped two brothers who were in Karachi for two weeks from Saudi to set up a business selling cooking oil.

  “Neighbor saw soldiers dragging the brothers from the house. Nice boys, she said they were. Not a bit suspicious-looking. The next day she heard that another neighbor had been paid a lot of money for reporting them to the American authorities. Remember, most people have so little money in Pakistan. The Americans are offering more than five years’ wages for these reports.”

  “That’s stupid,” Khalid says. “Once they find out the brothers are innocent, they’ll want their money back.”

  “The brothers never returned.” Nasir shakes his head. “The rich neighbor has bought a car and rented a big house with the money the Americans gave him and now his friends want to cash in too. They are on the lookout for anyone new in town.”

  Khalid can’t believe it. “That sounds like bounty hunters like back in the Wild West!”

  “Yes, exactly the same lawlessness is there now,” Nasir says, nodding.

  “Why don’t they pick up some real terrorists?” Khalid asks.

  “Like George Bush?” Nasir laughs, raising his gray eyebrows.

  “But we’re from England. We speak English,” Khalid says. “Surely we’re safe?”

  “Were you born in England?” Nasir frowns.

  “Yeah, I was. Turkey’s where my mum comes from. My dad’s from Pakistan, but he’s lived here for twenty years.”

  “Ah! But still you have to watch your step if you’re going there,” he warns.

  “Our whole family’s more British than anything else, to be honest,” Khalid says. “Anyway, I’ve only just turned fifteen.”

  “That might not be young enough.” Nasir looks concerned. “Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to get for a foreign Taliban.”

  Hints of a dangerous trip begin gathering in Khalid’s mind as he swigs the last of the tea. The sound of a vacuum cleaner suddenly humming behind the curtain makes him think Nasir wants to lock up, so he shifts from the stool.

  “I bet they let the brothers go in the end,” Khalid says, nodding goodbye and wandering home with the chilli powder and tamarind paste safely stowed in a blue plastic bag under his arm. All the time puzzling how anyone can sell lies about people they don’t know for money.

  Then he starts questioning the truth of Nasir’s words. Surely the brothers were released when their story was checked by the Americans and they legged it home to Saudi? Khalid is itching to find out more. He unlocks the back door, deciding not to mention anything to Dad about Nasir in case he rubbishes him. Tells him not to speak to Nasir again.

  Luckily, Dad’s standing with his back to him by the sink, busy laying out sheets of newspaper so he can polish his black shoes, which gives Khalid the chance to switch on the computer in the opposite corner before he can object. Cleaning shoes is a job Dad takes great care over. Unlacing them before lining up two brushes and a soft cloth and flipping open a tin of black Kiwi polish, he brushes the shoes methodically from toe to heel to remove the dirt while Khalid frantically types a message to Tariq.

  “Hey, cuz, do you know anyone in al-Qaeda?” he asks.

  “Don’t ask questions like that, Khalid, you dorkhead, unless you want to get yourself killed,” Tariq instantly replies. Which strikes Khalid as slightly over the top. Who on earth would suspect him of anything dodgy?

  “OK, sorry, calm down. I just heard the Americ
ans are paying stacks of money to Pakistanis to shop anyone suspicious to them—is that true?”

  “Cuz, it’s a paranoid hellhole here. That’s only one of the terrible things that are happening. Now, tell me how Aadab and Gul are doing.”

  What? It’s the last thing Tariq always asks before he signs off. And he’s not just being polite either. No, sisters are a subject they never talk about, because of what happened to Radhwa. But still he asks. Maybe to show he’s all right about it now.

  Khalid replies in the same way he always does: “Annoying as usual!” But it doesn’t register because the screen fades. Crashes. Leaving Khalid staring at the black square in a temper as he reboots, while Dad smiles at his black, highly polished shoes, which he proudly thrusts at the ceiling light.

  “See the shine on that? Look!”

  “Can’t miss it, Dad!” Khalid nods, taking out his mobile to text Mikael for the address of the party on Saturday night while the computer boots up.

  With Khalid there are two types of friends: those who like football and those who don’t. Mikael is one of the former. Small for his age and quieter than the rest of them, he’s a great defender. Fast on his feet like Khalid, who’s solid at the back, Mikael’s always the first to praise a teammate and never lets unexpected injuries, bad weather or no-shows dampen his enthusiasm. Khalid laughs at the picture in his head of Mikael charging down the field like a rocket in lift-off while the others skid in the mud after him.

  Khalid wishes their team was doing better. They’ve had a lot of bad luck this season and now he realizes he’s going to miss a couple of important matches because of the trip to Karachi. The dream of being promoted to a higher league depends on those games.

  “48 Mandela hse c u l8r,” Mikael texts back.

  Khalid thinks maybe he shouldn’t go to the party. He’d be chancing his arm to stay out past ten thirty. Then he glances up to see Dad staring at him with worried eyes. Obviously a bit put out.