by Anna Perera
Listening to footsteps approach the door, Khalid decides to do as Jim advised him, to cooperate as much as possible. He knows he was reasonable last night, but things might go better today if he’s more helpful. Calling the podgy guy “Uncle” will show respect. Khalid smiles, now feeling confident he’ll be out of here within hours.
When the lock turns in the door, Khalid’s ready and smiling. But instead of the guy from last night another younger Pakistani comes in with tea and flat bread to tempt him.
“Where’s the other man?” Silence. Khalid tries being friendly. “What’s your name?” Silence. Then the man leaves without saying a word, clearly unable to speak English, taking the tea and bread with him.
“Bye,” Khalid calls. No response. The door clicks shut.
A few minutes later, a woman with straight brown hair, about thirty-five, in a gray suit and white shirt, comes in with a clipboard. Two men in navy trousers with blue and white pinstriped shirts accompany her. Standing at the door, they say nothing while she pulls up the other chair. Then another guy in a black suit slips in behind them.
“Hi, Khalid,” she says in a friendly American accent, as if she’s going to help him. “I’m Angela and this is Bruce.” She points to the man in the suit. The other men she doesn’t bother introducing. “Now, what exactly were you doing in Afghanistan last week?”
Khalid’s mind is scrambled again. “My name’s pronounced Haleed,” he says, surprised at himself for mentioning it, some-thing he gave up doing years ago in infant school. “I’ve never been to that country!”
Angela smiles sweetly at him. “Come on now. We know you were there. We have your passport.”
This was getting ridiculous.
“That can’t be true. My dad keeps all our passports. How come you’ve got mine? Have you got my dad?”
“Your father? Why do you keep talking about him?”
“What? I told that other guy—he’s missing.”
“Your father works for al-Qaeda?”
“What? No! He’s a chef in Manchester. Don’t be daft. You can phone the restaurant. They’ll tell you. Ask my aunties, my mum.”
“You have no idea where your father is?” Angela frowns.
“Don’t you?” Now Khalid’s getting really confused.
“Why would we?” Angela leans back in her chair, exchanging glances with the men at the door as if to say, This might take a while.
Khalid is totally baffled. “I’m only fifteen,” he says. “You can’t do this. I haven’t done anything. Where’s my watch?”
One guy butts in. “My name’s James. I’m from MI5.” The silent one nods briefly, staring at Khalid with a stern expression.
“Then get me out of here!” Khalid yells.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” James says.
“You have to! I’m only a kid!”
“It’s best to cooperate with the Americans and tell them what you were doing in Afghanistan and why you were at the demonstration.”
“What demonstration? That thing the other morning? I just pushed through the crowd on my way to look for my dad. You’ve mixed me up with someone else.” If the British guys won’t help him, who will? Khalid finally crumbles. “Please!” he begs, tears springing into his eyes. But the men are expressionless, unmoved.
Soon the door opens and the men leave. Angela’s joined by another guy who is about forty years old with a round, smiling face. Getting Khalid’s hopes up for a second. But after whispering to the woman, all he says is, “We’ve got the others.”
“What others? Have you kidnapped my mum and sisters?”
If only they’d tell him what they suspect him of doing, he could put them right, but they turn away whenever he glances at them. Talking quietly to each other out of earshot.
“WHAT OTHERS?” Khalid yells.
Then the round-faced guy begins tapping his foot. At this, Angela gets up and two Pakistani guards grab Khalid by his handcuffs.
“Am I going home? Where are you taking me?” Khalid shouts as they walk him to the door, then down the mildew-smelling corridor and outside into blazing sunshine towards a dusty brown truck parked right outside. This time they don’t bother with the cloth hood. They know he has no idea where he is and there’s nowhere to run.
It’s then that Khalid first begins to think they won’t be taking him home. Shoved in the back, pushed face down again, he can just about make out four more men in shalwar kameez as they climb in to sit on the edges of the truck. Holding on with their hands, they lean over Khalid in case he decides to escape. Their tobacco-smelling breath makes him want to heave but there’s no room to move, their sandals and hairy toes are right in his face. Nobody speaks. The driver speeds off down a wide, busy highway, jolting Khalid again on the uneven metal floor. Dirt in his face. In his eyes and mouth. He bumps around like an empty brown bottle, trying to avoid another jolt to his ears and bruised head.
Suddenly the truck brakes sharply and Khalid’s quickly bundled out of the back, sweaty men on either side of him. They push him towards a tall building with high windows and shove him through a black shiny door to the poshest place he’s ever seen. Full of gilt-framed pictures, luxurious red and gold chairs, the marble hall smells of silver polish. If it wasn’t for the men beside him with their hands on his shoulders, Khalid might think this was the home of a famous Pakistani cricketer.
Two men from the truck disappear inside one of the rooms. The others stay close to Khalid as they push him into a smaller room at the far end of the hall.
Once inside, the door closes quickly behind him and the key turns in the lock with a loud double clunk, giving him the feeling it won’t be opened again any time soon. Khalid runs to the window to see if he can escape. But there’s another two men outside in a parked car and, in any case, the window’s bolted. Down the wide street, there are other tall buildings, some with black gates in front of them. Across from him is a park-like open space, marked out with narrow railings. It looks nice out there. Safe. Rich. The kind of area Khalid goes out of his way to avoid at home in case someone thinks he’s a burglar or up to no good. The kind of road that makes him feel poor and scruffy. Out of place. Uncomfortable.
Why didn’t they just ask him to come with them? Why kidnap him with a gun and beat him senseless? Why the stupid hood and cuffs if all they are going to do in the end is bring him to a flash place like this?
With little idea what to do or think, Khalid sits on the dark yellow sofa with his feet on a small coffee table, rubbing his sore wrists against his T-shirt behind his back in an attempt to shift the cuffs farther up his arms. His aching shoulder hurts worse than ever. The pain in his side forces him to sit leaning forward, almost doubled up, staring at the ornate rugs on the wooden floor while wondering what on earth they are going to do with him next.
He doesn’t have long to wait before two men in jeans and blue shirts creak open the door. Khalid quickly drops his feet from the coffee table and sits up straight, trying his best not to look scared. More Americans, they introduce themselves as Dan and Bobby. Like last time, no surnames.
“We’re here to help you,” Dan says unconvincingly as he lounges in the chair opposite with his big hands clasped in his lap. The gentler-faced Bobby nods several times as he holds out a blown-up photo of Khalid jumping high, arms in the air, at the demonstration in Karachi.
“Is this you?”
Khalid nods, surprised to see the photo. Do they have photos of everyone at the demonstration? Was it an al-Qaeda event or what? Or have they been following him?
The two men look at each other. “Right,” says Dan. “Good. Now, tell us what you are doing here and we’ll let you go.”
“I told you! I got caught up in that, trying to look for my dad. I didn’t even know what it was!”
“What were you doing at the demonstration?”
“Who was the guy in the skullcap next to you?”
“What’s the name of the man to your right?”
; “Why did you return to Karachi from Afghanistan?”
“Who did you meet in Afghanistan?”
“What did you bring with you?”
“Why did you go to the demonstration?”
This was beginning to feel like a scene from Groundhog Day. The same questions going round forever. With the same answers being ignored because they don’t fit the answers the Americans want. Dan’s and Bobby’s freshly shaved faces and neatly combed hair, together with their wide, toothy smiles and stupid questions, force Khalid to suspect they are completely out there, on drugs or something.
He does his best to hold his temper. Patiently telling them again and again who he is and why he’s in this photo they have. Reminding them he’s never been anywhere near Afghanistan. Wondering if he’s going to lose his mind if this carries on much longer.
“I’m fifteen,” Khalid says for the millionth time. “I’m still at school.”
This time Dan leans back on the chair, shaking his head impatiently. “Come on! Answer the questions.”
“Admit you’re twenty-two and a member of al-Qaeda. Go on,” Bobby says with the kind of smile that’s worse than nasty.
“What? No way. How come you think that?” Khalid pleads.
Dan finally looks like he’s given up. “OK, Kandahar for you,” he says smugly, flicking a finger at Bobby, who rushes to the door. “You’re wasting our time!” he adds with a smirk.
“What do you mean ‘Kandahar’?” Khalid shouts, a part of him thanking his dad for making him learn the map of Asia when he was young. “That’s in Afghanistan! I told you I haven’t been there and now you want to take me there? Are you crazy? I want to see my family. Where’s my mum? Someone’s made up lies about me—I know what goes on here. Don’t pay them. Was it Abdullah, that maniac?’
“You should have trusted me!” Dan heads for the door, ignoring his outburst.
Five seconds later, the guard reappears and Khalid jumps up, ready to fight, though there’s little he can do with his hands cuffed behind his back. But all that happens is the guard roughly pushes him away, then waits beside the door as Dan and Bobby leave the room and quickly follows them to ram the key in the lock.
Once Khalid is alone on the dark yellow sofa once again, the thought slowly dawns on him that they really are going to take him to Kandahar. His mind races back through their questions in a desperate attempt to figure out who they think he might be.
“Do I look like a terrorist?” he says aloud, totally confused by the whole thing. His thoughts scatter to consider every possibility. Is it because of Dad? Did he do something bad? Was the demonstration about al-Qaeda? What do they think I’ve done? Why do they keep talking about Afghanistan?
All he knows is that something’s gone terribly wrong, and, with his dad not around, it’s probably going to get a whole lot worse.
An armed Pakistani guard comes in with a bottle of water. His movements and face are gentle, unlike those of the last one. Khalid gets the sense he can talk to this guy and gestures to him that he needs the loo. The guard uncuffs him. At last Khalid can see the damage the truck journey has done to his arms, which are covered in red marks, cuts and bruises and ache with a sudden, dragging pain as they fall to his side.
The guard eyes Khalid’s arms, then frowns to himself. He leads him outside, where another guard throws a white towel over Khalid’s head to prevent him from seeing where he’s going. The first guard clutches his elbow, walking him slowly to the toilets at the other end of the corridor.
A murmuring sound inside one of the two cubicles tells Khalid he’s not alone as the towel’s removed. The door locks quickly behind him as he gazes at the dark, damp toilets that look like something out of a horror film. No windows. Only one dripping tap and two stained porcelain urinals. Such a flash house and these smelly toilets are ten times worse than the ones at school.
“Hello?” Khalid whispers to the closed, gray cubicle, aware the guard’s listening outside. The murmuring suddenly stops. The door opens and an alarming-looking Indian man with dazed eyes and a vacant expression pushes past without seeing him.
“Hey, man!” Khalid whispers.
Shocked by the greeting, the man bangs anxiously on the door to be let out. In a second he’s gone, leaving Khalid even more bewildered. How many others are there like him here? Is this posh house a disguise for a prison? Who owns this place? The door opens again for Khalid soon after. He is handcuffed once more, the towel is thrown over his head and he’s led up some stairs and down another corridor to another room, where the towel’s removed again.
Khalid can’t bear it any longer. “I need help.” A weird sound like that of a wounded animal escapes his mouth. “Please! Please!” His teary eyes meet the guard’s flat, cow-pat eyes. A look of hopeless recognition that they’re both out of their depth passes between them. The gentle-faced guard lowers his head to gaze at the floor while Khalid begs for help.
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a schoolkid. Please get me out of here!” Knowing this might be his last chance of escape.
“I cannot.” The guard sighs.
“Why are you helping them, not me? At least go to my aunties’ house and tell them where I am. Please. Please. If you can’t help me, help my mum.”
“We have rules not to aid,” he answers, clearly upset.
“Who’ll know? I won’t tell anyone! Please. My poor mum.”
Suffering from a roller-coaster of emotions, Khalid thinks maybe kicking him before running for the stairs is worth the chance of getting shot in the back. Anything’s better than being held here. This time the guard stays quiet. A look of guilt passes over his worried face as he hurries out. Quickly the lock turns, clicks then clunks, followed by the kind of silence that feels as if it might go on forever.
Khalid turns from the door with a tightness in his throat and tension in every muscle of his aching body that threatens to bring him to his knees at any moment. For some reason the room this time is smaller, far less luxurious, containing six hard wooden chairs, a polished table and several rugs. The window is covered with black tape. A dining room, Khalid thinks. Suddenly aware of the sound of a hammer drill starting up in a building close by, the rhythm of rapid gunfire adds to the strange feeling of being holed up in someone else’s nightmare. He’s trapped, finished, with no one to help him and no way out.
Khalid’s never felt special. Nothing but an ordinary kid from Rochdale. He’s OK at football. If he works hard he gets decent grades at school. He isn’t bad-looking, but none of his features are amazing. Not like his mate Tony Banda, who looks like a film star and has gorgeous Lexy for a girlfriend. Not like Holgy, who’s a brilliant goalkeeper. Not like Nico, who’s famous for being the top alcohol trader in the area. Not like Mikael, who’s clever and great at football too. And aside from Khalid’s close friends, it’s easy to go through all the kids he knows and pick out something about them that makes them stand out. While him, he’s no one—nothing. Nobody. That’s what makes this whole thing worse than embarrassing. Everyone’s going to laugh their heads off when they hear Khalid Ahmed’s been kidnapped.
He sits on one of the hard wooden chairs, staring at the five empty ones that surround him. Who uses this room? It doesn’t feel used. Why him? Why’s he sitting here with his arms cuffed behind his back, feeling totally crushed and aching all over?
A short while later, Khalid sees the nice guard for the last time when he opens the door to fling a thin, brown blanket at him, which smells of mice. His bedding for the night. Another guard brings a cold dinner of chicken curry, which, after uncuffing his wrists, he watches him eat. Only to grab Khalid’s elbow the moment he finishes popping the last fingerful of rice in his mouth. This time he kindly attaches the cuffs a little looser, Khalid guesses, to make the night more comfortable for him.
He must have been held here for over twenty-four hours now without reason. Why? Khalid curls up under the smelly blanket on the red oriental rug. Pausing for a second to wonder how
the carpet-makers manage to weave such intricate geometric patterns, he lets his mind drift off to imagine a weaver alone in a small dark room, deciding where to put the diamonds and crosses, the bold border with red flowers.
A few years ago, Dad insisted on taking him to the oriental rug sale in Rochdale Town Hall. Khalid moaned all the way, while Dad was as excited as a child. Rubbing his hands at the thought of the beautiful carpets they were going to see.
“Oriental carpet patterns always please the eye,” he told Khalid. “No matter how different the pattern, the effect is always the same, beautiful. Do you hear? A kind of magic is there. Many patterns, but one carpet. Unity, that’s what they are showing here.”
Of course they couldn’t afford to buy a rug. The cheapest was several hundred pounds. Not that Khalid cared. Bored out of his skull, he didn’t really take in any of this stuff at the time. Even when they arrived at the town hall, which was crammed with people wanting to buy, rug after rug held up by the auctioneer as if they were the crown jewels, Khalid didn’t get it.
“A carpet’s a carpet, Dad! It goes on the floor.” Now Khalid wishes he hadn’t said that. He feels guilty, worrying that Dad must have been disappointed by his lack of enthusiasm even though he didn’t say anything at the time. But when he did speak he said something Khalid never forgot.
“Giving thanks for something beautiful is the best way to find peace.”
Now the more Khalid examines the rug he’s lying on, the deeper and more satisfying the patterns appear to be. How peculiar is this? Sitting up suddenly, he can see himself handcuffed, on this strange floor, scared to death, and all he can do is stare at this rug. But the longer he looks, the more perfect the repeated diamond shapes seem to be. A strong black line here and there turns the pattern on its head for no reason, breaking the set order in a strange, surprising way. Which forces him to wonder why the shapes suddenly reverse and then sometimes continue as before. In a flash, he suddenly understands why Dad took him to see the carpets.
Before long, Khalid can’t help giving quiet thanks to the thousands of weavers who are, right now, hard at work making something as beautiful as this out of wool, cotton or silk. Not guessing that it could mean so much to a fifteen-year-old boy who’s usually playing computer games and larking about with his mates.
