by Anna Perera
As the plane taxies to the runway, Khalid’s totally back there. Down the park, playing football. Skidding on the grass. Racing his shadow up the line. Trying to avoid Adnan, who looks like Jesus and tackles too hard. Delivering a perfect corner kick into their penalty area, with Mac cheering him on.
Dad’s words at the back of his mind: “At the age of sixteen, son, you must decide what kind of man you want to be.”
Now his best friend is this anger that won’t go away.
Khalid had told them the same thing over and over again. He’d given them his address. His doctor’s name. The name of all his Rochdale schoolteachers, including his favorite, Mr. Tagg. Plus the details of his post-office savings account with the sixty-one pounds and eighteen pence that took him five months to save.
Over and over again they’d asked him the same questions.
Perhaps they’d confused him with someone else. With more than two million hits on the Internet when he googled his name, Khalid Ahmed, he knows they’ve got the wrong one even if they don’t.
What more could he do to prove his innocence? But they don’t want to believe him. Khalid even told them about the money Dad and his friends had collected to help the refugees in Albania. Two planeloads of food, plus medicine, clothes, blankets and tents. The local paper said the mayor was “immensely impressed with the efforts of the Muslim community in raising substantial funds for the refugees.”
“Cut it!” The soldier had kicked the chair from under Khalid to stop him talking about the mayor. As if he’d made the story up. Punching him in the stomach for no reason. The heartbreak was that they didn’t care about the truth. Why else leave him half conscious on the floor to rot?
Funny, Khalid thinks, remembering that feeling of absolute shock. I’m not even that interested in religion. Any religion. Not even my own Muslim religion. His family is relaxed about it, though. Dad’s always telling him he’ll work it out for himself before too long. Allah, the bountiful, will happily wait for him.
Dad. Come back to me, Dad.
The reality of the mess he’s in suddenly comes back to Khalid. Unimaginable fury bubbles in him again and he smiles at the thought of taking revenge. Eight months ago they kidnapped him for committing the unholy crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and one day he’ll get these maniacs, tip them upside down and shove water down their noses until they drown. Only he’ll leave them to drown. Yes, do the whole world a favor and finish them off.
With that satisfying thought, Khalid finally lets go, closes his eyes and sleeps.
16
GUANTANAMO
This time no one disturbs Khalid until they land and another kind of hell begins.
The strange smell of the sea greets Khalid as he leaves the plane, finally free of his hood and earmuffs. But this definitely isn’t home sweet home. The bright sun throws dark shadows on the ramp that follow him down—a warm breeze in his face. The unexpected sound of birds brings with it a sticky heat that covers his body in a sudden sweat, reminding him of an old school trip to Blackpool on the hottest day of the year. He had been thrilled at the thought of the bus journey with Niamh close by.
And there it is, that day, flashing through his mind again . . .
Khalid was feeling great after Rochdale’s win on Saturday and he pushed himself forward to say hi, hoping to swing his arm round Niamh’s shoulders. Trying to make his stumbling into her look accidental. Ready to glance back at Holgy with an accusing look if it all went wrong. Ready to say it was Holgy who pushed him into Niamh’s side.
Then, somehow, dorky Gilly got in between them. She grabbed Khalid’s hand and, squeezing it tightly for a second with cold fingers, began licking her lips and fluttering her eyelashes to tease him even more. Holgy pretended not to notice his mate crumple and flush as Niamh scrambled red-faced on to the coach, hurrying to the back row.
The sound of their squealing told Khalid her friends were having the last laugh. Thankfully, Holgy and Nico were on hand to make him feel better.
“Nice one, Kal!” Holgy nudged him.
“Next time, move in closer.” Nico winked.
As if he ever would after that.
But later Niamh waved a chocolate-covered fork at him while they had lunch in a cafe near the pier. Beckoning him over, then sliding up in the booth to give him room. Her mates squashing to the end so Mikael could sit there too.
“Ow,” Niamh yelled as Mikael stamped on her foot in his rush to grab the vacant space next to her. He dumped his plate of steaming pasta on the smooth table and dug in as if he hadn’t eaten for a week.
“Sorry,” Khalid apologized for him, standing there like a fool at the end of the table, more embarrassed than ever. Nico shook his head at Mikael for ruining what could have been a truly romantic moment.
“What? What did I do?” Mikael said, wide-eyed, his mouth crammed with chunks of pasta dripping in tomato sauce.
“You nicked his place, you moron!” Niamh laughed. Making them all laugh.
“Doesn’t matter,” Khalid said.
“Doesn’t matter!” Gilly echoed.
Khalid’s still half smiling at the memory as the sound of a barking voice snaps him back to reality and he’s shoved down on to his knees.
“Welcome to Guantanamo Bay Prison. You’re now the property of the US Marine Corps. Heads down!” Soldiers with black dogs walk along the lines of kneeling men. Khalid lowers his head, but not until he’s taken a peek at the nightmare that is Guantanamo Bay. Those lying bastards! A bleached-out expanse surrounded by high fences topped with rolls of razor wire two meters high and watchtowers draped in American flags at either end.
To his right all he can see is scrubby rough ground with patches of thin grass and a heap of masonry with lines of stones and sand marking it out. In the distance, more fences. A tinkling sound like wind chimes starts up in the huge rolls of rusty wire reaching for the sky. Khalid gazes at the hot earth, thinking, This place has wind chimes? How come?
Then, like a scene from a film, an iguana darts in front of the poker-faced marine who’s busy shouting orders—yelling at men who are unable to do anything but listen while they bake to death in the blazing sun.
Khalid wonders how mad it would be to break open a packet of Doritos. Listen to a bit of hip-hop. Look up the word “maniac” on Google. Watch The Simpsons on TV. The kind of stuff he does when he gets home from school. The kind of stuff his mates are probably doing right now. While all the time a vulture circles in the sky above him and the warmth of the sun tickles the stubble on his head. A dazzling, silvery light in his eyes makes it hard to focus on those dusty desert boots for a moment longer.
From the tone of the marine’s voice, it’s obvious they don’t tolerate time-wasters here. This place is far more serious than Kandahar, built to contain highly trained assassins, security threats, enemies of America. The atmosphere grows ever more threatening as the marines march up and down, giving each of them the evil eye.
It’s not often that Khalid can look at his life from a distance. But, instantly, he can see himself clearly for once. He’s another meaningless bent orange shape dropped into some weird world game, the sun fixing him here on this lump of tarmac like a dart in his back. He’s nothing but an orange heap for soldiers to toss around because they think he’s a terrorist who wants to blow up cities. Think he hates the West, even though he lives there and doesn’t know anything about weapons of mass destruction or bombs or buildings crashing to the ground in New York.
“Where’s your evidence, then?” Khalid mutters to himself. Eyes closed, he whimpers like a baby. “Where? You got it all from stupid little me, that’s where.”
Soon they lead Khalid inside a long building done out like the prisons he’s seen in films, with rows of locked, diamond-shaped wire doors. A sign spells out CAMP DELTA. The soldiers pause to force him inside one of the small kennels.
“Stand closer, 256,” a man drawls with a strong Southern accent as he clicks the lock.
“Closer to the flaps,” the drawling voice shouts again.
“Stand with your wrists and ankles to the beany holes,” another shouts.
Khalid obeys and the guard unties his wrist and ankle shackles through the door holes that he thinks are the beany holes, with great caution, which makes Khalid smile at the sheer silliness of it all. Why can’t they undo the chains outside the cell? Why this stupid, over-the-top arrangement of holes in the door? Do they think he might escape if they removed them beforehand? Khalid can just see himself breaking out by ducking their bullets, charging from the building and across the hot ground while men in watchtowers train their guns on him, only to make the superhuman effort of climbing ten meters of barbed wire and diving into the sea and swimming to safety. His mates would crack up if they could see these soldiers undoing the chains through these stupid holes.
After the metal flaps are raised to cover the holes, the sound of slamming echoes down the lines until all the prisoners are done and the thundering boots march away.
A small room with a plastic bed with round corners built into the wall greets Khalid when he turns. Thin foam mattress on top. Two blue blankets at either end. A copy of the Qur’an in English. One pair of white flip-flops. Two white towels. Wash cloth. Soap. Shampoo. Toothpaste. Bottle of water. Two buckets this time.
And so another routine begins. Breakfast on a plastic tray: a box of cereal, white roll. Bottle of water. Sometimes sloppy scrambled eggs and overdone peas. Maybe an orange.
For lunch: a piece of tough meat, some form of potato, usually canned and half mashed with sweetcorn or turnip. Peanuts. Water. Sometimes a packet of raisins.
The dinner menu remains unaltered for the next two days: tasteless white rice, hard red beans, revolting gray fish. Bread. Water. On Friday, a banana.
Khalid doesn’t understand how food can be this disgusting and tasteless. He knows some pathetic effort has been made to keep to the halal diet, but anyone with half a brain could have come up with something better than this.
After two days, he’s determined never to eat any of the vile bread rolls again. If he gets a choice, that is. The motto here being “eat or starve,” he chews his way through the slice of white bread with the satisfaction of someone about to throw up. Convincing himself things will change soon. Or so he hopes, because they can’t get any worse. He’s already nearly died and is now slowly going out of his mind.
Since he arrived in Guantanamo, Khalid hasn’t really seen anyone. Just the food trolley man and the soldiers. The only sounds that keep him company day and night are terrifying screams from the other end of the building and then someone who coughs and coughs—he doesn’t know which is worse. Plus the constant slamming of metal flaps gives him a headache, like a pneumatic drill in the side of his skull.
The only good thing is that he’s slept most of the time since he arrived. And he’s getting used to his mind blanking, wandering off in odd directions after so much humiliation and pain. The sensation of drowning still catches him out when he becomes aware he’s swallowing for no reason, or sometimes just breathing hard, but he’s getting used to that now and it doesn’t scare him as much any more.
Just lately, though, he’s been picturing his face on the news. A mugshot of a convicted terrorist who’s hated by everyone. Even his mates. Seeing Niamh snarl at herself for once smiling and flirting with him, while her friend Gilly says, “I never liked that loser.”
The other thing is, unless Khalid’s busy hating himself, he doesn’t feel fully here. Making up scenes like this is the only thing that stops him from thinking about what they did. From going out of his mind blaming himself for being so stupid. It’s so much easier conjuring up horror movies with him in the leading role than it is watching himself staring at the empty walls, too wrecked to hold his head up straight. At least it seems that way until he begins confusing the dreams with reality and starts believing the dramas in his mind are actually happening.
More than a few times he’s woken up and been surprised to find David Beckham, Niamh or Nico standing in front of him. Shocked to see them there instead of the small bed, white towels, toilet bucket on the floor. The familiar sound of someone screaming nearby seems to make his visitors smile.
Khalid has a feeling of dread he might join in and smile with them, slowly believing the noise of approaching boots might be a fantasy too and he’s really somewhere else, somewhere he doesn’t know, and the wasted, patchy, not-here feeling only subsides when the soldier yells something ridiculous. “You Taliban guys don’t know how lucky you are! If you were in Afghanistan now you’d all be dead. Thank God for the US of A.” Making it clear to Khalid that the soldier has no idea how nice dying would be. The upbeat, insulting tone of his cheery voice tears him apart bit by bit.
No one cares. They don’t care about him. Nobody does. If only he hadn’t signed those papers. They said he could go home, the liars. If they’d let him sleep, things would have been different. Then he might not have signed his own prison sentence. Reminding himself he was pretty much mentally and physically dead the moment his hand picked up the pen doesn’t help. He can’t forgive himself. Neither will Nico and the rest of his mates. Niamh hates him now, he knows it. His mum and dad. Aadab and Gul. Everyone does all over the world.
He’ll never be sure of himself again. How will he know who he is after this?
On and on, the day before they tried to drown him, they held up those pictures of children killed in 9/11. Photos of women jumping from the towers. Flashing them up as if their deaths were Khalid’s fault. Wearing him down until his nerves were completely shattered. Until he started believing maybe it was all his fault. In the end, he signed the papers and what happened? They shut him up here.
Does anyone even know where he is? He doubts it. Arms folded, Khalid sits on the bed and stares at the wall. At the blank space with pockmarks and dead flies he knows so well. The smell of his own body in the warm room, the sound of his own breathing and the thudding of boots make him think his whole life has been a gigantic mistake.
Then one day . . .
“Get up, you,” the guard says. “You never get up!”
His bad breath adds to the whiff of cold battered meat from the plastic tray he’s passing through.
“Sorry to put a crimp in your day but Britain cooled out —whupped the United Nations. Blair’s with us. Europe’s a bunch of cry-babies.” He laughs, then pauses a moment to work out which inmate nearby is reciting a verse from the Qur’an. The melancholy voice calling to Mecca.
Ignoring him, the guard turns back to Khalid to gloat.
“We gonna kick your butts,” he adds. “You ain’t going nowhere now, man. Tony Blair—with his decision—he clean done y’all in.”
“What decision?” Khalid drops the tray on the bed and, glancing back at the sneering face pressed to his fence, he’s surprised to see the guard’s big popping nostrils are flaring with excitement.
“Britain’s with us—at war in Iraq!” Shouting so loud, someone in the camp responds by translating the news into various different languages. Soon it’s passed on, until eventually everyone knows what’s happening. People run to the doors, kicking and banging to show how they feel, yelling and screaming in their own languages. Fury travels along the rows of cells like a crashing, unstoppable flood. The nearest thing to a riot Khalid’s ever experienced.
Guards respond by racing up the lines and leveling automatic machine guns at the detainees. Ready to fire at the drop of a hat. Khalid’s overwhelmed by the news Britain along with America are at war in Iraq and not just Afghanistan. Why? No one’s more surprised than him. Suppose he never gets out now? The guard said so, didn’t he? What else has changed out there that he doesn’t know about?
Khalid loses his grip on the door, letting his hands fall to his side like lead weights. Em
otionally frail, he wanders the few steps to the bed. Collapsing in a feeble heap. The constant banging and yelling have broken down the flimsy layer of protection he hoped would keep his mind together today.
The violence is so horribly real to Khalid, he can’t help brooding on the hatred he feels growing in the world and the problems the war will bring to his family—for Muslims everywhere. He knows Dad would go out of his way to complete the Muslim duty of zakat—acts of charity to help people in need during the war in Iraq. But where is he now?
Eventually the banging and kicking die down and a pitiful whine starts up somewhere beyond him. Out there. Outside this field of right and wrong. The familiar, high-pitched, grating cry of someone who Khalid knows is being harmed. Bringing it all back to him . . .
17
SWEAT
Day follows day. Weeks and months pass by and nothing changes. Time stretches for Khalid. Sometimes the hours between breakfast and lunch feel longer than a day at school. He remembers the school day going so slowly. Often, by the time the bell went, he couldn’t recall what happened that morning, it felt like so long ago. Then, at other times, the minutes shrink. He finishes the tasteless cereal and two seconds later the lunch tray clatters the flap and all he’s been thinking about is the TV program he once saw about an Olympic diver. The guy explained how he has two and a half seconds between jumping off the board, doing two perfect spins and hitting the water, and in that short time he must rectify any awkward position he finds himself in. Deciding instantly while he falls to straighten his back or lower his arms.
