Far From My Father's House

by Jill McGivering

  ‘Why did you meet Frank, the American? What do you want from him?’

  He smiled, then looked away, shaking his head. His amusement riled her. You understand, she thought. You know exactly what I’m asking.

  ‘What kind of man steals from the poor, takes food and blankets and medicine? Can’t you see the way they’re suffering?’ She gestured back to the camp. ‘These are your people. How can you betray them?’

  His eyes were hostile. He didn’t answer.

  ‘That’s not Islam,’ she said. ‘You should be ashamed.’

  She turned away. It was a long walk back. The rain was falling in thick brown sheets now, soaking her clothes which clung, dripping, to her body. Her boots splashed through the running water. When she was close to the camp, she turned and looked back. The workers had left the grave. The mound of earth was complete.

  The young man was standing in exactly the same place, turned towards her. His head and shoulders streamed with rain but his body was erect and quite still, his eyes on hers, steadily watching her.

  Chapter 18

  Jamila sat on a piece of wood in the yard. Around her, puddles were steaming in the heat. Three of the Aunties’ small girls were playing together in a corner, slopping wet mud into a pile to make a mound. They raked through puddles and scooped the dirt from them, then ran to the mound and dripped the gloopy mud from their fingers. It dried in streaks. They stood back, pleased, and admired their work. ‘A palace,’ one of the girls said. ‘Let’s decorate it.’ They scouted round for treasure. A broken piece of stick. A coloured shred of plastic. A withered plum stone.

  Jamila’s eyes were following them but she was thinking about Layla. Grief is a disease, she thought. Once the body is infected, it takes time to heal. We learnt this from our parents and grandparents when we saw them suffer. But this girl hasn’t had the chance to learn. She’s too young.

  Before the funeral, the body had lain, wrapped in a white cloth, inside the compound. But while the Aunties and other women had wept and keened and torn at their clothes, Layla sat apart from them. Her face was bloodless and her eyes dull.

  Jamila crouched beside her and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Layla’s back was rigid. She didn’t yield.

  ‘You must mourn,’ Jamila said, keeping her voice low. ‘Like the other women.’

  She looked out at the Aunties, clasping each other as they cried and shouted and begged Allah in His Wisdom to bring back their sister. One fell to her knees, screaming and beating the flat of her hands on the mud. The girl beside her didn’t move or speak.

  ‘Let it out,’ Jamila said. ‘Can’t you see? If you don’t weep, your grief will make you ill.’ She could feel knots in the girl’s back and she lifted her arm to massage them. Layla shrugged her off. They sat in silence for a moment. Layla glared out at the Aunties. Jamila looked at Layla’s scowling face.

  Finally Jamila said, ‘People expect to see you weep.’ She paused. She didn’t even know if the girl was listening. ‘It shows respect. To the dead. But also to the living.’

  The girl was hard with anger. Jamila said nothing more. She took Layla’s place amongst the Aunties and they kept vigil together, lamenting over the body throughout the night.

  Now the funeral was over and Layla was lying inside the tent. She had taken the same spot where her mother had sweated and finally died. Women from surrounding tents were paying their respects to the bereaved, bringing whatever quantities of sugar and rice they could spare, weeping and offering condolences. Layla wouldn’t come out to receive them. She lay with her face in the blanket, legs twisted up under her and refused to answer anyone who came.

  Ibrahim too had hidden himself away. The Aunties had told him about his wife’s illness just a short while before she died. By then it was too late.

  Ibrahim had called Jamila into a corner and berated her, even as she was trying to tend to the dying woman. Why hadn’t she sent for a doctor? Tears ran down his face. Why?

  Now, sitting alone, Jamila considered these things. In their corner, the small girls had finished building their dirt palace and were dancing around it.

  It was late morning. The Aunties had finished pummelling the laundry in buckets. Damp clothing hung from the ropes between the shelters and spread out across the plastic roofs. The young women were gathering round the cooking bricks, squatting on their haunches, kneading dough and slapping out rotis between their palms. The sides of their faces were streaked with flour where they’d pushed back strands of hair with dirty hands.

  Shouting broke out. One voice, then an explosion of several. Men’s voices. Loud and angry. The Aunties stood up to look. A gang of young men ran, jostling each other, towards the noise. A small boy started to cry for his mother and an Auntie bent to scoop him up.

  The voices were distant and echoed round the camp. They came from the far side, away from the main gate, from the corner nearest the mountains. The shouts were discordant, ragged. Men were hurrying past now, young and old, running to look. The Aunties wrapped their roti dough in cloths and came back into the compound. The bread could wait until later.

  Jamila got to her feet. ‘What happened?’ No one answered her. ‘What is it?’

  She pulled her chador tightly round her head and shoulders and stood at the entrance to their compound, looking out. The shouting was distorted. Muffled, hostile voices. She couldn’t make out the words. But the noise was growing.

  People were running now, streaming past their compound, heading for the far corner of the camp. They bumped against the flimsy fence and made the plastic crackle.

  Jamila turned to the Aunties. ‘Stay here with the children. I’ll go and see.’

  She breathed deeply, braced herself and plunged into the hurrying crowd.

  The people packed around her at once, pressing in on both sides. They were pushing and shoving, buoyed by a rising tide of agitation which carried her too. She was soon scrambling to keep up. Her ears were filled with the pumping of her own blood and the pounding of feet. A man behind her, running, knocked her to one side as he forced himself past her. His feet kicked up muddy water, cold splashes across her feet. She slipped and grasped at the woman next to her, a stranger, to keep from falling. Far ahead, a woman started to scream. The urgency in the crowd grew and the pace quickened. A man ahead of Jamila shouted, ‘Calm down. Don’t push.’ No one listened.

  After another five minutes of running, the crowd started to thicken. Jamila squeezed through gaps to move forwards. The path was blocked, dense with people. The hard bodies of men surrounded her as the spaces shrank. Soon she couldn’t see anything but walls of flesh. They pressed in on her, squeezing her body. She felt sudden panic. Ahead a young man rose on his friend’s shoulders, waving his arms and horsing around. To the side, the sound of splintering wood and a crash and commotion as someone brought down part of a shelter.

  ‘Let me out.’ Jamila could hardly hear her own voice. ‘Please. I need to get out.’

  No one took any notice. Behind her, more people arrived. The pressure in the crowd grew. Every time the men surged, they crushed her between them. She could hardly breathe. Her arms, bent, were pinned to her sides. She started to fight, digging her elbows into ribs and stomachs, punching with her fists. A man twisted round and shouted at her, his nose inches from her eyes: ‘Stop it, whore.’ The men around her jeered.

  The crowd rippled. She was knocked off balance and fell into a soft fat man beside her. He put his hands on her shoulders to push her away and she struggled to get upright again. She felt his pudgy fingers on her flesh long after he’d removed them. Her breath came in short bursts. Her hands were raised, her long fingers flailing in front of her face. The bodies around her shimmered and shivered. She let out a cry as she started to go down.

  Hard hands pushed under her arms, closed round her armpits and lifted her up. Who was it? She couldn’t twist to look, couldn’t see. A man was propelling her forwards. She kicked out at people in front of her, helping to clea
r space. The man grasping her had a booming voice and was hollering, ‘Move yourself,’ as he went. Bodies were reluctantly parting, faces turning to gawp at her as they cut through. She tried to close her mind to the shame.

  The crowd finally parted in front of them to reveal space and air. She gasped for breath. The man dropped her onto her feet and turned away, pleased to have used her to force his way to the front. She steadied herself, breathing hard. Her head was aching, her armpits bruised by the man’s clumsy grip. She looked around, getting her bearings.

  The crowd had formed a circle, staring inwards at the ground. Here, rowdiness had given way to silence. The faces around her were subdued and embarrassed. No one caught her eye. She turned round to see for herself what all the fuss was about.

  Two bodies. Lying on the wet earth on the edge of a piece of filthy waste ground. One was a young woman. She was on her side, her legs twisted behind her. One brown foot had lost its sandal, revealing the soft pale skin of the sole. A cheap silver chain hung limp round the ankle. She was wearing a gaudy orange salwar kameez, thickly daubed with dirt. The hems were stitched with spangles.

  Her arms were tied behind her back with cord which cut into her wrists. Her head was turned to one side at an impossible angle. Her eyes were bulging sightlessly and her face was tipped towards the sky. Strangled. A long dupatta was wound tightly around her throat.

  Beside her lay the body of a man in a dirty white salwar kameez. Doc. Jamila knew him at once. He was on his back. His throat was a mess of congealed blood. His thin face was contorted.

  She shook her head. Flies were buzzing on the cut flesh. No one moved to wave them away. The blood in the wounds was hard and set.

  There was a jostling behind her and the crowd parted. A worker from the camp emerged, accompanied by a guard. They stopped when they saw the bodies and stared.

  ‘Who did this?’ The man who spoke was from Peshawar. He was swaggering a little. The guard beside him had a gun in his hands. ‘What happened?’

  No one spoke.

  The worker looked angry. ‘Was there a fight?’

  People shook their heads.

  The man’s tone was threatening. ‘Someone must have seen.’

  ‘They were covered up.’ A man at the front pointed to a pile of sacking by the bodies. ‘Children found them.’

  The worker glared round. ‘Don’t touch them. We’ll have to fetch the police.’ He pushed his way roughly back into the crowd, the guard at his side.

  Once he had gone, the men started to grumble and become restless. Jamila saw the anger in their faces. The worker had dishonoured them with his rudeness and suspicion.

  ‘Why is he accusing us? What have we done?’

  ‘If the police come, they’ll make trouble.’

  ‘They’ll demand bribes.’

  Jamila looked around, trying to see who was speaking. Thuggish young men. They started to call out across the crowd.

  ‘These workers. They think they’re better than us.’

  ‘They’re not true Pakistanis.’

  ‘That’s right. They’re puppets. Of the Americans.’

  One of the men gestured round at the tattered shelters and tents. ‘Look how they make us live,’ he shouted. ‘Is this what we’re worth?’

  The temperature was rising. A young bearded man lifted his hand, raising a chant. ‘Death to the Americans!’ The crowd gave a half-hearted response. He repeated the cry several times but the answering call was weak. It gradually fizzled out.

  A second young man, in the body of the crowd, raised a second shout. ‘Foreigners out of Pakistan!’

  The men at the front cheered. ‘Foreigners out!’ Their voices were raucous. They punched the air. The cry started to take hold, echoing back through the press of men.

  Jamila pushed her way along the front of the crowd, across the waste ground. She took refuge alongside a shelter there. A woman peered out at her. She was huddled inside with two young children. The little girl’s eyes were afraid. Jamila thought of Syma and softened. The woman reached for the children and gathered them close.

  The crowd was shifting and seething. The young men were angry. Chants were taking hold, uniting the men and urging them forwards. Fists rose in time with the voices. One man beat out the rhythm with a stick against a wooden post.

  A youth stepped forwards to address them. He was shouting to make himself heard. Jamila peered past the plastic flap of the shelter to see. It was Saeed, the boy from their village who’d tried to dishonour Layla.

  ‘These stooges of the Americans are killing us all,’ he shouted. ‘Why should we live like animals in filth? Why should our children be hungry and our women have nowhere safe to sleep?’

  Men shouted agreement. Jamila felt the mood harden.

  ‘What are they doing for us? They keep the best for themselves and leave us without enough to eat, without shelter in the rain. They lure away our girls and infect them with Western culture.’

  An old man near Jamila turned away and pushed out through the crowd. Jamila saw him pass by. His face was anxious and turned to the ground. Young men were raising more rallying cries, lifting their hands in tight-fisted salute.

  ‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ Long live Pakistan. ‘Down with America!’

  The crowd echoed the chants. Men threw up their fists until the air rippled with hands. Jamila saw the fury in their eyes. They were uneducated men, quick to fight.

  The thugs at the front swung their staves at the nearest shelter. They smashed them into the struts which formed a frame for the plastic sheeting. The air was filled with the sound of splintering wood and crackling plastic. Finally the struts were knocked down and the whole shelter collapsed sideways with a ballooning sigh. A girl, twelve or thirteen years old, crawled out of the wreckage on her hands and knees, screaming.

  The men turned, still chanting, and began to march, leading the way down the narrow paths. They swung their staves at every shelter they passed. The men behind them grabbed sticks and pieces of wood and ran behind, doing the same.

  The woman close to Jamila scrambled out of her shelter, snatching up her daughter and herding her boy in front of her. ‘God have mercy,’ she shouted. ‘May Allah protect us.’

  Two older men pushed past them and started attacking the woman’s shelter. Their planks of wood were rough with nails which ripped through the plastic. Jamila grabbed at their arms. ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was drowned by the shouting and the beating of wood on wood. ‘Stop this.’

  One of the men shook her off. She staggered backwards and slipped. A blow. Falling wood clipped the side of her face. She fell. Plastic wrapped itself around her. It tangled her hands as she tried to reach out, to save herself. Her cheek hit cold ground. The smell and wetness of earth. Heavy male feet were thudding by. Her ears were full of shouting and women’s screams. She closed her eyes, stunned, and became still.

  She lay there, silent, for some time. She didn’t know how long. She felt strangely detached from the noise and violence, lying on the bed of an ocean while waves stirred far away overhead.

  Gradually, the noises subsided and the outside world became calm. She managed at last to move. She slowly freed her legs and arms from the tangle of plastic and sat up. She was surrounded by debris. The shelter was a heap of smashed wood and trampled plastic, scattered with belongings. A blanket, filthy with trodden earth. A metal cooking spoon. A dirty glass bottle on its side. She got onto her hands and knees and eased herself carefully to her feet. Her salwar kameez was streaked with mud. The ends of her chador were sodden. The sounds of the rampaging men were distant now, coming from another part of the camp. The splintering and shouting could still be heard but it was muffled.

  She squeezed out her chador and wrapped it round her head and shoulders. Her fingers explored the sore place on her cheek and came away bloodied. She must lie down. She must rest. She limped back along the path.

  Everything looked different. On all sides, tents were in ruins. She look
ed out across the wilderness of broken shelters. Jagged sticks protruded from piles of muddy sacking and plastic. The very young and very old were sitting on the ground in the midst of it all, staring around in shock. Everywhere, women were wearily picking through the debris, salvaging sleeping mats and metal pots. The sweeping mudflats looked bleaker than ever. Far beyond rose the mountains, dark with cloud.

  Jamila trudged on. Somewhere near the entrance to the camp, whistles sounded. Police, she thought. A shot rang out. A sharp crack. It cut through the shouts of the crowd, making a single moment of quiet before the distant shouting plunged in again to fill the silence.

  She approached the south of the camp and their own small patch of mud. They’d escaped. The shelters here were intact. In the compound, she found the young Aunties huddled together, agitated by the craziness of the crowd of men. The wrapped roti dough was forgotten. Inside the tent, Layla was lying, hot with fever, on the same spot where her mother had died. Her legs were curled under her, her face buried in the folds of a blanket.

  Chapter 19

  Ellen was sitting in the doorway of the main entrance of the administration building with her notebook on her knee, finishing a cup of bad instant coffee. She’d been drafting a structure for her follow-up story on the camp but found herself thinking instead about Layla. She’d seemed lifeless as she was led away from her mother’s grave. Lost. She thought of Layla’s sister and the care she needed. Maybe there was something she could do for them.

  Noise. Angry male voices. She lifted her head to listen. Shouting, thinned by distance, drifted across the camp. Ragged cries. A fight, perhaps, getting out of hand. She put her notebook away and got to her feet to find out.

  The shouts gained a steady rhythm. Chants were starting to take hold. Frank rushed out of the building past her. He called over his shoulder: ‘You might wanna move. Something’s revving up.’

  She followed him as he scurried across the open ground, calling to his workers. Men in tabards had stopped unloading supplies and were looking uneasy, listening to the angry voices. A man ran across to Frank, a guard lagging behind them.