This Is Where I Am

by Karen Campbell

  ‘No’m. There was bandits come. We wait to gate to go on wagon. Then bandits came. On farado?’ Mariam raises her hand high.

  ‘Horses,’ says Rose.

  ‘They come, and they hit us. Bam, bam – big knives and spears. They take her, yes.’

  ‘Her?’ I hold up one of my photos. ‘Do you know the woman in this picture?’

  ‘Yes’m. I know her. Zira, yes?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Zira, yes. They take her. And my firstborn.’

  ‘Your first – Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Is she –’

  ‘Wey dhimatay.’

  It is the saddest, most graceful smile I have ever seen. ‘She virgin, she very very good girl. So they rip her with their spears. She so much pain. I pray to God she die. Is OK. She die in my arms. Like when I birthed her.’

  A tight jag of tears. Beaks pecking. My throat in bits and surges. Mariam holds my hand. I feel her, can see nothing in this bright sun.

  ‘Is OK. Zira, she live. We take her doctor. Proper doctor, no witchdoctor. But she run away.’

  My heart is tearing, this good noble woman comforting me, but I am crying for her and I want her to know this, how selfish I am that I want her to be grateful for my grief, I want to give her something, anything to take away this pain. To die like you are birthed.

  ‘You know where she ran to?’ asks Rose.

  ‘Tana.’

  ‘Is river,’ says Mo.

  ‘Zira no want live no more. But is a sin. I pray, pray. Always pray.’

  I remove my hand from hers.

  ‘She killed herself? Wey dhimatay?’

  ‘Yes’m. Wey dhimatay.’

  It is definite. It is definite and defined and a dam comes down, you hold it in place, all the tension and tides, roaring in your ears. Sharp points of your knees in your chin. Your arms bind your legs to your breasts. You wonder how small you could make yourself. People talk above you, but you have your roaring. No tears any more, just the roaring.

  ‘Debs. Debs. Mariam’s asking if you’ve got kids.’

  I hold my index finger up. ‘One.’ Rock my arms in a cradle. ‘One son. But he died. Dhimatay.’

  Mariam holds my face. ‘They safe now.’

  Everything silent, because there is nothing to say. I let Mariam nurse my face, sit in fawn dust. Fawn and yellow, pink and gold, it covers my arms. Rests on my eyelashes.

  ‘Debs. C’mon, Debs. Time to go.’ The back of Rose’s trousers bloom with dust. Wings of dust are spreading across our cheekbones.

  Mariam nods. Urging me. ‘They safe’m.’

  We rise to go. Except I am left behind. I want to be, want to give her something. I want to say, not with words. Smooth blue of the sky, clear tears, my ring. My sapphire ring is in my hand, in Mariam’s hand. She is wide-eyed horrified.

  ‘No’m! Maya, maya.’ Appealing to Rose, to surly sweating Mo.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please take it.’

  And then I rise to go.

  All sorts of problems I’ve caused. Mo had to take Mariam to a man called Khadra. He’s like a pawnbroker, Rose tells me. Then to the bank. You realise she’ll be a target for thieves? If Mo says anything to anybody –

  I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . .

  After half an hour, Mo returns to where we’re waiting in the jeep. He has locked us in, and left us his radio. Some months ago, two female aid workers were abducted by Al-Shabaab. They’ve still not been found. He adjusts his trousers. Replaces his gun in its holster.

  ‘Christ, Mo. What happened?’

  A grunt, but no answer.

  ‘Mo. Is Mariam OK?’

  ‘Yes. See?’

  From the doorway of the bank, Mariam waves at us. Her smile splitting the sky with its brightness.

  ‘Did she get a good price?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mo,’ says Rose. ‘You won’t say anything about this, will you?’

  Meaty hands grip the steering wheel. The engine screams, and we are off, bumping over the grit and ruts. He takes us straight back here, to the compound. Furious with us, I think.

  ‘Tomorrow you go home, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Mo, thank you for . . .’ I give him thirty dollars. Wordlessly, he pockets it. Drives off.

  ‘Honestly,’ says Rose. ‘Huffy bugger. I take no leave of you, nor send any – what is it again?’

  ‘Don’t,’ I say. I go to my room, get into my nightshirt. Everything’s packed for the morning. I have a passport; I can leave this place.

  Later on, Rose taps my door.

  ‘Debs? You want some dinner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about a drink? We’ve a couple of very crappy bars. The Grease Pit’s my personal favourite.’

  ‘No. Ta.’

  There is a long slow pause in which I hope she’s gone away.

  ‘Debs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m really sorry. But we always knew this was a long shot. That she’d still be alive, I mean.’

  ‘I know.’

  Morning comes. Not soon enough. I think I slept a wee bit, but it’s hard to tell. I get up, brush my teeth, wash my face. I long for a bath, a big deep bubble bath where I can sink right under, feel the bubbles burst on my eyes. In water, no one can hear you scream. Enough. I just want my bubbles. Want to go home. Before we get the plane, Rose says we’ve to go to the police station. She reported the transport agents to the UN last night.

  But I’m going for the two-pronged approach.

  I don’t want Mariam getting involved.

  Don’t worry. Once they check the manifests, see the discrepancies between who left and who arrived, they won’t need to speak to Mariam.

  Our driver – who is not Mo – takes us to the police compound. What an ugly place. Surrounded by a high wall, surmounted by barbed wire, the only break in the dirty bulk of it is a blue door, which opens after an age of Rose thumping. The door’s actually a gate, we drive through the thick brick wall, into a dusty courtyard. Various outbuildings align themselves round a central office. There are bars on all the windows. By the far wall, a stooped figure holds a long stick. It’s a hoe, they are hoeing at the straggle of plants that have been carefully embedded in two straight lines.

  ‘You wait here, Debs, right?’

  I concur. All the fight in me is spent. Our driver gets out to have a cigarette.

  ‘You want?’

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  The heat of this place slides in like a drug. Thick, cloying. The vehicle we’re in’s a posh one, has air-conditioning, but the engine’s off and I’m sweltering. I get out too, just to stretch my legs. The hoeing figure straightens up. Wipes her – I think it’s a her – hand across her brow.

  ‘Missus Deb. You OK?’

  ‘Mo.’

  From the verandah of an outhouse, our erstwhile guide is frowning at me.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just a bit hot.’

  ‘Huh.’ He lights up a cigarette. I notice our driver begins to walk away. Poor Mo. He smokes in silence, blowing blue puffs, breathing heavily. Our driver’s moving closer to the police station. Looking at his watch, rubbing his head. He’s got a point: Rose is taking ages, and we need to be at the airstrip now. Eventually, when there is only a stub of cigarette left, Mo clears his throat. ‘You no worry ’bout that Mariam, no? I tell Khadra if she be robbed, I will come for him, OK? Take his business, take his wives –’

  ‘Oh, Mo. Thank you.’

  I can hear our driver shouting. ‘Missus, we need to go. You miss-a plane.’

  ‘I’m coming, Omar, I’m coming.’ Rose appears at the doorway of the police station, screeching a final riposte at whatever poor soul is quivering inside. ‘But I mean it. I will be on your back like a fucking black widow spider, every day, every week, no matter where in the world I am, until you can tell me that you have investigated, prosecuted, and flung those bastards in your shittiest jail. You
understand me?’

  Mo grins at me. ‘We got new-made corporal. Stupid boy. He will hate your Missus Rose.’

  ‘Missus, please!’ begs our driver. ‘We got go.’

  Mo opens the door of the jeep for me. ‘Goodbye, Missus Deb.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mo.’

  The others bundle themselves in. Rose has barely shut the door before Omar slams the glass partition that separates us from him, and shunts the vehicle forward.

  ‘Ooh!’ says Rose. ‘Temper, temper.’

  I see Mo signal that he’ll get the gate. He lumbers towards it, Omar revving his impatience. As our engine roars, the hoeing woman turns to look. She wears a black shroud around her hair and body. A tiny strand of hair flicks free and there is a terrible wistfulness in this, the soft wild hair that is not hidden.

  The gate shuts. Just a window and a wall.

  We move off. Tyres on unyielding earth. My loose head lolling, thump then shiver on seatback then glass, over and over. Judders in my chin, through my teeth. From the rear window I watch Dadaab retreat, shrinking its people and its lumps and rags and coils until it is a shimmering mirage. We trundle at all the speed this rattling heap can garner. My eyes unfocus. Absently survey the pink-yellow dust as the wistfulness in me grows. It sharpens as Dadaab recedes. Has piercing teeth.

  Omar crashes open the partition.

  ‘You going miss-a plane, missus.’

  I notice there’s a young girl swishing twigs, a flock of ruminating goats who claim the road as their own.

  ‘No we’re not.’ Rose lowers her gold-rimmed sunglasses. ‘Because you are such an excellent driver, Omar. You don’t think we use you for your sunny disposition, do you?’

  ‘I tell you. You miss. There no no more this week.’

  ‘Well, we don’t miss then, because I have to be in Mumbai in three days. Unaelewa?’

  Omar slams the glass shut. Shrieks the horn; the girl jumps but does not falter. He opens the window to shout. She swishes her stick more brusquely. At us, her animals? We rev and screech, bullying our way through. The girl turns her head to frown. And it bites. A heart-shaped face, skin sleek across her cheekbones. She wears a bright gold shift not a black shroud that hangs around her hair and body but a tiny strand of hair flicks free because she has just that minute turned her head, is on the brink of . . .

  My heart stops.

  ‘Rose! That woman. I think that was her. I think that was Azira!’

  ‘Who? Her? For the love of God, Debs, that lassie’s about twelve.’

  ‘No! The one doing the garden. When we were leaving the compound! The police compound. Oh, stop the truck. Hey!’ Banging on the sliding glass. ‘Hey, you, stop the truck! Go back.’

  ‘Debs! For Christ’s sake, get a grip! Omar, it’s all right, on you go.’

  ‘No, Rose, no.’ Shaking my frantic head. My hair is suffocating me. ‘I’m sure it was her . . . She looked right at me.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Yes! No . . .’

  ‘And you’ve only just realised this now?’ Rose’s scar gleams as she leans to wipe the hair off my mouth. ‘C’mon, Debs. You’re tired, you’re upset. But you’ve got to let this go. You did your very best for her, but she’s gone. Azira is dead. You know that, don’t you?’

  Just a window and a wall.

  ‘Debs? We really tried. But she was fished out a bloody river. Deid. It’s tragic, it’s awful. But you have to lay this to rest.’

  As we speed by, the goat-girl scowls fiercely. She doesn’t even have hair, is shorn to baldness. No flicks. In fact, she is possibly a boy. I know that Rose is right. I know it, I know it, and it crushes me. Squashing my face against the hardness of the glass, I watch the world unfurl, blank and pink and spiked with green. As nondescript as concrete. Just longitude and latitude. On and on and on. My breath mists the window.

  Far off to our left, another mirage begins to form. Shimmering, shifting. It’s the haze of burning kerosene. The false flatness of the airstrip.

  ‘But what will I tell Rebecca?’

  ‘Oh Christ, Debs, I don’t know.’

  22.

  Debs is sick. Ever since she got back from her holiday. All day, she’s in her house; she did not tell me she was back for a week. She is upset for Gamu, we all are, but I would have thought the injustice would galvanise her. Wait till Debs gets back, I tell Gamu. She will sort it. It was very difficult, this lady crying, and me awkwardly patting her back. The moisture from my hand staining like guilt. I hardly know Gamu, but I had been at Refugee Council for a seminar on voluntary work (this news I will share with Debs when she is better) when Gamu flooded into the office and deposited her news. One should not presume because we have a similar shade of skin and have both fled our homelands that we are kindred. To be truthful, I find Gamu a little coarse at times, all that chucking you under the chin and spooning endearments on you scares me. It is her cloak, I suppose, her crutch. It is that element of her personality she has worked to hone and project in her bid to be acceptable. That is one commonality all us refugees possess. Cast off without family or culture, we must decide what new person we are going to be.

  Well. I am a father. I am a man who grieves his family, his wife. I am a man who has been given a new life, and opportunities to make it great. And I’m done with all these treatments. I rattle when I walk; the medicines are a gauze through which I blink at my world. Talking therapies are hollow. Being exposed to your greatest fear does not conquer it, it simply solidifies. You can weigh it now and carry it, pretend to lay it down. But you can never have the freedom of ‘imagining’ how you would react, the luxury of closing your mind to it because it is not real. A strange liberation in that.

  Our Father. Reveal your glimpses for my world.

  Oh, I wish Debs would talk to me. I thought we had built a friendship where you could fight and still be friends. I suspect the man she was meeting on holiday was unkind to her too. She doesn’t want to see people much – except Rebecca. Gaunt face lightening with my daughter in her arms. So I’m letting Rebecca stay there for a couple of days. She hates the nursery at college anyway. Complains they ‘baby’ her, that the crayons are rationed. When I told Debs I’d let Rebecca go to school after Christmas, she started crying. It was my best news. I had saved it up to make her happy.

  I tell some of this to Sandrine – not about Deborah’s love life, of course, for that is none of my business. Sandrine and I sit next to one another in our English class, but are early. This has happened the last three times. So we go for coffee first, it is not a fixed arrangement.

  ‘Aren’t you worried about infection?’ she says. ‘If your friend is ill.’

  ‘I had not thought,’ I reply. Now, I am worried about infection. If Rebecca if she was there are jags she must get, many jags before school. If anything were to happen to my daughter, all the manufactured posturing of ABDI REBORN!! would be revealed as smoke and ash.

  Sandrine fingers her scarf, watching me. Scarves are her crutch, I think. Every day a different colour. Today her neck is wound with bright yellow and green leaves.

  ‘I’m sure it will be fine. It is more of a malaise Debs has, yes?’

  Sandrine is from the Ivory Coast, I worry I have used this French word incorrectly, but she nods. Sagely. ‘And your little girl – she loves this woman too?’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘I’m sorry. What I mean is, she is happy to be with her?’

  ‘Yes. Very happy. Rebecca loves her, very much.’

  I think of the force with which Rebecca propelled herself at Debs, the expectant charge that wired her little body as we neared the house. Quivering like a tethered foal waiting to bolt. My cheeks feel hot at the confusion of before. I must resolve it; this is part of my reinvention.

  ‘When you said “too”, did you mean that I also must love Debs?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m sorry.’ Sandrine dips her head. ‘It is my mistake. You talk of her with such pride and affection.’

  ‘Sandrine,
she is my friend. Only my friend.’ The side of my hand glides upwards, connects briefly to her chin so I might hold her gaze directly. Hot coffee flavouring my tongue. I am amazed at my bravery, and at the little – no, the wee – blaze of light glowing off her skin.

  ‘Come,’ she says. ‘We will be late for class. And today it is Shakespeare. Again.’

  ‘My joy is unconfined!’

  ‘Is that not Twain?’

  ‘Yes.’ A little sigh escapes. I must try harder to give big smiles.

  Our lecturer is a horrible woman. This is not a random malice I feel, I have come to the conclusion after several observations. She is big-jawed and square. Sniffs, continually. Rolls her phlegm with a rasping sound and deposits it in her gullet. Not nice. She drones in a monotone, enlivened by the occasional spike of sarcasm or vitriol. We are a class of mixed abilities, and it’s clear she has her favourites. Quite right, Malcolm. Farida – do you have any idea what book we’re reading? This, I believe, is a cardinal sin for a teacher. Am I jealous of her? Yes. When she stands before our class and talks her incoherent nonsense, yes. It pains me that this woman has the job of shaping minds, and clearly despises it.

  ‘OK, class. Turn to page forty-three. Now we’re not gonny have time to finish this before Christmas, so what I’m gonny do is bring in a DVD. It’ll give you the gist of –’

  My hand is up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could we not simply read more quickly in the classroom? It seems we have been on this scene for several lectures.’

  Her hands fold themselves into hooves, and she leans on her knuckles, on her desk. Rarely does this woman come out from behind her desk.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Also, I wondered if we might study some other literature after Christmas. It says on the prospectus that we will cover a range of writers and styles.’

  ‘I’m sorry if we’re boring you, Mr Hussein.’

  ‘Hassan.’

  ‘Potato, po-tah-to.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘So tell me. What other writers would you recommend for our curriculum? Bearing in mind that we’re studying Eng-lish lit-er-ature, and that Shakespeare is the finest exemplar of English literature in the known world. Or would you disagree?’