Think of Ashti and Rostam, she told herself desperately. They were probably sleeping alongside cows and sheep, or out on the open hillsides. They’d have snakes and scorpions to worry about. The pesh murgas wouldn’t let a few bedbugs bother them.
It was impossible to go to sleep after that. Tara lay down again, but she didn’t relax for a minute. She was on full alert, ready to pounce on every tiny tickle.
Just before the sun came up, a wild screaming noise, coming from close by, broke the silence. Tara felt her hair stand on end. It sounded like an animal in a trap, or someone out of their mind with terror. It stopped suddenly, dying away in a horrible gobbling sound.
Almost at once another sound took its place. A loud-speaker somewhere overhead was blasting out the voice of the muezzin, calling the camp to the first prayers of the day. In spite of the crackling and distortion of the cheap amplifiers, the familiar words sounded beautiful and comforting.
‘In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,’ the unseen mullah chanted. ‘I bear witness that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet.’
Compassionate and merciful, she thought. Oh God, be compassionate and merciful now. To us.
She waited for the chant to tail away on the high, fluting note she’d always loved, but it didn’t. It was suddenly cut off, and then there was a lot of deafening static that set her teeth on edge, and a confused mixture of prayers and chants, music and shouting voices that went on and on, making her want to put her hands over her ears.
For once in her life, Tara was the first of the family to get up. She crept about trying not to disturb the others, who were still lying with their eyes shut in spite of the terrible noise. As soon as the sun was touching the snowy peaks above the valley she was out of the cabin and off to the latrine, where a long line of sleepy yawning people were already waiting.
When she got back a woman was standing outside the next-door cabin, shaking out a blanket. She was a large person with muscular arms and a loud voice, which was just as well because the loudspeakers were so noisy they had to practically shout to make themselves heard.
She smiled as she looked Tara up and down.
‘Did you arrive last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘A big family, are you?’
‘No, there’s only my parents and my little sister and me.’
‘That’s good. You won’t be too crowded. There’s eight of us trying to sleep in this hutch. When one turns over we all have to.’
Tara smiled back at her, wondering if all the other members of her family were as big as she was.
‘Do you know – is there a doctor here?’ she asked shyly. ‘My mother’s ill.’
The woman shook her head.
‘No, there isn’t. Not what you’d call a proper doctor, anyway. At least, I haven’t heard of anyone getting any help. What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know. She’s coughing a lot and she’s got a fever.’
‘Hm, you’ll have to look after her carefully. Are you sure you can manage?’
‘Yes,’ said Tara uncertainly. ‘Where do you get food and everything?’
The woman laughed shortly.
‘You can’t go and get it. The men have to collect the rations. And precious small they are too. Did you bring anything of your own?’
‘A bit I think,’ said Tara, trying to remember what was in the bags.
The woman hesitated, then she said abruptly, ‘I’ve got a few things put by. I can let you have some olives and dried fruit for your mother, poor soul. She’ll need food she can fancy.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ Tara suddenly felt less alone. ‘The man last night said we could get blankets and a carpet today.’
‘Yes, of sorts. Tell your father to talk to my husband. He knows the right way to go about it. You’ll need as much as you can to keep the draughts out.’
‘Is it always that cold at night? There were bugs too.’
The woman shrugged.
‘You’ll just have to do the best you can with them. They’re not easy to get rid of, but I’ve got a bit of Dettol left. I could let you have some. You’ll get soap, if you could call it that, with your food ration. Give the place a good clean out, that’s my advice. I’d give you a hand, but my youngest is down with the measles, and I’ve got my work cut out looking after him.’
A fit of coughing came from the cabin and Tara turned to go.
‘Good luck,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t worry about your mother. She’ll be all right, God willing. Make her some nice hot tea. They’ll give you a paraffin stove later, but I’ll let you have some hot water for now if you like. I’ve just boiled some up.’
For the rest of the morning, Tara worked like a beaver. She scraped the skin off her knuckles scrubbing at the floorboards, and got blisters from the heavy buckets she fetched from the standpipe at the far end of the camp. But the thought of the bugs crawling and biting in the night was worse than sore hands and she plunged on, inspired by loathing for them, determined to kill them all.
‘You look like Granny,’ Hero said, watching her curiously from the door.
‘Good,’ said Tara, on her hands and knees, working away at a stain on the floor.
She’d hardly finished cleaning the floor when Kak Soran was back with their first lot of food rations and a tiny paraffin stove.
‘Do you think you can manage?’ he said doubtfully, looking down at the bags of flour, rice and tea, the handful of onions and minute cube of meat.
Tara didn’t answer. She took the stuff, piled it in a corner and waited until he’d gone off to ask for blankets, then she went over to where Teriska Khan was lying, flushed and muttering, on the hard floor.
‘Daya,’ she whispered, ‘are you awake?’
Teriska Khan opened her eyes but didn’t seem to see her.
‘Daya, how do I cook the supper? There’s only a scrap of meat and no vegetables.’
‘Run over to Mrs Amina and ask for some eggs.’ Teriska Khan’s voice was high and husky. ‘It’s easy to cook eggs.’
‘But Daya . . .’
‘Get me some water, Tara. From my dressing table. The filter . . .’
Tara straightened up. Her legs felt shaky. Daya’s mind was wandering and she looked terribly ill. She went to the pot of water. It was empty. She picked it up and shot out through the cabin door.
‘Stay there,’ she said to Hero, ‘be a good girl. Don’t bother Daya, or I’ll . . .’
Hero didn’t bother to look up. She’d found a little girl of her own age and they were playing together with a pile of stones.
It seemed a mile to the standpipes. She ran as fast as she could, darting between surprised-looking people. But when she got to the pipes her heart sank. There was a queue of women waiting to fill their buckets.
‘Please,’ she said desperately to the person at the front, ‘my mother’s ill, she needs water.’ The woman smiled at her. She’d already filled one of her buckets and the other was standing under the trickling tap, slowly filling up.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘give me your pot.’
She dipped it into her full bucket and gave it to Tara.
‘Don’t spill it!’ she called out after her, but Tara was off already, running slowly with her knees bent, her eyes fixed on the full pot, hardly spilling a drop.
The water seemed to do Teriska Khan good. She lay back after a few sips and put her head down again on Kak Soran’s spare jacket that Tara had made into a kind of pillow.
If only we could turn off this awful noise, thought Tara, watching her helplessly and hating the din that bellowed endlessly from the loudspeakers.
‘How’s she doing then?’ said a voice at the door. Tara turned, trying to control her tears. It was the woman from next door.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
The woman came in and squatted down beside Teriska Khan.
‘Listen to that breathing,’ she said. ‘It’s pneumonia all right. Didn’t you bring any
medicine with you?’
‘Just some paracetemol and a few things like that,’ said Tara. ‘Baba’s given her some of that already.’
The woman picked up Teriska Khan’s headscarf that lay on the floor beside her.
‘Dip this in the water and put it on her forehead. It’ll cool her down a bit. What have you given her to eat?’
‘Nothing. I haven’t started to cook yet. I . . .’
The woman saw the pile of unopened rations.
‘Give them to me,’ she said. ‘I’ll do your dinner for you tonight. You sit with your mother, poor soul, and fan her, and keep giving her sips of water. Make sure she’s warm enough. She’s bad, I can see. There’s a lot here with fevers. Very sudden, they come on. Lost a lot of babies and old people since we arrived. She looks strong enough, but I wouldn’t like to say . . . still, you never know . . .’
She shook her head, picked up the rations and went out.
Tara sat on her heels, nursing her knees. She wanted to run after the neighbour and shout at her, tell her she was ignorant and stupid. How dare she hint that Daya was in danger? What did she know about it anyway? Daya had only started being ill two days ago. People couldn’t die as quickly as that, surely?
She poured a little water on to the scarf and laid it gently on Teriska Khan’s forehead. Then she touched her hand. It felt very hot and dry. She took the scarf off her head and gently sponged her hands with it.
‘Compassionate and Merciful,’ she said to herself. ‘Compassionate and Merciful. Don’t die. Don’t die.’
The next two days and nights were like a nightmare that went on and on. The little cabin was filled with the dreadful rasping sound of Teriska Khan’s breathing, punctuated by her painful cough. Kak Soran and Tara were already exhausted from their journey but they didn’t have much chance to rest. Kak Soran had to spend hours at the camp headquarters, being questioned. The fact that his wife was ill didn’t cut any ice with anyone there. The rest of the time he had to spend queuing for rations, and trying to get hold of carpets and blankets.
When he did come back to the cabin his face showed how tense and anxious he felt, but he didn’t seem to know what to do. He’d never nursed a sick person before. Tara hadn’t either. Half the time she felt so frightened she wanted to do nothing but scream and scream. Then her feelings would change to a boiling rage.
‘You’re not going to die!’ she’d mutter through clenched teeth. ‘I’m not going to let you.’
She sat beside Teriska Khan all day, watching her like a hawk, while the kind neighbour fetched the water she needed and cooked their meals.
At every slight movement or change Tara would be on the alert at once, trying to work out what it might mean, how Daya felt and how she could be made more comfortable. When her breathing got very loud and heavy, her lips became dry and cracked. Tara would feed her spoonfuls of water to moisten them. If Daya started moaning and thrashing, Tara would see she was burning with fever, and she’d grind up a paracetemol tablet and slip it into her mouth with some water, and wash her face and hands. She spent hours fanning her, and trying to make the primitive bedclothes more comfortable. She talked to her, on and on, whether Teriska Khan seemed to be able to hear or not. She told her to get better, and scolded her for being too hot. Sometimes she cried and pleaded with her not to die, and prayed, and coaxed her to drink a little soup or a mouthful of tea.
At night, Tara sank into a few hours of exhausted sleep herself, but she was on guard and ready to jump up at once if she was needed. Kak Soran hardly slept at all, but sat beside his wife, watching for any sign of a change, and settling Hero if she woke up. At least, thought Tara thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about Hero. The little girl she’d found to play with had become her friend, and Yasmin’s mother kindly offered to look after Hero until the crisis was over. Hero asked once or twice why Daya wasn’t getting up, but with so many other changes in her life, Teriska Khan’s strange behaviour didn’t seem as peculiar as it would have done at home.
At dawn on the third morning, Tara was woken as usual by the brutal assault of the loudspeakers, and she sat up at once, guiltily aware that she’d slept for longer than she’d meant to. In the cracks of light that came in through the badly fitting door she could see the shapes of her parents, two motionless bundles on the floor. She couldn’t hear Daya breathing at all.
She shut her eyes tight for a moment, desperately afraid. When she opened them again Kak Soran was unrolling himself from his blanket. He sat up, and in the dim light Tara could see he was smiling at her.
‘Asleep,’ he said quietly. ‘The fever’s gone.’
There was a knock at the door. Tara scrambled over to open it. The neighbour’s big husband stood outside.
‘How is the lady?’ he said, looking very solemn.
‘Sleeping! Better!’ said Tara, wiping the tears from her streaked face with the end of her long sleeve.
Kak Soran came to the door.
‘Slept well for a good four hours,’ he said, ‘and no fever this morning.’
The man took his hand and pumped it up and down.
‘And my wife was afraid to come and ask herself!’ he said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘She thought last night . . . She will be pleased! And she’s bringing some tea and a mouthful of breakfast round for you all.’
18
Teriska Khan didn’t get better all at once. She was as weak as a kitten for days. At first even trying to sit up tired her out. She had almost no appetite and lay listlessly, all day long, staring out of the open door. Tara longed to be able to give her little pieces of fresh fruit, or sweet things like honey cakes, anything tasty that would tempt her to eat, but there was nothing but the dullest, plainest food. Anyway she thought, seeing the look in her eyes, Teriska Khan probably didn’t even notice what she was eating. She was thinking all the time about Ashti and Granny and home.
‘You’ll have to be careful now,’ the neighbour said, when she’d got Tara out of earshot. ‘Your mother could relapse and she wouldn’t come through so easily a second time. She needs to build up her strength. Try and cheer her up and get her to eat. I’d do more for you if I could but my second’s gone down with the measles too, and he looks really bad. I hope you and the little girl have had it?’
‘Yes, we have,’ said Tara thankfully. Measles on top of everything else would be the last straw.
For the next few weeks Tara worked harder than she’d ever worked in her life. The whole family depended on her. She couldn’t rely on the neighbour any more. She had to be up first, and prepare the samovar for the morning tea. She had to get breakfast for Baba and Hero, and persuade Daya to eat a little bread, and fetch water for Daya to wash in, and pick over the rice to get the grit out of it before she could cook it for supper.
She looked after Hero too. She did everything for her, took her to the latrines, got her meals ready, helped her to wash and get dressed and cuddled her when she was tired or cross. It was funny but the more she had to do for Hero the better she got on with her. It wasn’t the same as just helping Daya look after her. It was quite different now she was in charge herself and had to think of everything on her own. Hero could be really difficult sometimes, especially when she didn’t get her own way, but Tara seemed able to manage her more easily.
The biggest battle of all was against the bugs. Tara scoured the cabin from floor to ceiling using a few drops of the precious Dettol in each bucket of water. She scrubbed and rubbed at the filthy blankets they’d been given, and beat clouds of dust and muck out of the thin strip of carpet until her arms ached.
Then she washed her hair and Hero’s hair again and again in the hard, coarse soap they were issued with, and Teriska Khan carefully inspected it in case they’d caught lice. The soap made their hair smell unpleasant, and it felt lank and heavy. Tara’s scalp itched too.
If ever I get to use proper shampoo again, she thought longingly, I’ll know just how wonderful it is.
This great burst of acti
vity required huge quantities of water and Tara went backwards and forwards time after time to the standpipes. She soon got fed up with standing in a long queue, then staggering back with a full bucket, which always slopped into her shoes. It was so difficult to hold the sides of the wretched chador tightly together under her chin with her spare hand.
By the end of the first week the cabin was habitable. The walls and floor were spotless and the carpet even gave it a furnished look. After all the beatings and scrubbings Tara had given it, it looked more ragged and threadbare than ever, but at least it was clean. Tara hadn’t quite got rid of the revolting smell that still clung to the blankets, but they were much better than they had been. It was a rare bug now that dared invade the cabin, and everyone began sleeping properly again.
Tara was no longer woken by the screams and yells that still broke out every night. They weren’t nearly so frightening now she knew where they were coming from. It was a poor man, the friendly neighbour’s husband had told Kak Soran, who had lost his wife and three small children in a bombing raid. His brother had managed to get him through the mountains to the refugee camp, but now he’d started having fits, and no one could do anything with him till he’d calmed down.
As the weeks passed, Teriska Khan grew stronger. She began to potter about the cabin and take over the cooking. She supervised the washing and did more and more for Hero. But even though things seemed to be getting back to normal again it wasn’t the same as it had been before she’d been ill. Tara didn’t need telling now when things needed to be done. She’d pick up the bucket and go off for water before anyone else noticed it was empty. She’d fold up the blankets and stack them neatly away as soon as everyone was up. She’d take the rations out of Kak Soran’s hands and arrange them in the little store area she’d planned out while Teriska Khan was ill.
She and Daya talked about different things now too. There was no question any more of hiding things from Tara, as if she was still a little girl. For the first time she asked questions, and Daya talked freely, as if Tara had been Auntie Suzan or someone. Tara began to understand things that had always vaguely puzzled her in the past. It was like fitting together the pieces of a broken jug. Things that Baba had let fall, Rostam’s stories, the piece of paper the boys outside the mosque had been reading, the unexplained disappearances of friends’ fathers and brothers, the arrests and beatings, the propaganda and terror all added up to a new idea of what it meant to be a Kurd, and she felt proud and angry at the same time.
Kiss the Dust Page 13
