The Long Road From Kandahar, page 17
‘Delphi, of course,’ Ed Dominic said. ‘All of the above. I’ll hand you to Finn.’
‘Thank you.’
But Finn heard the tremble in Delphi’s voice when she reassured him Ben was safe. It increased his anxiety. ‘Delphi, do you know if the soldiers were from our regiment? On the news it said a cavalry regiment. Were they Ben’s soldiers?’
‘I don’t know, darling, but I think they probably were …’ Delphi lied.
‘You’re sure Ben’s all right?’
‘I’m absolutely sure, Finn. He specifically wanted to reassure us.’
Finn shivered, wondering who had died on that patrol. Which of their neighbours on the patch in Germany would have to go through the dreaded knock on the door. ‘If any of his soldiers died, Ben will be gutted, Delphi,’ he whispered. ‘We all know each other.’
‘I know, darling. I know. It’s horrible, but everyone in the regiment will support each other … try not to dwell. Let’s keep busy. Christmas soon, and then Ben will be back with us for New Year.’
Mercy made hot chocolate for everyone and Finn’s friends sat trying to comfort and distract him. Ed was impressed by the kindness and maturity of the boys. They were careful of the words they used to reassure Finn. Not one of them muttered clichés.
Iso said, ‘When there was a coup by government rebels at home in Abuja my father was arrested by the opposition. I thought he was going to be killed. It is a very bad feeling, but my father was okay, Finn. He was frightened. I was very frightened, but he was okay.’
‘My grandfather,’ Peter Chan said, ‘thinks that nobody learns from history anymore. There are some places on this earth no one can conquer …’
He glanced at Raza. Raza was so much one of them now that they tended to forget he might have a totally different view. ‘What do you think, Raz?’
Raza had been aware of Finn’s anxiety all term. As the numbers of soldiers killed in Afghanistan grew, so had Finn’s fear for his Baba.
‘It is very bad when soldiers and Afghan people die,’ he said cautiously. ‘When American and British government send soldiers to Muslim countries, Muslims want to defend his country from foreign invasion. Many Afghan peoples do not like Taliban, but many do not trust foreign soldiers either. They think they bring more troubles and violence. Ordinary peoples are caught in middle. Foreign soldiers, they invade Afghanistan, and then they leave, they go back to their own countries. But problems in country do not leave with them … Ordinary peoples who help or work for foreign forces, even if to do good, they are punished by Taliban, they can never live safe again …’
Raza looked at Finn, his face anxious. ‘This is what I think, but I am very sorry for death of British soldiers who go to help Afghan people fight against Talibs …’
Finn said, ‘It’s okay, Raz. I’m not convinced our soldiers should be in Afghanistan either, but the Afghan army are being trained for when the British and Americans pull out, you know. My dad says that the Afghan government would actually like us to remain longer, because of the Taliban …’
Finn glanced at Mr Dominic, who had sat down and was listening.
‘At home in Germany, our regiment collects money so schools in Afghanistan can re-open, and the Royal Engineers, they are, like, building water stations and bridges over rivers to connect people who are cut off in isolated communities. My dad says they are trying to help make life for Afghans suffering under the Taliban, like, better, you know … especially for women and girls.’
He looked at Raza’s face, ‘Maybe, you think that it’s not really possible for soldiers to change anything in Afghanistan. I wish my dad wasn’t out there fighting the Taliban, but I’m proud that he is.’
Raza looked at Finn with his vivid green eyes, trying to find the right words. ‘It is not that Afghan people do not wish for progress, Finn. It is that the Taliban have too much power to lose if you educate boys like me. If you build schools. If you give people voices and hope of better life, the Talibs will lose their power. I know nothing about politics before I come to Britain and read books, before I can use Internet. Before England, I only know what mullah preaches in mosque. What my Baba tells me … I do not fully understand how Islam religion can be used by ignorant men to ferment violence …’
Ed and Mercy Dominic were listening fascinated to this exchange between the boys. Ed had the feeling that Raza and Finn had had this sort of conversation before, and he was touched at the trust the two boys had built between them in so short a time.
Finn grinned. ‘Educating boys like you, Raz, is a fearful thing. You’re even brilliant at maths.’
‘Yeah,’ the other two groaned in agreement. ‘You’re even good at maths.’
Raza shook his head. ‘No. It is my father who is clever. He want me educated, so I see with different eyes out of more than one window …’
‘The trouble is all governments in the world have both eyes focused on what’s in it for them,’ Peter Chan said, portentously.
‘Comes down to power again,’ Iso said, yawning. ‘Power and corruption.’
Ed Dominic laughed. He could see that Finn was slowly restored.
‘I think we’ll end this impressive philosophizing for tonight, boys. Bed, please. Mercy or I will be in to turn lights out in twenty-five minutes.’
Before the ten o’clock news came on Ed Dominic rang Delphi to reassure her that Finn had settled. Delphi had always seemed an ageless, joyful woman, but the years of worrying about Ben going off to violent places was beginning to take its toll. Hanna disappearing back to Finland and leaving Finn in Cornwall could not have helped either. He hugged Mercy suddenly, startling her. She laughed. ‘What brought this on?’
‘Just counting my blessings,’ Ed said, kissing the top of her head.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Finn and Raza headed into town to do some Christmas shopping on the last Wednesday afternoon before school broke up. Raza was delighted as it was normally sports afternoon. He loathed sports afternoons on the freezing, windy, rugby pitch. He enjoyed ball games but not in this temperature. Not unless he was wrapped up in a huge shawl from nose to feet.
‘Do Sarah and Chinir celebrate Christmas?’ Finn asked as they headed for the centre. ‘I don’t mean the Christian side of it. I mean the food and present bit.’
Raza grinned. ‘You joking? Pakistanis, they never miss a festival or chance of a party. Sarah and Chinir, they are British, remember. We have many decorations in the house and a big meal on the day of Christmas, but we do not eat the bird.’
‘Turkey.’
‘No, we do not have that. We go to Derby this year to Sarah’s parents. They are very nice. Liyana, she teach … taught me English when I first come to England. Now, I must find Christmas presents for them. It is very hard.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Finn said.
Sarah and Chinir had driven over to the house in Penzance to pick up Raza one weekend after they had been to an engagement party of a colleague. Sarah had been wearing a stunning scarlet and gold shalwar kameez and Chinir an embroidered sherwani in heavy brocade.
Finn had stared, fascinated at a glimpse into Raza’s exotic world. He thought Sarah amazing with her long, glossy hair and beautiful clothes.
‘Normally, Sarah, she is wearing jeans,’ Raza said, amused at Finn’s open mouth. ‘Or a white coat and spectacles. She does not go to hospital dressed in shalwar kameez.’
‘I know that!’ Finn said, embarrassed. ‘But she looks a lot better than you in your shalwar kameez.’
He wondered what Raza must have thought about the clothes girls wore in England when he first arrived. At school it was still boys only, except for the sixth form. Finn had noticed that Raza seemed shy or uneasy around girls and never looked directly at them. Once, he had asked Raza how he had found having girls in the same class in his London school and Raza’s face had closed. He had shrugged without answering.
In fact, Raza had been appalled at the way English girls showed their bodies when he first arrived. He had not expected them to be veiled or dressed like Pakistani women at home, but he was astonished that their fathers and brothers allowed them to show themselves in this way.
He was not a city boy or used to seeing many westerners and the ones he had seen had been mostly aid workers who dressed modestly. It had been a shock. Most of the Pakistani and Asian girls in his class in London had dressed modestly, but they behaved like the English girls they were. They challenged Raza contemptuously with their eyes, seeing his disdain and knowing instinctively that he stood for a way of life their parents had left behind, but would still try to make them adhere to.
Chinir had told Raza he must take care to hide his feelings. Western women might not always dress modestly, but that did not mean they were immodest. He was living in a different culture here. In England it was not a sin to show your legs and arms or wear short skirts. Women liked to do that. They considered it their right. It did not mean they were bad or not respectable.
‘But,’ Raza asked, mystified, ‘why do their husbands and fathers permit them to dress this way? Why do they allow it?’
‘Come on, Raza,’ Chinir had said, irritated by a glimpse of Raza’s religious, circumscribed life. ‘You must have watched films or TV in Peshawar. You know that western women do not dress like girls in north Pakistan, nor, indeed, like Muslim women in the cities who always carry a dupatta to cover themselves.’
Raza had been miserably silent. He had not watched films and TV except at Uncle Maldi’s house in ’Pindi occasionally and they had been loud Indian musicals. Music had been forbidden by the Taliban in his village. In Peshawar he had glimpsed western news flashes and seen TV adverts through shop windows and on hoardings. Strange hybrid versions of women, advertising local products with American or English accents while dressed in shalwar kameez.
Zamir’s family were devout, unlike Chinir. It was strange, Raza was sure that Zamir would never have allowed him to watch western movies, yet he had happily sent him to the west.
Sarah had understood. ‘It’s hard for you, Raza. I wish we’d had more time to prepare you for life here, but you have to understand England is very different from Pakistan. It is not a Muslim country. The same rules do not apply. Women, in theory, are equal, treated the same way as a man. They are not required to hide themselves away. They are, more or less, free to dress as they please, and they do. Whether, as Muslims, we agree with it, is not the point. This is British culture, and we have to take the best of it and reject what we do not wish for ourselves …’
She had touched Raza’s arm, wary. ‘British people here are just as shocked by the fact that Pakistani girls are hidden away, veiled, forbidden education in many places, and then married off at fourteen to work like a beast for their husbands and in-laws for the rest of their lives. They find this just as disturbing as you do to see them airing their arms and legs …’
Raza had got up from the table and gone to his room. He had thrown himself in misery and confusion onto the bed. Baba had given him to these people. He, Raza, had travelled all this way with them to this country that Baba appeared to think was a nice place. He knew Sarah and Chinir were good people, but he also saw clearly that they did not condemn the ways of women here. He heard in Sarah’s voice and the words she did not say that she did not agree with women staying hidden or veiled or under the protection of their fathers until marriage.
To Raza, in his first months in England, Sarah and Chinir were Pakistanis who lived in England. He could not accept that they were British, and Pakistanis of a different generation to his father. Their freedoms had been very different to his own.
Now, nearing his third Christmas in England, Raza, pushing through the crowds of Christmas shoppers with Finn, could smile at English girls and even joke with them occasionally. He did not meet their eyes, for he could not believe this was respectful, but he understood that the sexes mixed freely. He also saw that Finn and his school friends were nearly as awkward and embarrassed around girls as he was.
‘Oh God! I hate crowds,’ Finn moaned. ‘How many presents have you got to find?’
‘Three. If you think this is a crowd, Finn, you should come to Peshawar at Eid Al Adha.’
‘No, thanks,’ Finn said, concentrating on Izzy’s present because she was the easiest to buy for. They ended up in Waterstones poring over books they had no intention of buying. Peter Chan spotted them coming out. ‘There you are! Come with me. We will go to my uncle’s for tea. It will restore us.’
They ploughed their way through the Christmas shoppers to the Jasmine Restaurant where Teddy Chan, a jovial, bespectacled man, sat them at a corner table of the empty restaurant and brought them Jasmine tea and small bowls of left-over egg fried rice and spring rolls. Isa joined them, packages jutting out of his knapsack. ‘I had to get seaside things to take back for my little sisters,’ he said, collapsing.
‘I thought you weren’t going back to Nigeria for Christmas,’ Finn said.
‘Change of plan. Now I am flying with my mother to my aunt’s house in Abuja, where my sisters stay. We are not going back to our home in Lagos. We hope my father can join us.’
Peter Chan smiled smugly. ‘No shopping for me. Singapore has the best shopping in the world, so no point …’
Finn and Raza made a face at him, their mouths full of his uncle’s fried rice.
Back at school Raza and Finn threw their packages on the bed.
‘What will you do for the holiday?’ Finn asked Raza.
‘I will eat much. The house of my family will be full of Pakistani friends of Liyana and lonely people that she and Danyial work with. Also, I think they make programme for a party. Chinir, he must come back to hospital for duty two days after Christmas Day. Liyana and Sarah, they will shop in Derby all day in the sales, and talk … talk … I will grow bored and read and study my English grammar and feel I am shut inside box …’
Finn laughed. ‘Typical English Christmas then! Ring me when you’re back in Cornwall.’
‘You will be very busy with your father and your family.’
‘Yeah, but I’d like you to meet my dad.’
‘Thank you,’ Raza said politely, unsure of this. His experience of the military in Pakistan had not made him want to spend time with them. ‘Okay. I will ring you when I am back.’
‘My dad is not a scary military man. My mother is more likely to scare you, actually.’
‘Oh dear,’ Raza said worriedly.
‘I’m not serious, Raz.’ Finn sat on the bed. ‘Can you never go home for holidays, to see your father?’
Raza shook his head. ‘My Baba, he tell me where we live is dangerous just now. Many people are getting kidnapped, sometimes killed. Also, it is much money to go home to Pakistan.’
‘Can you Skype your father. See him that way?’
‘My father does not have computer. I do not think about going home. Christmas is not Muslim festival, Finn. Indeed, at the house of Liyana and Danyial there will be much food and jollity.’
Finn laughed. ‘You’ll be fine, then. I’m going to check my emails to see if there is one from my dad …’
Finn fished his laptop out of his cupboard, trying to rein in his excitement. Ben had rung to say he was going to be home for Christmas after all. He had to attend a military defence conference in London on the twenty-ninth of December. ‘Oh no!’ He cried, staring at the screen.
‘What?’ Raza asked, startled.
‘I’ve got a message from my dad. The weather’s closed in. No planes can fly out of Afghanistan at the moment. Everyone’s stuck, so the soldiers who should be flying back home on leave now, will have to fly out when my dad should be flying home, so he might not make it for Christmas Day, unless they increase the flights back to the UK …’
‘It is winter in Afghanistan,’ Raza told him. ‘Weather is very bad this time of year, Finn. But it change quickly. Clouds open and shut. Inshallah, your Baba will get home in time. I will go and pray that you will all be together for your festival day.’
Alone, Finn sat and looked out of the window. The weather was closing in here as well, shutting the school in mist. Hanna and Izzy were arriving on the twenty-second of December, in one week’s time. Finn wondered how he would bear Christmas if Ben did not make it home.
CHAPTER FORTY
There was a small window in the weather. Ben made it from Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion on the twenty-first of December for the flight back to the UK the following morning. He prayed the weather would hold because he had fought for a seat on this particular aircraft. The weather held, but the ageing military aircraft did not. Before the trouble in the engine was fixed, Ben spent a long night in Dubai with hundreds of tired soldiers desperate to be home.
He landed at Brize Norton and dashed for a taxi to Reading to pick up the Cornish Riviera to Penzance. Delphi had sent him the train times but warned him there were limited trains over the Christmas period. In case he flew in too late for the last train on Christmas Eve, she had arranged for a driver to be on stand-by to drive Ben down to Penzance. Delphi was leaving nothing to chance, but at Paddington Ben managed to struggle onto a packed afternoon train to Penzance.
He was still in combats and rocking on his feet with exhaustion. He knew it was unlikely he would find anywhere to sit without having booked. He edged through the first carriage with his rucksack searching for a place. As soon as they saw his uniform people moved their coats and papers and looked around them to locate a spare seat. An old man ushered him into his seat by the window and moved into the next seat. Touched, Ben stowed his rucksack and collapsed into the seat gratefully.
Doors slammed, the train slid out of the station and Ben closed his eyes against the dizzying wave of people around him. Immediately he was back in Lashkar Gah, the dust blowing and sticking into every crease of his skin. He saw the curving shrine of names written on planks of wood; the small white crosses burnt behind his eyelids. He had five hours to concentrate on getting his head away from those images of death and blood and gore before he reached Penzance.
