Baghlan Boy Page 5

  She led Farood down the corridor to an open area in the education block where two officers were slumped at the far end. She took him to a desk, dropped a file and sat down opposite.

  ‘I’m Harriet, your probation officer here. I want to talk to you about your sentence.’ Her abrupt expression was matched by her tone.

  ‘My sentence? Why, miss?’

  ‘You have a lot of time ahead of you. Have you thought about courses, qualifications?’

  The question confronted him like another impossible journey, one that he was yet resigned to making. He wondered if she’d thought how she would fill the next fifteen years. He imagined her face at the end of it all.

  ‘You were at college, weren’t you?’

  ‘In Burnley. I was doing engineering.’

  ‘Well, you can do almost anything here through the virtual campus – how about doing a degree?’

  ‘How can you do engineering in here?’

  ‘There are other courses you need to think about. Offending behaviour courses, victim awareness. Have a look at this list.’

  He didn’t. Instead, Farood pulled out a folded piece of paper from his sock and opened it out on the table. ‘Miss, I got this letter today about my appeal. It’s next week.’

  Harriet read it impatiently. ‘What are your grounds for appeal?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. I was there, that’s all.’

  ‘Sometimes that’s enough.’ She didn’t lift her eyes from the page.

  ‘Miss, the lawyer’s no good. I want another lawyer. I didn’t even ask for this.’

  ‘You need to get this postponed?’

  ‘Can you do that for me?’

  ‘You need to speak to your lawyer. That’s their job, not mine.’

  ‘But the lawyer is not on my side.’

  Harriet pushed the letter back and shut Farood’s file. She got to her feet.

  ‘Miss, do you think thirty-three is old?’

  *

  He didn’t go back to Macbeth. It was Friday – half-day bang up; everybody had to be back from work by half eleven, dinner was at a quarter to, then behind the door until association at seven. By quarter past noon the lights were out on all the wings, lads were sleeping and the morning shift officers were on starting blocks. As always there was one more obligation before it was over – Friday prayers. There were forty or so Muslims in the jail, scattered across the eight wings. They were not a tight group – a firm, a gang, nowhere near as belligerently cohesive as the Liverpool lads, but on Fridays before and after prayers, if someone had reported an insult, they would come back to wings carrying their Qur’ans and indignation that simmered until evening association. From everyone else’s point of view, they had no right to complain at all since they all got an extra shower and another ninety minutes out of their pads each week. Farood didn’t care much for the congregational prayers in the jail, since the congregation didn’t exactly pay attention. The imam was a small Lancashire man, soft in features and accent, who struggled up and down the hill to the jail on a bicycle.

  In the pre-prayer showers Atif spoke about giving up education, unless there were separate classes for Muslims. He told the others that we should all raise this with the imam. It held the attention of some, but Farood turned his back and left the showers. En-route to the chapel, Atif touched fists with his brothers, and introduced himself to new arrivals and new Muslims from other wings. A Polish lad, who had recently converted, walked by his side, taking in advice about Jews controlling the media. Everyone walked at the same pace as Atif. He took pole position in the prayer room, placing his mat centre stage then pressing his nose to the floor, with his Qur’an wrapped in a towel beside him. Today’s sermon from the imam was about the importance of humility, the dangers of avarice and the sin of theft, the taking of wealth from others. He spoke about the enormous shame of those Muslims involved in the recent riots in London and Birmingham. A good Muslim, he said, understood that being was more important than having. Adornments of gold, this was nothing but enjoyment of the present life: The Hereafter, in the sight of thy Lord, is for the righteous.

  There was always a queue after prayers to speak to the imam. Many of the questions were sincere, concerned – about visits, officers, about being picked on, but many were about avoiding going back to the cell until 7pm.

  Official letters were part of the asking and Farood had his in his hand. ‘Sir, see this. It’s my appeal. It’s going ahead, but I need to stop it.’ Farood handed over the letter.

  ‘Then you need to tell the lawyer, and they will cancel it.’

  ‘They won’t, sir – see, the lawyers are criminals, sir.’

  The imam shrugged. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘If you could explain to the Court of Appeal, they’d believe you.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. Ask the SO on your wing to let you make a phone call from the wing office.’ He handed the letter back.

  Farood left the chapel building and his co-religious behind and headed back to the wing. He considered praying in his own cell in future. Ahead of him Robertson unlocked the wing gate and looked in his direction. Occasionally he would ask about the service, so Farood tried to think of something to say before asking about making the phone call.

  Just then, Atif jogged up behind him, placing his hand on his shoulder. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The sermon. You know what I think? Who is this imam to say what the Qur’an means? We can read what’s in there for ourselves. You must have had some good imams in Afghan.’

  ‘They were all Hafiz.’

  ‘Of course. You know, you could bring a lot to our group, Farood.’

  At this, Farood looked sideways at Atif.

  ‘You’re from the heart of the struggle,’ said Atif, putting an arm round him.

  ‘Yeah, a war zone.’

  ‘People in here would look to you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For leadership, brother. Muslims here are straying from the path.’

  ‘We find our own path.’

  At which Atif jogged ahead and stood blocking his way. ‘You have a responsibility a duty to take up the fight, man. You know the Qur’an, you know that much.’

  Farood tried to brush past him; Atif side-stepped, blocking his path. ‘Didn’t you fight? Didn’t your family fight?’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘I got you wrong, didn’t I? You’re not even an Afghan, are you, mate?’

  They were not that far from Robertson, who hadn’t quite heard what had been said, but the moment started Atif rocking on his heels, shrugging his shoulders, a stride away from Farood, he left his post. Farood took a breath, tensed his shoulders, then skipped forward for a scissor kick at Atif’s right eye. Officers from other gates ran over to assist Robertson in control and restraint.

  Farood held out his arms behind his back for Robertson to cuff. ‘Boss, I need to make a phone call.’

  ‘When you come back from meeting the governor,’ replied Robertson.

  ‘I need to make it today. About my appeal.’

  ‘First things first.’ Robertson took Farood down the block and filled in the familiar paperwork.

  Six

  Mazar Highway, Afghanistan, 2002

  It was a few hours to the highway. An asphalt road that rested quietly on the valley floor. As soon as they reached the tarmac, the rattling inside the car died. Only then did the driver point at his front passenger, announcing, ‘This is Misha, he’s from Mazar.’

  Farood leaned forward and shook his hand.

  The road was clear as it crossed a plain where the wind scattered dust onto the grey camber. To their left the Surkhab river gradually spread itself up against the exhausted rice fields. On the other side yellow stubble interspersed among coarsely ploughed clo
ds of earth. Misha pulled out some chewing gum and offered a strip to Farood, who shook his head, then Misha declared, ‘We’re picking up someone else. At Pol-e-Khomri.’

  The driver, who was their first guide in a chain across two continents, pushed in a cassette and began to sing along to the crescendos of a falsetto voice. There was an autumn sunset on their shoulders and Farood realised that he had never before spent a night away from his family. He was already a long way from home on a journey that didn’t have a conceivable end. He looked out of the back window and considered how so much empty land gave so little. He knew he was poor. There were some families in the village with cars and radios and larger houses, with land of their own, which meant they would never be hungry. They were the wealthy. No cars were rushing in the opposite direction to Baghlan, only a few American helicopter gunships cutting through the mottled sky. He was leaving an empty place – he had been told to go, but he felt guilty all the same. The song bled away under cheers and hand-clapping as the driver turned down the cassette player.

  ‘She sang at my wedding. Beautiful. Tonight, you’ll stay at a house in Kabul then tomorrow, Quetta, Pakistan. It’s going to be a good journey.’ His grin flashed in the mirror.

  Farood had been on this road before with his father to visit an uncle who was a coalminer in Pol-e-Khomri. His father had told him how his brother had ridden in the buzkashi in Kandahar, that he played the tola, that he was an old Afghan before he had gone to work in the mine. Farood suspected he had meant old in another sense, but the man also looked ancient: his face was so drawn on by labour and coal it was impossible to tell where his beard ended and his flesh began. The Russians had built the mine, but since they had gone conditions had deteriorated, now almost unmechanised with the showers dying off to an intermittent trickle. It was a dangerous place for a wage of a hundred Afghanis a day, and he had been awarded with a severe limp from a tunnel collapse. He was his father’s last brother. Three others had been killed in the same day fighting the Russians. Many times, he was asked to come and live with them in the village, but always he wanted to stay in the miners’ compound with the other men, digging by day, smoking by night. He would not know that he was the last brother.

  Low hills closed in as they got nearer Pol-e-Khomri. The river quickened and the rice fields became smaller. Pylons steadied themselves on foothills. Round one last bluff and they were in the outskirts of a small place. It was a haphazard vista. Farood could see that some of it had been destroyed, yet some of it was also being rebuilt. Once they were in the main street they could see right out to where houses clambered up hills as if the town was trying to escape from itself.

  Inexplicably to Farood, Misha put on his dark glasses, wound down the window and leaned out. ‘Do you know this guy?’ he shouted at the driver.

  The driver smiled and nodded. Cars clung to the centre of the road, chaotically fringed by burned out or abandoned vehicles on either side. The driver leaned forwards, pressing his chest on the steering wheel, muttering to himself.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ asked Farood.

  ‘This guy knows everywhere round here,’ counselled Misha.

  Producing a packet of cigarettes, he began to smoke. Just beyond a clay-coloured mosque was a small roundabout, and on it was sitting a vacant-looking man.

  ‘Is that him?’ suggested Farood.

  They circled the roundabout, but it didn’t register with the tall, bushy-haired man, unshaven rather than bearded, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt and short jacket. Like an American, thought Farood.

  Misha shouted from the window as the car circled the roundabout for a third time. ‘Hey, you, looking for a ride to London? Hey, we’re stopping for a few days in Paris, you can come if you want.’

  The man arose from his daze and ran to the car. Laughing at full volume, the driver steered the Datsun away from the roundabout, letting him make chase before allowing him to clamber in alongside Farood.

  ‘My name’s Farood,’ he said, offering his hand.

  He ignored the boy and shouted at the driver. ‘What happened to the other car?’

  ‘My brother’s borrowing it. This car is better. No one suspects.’

  ‘Suspects what? We’re not doing anything except leaving this shitty country of ours.’

  ‘I’m from Khosh. My village,’ said Farood, glancing to his right; again, he was ignored.

  Once they were out of the town, Misha took off his dark glasses, introducing himself to the new backseat passenger. His name was Jamal and he looked out of the window from under his hair. Very soon they were on the Khenjan Highway south of Pol-e-Khomri heading towards the Salang Pass. The further south they drove, the more the rain set in and the more snow there was on the peaks. Suddenly the river to their left widened, leaving small islands in its midst, then slowed so much it forked, with their road curling away to their right in a long, blind bend. Then unexpectedly there was a place – dwellings and stalls of corrugated iron, canopies and never-ending mud – a place that existed for the road. They slowed but had no thought of stopping.

  Jamal turned to Farood and finally volunteered something. ‘I never thought I would leave. That I’d get around to it.’

  ‘Why are you leaving?’

  His heavy eyes lifted up to Farood; they didn’t seem to know. They were still searching for an answer when the car suddenly braked and the backseat passengers surged at one another.

  ‘Taliban,’ the driver exclaimed.

  In front of the Datsun appeared a stripped-down Japanese pick-up truck turned war waggon, replete with four fighters clambering out the back.

  ‘Relax. Let me talk,’ said the driver.

  A man in a black turban and a muddied beige mac was waving his rifle in wide sweeps. He had a long nose, dark eyes and large hands. Several others behind him had already fanned out across the road. Taliban checkpoints were not uncommon along mountain passes; nearer towns they laid mines for the Americans and the British. They didn’t wait around to be seen enforcing a passing caliphate.

  ‘Allahu Akbar.’ The driver saluted everyone.

  No one said anything. The fighter in the black turban walked slowly around the Datsun. Farood had seen a checkpoint once before; the village teacher had been dragged out of his car, the books in the boot burned, the teacher beaten, his car taken away so he could carry no more books. Most likely this too would end with a warning.

  ‘Everyone out of the car!’ commanded the long-nosed Talib.

  No one moved. A mid-teens fighter lumbered his AK47 towards the car and stabbed the butt down onto the bonnet. The driver was out now, waving his arms as if this was a disagreement amongst friends. The three passengers reluctantly lined up on the road. Jamal looked into the sun with his heavy eyes and then spat. He didn’t seem scared. But Misha the Turkmen was. Everyone else there was a Pashtun. Had he been a Hazara they would have shot him immediately.

  The Taliban commander glanced at Misha, then his eyes bored into the driver. ‘Where is your beard? Eh? All of you.’

  ‘They’re too young,’ said the driver. ‘And it’s very dusty where these guys live. I had a long beard once. Longer than yours. But I could never keep it clean. It was a blasphemy.’

  ‘I will tell you what blasphemy is,’ snarled the commander. He shouted an instruction to the young fighter, who ran back to the truck.

  Nervously, Misha began to say how late they would be getting into Kabul when a rifle butt put out two of his teeth. Falling to his knees, he tried to capture his own blood with his hands, amazed at the pool forming around his knees. The Taliban teenager returned with a cane taller than himself; the commander grabbed it and lashed at the Turkmen on the ground. Another Talib rummaged in the car and triumphantly held the driver’s music cassette aloft. The commander was struggling to lash Misha; he gave his rifle to his young lieutenant so his stroke was unencumbered.

  ‘You must
have a beard. This is decreed!’ His lash was continuous.

  The lieutenant, now struggling under the weight of two automatic rifles, sought to feed his courage. He questioned Jamal. ‘Have you prayed today? We will take you and imprison you until your beard has grown. And you will have to pay a barber to cut your American hair.’

  Jamal looked straight back at the Talib, who was younger and smaller than himself. ‘Why don’t you go and find some Americans to punish? That wouldn’t be so easy now, would it?’

  ‘We killed some Americans this morning.’

  Jamal laughed at this and Farood knew he needed to help himself. ‘Good. Praise be. You are martyrs,’ he said.

  The fighter shouldered one of the rifles and pulled at Jamal’s pockets. He found a photo of a woman in a pocket and threw it to the ground. ‘We have to rescue the dignity of women from people like you.’

  Jamal looked down at the photo and knew that the Talib was waiting for him to pick it up.

  ‘Where are you going to?’ demanded the Talib.

  ‘Kabul. Then, who knows.’

  ‘You’re running away.’ The Talib walked over to his commander and shed a rifle. ‘They’re running away, to the West. They’re dogs.’

  The four Taliban were now bunched around their truck; the one that had remained there seemed anxious about something – the captives could see him imploring the commander. Misha had climbed to his knees. His bloodied face was lowered to his chest, his bloodied back bowed. With his hands on his hips, he took three deep breaths and then ran across the pebbles and into the muddy river. The water was low, and in less than a dozen strides he was out the other side. The Taliban didn’t notice at first, then the lieutenant brought his rifle to his shoulder, but there was nothing to aim at. Misha was behind an ice age-sized boulder. The lieutenant took a few steps but wasn’t keen on wading into the river.

  Farood shouted at the commander. ‘Sir, sir, we’re off to Kabul to build a madrassa.’