I think all the soldiers could see my sadness. The soldiers may have been exhausted when they came back into the base after a patrol, with their rifles and their helmets, but they always had a smile for me. They all knew by now why we were on the road, what we were running away from, all about how Mother had been treated by the police, about how Grandmother had died.
Sergeant Brodie came in to see us on the evening before we left, with the interpreter, who told us that the soldiers had collected some money to help us on our way, a whip-round, he called it. I think I knew what was coming next from the sad expression on his face. He said it all through the interpreter. He could hardly look at me.
“About Polly. I’m sorry, Aman, but she has to stay here. She’s an army dog. Maybe you can come and see her again, when you get to England, I mean. How’d that be?” He was only trying to soften the blow, I realised that. But who knew if we would ever even make it to England, without Shadow to lead us there?
I cried when he’d gone out. I couldn’t stop myself. Mother said it was for the best, that we’d be fine on our own from now on, God willing. And this time, she said, we were going to look after our money. That was why, with Shadow beside me on the bed, I spent most of our last night on the base hollowing out the heels of our shoes, the best place we could think to hide our money. Shadow watched me all the time. She knew for sure these would be our last few hours together.
I could hardly bear to look at her.
When we left the next morning, the soldiers were there to see us off, and so was Shadow. Sergeant Brodie called for three cheers, and when it was over he stepped forward to say goodbye to us. He pressed something into my hand. The interpreter was there to help him as usual. “Our regimental badge, Aman,” he was telling me. “The sergeant says you’ve earned it. He says he hopes you get to England all right. And when you do, and you ever need any help, let him know. He’ll be there. And if you want to see Polly again, just ask. You can always get in touch with him through the regiment. And he says to thank you, for bringing Polly back to him, for saving the lives of his men, that he’ll never forget what you did for us, for all the lads, for the regiment.”
I crouched down to say my last goodbyes to Shadow, stroked the dome of her head, and ruffled her ears. But I couldn’t say anything. If I spoke, I knew I would cry, and I didn’t want to do that, not in front of the soldiers.
As they drove us off out of the base, I longed for Shadow to jump up and come with us. But I knew she wouldn’t, that she couldn’t.
That was the last I saw of her.
They drove us to the nearest town, and put us on a bus. I sat there clutching my badge. I looked down at it for the first time. It was silver, like a star, with what looked like a picture of castle walls on it. And there was some writing below that I couldn’t read then.
(It said Royal Anglian. I’ve still got it. I take it with me everywhere.)
We were on our way again, to England, to Uncle Mir and Manchester. Sitting there on the bus, I remember I tried hard to think of David Beckham, to stop me feeling so sad about leaving Shadow. But it didn’t work. Then I looked down at my star, and squeezed it tight. It made me feel better. That silver star always has, ever since.
ll this time, as Aman was telling his story, he had hardly looked up at me. It seemed to me that as he was telling it, he needed to relive his memories without any kind of distraction. He spoke so softly that he could almost have been talking to himself, his voice often barely a whisper. Sometimes I had to lean right forward to hear what he was saying. But throughout it all, his voice had been steady, until the very last bit, the moment he’d had to leave Shadow behind. I could hear then that he was fighting back the tears.
When he got up suddenly and rushed out of the visiting room, I was sure it must be because he did not want me to see him crying. I knew too that he might not come back, that he might be too proud to have to face me again after that. But I waited there anyway, because somehow I felt there was at least a chance he would come back. After all, he’d come back before, hadn’t he?
Sitting alone at the table I wished more than anything that Matt could be with me. Aman wouldn’t have run off like that if Matt had been there. They were friends, best friends. Matt would have been able to talk him round somehow.
It was then, with Aman’s story still fresh in my head, that I first began to consider seriously whether there really might be something that could be done to help Aman and his mother – besides just visiting them, I mean.
The longer I sat there, and thought about the poverty of their lives in Bamiyan, of the suffering the whole family had lived through, of their determination to get out of Afghanistan and come to England, the more I hated to think of them locked up like criminals in this place. There was a terrible injustice going on here. Aman’s story had awoken the journalist in me. I wanted to know more.
I wanted to know everything.
When Aman did come back a few minutes later, his mother was with him again. I hadn’t expected this at all. There was so much I still had to find out about. I’d been hoping that when he came back, he would be able just to pick up his story where he’d left off. But I knew Aman was much more shy and reserved with his mother around, so I wasn’t at all hopeful he would talk as easily or as freely as he had before. I could see his mother had been crying, and was still very overwrought. She was rocking back and forth, clutching a handkerchief in both hands.
His mother spoke up then, but only to Aman, and in her own language. When she had finished, he translated for her. “Mother says she had to come and tell you herself that we cannot go back to Afghanistan, that the police would torture her again. She says the Taliban are not defeated, they are everywhere, in the police, everywhere. They will kill her, just like they killed Father. She says we have been living in England for six years now. This is our home. She says our lawyer cannot help us any more, that the government won’t even let us appeal. She has prayed to God that you will be able to help us. Her dream tells her you will, but she has come to ask you herself, to beg you to make her dream come true.”
I didn’t know what to say, only that I had to say something, and something encouraging too, but without making promises I could not keep.
“Tell her I can do my best, and I will,” I told him. “But she must understand, and so must you, Aman, that I am not a lawyer. I’m not sure what I can do, what anyone can do. But I do know that for me to be able to do anything at all, I will need you to tell me your whole story, from the time you left Shadow behind, and got on the bus that day, until now, until today. I mean, how did you manage to get all the way to England? How have you been living, and what exactly happened when they brought you in here? The more I know, the better. I need to know everything.”
Aman talked to his mother for a few moments, to explain things. She was calmer now, more composed. Then he turned back to me, took a deep breath, and began again, reluctantly though, almost as if he did not want to remind himself at all of the rest of the story, as if he was dreading having to live through it again.
ll right, if you think it will help, I’ll go on then. The bus. We were on the bus. It was a comfortable bus, the most comfortable I’d ever been on. I was missing Shadow, of course I was; but apart from that, I was feeling really up. I think I imagined this bus would take us all the way to England. I was only eight then, remember. I hadn’t any real idea where England was, nor how far it was away, nor how long it would take us to get there.
I think if we had known what a long and terrible journey it was going to be, then I’d never have got on to that bus in the first place. As it turned out, that bus journey was the last time we were going to be comfortable, or happy, for a very long time.
Mother was sick with worry when we came to the frontier with Iran, I could see that. She told me we were going to play a game. If the soldiers came on board to check us, we had to pretend we were asleep. So that’s what we did. I heard them coming down the bus, but they passed by us without sto
pping. I only dared to open my eyes when the bus was on its way again. We were through.
“You see, Aman,” she whispered to me, “God is good. God is helping us.”
She told me then that she had telephoned from the army base to Uncle Mir’s contact in Teheran, the next big city, and he would be there waiting to meet us when we arrived, that he would take care of everything. So we had nothing more to worry about. I think I must have slept almost all the way, because I don’t remember much about that journey, only that it seemed endless.
Uncle Mir’s friend was there to meet us, as Mother had said. He walked us through the streets, warning us not to talk to anyone, and not to look anyone in the eye, particularly policemen. He told us that if we got caught they would put us in prison, or send us back to Afghanistan. So of course we did what he said. He took us first to one man, who took some money off Mother, then to another who Uncle Mir’s friend called ‘the fixer’, who took even more money off her.
I didn’t like any of these people. I didn’t trust them either. They treated us as if we were dirt. I felt lost in a strange and hostile world, with no Shadow to guide us any more. But I had my silver star. I kept it hidden in my pocket. I never took it out in case someone saw it. I’d squeeze on it tight whenever I was frightened, which was a lot of the time, and always before I went to sleep at night. It was my talisman, my lucky charm.
Uncle Mir’s friend kept telling us everything would be all right, that we would be looked after now all the way to England. Travel, food, we’d have everything we needed. There would be no problems, he said, no problems at all.
We believed him. We trusted him. We had to. We didn’t have a choice, did we? But it turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare. They took us down into a cellar, and said we’d have to stay there till everything was arranged. We were there for days on end. They gave us food and water, but they wouldn’t let us out, except to go to the toilet. Mother said it was like being back in the police cell in Afghanistan.
Then they came for us one night, took us out into a dark alleyway and shoved us into the back of a pick-up truck. I remember looking out of the back and seeing all the bright lights of the city. Once, when we were waiting at traffic lights, I said to Mother that we should climb out and make a run for it, that we were better off on our own. But then the truck moved off, and the chance to escape was gone.
We never had another one.
Somewhere on the edge of the city, the pick-up stopped. There were people waiting for us. They made us get out and climb up into the inside of a huge lorry. It looked empty at first, but it wasn’t. At the back, there was a large metal container, its doors wide open. They pushed us in, threw us a couple of blankets, told us we had to be quiet and just left us. It was pitch black in there, and cold. We sat huddled in the corner, Mother telling me all the time it was going to be all right, that Uncle Mir knew what he was doing, that these were good people who were looking after us, and that everything would turn out fine, God willing.
Hours later, when we heard the sound of voices outside, and when the lorry started up and moved off, I began to believe she was right, right about everything, that maybe the worst was over. I kept telling myself that we would soon be in England with Uncle Mir, and we would have a warm place to sleep, running water, television, and I could go to see Manchester United play and see David Beckham. I might even meet him.
But it wasn’t only those thoughts that kept me going, it was my silver star, and the memory I had in my head of Shadow, always trotting on ahead of us, her tail waving us on, how she’d stop to look back at us from time to time to make sure we were coming, her eyes telling us that all we had to do was to keep going like she did. I just had to think about her, picture her in my mind, and, however hungry or cold or frightened I was, it made me feel a little better, for a while, but not for long.
I was half asleep by the time the lorry stopped again. We heard footsteps from inside the lorry, then voices right outside our container. “Police,” Mother whispered. “It’s the police. They’ve found us. Please God, no. Please God, no.” She had her arms around me, holding me tight, kissing me and kissing me, as if it was for the last time.
he door of the container opened. The daylight blinded us. We could not see who it was at first.
It was not the police.
It turned out to be the fixer man, and his gang, the same people who had put us in there. They said we could get out if we wanted and stretch our legs, that we were waiting for some other people to join us.
We were in a kind of loading bay with lorries all around, but not many people. We should have run off there and then, but one of the fixer’s gang always seemed to be watching us, so we didn’t dare.
Only a few minutes later, it was too late.
The other refugees arrived, and we were all herded back into the same container, given some more blankets, a little fruit, and a bottle or two of water. They slammed the doors shut on us again and the fixer shouted at us, that no matter what, we mustn’t call out, or we’d all be caught and taken to prison. We could hear the lorry being loaded up around us.
It was a while, I remember, before my eyes became accustomed to the dark again, and I could see the others.
As the lorry drove off we sat there in silence for a while, just looking at one another. I counted twelve of us in all, mostly from Iran, and a family – mother, father and a little boy – from Pakistan, and beside us an old couple from Afghanistan, from Kabul.
It was Ahmed, the little boy from Pakistan, who got us talking. He came over to me to show me his toy train, because I was the only other kid there, because he knew he could trust me, I think – it was plastic and bright red, I remember, and he was very proud of it.
He knelt down to show me how it worked on the floor, telling everyone about how his grandpa worked on the trains in Pakistan. And, in secret, I showed him the silver-star badge Sergeant Brodie had given me. Ahmed loved looking at it. He was full of questions about it, about everything. He liked me, he said, because I had a name that sounded like his. It wasn’t long before we were all telling one another our stories. To begin with, Ahmed and me, we laughed a lot, and played about, and that cheered everyone up. But it didn’t last. I think our laughter lasted about as long as the fruit and water.
I don’t know where that lorry took us, nor how many days and nights we were locked up in the container. They didn’t let us out, not once, not to go to the toilet even, nothing. And we didn’t dare shout out. They brought us no more water, no more food. We were freezing by night, and stifling hot by day.
When I was awake, I just longed to be asleep, so I could forget what was happening, forget how much I was longing every moment for water and for food. Waking up was the worst. When we talked amongst each other now, it was usually to guess where we were, whether we were still in Iran, or in Turkey, or maybe in Italy. But none of this made any sense to me, because I had no idea where any of these places were.
Most of them, like Ahmed and his parents, said they were trying to get to England, like we were, but a few were going to Germany or Sweden. One or two had tried before, like the old couple from Kabul who were going to live with their son in England, they told us, but they had already been caught twice and sent back. They were never going to give up trying, they said.
But in the end the stories stopped altogether, and there was no more talking, just the sound of moaning and crying, and praying. We all prayed. For me the journey in that lorry was like travelling through a long dark tunnel, with no light at the end of it. And there was no air to breathe either, that was the worst of it. People were coughing and choking, and Ahmed was being sick too. But he still held on to his little red train.
The smell, I’ll never forget the smell.
After that I think I must have lost consciousness, because I don’t remember much more. When I woke up – it was probably days later, I don’t know – the lorry had stopped. Maybe it was the shouting and the crying that woke me up, because that wa
s all I could hear. Mother and the others were on their feet and banging on the side of the container, screaming to be let out.
By the time they came for us and dragged me out of there, I was only half alive.
But I was luckier than little Ahmed.
When his father carried him out into the daylight, we could see for sure that he was dead. Ahmed’s mother was wailing in her grief. It was like a cry of pain from deep inside her, a crying that I knew would never end for her. I never heard such a dreadful sound before, and I hope I never will again.
Later that same day, after they had buried him, his mother gave me his toy train to look after, because I had been like a brother to Ahmed, she said.
I’ve still got Ahmed’s little red train, back home in Manchester. The police, when they came to take us away, wouldn’t let me bring it with me. I forgot it and wanted to go back for it, and they wouldn’t let me. There wasn’t time, they said. It’s on the windowsill in my bedroom.
I dream about Ahmed quite a bit, and often it’s almost the same dream. He’s with Shadow, and with Sergeant Brodie, and they’re playing together outside the walls of a castle. It’s night and the sky is a ceiling painted with stars, and he’s throwing a ball for her.
Strange that, how in dreams people who never even knew one another, can meet up in places they could never have been to.
other told me when we got out of that lorry, that we were in Turkey.
I didn’t much care where we were, to be honest. Everything is a bit of a blur after that. I was ill, I remember that, but there was a lot I don’t want to remember. There were more journeys by lorry, one by sea when we were all seasick, but even then it was never as terrible as that one in the container. Like a black hole it was in there.
We went in more pick-ups after that. We even went on horseback once, over the mountains it was – I don’t know what mountains. We slept in a shepherd’s hut once, and we were stuck in there for days, because it was snowing hard outside. But I was used to snow. We had plenty of that back in Bamiyan. And the stars shine brighter when there’s snow on the ground, and the sky seems closer.