A King in Hiding (6 page)

Gradually the club wakes up. The place livens up and the atmosphere is more welcoming, with nice people and lots of children, running around, shouting, laughing, playing. I like it.

As well as doing one-on-one training, I also take part in coaching for the competition. I get to know the others in my group: Keigo, small and half-Japanese; a girl called Cécile; tall Louis, called Loulou by everyone; another Louis, Chinese with glasses; and his sister Charlotte, who looks exactly like him and wears the same glasses. I make friends with all of them, especially Chinese Louis. We're always together, sitting next to each other during coaching, waiting for each other before it starts and playing chess together afterwards. We communicate as best we can. When we play, he often tries to soften me up by proposing a draw in Bengali:

‘
Shoman shoman
?'

Certainly not! We fight to the end! In Chinese (sort of, anyway) I shoot back:

‘
No ping du
!'

One day I arrive late for a tournament and everyone has already had lunch. There's nothing left. Chinese Louis gives me his KitKat and is instantly one of my best friends in France. But our friendship isn't to last. Soon after this he stops playing chess and disappears from my life.

My lessons are getting more and more amazing. Xavier is nothing like any chess coach I've ever known. Behind his grizzled beard, he's anything but a boring old teacher. He smokes cigars and rides a motorbike. He's laid back, cool and funny, full of life and fun.

At first I don't understand his jokes, but I like watching the others laughing at them. Then I begin to grasp a few words, a few phrases, and finally everything. Well, nearly everything.

‘Frankly, Charlotte, your variant is camel's piss.'

‘Variant' I knew, but ‘camel's piss'?

‘Cécile, if you pull back your king it will be as disastrous as the Flight to Varennes during the Revolution.'

Or:

‘Bravo Louis and Loulou, my two
louis d'or
!'

What about me, could I be his ‘
Fahim d'or
'?

Xavier loves his quotations, particularly Chinese sayings.

‘Well done Keigo! Now you're getting interesting, kid! You've worked out that “the greatest generals are those who gain victory without giving battle”.'

‘Was it Confucius who said that?'

‘No, it was Mencius.'

‘Whatever, it's always either Mencius or Confucius with you.'

‘Or Lao Tzu.'

Everyone bursts out laughing.

Xavier doesn't just teach us chess, he tells us all the stories that go with it too. He's the type of coach who can spot a position played years ago in a historic game – he must know them all – in a nano-second, and who can then effortlessly slip in some anecdote to do with it.

‘Tell Fahim the story of Bobby Fischer and the journalist!'

‘Why don't you tell him?'

‘You'll like this one, Fahim. A journalist was interviewing Bobby Fischer – you know, the world champion – and asked him, “What do you talk about with your opponent?” To which Fischer replied: “When I arrive I say hello. When I leave I say checkmate.”'

Sometimes, especially when everyone wants to answer a question at once, Xavier raises his voice:

‘Woah! Shouting won't make your moves any better. Chess is like life: shouting louder doesn't put you in the right. That's why it's so interesting.'

But hidden behind that scary booming voice is a really good guy.

XP
:
A few days after I first met Fahim and Nura, I remember I went to see the film
Welcome
, the story of a young asylum-seeker in Calais who decides to learn to swim in order to get across the Channel to England, and of his swimming teacher, who is prosecuted for the ‘crime' of helping an asylum-seeker. Like many others, I'd been appalled to discover that there was a law that made it illegal to offer someone hospitality, a law that turned normal human values on their head.

It was a period when there was a lot of talk about ‘selective' immigration and national identity, and there were mass expulsions of Roma people. France seemed to be able to remember the first part of the Socialist politician Michel Rocard's famous pronouncement on immigration (‘France cannot take in all the world's poor and dispossessed …') while conveniently forgetting the second part (‘… but she should be proud to play her part').

When I came out of the cinema, I had the impression that the film was carrying on in real life, for me and my young pupil. From the outset, my involvement had gone beyond simply teaching him to play chess.

During the spring holidays, I took Fahim and his father on a long walk through Paris. We went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, then we walked through the Trocadéro gardens, Place de l'Etoile and the Tuileries. I remember Fahim's expression of amazement as he stood looking up at the Eiffel Tower, and his puzzlement at the trees pruned into square shapes on the Champs Elysées.

Along the way, I tried to tell them about some of the major events in French history: the Napoleonic victories symbolised by the Arc de Triomphe, the guillotine that stood on what is now Place de la Concorde, the Palais Royal that used to stand in the Tuileries. I began to realise what a vast cultural gulf lay between us: neither Fahim nor his father had ever heard of the French Revolution or the rights of man, nor of major figures from outside France such as Hitler and Stalin.

At the end of the afternoon we stopped for a while beside the Seine, worn out. Ignoring all our difficulties in communicating with each other, I just went for it, and promised them that I would never let them down, that they could always count on me. When things have got tough, I've often thought back to my ‘Eiffel Tower oath'.

Chapter 7

SPRING, SUMMER, SETBACK

M
y second day at school and it's all gone wrong already. The morning drags on for ever. At lunchtime all the others go off to the canteen. I'm on my own in the covered part of the playground when the ‘weirdo' in my class turns up. He shoves me up against the wall and tries to choke me. He's raging and screaming at me. I have no idea what he's on about. I pretend I don't care and just shrug my shoulders.

Then after a bit I've had enough. Now it's my turn to lose it, and I throw a punch at him. A direct hit! He's down! To make sure he doesn't get back up I sit on top of him, but then he starts to yell and I'm worried about getting into trouble. So I get off him and head for the canteen. Then he jumps me from behind and knocks me over, the coward. He's stronger than me. In the end I give up. He says sorry and we go to the canteen together. After that he respects me; he even becomes my friend.

It's my first fight. My first proper fight. In Bangladesh I'd had a few scraps with my friends, but only in fun. I had an enemy, but we'd never had a fight. Luckily no one's seen us, so I don't get punished.

My third day, and school closes for the ‘February holiday'. Yay! I'll be able to spend most of it playing chess and football. Unluckily, during a game of football one of the big boys at the hostel kicks my foot instead of the ball: I feel a terrific pain and instantly the trainer on that foot starts to shrink. My father takes me to hospital, where we have to wait for ages – in France you always have to wait. I have an X-ray, and the doctor tells me I've broken my foot. I get an awesome plaster, which is hot when it goes on and really tight. I have to drag it around for the whole of the holiday, which means I can't run. And it makes my foot shrink: when it comes off my trainer is far too big.

Back to school. The teacher, Mme Faustine, shows me things and teaches me their names: cheek, ear, mouth and eyes, cat, dog and bird. Then it's my turn to say things: trousers, jumper and sock, table, chair and exercise book.

Mme Faustine is strict, and she's always getting cross. One day, when she finds out that Lujai the Sri Lankan boy hasn't done his homework, she's so angry that she knocks his table over. None of us makes a sound. No one dares to move. I never get into trouble. I'm good: I don't muck about or talk in class. I don't speak French, in any case. None of us talk in class because none of us can speak French.

We are all given different work to do. Since I've already been to school, Mme Faustine gives me exercises to do on my own. Some of the others have never been to school before coming to France. For them it's hard. It takes them ages to pick things up. Some of them smile a lot, some of them are sad. Some try to speak, but most of them don't say a word. Some of them are even frightened: you can see it in their faces.

I learn French quickly. It's easy.

I learn to say my name and write it, to count, to understand what people are saying and to read stories.

I learn colours, the days of the week, the alphabet, masculine and feminine and verbs.

I learn what different instructions mean: colour in, cut out, put a cross, copy, read, write, cross out, repeat, glue and draw round.

I learn the difference between a river and a stream, a stone and a pebble, a house and a family, day and night, sadness and fear.

I learn sheep, lamb and … ewe; bull, calf and … cow; father, child and … mother.

I learn the difference between
tu
and
vous.
When I go to the club, I decide to say
vous
to Xavier. It's more respectful, classier.

By March I can understand everything.

By April I can make people understand me.

By May I've lost my accent, but I'm still quiet and shy.

By June I'm fluent, even if I still make little mistakes.

French is helpful. I can talk to my friends. All of them except Sohan, my best friend, who doesn't understand French. I try to help him, but at the end of the year he goes to live in the south of France, and he disappears from my life too.

Maths is simple. Except for problems to begin with, when I don't understand the instructions in French. English is easy. French children are only taught a few words, but I can speak it already.

We do art too. And music. I wonder what the point of it is. We learn songs to put on a show, a ‘musical comedy'. My father is surprised and not very happy: he'd rather I was either working hard at school or playing chess.

We do PE too. We have to fence. It's dumb. You have to hold a metal stick and follow all sorts of complicated rules. You aren't allowed to hit anyone properly, in case they get hurt. I try to anyway. Mme Klein gets cross with me and sends me out of the class.

Every day after school my father comes to meet me with a cake and a carton of fruit juice. We walk back to the hostel with the other children who live there and their parents. We play football, then Yolande comes to make sure we do our homework.

I like living in the hostel. There's room to move, play and run about. Even if it's noisy, even if you have to share the toilets and showers, and even if it isn't a proper home. At least we have a roof over our heads. It seems that there are some people who don't, even though France is a rich country. I'm happy to live at the hostel until I get my own home. I wouldn't like to sleep on the streets. Thank goodness I'll never have to!

XP
:
With Fahim, I discovered what daily life was really like for political refugees. The France Terre d'Asile hostel in Créteil is the oldest hostel for asylum-seekers in France, and also one of the largest and best. It is run by 30 or so permanent staff, including Muhamad – Fahim and Nura's social worker – and Frédéric, known as Fred, who is in charge of applications and other paperwork.

The hostel offers accommodation to over 200 people, and during the day helps many more to negotiate the labyrinthine complexities of official bureaucracy, or simply with the necessities of daily life. It has a kitchen, showers and washing machines that they can use. It's a strange sort of world in microcosm, a sort of Noah's Ark of humanity, where you may come across men, women and children of all types and nationalities, young and old, families and single people: a real Tower of Babel, echoing with every language you can think of. At this point there were more Bangladeshi asylum-seekers in France than any other nationality, and there were several Bangladeshi families living at the hostel.

More than neighbours yet not quite a community, living more intimately than side by side but not quite cohering as a group, these people live their separate lives, see to their affairs, do their housework, cook for themselves and submit the forms and paperwork they are asked for. But they also make friends, set up support networks and display an instinctive solidarity with each other – translating for newcomers and passing on useful tips – before they are forced apart again, as the currents of life sweep them on to different shores.

You have to get to the canteen on time, pick up a tray and join the queue. In the morning my father goes down without me, as I'm not hungry. When I don't have school, I have lunch with him. In the evening, we take our tray up to our room as we like to eat late. The man who dishes out the food isn't fair. He gives bigger portions to pretty women and to people from certain countries. He tips them off when there's something good coming up, and when we get there there's none left. People in the queue moan about it, but my father never says anything, so I don't either.

Gradually I get used to French food. I like the grilled chicken legs, gateaux, strawberries, kiwi fruit, cherries and apricots. I don't like tomatoes or onions – I leave them on the side of my plate – carrots and petits pois when they're all mixed up together, or artichokes. I don't like the bread either: it's cold, like it's mouldy. I refuse to eat merguez (which are all long and thin and disgusting) or figs (which are ugly looking). And most of all I hate being forced to eat anything, like I am at school.

After two months at the hostel we aren't allowed to eat at the canteen any more, and like the others we're given money to cook for ourselves. My father's good at looking after us. He cleans and tidies the room, does the shopping, cooks our meals, does the washing up and washes and irons our clothes. In Bangladesh he used to pay a woman to do all that. Now he does it himself, and he does it brilliantly. I am always well dressed with my hair neatly combed. I often hear the people who run the hostel say things like: