Guantanamo Boy (21 page)

Grabbing at the walls, Khalid stumbles to the door, banging and kicking. Someone shouts his number: “256!”

The metal flap’s unlocked, snapping open. Slamming against the wire. Khalid punches the corridor through the beany hole, yelling and swearing.

Two minutes later, they come for him, attaching the shackles with nifty hands. Khalid raises his bruised head.

“Thanks!” he says. Feeling a strange pleasure at the sight of ordinary human beings instead of the dark things flowing through his mind. Even though they’re guards, he’s suddenly grateful to them.

“Get up,” one guard says, shackling him tight. The word “up” takes on a nice meaning that was never intended. And why? Where’s he going now?

It’s good for Khalid to walk. As he goes down the corridor, he realizes he’s OK. He’s just been hallucinating bad things. Good things too. Knowing the dark dreams, strange fantasies of Niamh and David Beckham, might have damaged his ability to tell what’s real and what’s imagined. But by creating bad feelings, he’s stopped himself from dying inside, and even though they have seen him through the long wait, the pressure on his brain when he wakes up is still too much to bear. That’s why he tries to bang it away on the wall.

At least I know it now
, Khalid thinks to himself,
and I’m not going to let them win
.

At the same time, he realizes this awareness might just save his life. He makes an effort to take in his surroundings. Grounding himself by staring at the soldiers’ laced-up black boots—which are highly polished but have dusty creases. Stopping high above the ankles, they look almost girly, those big boots, with those jungly combat trousers that are a bit like the combats Niamh sometimes wears.

Another reason to concentrate on the here and now is because it keeps the demons at bay and might just prevent the nightmares from returning. David Beckham can take a hike. Too much is at stake. Madness, for a start.

Gray linoleum, Khalid notes, as they reach the end of a long white corridor, past cells so enclosed by wire it’s impossible to make out the faces of the men inside.
There are people here a lot worse than me
, Khalid realizes, as he sees a man desperately banging the wire with his bleeding head. His fetid wound the size of a cup.

He’s led outside and his senses are assaulted by the rapid whistling of a nearby bird, dazzling sunshine, countless shadows. He’s almost blinded by the sudden piercing light. He was here a few days ago. Wasn’t he? Heart pounding, Khalid’s led over uneven ground to a wooden shelter. Watching his shadow shuffle along beside him, a whiff of disinfectant hits him, followed by the sound of running water. The smell reminds him of the routine. His shadow overtakes him as they round a corner to arrive at the row of basic showers. Khalid likes the showers now. He hated them at first, but he likes them now.

Armfuls of shackles and chains just to walk him to the showers? Yeah, Khalid always smiles at that.

Two prisoners try to hide their nakedness, as they do every time the guards herd them under rusty shower heads that release the thinnest trickle of water. Khalid hurries to undress, used to the routine, while others hide their embarrassment with their faces in the crook of their arm. Doing their best not to look at anyone.

The birdsong disappears as Khalid throws his head under the cold stream of water. Closing his eyes for a moment to catch the feeling of sunshine on his bare skin. The square of hard soap smells of vanilla ice cream and is pretty useless, but the tingling, refreshing sensation of rubbing his wet face makes Khalid feel alert and clean. Much less like the sweating maniac he was before and more like the kid who once scored two goals in the Rochdale Junior League quarter-finals.

When Khalid opens his eyes he stares straight into the kindly face of Masud, the necklace-seller from Cairo whom they beat with a pipe and he met in the dark room in Karachi all that time ago.

But Khalid’s not going there again. Oh no, not right now. Not while he’s enjoying being outside under the shower. No matter how good it feels to imagine Masud in the shower next to him, he knows it might as well be David Beckham.

“Khalid, you are here? For why?” the vision whispers.

For why?
The words pierce Khalid’s brain for a moment. Prodding it to come up with an answer. But he can’t if he doesn’t know why. Know anything. Especially why the water is calling his name.

“Khalid. Khalid.” Trickling his name—the water. Am I upside down? About to drown?

Stumbling forward, Khalid catches his big toe on a stone.

“Khalid! Take your hands from your face. Look at me. Look.”

Instantly, Khalid opens his eyes, balancing himself by staring into the man’s face.

“Masud. It’s really you?” Shocked to recognize his friend from Karachi is actually standing there, cleaning his large ears with a corner of yellow soap.

“This I’m learning—they’re bringing young people to Guantanamo? I’m not understanding. You can see me now?”

Nodding, Khalid steadies his breathing, deciding to believe his eyes as he takes in Masud’s gaunt, clean-shaven face. Then he catches sight of the soldiers moving slowly to the end of the row to gossip, thinking the prisoners are too ashamed of communal washing to communicate with each other right now.

“I’ve been, like, weirding out in my cell,” he tells Masud. “Too much time to think. I was, like, in Kand—Kand—Kandahar, as well.”

“Kandahar? You?” Masud’s shocked. “Me, they taking me from Karachi to Morocco. Hang me from wall for long time.”

Khalid turns white as Masud explains how, instead of a pipe, they beat him with a strap attached to a wooden handle. Cracked his ribs. Kept him in an underground room in a shuttered house in the middle of nowhere. How one man held a gun to his chest for an hour and promised to kill him, saying his wife was already dead.

“That man, you see him.” Masud points to a wiry man being led away. “Him went to Jordan. They have blind him one eye. Americans having many prisons like this all over world.”

Taking care to hide his shock from a passing guard, Khalid whispers, “How do they get away with it? Where are the police?” Shrinking at the memory of his own abuse. Afraid they’ll come for him again if he talks about the drowning, the
sound of his own voice mixed with the noise of the trickling water tips his brain too close to the surface of his other self for Khalid’s liking. For mentioning, yet.

Wiping water from his big, dark eyes, Masud continues, “This I’m knowing for sure is against the law they set in Geneva. Certainly. No one here has received a trial. They cannot keep a child like you on your own. This is cruel torture. What camp are you?”

“Delta Skelta.” Khalid gestures to the nearest gray building.

“They take you for exercise from that camp? What happen your head? Bruises there you have. You arm. You must stop hurting you arm. Stop biting.”

“I can’t!”

“Khalid, no do this hurt to yourself. Stop. Ask for lawyers. For help. Shout for paper to write letters,” Masud says quickly before the soldier hurries in their direction after getting suspicious of their friendly gestures.

Khalid turns his face away and blinks, trying hard to mix his tears with the veil of cold water running down his face.

“And sign everything. Say, ‘Yes, Bin Laden he very good friend.’ Agree all suggestion. Don’t let this happen, Khalid. Take no pride in holding against threats. Pray, Khalid. Pray and learn. I learning better English. Me practice good,” Masud shouts as they drag him off, dripping wet, to get dressed. “Remember, they will have to account to God for this one day.”

A soldier forces Khalid to step away from the muddy water to make room for another man, head bowed, clutching a rag to wash himself with.

That guy needs his toenails cutting
, Khalid notices while bending down to pull up the orange suit. But the harsh color suddenly smacks Khalid in the face, too bright in the shimmering sunshine for his sad, crying eyes to absorb. His fingers won’t stop shaking and his body’s trembling and suddenly he can’t breathe.

I did sign everything, Masud
, he thinks,
and look where I am now
.

“Did you catch the baseball game on TV last night?” a soldier asks his mate. His gun on Khalid’s every awkward move, until he’s shackled tight.

And all Khalid can think is,
How many seconds did that take?

Khalid wakes up one morning to a new sound. The sound of music. Rap music throbbing in his ears. Drowning out the call to prayer. Drowning out the early-morning noises of the base he’s become so familiar with.

Sparking the memory of the sound of house, techno and hip-hop booming from the old speakers in Nico’s bedroom, black foam pads peeling from the corners. Khalid’s suddenly back there, wide awake. Himself again. Clear in his head for a while. Recalling both of them singing, jumping along to the driving beat, rapping about life in mean streets that were way cooler than Rochdale. Hearts on fire, hands in the air—the delicious smell of fish and chips drifting up from the kitchen. In the ghetto—yeah. Khalid’s just getting into the rapping when it stops. Ending as suddenly as it started. Making him think it’s a trial run for something. An experiment to test the loudspeakers?

Khalid smiles, remembering a time when Nico wrote a rap of his own called “Hey Leona.” It was rubbish. Nico was a good singer but he had too much confidence. Believing the moment he wrote it he was going to be the best in the world, he even entered a rap battle online, where one of the real rappers said it was the worst thing he’d ever heard in his whole life. And everyone, all the people logged on to the site to hear them battle it out, agreed.

The next day Nico bought a trumpet in the school jumble sale, even though it had a massive dent down one side. But Nico didn’t mind. The rest of them did, though, Khalid especially. Every conversation after that was interrupted by a deafening blast from the old thing.

Khalid looks again and again at his life, as though he’s searching through an old photo album for the millionth time. Days and weeks pass by with him revisiting incidents and events he hadn’t thought anything of at the time. Always yearning to be back there, pushing the play button on Nico’s CD player, looking at his collection of
Star Wars
figures on the windowsill, the poster of Eminem on the wall. It hurts so much sometimes it makes him want to end it all.

He really wishes he’d had a girlfriend. That Niamh had put her arms around him just once. He imagines being married to her and living in a nice big house with a flat-screen TV and music piped into every room. They’d have kids who were brilliant at football and clever as well, and that makes him feel good—for a bit.

With a sudden bout of pins and needles in his right leg, Khalid sits up, totally cross with himself for not yet being able to talk to girls in the way he should.

“First look her in the eye,” Tony said. “Then give her a compliment, say something nice—I like your shoes. Girls have a thing about shoes. Say that, or nice coat. Anything you can think of to make her smile. Then lay a hand on her shoulder, know what I mean?” But Khalid finds all this stuff harder than it sounds. Although he likes to give the impression he’s all right with girls, in actual fact he’s just as awkward and lacking in confidence as Holgy, who blushes whenever a girl gives him the once-over.

Khalid’s mind traces and retraces every reaction to every girl who’s ever looked his way—who’s ever passed him in the street and caused him to turn round. Like the first time he met Niamh in the library last year.

She joined the school a year ago when she was fourteen, having moved to the area with her family from Ireland. At first everyone sort of ignored her—she was just the new girl and she seemed nice and that, but so what? It was only when the GCSE art students put some of their work up in the library that Khalid became aware of her.

He’d wandered in there with Tony to hand back the books he’d borrowed for his English essay and couldn’t help noticing the pictures on the walls. There was one of a doorway leaking blood from the handle that caught his eye first, then a pencil drawing of Mrs. Warren, the headmistress, which looked just like her.

“Here, look at this one,” Tony called, dragging Khalid’s attention to a painting of a filthy swimming pool with a stag beetle floating in it.

“Erghh, disgusting!” They were about to go when Khalid noticed a painting of a green grassy field with a single yellow buttercup in the middle. There was something so still and beautiful about it, he found it impossible to look away. He could almost smell the damp grass just by standing there.

He can almost smell it now.

“‘The Last Buttercup’ by who? Who Reilly? Is that Nim or Neem or what?” Khalid read out the title.

“It’s pronounced ‘Neeve.’ The new girl, you know?” Tony said. “Bit of a boring picture, though—I told you girls love shoes. They love flowers too for some reason.”

But Khalid carried on staring, impressed by how real the painting looked. What he didn’t know was that Niamh was leaning on the table right behind him, watching his reaction.