Guantanamo Boy (28 page)

Khalid wonders what on earth she’s playing at.

“Thought I’d waste some time here before I go for lunch,” she mutters. “I’ll cover for you, so you can talk.”

“What?” Tariq and Khalid both ask at once.

“You go ahead.” Lee-Andy swishes her ponytail. “I’ll stand here for a while. Don’t worry, I won’t listen. Nobody will come down the line with me here.”

Khalid doesn’t care if she does listen. He’s got nothing to hide.

“Erm, thanks,” Tariq says. “What were you saying, cuz?”

“Is this OK?” Khalid asks.

“Sure, talk. Don’t mind me,” Lee-Andy answers.

“I still can’t work out why they picked me up,” Khalid begins slowly, not sure Lee-Andy will believe what he’s about to say but glad he finally has someone in authority who might listen.

“I dunno, but I think they thought I was dangerous because they had a photo of me at a demonstration in Karachi. But I just got caught up in the crowd on my way to look for Dad. And I bet one of the aunties’ neighbors got money for making up lies about me,” Khalid says. “When did they come to the conclusion about the game, I’d like to know? There’s so many things I’d like an answer to. I know when they got my confession, which was just a bunch of lies I made up to stop
them killing me, they really went mental. Don’t you think it’s weird they’ve put us next to each other?”

“After so much time, over a year since they brought me here? No. No. This is the result of stupidity. Not weird anything, I’m certain. I said your father is a fund-raiser for extremists. I lied to stop them beating and driving me to insanity. Told them many lies about everyone. I’m asking for your forgiveness, cuz.”

“You said that about my dad? You snake. I knew it, you creep.”

At this, Lee-Andy turns round for a second. “OK, I’m going now. Cool it, you guys, or you’ll be in trouble.”

Tariq ignores her while Khalid doesn’t care whether anyone hears them or not.

“At least I admit it to your face,” Tariq says. “They beat worse from me. I’m sorry!”

“Get lost, scumbag,” Khalid whispers. “Don’t you ever speak to me again.”

An empty, cavernous silence fills the space between them all of a sudden. Khalid retreats four paces to the corner of his cell. Head in his hands. Heart thumping with rage. Trying his best to hide from the shapes leaping from the swelling walls.

On the floor now, back pressed hard against the bed, half dazed. His eyes dart round him as if he’s seeing terrible things. Eventually, Lee-Andy interrupts.

“Hey, pal. Don’t mess up. You look like you’re going crazy. Do this for me, will you? Snap your fingers in front of your eyes to stop rolling that horror movie in your mind. If you don’t make plans to stop them, they’ll keep on growing.”

How does she know what he’s seeing?

Khalid does as he’s told. Snapping his fingers a few times. Her words spark an unexpected light which, along with his snapping fingers, causes the walls to fall back to their rightful place. The jinn to shrink. The plank to straighten. Water jug to smash.

Khalid turns his head to smile at her.

“Good job. Wish I had some orange juice to give you.” Lee-Andy walks away with a bounce in her step. More snapping fingers start up close by. The new rhythm is a pleasant addition to Khalid’s own snap-snapping, his own personal rap beat.

“Good night, cuz,” Tariq whispers. “You heard her. She’s right. Don’t mess up. There’s too much reason to cry after what’s happened to us both. If we give in, we’re finished. No life will come to us again. We must find some dignity to see us through.”

“Dignity? Piss off.” Khalid can’t believe the rubbish Tariq’s coming out with. But then he hears him too and deep down inside knows he’s right. Whatever Tariq said about Dad wasn’t meant to be said. It was another last-ditch attempt to stop the pain. Something he understands only too well.

Next day, the sound of plastic spoons echoes down the row. Voices rise every time a disgusting lump of green fish is placed on the tongue.

Khalid’s eaten the banana. That’s all. He can’t face anything else. Leaning on the wire door, he stares at the light, eyes hurting. Standing where he is, doing nothing but listening. With a stillness in his heart he hasn’t felt for a long time.

“I could have died,” Tariq whispers. “But that would have ended the lives of my mother and father and I could not do that. I had a deep feeling I had betrayed them. I died then in a way. I do admit I had a friend who was, I suppose, an extremist. He hated the West for its materialism and lack of belief in God. Yes. Yes. I admit that. But does that make me an evil person because I knew him? Someone whose head must be slammed against walls day after day? So evil they must burn my arms with cigarettes? Does that make me bad because I had a friend like that?”

Khalid is startled by the sadness in his cousin’s voice and a rare feeling of gratitude and happiness spills over him despite almost two years of desperation. Listening to Tariq talk about his depression, his deepest worries, his pain, Khalid feels as if he’s talking to someone he’s never known. Tariq never spoke about his feelings before and now he never stops.

Day after day, Khalid hangs on the wire door waiting for Tariq to speak. A beggar waiting for the small crumbs of comfort his squeaking voice brings.

“Actually, if I’d known then what I know now I wouldn’t have called the game
Bomber One
,” Tariq says. “I was stupid. I didn’t realize someone would add up two and two and make one million and ten. For certain, the world has gone mad. Yes. Yes.”

Over the next week, Khalid learns just how insane the world has become. Tariq fills him in on what’s been happening since they were captured. Helped by the fact he speaks several languages, including some Arabic, Tariq has managed to pick up plenty of information from the guards in Islamabad and Bagram, as well as from other detainees. His ability to understand politics and make sense of scraps of conversations means he has a lot to explain. A lover of facts, he’s keen to share the details.

“In March 2003 more than a million people marched in London against Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq. Ten million people marched all over the world, but I ask you, since when do politicians take notice of these things?”

“Dunno!” Khalid realizes his brain has shrunk to nothing as he listens to Tariq’s larger mind expand on anything and everything. Strangely, the more Tariq talks, the more he doesn’t feel the need to respond. It’s just that Tariq’s got this habit of making him feel not very smart, stupid even. With Ali it was different—he was older and so experienced—but Tariq is only two years older than him.

Like now, for instance, Khalid listens to Tariq greet the guard who’s passing him breakfast.

“Hi, Marvin. How you doing today? How’s the wife and kids? Everything all right back home in Oklahoma, is it?”

“Yeah, bud, thanks for the inquiry. Appreciate your kindness.” Marvin laughs heartily as he moves to pass Khalid his tray. Khalid eyes the stocky guard with distrust. Unable to pretend they’re friends. Unable to behave like Tariq and forget even for a second that this man’s his jailer and he’s an innocent prisoner. Why act like they’re friends when they’re not? It’s just fake.

“He’s not going to do you any favors. Why be nice to him?” Khalid says.

“Hah,” Tariq laughs. “If you understood how much easier these small human exchanges have made my life you wouldn’t say that, cuz. I am practicing English and, of course, I am gathering much information about other places from people like him. For example, did you know Oklahoma is home to sixty-seven American Indian tribes who were forced into relocating there after they were driven from their homes? I found this out from him. And Marvin was the one who helped get me moved from Camp Echo, which is far worse than Camp Delta. Plus he gave me a new toothbrush. And he told me the corn in Oklahoma is as high as an elephant’s eye. One day I will go there and see it.”

By the time Tariq finishes, Khalid feels like going on hunger strike. Who cares about Oklahoma? How come Tariq’s got a new toothbrush? What kind of toothbrush? Unable to admit his own prison toothbrush that fits on a ring on his finger has only a few bristles left because he can’t get a word in edgewise. Not that going on hunger strike is a joke, as Tariq goes on to explain.

“When I first came here, in February 2003, many men went on hunger strike. It lasted for a long time,” Tariq begins. “They tried to cover it up. For a while no one would admit what was happening, but I could see the food coming back uneaten. Plus a Turkish man who had been tortured so much he could hardly stand straight told me every day the latest news.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Khalid asks.

“Probably because you were lost in your own world, cuz. That’s what prison does to people. You become more dead than alive. What is there to notice when you stop existing? Nothing. No. No. They say I am a good prisoner now—high compliant is what they call me.”

“High compliant?” Khalid remembers overhearing a guard use the phrase.

“Seventy-one days the hunger strike went on,” Tariq continues. “The military ended it by force-feeding. You might know this is not legal. It was a non-violent protest but they pushed tubes down their noses to feed them against their will. One guard said the hunger strike proves we are evil.”

There are so many things Khalid doesn’t know, suddenly remembering the sight of the man in hospital with yellow tubes down his nose. So that’s what they were doing. Force-feeding him. Maybe that was why the doctor took no notice of him.

“Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners have the right to grow flowers. Did you know that?” Tariq says. “It’s just one of the many things we haven’t been able to do in Guantanamo.”

“Why would I want to grow flowers?” Khalid smiles. “That’s so lame.” His mind drifts back to the small front garden in Oswestry Road and the rows of purple, white and yellow flowers that appear outside the living-room window each summer. He can see himself lying on the sofa watching TV, with long green leaves poking their tips at him in the breeze.

“It would be nice to have the choice,” Tariq says. “And do you know the words “enemy combatants” have been invented to deny us the status given to prisoners of war?”

“Yeah?” Khalid replies, still shocked by things like this, even though it doesn’t really surprise him.

“But the worst thing is,” Tariq tells him, “millions of people around the world have objected to us being here, writing letters about abuse and no fair trials, except now a military tribunal where they have their own rules.”

“Why haven’t I had a military tribunal?” Khalid finally interrupts.

“This is not the law of the land they keep in these tribunals. No jury is there.” Tariq sighs.

If Khalid had known all this earlier, he might have felt better.

“Make no mistake, this tribunal would find us guilty!” Tariq says.

“How come?”

“You told me you signed the papers. I signed the papers. The fact we signed after being tortured means nothing. We are guilty now to them,” he says.

A couple of minutes later, when Khalid hears guards clanking shackles and pushing Tariq’s door open, he leans closer to the wire. This is his first chance to see Tariq instead of just hear him.

He presses his body tight, hands spread high, gripping the wire to take in every bit of his cousin when he finally appears. Marvin’s chunky shape is there first—standing to one side to usher Tariq out. An overpowering smell of vanilla soap drifts from his shirt pocket, which is crammed with the stuff.

“Shower time, buddy,” Khalid hears him tell Tariq.

“You bet it is,” Tariq says in a strange accent which isn’t quite American.

Marvin lays a hand on Tariq’s shoulder to lead him the other way, but not before Khalid, who’s flat against the fence, shouts, “Hey, I want a new toothbrush. Marvin. Marvin.”

“Later, man.” Marvin smiles.

Tariq half turns towards him. Recognizing his classic features from the online picture next to his name, Khalid notices he’s taller and slimmer than he had imagined. In profile, he reminds him a bit of Mum. “Hi.” Khalid gets another brief glimpse when at last his cousin manages to twist his head right back from the heavy middle chain pulling his neck down. The second their eyes meet, Tariq’s big, black, warm eyes make everything else fall away, burrowing straight to the core of Khalid’s soul. Suddenly his whole family had come home to him.

The moment Tariq’s gone, Khalid sinks to the floor. Sobbing. Head in his hands. Overwhelmed by his first meeting with the cousin he used to adore. Touched by a friendly smile that he knows is genuine. By his chained hands and feet. By his shaved head and face. By his shuffling away, obviously deeply moved by the powerful emotion that passed between them.

Khalid recognizes between sobs that since they found each other this place has changed. Even when he hated him, just knowing he was there brought him comfort. Someone. Something. Some future to look forward to. Plus, he brought him a precious link to his family and the outside world that he could tap into at any time.

No matter what has happened, Tariq has explained so much and led Khalid from the dark side of his mind. Suddenly, he sees it’s not enough to forget. It will only be enough if he can recognize the steps he’s taken to get to this point and decide not to allow this experience to poison his life. For that reason, he has no choice but to forgive Tariq. For once. For always. And now he’s actually met his cousin, he’s made so weirdly happy all of a sudden by the thought he might see him again when he returns from the shower, Khalid finally forgives himself for hating him, for misjudging him and—yes—wanting to hurt him.

Breaking free from the stranglehold of so much anger and blame, Khalid wipes away the last of his tears. Shaking his head to rid himself of the memory of the different kinds of hell he’s lived through. Shaking it so hard he doesn’t, at first, hear Lee-Andy’s quick steps coming towards him.

“Just come to say good-bye, pal,” she says.

“Why?” Khalid quickly comes to the conclusion she’s OK, now it’s too late.

“Politics, I guess. Who knows what goes on in their minds? I sure don’t.”