Guantanamo Boy (31 page)

All the same, Khalid is sure some must get through. Either way he’s left in limbo, waiting each day for a reply. But no letter, card or lawyer ever arrives for his cousin, and he feels bad about this, even though Tariq manages to hide his feelings.

“I’m certain my family is thinking I am dead until Uncle—your dad—tells them about you. Then they will cry, ‘Ah, so this is what might be the case with Tariq. It is possible he is alive in the same place. We must keep up with this idea.’”

“Something will happen soon,” Khalid tries to reassure him.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Tariq says. “What, though? All we can do is trust in Allah.”

Thanks to Tariq, Khalid now speaks a little Arabic. His cousin’s endless patience has helped him learn the prayers. When dawn breaks, at midday, mid-afternoon, after sunset and at nightfall, Khalid and Tariq unroll white towels kept clean for this reason and, facing Mecca, pray to Allah.

A feeling of peaceful connection soon descends on Khalid and he realizes that the religion he once ignored and avoided because he thought it was uncool has become a major source of comfort, giving him something to turn to. A reason to forgive himself for all the hurt he’s caused in his life to his mum and dad, to his sisters, to random teachers, and the rest. And when he remembers everyone who’s ever hurt him, he never wants to feel that pain or inflict it on anyone else again. Day after day of going through each incident and forgiving himself and others has brought its own deep peace. Plus he’s learned the true value that small things—a piece of chewing gum or a bar of chocolate—can bring. Acts of kindness he will never forget.

Whenever the call to prayer begins and he turns to the back wall, round, long notes echo from Khalid’s throat as if he’s been doing this all his life. The sudden rise in tempo makes him feel blissed out as he pauses mid-flow to lower his voice for a moment before a longer, higher note starts up. Singing so high nearly takes his breath away. He carefully draws out each
n-nnnn-n
and
mmm-m-m
and breathing
r-rr-r-rrr
into the gray walls, while sudden
kk-k
sounds smack the humid air, creating a chemical reaction in his veins that feels like heaven is coming his way.

A few minutes later Khalid rolls up his towel and places it at the end of the bed, ready for the next prayers. He sits down to share a moment’s silence with every person in the camp—prisoner and jailer alike. Whether they know it or not, they are all embracing peace for peace’s sake. A feeling of calm instead of the pain, bitterness and rage this prison has created. So it’s doubly unexpected when two guards come to take Khalid away.

“You’re being transferred to another block,” the big lump of a guard announces. “Get your things.”

“No!” Khalid panics. “I’m staying here!”

“Dude, move yourself. That’s an order,” he says with a wide, laughing face.

Jumping up to collect Dad’s letter and the postcard, Khalid grabs his library book and turns back to pick up his copy of the Qur’an, plus the new toothbrush Marvin brought after Tariq had a word with him. Imagining if he leaves anything behind, it will stay here forever. Not that Khalid has much else to gather up apart from a few sheets of paper and the blue pen the man from the Red Cross dished out yesterday.

Soon Khalid’s dressed in the orange suit. Hooded. Then the shackles are ratcheted tight. The chains drag as the door shuts behind him.

“They’re moving me, Tariq!” he shouts, knowing it’s not worth whispering now.

“I heard. Don’t worry, cuz. Goodbye,” Tariq answers softly.

Shocked by the sudden intake of his cousin’s breath, a terrible feeling of loneliness and isolation overpowers Khalid as he clunks and stumbles, hooded and despairing, past Tariq’s door.

“I won’t forget you!” Khalid yells. Broken in two by the sudden realization that he doesn’t know when they’ll see each other again.

Emptier than he’s ever felt before, Khalid’s led to what he thinks must be a van. A van so hot the smell makes him feel faint. Leaning forward on the hard seat to stop himself from passing out, he is aware of a new, rock-hard ache of frustration stirring in his scrawny stomach.

The van pulls away slowly, traveling for a short while before stopping. The guards remove Khalid’s hood to reveal a face drowning in sweat mixed with a veil of tears. Leading him from the van, one guard starts hiccuping as they arrive at an area crammed with wire cages full of men.

Rows of cages with bundles of men confront Khalid. Only this time they are all talking at once through thick mesh walls. Everyone turns to greet Khalid by shouting, “
Salaam.
” Slightly smaller than the previous kennel, the second to last cage is Khalid’s new cell. Covered in criss-crosses of sunshine, it’s open to the sky and the patch of blue gives Khalid the strange feeling of hot metal on his head. A small compensation for the constant chatter in Pashtu and Farsi that surrounds him, which he can’t understand. Everyone here is older and livelier than him and, more importantly, none of them is his cousin.

Harry must have asked for Khalid to be moved out of isolation, not realizing he’s far more alone here, surrounded by men he doesn’t know, than he was in the cell next to Tariq. Wishing desperately he’d remembered to mention him, Khalid sits in the corner, holding his knees. He peers through the wire at the men on either side of him and the man opposite, who’s quite clearly staring back. Khalid ignores him.

A guard wanders by with cups of sunshine reflected on his black boots. Each perfect circle slips like a gold coin to the pale earth as he walks, bringing a moment’s magic to the dreary scene. Every so often the man to Khalid’s right looks at him and mutters what sound like a few kind words, if only he could understand them.

There’s a more relaxed feeling here. Remarkably, men are not shouted at for talking to each other, and many chat openly with the guards. Others seem to enjoy waving to each other for no reason. But none of it brings Khalid any comfort. He can’t understand their arguments but many seem to be about the Qur’an because they turn pages to point at certain passages then hold the holy book close to their hearts. Khalid watches them but the pent-up emotion he feels for forgetting to mention Tariq to Harry dominates his brain. Contorted by the agony, Khalid starts sinking again and drifts in and out of the constant chatter in his mind.

Only this time there are too many distractions.

After watching the faceless man to his left hang his sheet on the wire mesh to give himself privacy when he uses the toilet, Khalid gets his nerve up to go to the loo, washing himself in the small bucket of water next to it.

It’s hard to describe how much this constant racket is getting on his nerves. Resting his chin on his knees, he gazes at the splashes of diamond-shaped light on the steel floor and wishes the jinn would take him back to his old cell.

In early evening, a vulture flies overhead. Then another before the sun sinks in the sky. When the call to prayer comes, Khalid stands up and stretches, walks around the cage, before the man opposite waves at him to unroll his towel. The hollow clatter of a guard’s rifle being moved round his body distracts Khalid for a moment before he does what he’s been waiting for. Gets down and prays at last.

The voice broadcasting the call to prayer across the camp sounds much nearer and louder than ever before and soon his echoing prayers are whisked away into the darkening sky. A sky Tariq cannot see.

First thing the next morning, to Khalid’s surprise, he’s taken for interrogation again. His ankles are tied to the rings cemented on the floor and a familiar sinking feeling sets in. Two military-looking men in casual white shirts and beige trousers smile, pretending to be his friends. The one who’s nearest starts the whole thing off.

“
Harry Potter
, have you read that yet?”

“I’ve been learning Farsi. Fascinating culture. Do you know anything about it?” the other man asks.

They try a bit of chit-chat, but Khalid’s been through this too many times by now. Finally, they fire the questions they want to ask at him.

“What do you know about al-Qaeda?”

“Who have you spoken to from al-Qaeda?”

“I’m not saying anything about anything without my lawyer here,” is all Khalid will say, aware he’s talking like a character from some TV legal drama.

The first man sighs. “You do want to protect your family? When you help us, we’ll help you.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you liars. I’m going to sue you for millions of dollars when I get out of here,” Khalid threatens them instead. Feeling good about himself until the thin one leans in angrily, pink nostrils flaring.

Then he takes his hands out of his pockets and folds his arms to show he means business, so Khalid shifts in his seat to show he means business too. “I’ve got a lawyer now.” And slowly whistles. Whistling like he’s never whistled before, making it impossible for them to continue. A small payback for all the hours they haven’t listened to him, a small payback for causing his family so much distress.

Eventually the guards take Khalid back to his cage and this time he feels he really has, at last, got one over on them. His confidence grows at a rate of knots at the thought. Tariq would be proud of him. If only he could tell him, or at least get a message to him.

Over the next few days Khalid’s taken for interrogation several times. He soon works out that’s the reason they’ve moved him here. But just like the last time, the interrogators soon learn they’re getting nowhere. While Khalid becomes an expert at half whistling, half singing, tapping his feet to every beat he knows. Starting with Eminem and 50 Cent. He hopes the Americans know the words, because every pissed-off expression he spots on their faces makes him think of his dad. Now his dad knows he’s here and so do loads of other people; it makes Khalid feel he’s protected and gives him the confidence to stand up to them.

This morning, trying hard to disguise how angry he’s getting, one interrogator calls the guards after only two minutes of Khalid being in the room.

“Yeah, get fed up with me, because I’m so fed up with you,” he tells them as they take him away.

Back in the cage, Khalid sits on the floor under a shifting line of passing clouds to write a long letter to Mr. Tagg. Imagining him reading and sympathizing with every word Khalid writes, an exquisite feeling of rightness pumps up his desire to tell the world how he feels, to explain what his life here has been like.

Hearing some real rap now would just round things off
, Khalid thinks, smiling. But no event here is a harmless one and soon the familiar feeling he’s going to have to pay for his rude behavior starts pressing down on him. As the long hours draw out and the last prayers end, he begins to lose faith in the idea he’ll ever get out of here. What are they waiting for now? What is Harry doing?

When night falls, the men begin calling goodnight to each other in many languages and Khalid starts to worry they’ll come for him again before morning. The sound of barking dogs being walked the length of the perimeter fence adds to his restlessness. As he closes his eyes, arguing the toss with himself as he always does these days before finally drifting off to sleep, a damp, rotting smell creeps over him. Reminding him of the two frogs Aadab once ran in with from the garden, holding the croaking things up to his nose.

“Say hello to them. Go on!” she begged.

“Ergh—they stink. Get them out of here,” Khalid said, and she burst into tears. At the time he didn’t much care, but now the memory of her sweet little face crumpled up and crying breaks his heart in two.

Khalid thinks the worst when the heavy-built guard with eyes like moons stops outside his cage before the first prayers are called, rattling keys. His hair, still damp from an early shower, smells strongly of almonds and he seems in a bad mood.

“Your head’s covered in baby hair, dude,” he says.

“Done for, am I? How sad.” Khalid rubs the thin clumps of hair on his head to check they’re still growing. “What’s up, then, eh?”

“You get your things,” he adds. “And cut it.”

“You’re moving me back. Great!” Khalid grabs his sheets of paper and pen, unsent scribbles, postcard and precious letter from Dad. Then his Qur’an, quickly checking the cage for anything he might have missed. Oh yeah, his flip-flops.

“We ain’t got all day.” The guard tries to hurry him up, without any luck.

“Hang on, what did I do with my flat-screen TV and iPod?” So glad to get out of there, Khalid’s larking around, busy pulling apart the diamond-shaped wire to prove he’s left nothing behind. One man starts waving and laughing at his antics.

It’s only when they’re outside the cage that Khalid, his arms full of papers, begins to realize something strange is going on.

“You forgot the shackles,” he tells the guard. “You’re going to get into trouble now.”

“Is that right?” He smiles.

Walking normally is something Khalid’s only done inside his cell or that time he went to the hospital because of his ear. Unable to do more than three and a half unrestrained steps in all from one end of his cell to the other since he came here, he’s pigeon-toed now.