Hostage Three (35 page)

I wave at him and he walks over to me.

— Amy, he says.

I shake his hand, which he is holding out in front of him, like an offering.

— Hello, I say.

— Is good to meet, he says. I'm sorry. My English not good.

— It's perfectly good, I say.

There is something with soft wings moving inside my stomach, and there is something hot and wet in my eyes, but I blink it back. I won't let myself cry. It's just – he's so like him. Older, of course, and harder somehow, like he's a version of Farouz that was left a little too long in a cupboard and has gone slightly stale. But still with those grey eyes, the long eyelashes.

— You look like him, I say.

He nods.

— But not so good, I think, he says with a wink.

I laugh, surprised.

Then Farouz's brother points to the Eye.

— We go? he says.

I wasn't really expecting this, hadn't planned for it, but I guess it makes sense. Actually, I've never been on it – when you live in a city you don't tend to do the touristy things.

— Yeah, OK, I say.

So we buy tickets and queue, then we enter one of the little round pods, and we're lofted slowly into the sky. I see the river elongate below us, Big Ben rising up, the city stretching out like a map, which is a stupid comparison, but I don't care, that's what it looks like. White clouds are sailing low over London.

— He speak of me? says Abdirashid, as we stand next to each other, looking out at the view.

We are near the apex of the circle. Around us, seagulls are wheeling, and we could almost be back on the sea. I wonder when there will be more seagulls in London than pigeons – when they will just be part of the city, belonging to it, at home.

— Yes, I say, which is the pure truth. He talked about you all the time.

Abdirashid is trembling, and I don't know if that's because of talking about his brother or drugs or what. I know from Farouz that he has not had a good life.

— Good thing? he says. Farouz say good thing?

— All good things, I say. He told me a story about a concert. As I say this I remember being under the shower, listening to Farouz telling it.

— Concert?

I mime playing an oud.

— Ah, says Abdirashid. Yes. He smiles.

— How . . . how did you get here? I ask. How did you get out of prison?

Abdirashid taps his pocket.

— A man bring money. A hundred thousand dollar. I pay for free. Then I know someone who sell passport.

— You got compensation? I say. For Farouz dying?

— Yes. From lawyer.

— Nyesh?

— Yes. Him. And then I am wanting leave. And I am checking Farouz email. And I get email from you. You speak to my brother, who is dead.

He says this in a kind of gentle questioning way, not like he's saying I'm crazy, but more like he's just curious. I nod.

— I knew he was dead, I say. But I thought . . . I don't know. I hoped he might be there, anyway.

— Me also, says Abdirashid. This why I check email.

It's a heavy moment, so to lighten it, I say in a kind of jolly breezy tone:

— It's a good job you knew his password.

Abdirashid looks embarrassed, though, and at first I think it's because he tricked his brother somehow, looked over his shoulder or something when he was logging into Hotmail.

But then he says:

— I always know Farouz password. Always the same.

— Oh, I say. OK.

— Is always my name. Abdirashid.

He looks down at his feet.

Whatever I was about to say, it stops in my throat, and it's like it's going to choke me. I'm about to cry, and I don't want to do that. Instead I watch a barge, crawling small through the silvery water below us. I think about love. I think about money, about compensation. I assume this is why Abdirashid touched his pocket, because there is still some cash in there left over from the hundred thousand. So Farouz was right – that kind of thing does happen. There's honour with the pirates, like he said. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that something has come out of Farouz's death, something positive. I can't say all this to Abdirashid – he wouldn't understand my English.

So, as the pod we're in arcs down towards the ground, I tell him, in as simple English as I can, about what happened on the yacht, how his brother died, the things that Farouz told me, the way I felt about him. Which is complicated – some part of me loved him but a big part of me was afraid of him, too; muscles are attractive things, but they pull triggers also, they slit throats. I did fancy him, obviously. And I felt sorry for him, for what had happened to him in his life. But is that the same thing as love? I don't think so.

I don't know if I make Abdirashid understand, but I don't think it matters, either. I am talking about Farouz, his brother, and that is the important thing.

When I have finished, he looks level at me for a while.

— I help you, he says. I have money.

This is so the most absurd thing I've ever heard that I literally don't know how to respond. Because, yes, he has money, but it's my dad's money or the bank's money, which more or less amounts to the same thing. And now the brother of one of the pirates who took us hostage, with guns, is trying to give it back to me!

— It's OK, I say. Don't worry. I don't need money, thank you. I'm resitting one of my A levels, then I'm going to college.

— A levels? College?

I make a show of playing the violin.

— To learn, I say. Learn more.

Abdirashid nods his understanding, looks out at the darkening sky above London. The stars are just starting to come out. He takes a cigarette packet from his pocket, flicks the bottom with a fingernail, and a cigarette jumps out into his fingers, like a magic trick. He lights it, then offers the pack to me.

— No, thanks, I say. I don't smoke.

And as I say it, I realise it's true.

Abdirashid opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Takes a moment.

— Farouz . . . was happy? he asks finally. Before . . . before he die?

I think of when I was lying in Farouz's arms, looking up at the sky, my body glowing.

I think of him laughing.

I think of him showing me the stars, the enthusiasm in his voice.

And I am glad, because this is an easy question to answer, and there are other questions he could have asked which would have been more difficult.

I take Abdirashid's hand.

— Yes, I say.

And it is something I can say with confidence. It is something I know. As I say it, as I say that word,
yes
, I feel like there is a weight that has been pressing down on Abdirashid's shoulders, and now it looks like at least some of it is gone; he is standing straighter already.

This is the thing: people think that magic doesn't exist, but it does, all the time. We use spells every day: the spell of forgiveness, the spell of thanks. Abdirashid put Farouz under a kind of spell. He saved his younger brother's life – he cast on him a spell of loyalty, which Farouz only shook off by dying, by saving Abdirashid in return. I think Abdirashid knows this, and it explains a lot of the weight that was pressing on his shoulders.

But I have just given him the spell of moving on, despite everything, and, more than anything, he seems grateful.

— Yes, I say again to Abdirashid. He was happy.

Water rushes and courses over me
in the shower on the yacht, the morning of the handover.

— From before the war? Farouz says. A story of me and my brother?

— Yes, I say.

— OK. OK, I have one. This story happened before we left Mogadishu, he says. In 1990 maybe, or 1989. So I was six, I think.

I close my eyes, listening to Farouz speaking, to the long spell of his voice. Shampoo foams in my hands.

— We knew the rebels were coming, he says – even us children. But we tried not to know it. At my school, there was a concert. The orchestra played for the parents who were all in the audience, and the children who could play well also did solo pieces. I was one of those children. I mean, I didn't play that well. I was only six. But my father was a professor of music – he made me play from when I was small, so I was better than most children of that age, I suppose. Abdirashid, too, he was made to play the piano, but he was always more of a rebel; he had stopped already.

That day, at the concert, I was supposed to play some simple music on my oud. I don't even remember what, I was so young. Some folk song, I suppose.

But, Amy, I was scared. I did not want to play on that stage, on my own, in front of all those people. It was a hot day, I remember, and as we entered the hall I was sweating. My parents must have been with me, but I don't remember them. I mean, I don't see them when I picture this event. I only see Abdirashid.

What happened was that I left my family in the seats and joined the other children on stage. We played a few things, which was fine, because I was with other people. Then a girl stood up with her clarinet, and walked to the microphone at the front of the stage. I listened to her, but all I could hear was my heart thumping in my chest. My hands would not stay still.

Eventually, the time came when I was meant to get up myself. But I could not move. I was hot, sweating, but I was also frozen, like a piece of meat, hard and still. The teacher was telling me that I had to go to the microphone, but I couldn't do it. The stage lights were blazing, it seemed like, cooking me in that seat, and there was nothing I could do about it. Usually, when I held my oud, it was like it was alive, like it was shaping itself to fit my body, not the other way around. Now it was a dead weight in my hands.

I was aware of all those people out there, waiting for me to play, though I couldn't see them because of the lighting, and I felt afraid, as afraid as if they had gathered to see me killed, not to see me play my instrument.

That was when Abdirashid left the audience and climbed up on to the stage. He walked over to me, took my hand and helped me to stand up. Then he led me to the microphone.

OK? he said to me, not in a hurry, just calm and gentle, even though so many people were watching. We were standing in a circle of light. It was impossible to see the audience, but I could sense them out there, breathing, the way the sea respires at night, invisible.

No, I told him. I want you to stay.

There was a music stand in front of the microphone, and someone had already put on it my sheets. Abdirashid nodded at me, then he took the music off the stand and held it out, so that I could read it. He smiled at me for me to start.

But we had not seen the teacher, who had come up beside us. She always wore a headscarf, this teacher, and was always glaring under it.

You cannot be here, she said to Abdirashid. This is a Year Two concert. Persons from other school years cannot stand on the stage.

Abdirashid did not flinch or blink. He held out the music on his flat palms. I am not a person, he said to her. I am a music stand.

On the yacht, in our time, Farouz pauses, and is silent.

The shower is a rushing in my ears.

— Are you still there? I say.

— Yes, says Farouz.

— What happened after that? What did the teacher say?

— I do not know, says Farouz. I must have played the piece, I suppose. I just remember Abdirashid telling the teacher he was a music stand, staying with me on that stage, in that circle of light.

I close my eyes, as Farouz tells me this, as the shower washes over me. My senses merge: his words are all over me; the water is talking.

Suddenly, there is a prickling feeling in my head. It's like pins and needles in my mind – it's like there's something inside me, some emotion, that I have been sitting on for months, curled under me like a forgotten limb, dead, and now it is coming back to life, blood pouring into it, hot like tears.

And the thing that is making it come back to life is Farouz, and the idea of leaving him behind.

Don't leave me, I think – stupidly, because, in fact, it's me who's going to leave, and there's no way it could be any other way.

And then real tears start to spill out, merging with the water, merging with the words from Farouz's mouth. And I'm surprised because I never cry, never even did when Mom died, but there I am pouring tears, just absolutely pouring them, like a container that is overflowing.

— Are you OK? asks Farouz.

— Yeah, yeah, I say. Just got some water in my mouth.

Which must be pretty unconvincing when there I am sobbing, but he doesn't ask again.

I think, we won't ever see each other again after today.

But it's OK, it's all right.