Tears of the Desert (31 page)

“But I don’t know anywhere in this big city. How can I find my way?”

“I told you—just use the map and ask. Go on! Go and find your own way.”

“But if you came to my country and I told you to find your way across Khartoum, you’d be lost. It’s the same here with me.”

The spiky man sighed. “Look, its late. We’re about to close. You’re no longer my responsibility. I told you—you need to get on your way.”

The interpreter placed a restraining hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. Wait for me outside. I’ll help you.”

It was nine o’clock by the time we left. The old man led me on a short walk to another building.

“These people will organize somewhere for you to stay,” he told me, as he ushered me inside. “I came here as an asylum seeker, so I know what it’s like . . .”

I smiled at him. “Thank you. You’ve been so kind.”

“Here,” he said, handing me a £10 note. “Take it. It’s not much, but I can’t afford much. It’s something, at least . . .”

That night I was sent to an asylum hostel, in Croydon. I was put in a room with two other women—one from Eritrea and another from Burkina Faso. The Eritrean woman was heavily pregnant, and so she took the lower bunk and I took the one above. There was a horrible air of desperation about the asylum hostel. I could sense the pain, the dislocation, and the burning frustration that was squeezed between its walls. I lay awake that night thinking of home, and about the love and warmth of my family, and I started to cry.

My first impressions of the asylum hostel were entirely correct: It was a place of real desperation. I quickly learned the rules. Every morning we had to sign a book to show that we were there. Then we had to line up for a breakfast of tea and bread. Apart from our small room, there was a canteen that smelled of frying fat, and a reception area with two TV sets in it. There was little to do, and the only way to pass the time was to sleep.

If you failed to sign the register once, you were warned. Twice, and they would threaten to throw you out. At least that was the theory. In practice, it didn’t work that way at all. There was an Iraqi writer in the hostel whose entire family had been murdered. He was still obsessed with writing, and every morning he’d get up early and go and sign the entire register. He’d even make beautiful copies of people’s signatures. He had lost his mind, but he was harmless—and we didn’t object to him signing the register!

My Eritrean roommate, Sarah, quickly took me under her wing. There was a war in her country, and women were being forced to fight. She had left behind four children and a husband when she had fled the country. I couldn’t believe it when she told me that she had been living at the hostel for almost a year. The Home Office had lost her file, and so she had been forced to make a whole new asylum claim. She had been there for so long that she was an expert on the place, and all the new arrivals came to her for advice.

When I couldn’t work the laundry machines Sarah showed me how to put my clothes in, and how to dry them afterward. I had little desire to eat, so I skipped most meals and stayed in my room. But Sarah tried to persuade me to eat something. I didn’t want to mix with the others much, because so many seemed to have lost themselves. Even after everything that I had been through, I still had my sense of self, my pride in my identity. But there were people there who would fight with each other for no reason, or break down in the corridors rolling around and screaming.

Whatever horrors those people had suffered in their home countries, it had broken them. There was one Iraqi woman who had been forced to abandon her ten-year-old daughter. Every time she thought about it she would break down in a fit of hysterics. She spent whole nights screaming and wailing, and her cries would echo down the corridors. It was so hortrible. Lying there unable to sleep and hearing her screams was enough to drive anyone mad. I knew that she had suffered. I could see it in her eyes. But so had we all.

Every day it seemed that the hostel staff would have to call the police to restrain someone, or take them away. Everyone had their problems, and no one was alone in their suffering. I knew that these people had been through hell, but I didn’t want to be like them. I didn’t want to end up like that, to be one of them. Having survived the hell of Darfur, and my flight from those who hunted me, I didn’t want this to be the place that finished me.

But I wasn’t coping so well. With no exercise and little food I became ill. Yet my sickness was as much in my head and my heart, as it was in my body. I was depressed. I was deeply depressed and lonely as I had never been before. My family members were either dead or scattered far and wide. My village was gone. My tribe was being wiped off the face of the earth. What was there left to live for?

I stayed in the hostel for two months, yet it felt like a lifetime. I kept wondering why had I come? For this? For this terrible limbo, this madhouse, this nothingness? Perhaps I should have taken my chances in Sudan? Here I was alive. I had saved my life. But other than that what did I have to live for? I knew that I had to get out of this place. I just had to.

Sarah alerted the hostel staff to my ill health and they sent me to see a local GP. He was a middle-aged Englishman, and he listened to me with real sympathy. As a fellow doctor I felt I could trust him, and because of his age he was something of a father figure. I told him everything. I told him about my frustration and my darkness. I was a medical doctor, just like him. I wanted to do something, to contribute, to feel that I had a reason for living. I didn’t want to sit around doing nothing in that hostel of despair.

The GP was very understanding, but there was only so much he could do. He gave me some antidepressants and sent me to the hospital. After all that I had been through he wanted me to have a full medical checkup, and he wanted me to eat properly and get well. It turned out that I had a raging ear infection, from where the soldiers in Mazkhabad had beaten me around the head. And there were other things wrong with me too.

I stayed in that hospital for three weeks, and I grew strong again. But eventually they had no excuse to keep me any longer, and I had to return to the asylum hostel. I hated being back there. Sarah, my Eritrean friend, told me that if I really wanted to get out of that place I would need a solicitor. I asked why. I had done nothing wrong. Why did I need a lawyer? My lawyer would argue my case with the Home Office, Sarah explained, which should move things along more quickly.

Sarah took me to visit a firm of solicitors. I was allocated a lawyer who was a middle-aged Englishwoman. I had to relate my whole story all over again, so that she could produce a witness statement. She would use this to argue my case with the Home Office, she explained. When we’d finished she looked over my interview notes.

She glanced at me and smiled. “I’ve rarely seen such a strong case. You’re from Darfur, and after all that’s happened it’s a miracle you’re alive. You should be granted immediate asylum.”

My mood brightened. Maybe things were about to change?

Two weeks late Sarah gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She called her Tashana. As Sarah was now a mother with a newborn baby, she was allocated a room of her own. A friend of hers discovered an old TV set dumped on the street, and she brought it back to the hostel. We installed it in Sarah’s room and got it working. Now we had a little oasis of calm where we could gather together in private, watch the TV, and chat.

For a few weeks it made life that tiny bit more bearable. But it couldn’t last.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In London, In Love

Two weeks later Sarah’s name came up for resettlement. Each morning people would check the hostel notice board, to see if there were any new announcements concerning accommodation. A flat or a room could be allocated to you at any location across the country, but at least it meant getting out of the hostel of despair. I was overjoyed for Sarah and her little baby girl. But at the same time I was saddened, for it meant losing my best friend and mentor—not to mention the room we had made our sanctuary.

Just as soon as Sarah heard the news she burst into tears. A string of people came to congratulate her, the hostel staff included. Sarah had been there so long that everyone knew and loved her. But once Sarah and little Tashana were gone, my spirits sunk again. I went to see my kindly GP, and he arranged for me to see the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. He was confident that they would be able to help me.

On the way back from the GP’s office I stopped in a little park. It was a sunny day, the park was beautiful, and it was free. I lay on the grass and stared at the sky, dreaming of home. I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke there was a man and a woman quite close by. They were sitting on the grass with their arms wrapped around each other, and they were kissing and kissing and fumbling with each other’s clothing.

At first I couldn’t even look at them, but then I couldn’t stop myself from staring. Why didn’t they do this in the privacy of their own home, I wondered? Didn’t they have any shame? What sort of country was this, where people did such things in public? There were many strange habits and traditions here that I just didn’t understand.

The lady who saw me at the Medical Foundation was very kind and gentle with me. I had to tell her my story in the finest detail. She asked to see my scarring, and I showed her where the soldiers had cut me and burned me. She was so visibly moved that I didn’t mind doing so. She told me that she would be my caseworker, and I should start coming to see her every other week. We would talk through my problems and she would try to help me.

She assured me that I could tell her anything I wanted to. On a practical level, she would talk to my GP about the antidepressants I was taking. She would also look into college courses for me—to get me out and about once more. I needed to meet people and to start using my mind again. I needed to rebuild my self-confidence and I needed to discover a reason for living. She was right, of course, and I knew it. If only it were that easy.

I started a course in English at a college local to the hostel. I had my biweekly visit to the Medical Foundation. And occasionally I would go to see my solicitor. Each time I went out London struck me as being such a strange place. No one ever said “hello.” People didn’t even seem to speak with their neighbors. They just went around with a face like a closed mask. There was none of the spontaneous warmth that I was used to in my village.

Whenever I lost my way, which was often, I would try to find an old person from whom to ask directions. At least they generally had time for you. Younger people just seemed to be forever in a hurry—running, running, running. More often than not the old people seemed to want to stop and talk for as long as the words lasted. I realized that many of them were lonely—lonelier even than I. I had no family here, but at least I had others in the asylum hostel to talk to.

One day I found an old lady sitting on a park bench. She and I got chatting and she told me her story. She lived alone in a big house. She had four children, but they were grown up and gone away. Now and again they would phone, but she only saw them at Christmas and birthdays. I told her that in our culture you would never leave your parents to live out their old age in isolation. Your mother had carried you for nine months and nourished you as a child. Your father had protected you. You had to cherish and respect them when they were old. By the time I had finished speaking the old lady had tears in her eyes.

I had been at the hostel for four months when my name finally came up for resettlement. I was being sent to Newcastle, a city that I was told was in the north of England. I was sent from the hostel of despair to a dispersal hostel, in Crystal Palace. But on the day of my scheduled departure I was too ill to be moved. I had developed an infection in my stomach. I still wasn’t eating properly, and now I was vomiting up everything.

I stayed in that dispersal hostel for two weeks. During the weekdays it was deserted, as everyone had been bused off to their various destinations. On the weekends it was full to bursting with the next batch for dispersal. The only other person staying there was another girl who was, like me, too ill to travel. Together we nicknamed that place “the ghost hostel.”

At the end of my second week another batch arrived. Among them was a man that I recognized as being Zaghawa. We got talking, and his story was a heartbreaking one. At every opportunity I had sought news of Sharif, but as of yet there had been nothing. I asked this man if he had heard of a Zaghawa man whose doctor wife was looking for him? He hadn’t heard anything, he said, but he did offer to call the Zaghawa community support group, which was based in Coventry. Perhaps they might know something.

I gave him my full name and that of Sharif, and he made the call. He spoke for a few moments, and then his face broke into a wide smile. He nodded and smiled again, and grabbed a piece of paper to scribble something down. It was the number of Sharif’s mobile phone. The Coventry group knew all about Sharif and me. They just hadn’t been able to find out where I was, or how to put the two of us in touch.

With a shaking hand and a trembling heart I called Sharif’s number. I heard a voice answer. “Hello. Hello.”

“Sharif? Sharif? Is that you? It’s me, Halima. It’s your . . . wife calling.”

I felt so strange using that word
—wife.
I didn’t feel like I was married really. I knew that I
was—
it was just that there had been no sign of it in my life to date.

“Wow! Halima! Welcome. Welcome. When did you come? How did you find me? I’m so happy—I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“I’m happy to hear your voice,” I told him shyly. “Where are you?”

“I’m in a place called Southampton.” He laughed. “It doesn’t matter where it is. You’ll see it soon enough. Where are you? I want to come and see you!”

Sharif told me he would travel up to London the following morning. We would meet at the asylum hostel, and then go out for the day. It was late September, and if we were lucky we might even get a sunny day.

The following morning I stood nervously at the hostel entrance, waiting to meet my husband. There was a crisp blue sky above, so I felt like my prayers for a fine day had been answered. But I was worried, so worried. Would he know, I wondered? Would Sharif know? Would he see right through me and see the scars of the rape? Would he sense my fear, my shame, and my guilt?

I caught sight of a figure walking toward the hostel. I knew instantly that it was him. I recognized my childhood cousin, but he had changed so much from the adolescent village farm boy. Here was a talk, dark, dashingly handsome man, dressed in a smart sheepskin coat, with dark trousers and shoes. We smiled shyly and greeted each other.

He whisked me off on a red London bus to Shepherd’s Bush market. It was a meeting place for Sudanese of all ethnicities, he told me, and we could eat real Sudanese food there. On the journey we caught up on news from home. I asked Sharif if he had heard from my family, but he shook his head. He had heard nothing. He told me not to worry, though: By now they certainly had to be safe in refugee camps in Chad.

Shepherd’s Bush market is a sprawl of stalls and little shops clustered among the archways of a raised railway line. It was crowded and chaotic, and it reminded me immediately of markets back at home. We stopped at one stall and Sharif brought me a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, so we could stay in touch. Then we found a stall selling
foul—
the bean stew mixed with fresh tomato and sesame oil that I used to love eating.

We wondered around the marketplace eating our
foul.
I couldn’t believe that I was here at last by my husband’s side. Sharif had a quiet way of speaking, and most of the time a shy half smile played across his handsome features. He was studying hard to complete his degree, he told me. His time at university in Khartoum had ended abruptly, when he was forced to flee the country. He worked nights as a security guard, and he shared a small flat in Southampton with three Zaghawa friends. It was crowded, but it was home.

“Why don’t you to come and live with me?” Sharif suggested. “Portsmouth is a nice place. We’d have to share with my friends, but we’re all Zaghawa and we’d make it work.”

“But where would we sleep?” I asked. It was a lovely idea, but was it practical?

“Don’t worry. I’ve spoken with my friends about it. They’d give us the bedroom, and they’d sleep in the living room. Like I said, we’d make it work.”

I couldn’t get out of that asylum hostel quick enough. A week after Sharif’s visit I moved into his home. The one-bedroom flat was tiny, but I didn’t care. At least I had escaped from the hostel of despair. Sharif seemed to know every Zaghawa person in Southampton, and we had a stream of visitors. In their eyes I was new to England, new to their community, and I was Sharif’s new bride. I was treated as if I was just married. I had so many lovely wedding gifts: a new dress, beautiful jewelry, some things for the kitchen.

I was happy to be living among Zaghawa people again. It wasn’t a trial with so many of us being there: It was like a tiny version of the village. Some worked nights and some days, so we developed a system of hot-bedding. But we always tried to eat at least one daily meal together, as a “family.” Food was communal, and at meal times people pooled whatever they had. Between Sharif and his friends even clothing seemed to be shared. It was as if we had brought the traditions of the village into our English home.

But my greatest relief was to be out of
the system.
There were no threats here, no rules, and no regulations. I still had to travel to London to see my solicitor and the Medical Foundation, but at least now I was independent and free. My health and my mood improved no end, and as it did so I gradually plucked up courage to tell Sharif something of what had happened to me. I couldn’t bear to think that my happy new life was based upon a lie. Sharif was my husband and he had to know.

I told him about my arrest by the security men in Hashma; about the rape of the schoolgirls in Mazkhabad village; and little by little I revealed the rest of the dark horrors that had befallen me. Sharif listened quietly, and with pain in his eyes. Eventually, there was nothing left to tell. I could see that he was angry, but none of his anger was directed toward me. He was burning up inside at those who had done these things to me. His immediate reaction was that he wanted to go and fight and kill them all.

Sharif told me that he had seen so much suffering in Sudan, especially during his visits to the south of the country. He had realized then that men are capable of doing the most inhuman things imaginable to women, and even to little children. Just like so many others in Sudan, I was the victim of a monstrous crime. I bore no blame and no shame fell upon my shoulders, Sharif reassured me. Those who had done such things were worse than animals. His only desire was for vengeance.

As I had confessed my secrets to Sharif, so now it seemed that it was his turn to confess his failings and his insecurities to me. Our happy new life was based upon less than solid foundations, he revealed. The flat we were living in was a short-term rental only, and we could be thrown out at any time. Worse, his claim for asylum in the UK had run into the sand, and he’d lost track of his exact status. His Zaghawa pride prevented him from throwing himself on the mercy of the benefits system—so he was trying to work to pay his way and study hard to finish his degree, all at the same time.

Sharif was determined to be independent and to hold his head up high, but there were many asylum seekers who were just abusing the system. The Somalis were the worst: they seemed to know every trick in the book. They would get allocated a flat, then rent it out and live with their relatives. They would cheat the system, bringing their entire family to London with false tales of abuse in their home country. They just didn’t seem to care.

It was going to be tough making a life for ourselves here in Britain, Sharif said, but he promised me we would make it work. In fact, we were going to have to. It was all the more vital that we did—because by now I knew that I was going to have a baby.

Of course, physical intimacy had been difficult at first. After the horrors I had suffered at the hands of the Croucher, the Screamer, and the Driver, I didn’t know if I could ever trust another man. But with Sharif I was so lucky and so blessed. Somehow he managed to combine the strength and bearing of a Zaghawa warrior with softness, and a gentle hand. And because he himself had suffered, and seen so much suffering, he was able to gift me with his patience and his understanding.