This Is Where I Am (33 page)

‘This is your room. I thought you’d want to be on your own – Rebecca’s just down the hall. But if you’d rather, I could move a camp-bed in here.’

I sniff in the dark polish of the place, its heavy furniture and half-closed curtains. The outstretched breadth of bed. ‘No. This is fine. Thank you. We should not be taking so much of your time –’

‘Rubbish. You stay as long as you like, Abdi.’

From downstairs, the wail of the television is trumped by Rebecca cackling with laughter. ‘To me, to you!’ she is shouting.

‘Here. Why don’t you have a lie-down? Once I shut the door, you’ll hardly hear her –’

‘I want to hear her.’

‘Of course. Sorry. Can I get you anything? More tea?’

I shake my head. Sit on the bed and take off my new shoes. Ridiculous, wearing them to gut fish. What was I thinking of? I will need to go back there. Apologise. A heavy slab comes down on me. But I must. I must. I confront, I process, I accept. No, the other way round. The doctor lady called it CAP. Her patented method, she said. Tapping on my skull. EFT, that one was called.

‘I think I will sleep for a little while. A wee while, just.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘Deborah . . . I cannot thank you enough. For your generosity to us, your patience.’

‘Ach. Away and bile your heid.’

In my monastic cell, I have been reading the history book she gave me. The Scots are stern warriors, even the women. It spills into their speech, how they brush off praise with made-up anger. I know ‘bile’ is boil and I know she doesn’t mean it.

‘You must bring me a pot.’

Her hand goes to her mouth. ‘Oh, God. Abdi, sorry. I should have shown you. There is a bathroom two doors along –’

‘Debs! I am joking with you. A pot to put my heid in?’

It is weak and stupid, but she laughs kindly. I saw her do the same with Dr Boom. Boon, I mean Boon.

‘What are you like?’

I grab her wrist. ‘What was I like, Debs? You saw me. I cannot remember anything, it was as if I was . . . I was not there. The smell, the taste was . . . I was in a different place.’

‘Och, you were . . . you were upset, yes. But the ambulance came and –’

‘Please. I need to know.’

She sits on the bed beside me. ‘OK then. Honestly? You were hiding under the table. You know, the big metal one?’

I die and die and die again.

‘Go on.’

‘That was it really. You were just huddled underneath it. Oh, and you had – well, you know about the knives? You’d gone a bit . . . that’s how your hands were cut.’

‘Yes. Dr Boon explained. Anything else?’

‘What does
iska daa
mean? You kept shouting it.’

My mouth is stuffed with paper. A CAT in a HAT, I see the cat with its cap this is how I do do it acceptaxxeptexcept. Swallow down the paper. Accept that it is in my mouth and process it away.

‘
Leave her
. It means “leave her alone”.’

‘Oh, Abdi. Christ.’

She takes the weight of me, stroking my brow. The smell of her is sweet and sharp. I want so badly to be clean.

And so.

Don’t go.

I breathe her in.

And so.

And so I tell her everything. I tell her how much I miss my mother, my sister. How my grandfather’s dead face looked as it leathered in the sun. I tell her I had a son and how he died. I tell her I had a friend called Paolo who gave us a home and how there was a
Light of the World
and the language keeps bleeding from me like I’ve cut a vein. Thick weak words flung out into the wind and noise that roars inside me. Or maybe it’s a jinn, and he’s laughing as I select and offer the very best of my words to describe –

To describe.

To describe this.

Everything is burning away. It is the burning bush of Moses, there to purge and cleanse. I firewalk and feel the pain and I feel no pain and I must . . . the word is ‘process’. I must be calm and
process
how I saw my wife beheaded as I fled.

And so.

‘We were loading up when the raiders came. Everyone was running, literally trampling over each other to get on to the trucks. There were two guards with guns, but they did nothing . . . I don’t even know if they had bullets.’

The flats of my hands are drumming on the bedsheet, it is uncontrollable but I have to finish this and I talk louder over the independent noises of my hands, over the wails and shrieks and slicing noises. Have you ever heard a machete slicing air? It is a wicked shivering hissing swoosh and then the sickening clunk and thud and I keep talking over it all, because this is not real, it is the fear centre of my brain on fire and I am here and I am here.

‘The first truck began to go, before it was even half-full, and it became a proper stampede. I saw one girl climb on to another woman’s back, an old woman. She used her as purchase to get up on the lorry. People were fighting to get on, the people in the truck were fighting to push them off, then the second truck’s engines started, and I screamed at Azira to run. I had our baggage, she was carrying Rebecca and I dropped it to get to her, but the flow of bodies was too strong. It was like a river, you know? Like a sea?’

Debs nods. She is crying now, so I carry on over the noise of her crying.

‘I hit people, I punched people to get to Azira, and she was yelling
Get the baby on the truck!
We were like wild animals in a herd, being swept along by pounding feet – I was lifted off the ground, all the bags gone, trampled – except my backpack – and then I was banging into metal and I was alongside the second truck, so I grabbed it, I just grabbed it when I should have reached behind me and grabbed my wife.’

The crying is too loud to continue. It is so loud it is thickening my lips and making my breath come in sobs. These are parts I had not even remembered; but I push through this pale cold ache: the more I talk, the more there is to say, far more than I said to those counselling people, who take notes and capture you and will never let you go. But I will say it, and I do. And Debs listens quietly, beside me. By the end, I am nothing. Not even a shell. And then I sleep. I sleep the longest, deepest sleep I’ve ever had. I sleep for all of one night and all of the next day and there are no dreams in any of these hours. I don’t even have the light on. I wake when it’s dark. The red numbers on the clock say four, but at four it should be light. A strange curtain lifts in and out; there’s a gentle smell of grass and woodsmoke. Dawn smells. Soon the women will begin to grind, making meal for
anjara
. I listen for the syrupy birds in chorus. Hear none. And then comes a plaintive yicker. Hyena? No, a fox.

Stupid refugee
. I am resting on a feather bed a million miles from home. It must be night-time – my belly leaps: Rebecca will be starving! Shoving the spongy bedclothes back, my feet on thick, thick carpet which slips as I stand, stumble, my legs wide and then the shock of cool wood. Furniture spins around me, I cringe, waiting to be hit.

Ah.

Debs will have fed Rebecca. I catch myself, hold the bedpost. Tap my forehead, like the doctor lady did. And breathe. The wardrobe squats in its place, the dresser has not moved. I get my legs straight. Their energy is shaky, apprehensive, as if they do not know me and they want to dissociate themselves from the weakling above.
Get some rest
, Deborah told me. Now my body is telling me too. Climbing back into bed, the blissful sinking-in of bone and muscle, the brain that curls back over on its side and goes to sleep.

Aabo
. A barely-there whisper. A hand patting my face, brisk shrshh and flow of light; colours fading behind my eyes from blue to yellow-pink. Smelling coffee, smelling toast.

‘Aabo.’

‘What have you got for Aabo, Rebecca?’

‘Aabo. Toast!’

When I open my eyes, Rebecca is there, her chin inches from mine. ‘Aabo!’ Her fingers pulling at my ears; she’s hauling herself on to the bed by yanking on my ears. I sweep her up high in the air, enjoying the muscled obedience of my arms, my solid, squealing daughter, us being strong and alive. She’s on my chest now, her hands twining desperately with the fabric, scrabbling under to feel my skin. The urgent absolute press of her: there, I will say, to anyone that asks. There. That is love.

Debs puts my breakfast on the side table, tumbles Rebecca’s hair. ‘Give me a shout when you want more coffee.’

Then she leaves us to ourselves and I touch Rebecca’s fingers, counting them one by one. Each time, she repeats the number, then tells me solemnly
finger
.

Later, I have a bath. Debs fills it with silly bubbles; they go in my nose and reek. But they feel nice. I cup them in my hands. Inhale their woman smell. Squeeze slow and compact until their lacy resistance pushes back. I think my resistance has gone. For endless months I have been as desperate and cunning as a hunted
swalla
. Swerving, hiding, doubling-back, sprinting too fast for my heart. My capacity to run from Azira’s memory has driven me demented. My will, my drive, the fierceness of my resolve.

It is shite. I am a simple coward.

‘
Shite
.’ I utter the word aloud, relish its firm conviction and the little pop of relief the expletive gives. I say it again, elongating the vowel until it yowls in a satisfactory Glaswegian
iye
. Mm. That is a good word. At the end of it you actually feel a little as if you’ve emptied your bowels.

For dinner we eat vegetable soup at a table in the kitchen. Debs’s kitchen is down below her living room, has creamy wooden units and a white china sink. It is more modern than the rest of the house which is full of old furniture and ornamentations.
Antiques
, she calls them. Strangely, she has labelled a great deal of her possessions in here – her kettle, her refrigerator – her wall even. The walls are cream and blue tiles, the floor is polished wood. On the far wall, which is not tiled but painted, there are two glass-paned doors, propped open so you can see pots of spiky purple flowers outside, and the garden stretching beyond. A blue plastic paddle with holes in it lies on the threshold. You wouldn’t get very far in that boat. Would
ny
. The shouts of children playing rise from distant gardens, along with the tinny chatter of a radio, and, again, I smell that woodsmoke.

‘This is very much soup, Debs. Very good, but very much.’

‘Tell the chef, not me.’ Debs winks at Rebecca.

‘Rebecca made this soup?’

‘Well, we both did. And we made so much that we took some to Mrs Gilfillan, didn’t we?’

‘Fillan,’ Rebecca intones. Then she turns to me and makes an O with her mouth and a circle with her fingers. I think she is mouthing ‘chocolate’, but I can’t be sure.

‘Who is Mrs Gilfillan?’

‘She’s a bit like your Mrs Coutts – only posher. Which reminds me. Mrs Coutts was on the phone earlier, wanting to know when she could come and see you.’

‘Will she not see me tomorrow, when we are home?’

Debs flushes red. Gathers up our bowls. ‘Yup, sure. If you think you’re up to it.’

After the soup, we have chicken cooked in a white wine sauce.

‘Even for Rebecca?’ I say doubtfully.

‘Ach, Abdi. It’s only flavour. All the alcohol gets burned off. Hearty food, you’re getting – to fatten you up.’

‘I am not a cow.’

Debs serves the chicken with crushed potatoes, roasted carrots and luminous peas.

‘Rebecca won’t eat pea –’

Rebecca spoons a great mound of peas into her potato, mashes it all neatly, then pops it in her mouth.

‘Dogshdinner!’

‘That’s right. You make a dog’s dinner for a mucky pup.’

Rebecca nods, then mashes up some more. She finishes before I do, and presents her plate to Debs.

‘Clean plate? Well done! OK, missy, you know where the stickers are.’

Slipping from her chair, Rebecca marches to a drawer beneath the china sink, takes out a roll of waxy paper. On the paper are circles, round pictures of coloured flowers. She deliberates for a while, then picks a purple one and carries it over to the wall with the glass doors. There’s a poster there I hadn’t noticed before, lined with columns of these sticky flowers. She goes to place this latest one on the end row.

‘Uh-uh,’ chides Debs. ‘Look for the one that says
Clean Plate
. Curly cuh. That’s right. That one.’

Rebecca sticks the flower on the second column, then lifts the plastic paddle from the floor.

‘We do swingle?’ It is a hopeful pout.

‘Why don’t you have a wee practice just now, eh? Then you can play your
aabo
and beat him.’

I don’t know what swingle is, but I can tell Rebecca likes the thought of beating me. She and the paddle skip into the garden.

‘Is there a fence outside?’

‘Don’t worry. The garden’s all enclosed: there’s a big high wall and a wooden gate. Which is locked. Look, Abdi – would you like a glass of wine?’ Debs reaches for the open bottle.