Divinity Road (12 page)

There’s a moment’s silence broken by the sound of a distant gunshot. Greg looks around anxiously but neither of the females seems perturbed.

She’d be great in this situation, he continues. Much better than me. She’s one cool customer, if you know what I mean. Never gets flustered. Very deadpan sense of humour, quite black really. Some might call her cutting at times. She certainly doesn’t bear fools gladly. But she’s the kindest person I know. Bit of a contradiction, I suppose. Soft as shite, hard as nails. God, I miss her...

Apart from the picture of Nuala, there are three other photos. The first is a group portrait.

Oh look, that’s one of us all together in France outside this weird grotto. We’d been visiting these amazing cave paintings there. I did a whole series of oils based on them, strange spotted horses and hand prints in really deep burnt siennas and vivid cadmium reds. He stops, realises he’s wittering.

He picks up the final two photos, individual shots of his children, Sammy armed with a spade on a Mediterranean beach, Beth dressed up as a tiger, face-painted, for some school play. Again, he points at the pictures, at himself.

Those are my kids. That’s Beth, he points. And that’s Sammy.

Beth, she repeats. Sammy.

That’s it. She’s the artist, does these amazing poems too. Not the sporty type, head buried in a book all the time. She’s twelve now, that awkward stage before womanhood. Munia looks down at the photo, traces Beth’s head with a finger. She likes Greg’s voice, finds it soothing.

We were so worried about her as a baby. She seemed so floppy, wouldn’t walk when she was supposed to, just bum-shuffled everywhere. Again, the smile exchanged. Took her to all these specialists, had her doing physio, funny diet stuff, the works. Anyway, it all seemed to work out in the end.

Away in the distance, another gunshot.

Why is your daughter dressed in animal skins? Is she dancing? Munia asks suddenly, pointing to the face-painted tiger picture. It’s the first time she’s spoken directly to Greg. He follows her finger, guesses at the gist of her query.

Oh that? Yes, it’s funny isn’t it? They did ‘The Jungle Book’ at her school. She was what’s-he-called, Shere Khan.

Munia turns her attention to the beach photo and stares intently at the sea.

That was Turkey. Great holiday. Somewhere near Marmaris. That’s Sammy building the sand castle. Always big on building is our Sammy. Great at maths, too. Quick with numbers. I can see him as an engineer, though he’s not that keen on school. Gets bored easily, I think. He’s ten.

It’s his turn to reach out, to touch the image of his son. From somewhere in the depths of his memory, he suddenly recalls Tom’s bedtime ritual aged five, the glass half-filled with water, his teddy, Harry, tucked in at his side, the demands for one of Greg’s own made-up stories, The Magic Fish finger, Nyoka The Lonely Snake or The Juicy Mango Brothers. He wonders what Sammy’s been told about his father’s whereabouts, pictures him brushing his teeth at home in Oxford, feels a great well of tenderness. He has an overpowering urge to cry suddenly, fights to hold back the sobs, rubs away his tears. For a few minutes they sit together in silence. He feels embarrassed at his blathering, even though, as he knows, she won’t have understood a word of it.

Look at me. Silly old fool. He gets up as much to conceal his distress as to stretch his cramped legs. He hears a whistle and turns to find Rasheed approaching. He’s holding the rifle in his hands and has two furry objects slung over his shoulders.

Her son’s arrival, and in particular his hunting booty, spurs Asrar into life. She gets up, barks orders at Munia, turns to Greg and mimes cutting. He understands, takes out his penknife and shows her how to open the biggest blade. Munia lays a fire with the sticks she’s been collecting, points to it and Greg hands her the waterproof matches. Rasheed, who has been resting all this time, sipping on a bottle of water, produces a handful of large, thick leaves, some small green berries and a hefty bulbous root.

Greg watches as Asrar skins and guts the two creatures. One is definitely some kind of hare, similar to the one they’ve seen earlier. The other looks a bit like a badger. As the first aroma of roasted meat wafts through the air, Greg suddenly realises how ravenous he is. When the first animal is cooked, Asrar slices it up with the penknife and they chew hungrily on the sinewy flesh. Munia has meanwhile peeled and sliced the tuberous root and he tastes a piece, takes a handful of berries. He catches Rasheed’s eye, smiles, giving him the thumbs up.

While they eat, Asrar adds the second animal to the fire. When it’s done, she carves it up and wraps the pieces in the leaves.

Asrar seems rejuvenated. As soon as they finished eating, she douses the fire with dust, nods to Greg and the children, and sets off at a lively pace.

The next five hours are gruelling. They barely stop to rest and push on through the hottest part of the day. Greg’s companions seem oblivious to the punishing temperature.

Greg is unprepared for their arrival at Asrar’s uncle’s village. One moment they are trudging through a particularly barren stretch of landscape seemingly far from anywhere, the next he finds himself standing in a clearing surrounded by four huts and a small kraal. He walks under the shade of a tree, waiting as Asrar walks from dwelling to dwelling. She calls out once but there’s no response. Though the huts are unscathed, the roofs still intact, the clay pots at each door unbroken and the animal enclosure undamaged, the village is empty.

Greg wonders where they are, who the huts belong to, what connection they have to Asrar. He is relieved to see that whoever was here hasn’t been driven out, that there are no signs of violence.

Another dusk. Munia and Rasheed disappear with empty bottles and one of the clay pots. There are some logs stacked behind one of the huts and Asrar builds a fire. She finds an abandoned aluminium pot in the kitchen hut, half fills it with water and adds the meat she’s carried in the wrapped leaves. Greg stands around awkwardly, then picks up the rifle, decides to see if he can’t shoot something else for the pot.

When he returns empty-handed three-quarters of an hour later, he’s met by a scene of relative domestic harmony. The children have returned with more firewood, the pot and bottles filled with water, new stores of roots and berries. Asrar is tending the pot and, to Greg’s surprise, he finds her deep in conversation with an elderly man dressed in white robes, a fez-type cap failing to conceal his smoky grey hair. When the man sees Greg, he stands up and shakes his hand solemnly, then gives enough of a smile to reveal the toothless gaps in his mouth.

Hello, says Greg. He points at himself. Greg.

Asrar says something to the old man, who nods.

Husham, he answers, tapping his own chest.

Greg’s feet ache and he tries to remove his shoes but one of the laces is so badly knotted he cannot undo it. He decides to cut it but remembers that Asrar has not returned his penknife since she borrowed it to gut the animals Rasheed had shot. He’s too exhausted to attempt to ask for it back, too tired even to try and pull off the shoe as it is. Rasheed is calling him over to the backpack and the need to relieve his sore feet passes.

Meanwhile, Husham has been explaining the situation to his niece. Earlier in the week, fearing an attack, Husham instructed two of his wives to pack up their belongings, the children, the goats, and set off on the three-day walk to the nearest displaced persons’ camp. The third wife, the eldest, had been visiting her sister, who had just had a baby in a village some sixty kilometres away. He has stayed behind, waiting for her return and had been out collecting some grain from a secret store they kept outside the village when Greg and the others had arrived. He’s caught up with Asrar’s tragic news, and now sits away from the fire contemplating the best course of action while Asrar busies herself preparing a rudimentary porridge from the grain. Munia stirs the pot of stew and Greg shows Rasheed his compass, explaining with much gesticulation how it works. After they have eaten, as the final minutes of the day fade into darkness, Husham sits down next to Asrar.

It’s not safe here now, he says

Yes, Uncle.

We need to follow the family to the camp.

You are right, Uncle

We will leave at sunrise. We’ll take the rest of the porridge. We can hunt on the way with the white man’s gun.

Yes, Uncle.

Later, when the fire has died down and he tires of his conversation with his niece, Husham gets up and gestures for Greg to follow him. He shows Greg into one of the huts. There’s a rush mat laid out on the floor. Greg lies down, wonders how he could possibly get to sleep on such stony ground, then promptly falls into a deep slumber.

***

In his dream, he’s under attack from Pol Pot and his bandits. They’re armed with machetes, coming at him in waves, and he’s trying to run away, only he can’t move at any speed, it’s like he’s wading through dough and before he knows it, they’re upon him, a vicious band of murdering butchers, and he’s flailing, calling for help, but his voice is drowned out by their piercing screams and...

...and he comes around and from nightmare to reality, he’s aware in an instant that they are being attacked, that the screaming is real, that it’s coming from Asrar, away in her own hut, that two or three men are inside his dwelling, holding him down while they truss him up in ropes, bundle him outside, throw him down by the fire.

Time here stretches like a languid cat, the facade of idleness concealing the icy menace beneath. Each day is a mirror-image of its predecessor, the same dull routine gradually chipping away at our hopes. A single event – a fight between detainees, an argument with a guard, a letter from a solicitor – can serve to differentiate between one day and the next. Your memory clouds, stupefied by the tedium, so that when a fellow inmate refers to a recent incident, you may recall the event but cannot remember whether it took place the previous day, or week or even month.

My darling, I miss you.

I watch the effects of time on those around me, observe each individual’s struggle to survive, the slow decline into lunacy for some, the ability of others to cling on to their sanity. I try and calculate the techniques employed by those who are able to endure, work out which tactics ensure success.

But my research is fruitless. I cannot see any consistency in distinguishing between he who sinks and he who swims in this swamp. Some drown in their own despondency, unable to accept the hopelessness of their situation, yet for others it is only through a deliberate rejection of expectation that they can tolerate their predicament. For them it is anticipation that is too painful to bear.

And there are other contradictions. For some, it is anger – a rage against what life has thrown at them – that fuels their survival and gives them the strength to keep going day after day. Life, for them, is a personal war of attrition, so to allow themselves to become ground down is to admit defeat. For others, this anger is a destructive acid that eats away at their inner strength and poisons their mind.

And our practical approach to filling our days is another source of interest to me. There are those who retain their sanity through organised programmes designed to keep the mind busy and stimulated. They come together with like-minded individuals, arrange courses of instruction. There is Anicet, the Congolese teacher, giving lessons on Political Science, Tendai from Zimbabwe running a creative writing course, Feilong offering T’ai Chi.

And then there are the others who hang on to their mental health by deliberately deadening the mind, who see survival through a stultified existence. They train themselves to sleep for most of the day, kill what time remains in front of the TV on a diet of soap operas and reality shows. A particular favourite is
Big Brother
, and I cannot help but enjoy the irony of inmate watching inmate and wonder what pleasure the compulsory detainees can obtain from observing the voluntarily confined.

And me?

My strategy is simple. The bigger picture – my future, your whereabouts – is a daunting, unwelcoming burden, something to brush over. To focus on this is to invite the pain of despair into my already miserable existence. So I employ a two-fold plan of action.

Firstly, like the Anicets and Tendais of this institution, I concentrate on distracting my mind and filling my hours with mental stimulation. My chosen subjects are English and Islam, my textbook the American donation
Qur’an
, and my fellow student and mental sparring partner is my cell mate, Kalil. I confess that I approach my religious studies with some ignorance – your conversion to Islam was done more to satisfy my family than meet my own religious demands. I have always accepted my religion as a way of life, a characteristic of the community I grew up in, but never paid much attention to the details. Having always adhered to my father’s gentle, liberal interpretation of Islam, I fancy myself as an open-minded, critical student. We shall see.

Secondly, I have decided to seek solace and distraction in the details of my existence here and of those of my fellow detainees. After my first interview with the legal aid solicitor, she asked me whether there was anything I needed, and I asked for a pen and some notebooks. She kindly brought them for me on her next visit and I am using them to record what you are now reading. Incarcerated in this prison, marginalised and forgotten by those whose lives are safe and secure, we have lost our status as human beings. We have become shadows and ghouls. In filling the notebooks with our details, I seek to return to us something of our lost stature.