Forest Gate (7 page)

They would always bring some gift on those first visits. Never chocolates or fresh-cut flowers as men did in my books. Always slabs of boneless camel meat that my aunt and her husband would eat while they drank alcohol from my mother's best glasses and the two of them whispered and laughed like it was all a big joke. By then Ashvin would have been let out from the room at the back where they'd locked him up so the men couldn't hear him protest. I can still see him now, sitting in a plastic chair with his head bent low.

Ashvin's face showed off his emotions; back then he could never lie to me. Whenever they unlocked him, he would have a look of hatred beyond all argument and stony eyes. Seeing Ashvin so angry reminded me of something my father used to say when we were afraid of the 'cack-cack-cack' sounds of gunfire, when it was so loud and seemed so close it prevented us from sleep.

'Close your eyes, fireflies,' my father would say as though he commanded the night. He would tell us stories about a peaceful Somalia, before the war interrupted everything. 'Do you know that before Somali men were known for war, we were known as Africa's greatest poets?'

'Really? Is it true?' I remember Ashvin asked and his eyes lit up.

'Really,' my father said. 'When I was your age we used to compete. The best poets were called
afmaal
, mouth of wealth. The Somali poet was considered a person of prestige and power, once feared only for the words from his mouth.' My father would whisper the words of some old poem as Ash and I fell asleep.

Living with my aunt was a bad time for us but my brother would always find his way to me. My aunt regularly fed us what she called
maraq
. But it was just a watery vegetable soup. We would have to eat it because we were hungry. Ash would be seething, tense with rage.

'These men could have Aids,' Ashvin said once.

'She says she makes them take the test,' I said.

He looked at me as if I was an idiot and I could see anger puffing his cheeks.

'Did you slip and bang your head?' he'd ask.

'
Afmaal
, remember?' I would say, to try to calm him down.

'Screw
afmaal
. They're making a business out of you,' he'd say. But even though he was furious, I know he remembered my father because Ashvin would bow his head and after a few moments he would squeeze my hand. 'OK, sis?' He would play games to amuse me; once he brought me flowers and made me a paper toy. He sang Somali folk songs at night and recited poems he half remembered from our childhood. Sometimes he would stroke my cheek. 'It's going to be all right,' he'd say. It reminded me of the Ashvin I knew from before our parents' funeral. Then we went everywhere together. He would recite poems as he walked me to school, he would only ever give up his seat to pretty girls on the bus, and he would eat the leftovers on my plate to prevent me from getting into trouble with our parents. In those days
I
was Ashvin's best friend.

The Ashvin I knew before was long gone and he never came back. He never cried during the time we spent with my aunt. He must have been slowly boiling inside – like water inside one of those old kettles. I never thought about it, not until today. Now, I wish he had. I should have known there was something wrong inside him because he seemed so unsurprised at anything.

I told Ashvin I had seen Mr Bloom in the bar we had once followed our father to.

'He still goes to that bar?' he asked. 'You went there alone? Have you lost your mind?'

I told Ashvin I had only spent about ten seconds staring through the cracks in the wood at the back, same as we did before.

'What did you see?' asked Ashvin.

'I saw men dancing together on that wooden board they use for a dance floor. They were drunk, singing at the tops of their lungs to Madonna ('Like a Wirgin') or Cyndi Lauper, I can't remember which. I saw Mr Bloom sitting on a chair directly opposite the back wall. He was alone, looking worried. He was leaning forward on his elbows with his sleeves rolled up, huge empty glasses in neat rows on his table.'

Ashvin shrugged his shoulders. All he said was, 'OK.'

I didn't hear anything more about it until the day we finally left my aunt's house forever. I don't know how or when my brother met Mr Bloom. He must have gone to see him at the bar. It's a detail we never spoke about. One night, almost morning, two uniformed men, who Mr Bloom had paid, kicked open my aunt's front door waving guns. They dragged us out of our beds. My aunt and her husband were too frightened to notice that Ashvin had a pre-packed bag with our belongings.

We had been living with our aunt for almost a whole year. Until October when we went back to Mr Bloom's in Kismayo. We were only with him there for four months before he arranged our papers for London.

I'll probably never see my aunt again. She had the same shaped face as my mother. It used to trouble me, the way we have no control over who comes in and out of our lives. Not that I care about my aunt. It just makes me wonder what people give or take from each other. Why.

I opened my eyes and looked at Mr Bloom, his hand on my thigh. He had that same look as the cattle herders when they touched me, a look that said he knew he was doing something wrong. I looked down at his cowboy boots and again they brought me a clear picture in my head of my father and this time my eyes did not let me down. Mr Bloom removed his hands. I thanked him for the credit card and I smiled as I got out of the car.

I walked around for hours in a fog and then I went to Zudzi. From my first visit it had seemed familiar to me because I recognised so much about it from home. It was a small storefront restaurant filled with the permanent smell of cardamom. It was only three stops away on the tube.

I put four pounds on my Oyster card. I hated travelling by tube even before what happened with the terrorists. Being stuck underground with strangers, united by the tugs, rumbles and throws of the Central Line. I hated the way people looked at me, at what I was reading, what shoes I wore. I hated the way I felt I was being appraised by quick sideways glances. I like to imagine people's characters, it has become something of a ritual – Ashvin called it one of my twisted habits. I had tried to stop but always found myself giving in to impulse. I often wondered what people thought they saw when they looked at me.

I counted twenty people packed together, like we were in a sauna with people from all over the world. Twelve of us sat in two neat rows of six. There were eight people standing, trying to look like they didn't want a seat. I heard at least seven different languages; five people had on white earphones; nine were reading the
Metro
. On the cover was the face of a sixteen-year-old black boy who had been stabbed to death that weekend. A fat woman sat next to me, eating chicken from a greasy red box. A young couple in matching cheap sportswear and gold jewellery with a baby in a pushchair; an important-looking white man with silver-framed eyeglasses and a fitted chalk-stripe suit. He eyed a young man sitting on his left and I imagined what he was thinking. 'Would you mind lowering the volume on your iPod, there's a good man?' The important-looking man ate a wrap from Pret A Manger while reading a John Grisham. There was a wannabe fundamentalist with a long beard – he knew he was freaking everybody out even though he wasn't doing anything. He was laughing at us in a way. I stared at him for a while but I figured that a real terrorist wouldn't wear £180 Air Max. It didn't fit somehow. I turned to my left. A spotty young City worker in a shiny suit and pointy designer shoes. He had spiky hair and I could tell he spent all his money on the first Friday of the month at the pub. There was a blonde in a Marks & Spencer's coat, clutching an expensive handbag like it was an automatic firearm. She wore an engagement ring. I guessed that her fiancé was a welder with a Chelsea season ticket. There was a black woman in her thirties; she wore a blue raincoat clasped with a bronze buckle at her middle, skinny jeans and powder-blue flats with a pretty bow. She sat with her back straight. She was a single parent and a bank teller, probably recently born-again, praying fiercely for a drama-free white man to stabilise her life. There was a young African with a sharp new haircut, dreaming of being granted asylum, wearing all the right gear but still not fitting in. The woman next to me with the chicken had a book in her hand,
Basic Nursing
. She'd be the last person whose face I would want to see if I was sick. I couldn't look at her directly but I watched the reaction of the people who got on as they noticed her stuffing ragged pieces of meat in her mouth. I wanted to move but I'd have felt embarrassed. So I remained still and shut my eyes as the screeching of the train got louder. The driver announced we would be held in the tunnel. When I finally got out I inhaled the fresh air deeply. And then I made my way along the crowded street.

Zudzi is painted yellow, with mismatched Formica counters and tie-dye tablecloths. It is quiet, one person cooks, serves and washes dishes, and no one ever speaks English – the restaurant is run and owned by a business co-op of Somali women who were in the local paper recently for their hot-sauce deal with Sainsbury's. There is a sign on the register written in Afar and Somali:

Listen, friends. No more food loan – cash only.
More blessings to big auntie
When she give tips.

The clientele are exclusively Somali women; most of them are, like me, refugees granted political asylum. Although a few non-Somali neighbours have started to trickle in – you know, the shea-butter set, blacks that come as part of their perpetual search for Africa, and the type of culture-hungry, hippy-looking white person who wants a slice of everything. There isn't a 'No Men' sign on the entrance but there may as well be. There is always a deep thread of anxiety about men for all of us. Sometimes a stray who thinks he owns a pair, that 'highly bred' mould of Somali man with disgusting candour, will enter. All the women will watch him with suspicion. From the moment he walks in the place will clam up tight and you can feel the white-hot tension because we can never trust what might erupt from him at any moment. It would take a brave man to eat comfortably in a place like this.

'How are you today, Divorce?'

It took a while before I got used to her calling me that. She is Sister Ashar but I have heard them call her Star Trek because she escaped by trekking from her home town to the Dagahaley refugee camp in the north-eastern province of Kenya. She was housed in a tent made of branches covered with patches of plastic and cloth, among thorn trees and scrubland swamps. Since Ethiopia invaded Somalia I have heard of thousands who ran away from Mogadishu to the camps. Sister Ashar said the Dagahaley camp sheltered more than 20,000 people, mostly women and children. It became the target of armed troops. Sister Ashar was raped at gunpoint seven times.

'God is great,' I said.

There was a menu, not all of it was available every day, and it took me months to try most of it. The portions were generous; the most expensive thing,
mufo
, cost three pounds and when I first tasted it it was so delicious, just like my mother's, that I almost wept. I sat in the same spot on each of my visits, just on the edge of the room where most others gathered to chat.

'One and a Half,' said Sister Ashar. 'Don't forget your change.'

I was slightly embarrassed for the woman who hobbled from her table on one leg to collect her change.

'They are giving her too much disability allowance so she can afford to throw money away,' said Sister Ashar loudly.

All the women – Landmine, Machete and Soft Touch – laughed at that, especially One and a Half herself.

I asked for the chicken
siquar
, a stew of diced chicken, green peppers, onions, carrots, a fair amount of celery and a few chunks of potato. It smelled like coriander but it was like eating fire and the burn from the peppers lingered on the tongue for hours. Sister Ashar lowered her eyes from mine and sadness crept over her face.

'Don't you feel well today?' she asked.

'Me? I'm fine.'

'Maybe when you eat you feel better.'

She had a gentle way of speaking. She studied me closely while I searched for the right thing to say.

'Divorce, you don't look right. What has happened?'

I felt a balloon expanding behind my chest.

'My brother,' I said calmly. I paused momentarily and then I abandoned all pretence and I stood balanced on the verge of something, tears or collapse. She glided around the counter, stood beside me. She held the nape of my neck and led me to a table where she sat down with me. I watched the soft sway of her headscarf, green with gold trim. Her lavish scent enveloped me, causing a warm pleasant sensation.

'My brother is dead. He killed himself.' And then I told her everything, except about Mr Bloom.

'Eh-yaay,' she said. She furrowed her brow and began to rub her hands along my back.

She told the other women and my mouth went dry on account of all the eyes that fixed on me. Most of the women carried the vacant expressions of those who have endured the same loss. Zudzi normally has a soothing atmosphere, but not that day. My truth crashed it open like a box and transformed it into some murky place, small and gloomy with dark furniture, bereft of happiness, where the air is heavy and damp with tears. I glanced fleetingly at some of the women who had come over to comfort me, their colourful robes and headties reminding me of some ghostly market clan. The women said sorry with their eyes in that distinctive Somali way none of them seemed to have lost despite their escape from home. I tried my best to avoid their sad gaze because I could feel homesickness trying to overwhelm me. I looked around at the empty tables, examined the beautiful paintings hanging on the walls and the photographs of missing family members stuck wishfully above a Bible in the window as though they might be wandering the streets of east London. Then I imagined Ashvin sitting next to me, there he was beside me slurping over pepper soup and then he vanished. Zudzi seemed immense. After some time an old woman with a long face who had lost her five daughters came over. She looked at me and held my hands in hers.