LITMIR.BIZ

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      The old lady patted the ground beside her. A daughter shuffled along to make a place. When Ellen sat down, the grandmother fanned her with such enthusiasm that droplets of sweat flew off her arm, speckling Ellen’s shoulders and neck.

      The kettle rocked as it boiled. The daughter wrapped the end of her chador round her hand and poured out sugary milky tea. Ellen took the plum from her bag and broke it into pieces, coating her fingers in juice. The flesh was mushy and heady with sweetness and they sucked on it noisily, smiling round at each other. When she lifted her fingers to her nose, the rich smell of the plum juice blocked out everything else.

      She was sitting there amongst the women, drinking tea, when Ali found her. He walked right past at first, then did a double take and stopped dead. He looked so shocked at the sight of her, tucked in with the village women, that she had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. It was pointless, she could tell at once, to ask him to join them and translate. From now on, she would have to fend for herself.

      Later, she started back through the camp on her own. The aid trucks were just coming into view when she heard a noise, a stifled cry, off to one side between the rows of tents. She turned to look. A thin figure. A man. Leaning against a wooden strut down the back of a shelter. He was bowed as if in pain. His shoulders were trembling, his face low and hidden in his hands.

      She stepped off the main path and approached him cautiously.

      ‘Ab caisse hai?’ How are you?

      He stiffened but didn’t reply. He was wearing a salwar kameez which might once have been cream but was now streaked grey with dirt. A round tribal hat was tipped forwards on his head.

      She tried again, a little louder: ‘Ab tik hai?’ Are you OK?

      He raised his head. His face was long and thin and lined with anxiety. His pointed beard was almost entirely white. Thin wire spectacles sat on the bridge of a pinched nose. They were lopsided, their spindly arms hooked around his ears. His myopic eyes, light in colour, were watery and anguished.

      She stepped closer. ‘Do you speak English?’

      He squirmed, embarrassed, and turned away.

      She groped for the right words: ‘Ab English bol suk—’

      He turned back to her and interrupted, with a hint of defiance: ‘I know English.’

      Her eyes fell to his hands which were sticking out from the sleeves of his shabby kameez. They were raw with burns. The flesh was bloated and blistered, scored through with pink creases. ‘You need a doctor.’ She pointed to them. ‘Let me have a look.’

      ‘You are doctor?’ He looked at her with suspicion.

      ‘I’m a journalist. My name is Ellen. I can take you to a doctor.’

      He shook his head and sighed. He held up his damaged hands and considered them with sad detachment, as if they belonged to another man.

      ‘Madam,’ he said at last, ‘this is not important.’ He lifted off his spectacles with slow, clumsy fingers and wiped his wet eyes on his sleeve.

      When he’d replaced his spectacles, he turned his shoulder and she sensed that he was about to walk away. She moved closer at once. He mustn’t. This was the first refugee she’d found who had some English. There couldn’t be many here. She spoke in a rush, trying to use her questions to pin him in place.

      ‘Tell me. Please. Have you just arrived? Where did you come from? What happened to you?’

      He drew himself to his full height. ‘I am schoolteacher. My name is Ibrahim. I hail from the mountains. From Mutaire.’

      ‘Ibrahim.’ She bowed her head to show respect. His pale eyes seemed utterly exhausted. In a camp bursting with large families, he seemed, like her, to be all alone. She reached out and handed him her bottle of water. He drank it, shyly at first, then urgently. There was a narrow strip of shade running along the edge of the shelters. She sat down in it, practically at his feet, and raised her face to him. ‘If you talk to me,’ she said, ‘maybe I can help.’

      A shift in the light made her look past him. A young man had stopped on the path and was watching them both. He was a broad-shouldered teenager with a downy beard. She expected him to move on when she stared pointedly back. He didn’t. He stood his ground. She pulled her headscarf forwards to conceal her hair and forehead. When she looked again, he had disappeared.

      Ibrahim had decided to trust her. He lowered himself and sat a small distance away. He crossed his legs under his long kameez and stared at the mud.

      ‘So Ibrahim-ji,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

      When his words finally started to flow, they came out in a torrent, only just intelligible. ‘My family. My daughters. My old daughter, she cannot walk. How can they come down from the mountain? But so much fighting is there. That’s what they say. The army. The Taliban also.’

      He put his head in his hands and his shoulders shook. Ellen leant forwards. ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘Ibrahim. Let me help you.’

      Finally he became quiet and blew his nose noisily on his kameez. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were red rimmed.

      She listened to the soft gulp of his breathing, the rattle of moisture in his throat. ‘What happened in your village, Ibrahim?’

      ‘Mutaire is high in the mountains,’ he said, ‘part of the Valley District. Two days walk from here.’

      His knees trembled as he spoke, making their cotton tent judder. ‘They came some time ago and everything changed.’

      ‘Who came?’

      ‘Them,’ he said again. When he raised his eyes, they seemed angry. ‘The Taliban. Their commander, he is named Mohammed Bul Gourn.’

      ‘How did things change?’

      He shook his head. ‘Every day, they were holding religious courts. Accusing some fellow with cut beard. Some fellow who was listening to music.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper, forcing her to lean in close to him. ‘All night we heard screams.’ He paused to remember. ‘In the morning we woke to find bodies. Our own people.’ His face contorted with horror. ‘Hanged, sometimes. Or beheaded. The stones all around red and sticky with blood.’

      He sat in silence for a moment. Ellen prompted him softly, ‘And then what happened?’

      ‘All this we suffered and did nothing,’ he said. ‘But then they burnt down the school. My school.’ He looked her full in the face, outraged. ‘Fifteen years I am teaching there. Young men in our village who can read and write and do sums, I am the man who taught them.

      ‘Late in the night, I heard fire. I ran through the darkness of the village towards the school. The classroom was already blazing. I ran inside. The door was ringed in red with fire. The paint was burning on the wood, flames were curling through the air towards me. When I pulled at the handle, it was so hot, my skin stuck to the metal. The whole door fell on top of me. I couldn’t breathe. I just grabbed as many books as I could, carrying them outside, rushing, rushing.’

      He put his burnt hand to his face. ‘The cleaner’s boy found me. Lying on the grass. The school was finished.’

      She imagined the school blazing in the pitch darkness and the angry schoolteacher risking his life for books. ‘Is that why you left?’

      ‘I came to Peshawar to get help. To beg the army to come to the valley to save our families and our village.’

      ‘And you came here, to the camp?’

      He tutted. ‘Not at first. I went to many places for many days, trying to get help. To the army cantonments. To the mosques. To the police stations. Finally I saw one police captain. He told me the soldiers are already going to fight. Bombs are dropping. Everyone is fleeing.’ His face crumpled again and he gave a shuddering breath, composing himself. ‘Everyone is leaving. That’s what they are saying. Carrying

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