Times of War Collection (36 page)

thought it was Uncle Mir at first. Only a few days before we'd had a pipe that burst in our flat, and the water had flooded down through the floor into their place. I thought it must have happened again. So I got out of bed to open the door.

But it wasn't our door, and it wasn't Uncle Mir. The knocking was coming from downstairs, from the street door.

So I went down to open it. It was men in uniform, policemen some of them were, or immigration officers maybe – I didn't know – but lots of them, ten, maybe twelve.

They pushed past me and charged up the stairs. Then one of them had me by the arm, and was dragging me upstairs. I found Mother sitting up in her bed. I could see she was finding it hard to breathe, and that any minute she'd be having one of her panic attacks. A policewoman was telling her to get dressed, but she couldn't move.

When I asked what was going on, they just told me to shut up. Then they were shouting at Mother, telling her we had five minutes to get ready, that we were illegal asylum seekers, that they were going to take us to a detention centre, and then we'd be going back to Afghanistan. That was when I suddenly became more angry than frightened. I shouted back at them. I told them that we'd been living here six years, that it was our home. I told them to get out.

Then they got really mad. One of them pushed me out of Mother's room, and back into my bedroom, and told me to get dressed.

They never left us alone after that.

They wouldn't even go while we were getting dressed – Mother said afterwards that there were at least three of them in her room all the time, one of them a man. They hardly let us take anything with us – one small rucksack and my schoolbag, that's all. Almost all of our stuff got left behind, my mobile, all my football programmes, my reading books, my David Beckham autograph, Ahmed's little red engine, and my goldfish.

But I had my silver-star badge in my jeans pocket, so at least I didn't leave that behind. They never stopped hassling us. They took us down the stairs and out into the street. There were lots of people out there in their dressing gowns, watching us – Uncle Mir, and Matt and Flat Stanley too. Matt called out to me, and asked what was going on, and I told him that they were sending us back to Afghanistan.

A policeman had me by the arm the whole time, pushing me, frogmarching me. It made me feel ashamed, and I had nothing to be ashamed about. Mother was having a proper fit by now, but they didn't bother. The policewoman said she was just pretending, putting it on.

They shoved us in this van, locked us up in separate compartments, with bars on the windows, and then drove us off. I could hear Mother crying the whole time. They must have been able to hear her too, but it was just a job to them. They were busy listening to their radio, and laughing.

I kept talking to Mother, trying to calm her down, but I could tell she was just getting worse and worse. I banged on the door and screamed at the police in the front, and in the end they did stop. They had a look at Mother, and the same policewoman told me again that she was play-acting, and to shut my mouth or I'd be in trouble. I didn't keep my mouth shut. I told them I wanted to be in with Mother, and kept on and on until they let me. Mother calmed down a bit after that, but she was still in a really bad state when we got here.

They wanted Mother and me to be in different rooms. They said I was too old to be in with her. I told them I was staying with her, to look after her, no matter what, that I'd been with her all my life, and there was no way we were going to be parted. We said we'd both go on hunger strike if they did that. We made such a fuss and noise about it that in the end they let us stay together. That was when we learned not to give in, not ever.

When I first came into this place, I couldn't believe it. I mean, it might look all right from the outside, like a recreation centre, a bit like my school. But inside it's all locked doors and guards. It's all a fake, just to make it look good – fake flowers on the table, pretty pictures on the walls, a nursery, and places the kids can play, and television. But it's a prison. That's what it is, a prison. That's what I couldn't believe. They put us in a prison. We were locked up. I hadn't done anything wrong, and nor had Mother, nor has anyone else in here. Everyone's got a right to ask for asylum, to try to find a safe place to live, haven't they? That's all we've done.

For the first few days in here, Mother just cried and cried. Uncle Mir came to visit, and he said he'd get the lawyer and he'd do all he could to get us out of here and back home. But nothing could stop Mother from crying. When we heard the news that Uncle Mir had had a heart attack, and was in hospital – on account of everything that had gone on, I suppose – it only made it worse for her. The doctor came and gave her an injection, and after that, instead of crying, she just lay there looking at the ceiling, as if she'd got no feelings left inside her.

It's worse for her than it is for me. She's got her memories, of the prison they took her to back in Afghanistan. I know they're terrible memories, because she still won't talk about them. She says she's never ever going back to Afghanistan, that she'd rather kill herself. And I know she means it too.

That's almost it, the whole story – oh yes, except for one thing. About a week ago, I think it was. They came into our room one morning early, and told us they were going to take us to the airport, and then fly us back to Afghanistan. We asked them when it was going to happen, and they told us it was right now, and we had to get ready.

We refused.

Mother fought them, so did I. They had to hold us down and handcuff us. And in the van all the way to the airport we hammered on the side of the van, and we shouted and we screamed. They drove us right to the plane, and tried to make us walk up the steps. We wouldn't go. They had to half-drag, half-carry us up. Even in her seat on the plane Mother wouldn't stop fighting them. I had almost given up by then, but Mother never did. That's why we're still here, because Mother didn't give up.

In the end, the pilot came along and said he couldn't take off with Mother and me on board, that we were a danger to the other passengers, that we were frightening them. So they took us off the plane, and brought us back here. They weren't at all pleased to see us. Our wrists hurt where they'd handcuffed us, and we were a bit bruised all over, but we didn't mind. Mother told me that night that Grandfather would have been proud of us. He had been a fighter for freedom, and so had Father, in his own way. We must fight for our freedom, and never give in.

man turned to her. “That is what you said, Mother, isn't it? We must never give in, right?”

He still spoke in English, but I could see from her smile that she understood, that she had understood everything all along.

Aman went on, holding her hand tight in his. “They will come and try to take us away again. It could be today. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week. But we won't go without a fight, will we, Mother?” She reached out and touched the back of his head, stroking his hair fondly, proudly.

“She won't answer me,” Aman said. “It's a rule she made when we came here, that with her I must always speak Dari. She says I must never forget we are Hazara, and if I speak the language, I never will. And I tell her we have to speak English, because we are now English also. We are both. We argue about it, don't we, Mother?”

But I had the impression that his mother wasn't listening to him any more. She was directing her gaze at me.

And then she spoke to me, in English, slowly, hesitantly, searching for the words, but meaning every one of them. “Thank you for coming to see us. Aman has talked about you. He likes you. You have been very kind to us.”

My attention was distracted then, as it had been off and on all afternoon during Aman's story, by a little girl, only about two or three years old, I guessed, in a pink dress. She'd been running around the visitors' room, and I had noticed her before, how every time the door that led to the outside world opened, whenever someone came in or went out, she would run towards it, only to have it slam shut in her face.

There were several doors out of the room, but she seemed to know that this was the door you had to go through if you wanted to get out of this place. After she found it shut against her this time, she stood there looking up at it, then at the guard standing beside it. She sat down on the floor then, a teddy in her hand, her thumb in her mouth, waiting for the door to open again, the guard looking down at her stony-faced. He kept fingering the bunch of keys on his belt, shaking them every now and again, like a rattle.

I got up to go a few moments later. “I'll be back,” I told them.

“I hope we'll still be here,” said Aman. I wasn't expecting him to want to shake hands. But he did. As I took his hand I felt something pressing into mine. I guessed at once it was the silver badge. He looked hard at me, telling me with his eyes not to look down, just to put my hand in my pocket and walk away. I knew as I left the detention centre, as the gates closed behind me, and I was once again out in the free world, that I was holding their futures in the palm of my hand.

Matt was waiting for me with Dog. “Well? What happened, Grandpa? You've been in there ages. Did you see him?”

“I saw him, him and his mother,” I said.

“Is he all right?” he asked.

“For now,” I said.

Matt was bursting to hear what had happened in there. I gave him Aman's silver-star badge, and all the way home in the car, with Dog leaning his head on my shoulder as usual, I told him everything Aman had told me, about Bamiyan, the whole incredible story of their escape from Afghanistan, about Shadow and Sergeant Brodie, their nightmare of a journey to England – everything about Yarl's Wood too, what it was like inside – and about that little girl in the pink dress. I just couldn't get her out of my mind.

Until I'd finished – and we were nearly home by then – he said nothing, asked no questions, but simply sat there and listened, Aman's silver-star badge cupped in his hands.

“He never told me,” Matt said. “He never told me a thing.” And then, “I've seen that little red train. He keeps it in his room. I thought it was just his favourite toy, y'know, from when he was little. He never said.”

We didn't talk much after that, hardly a word till we arrived home. Then we just sat there in the car for a while. I knew what he was thinking, and I think he knew what I was thinking too.

“It's no good, Matt,” I told him. “I've wracked my brains, but it's hopeless. Even if we could think of something, it would be too late. I really don't think there's anything we can do for them.”

“Oh, yes, there is, Grandpa,” Matt said, “There has to be. And we're going to do it too.”