Guantanamo Boy (6 page)

Fatima mumbles something to him, then leads Khalid to another door with a Pakistan International Airlines Boeing
777 sticker on it. Fatima points to it proudly, as if Khalid might be pleased by the photo of a plane that looks a hundred years old.

“I have to go to the loo,” Khalid says, thinking this is all getting a bit much.

“No. No. No.” Fatima seems to be on a mission to bore Khalid to death. Or drive him nuts. Or both. She refuses to let him pass. Insists on opening the sticker door wide. Steps aside to make him peer into a black space slightly bigger than the airing cupboard at home.

“Wow! You’ve got a computer!” Khalid freezes with surprise, scarcely believing his luck.

“Have. Have.” Fatima grins and points at the screen, trying hard to tell him he can use it whenever he wants. There’s nothing more he wants to hear. His big smile warms Fatima’s heart, almost bringing tears to her eyes. But before Khalid can begin to enjoy it he races back to the living room to say goodnight to everyone and be polite for a while. Waiting until the house goes quiet before he returns to the cupboard to start the game for the first time.

After half an hour or so, Khalid gets the hang of how to use the computer without being able to read the language. It gets better when he logs on to his e-mail and discovers that Tariq’s game—
Bomber One
—is ready. A whizz-kid friend of his in Lahore has helped to finish the program and download it. Tariq’s sent him instructions on how to set up his profile so they can all play together soon. Khalid tests it out several times before getting too jet-lag flaky to carry on.

He sends off an excited reply before he shuts down the computer. Going deathly weird with tiredness the moment the screen goes black. Then he wanders into the front room trying to remember where Mum said he’s supposed to sleep. His mind was on the computer at the time. Did she say the room next to the bathroom? Or was that his sisters’ bedroom? Either way, Khalid doesn’t want to disturb anyone by wandering into the wrong room so he wobbles for a bit before kicking off his sneakers and falling on the musty-smelling sofa in a heap. Still wearing the jeans and blue hoodie he’s had on since yesterday morning.

Within a couple of days, Khalid settles into a pleasant routine. Morning starts with breakfast in the far corner of the dining room, which is marked out by comfy cushions and rugs surrounded by large windows on two sides. Fresh fruits, juice, curry, rice and bread set him up for the two hours he has to spend watching over Uncle Amir until Fatima comes back from doing her marketing and relieves him. Giving him a chance to chat with the visitors who are always calling by, before playing and reading with Gul and Aadab to give Mum a break.

If it wasn’t for all the news and talk about the earthquake in northern Afghanistan and the pictures of people freezing to death outside flattened houses, Khalid might feel worse about missing his team’s football games back in Rochdale. He knows he can’t complain when homeless people without proper shoes or blankets are shown on TV wandering snow-covered hills in their search for food.

One of the visitors, a man called Abdullah, who is twenty-six, with a bushy black beard and cloth round his head, strikes Khalid as odd. He never mentions the earthquake, only Islam. A book-keeper with hard staring eyes and a scar on his cheek, he’s in the habit of popping in every day to try to persuade Dad to come to the mosque with him. But Dad doesn’t like him. Says he’s too serious, even for him.

Abdullah’s staring eyes bother Khalid. But it seems the feeling is mutual and they mostly leave each other alone.

Although Khalid likes the fact that this house is busier than his house in Rochdale, he’s surprised at how different things are for people in Karachi. For a start everyone’s much more polite and friendly than they are at home. Khalid can’t imagine what happened outside the chip shop happening here. Instead they talk a lot about prices shooting up and about dwindling services and the lack of decent plumbing, complaining most when the taps run dry, which they usually do in the middle of the afternoon. Not that Khalid speaks Urdu. For some reason, Abdullah translates everything without ever being asked.

In the afternoon, the aunties like taking naps, which suits Khalid just fine. It gives him the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep after a night spent gaming with Tariq.

Dad’s often out—checking on cheaper houses for the aunties to move to. Then he sometimes helps with the street collections to send stuff to the earthquake region. So on the fourth day after they arrived, Khalid makes a decision to stay up all night playing
Bomber One
. No one in the house seems to mind what he does later, as long as he’s helpful during the day. Probably thinking he hits his snug bed in the tiny room next to the bathroom some time after midnight. Never guessing it’s nearer five in the morning, depending on what Tariq’s plans are for the next day.

At the moment, Tariq’s busy studying for some accountancy exams, or so he says. Khalid thinks they sound more like A levels, but anyway Tariq always takes a break from his studies by playing a game or two, whatever the time is.

Now there are more players: two in Egypt, one in Iraq, one in Australia and another in America. The game is really heating up. A secret group of fighters have to get together to plan the annihilation of an imaginary town called Arch Parkway. All of them enjoy going head to head at the same time and dreaming up mad strategies for winning, but really they’re all on the same side.

It’s still a bit basic and not as good as
Counter Strike
or anything, but then this game’s home-made and, who knows, one day Tariq might be able to sell it and make a ton of money and he might even give some to Khalid for helping him out with the names.

“Could be a bestseller some day, with kids all over the world paying to play,” the American says.

“It’s far better than anything out there,” Khalid lies, suddenly yawning his head off. Secretly wishing he could play
Starcraft
instead for a while—as he moves the mouse over the high buildings so the twinkling lights of
Bomber One
come on again.

Khalid leans back from the computer when the call to prayer begins echoing around the city, realizing it’s five o’clock. Almost morning.

For a moment, he wonders if it’s worth going to bed at all. Or maybe he should answer Nico’s e-mail from Rochdale before making coffee to keep himself awake. It’s hardly worth taking a nap because he’ll need to get up for breakfast by nine at the latest.

Why is Nico talking about Niamh? Does he like her too?

The thought worries him for a second before the sounds of Karachi waking up and of prayers fading away bring him back to the tiny, dark computer room.

He starts googling the latest information on various computer games and after a while glances at Nico’s e-mail again: “Hiya, Kal. Niamh says hello. I saw her at the shops last night and she says to tell you you should have stayed at the party, it was so way better later on, man.”

Wondering what to say back, Khalid wants to ask Nico if Niamh’s seeing anyone. She didn’t get off with anyone at the party as far as he knows. But if he does ask, everyone will know he likes her. And if Nico likes her too, then there’s nothing he can do, because everyone knows he’s nearly 4,000 miles away in Pakistan. In the end, he decides to keep it cool by not replying.

He quickly closes the computer down when he hears Mum’s footsteps clattering on the stairs. Running from room to room.

“What is it, Mum?” Khalid hurries to find out.

“Dad. Where is he?” Mum’s in a state, her hair spread out over her shoulders and still in her blue nightie.

“What do you mean?”

“Dad! He’s missing, that’s what. He went to see a flat yesterday evening after dinner and he hasn’t come back.”

“Mum, he probably fell asleep.”

“Fell asleep? Where? In the street? Sometimes you know what’s happened in your heart, Khalid. I’m telling you it’s bad.”

“Sit down, Mum. I’ll get some coffee. We’ll sort it.”

Mum’s eyes suddenly narrow at the flickering computer screen in the corner. “I hope you haven’t been on that stupid thing all night,” she says crossly.

“I haven’t, honest,” Khalid protests. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

This time she shakes her head with disbelief. “Don’t try that rubbish on me!”

“I’m on holiday. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Not now, you. I’m too worried for nonsense. You must go to find it, this place. The address, he wrote it down somewhere. Go wash your face. Brush your hair.”

After two cups of strong, evil-smelling coffee and a quick shower, Khalid grabs a pinch of yesterday’s naan bread to eat while Mum works out where exactly in the city Dad went. This takes some time as she doesn’t know the city and most of the street names are unfamiliar. Plus, she’s in such a panic she has to sit back every now and then to pat her chest and calm herself.

“Perhaps we should wait until one of the aunties gets up? Or one of the neighbors comes?” she says at last.

“Then we’ll still be sitting here at nine. It’s gone seven now. I’ll find it, don’t worry, Mum.” Khalid folds the tourist street map of Karachi away in his pocket. Knowing if he turns to his right outside the house and keeps going left he should arrive in the right area eventually and hopefully someone can direct him from there. He checks the address scrawled in pencil on a scrap of paper again and heads towards the door.

It’s hot now. There’s a feeling of promise in the lightening sky as the sun peeps through the spaces between the tall buildings in the distance. Khalid takes a deep breath. He hasn’t been out of the house much, and never on his own, and he feels scared stiff of being mugged or beaten up or getting lost in a city he doesn’t know and hasn’t explored. Chickens squawk from a nearby yard. The street is empty apart from several bags of rubbish propped up in a doorway, an old Coca-Cola bottle and dented can of turpentine beside a rusting car.

A huge truck trundles past crammed with men huddled together like sacks of flour and wrapped in scarves that give little protection from the dust the tires are blowing down the street. Their faces are miserably thin. Hands folded in front. Heads down.

Workers
, Khalid thinks. His heart is beating faster than his hurrying steps.

Turning the first corner, Khalid sees a crowd gathering up ahead. A crowd he wishes he could avoid, but the narrow side alleys are also filling with men coming this way, running to catch up. There’s a feeling of fear in the air. Or is it just him?

Then the shouting starts. Some man on a platform begins yelling with his arms in the air. Others join in. Fisting the air violently. Young men push past dressed in exactly the same brown shalwar kameez that Aunt Fatima gave him. One of them shouts something that Khalid doesn’t understand.

The throng of men is growing by the second. Khalid stops. Turns to go back and find another route to avoid this chaos. But he gets caught in a sudden wave of men surging from a side alley. Pulling him forward in a lawless mass of anger that reminds him of getting caught in the rivers of fans coming out of Old Trafford after Manchester United have lost a game. The same feeling of suffocation and frenzy cuts into Khalid. The same fear of falling. Being trodden on. The only difference is the shocking sweet smell of coconut and musk drifting from their hot skin and hair.

With a mad degree of nudging and side-stepping, Khalid manages to work his way from the middle of the crowd to the area just past the yelling man on the wooden platform. The sun beats down on his bare head as he pulls up his sleeves, finding it easier to move through the crowd if he screams and punches the air like the rest of them. Soon Khalid’s jumping backwards to his heart’s content. Drifting across slowly until he arrives at the edge of the road, laughing. Clouds of dust billow around him and he starts to enjoy the ongoing joke of being a newly arrived foreigner and not really one of them, all the way to the end of the road, where he pauses to get his breath before turning down a quiet side street.

No road sign to guide him, Khalid stops to pull the crumpled tourist map from his pocket. Sand everywhere. A corner of his eye flames red from grit, making it impossible for him to read.

He stumbles down the dusty road, pressing hard on his eyelids to remove the dirt caught in his eye, but his sandy fingers are making it worse. He trips down a tunnel-like passage filled with shoppers hurrying with baskets towards the bazaar. Red-eyed, he gradually makes out the blur of a man in a doorway selling carved inscriptions on slabs of stone. Another trader points to turquoise beads and cinnamon sticks on a wooden tray that he lifts to Khalid’s face. Khalid bends his head to tug at several lashes in a final attempt to dislodge the grit and blinks and blinks until he can focus on the old bead-seller standing beside him, too close for comfort.

Khalid shows him the address of the flat, but it’s obvious he can’t read English, leading Khalid to the conclusion that he might have to retrace his steps or get even more lost. Then a broad-shouldered, pasty-faced white man in a white cap appears out of nowhere and says something to the bead-seller in Urdu, nodding to Khalid to show him the address.