This Is Where I Am (42 page)

To die would be to desert my daughter.

That
is the only reason. Not your stupid fucking tapping on my skull.

Oh. I am. I’m drumming again. Fingers on belly, on my thighs. My counsellor told me I must write motivational notes. Put them in my sock drawer, so I commence each day with an endorsement to survive it. Debs threatened to phone his supervisor; I told her just to laugh. I cannot be without Debs and I am thrusting her away. Drumming again. Fingers on my groin.

Sleep is unkind, she will not come. Azira does, although I fight to keep her out, but she shivers in on drunken lust and tight-strung brainwaves that soothe when she is near. She curls into my back, is hot, burning hot in the black, black sun her hands on mine whispering
here I am, baby
.

I am so lonely
, I whisper back. Willing her long slightness against me, bunching the covers up until they are a solid mass, each fold a leg, an arm, a breast. My hand her hand, the grip of her holding me, tentative, giggling, me firmer in the rhythm, the difference of her breath. Delight as I lessen and she quickens.

This is
not
my hand.

This is not.

I am a stupid refugee.

Azira
, I whisper. I do not have her face. It is slipping, slipping. No possessions, no clothes, no books.
W
â
n ku jecelahay
. I no longer know what language I think in, but this is always the same. Distant, sharp, other – because it is her. I do not have a single image of my wife, not one thing that she is in or has touched. I wonder, was she ever real?

I wither. All the room is fading in the dark. What is real? Your taste, your words for ever? Things we know but have not seen? Only substances we can touch? Sounds that are the same, yet have no connection? Real and reel: to be the truth. To bring in fishes and to faint.

Have you swallowed a dictionary, son?
Mrs Coutts has come to join us.

I lie. Just lie. Watching myriad rainbows burst. Breathe in oxygen and panic. Panic drumming panic winning my hand reaching for the light switch. GOLD. Eyes screw, then widen. Over there, between the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. My stolen red backpack. My
recycled
backpack, containing all my papers. Give a refugee some papers and he is rich. Azira is in there. Of course she is. When Father Paolo baptised Rebecca, he blessed our marriage too. We both signed our names on the certificate. Azira had practised for days, embellishing her swirling instroke on the A, the loops uniting each letter into a word. Floorboards creaking with my bones. I get my backpack, will be calm when I can . . . no, it’s not a backpack. Deborah says
rucksack
, I think backpack must be a childish word,
rucksack
is rougher, and I tug the straps to me . . . but it’s lying open. I never leave it open. Look how easily Debs’s phone slid away from her. Whatifwhat if? I shake the bag, upturn it. Count carefully through all my correspondence. Letters from Home Office, Refugee Council, Housing. Department of no-Work and Pensions, my clinic, my counsellor, my doctor. And this and – no –. No. NO. The blessing parchment and Rebecca’s baptismal certificate are missing.

I check, recheck. But they are gone.

21. November

Dadaab

Dadaab is a semi-arid town in north-east Kenya, but is also the collective name for the three refugee camps surrounding the town, known individually as Hagadera, Ifo and Dagahaley. Covering 50 square kilometres, the camps developed in this crisis-torn region in 1991, and have since become home to over 400,000 refugees. The vast majority are fleeing from civil war in neighbouring Somalia, although there are also refugees from Sudan, Uganda and the Congo.

Designed originally to accommodate around 90,000 people, the camps – which are served by a United Nations (UNHCR) base – suffer hugely from overcrowding and lack of resources. A further increase in violence in Somalia, coupled with ongoing famine, has seen an influx of up to 1,000 refugees a day. The area around Dadaab has suffered severe drought in recent years, killing livestock and severely impacting on the local economy and landscape, with food, fuel and building materials in constant demand. Growing tension between refugees and locals means that, as the camps are not officially demarcated, disputes over water, land and safety are common.

Several international humanitarian organisations deliver both emergency relief and long-term solutions, including food distribution, sanitation, counselling, training, health care, economic development and education. This vital work is only possible through the generous donations of supporters.

With many people living in the camps for up to ten years, much of Dadaab’s economy now revolves around the provision of services for refugees.

*

Everything is gone! Stolen!

Calm down, Abdi. Slow down and tell me what’s wrong
.

Abdi’s cries, my duplicity, drilling in my ears as the flat stone earth drills up from our tyres, sending tremors through the soles of my feet, my knee-joints, my bored-through back. We’re on what’s supposedly the main road: it is a crude track of rutted dust. Refusing to yield.
I am here. You chose to pass over me
.

Kenya. There is no give in this land, none at all. But it’s true.
I am here
. On the edge of the weary desert. Pink-baked earth radiates vapours of heat and returns it to the sun: it is endless planes of thin and flat, surprised by spikes of green. Imagine sand dunes ironed smooth; it’s that kind of scrubby hard grass, poking through sand. We’re at the end of the short rainy season, which, one week ago, would have seen these pitted roads flood with mud and water. But the rains came early this year, and the thirsty soil has drunk it all down, flashing her thanks with these grasses, those bushes. That stunted bright tree. Flaming low and wide, clustered with scarlet on its highest spines, it’s the flagrant red of rowan berries; the trees we Scots plant to keep away the witches.

‘What is that?’ I ask my driver, pointing.

‘Acacia.’

Acacia Avenue. Epitome of Middle England. Wasn’t that where Mr Benn lived?

‘Christ!’

A crack of mortar fire, I cringe and duck. Realise our axle has just negotiated a large pothole. Resume my seat. No. Bananaman. It was definitely Bananaman.

Everything is gone
.

I knew exactly what had gone, seeing as Rebecca’s baptismal certificate and Abdi’s marriage blessing are currently in a folder inside my travel case, which sits on my juddering knee. Rose said to bring anything I could that would substantiate a connection.

Even if we did find Azira, they won’t just let us walk out. You’d be surprised what folk conjure up to try to get resettled
.

No, I wouldn’t actually. There’s a man with one foot who hirples into the Refugee Council every other week. Rumour is he cut it off himself.

In the rush of his distress, Abdi had forgotten we’d fallen out. We were shriven by the urgency of the situation. I suppose I should be grateful, you could even say I’d engineered it, but it made me feel sick. All that fretting when he needs to be well. I hadn’t thought he’d notice. Then you think, that rucksack is virtually an extra limb. Of course he’ll bloody notice. I told him not to worry, that I would sort it when I got back.

Will I see you before you go?

When will you return?

Where and why and I trailed my answers, vague. Pointedly did not go to see him. Missed Rebecca like I am missing cool Glaswegian drizzle. Why am I consumed with such a weight of betrayal? This is a GOOD THING I am doing. It’s for him, for them. And did I let him think Dexy might have stolen his papers? Did I make appropriate tutting noises and was I economical with the truth? What am I meant to do? Raise his hopes then rip what’s left of him to shredded meat? Because this is never going to happen. In my graceless world, God doesn’t answer prayer.

The scarlet tree burns hugely, tiredness weeping from my skin. Up at dawn to catch the shuttle, nine hours of no-sleep on a plane from London, two hundred and fifty miles from Nairobi to Dadaab. I was supposed to hitch a lift on the UNHCR flight, but it was full. Aid workers get priority, as they should.

If you read the press information we sent you, madam, you’ll see there is no guarantee that journalists will get on these flights
(oh yes, I’m a freelance writer, doing a piece for the Oxfam in-house journal. Rose says three thousand words should do it. And I don’t think she was joking).

The flights leave twice a week from Nairobi to Dadaab, and if you draw a blank, the only other option is going by road. That too is dictated by timing: from Garissa, you need a security escort and they leave at 2pm on Sunday. Full stop. But we made it – just. Me and the Norwegian documentary team who’ve adopted me. (I think they know that I’m a fraud. They live perpetually with their mobiles at their ears; mine lies at the bottom of my bag, most likely switched off.) Listen to me – all casual about armed escorts and rough terrain. The rumbling tyres mark the truthful rhythm of my heart: scared-excited; scared-excited; scared-excited. Need a wee. And utterly, thinned-out knackered. No air-conditioning in the 4×4, so the humid air simply pours round us like languid soup. Sound carries for miles. Long-boned cows clack skinny haunches as a herdsman flicks his stick and it is all sharp, immediate. Incredible.

I lick the dust from my mouth. If I arrive today, I can stay till Wednesday, when the return convoy leaves. Only gives me two full days, but Rose has been at Dadaab since Thursday. One of her friends on the water project works with a refugee who says his father was a great elder.
Now he is the keeper of our truth
. He keeps records of atrocities. Hundreds and hundreds of incidents, stored in his head. Communication with Rose has been fragmented, but she was trying to meet with this man either yesterday or today. I turn my phone on, in case there’s messages. Nothing. Settle down. Press my spine and squeeze my thighs.
Do not need a wee do not need a wee
. The cows meander, dull hooves dropping. I follow their progress, if you could call it that. Feel my head dropping and enjoy the dullness. Travelling is a hiatus; for now I’m in others’ hands and I need not do or be anything other than tired.

I pass half an hour in monotonous dozing before I notice that the Norwegians are zipping and unzipping bags, that paperwork and visas are being produced because, from out of vast and vacant land, a city is rising.

A hellish one at that.

Humid blurring acre on acre of humped tents and wire; scarf over nose to expel the smells, the vilest smells how could you? How could people live –

Through here
. Bundled, chickenwire and wooden latch, swing shut, inside. There’s been rumours of unrest.
Bandits very bad
says the man who gives out towels. His downcast eyes are sorrowful, ashamed at the welcome he provides. No Rose when I reach the UNHCR guesthouse. The man tells me she and I are in adjoining rooms, so I figure she’ll chap the door when she gets in. That a wee lie-down won’t hurt. I think I kick off my boots, I
do
go to the plumbed-in loo, and am surprised at sitting, was all set to squat. Take my shaky legs back to the shaky bed and lower and lay and . . .

Wake to shouts and motors running. A beating heat. Someone coughing through the wall, my throat cracking. Eyelids held with lead-lined weights. Fumbling fingers, a rough, rough wall. I feel myself awake, come up slowly to avoid the bends. The mosquito net pats me like a friendly spectre. I shake my head. Press the heels of my hands into my sinuses – an old trick; it kind of ‘pops’ your eyes open. Shake again and smack my lips, the sticky skin adhering. Peeling apart. Remember I am here. Against every vow I ever made, I’ve come back to Africa. Thousands of miles away on this very continent, a wizened bitch who is still alive will be sipping G&T. No matter what the time is. The cough comes again. I respond in kind; a little expectorating code.

‘Deborah?’ A voice drifts through plaster. ‘That you wake?’

I let out a pathetic: ‘Rose?’

Within a second, she’s knocking at my door. I’m expecting a khaki missionary, open up to a vision in pastel pinks and blues.

‘Rose?’

‘Deborah! Well, hello there! You made it!’ A paper folder under her arm; she transfers it to one hand, enfolds me in a perfumed hug, the folder brushing the back of my head. I’ve not showered for . . .

‘God. What time is it?’

‘Nine am their time. And it’s Thursday, in case you’re wondering.’

‘Oh shit! Oh, sorry.’

‘Och, no sweat. Here, d’you want a wee coffee? I’ve a travel kettle in my room.’

‘I would
die
for a coffee.’

‘There’s a cafeteria if you’re hungry?’

My head thinks
hmm
, but my stomach says no. Gurgles it quite urgently, in fact. ‘No, ta. Eh – I just need to nip to the loo . . .’

A knowing grin. Her teeth are perfect white; it’s a lovely smile, framed by pale-yellow hair made paler by the dust which lies on everything. ‘I’ll sort you a coffee then. Black, no sugar, I’m afraid.’