A King in Hiding (9 page)

I wait politely for the storm to pass. The following week I'm almost on time. Big surprise: the club is shut. At first I think Xavier hasn't arrived yet, and my father and I wait outside in the rain. As it gets later and later, I remember Xavier's threat. I turn to my father:

‘
Abba
, do you think Xavier was here and that he left because I was late?'

My father smiles:

‘Who put an idea like that in your head? We weren't late. He said five o'clock, and we were here at a quarter past.'

When it starts to get dark, we have to face facts: Xavier isn't here. On the way to the club again a couple of days later, I begin to put on a spurt. I don't like to admit it, but I'm worried: will Xavier be there? From a distance I'm relieved to spot a light in the window. I'm also relieved by the broad grin that greets me as we go in:

‘Aha, I see you're on time! Bravo Fahim! I hope Tuesday night has taught you a lesson.'

As it turns out, I'm on time for the rest of the year.

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Some people might have thought I was hard on Fahim. In fact I was more laid back with him than with any of my other pupils, to the extent that sometimes I could feel it gave rise to tensions and jealousies. I made allowances for the ordeals that he'd gone through and the conditions in which he lived. But I train my pupils to win tournaments: they come to me to become champions, not to be babysat. I can scarcely imagine the great Olympian swimmer Laure Manaudou saying to her trainer: ‘I haven't done any swimming this week, I had more important things to do.' Or her trainer replying: ‘OK, that's fine by me, see if you can do some next week.'

Fahim's early tournaments brought their fair share of surprises. Some good, some not so good. On the plus side, it turned out that he could play all his moves back from memory, and while this isn't remarkable for a good adult competitive player, for such a young child it's exceptional. It testified to the attitude of a player who seriously wants to improve his game. And to an incredible memory – another of his talents, which took me by surprise on more than one occasion. I remember sending him to a tournament that was being held miles away, near the Gare de l'Est. When I got out the map of the Métro to show him how to get there, he reeled off from memory all the different lines and changes and the names of all the stations along the way: one Sunday when he had nothing else to do he'd learned the map off by heart.

But there were disappointments too. Of course Fahim was a far better player than most of the other under-10s. Against adult opponents he played well, very well even, seeking out their flaws, spotting their mistakes and weaknesses, surprising them and often beating them. But when he played against other children the pace was too slow for him, and the stakes were too low. He would get bored, slacken off early in the game, let down his guard and then find himself out of his depth. He'd only wake up when disaster was threatening to strike all over the board.

In April, my friends at the chess club set off for Troyes, for the French championships. Even though I've known for months that I can't compete, and even though I hate travelling, I'm sad to see them go, and a bit angry too. A boy called Chesterkine wins the title. To this day I can't hear his name without bearing him a slight grudge.

‘Don't worry, Fahim, I've found you a competition in Paris. The organiser's really nice, you'll see. Over the years he must have spent more time at chess tournaments than Karpov and Kasparov put together.'

Xavier doesn't understand: I couldn't care less about his tournament. I want to compete in the French national championships. And I want to win. Because when I was at the top of the Eiffel Tower I made a promise to myself: one day I'd compete in the European championships. A Bangladeshi at the European championships, now that would be doing it in style! But I don't kid myself: I know my father can't afford to send me there. Not there, not anywhere!

In fact I'll never be able to take part in any international championships – unless I win the French championship first. Then I'll be selected for the French team and the Federation will send me to the European championships. This is my dream, my secret dream. I never tell it to a soul, for fear it might not come true.

Chapter 9

EVERYONE'S CONVINCED

E
ven Fred's optimistic. The tribunal has sent its report, our application is strong, we're going to get asylum. All the same, Xavier and some of the club members get together to pay for a good lawyer for us. My father is impatient for the hearing. He can't wait to get his ‘papers' so he can look for a job and find us somewhere to live. I'm calm and confident: I know everything's going to work out.

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After OFPRA had turned down his application, which was more or less routine, Nura had to lodge an appeal with the Cour Nationale du Droit d'Asile. I was struck from the outset by his confidence, and by that of Frédéric, the social worker at the hostel.

It was true that France had everything to gain by granting asylum to Fahim. As Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, president of the children's tribunal at Bobigny, told him with a touch of cynicism:

‘If you offer us the prospect of an Olympic medal, even a bronze, but better still a silver or gold, your situation will be regularised within a fortnight. Within a month you will be surprised to discover that your grandfather was French, and afterwards your father as well. Then hot on their heels, you too will become French. France is prepared to sell her soul for a medal!'

So in order to cover all bases I mobilised the French Chess Federation, which produced a magnificent letter:

‘Fahim plays to an exceptional standard, and he is currently the best under-10 player in France. His undeniable contribution can only enhance the reputation of the Federation. Given his level of attainment, it is highly probable that he may represent France at international competitions such as the European and world championships.'

The big day arrives: 21 April 2010. I put on my favourite tracksuit, the white one. My father gets dressed up in his best clothes too. The hearing is in the afternoon. Lots of people come with us: friends from the hostel, both Bangladeshis and others, members of the chess club, Frédéric, Marie-Jeanne and even a director of the French Chess Federation. I didn't know we had so many friends in France.

‘Don't worry, Nura, it'll all be fine.'

‘With an application like that, what can go wrong?'

‘Honestly, it'll be a piece of cake.'

Everyone is smiling. Everyone except my father, who is overawed. At three o'clock we go into the courtroom. Behind a big table sit three judges, two women and a man. I'm surprised, as I thought judges wore robes and wigs, but these ones are in ordinary clothes. A man reads out from a sheet of paper, then our lawyer speaks. Afterwards, the judges ask my father questions and an interpreter translates. When my father doesn't understand the question he nods his head, and the judges think he's saying yes. When he understands he answers their questions, describing our life in Bangladesh, talking about me, about chess and tournaments. He gives good answers. I'm glad that no one asks why I was in danger in Dhaka.

At the end, one of the lady judges says we'll be informed of the outcome in three weeks' time. The judges look happy, and so do the lawyer and my father and all our friends. Everyone congratulates my father. In three weeks his name will be posted on the wall, saying ‘Asylum granted'. And we'll live in France for ten years, twenty years, maybe for ever. And we can bring over … but I can't let myself think about that.

Three weeks later, my father and I go back to the tribunal. In the Métro he's nervous, and I don't know how to reassure him, so I keep quiet. We get there just as the names are being posted on the walls. We look for my father's name: Asylum granted … Appeal refused … Asylum granted … Appeal refused … Appeal refused. His name isn't there: not under ‘Asylum granted', not under ‘Appeal refused'. My father asks me to call our lawyer, who is reassuring:

‘The decision's still pending, come back again tomorrow.'

The next day my father gets ready to go back to the tribunal. My friends and I are just beginning a game of football.

‘Are you coming, Fahim?'

‘We've just started playing! Can you go by yourself?'

‘But I can't read French.'

‘It's simple: just look for your name with “Asylum granted” beside it.'

My father sighs and sets off, and I go back to playing football.

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The voice on the other end of the phone was unrecognisable. All Nura could say, over and over again, was: ‘Exavier, appeal refused, appeal refused …' He didn't need to understand French to know that in the cruel lottery of the asylum-seekers' world he had played and lost.

The man who came to see me at the club early that evening was not the Nura I knew. This was a man who was stunned, overwhelmed by a sense of injustice. His life had just fallen apart, and so had Fahim's.

Refusal by the tribunal was the equivalent of an ‘obligation to leave French territory': it meant deportation from France. Nura's situation was now illegal. It was at this point that I began to worry every time he went out, even if he was just going to pick up his son from school at 4:30. I had vivid images imprinted on my mind of an incident outside the primary school on rue Ordener in Montmartre, when parents who were undocumented migrants had been rounded up by the police and taken away.

Paradoxically, this threat didn't apply to Fahim: as a minor, he couldn't be deported. The French authorities could send his father back, and leave him alone in France. I had done some research into what lay in store for unaccompanied child migrants in France. If he was lucky, Fahim would end up in a hostel, which would mean he would have to kiss goodbye to chess, coaching and tournaments. But worse than that, if there was no space in a hostel, he was in danger – like many other child migrants – of ending up on the streets, forced to queue up every night to beg for a bed from humanitarian organisations who are obliged by lack of funds to select those young people who are most at risk. I'd heard someone who worked with these children describing how one winter's night the only thing he'd been able to offer a child who was sleeping rough was a sleeping bag.

Later on, Fahim would be able to apply for asylum or a residence permit. I could imagine only too easily what would happen next, with his identity, date of birth and age all potentially called into question. Because the French authorities would undoubtedly try to deport him, and they would want to establish how soon they could do so. Even before his eighteenth birthday, they would demand a judicial medical assessment: an obsolete test of his bones, a dental examination (an echo of the slave trade in its heyday), and a humiliating assessment of his genitals and body hair.

Although they were not yet at that stage, for Nura and Fahim a life on the streets now beckoned. France Terre d'Asile was financed by the public purse, and so could only offer accommodation to asylum-seekers. Now that their application had been turned down, father and son would have to leave the hostel and make way for new applicants. Fortunately the hostel staff were humane. They had been touched by Fahim and Nura's story, and had become particularly involved in their application. So they put off the inevitable for as long as they could, and turned to the network of local charities to try to find alternative accommodation for them.

Since the tribunal handed down its verdict, my father has been silent, worried, serious. He spends ages staring into empty space, and when we eat in the evening he forgets to talk to me. I don't know what to say to make him feel better. He doesn't react even when I tell him I'm going to be put up a class at school. But at the Paris championships in the early summer I manage to squeeze a smile out of him: I've made so much progress with my endgames that I win the tournament, playing against adults, and when I give him the first prize of 1,000 euros my father looks relieved.

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During this tournament, a ‘guru' figure circled around Fahim. The unconventional methods espoused by this ‘televangelist of Parisian chess' (of necessity, as he barely knew how to play) were exemplary. He would teach beginners himself, but for the most promising pupils he would recruit masters and grandmasters from abroad, exploiting them like a slave driver. When the truth about his methods dawned on them, he would send them home and import others.