Tears of the Desert (30 page)

As we approached the airport my agent started to issue me instructions again. Do as I tell you, never say a word or do anything without my permission. Behave like this and we would be all right. But if I forgot what he had said and did something stupid, then I would be found out. Remember that we were supposed to be married. I should at all times be obedient and walk a few paces behind him, like a good Muslim wife.

The driver pulled up at the airport. He glanced in his mirror. “When are you back?”

The agent shrugged. “Not sure exactly. I have nothing to do when I get there apart from getting her sorted. So, if all goes well, tomorrow.”

“Shall I be here to collect you?”

“Yeah, at the usual time. Unless I call.”

There was a crowd milling around in the departure area. Gradually it thinned out, as people were checked in for their flights. The agent deliberately held back, and he only approached passport control when everyone else had gone. He reached over and shook the hand of the uniformed official, before handing him two passports. I stood back, acting like his obedient wife. I saw the official glance at me, and then he smiled at my agent. It was a knowing smile. They chatted away for a minute or so, and then our passports were stamped and we were waved through.

“Goodbye and safe journey,” the official remarked to my agent. “We’ll see you again soon, eh?”

He smiled. “You will.
And thanks.
”

We reached a second set of officials. This time, we had our bags searched before being allowed to pass. We walked through the airport and down some steps. We waited on the tarmac with the rest of the passengers for a bus to appear. A short drive across the tarmac, and we were delivered to the airplane. It sat on the runway, squat and gleaming bright.

A group of white people in smart blue uniforms were standing beside it. One of the white women gave the agent a smile of welcome, as she ushtered us onto the plane. I climbed up the steps, my heart in my mouth. With barely a backward glance I stepped inside the airplane.
I was safe. I was safe.
I was inside this machine that would fly me away to safety.

I was on my way out of Sudan, to a place where the hunters couldn’t find me. God only knew which country I was headed for; all that was in front of me. What mattered now was that I was getting out of my country, and away from the people who were eating up my homeland and my tribe. I leaned back in my seat and felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. I was so tired. So tired. So tired. I had never felt so tired . . .

As the aircraft clawed its way into the sky, I guess I should have been scared. I had never flown before and it should have been a terrifying experience. But after all that I had been through I didn’t care anymore. What could touch me? What could really hurt me or scare me? If we exploded in a fireball, what would I have lost? I had begged for death so many times, and death had failed to find me. What was there to fear if it did so now?

I’d only ever seen aircraft from the ground, and now here I was high above the earth and speeding through the sky. As we climbed higher I saw the clouds shooting past the window. I gazed out right into the middle of a bank of puffy whiteness. We were inside the clouds and I wondered what was keeping us up here. For a moment I was lost in wonder at the magic of it all, as the soft hush of the sky rushed past the window.

I gazed around at the passengers. Might there be a clue there as to where I was going? Most were dressed in the traditional robes of the Gulf Arabs, so it looked as if I might be going to one of those countries. Which might it be? I tried to remember my geography lessons from school. Was it Dubai, Saudi Arabia, or one of the smaller Arab Emirates? One of the ladies in the smart blue uniforms came up to us. She had snowy white hair and a smile in her eyes.

“Madam? Tea? Coffee?” she asked. “Or perhaps a soft drink?”

I shook my head. “No thank you.”

I was too excited and too worried to think about drink or food. Plus I had no money on me, as my agent had taken everything, and I presumed I would have to pay. My agent asked for a tea, and as the lady leaned across me I caught its fragrance. It smelled simply delicious. I noticed that she asked for no money, so I changed my mind.

“D’you mind?” I asked. “Could I actually have a tea?”

Two hours later we started our descent. The sun had set during the flight and I felt the aircraft falling through the darkening sky toward earth. Where were we landing, I wondered? In which country was I to try to make my new home? And how would I ever survive there? We hit the runway with a gentle thud and taxied across to the airport building. I rose to my feet with the other passengers, only to feel a hand gripping my arm. It was my agent, and he was gesturing at me to sit down.

He shook his head. “Not yet. There’s a second flight. Wait on board the aircraft.”

For an hour we sat on the runway. My agent slept. More people boarded the aircraft. Most of them were Gulf Arabs, with a handful of white Europeans. A middle-aged white man took the seat next to me, with a friendly smile. I tapped him on the arm and asked how long the flight would take. It was six hours, he said. In six hours time we would be in London.

So that was where I was going!
I was going to London, England, the country that I had learned about during my school days.

I was going to the land of the
khawajat—
the white man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Hostel of Despair

I awoke in the early hours. One of the stewardesses was handing me a plastic tray of breakfast things. The airline staff were so helpful and friendly. My agent had said that I was going to a country where people would help me, and I wondered whether everyone in England would be like this. I pulled off the tinfoil cover and inspected my breakfast. It wasn’t
acidah
mash, that was for sure!

My agent prodded the food around on his plate. “Pork!” he muttered. “You’re going to a place where they love eating pig. You’ve been warned.”

With that he pushed his tray away and stared out the window. Getting me out of Sudan had seemed so easy, but I wondered how he intended to spirit me into England. He had two passports, so one presumably bore the name of his supposed wife. I hadn’t managed to get a close look at the passport, and the agent had warned me not to ask any questions. But he had taken a photo of me back in Khartoum—for the travel papers, he’d said—so maybe that passport actually bore my real photo.

I was worried again now. If my agent did get me into England, what was I to do then? All he had told me was that I should follow him and he would take me to a safe place. For a while I thought about my husband Sharif, and whether I might be able to find him. As far as I knew he was still in England, but it was months since there had been any contact. I concluded that my first priority had to be to get into England—for that meant that I was safely out of Sudan. Sharif, how I would live, my future—all of that could wait.

As the plane flitted across the dawn skies, I gazed at what I presumed had to be London. I could see lights twinkling below, but they were muffled by what looked like cloud low on the ground. We landed so smoothly I hardly felt a bump. How could it do that, I wondered, when it had just fallen out of the sky? I grabbed my handbag and got up to follow my agent out of the aircraft. We joined a crowd of people surging into the building and followed a series of corridors that took us to a line of booths.

We stopped. There were two lines. One was for those carrying purple passports, the other for everyone else. Most of the people with the purple passports were
khawajat—
so I presumed this was the line for the British. I was surprised when my agent joined that line. Together we inched forward until we were at the desk. The official reached out and took two passports from my agent. He pushed them into some sort of machine, gazed at it for a few seconds, glanced at my agent and me, and then waved us through.

I couldn’t believe it. How had my agent managed it? How had he got us into England using the “British” line? We had no luggage to collect, so quick as he could my agent led me through the terminal and into the cold outside. A weak sun was trying to trickle though, but the terminal building was shrouded in the thick fog that I’d seen from the airplane. Beads of moisture covered everything: car windows, people’s clothing, even their hair. And it was freezing cold.

I pulled my cloak from my bag and tugged it around my shoulders. Still I was cold. We joined a line, and a black vehicle stopped in front of us. It had a yellow light on top, which illuminated the English word: taxi. My English was pretty basic. It consisted of what I had learned at school, refreshed now and then by watching English TV programs. I recognized the word “taxi” from some of those. My agent spoke to the driver through his open window, and then motioned for me to get in.

“Right, my job’s done,” he announced. “This man will take you to the safe place. I’ve paid him, so he’ll deliver you. I’m done. Goodbye.”

With that he turned and was gone. The taxi pulled away from the airport. I tried to relax: At least it was warm in there. I glanced around me at the city. It looked right; it looked like the pictures of London that I had seen in my schoolbooks. But I didn’t trust my agent one bit. The taxi driver was a white man and he had seemed friendly enough. I leaned forward and tapped the glass.

“Is this London?” I asked. “Is this really London?”

He glanced at me in his mirror. “It is love. It’s rainy, foggy old London town. A real dump, innit?”

We drove for an age, on and on through this sprawling city. I couldn’t believe that a city could be so large. There were so many houses and cars and people and the tower blocks did go high into the sky, just as our schoolbooks had shown us. Eventually, the taxi driver pulled over on the side of the road. He pointed at two men in dark uniforms.

“Police. Tell’em you need asylum love, okay?
Asylum.”

“Aslum,” I tried saying the word. “Aslum. What does it mean?”

“Don’t worry about it, love. Just say it and that’s enough. Now off you go. Chop-chop.”

I dodged across the busy road and approached the two policemen. But I was worried. My experiences with the police in Sudan had hardly been pleasant ones.

“Good morning. Aslum,” I said, nervously. “Do you know aslum?”

The nearest policeman smiled. “New here are you, love? Here for the first time?”

I nodded. “I came from the airport.”

“You’re seeking
asylum,
is it?”

“Yes. Asylum.”

“All right, follow me.”

He led me over to a gray concrete tower. There were two lines of people outside, and he showed me to one of them. There were people of all differing nationalities, speaking many different languages. At school the English teacher had told us that in London you would find all the nationalities on earth. She hadn’t been joking. It was early still, but already the lines were long. Many of the people had suitcases with them.

A black man smiled at me from his place in the line. “Somalia?”

I shook my head. “Sudan.”

I scrabbled in my bag for my shawl. It was so cold that I had started to shiver. A white man was checking people in at the door of the building. He was middle-aged and he had a kindly face. He came across to me.

“Where from?” he asked. “Sudan? Darfur?”

I nodded. “Darfur.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “Freezing.”

“I thought as much.” He took off his big black jacket and handed it to me. “Here—try this on for size. Go on—wrap yourself up. I’m used to the cold.”

I smiled shyly. “Thank you. Very kind . . .”

“Come on, let’s get you inside before you catch your death.” He took me to the front of the line, gave me a little ticket, and showed me to a side room.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll find people to see you. Wait here, okay?”

I nodded again. I was feeling happier already. This man had been so kind to me. I curled up in the chair and tried to get warm. I started to feel sleepy. Two Indian-looking ladies came in and asked me if I was hungry. I was too shy and embarrassed to say yes, so I said that I was just tired. They told me to wait until the number on my ticket was called.

I dozed fitfully. But suddenly I was wide awake. There was screaming coming from the main hall. I peeped out through the glass door. I spotted the Somali man who had greeted me in the line with a policeman on either side of him. As I watched they started to drag him out of the building.

“No, my brothers! No!” the Somali man cried. “Don’t kill me! Don’t take me away! Don’t take me!”

I was shocked and confused. I wondered what he had done to be dragged away like that. Three hours later my number came up on the screen. I was shown to a window. I sat down against the glass. Next to me was an Arabic-looking lady. She introduced herself, telling me that she was my interpreter. I should speak to the man behind the glass and answer all of his questions.

A young white man arrived on the other side. He had a very strange appearance. He was a little fattish, and his hair was pushed up into jagged spikes. I had never seen anything like it before. Why did this man make himself look like
Shaitan—
like Satan—I wondered? Beneath his spiky hair he didn’t seem to have a very friendly face, either.

“Answer only what I ask,” the spiky man announced. “And tell the truth. If you tell us any lies, we’ll punish you by putting you in prison. D’you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I was worried again now.

“What is your name?”

I told him.

“How did you come here?”

I told him about my two flights.

“What was the name of the airline?”

I told him that I didn’t know.

“Of course you know the name of the airline,” he objected. “What was it?”

“I was with an agent. He brought me. I’ve no idea . . .”

“Come on! You’re trying to say you didn’t see the name on the airplane? Or inside it?”

I nodded. “Yes. I didn’t see it.”

“I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you for one moment!”

I glanced at the Arabic interpreter lady in bewilderment. “Why is he getting so angry? Why would I lie about something like that?”

“What’s she saying?” he demanded, from behind the glass.

“She’s just checking that she understands the question,” the Arabic lady lied. “Look, he’s getting upset, so try to remember. Is there anything you can remember about the inside of the airplane? Letters? Numbers? Pictures? Anything?”

I thought for a second. There had been some letters on the breakfast things, but it was the last thing on my mind.

I shook my head. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

I saw the spiky man’s face redden. He glanced at his watch. He was taking a tea break, he declared, and when he came back he wanted some answers. My interpreter told me that she had to go, as it was the end of her shift. I sat and waited. A replacement interpreter arrived. She told me that she was called Alicia, and that she came from Lebanon. The spiky man returned, and I was relieved to see that he had calmed down a little.

“So, let’s cover some basics. Where exactly are you from?”

I told him the name of my village and the big towns that were near it. He was looking at a map. He asked me for the names of my schools, and I told him.

“Why have you come to the United Kingdom?” he asked.

“There is war in my area. I had a problem with the government. They wanted to kill me. My village was attacked and my family too. I had to flee the country.”

“Are you married?” he asked. “Any children?”

“I am married. But we have no children yet.”

“Where is your marriage certificate?”

“I don’t know. It may have been with my father, but he was killed.”

“Look, are you married or not?” The angry scowl was back again. “There’s no marriage without a certificate.”

“Yes, I am married.”

“Well, you can’t prove you’re married without a certificate. Where is your husband?”

“I think he’s here in England. But I’m not sure.”

The spiky man stared at me in disbelief. “Okay, so let’s get this straight. You claim to be married, but there’s no certificate. You claim to have a husband, but you don’t know where he is. He might be in England or he might not. Is that it?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Was it your husband who paid the agent to bring you here?”

“No. I sold the family gold to pay the agent. Even my grandma’s rings.”

“Yeah. Right.” He rolled his eyes. “So where is your husband? Which European country is he in?”

“I told you, I don’t know. He’s probably in England, but I don’t know.”

“How can you not know which country your husband is in? It’s impossible.”

I kept silent. I was trying to be helpful. I was telling the truth. What more did he want of me? He asked me for Sharif’s full name, and for the date and place of his birth. Then he glanced at me.

“So, is he your
only
husband; are there any more?”

“Why is he asking me such a question?” I demanded of the interpreter. “Do women have many husbands here in England?”

She shrugged. “Sorry. They’re always like this.”

“Well ask him from me how many wives he has? None, I bet. Who would want to marry such a horrible man?”

The interpreter tried not to laugh. “What’s she saying?” the spiky man demanded. “What’s she saying?”

“She’s saying that she only has the one husband,” the interpreter lied. “Just the one.”

The spiky man sent me off to the “next stage.” I sat to have my fingerprints taken. Then I was photographed and given a card, which was my photo ID. I was returned to the same booth, and now there was a third interpreter. This time it was an old black man with pepper gray hair. He was dressed smartly with a jacket and tie, and he had a warm, kindly expression. I could tell immediately that he was Sudanese.

As we waited for the spiky man to reappear he told me that he was from Kordofan, the area that I had walked through on my escape from Darfur. He even had a daughter studying at the same university that I had attended. The spiky man returned but he seemed in a hurry now. I guessed he was keen to get home. He gave me the name of a place where I could stay for the night and handed me a map.

“It’s marked on the map. See? If you get lost, ask. Someone will show you the way.”

I stared at the map in confusion. Of course, we didn’t have maps back in the village, and I had no idea how to use one.