26 | Our people
~KHAN~
I lied to Emir.
I said that I'd meet him by the school gates when I finished my classes for the day, and I do meet him there. Three in the pm, the exact time when all the students swarm out of the building and the air is full of chattering excitement and anticipation for the weekend. But I don't meet him when I finish my classes, because I didn't go to any today. Or yesterday.
At first, I told myself I needed time to recover. My limbs still ache when I move them a lot, and when I take my shirt off to shower or for bed, there's a whole tattoo-sleeve of bruises on my skin. Sam throws a powerful punch. I can still remember the sensation of his knuckles making contact with my skin and muscle and bone. It makes my stomach lurch.
I remember the look in his eyes, too. Black with anger. He really looked as if he hated me in those moments. There were moments when I thought he wouldn't stop hitting until I was dead.
But even if I could move perfectly easily with no pain, it wouldn't hide the pain in Lilo's face whenever we accidentally make eye contact. Or the pain that grabs my heart when I remember that I'm just another person who left her.
I see her in school, obviously. She hangs out with her red friend, Del, and Matt and Phil and the boys always say hi and give her hugs or fist-bumps whenever we pass her in the corridors. I try to smile, but she just ducks her head and turns away, both of us wanting to sink through the floor. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It took two years before she was ready to talk to Matt again, and our falling apart certainly wasn't smooth.
I just want her to smile at me, that's all. I miss it. I miss it more than I'll admit even to myself, and it hurts. A lot.
After I left the kitchen, I ran. If I wasn't still black and blue I'd have gone and kicked a ball around, but even with my stubbornness I knew that I'd only damage myself further. Running, though- slow and light, I could manage that. With each pound of my trainers against the pavement, I saw Lilo's crying face in my mind. I'd gone out to clear my head, but by the time I'd returned home, my mind was in a worse state than ever.
And when I got back, she was gone. Just like that. I even checked under her pillow to see if she'd left behind a book or something; she hadn't. My uncle's bedroom was as bare and abandoned as it had been when she first moved in.
She'd left a note for Emeh, telling her thank you for letting her stay, and that she was so grateful and would always be in her debt. Emeh's eyes got slightly wet by the end. I think having Lilo in the house was like having a daughter of sorts for her- someone who helped out and made her smile.
Lilo also left her hair-straighteners behind for Nesta, saying that she'd put them to better use in a short note. I left the room before my aunt or my sister could ask what she'd left me, because I already knew I'd find nothing.
It was like she'd never even been there.
Almost a whole week has passed since then. I play football and hang out with my friends, but I'm always distracted. Two days after Lilo was gone, I decided I was going to stop thinking about her all the time, and turned my attention to Emir and his Justice seekers instead. I felt so fired up when defending myself to Lilo, but the excitement seems to have fizzled out a little since our argument. I never wanted to lose her over it.
Then I remember the look in Sam's eyes and he hit me and hit me, and my fierce determination comes flooding back. He hasn't been in school- I don't know if he's been suspended or what, because if he had, I'm sure I'd be too. The fight was on both sides.
On Wednesday, I didn't come into school. I thought that at least Lilo would feel relieved- she can spend time with the boys now, without having me there to make things awkward.
On Friday, though, I do come in- but only right at the end of the day, ten minutes before the bell is due to ring, and I lurk in the playground as I wait for Emir to show. I wonder if he'll stand out among all the white middle-class kids streaming through the gates, but it actually takes me a moment to spot him. He's mastered the art of fitting in to perfection. In a pair of jeans, a green sleeveless puffer jacket and his hands in his pockets, he looks as ordinary as anyone else. Maybe he's had to learn not to stand out.
He's holding a white plastic bag, which looks like it's being weighed down by something inside it. When I reach him, he raises his eyebrows in greeting and takes out a can of coke, handing it to me. I genuinely don't like coke that much, but I haven't eaten since breakfast and am grateful to have something inside me, even if it's burning liquid sugar. Emir takes out a can for himself and tosses it up and down in his left hand as we leave the school grounds, heading to the high street.
He never struck me as a talkative person, and true to my first impression of him, he barely speaks three words on our walk along the main road. He juggles with his drink-can, but never takes a sip. I manage to take a proper look at him in the afternoon sunlight, and realise that he doesn't look that much older than me. Eighteen? Twenty? Definitely a lot younger than I first thought. People walking past us must think we're brothers.
Because that's what the English think when they see two people together of the same race- or even looking like they're of the same race. Related.
That thought reminds me why we're even walking together, and I finally bring myself to say something.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the location we're heading to is top secret, and that you shouldn't disclose it to anyone?"
"For someone who hates England, you speak it pretty eloquently."
He just gives me a look. I sigh and shrug. "Okay, sure. Top secret. Got it."
"Khanat, I'm not sure if I got this across to you when you were in that hospital, but this is serious. The seekers won't appreciate it if you joke."
He's the first person who has consistently called me by my real name since... well, since my last phone call with my father. Over a week ago.
"No jokes. Got it."
"You haven't told anyone about what we're doing?"
Forcing the image of Lilo's face from my mind, I say, "I haven't told anyone."
I'm half-expecting him to tell me that him and his justice seekers have ways of arranging accidents to get rid of me if I so much as breathe a word.
"Khoob." Good, in Dari.
I allow a few seconds of silence to pass before I eventually ask, "Are you going to drink that coke?"
The sharp sweetness of the drink burns my throat and stomach, distracting me from everything. Just why I asked for it.
Whenever I thought of the meeting place of the Justice Seekers, I thought of dark, shady back-rooms in pubs or something similarly dodgy. Instead, Emir and I end up outside a nice-looking house in the alright area of the neighbourhood. I wait for him to reveal a hidden side-door, but he just rings the doorbell. A girl answers, about my age. She's slender, with dusky skin and straight dark hair that flows just past her shoulders. Her features are sharp and thin-boned, and she's dressed in dark jeans and a cropped black sweatshirt. All newish-looking Western clothes, except from her shoes, which look as dusty and hole-ridden as my sandals from Afghanistan.
Wordlessly, she steps aside and allows me and Emir to come in. As I pass her, our arms brush accidentally, and she turns her brown eyes on me. There's no denying that she's beautiful, but when she looks at me, her gaze is hard, face expressionless.
I'm the one to look away first. She closes the door behind us and follows us in. Emir is leading the way down a narrow hallway, until we reach a door at the very end. This door leads to a small, darkened room, with rugs on the floor and a yellowish light. Once I've gotten used to the weird lighting, I realise that the rugs are decorated with original Afghan and Pakistani patterns. We used to have one at home, one that Maadar had tatted herself.
The hard-eyed girl closes the door. When she locks it, I begin to feel more than a little unnerved. Sitting in a locked room with a bunch of strangers doesn't sit well with me- and it also brings back uncomfortable memories of days and nights spent in the truck with Nesta. But I have neither the space nor the privacy to freak out.
There are people seated around the room, and all of their eyes are on me.
The first thing I think is- this isn't enough people for a serious protest.
Emir, however, doesn't seem fazed. The blank look slips from his face, and he is grinning around at everyone and they are slapping backs and kissing cheeks, and speaking very fast in a variety of languages. My eyes find the girl who let us in; she is speaking to a slightly large woman with a smile on her face. I allow myself to breathe. This atmosphere- the greetings, the smiles, the joy- they remind me of the way things were at home.
Not the cold environment of England. I feel like I am among people who understand me. And together, we are going to make a change. For the first time since we arrived here, I feel properly good.
"Comrades, this is Khanat," says Emir in a loud voice, and he puts his arm around me. I flinch without meaning to- up until now, we never made any physical contact. But the man inside this dark room isn't the same man who walked me here. It's like now that he's out of the streets of the country trapping him, he can finally be free.
"He's joining the group. Tell the group your story, Khanat, eh? Tell us what that boy did to you, my friend."
I shuffle from one foot to the other, very conscious of the brown-eyed girl's gaze on me. Emir is making it seem like my 'story' is something big and exciting, when in reality it was nothing more than a schoolboy fight. Or was it?
"I got hit by this boy," I end up muttering, embarrassed to be the centre of attention. "He was... white."
"Khanat was beaten up so badly, he had to go to hospital," Emir emphasises, and his grip across my back tightens. His strong arm is pressing down on a bruise. I try not to wince too obviously. "The school hasn't even laid down consequences for the boy who hit him, when this was obviously a racial attack. This just goes to show that the justice of the system exists even in our institutions."
How does he know that the school hasn't done anything to Sam?
As everyone in the room makes sounds of sympathy and curses under their breath, I manage to take a look at them all. I hardly know why I was nervous to come here. Besides from Emir and the brown-eyed girl, there's a slightly round woman with black hair scraped into a knot at the back of her head, three young men around the same age as Emir, two men maybe in their thirties with moustaches and wearing vests, and a woman with a long plait of her all the way down her back. They look like a group of friends, or a family. None of them look like bad people. I think this, even as Emir's words about people getting hurt ring in my ears.
I can't help but notice that the girl is leaning against one of the young men, her head on his shoulder. I look away.
Never mind that she looks like Ashal.
"There was nothing the school could really do," I say quietly, "If they expelled him, they'd have to expel me too. We both fought."
"But did he end up in hospital?" the woman with the plait asks, raising her brows at me, and I'm forced to shrug. I know nothing about what happened with Sam Macpherson.
"Look at the way he's defending the people who hurt him. That's hardly dedicated to our cause," says the girl, her brown eyes on me. Her expression is as hard as it first was when she saw me.
The boy she's leaning on just nudges her elbow and laughs. "You just have your knickers in a twist because he's the only male close to your age in this place who isn't a brother, Bette."
Bette. Now that he- her brother, I assume, from what he just said- has put a name to the face, it's like I'm seeing her again for the first time. Bette's elegant face betrays no sign of embarrassment. Instead, she rolls her eyes and shoves her brother right back.
"I'm right, though! How can we expect him to be fully committed to us when he's so whitewashed?"
"Whitewashed?" I'm not sure what it is about the word, but it bristles. "I'm not-"
"It isn't his fault, the poor boy," the round woman says in the way an affectionate auntie might talk about her favourite nephew. "He's probably had to keep a low radar to survive at a school where students get beaten up for their race."
"I haven't had to..."
"No one hides anything here, Khanat," Emir speaks over the top of me, bumping my shoulder in a very un-Emir-like way. "We all understand eachother's experiences. That is why we are here. And now- we tell our newest recruit the plan for the 23rd."
Just as suddenly as everyone turned from expressionless to jolly and smiling, they make the switch back to serious. Grins have turned themselves upside down within a second. The atmosphere seems suddenly cold. I wrap my arms around myself, wondering whether Emeh got my text message that football practise would be running late today. I told her I'd be back within a few hours, but I never actually asked Emir how long this meeting would take.
I hate the thought of worrying Emeh. She's done enough of that ever since me and Nesti came into her life.
"This doesn't seem like enough people for a proper protest," I say, to distract myself from the worry gnawing at my insides. "How are we supposed to grab attention?"
Emir just smiles at me. It's a light smile that barely changes his face. "Don't you worry about that," he says, "There will be people enough. But our job isn't to be partaking in these demonstrations. What we will be arranging behind the scenes... let's just say that it will give those English just a small taste of what we aliens have been experiencing for years."
The beginnings of doubt creep into my mind. "But you told me that we were protesting-"
"We are protesting. This is a remarkable protest, my friend." Emir gives me that smile again. "But tell me this- do you think any English person will ever understand the pain we go through? In escaping our war-ridden countries, expecting welcome or at least sympathy- and instead are met with constant abuse? Have people treated you marvelously since you arrived here, my boy? Be honest."
I think of Sam's taunts. His deliberate mistaking of my race. Him calling me dirty. Everyone else telling me to ignore him. That it means nothing.
I think of how my ribs still ache when I move.
"No, but-"
"Do you believe that change comes from understanding?"
I shift uncomfortably. "Yes, but-"
One of the men laughs. "Don't look like that, comrade. It's not like we're going to be deporting them or anything."
"Though some certainly deserve that experience," Bette's brother mutters under his breath, and the hatred in his voice makes me wonder what he has experienced at the hands of the people in this country.
"You have a simple job, Khanat," Emir interjects, bumping my shoulder to regain my attention, "You will be partnered with Bette. She will make sure that you don't make any mistakes, and that if you do, you can get away without leaving any traces. By this time on the 24th... our cause will be written across all of the papers, headlining every one.
"Here is your job, Khanat. Listen carefully. At 5:40, in the afternoon, you will meet with Bette outside the corner shop on the high-street, and you two will make your way to the corner. At precisely five to, you will pick up a brown paper parcel from the doorstep of the abandoned building there. Then you will make your way towards the protests, which will be taking place outside of the town hall. There, you two will meet Roen, Bette's brother, and deliver the parcel to him. That's all there is to it. Simple, yes?"
The back of my neck feels unusually cold. "Emir, what will be inside of the parcel?"
"Here, we operate on a need-to-know basis," he answers smoothly, and the others nod. "That isn't your concern. Now, don't write any of this down. We must have no incriminating evidence, just incase of a trip-up."
I think of the bitter look on Lilo's face as she told me that I was going to be hurting people by partaking in this protest... though it doesn't even seem like one anymore. Those two words... incriminating evidence. They don't sit right with me. A protest for equality doesn't have a connection to anything criminal that might leave evidence. It shouldn't. I realise, suddenly, that my breathing has been shallow for quite a while now. I take in a deep breath, but my lungs are still tight.
"Emir," I say in a quiet voice, "I need to know what is in-"
"He doesn't care," says Bette, in a crisp, cold voice.
I turn to stare at her, as does everyone else. Her brother pulls a face, but her brown eyes are fixed on me. I am reminded of Nesta's face, as she was telling me her reasons for never speaking on the phone to Padar on the day Lilo made me late. She is looking at me as if I know nothing. As if she is irritated with me- no, more than that. There is a cold, solid anger in her eyes.
All I can do is splutter, "What?"
"Bette, sugar, stand down," the round woman cautions, but she ignores her. Instead, she focuses her energy on me.
"You don't care at all, do you? If the world went on as it is now, and people were discriminated against, you wouldn't do anything about it- you'd be glad to sit back. Pity the English, you think to yourself. They don't deserve to hurt like they hurt others, you think to yourself. You just want to fit in, hidden, unnoticed so that you aren't picked on. That is all you care about- not change."
I blink, stunned. "That's not- that isn't-"
"Do you know why I'm here?" she steamrolls over me, ignoring me protests. "Do you? Emir found me in a backstreet alley, lying amongst the bins. Fitting right in with the trash, that was what those men told me. They grabbed me, used me, and when they had gotten what they wanted from the exotic thing, they dumped me there. I was too weak to fight. According to the drunk men who abused me, I was good enough to fuck, but not good enough for anything else. They left me in pieces, like a broken doll. If Emir hadn't found me, I would have probably bled to death back there."
"Bette," her brother says quietly, and she takes no notice.
"Do you know the words that they spat at me, as they hurt me? No, of course you don't. They called me alien whore. Unworthy rubbish. Spoiled goods. Exotic darling. To them, I was nothing but a drunk experiment with a foreigner. That was it. The ninety seconds that changed my outlook on life, and caused me to join Emir and the Justice Seekers. Hundreds of foreign girls like me are used and abused regularly, and the system turns a blind eye because we are worthless to them too. So I care about this protest, and I am going to make sure it doesn't go wrong. If you can't deal with the pressure, or whatever, then stand up and leave. The door is over there."
The silence following Bette's outburst rings in my ears.I'm not quite sure what to say. I look into this strange girl's beautiful face, and I think of my sister. Even imagining Nesta in a situation like Bette's makes my blood boil. Thinking of those names being spat into my sister's face is unbearable.
An eye for an eye makes both sides blind, son, Padar once told me. I remember it distinctly. I was seven or eight, and I was trying to justify why I'd hit a bigger boy from the village in the face. He'd stolen my red truck that Emeh and her husband had brought over from England, but Padar wouldn't hear any excuses. Violence to end violence is wrong.
But somehow, sitting in this darkened room with people who hurt in the same way as me, it's difficult to feel that way.
"The parcel will be ready for your collection at the aforementioned time," says Emir, and he looks at me. "Khanat?"
I'm doing this for us, Padar. I'm doing this so that when we are reunited, we will both be free.
I nod.
Emir says that we can't all leave the building at once. It would look suspicious. Instead, we each leave within fifteen to twenty minutes of each other. The Justice Seekers pat me on the back as they leave the room, blessing me in a mixture of Pashto and Dari, and the sensation of their warm, coarse hands against me reminds me of how affectionate people were in my village. It's comforting. Carrie may be a touchy-feely friend, but English people don't love with their hands.
I leave second to last, just before Bette. Instead of making my way to Emeh's, I wait on the corner for fifteen minutes for her to come out. As it is, her only acknowledgment of me as she brushes past me is a cool eyebrow-raise. I have to quicken my pace to keep up with her, shoving my hands down in the pockets of my trousers.
Eventually she turns to face me as we walk, rolling her eyes. "Yes?"
"I- uh..." How do I even talk to this girl? She is the phrase 'back off' personified. "I wanted to... apologise for seeming like I didn't care in there. I do, seriously. And... I'm sorry for what you went through. I have an older sister... I'd hate it if anything like that happened to her."
Bette just snorts. "That's your problem, Khanat. You only care because you know me and your sister. What about the dozens of others that you have never met? This is a movement for them. And I'm sorry, but-"
"But what?"
She stops walking. Looks at me, properly. "I honestly don't think you have the conviction in you. To be one of us. A Justice Seeker. I was watching you in there... you were fidgety, nervous-looking, and obviously super on edge the whole time-"
"And you weren't? We were in a locked room full of strangers."
"They aren't strangers to me!"
"Well, to me they are!"
"Khanat, these people are our people. They are the people we are fighting for. If you see them as strangers, then you're against the entire basis of our movement. We must all join together to defeat the one common cause of our problems. That's what this is all about!"
Our voices have raised to almost shouts, and we're somehow standing directly dancing each other. Bette's hands are curled into fists. I exhale, hardly knowing what to do. How come everything I say to this girl comes out wrong, or contradicting what she believes in?
"You don't know me," I say in a low voice, "If you knew me, you'd know I believe in change as much as you do."
"And how am I supposed to get to know you?" she sneers. "I've been in your company for an hour at most."
"Come and get something to eat with me."
And as the corner of her mouth lifts into the slightest of smiles, I push down all remnants of what Lilo and I were deep down inside me. If 'Lilo and I' ever really were anything at all.