CHAPTER 9
“I handed that parcel to a man called Manjeet, Kev, because he said he was Khan’s brother.”
For two years, Cass had suffered a nightmare that invariably started with Kevin. He’d see Kevin’s face looking up at him, waving to him as the bus moved off. He’d see Kevin eating his lunch, a packet of Twiglets, behind the freezer in Bashir’s shop. He’d see him sitting, swinging his legs on the wall outside Osman’s Launderette on Brick Street, or he’d be creeping out the Silver Bullet gaming shop opposite Faisal World Travel.
“Gaming’s a waste of money, Kevs,” he’d say.
And Kevin would reply, “I wasn’t playing, Cass.”
“So what were you doing in there then?”
“Waiting. I got kicked out. Khan’s having a meeting with some of his mates.”
And then Cass would see Khan’s face, and the nightmare would begin because Kevin, the only friend Cass had, just wouldn’t believe his explanations.
“I’d have run away, Cass!” Kevin would say with all the innocence of someone who’d done nothing and gone nowhere since school.
“I couldn’t run, Kev. Don’t you understand? I was a prisoner. There was always someone there. I was forced to work.”
“You couldn’t force me to work. I’d have refused.”
“Kev, listen to me. Please listen. Please believe me.”
“What work, Cass?”
“I made birth certificates and passports for Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans because they said they were refugees who had lost everything in the wars. I made copies of other things in English and Arabic.”
“That’s not so bad, Cass.”
“But they were fakes, Kev. They were forgeries.”
“I’d have gone to the police.”
Kevin’s naivety would incense Cass. In his sleep, he’d become angry, but it was an anger balanced by the feeling that Kevin was still the only friend he had. Kevin needed to be convinced.
“Don’t you understand, Kev? I was locked up inside a house. I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t phone. I couldn’t send messages to anyone, not even you or my mother. Have you seen her recently, Kev?”
“Not for a long time, Cass.”
Sometimes he’d then wake up drenched in sweat. At other times, the nightmare would continue. “If I ask Manjeet about her, he says she’s proud of me for helping the cause.”
And Kevin would ask, “What cause is that, Cass?” And that’s when Cass would force himself awake in case his captors heard him shouting his frustration. He’d sit up, cover his ears, and talk to himself.
“Do you not understand yet, Kev? Are you still as thick as when we were at school? This is ISIL, man. DAESH. Islamic State. Understand? Have you heard about them? I was part of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s crowd of criminals and terrorists. They’re out to change the world, to do the work of Allah, to spread Islam, and to destroy the evil West. I was there to support their terrorism, Kev. Understand now, you dimwit?”
Sometimes, if he fell asleep once more, Kevin would speak to him in a calmer and more rational way, “I warned you about those Saturday-morning meetings you used to go to at the mosque, Cass. You were being brainwashed.”
Sometimes he’d wake up sobbing in frustration at Kevin, but at other times, he’d find himself sobbing in gratitude because the familiar banter was just as it had always been when they were eleven or twelve.
“Don’t be such a girl, Cass. You’re behaving like a six-year-old kid. Is this for real, man? No kidding? Tell me some more but take your time.”
“Take my time, Kev? Are you crazy? I have wasted two years already. Can we not live together in peace and mutual respect? Whatever your god, surely you should know that we share enough problems without causing more. I used to argue with Manjeet and the others, but arguing was pointless. Many times, I was beaten with a stick for refusing to pray.”
“So how did you cope?”
“I pretended, Kev. I did as I was told because I had no choice. I pretended to pray and to read the Koran and all the other things they forced me to do. I pretended I’d become a devout Moslem, Kev. For two whole years, I pretended.”
“You never really believed any of it, Cass, I remember, even when you were here.”
“That’s it, Kev. No one ever discussed it except you and me when we hid behind the freezer at Bashir’s so I didn’t have to go to the mosque. Remember? To me it was indoctrination. It was as if there was no other way. I’ve never believed any of it, but I was brilliant at pretending.”
“Were you bored, Cass?”
“Bored out of my mind, Kev, but I just kept thinking about things, you know—life and death and what’s wrong with the world and how to change things. I felt like I wanted to walk around the world to explain my ideas and to open people’s eyes. I would sit on my bed making long but silent speeches to imaginary crowds.”
“Like a monk, Cass?”
“That’s it, Kev. Like a monk.”
“Then what happened?”
“Things got worse. I was moved east to near the Syrian border. It was a poor village in an area called Şirnak. I was still a prisoner and still fixing photos in passports and other jobs, but one day, they told me I must travel to Syria to meet someone in a place called Al Hasakah to hand over a bag of passports.”
Even when lying awake, Cass would tremble with the memory of those few weeks in Northern Syria.
“I hate guns, Kev. I hate fighting. I hate the noise of rockets and of all the destruction and pointless devastation of people’s homes and lives. I hate seeing the desperate faces of hungry children and frightened old people who have lost everything. I hate the sight of blood and the crying of the injured. I hate the crazy nonsense of war.”
“Go easy, Cass.”
And Cass would then start on a long description where only he was talking. Kevin was long gone. He would be talking to anyone—anyone who would listen.
“It was the summer—hot and dry and dusty. ISIL suicide bombers had targeted a Syrian army compound, a military checkpoint near a children’s hospital, and a Kurdish YPG police station. Did you hear about it? Was it on the news? I think they now call it the Battle of Al-Hasakah. ISIL, Kurds, the Syrian Army, and even the USA were involved. This was big fighting, and I was there, Allah ysadni. I was there. I was right in the middle of it.
“Two men picked me up in a truck from the old house in Şirnak. They arrived with the bag of passports and drove me to the Syrian border. I was passed from one man to the next—rough types, men with guns. I was still carrying the passports. We travelled in a truck, and I arrived in Al-Hasakah just as twenty Syrian soldiers were killed by ISIL. ISIL also attacked Syrian areas in the Abdel Aziz Mountains.
“This was serious fighting. I saw blood, body parts, dead men. I saw too much, but I was trapped with these crazy ISIL men and boys who thought I was one of them.
“You see, I think that was the plan all along. That I’d work for them, making the passports and forging documents, and then I’d join ISIL fighters and die. That way, they could tell my mother to be proud, that I’d died a martyr. But I wasn’t proud. I felt ashamed. I felt disgraced. I was against everything that was happening, but what could I do except continue to pretend?
“I was dressed like those fighters. I looked like them. I ran with them holding a gun I didn’t know how to use. I hid with them in ruined buildings. I pretended to be one of them with my ears hurting from the sound of gunfire as men and boys lay dying all around me.
“But not once did they realise that I wasn’t one of them by heart, and that I couldn’t even fire my gun. I just ran. I ran and shouted Allahu Akbar, and if they asked, I told them I was English and had arrived from Turkey to join them. They were chewing stuff and smoking. I tried. I had to, but mostly, I pretended, and all the time I was terrified. Yaa ilaahee.
“I was with these boys at an electrical substation when the Syrians came in trucks, firing at where we were hiding. Gunshots were all around. Rubble and electrical cables were everywhere. Yaa ilaahee. Oh my god. Dust and concrete were in my eyes, and my ears were filled with noise.
“I thought I was going to die. Three ISIL boys were shot alongside me. Right there. How I was not hit, I do not know. One was called Kamal. He was even younger than me. He was hit in the stomach. He was screaming, but not for Allah. He was screaming for his mother. His stomach, intestines, and everything were hanging out of a hole, and he was holding onto it with his hands covered in blood and was screaming so loud. Can you imagine that? Blood was everywhere, so I ran. I knew they had seen me and were shooting at me, but I just ran. I threw away the gun and hid behind trees and then ran again to an old house where I found two other boys—Talal from Iraq and Najib from Lebanon. We waited until dark and found an old truck. We managed to start it and made our way back towards Turkey. But I was still alive.”
The nightmare might stop there, but Cass’s memory wouldn’t. Covered in sweat, sobbing quietly like a baby but still half asleep, someone, he knew not who, would ask him what had happened to the bag of passports.
It was on the second day after he arrived in Al-Hasakah that he was driven into the mountains with instructions to hand the bag to a man who would be waiting for him.
And there he was—a tall man, cleaner and more smartly dressed than the others—leaning on the open door of a white Toyota truck and smoking a cigarette. He threw the cigarette away, walked towards him with his hand outstretched, and took the bag.
It was only afterwards, though, that Cass pieced together what happened in those few seconds. To Cass, he’d looked Pakistani but not a man fresh from the field of battle.
“Qasim Siddiqui,” he said while grasping Cass’s hand. “Welcome to the front line.”
And Cass remembered saying “Yes, sir” as the man patted his back, smiled, and nodded. In fact, everything about that short meeting was now fixed on Cass’s memory. He could remember the long nose and the intense black eyes from the shaved brown face and distinctly remembered his other words and how he’d spoken them. “Yes, I see. It is Qasim. A man. A grown man. A handsome man.” He’d then returned to the truck but looked back at Cass once more before the truck left in a cloud of grey dust.
Cass would never forget that man.