CHAPTER 15
Cass had studied the map he’d been given.
It was obvious where he should go. As the first flight of the day landed, he left the airport amongst a crowd of the arrivals and headed north to the border with Thailand.
At around midday, he stopped, took out the package he was supposed to hand over, and checked the contents. It was, just as he suspected, passports: two Thai, two Malaysian, and three Indonesian.
He checked the back page of each. And there it was—his mark. A tiny dot made with the point of a fine black pen in the bottom left-hand corner right up against the stitching. A year ago, he’d fixed photos and stamps in each of those passports. He repacked the passports into the envelope, put a stone inside, threw the envelope into a ditch, and watched it slowly sink under the weight of the stone.
***
At night, he slept under a plastic sheet by the riverbank, and the next morning, he bought a ticket for the first of the day’s river crossings from Pengkalan on the Malaysian side to the small Moslem-dominated town of Ban Ta Ba on the Thai side.
It was, though, as he leaned on the ferry boat’s railing next to a row of motorcycles that he sensed something was wrong. An old man chewing on something sidled up to him and spat whatever it was into the swirling brown river water below. “Farang? Moslem?”
Cass nodded, muttered “Assalam alekum,” and moved away, but the old man with the leathery brown unshaven face and dirty prayer cap still watched him. He’d disappeared when the boat docked on the Thai side, but it still worried Cass as he approached the Thai immigration office and filled out an arrivals card.
“Mr. Cemil Demir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From Turkey.”
Qasim Siddiqui, known as Cass at school six thousand miles away and a hundred years ago, now looking like a poor student backpacker who’d not shaved for weeks, picked nervously at the greasy strands of his beard. “Yes, sir.”
“Holiday?”
Cass sniffed and fidgeted as the immigration officer, just a shape and a glint of spectacles behind the glass, looked at him, as if he didn’t believe a word. A waft of cool airconditioned air floated from beneath the glass partition, so Cass breathed it in to refresh himself. “Yes, sir.”
“You have money?”
Cass was so tired. After two years, he was used to looking like someone in need of a wash and shave, but pride in personal hygiene ran deep. His jeans smelled of Turkish and Syrian dust, his blue tee shirt had dark stains at the armpits and down his chest, and his trainers were the ones he’d worn in Syria when he thought they might be the last shoes he’d ever wear.
“I asked if you have money.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Yes, Cass had some money. He had thirty US dollars in the back pocket of his jeans and a few Malaysian ringgits stuffed between the pages of his map of Thailand and Malaysia. Nineteen years old and everything he owned was on his person. He heard a rubber stamp, and his false Turkish passport was returned through the window. He picked it up and looked at the crescent moon and star on the cover.
He had seen so many different passports in the last two years except his own British one. He knew he had made the one now lying in his hand because it bore his tiny signature, the dot on the final page, and there was a good chance he’d be arrested for carrying it before they got around to any terrorism charges. But, so far, so good. He checked the twenty-eight-day tourist visa inside and started walking again.
Perhaps it was his two years of virtual imprisonment, but despite the tiredness and stress, he’d found the few hours he’d spent in that small north east corner of Malaysia fascinating. Sights and smells were what had made him want to go to Turkey. Perhaps, he thought, he might one day return to watch people going about their innocent daily lives, talking, smiling, working, and shopping without having to hide and creep around like a fugitive. He’d passed a restaurant selling fish head soup, another one selling nasi goreng, and it had been almost too tormenting. But Cass needed his money, so he’d made do with a bag of crispy deep-fried fish and a bottle of water.
Now he was in Tak Bai, on the Thai side of the border.
Tak Bai was only a short walk north. It had been made famous by a violent demonstration in 2004 that had seen protestors shot and then stuffed one on top of another in a truck and driven to an army camp five hours away. On arrival, seventy-eight had died of suffocation and organ collapse. Religious intolerance and violence had dominated Cass’s life for two years, but perhaps, fortunately, he knew none of this piece of local history. All he knew was that the far south of Thailand had a history of troubles, of Moslem and Buddhist clashes, and that security was high. If he was to walk, then he’d need to keep an eye open for roadblocks and work around them.
After Tak Bai, his map showed Narathiwat—a day’s walk away. Could he make it in this temperature and humidity? He had no choice. He bought water at the roadside, took side roads that ran parallel to the main highway, and tried keeping the sea in sight on his right. By late afternoon and still a long way from Narathiwat, he could walk no further. He slipped into an area of tall trees, lay down with his head on his backpack, covered his face with his spare tee shirt, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
But his mind wouldn’t let him because there were the voices again—his mother’s, his grandmother’s, and voices from Turkey. And always there was the image and voice of Mr. Khan—a dark middle-aged man with a thick beard, a white taqiyya prayer cap, and a white salwar kameez beneath his silver-flecked black waistcoat.
When he woke up, it was still dark but, covered with insect bites, he walked on.