Kiss the Dust Read online

  Kak Soran spread out his hands and shook his head to show that he didn’t understand.

  ‘Kurdish,’ he said.

  The officer tutted irritably, and nodded to them to pick up their bundles and follow him. The young Iranian soldiers stood watching while Kak Soran and Ashti picked up the largest bags and Teriska Khan and Tara struggled with all the smaller ones.

  Kak Soran had put Hero down. She was still half asleep. She clutched at Teriska Khan’s skirt.

  ‘Daya carry me,’ she said. Teriska Khan put her bags down and picked her up. Tara stood there hesitating. She couldn’t carry any more, but she didn’t want to leave the bags lying on the ground.

  The officer watched impatiently, and then he spoke to one of the soldiers who picked up the remaining bags, and they all set off down the hill.

  The largest building in the little group of houses was obviously some kind of army post. The officer gestured to them to put their baggage down on the rough dusty ground outside the door. A man with a beard was squatting there with his back resting against the wall. He had a string of beads in one hand and he was running them through his fingers. Apart from his hands he didn’t seem to move at all. He just sat watching everything that went on with his one good eye. Where the other eye had been there was nothing but a dent in his face with the lids closed over it.

  The officer went inside the building and the family followed him. He sat down at the desk that faced the door, and said something to the clerk who’d followed him in. The clerk looked up. His eyes slipped past Teriska Khan and settled on Tara. She felt suddenly hot and uncomfortable, and turned her back to look out through the open door across the rooftops of the village. Smoke was curling up from cooking fires, and the thought of people making breakfast made her feel hungrier and thirstier than ever.

  Apart from the officer’s desk and chair the room was practically empty except for a couple of battered benches along the two side walls, and a large framed photograph of the Ayatollah above the officer’s desk.

  Teriska Khan couldn’t stand any longer. She sank down on one of the benches with a sigh of exhaustion, and leant her head against the peeling blue paint. Under all the dust on her face Tara could see that she was very pale.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Hero. ‘I want a drink.’

  She climbed on to Teriska Khan’s knee and began to jiggle up and down. For once, Teriska Khan didn’t take much notice of her. Kak Soran managed to catch the officer’s eye and he pointed to Hero and mimed lifting a cup to his mouth. The officer nodded and said something to the clerk, who went outside with a last sidelong look at Tara.

  An hour later, they were still sitting there, watching and waiting. All kinds of men, some in soldier’s uniform and some in ordinary clothes had been coming and going. One after the other they sat down on the old wooden chair in front of the officer’s desk and chatted to him. At first Tara tried to listen to their rapid Persian, and make some sense of it, but she soon gave up. It was no good. She couldn’t understand a word.

  The clerk came back in the end with a jug of water and some hunks of dry stale bread. They were all so thirsty that the water tasted wonderful, and as soon as they’d drunk they tried to eat the bread, but after a couple of bites Teriska Khan gave up and shut her eyes again. Tara nudged her.

  ‘Daya,’ she said, ‘didn’t you pack some food? Why don’t we open it now?’

  Teriska Khan nodded but didn’t make a move towards the bags. Tara looked nervously at the officer and untied one of the bundles. She pulled out some of Teriska Khan’s own, much better bread, a bit of fresh goat’s cheese and a few sweet cakes, and handed them surreptitiously to Hero and Kak Soran.

  ‘Here, Daya,’ she said, putting a piece of bread in Teriska Khan’s hand. Teriska ate a few mouthfuls, then started coughing.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ whispered Tara. ‘What’ll they do with us?’

  No one answered.

  ‘If they don’t deal with us soon,’ said Ashti savagely, ‘I’ll—’

  ‘Be quiet, Ashti,’ said Kak Soran. ‘Don’t forget, we’re refugees. We’re in their hands. They can do whatever they like with us, so there’s no point in aggravating them. Just keep cool. They won’t keep us here forever.’

  At long last, they heard a car pull up outside. Tara looked out of the open door. A middle-aged captain was climbing out of a jeep, driven by a young soldier. He marched into the army post. The man behind the desk jumped smartly to his feet and saluted, and the one-eyed man with the beads, who was still squatting beside the wall and didn’t seem to have moved a muscle, stood up, and slouched inside.

  The captain said something to him, and the one-eyed man turned to Kak Soran and said in Arabic, ‘Open your bags.’

  Tara and Ashti looked at each other. Who was this person? Did he speak Kurdish as well as Arabic? Had he been listening all this while, hoping to pick up something from their conversation?

  ‘The captain says to open your bags,’ the one-eyed man said again.

  Kak Soran bent down and began to untie the straps round one of the bags. The captain saw Tara and Teriska Khan standing against the wall. He frowned and said something under his breath.

  ‘He says to cover your heads,’ said the one-eyed man indifferently. Tara felt herself blushing scarlet! He must have thought she was a tramp or something. Of course, they were like that in Iran, really strict about women’s clothes. If you weren’t covered with a veil from head to foot they assumed you were a prostitute, and you could even get put in prison for it. She felt dreadfully self-conscious. It wasn’t only that her scarf had slipped off and got lost somewhere on the journey, she’d never looked such a mess in her life. For a start she was wearing men’s clothes, and then on top of that she’d been soaked to the skin and covered with dust. As for her hair –!

  Quickly she dived into the bag Kak Soran had opened, pulled another scarf out, put it over her head and tied it with a knot at the back.

  ‘Not like that,’ said the one-eyed man. ‘Under your chin. You mustn’t show any hair at all. You should have a proper chador. The captain wants to know why you aren’t wearing one.’

  ‘Chador?’ said Tara.

  ‘A veil, to cover yourself up with.’

  ‘Oh! I – we –’

  The one-eyed man didn’t wait for her to answer. He spoke to the captain in Persian, who rapped out an order to the clerk. The clerk smiled in a way that Tara didn’t like at all, and went out again.

  The captain settled himself in the chair behind the desk. He pointed to the one in front of it and nodded to Kak Soran. The one-eyed man, who was obviously going to be the interpreter, pulled up another chair and sat down too.

  The younger officer who’d first met them was searching through their bags, looking in every pocket of every garment, and feeling in every fold of every blanket. Teriska Khan hardly seemed to notice what was going on, but Tara was following every move and trying not to show how tense she really was. The officer stopped at last and stood up. Tara tried not to let a triumphant smile break out all over her face.

  Hero was asleep again. She was curled up on the bare floor, as deeply relaxed as if she were in her own bed at home.

  Lucky her, thought Tara.

  The three-way conversation between Kak Soran, the captain and the one-eyed man was making her feel uncomfortable. For one thing, how could anyone know if the translator was doing his job properly? He might be saying anything, making up all kinds of lies about them.

  For another thing, the questions were so stupid. The captain kept asking the same things over and over again, going round and round in circles.

  ‘Who are you? What’s your name? Where do you come from? Why have you left Iraq? Why are you here? What’s your profession? Is this your wife? Are these your children? Where do you live? Who are you? What’s your name?’

  Tara had never seen her father treated like this before. He’d always been the person in charge, and people had always come to him to ask his advic
e, and listen respectfully to his opinions. Now he was sitting forward on the edge of his chair, as if he was begging a favour or something, and he had a humble tone in his voice that made her feel ashamed.

  The clerk came back after a long time with two pieces of black cloth over his arm. He gave one to Tara and one to Teriska Khan who took hers without a word, and draped it over her head and round her shoulders. Tara copied her, trying to seem just as unconcerned and dignified. The shiny material was a cheap polyester, and it wasn’t easy to stop it slipping off the back of her head. She had to keep yanking it back into place.

  She felt very, very tired. She leaned her head against the stained, peeling wall, and felt her eyelids drop, but every time she slipped into a doze, her head lolled uncomfortably forwards or sideways and she woke up with a jerk to find the wretched chador had slipped off again and the clerk was staring at her.

  It was midday when at last the endless questions seemed to be over. The clerk had brought in a tray of tiny tea glasses and even Hero, who’d woken up and was very cross, seemed to feel a bit better after she’d drunk a couple of warm sweet glasses.

  In the end the captain seemed to be as bored with the interrogation as the interpreter obviously was. He stood up, stretched, and came round to the front of the desk to look down at the mess the younger officer had made of the baggage. Teriska Khan’s careful packing was tossed all over the dusty concrete floor in a jumble of clothes, cooking utensils, jars, packets of food and washing things which were all mixed up together.

  ‘He says to pack it all up,’ said the interpreter, yawning, ‘and be quick because the car’s waiting.’

  The driver of the jeep that had brought the captain didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to go. He’d moved out of the hot morning sun into the shade of a tree, and was sitting over a backgammon board with some other soldiers. But the captain was suddenly in a tremendous hurry. He gave them no time to fold the clothes or wrap up the breakables, but stood watching impatiently while Tara, Ashti and Kak Soran hastily shoved everything back into the bags.

  Tara kneeled down to do the packing, but she found her chador kept getting in the way. Every time she let go of it and leaned forward to use both hands it slid off her head, and when the bags were finally done up again, and she stood up, she accidentally trod on a corner of it and it fell off on to the floor in a heap.

  ‘Put it on, quick,’ said Ashti, his tired face red with anger. ‘If that disgusting little clerk looks at you again I’m going to bash his head in.’

  It was a squash in the jeep. The captain sat in front with the driver and the rest of them squeezed into the back with the bags.

  ‘Where are we going? I want to go home! I want to go home!’ cried Hero, saying out loud what they were all thinking. The road was rough and full of potholes and they were shaken around on the old jeep’s worn springs as if they were riding a bucking horse.

  The journey lasted half an hour but nobody said much. Tara was facing the back window but she could hardly see anything because of the clouds of dust that swirled up behind the jeep. It seeped in through every crack round the windows, and made her throat feel rough and dry.

  She was beginning to feel carsick, and as though every bone in her body was bruised, when at last they pulled up at the edge of another village. This one was bigger than the last, with more soldiers, and a larger army compound. There were military vehicles parked in an orderly row behind whitewashed lines, and the Iranian flag fluttered from a tall flagpole above the main building.

  The captain got out, and strode off round the corner and out of sight. The driver switched off the engine.

  ‘What do we do now?’ burst out Ashti. ‘Wait? Sit here forever? Hope someone takes pity on us eventually?’

  ‘I think we should get out of this jeep anyway,’ said Kak Soran, ignoring Ashti’s outburst. ‘I want to stretch my legs.’

  A few minutes later a soldier appeared. Tara quickly pulled her chador well up over her hair and round her face. She didn’t want anyone else to stare at her like that awful clerk had done. The soldier jerked his head to show that they were to follow him. Once more they picked up all their bags and bundles and followed him to a low building at the far end of the compound with two rooms, both opening on to a verandah, and with no interlinking door.

  The soldier opened one of the doors and Kak Soran went in. Tara tried to follow him but the soldier frowned and put out an arm to stop her. He took Ashti by the shoulder and pushed him in after his father, then he opened the door to the second room and nodded to Teriska Khan and Tara.

  ‘Men and women are to be separate,’ sighed Kak Soran. ‘Well, at least we’re not far away from each other.’

  Tara was desperate to lie down and go to sleep. She ducked her head under the low doorway and went into the women’s room. It was a small room and it seemed full of people, although there were only three women and a child of six or seven in it. They were sitting against one of the bare walls, looking warily at the newcomers.

  ‘Go in,’ said Teriska Khan behind Tara. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  The women heard and they all began nodding and smiling.

  ‘Oh, are you Kurdish too?’ the oldest one said eagerly. ‘Have you just come over the mountains from Iraq? We arrived two days ago. What a terrible journey! Come in and sit down. You look exhausted.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ said Teriska Khan faintly.

  ‘We’re starving too,’ said Tara.

  ‘They’ll bring us something to eat later on. It didn’t come yesterday till after four o’clock,’ the same woman said, ‘but we’ve got a few olives and some bread and fruit here. You’re very welcome to it. Go on, Fatimah, get it out.’

  The food wasn’t much but it was better than nothing, and it was so lovely to be with friendly people from home who were Kurds and refugees too that Tara started to feel a bit more cheerful.

  ‘Where do you come from?’ said Fatimah eagerly to Tara.

  ‘Sulaimaniya,’ said Tara, stifling a gigantic yawn.

  Fatimah laughed.

  ‘Why don’t you lie down and go to sleep?’ she said. ‘We’ll have lots of time to talk later.’

  ‘Thanks,’ mumbled Tara. She lay down right where she was, a piece of half-eaten bread in her hand, and fell fast asleep at once.

  16

  Tara slept all the rest of the afternoon, all evening and all night, though she woke up enough to have a good supper that the other family kindly cooked for them with the rations they’d been given. When she finally woke up properly next morning, she was so stiff she groaned. The rough concrete floor was covered only by a dirty mat, and it hadn’t made a comfortable bed, but she’d been too exhausted to notice.

  She was trying to drag a comb through her tangled hair when she heard loud voices from the men’s quarter next door. The captain was shouting furiously, and he hardly stopped for long enough to let the interpreter translate. Kak Soran only gave a few answers, and when he did speak he sounded slow and stupid, quite unlike his usual self.

  Teriska Khan was still asleep. Tara jumped up and went to the door.

  ‘Don’t forget your chador!’ one of the other girls said, scrambling after her with the piece of black cloth.

  Tara opened the door and peeped out, trying to hear without being seen, but Kak Soran and the interpreter were speaking quietly and their voices sounded confused. All she could catch was Ashti’s name, but she didn’t hear Ashti’s voice.

  After a while the captain seemed to burn himself out. Kak Soran’s quiet answers and his convincing show of stupid bewilderment seemed to calm him down. He shrugged his shoulders and marched off, swinging his arms in a soldierly way. Tara darted out to catch her father before he went back into the men’s quarter.

  ‘What’s happened? What was all that about Ashti?’

  ‘He ran off in the night. He’s gone back to the mountains.’

  ‘Oh no! How awful! What will Daya say?’

  ‘What’s all this about?�
�� Tara turned. Teriska Khan had woken up and was standing behind her. She had one hand pressed to the side of her head as if she had a headache.

  ‘Ashti ran away in the night,’ said Tara.

  ‘Oh, my God! Oh no!’ Teriska Khan pushed Tara aside. ‘Why did you let him go?’

  ‘Listen.’ Kak Soran was feeling bad himself. He wasn’t in the mood to argue with his wife. ‘Do you know what they told me in there?’ he said, nodding towards the open door behind him, through which Tara could see a group of other Kurdish men, all sitting in silence round the walls. ‘They told me some Iraqi Kurdish boys have been sent to join the Iranian army! If Ashti was here he’d have to fight for Iran. Think of that – he might have to kill some of our own people! And if he refused do you know what they’d do?’

  Teriska Khan shuddered.

  ‘Where’s he gone? What’s he going to do?’

  ‘He’s gone back to Rostam. It was the only thing he could do. He had all night to travel in, and he slept all yesterday afternoon so he was pretty well rested. He’ll have arrived back at the village we first came to hours ago. There were more guides coming through again last night with another lot of refugees. I heard ours talking about it. He’ll meet them above the village, hide and sleep with them today and go back over tonight.’

  Teriska Khan didn’t say anything, and Tara knew she was crying. Kak Soran said roughly,

  ‘Don’t make a big thing of it. It’ll work out all right. You saw what Ashti was like yesterday. He can’t cope with this kind of thing, being ordered around by other people. It would be even more dangerous for him here. He’d do something silly, lose his temper, or get into a fight, or something. And if they did send him off to join the Iranian army what hope would there be for him? They’d watch an Iraqi Kurd like a hawk. One false move and they’d do for him. Anyway, they’d probably send him straight to the front, where the casualties are highest. Don’t you see? This was the only way out for him. I should never have let him come with us in the first place.’