Kiss the Dust Read online

  Once all the washing and scrubbing was done there seemed to be nothing to do except talk, and time passed very slowly. During the day Kak Soran wasn’t around much. Sometimes he was summoned to the camp headquarters for further questioning, or was made to watch propaganda videos on the victory Iran would soon have over Iraq. Usually he spent whatever time he had left over in deep conversation with the other men in the camp, who came to him for advice, or to ask his opinion of the latest rumours that seemed to arrive from nowhere. As soon as he showed his face at the cabin door, Teriska Khan would question him. Was there any news? Had he been able to contact anyone, get a letter off to Teheran? When would they be able to get out of here and start leading a civilized life again?

  It was a while before the truth dawned on them all. There was no chance of getting out. They wouldn’t be allowed to write letters, or make telephone calls, or leave the camp at all, under any pretext. Anyway, Kak Soran’s friends in Teheran were Kurds too. They were probably trying to keep themselves out of trouble. It would be dangerous for them to be in touch with enemy aliens, as all Iraqi Kurds in Iran now were.

  Once she stopped hoping to get out of the camp, Tara began to lose track of time. She’d been keyed up with euphoria and relief when Daya had got better, but that had all gone now. She started feeling low and depressed. There were other girls of her age at the camp, but she couldn’t be bothered to get really friendly with them. It was easier just to be alone or spend her time with Daya. Teriska Khan wasn’t ill any more now, but she hadn’t ever quite got back to being her old self again. Tara still did more of her share of household chores, but when the odd jobs were all done, she’d spend hours doing nothing, just sitting and staring into space.

  ‘If only I’d brought some vitamin pills,’ said Teriska Khan looking at her worriedly. ‘This awful diet’s no good for growing children.’

  Late summer changed into autumn. The snow on the summits began to creep slowly down the mountainside. One morning the refugees woke to find a light dusting of it on the ground all round them. Teriska Khan groaned when she saw it.

  ‘Look at them! Look at them!’ she said, holding out a protesting Hero’s feet towards her husband. ‘Do you see these shoes? Two sizes too small! She can’t possibly wear them any longer, even though I’ve cut out the toes and heels. And how is she to go outside without them in this weather, I’d like to know?’

  Hero’s shoes really upset Kak Soran. He couldn’t bear the thought of her going out with bare feet in the snow. The next day he went to the camp HQ and begged them to get hold of a pair of shoes for her. The man in the office shrugged, and said it was impossible. They weren’t allowed to supply anything that wasn’t listed in the document he waved in Kak Soran’s face. Kak Soran put his hand into his sash as if he was going to get out some money, and offered to pay whatever they asked. The man shrugged again. Kak Soran began to raise his voice and lose his temper, but luckily, a friendly fellow refugee was in the office at the time, waiting to see the authorities himself. He took Kak Soran by the arm and almost dragged him out of the camp office.

  ‘You must keep calm,’ the man said to him earnestly outside. ‘They could flog you, or cut your rations, or lock you up in the prison house if you offend them. Look, there’s a family near my cabin with a child a year or two older than your little girl. Perhaps they’ve got some shoes he’s grown out of.’

  Kak Soran followed him gratefully. The man’s neighbours didn’t have any shoes to spare, but he wouldn’t give up. He went up and down the lines of cabins, looking out for children a bit larger than Hero who might have grown out of their shoes. He came home at last, with a pair of broken sandals in his hand.

  ‘It’s the best I could do,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sew the strap on again. Tell Hero to look after them. They cost me a small fortune.’

  Tara was growing too, in spite of the bad diet. Though all she had to eat was small amounts of rice and bread, with an occasional helping of meat and vegetables, her trousers had had to be let down, and the sleeves of her sweaters were too short at the wrists. She hadn’t seen a mirror for months. She had no idea what she looked like any more.

  Perhaps we’ll be here forever, she thought, looking at her bare wrists in horror. Perhaps I’ll grow old here, and never get out, and never have any other life at all.

  19

  Autumn, 1984

  ‘It’s mine!’

  ‘No, it’s mine!’

  ‘My granny gave it to me!’

  ‘She didn’t. My auntie gave it to me!’

  Hero stamped her foot.

  ‘I hate you! You’re horrible, and nasty, and – and you smell!’

  Yasmin burst into tears.

  ‘You’re not my friend any more, and you can’t play with my dolly, and . . .’

  Teriska Khan, looking pale and exhausted, was talking to Yasmin’s mother. They were sitting close to the paraffin stove, leaning against the cabin wall, deep in conversation. They obviously didn’t want to be disturbed.

  ‘Tara,’ said Teriska Khan, ‘can’t you do something with them? Play a game, or give them some sugar, or something.’

  At the magic word, the crying stopped. The two little girls dropped the scrap of shawl they’d been fighting over and rushed up to Tara, pulling at her clothes to make her stand up.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Tara irritably, getting to her feet.

  She was fed up with giving sugar to Hero. The family’s weekly ration was tiny and Teriska Khan hoarded it carefully in an old tin which Kak Soran had salvaged from the back of the storehouse. Tara hardly ever got any of it. Most of it was saved for the tea that Teriska Khan liked to offer fellow refugees who dropped in at the cabin. One way or another, Hero usually got all the rest.

  Tara lifted the tin down from its high shelf and scooped a few white grains into each grubby hand. Hero licked hers up quickly.

  ‘More,’ she said, holding her hand out again.

  ‘More,’ said Yasmin, copying her.

  ‘Only if you promise not to fight,’ said Tara. Hero and Yasmin nodded. They looked so serious and greedy that Tara couldn’t help laughing. She gave them each another little pinch.

  ‘That’s all,’ she said, putting the tin back on its shelf. ‘Now why don’t you play with rabbit?’

  Hero and Yasmin looked at each other, wondering whether or not to go on quarrelling. Then a dazzling smile broke over Hero’s face, and she flung her arm round Yasmin’s neck.

  ‘My rabbit got blowed up in a bomb,’ she said, ‘and his house fell down, and he ran away on a horse in the middle of the night, and now we’ve got to make him a nice bed and give him something to eat.’

  Tara sighed with relief. They’d be happily occupied for a while, until the next quarrel flared up anyway, and she could go back to – go back to what? What had she been doing before Daya had called her? Nothing. She could go back to doing nothing. She sat down again, and rested her back against the rough wooden wall of the cabin.

  ‘Did you hear all that noise last night?’ said Yasmin’s mother. ‘I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Trucks and buses coming and going, and soldiers shouting, and some woman crying and crying . . .’

  ‘We don’t hear much down this end,’ said Teriska Khan. ‘You’re near the main buildings, aren’t you? It’s quieter here.’

  ‘There was a big crowd of new arrivals. Twenty at least, I should think. I don’t know where they’ll put them all.’

  ‘Did you hear where they come from? Was there anyone we know? Perhaps they’ll have some news.’

  ‘I’m not sure. There were a couple of families from Sulaimaniya, but most of them came from the villages. I didn’t hear them mention any village names though.’

  Teriska Khan shivered.

  ‘Poor things, coming over at this time of year. It was bad enough in the summer, but the mountain passes must be all snowed up by now.’

  ‘Yes. Apperently it’s terrible. I heard such a sad story from one of them. There was an old man
with a bad leg, and . . .’

  Tara stood up and reached for her chador. She couldn’t face any more sad stories today. She’d heard enough of them to last a lifetime.

  ‘I’ve got to go to the toilet,’ she said, and opened the door. The blast of cold wind made her shiver. She hurried down the line of cabins towards the latrine, hoping there wouldn’t be a queue of people waiting. She’d freeze if she had to stand around in this wind for long.

  Luckily there was no one waiting. She screwed her nose up against the awful smell, did what she had to do, and rushed out of the latrine as quickly as she could. Then, near the standpipe, where a group of women were talking, she heard a familiar name.

  ‘Yes, it’s like I told you. My son’s been with Kak Rostam. He came through last night, with about five or six other pesh murgas. One of them was badly hurt. I don’t know about the others. You should see my son’s face! Scars all over it, and as for his arms . . .’

  Tara pushed through the group of black-veiled women.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Did you say that some of Kak Rostam’s men are here? You don’t know if – there isn’t one called Ashti Hawrami, is there? He’s my brother.’

  The woman pursed her lips, trying to remember.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Hawrami . . . he isn’t related to Kak Rostam, is he?’

  ‘Yes. His nephew.’

  Her forehead cleared.

  ‘Oh, I remember now. My son’s been talking about him. Ashti – yes, that was the name. Injured his shoulder, didn’t he? Apparently that hasn’t stopped him. He led my son on a raid last week. A real daredevil, Bakir says, though he’s only a boy and looks the studious type.’

  Tara felt suddenly lighter, as if she’d had a weight pressing down on her head and it had rolled off. She almost felt she could fly.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ she said. ‘Where’s your cabin? I must go and tell Baba and Daya. They’ll want to come and talk to your son. Oh, I can’t believe it! You don’t know how much . . .’

  She almost burst into tears. The woman smiled kindly and patted her on the shoulder.

  ‘Of course I know,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t heard from my son for months. My cabin’s in that row there, third from the end. Tell your Daya she can come and see me any time she likes and I’ll tell Bakir that Kak Ashti’s father’ll be paying him a visit. He’ll be pleased. He thinks a lot of your brother.’

  Looking back later, Tara felt that everything changed after the news of Ashti came. Bakir and his friends seemed to have brought good luck with them. Things had been getting worse for months, ever since Rostam had arrived in Sulaimaniya that evening, that seemed so long ago. From now on everything started, very slowly, to get better.

  The first sign came the next day when Kak Soran came back to the cabin with the weekly ration of rice and flour. He put it down on the floor beside the paraffin stove, where Teriska Khan was stirring a pot of lentils. Both of them had been much more cheerful since they’d talked to Bakir and had heard first hand that Ashti was alive and well, and that his shoulder seemed to have mended nicely.

  ‘Things are beginning to happen,’ said Kak Soran in a voice that sounded livelier than it had done for a long time. ‘They’re moving people on. Three families left last night, and they all arrived here at the same time as us, or a little earlier. I’ve got a feeling we won’t be here much longer.’

  Tara didn’t dare even to think about it. The idea of leaving was too unsettling. If she started to hope and then was disappointed, she’d get so depressed she couldn’t imagine what she’d do. At the same time, although she wanted more than anything else to leave this horrible place, she was frightened. Perhaps they’d be taken somewhere even worse. They might be separated, or sent back to face the bombing again, or locked up, or beaten, or . . . She tried not to think about it.

  But when they were finally sent for, she realized she’d been waiting for this moment all the time. It was just getting dark. The floodlights had been switched on, and they were glaring down from the tall masts that towered over the rows of the cabins. The camp was quietening down to its evening routine. The men were coming out from the room in the main building where prayers had finished a while ago. The women were dishing out the evening meal to their waiting families, or standing at their cabin doors, chatting to neighbours.

  Tara was on her way back from the standpipes with a bucket of water for the family’s nightly wash. She’d almost arrived at the cabin when the deafening crackle of music from the loudspeakers overhead was cut off. There was a pause, a burst of static, and then a voice barked out:

  ‘The following families are to be transferred. They will report in one hour to the main building. Dilshad Zehn, Shawan Mosuli . . .’

  The voice droned on. Tara got to the cabin door, and put down her bucket on a flat stone that Kak Soran had put there to stop the ground getting too muddy. Then she bent down to take off her shoes before she went inside.

  ‘Soran Hawrami, Teriska Hawrami, Tara Hawrami, Hero Hawrami . . .’

  She raced inside.

  ‘Daya! Didn’t you hear? They called out our names! We’re being transferred! We’ve got to be ready in an hour!’

  Teriska Khan looked up from the darn she was finishing in Kak Soran’s sock.

  ‘What? I didn’t hear anything. What are you talking about?’

  Kak Soran rushed in through the door, pushing Tara out of the way.

  ‘It’s true. Come on. We’ve got to get packed up at once.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘No time for questions. Quick. Get out the bags. Roll up the bedding. Tara, get these clothes into some order. And Teriska, sort out these cooking things. No, of course you can’t go and say goodbye to Yasmin’s mother. Send a message if you like. She’ll come and wave us goodbye. Now, for goodness sake, get a move on. If we’re not ready and waiting by eight o’clock they’ll simply leave us behind.’

  The next hour was like living through a speeded up film. After so many months of doing nothing, and making up things to do to make the endless hours go faster, every second was suddenly precious. They worked so hard they’d got everything rolled up and packed in fifty minutes, and a crowd of friendly neighbours helped them take all their bags and bundles down the long line of cabins to the waiting minibuses.

  Tara almost felt a lump in her throat. People were being so kind, especially to Teriska Khan, whose illness and recovery had made news in the camp. She looked round at the circle of friendly Kurdish faces. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so homesick and so depressed all the time she’d have got to know some of them a bit better. As it was, the only people she was really sorry to say goodbye to were the neighbour and her husband, who’d done what they could to help when Daya had been so ill. She hadn’t got to know them very well, but she still felt she was leaving her only friends behind.

  A jeep full of soldiers drove up to the head of the little convoy, and Tara saw the major who’d checked them in on their first evening get out of it. He got them to file past him into the minibuses and as they went he put ticks against their names on the list he held in his hand. Then he jumped back into the front seat of the jeep and the drivers of the two minibuses full of refugees started up their engines and swung round the first corner behind him. Their headlights swept round and lit up the crowd of tattered refugees left behind, then picked up in their strong beams the rocks that lined the road. They began the slow winding journey down the mountainside.

  ‘Why don’t they ever tell us anything?’ Tara whispered to Kak Soran. ‘Why do they always make us go at night? We don’t even know where we’ve been all this time, or where they’re taking us now.’

  Four months ago she wouldn’t have expected a real answer, but since Teriska Khan had been ill he’d got into the habit of talking to her more seriously.

  ‘I suppose they’ve got their reasons,’ he said at last. ‘Military reasons. What matters is that we mustn’t show we’re frightened or angry. We’ve got to try and stay
in control, and not give up hope. It’s not as if we’re alone, after all. There are twenty million Kurds. They can’t keep us down for ever.’

  That’s not much of an answer, thought Tara crossly, but she didn’t dare say anything out loud.

  ‘Why can’t we just live in peace?’ she said. ‘Why doesn’t everyone leave us alone?’

  This time, Kak Soran didn’t answer.

  20

  Tara sat under a tree sewing. The hem of her skirt was so ragged it hardly seemed worth trying to patch it. She broke off the short end of cotton and threaded some more through the needle. The ripped waistband would be quite tricky to mend.

  When they’d arrived at this new camp the searches had been really tough at first. Everyone, even Hero, had been stripped and gone over from head to toe. They’d started examining each bit of clothing, and some things, like the waistband on the skirt, had even been ripped open.

  The searchers had pounced triumphantly on a few banknotes and a thin gold bangle, hidden in the lining of Hero’s jacket. At that point Teriska Khan had gone off into a convincing show of hysterics.

  ‘My last penny has been taken from me!’ she wailed. ‘What is this poor woman to do, with nothing left to me but my children?’

  She’d sounded so sincere and so miserable that the searchers had obviously believed that they’d found everything and had slackened off after that.

  The thing they’d looked at most carefully was the precious belt. A suspicious guard had examined it, his eyes on Teriska Khan’s face. He’d felt all along it, fingered the seams and bounced it in his hands to see how heavy it was. Tara had tensed up and held her breath, but Teriska Khan seemed quite relaxed. When it was all over, Tara said, ‘Why didn’t they find your jewellery?’