Kiss the Dust Page 8

She felt as if she’d made an astonishing discovery.

  I’m me, she thought. I’m Tara. I’m the only person like me in the whole world.

  11

  That night Hero had her first bad dream. She screamed in her sleep and gave Tara such a fright that she bounced out of bed and was half into her clothes before she was properly awake.

  No one tried to go back to sleep after that, even though it was at least an hour before dawn. Kak Soran had been working late the night before with all the other men to try to get the fire at the ammunition dump under control, and he’d gone to bed half dressed only about an hour earlier. He groped about in the dark for his warm felt waistcoat and went out to see how the firefighters were getting on.

  Tara got dressed too and went out after him, leaving Hero still crying in Teriska Khan’s arms. She still had a bad headache, but she felt too restless to stay indoors. At least the dizziness of last night had gone. She wouldn’t have been able to go round the village then. Even if she hadn’t felt so battered, she couldn’t have faced the idea of seeing anything worse than she’d seen already. She’d just felt relieved that their own house hadn’t been turned into a pile of rubble, and all she’d wanted to do was lie down and be left alone.

  There were twenty or thirty houses in the village. Six or seven had been completely destroyed, and most of the others seemed to be damaged. The worst of the fires had been put out and only a few smoking, glowing embers remained. Many of the courtyard walls that surrounded the village houses had gaping holes in them, and flickering oil lamps cast a lurid glow on the ruined buildings inside. The acrid smell of burning hung over the whole village and made Tara’s eyes water.

  The sky was getting lighter now and every minute she could see more clearly. Walls were cracked and bulging, doors had been blown out, bits of people’s possessions were scattered everywhere. It was horrible to see private things, like a child’s sweater or a woman’s underclothes, lying on the public path, all torn and charred.

  Most of the village seemed out and about, even though it was so early. Some people had obviously not been to bed all night. They’d either been trying to rescue some of their belongings from the wreckage, or they’d been looking after the injured. Others had been just too frightened to be inside. Now that it was getting light people were beginning to see which buildings were dangerously damaged, and they were trying to get their belongings out in case the roofs and walls collapsed.

  Everyone looked shocked and emotional. Those who weren’t working were passing news of who’d been killed and who was injured, and discussing how soon the medical team would arrive.

  Tara saw Baji Rezan stepping through a gaping hole in the wall round a neighbour’s house. She clambered over a pile of fallen bricks to get to her.

  ‘Are Ghazal and Naman all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank God, they’re fine. What about your parents?’

  ‘They’re all right.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Baji Rezan again.

  ‘Yes, thank God,’ repeated Tara. She’d often said those words before but she’d never really meant them like she meant them now.

  The village seemed different after the bombing. It was as if they’d all been living in a fool’s paradise. Lots of families had men with the pesh murgas, and for a long time there’d been news of casualties, and talk of bombings and battles in other places, but it had never come so close to home. The war had really reached them now.

  It wasn’t just the destruction. And it wasn’t just the awful misery of the families of people who had died, though the sound of the crying and mourning was so sad that Tara could hardly bear to go out for a day or two. The real difference was the feeling of suspicion. No one said it out loud, but everyone was thinking the same thing. How had the government known where the ammunition dump was? Who had passed on the information? Which of their friends and neighbours was a spy?

  Everything changed. There were no more story-telling sessions in the afternoons in Baji Rezan’s house. There wasn’t much laughter or teasing at the washing pool either. Tara hadn’t liked it at the time but she would have welcomed the teasing now. She felt she’d been silly and unfriendly before. She’d thought she was a cut above the village people. It was different now. She couldn’t help admiring them. Even the ones who were bereaved or who’d lost their homes didn’t complain much. They just picked up the next load of dirty clothes that needed washing, or the next basketful of vegetables that needed chopping up.

  Tara still had a headache a lot of the time, and felt quite shaky, but people with worse things wrong with them were doing more than she was. When bombs started falling it didn’t matter how good you were at maths, or how rich your father was. The only important things were how brave you were, and how generous, and whether or not you could still have a good laugh.

  Tara felt worst about the way she’d been rude to Baji Rezan. She’d never treated her with proper respect. But now, when Baji Rezan popped in for a visit, Tara jumped up and got her the best cushions, and ran out to the kitchen place round the back of the house to make tea. Before, she’d done as little as possible, and had left the entertaining to Teriska Khan. Baji Rezan didn’t say anything, but her eyes twinkled, and she slapped Tara on the shoulder and chuckled with appreciation.

  It wasn’t long before the other village women started being more friendly too. Tara noticed it mainly at the washing pool. She didn’t try to slip down there alone any more, but went with the others. They’d make room for her and advise her on how to wash her clothes. They could hardly believe that she’d never had to wash all her things by hand before, and they kept trying to get her to describe an electric washing machine and how it worked.

  It wasn’t really like being with her old friends of course. There was no one from her old life, who’d been to their home in Sulaimaniya or knew any of the families she’d been brought up with. No one understood about school and how much she missed it, and how worried she was about getting left behind in her education.

  There was just gossip about small, everyday things, like Naman’s new tooth, and old Sara’s obstinate cow that kept wandering off into the fields of new sprouting wheat and barley, and how strange old Nawa Khan had been since her grandson’s body had been pulled out of the rubble of her house.

  Tara still couldn’t imagine staying in the village, planting cucumbers and looking after a flock of stupid hens and managing without electricity or a proper bathroom for evermore, but she was beginning to feel that in some ways the village was home.

  Three weeks after the night of the bombardment, Ashti came back. He was pale and thin, and he had his right arm in a sling. When she saw him, Teriska Khan jumped up from the pot she was stirring over the fire outside her little kitchen and hugged him. Then she turned away and wiped her eyes with the end of her long sleeve.

  Tara thought, looking at them together, that Daya had lost weight too. It wasn’t surprising. For one thing, no one had got much sleep since the bombing because Hero was still having nightmares every night. Tara was beginning to sleep through the racket she made, but Teriska Khan had to get up and comfort her until she dropped off to sleep again.

  Tara went inside to get a stool, and put it in the shade of the apricot tree. It was getting too hot to sit outside in the sun now. Ashti sat down and Teriska Khan squatted beside him.

  ‘What happened? Are you badly hurt? Have you seen a doctor?’

  Ashti looked embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mother. It’s only my collar bone. There was a doctor up there and he set it. It’s all right.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘It’s a clean break. He says it’ll do fine, but I’m not to use it for a couple of weeks. I’ve got to keep my arm in a sling.’

  ‘How did it happen? Were you shot?’

  Ashti shifted his weight on the stool and pushed the hair out of his eyes with his good hand.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault! I couldn’t help it. Rostam’s so . . . Oh, I don’t know. He just d
oesn’t listen to you! I was doing what he told me, bringing up the ammunition even though we were in a really exposed position and getting shot at all the time, but the boxes were so heavy! They weighed a ton! I had to put mine down for a second, but there was no need for Rostam to yell at me in front of all the others that I was scared and lazy and all the rest of it. He as good as said I wasn’t pulling my weight and was letting the rest of them do all the dangerous work.

  ‘We were in a dugout kind of place, and it was the usual kind of ambush, but this time they were ready for us, must have had a tip-off or something, and they fought like tigers. We weren’t expecting it at all. We used up all our mortars, and I was bringing up more, like I told you. Well, I’d put my box down, and Rostam saw me and yelled at me like a madman, so I was bending over to pick it up again when one of their mortars fell right near me. I didn’t just lie down in a panic like Rostam said! It knocked me off my feet! I heard the bone snap when I hit the ground. It was horrible – made me feel sick. I couldn’t use my arm at all after that, but Rostam seemed to think I was putting it on, even after the doctor told him I’d broken my collar bone.’

  Teriska Khan looked quite fierce.

  ‘I always said it was mad for you to go off with Rostam. You’re not used to this kind of life. You weren’t brought up in the mountains, like Soran and Rostam. You can’t be expected to . . .’

  Ashti shook his head irritably.

  ‘It’s not like that, Mother,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand. There are lots of students up there with the pesh murgas. I’m nothing special. It’s just that, oh I don’t know, just because I’m his nephew, Rostam seems to think I ought to be a hero, or superhuman or something, and I’m not, I can’t, I . . .’

  Ashti suddenly looked as if he was about to cry. He shook his head savagely and blinked hard. Tara couldn’t bear it. She got up, picked up the water pot and went off to the spring. By the time she came home, Ashti seemed more like his old self, not the tough, daring pesh murga he’d been trying to become, but the studious, rather thoughtless but gentle brother he’d always been before.

  Kak Soran didn’t come home until the middle of the night. Tara hadn’t been able to go to sleep. She was too aware of Ashti, tossing and turning uncomfortably, and grinding his teeth in his sleep. In the pitch darkness, she heard the door hinge creak as Kak Soran quietly opened it. Teriska Khan sat up.

  ‘Shh! It’s only me,’ Kak Soran said quietly.

  Teriska Khan lay down again.

  ‘Mind where you put your feet,’ she said. ‘Ashti’s here.’

  Tara heard Kak Soran grunt with surprise.

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘He broke his collar bone in a mortar attack. Rostam was furious with him. He said—’

  ‘Rostam’s a fool. I should never have allowed him to take Ashti off with him. It’s all very well being a hothead when you’re twenty, but Rostam’s thirty at least. He ought to know better by now. He takes too many risks. He’s causing a lot of casualties. I know he’s done some incredible things, but honestly . . .’

  ‘Soran, I’m telling you straight, I don’t want Ashti to go back to him.’

  Kak Soran didn’t answer at once. Tara heard him bundle his clothes against the wall and sigh as he lay down, pulled a quilt over himself, and shifted round to find a comfortable position.

  ‘Let’s talk about it in the morning,’ he said sleepily.

  But Teriska Khan had obviously worked up a head of steam. She packed so much feeling into her whisper that it came out as a hiss.

  ‘We can’t stay here forever! What are we going to do? Hero’s terrified out of her wits every time she hears even a car or a truck in the distance. She thinks it’s the planes coming back. We haven’t had a single night without one of her bad dreams. I know Tara’s doing her best, but she’ll never take to village life, and anyway, it’s not what we want for her. We could send her to Suzan, I suppose, in Baghdad, but I don’t want to do that. We’ve just got to stay together! And look at Ashti. He’ll never make a soldier. I don’t mean he isn’t brave, or doesn’t try, or anything like that. He just hasn’t got – oh, I don’t know! If we can’t go back home to Sulaimaniya we’ll have to . . . Well, I don’t know what we’ll do!’

  Brought back unwillingly from the brink of sleep, Kak Soran turned over and sighed.

  ‘Listen, Teriska. I didn’t mean to tell you until tomorrow. I saw Fares Karwan today. He says they’re going all out now to get the Kurdish leaders. They’ve executed at least three in the last week. Fares says even if the others don’t die they’ll never be the same again after what’s been done to them. I tell you—’

  ‘Don’t,’ whispered Teriska Khan. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Fares said I must move on as soon as possible. Too many people know I’m here. He—’

  ‘Move on?’ interrupted Teriska Khan.

  ‘You know what I mean. Out of the country.’ Tara heard Teriska Khan gasp.

  ‘I could slip over the border into Iran on my own,’ Kak Soran went on. He seemed to be talking to himself, as if he was saying out loud for the first time things that had been going round and round in his mind. ‘It probably wouldn’t be for too long, just until things have quietened down a bit. But the way things are going, I don’t think they are going to quieten down. I can’t leave you alone for long here with the girls. I’ve more or less made up my mind that we should all go. Now mind, Teriska, not a word of this—’

  ‘What?’ interrupted Teriska Khan in a frantic whisper. ‘Do you know what you’re saying? We can’t all go to Iran! We’d be refugees, without anything! How are we going to live? And what about all our things at home, the house and everything? We can’t leave it all, just like that. Oh, why did you ever take all this on? Why did you have to—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Kak Soran sharply. ‘You know perfectly well—’

  He stopped. Hero had started to thrash about, sighing and whimpering. Then she sat up and began to cry.

  ‘No! Stop them! Daya! Daya!’

  Teriska Khan picked her up and rocked her.

  ‘It’s all right, my darling, go back to sleep. It’s only a dream. Only a dream.’

  Hero cried for a bit longer, then groped around for her rabbit and snuggled down again into her quilt.

  ‘They bombed the next valley today,’ said Kak Soran. ‘Did you hear how many were killed? They went on until not a single house was left standing. Those villages just don’t exist any more. It’s only a matter of time before they come here again. If we go out we’ll be refugees, but at least we’ll be alive.’

  Teriska Khan didn’t say anything.

  ‘You’ve got to face up to it, Teriska,’ said Kak Soran. ‘We’ll have to get out of the country. We couldn’t have left without contacting Ashti, but now he’s here we can go ahead. It’s not as if we’re the only ones. Thousands of Kurds have gone through into Iran. What do you want to do? Stay here so I can be executed and you can get blown up? We could do the journey all right. It’s a long way, through the mountains, and you have to go by night, but there are good guides, and we’d have horses.’

  ‘But what about—’ said Teriska Khan.

  Kak Soran interrupted her with a huge yawn.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Do you mind? I’ve had about all I can take today. Let’s get some sleep. We’ll talk about it properly in the morning.’

  12

  When Tara woke up the next morning, everything seemed the same as usual. Along with a few stray beams of sunlight, the ordinary early-morning sounds of the village filtered through the badly fitting shutters. The wheezy old cock was complaining in his normal quavering crow. Out in the lane there was a sound of hooves slipping on stones and the crack of old Mustapha’s stick on the rump of the mule that he was taking down the valley to fetch home a sack of flour. Baji Rezan’s familiar laugh could be heard as she said hello to a neighbour on her way back from the spring. Teriska Khan was almost dressed, and was tying her scarf over
her hair.

  Then Tara remembered, and suddenly felt very wide awake. What had Baba said? They’d have to escape through the mountains to Iran? She thought she must have been dreaming. Baba and Daya couldn’t possibly have said anything like that or they wouldn’t be looking so calm and ordinary, yawning, and stretching and shaking out their bedding.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ said Teriska Khan, seeing Tara was awake. ‘Time to get up. Get the fire started. Baba’s got to have his breakfast.’

  Kak Soran went outside to wash, but he stuck his head round the door again.

  ‘I won’t wait for tea. Just give me a bowl of yoghurt and some bread and cheese. I’d better get started at once.’

  ‘When will you want your dinner?’ said Teriska Khan.

  ‘How do I know?’ said Kak Soran irritably. ‘Just get things ready.’ Teriska Khan looked up at him and nodded, and Tara knew they weren’t talking about meals.

  So it’s true, she thought, and a shiver like an icy finger ran down her spine. We’re going to Iran.

  She pulled on her underdress and her long loose trousers, and slipped her feet into her sandals that lay by the door where she’d kicked them off last night. The sun was over the horizon already, and the early-morning mist was disappearing from the last ravines and hollows in the hillsides. In the brilliant light the long spine of mountains to the east looked threatening.

  Tara shivered. Why had she ever wanted to cross the mountains? She certainly didn’t want to now. Going to Iran would mean leaving everything behind, everything she knew, home, school, friends, Granny, the special place under the oleander in the garden which had been her favourite hideout since she was little, old Mr Faris’s shop in town where she and Leila had always gone to look for new records and posters, the fun of driving into Baghdad in the old black Mercedes to visit Auntie Suzan. At the moment, all that was only a few hours’ drive away. Whatever Baba said about it being impossible and dangerous she could easily imagine herself just getting into a car and going back to it all. But if they went out, out of the country, she’d really be leaving everything behind, forever, probably.