Kiss the Dust Read online

  She tried to think of Iran, and the rest of the world beyond the mountains. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t even imagine anything. It was like staring into a black hole.

  Behind her she heard a baby whining and she turned round. Naman was holding tight round Ghazal’s neck with one hand, while the fingers of the other were stuck into his mouth. He was sucking busily, and his little face was all screwed up.

  Ghazal made a face.

  ‘He’s been awake half the night,’ she said. ‘Got a tooth coming through.’

  Naman saw Tara and suddenly gave a dazzling smile. He put out his arms to her. Tara tried to lift him off Ghazal’s shoulder but as soon as she touched him, Naman changed his mind. His smile switched itself off and he began to grizzle again, a long silver line of dribble running down his chin. He glared at Tara, as if he was daring her to touch him. Both girls laughed.

  ‘Can you fix his pillow for me?’ said Ghazal. ‘He won’t let me put him down.’

  Ghazal’s husband, on one of his rare visits home from the city where he worked, had fixed up a kind of swinging cradle from the lowest branch of the tree that grew up against Baji Rezan’s house. Tara plumped up the cushion, shook out the blanket, folded it neatly and smoothed it on to the cradle.

  Ghazal settled Naman down on it and pushed gently. The ropes were slung over a thick branch, and they creaked rhythmically as they rubbed against it. Naman suddenly gave a mighty yawn.

  ‘I want to push it! Let me push!’ Hero, still in her nightie and with her head all tousled, had heard the creaking ropes and came running up. Naman’s cradle always worked like a magnet on her. She couldn’t leave it alone. She’d even tried to climb into it once or twice, and had almost tipped Naman out into the dust.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ said Tara, fending her off. ‘You’ll push it too hard, like you did last time.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ said Hero indignantly. ‘Anyway, Naman liked it. He likes me! I push him best!’

  ‘Well, push very gently then,’ said Tara.

  Hero put one finger against the cradle and pressed. It barely moved.

  ‘Can I leave him with you for a minute?’ said Ghazal suddenly. ‘I want to go down to the pool and wash my hair, and my mother-in-law’s gone to the fields already.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Tara, feeling pleased. Ghazal hadn’t left Naman with her before. She let Hero rock the cradle until he was fast asleep.

  ‘Tara!’ Teriska Khan called. ‘Come on! Breakfast’s ready. What are you doing?’

  ‘Go and tell her I’m minding Naman,’ said Tara to Hero, who was already bored with pushing. She scampered off round the corner of the house.

  At that moment, without any warning, the bombers came again. Tara heard the explosions even before she heard the roar of the jets. She had no time to think, not a second in which to decide what to do. She just went for the nearest cover, and dived under Naman’s cradle.

  They’d gone almost as soon as they came, but Tara didn’t dare come out in case they came back. She could hear feet running and people shouting in the lane on the other side of the courtyard wall, but it was as if she was paralysed. She couldn’t move.

  The bombers didn’t come back, but Ghazal did. She burst into the courtyard, her long wet hair flying loose, shouting, ‘Naman! Naman!’

  Tara self-consciously wriggled out from under the cradle and struggled to her feet. Ghazal bent over to snatch Naman up, then stopped herself. Naman was fast asleep, his eyelids fluttering gently as he dreamed.

  ‘Well I never!’ said Ghazal astonished. ‘Look at that! I don’t believe it. All night long, if I only coughed or turned over he’d be awake and screaming at once, and he didn’t even hear the planes!’

  She began to giggle, and then, because she felt so relieved, the giggles turned to roars of laughter.

  Tara joined in dutifully, but she didn’t feel like laughing at all. When the bombers had come, she hadn’t tried to get Naman to safety. She’d even used his cradle to protect herself. She felt ashamed.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she mumbled, and she sprinted off across the few yards that separated Baji Rezan’s house from their own kitchen.

  The bombs hadn’t really done any damage to the village. They’d fallen wide, and all they’d managed to do was dig three craters in a field and kill a couple of goats. But though no one had been hurt, everyone felt a miserable increase in tension.

  Teriska Khan seemed especially jumpy. She spent most of the day fussing over her clothes inside the house, sewing and sorting and snapping at Ashti, who obviously didn’t feel like showing his face outside the courtyard walls, in case stories of what Rostam had said to him had got round the village, and people were laughing at him.

  Tara was bored and restless. She was sitting under the apricot tree trying to teach Hero to play cat’s cradle, when she heard sharp exclamations coming from inside the house.

  ‘What’s the matter, Daya?’ Tara called out.

  ‘My belt! I can’t find my belt!’ Teriska Khan called back.

  Tara untangled her fingers, went to the door, and looked inside.

  ‘Do you want me to help you?’ she said.

  ‘No! Don’t come in here! Oh – yes, all right. Perhaps your young eyes – I must find it!’

  Tara went into the house. It was unusually tidy. There were half-packed bags everywhere, and most of the clothes had been pulled out of the old wooden chest and were lying about in piles on the floor. Teriska Khan was searching through the bedding heaped up at the side of the room.

  ‘It can’t have fallen off when I was doing the washing yesterday! I’d have noticed at once. It’s got to be in here somewhere. It must be! It has to be!’

  Tara began to sift through a pile of Ashti’s belongings.

  ‘It’s only a belt, Mother. Why—’

  ‘Only! Only! You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Tara said nothing. With Daya in this mood, silence was the best course of action.

  Teriska Khan was shaking out a folded blanket.

  ‘It’s not here! Oh, my God, it must be lost, or stolen . . .’

  ‘Stolen?’ Tara couldn’t be quiet any longer. ‘But who on earth would want to steal your old belt?’

  ‘It’s not just an old belt! I’ve stitched half my jewellery into it! My gold necklace, and that heavy gold bracelet, and my ruby earrings – they’re all in it!’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Tara sat back on to her heels, frowning. She was trying to remember everything that had happened when they’d gone to bed last night. She was sure she’d seen, just before the lamp went out, Teriska Khan folding her day clothes as she took them off and putting them down by the wall. Ashti had been asleep already, stretched out on his thin mattress, and he’d made the little room seem very crowded. When Baba had come in it hadn’t been easy for him to find room for himself. Surely she’d heard him in the darkness moving some things on to the wooden clothes chest under the window, to give himself more space?

  She went over to the window and pulled the chest out a couple of inches from the wall. She was right. The belt had fallen down behind it.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said triumphantly, pulling it out and holding it up. Teriska Khan almost snatched it out of her hands.

  ‘Oh, thank God!’ she said. ‘How did you guess where it was?’

  ‘I heard Baba move some stuff on to the chest when he came in last night.’

  ‘Oh.’ Teriska Khan paused. ‘Did you go to sleep straight away after that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’

  They looked at each other. Then Teriska Khan shrugged.

  ‘Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t know about it. It affects you as much as anyone. But you mustn’t tell a soul. It’s all got to be done in secret.’

  ‘When are we going?’

  ‘I don’t know. As soon as your father’s got it all fixed up.’

  ‘Does Ashti know?’

  ‘Not y
et. Don’t tell him. Baba will when he gets home.’

  Tara nodded.

  ‘I’m scared, Daya.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Teriska Khan, ‘but I’m more scared of what they’ll do to us if we stay here.’

  13

  Two nights later, Tara woke up with a jerk. Someone was shaking her. She sat up, her heart thudding.

  ‘Don’t make a sound,’ whispered Kak Soran. ‘Just get up and put your clothes on. We’re leaving.’

  Ashti was up already. He’d slept fully dressed, expecting to be woken up, and now he was trying to tie a strap round a bundle of bedding with his one good arm.

  ‘Come and hold this for me,’ he said softly to Tara.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ she said, feeling around on the floor. ‘I can’t find my clothes.’

  Teriska Khan heard her.

  ‘Here, put these on,’ she said.

  Tara felt something pushed into her arms, and then Kak Soran struck a match and lit the oil lamp. In its soft light Tara could see she was holding men’s clothes, loose baggy trousers, a shirt, a long sash and a short-sleeved jacket.

  ‘But they’re not . . .’ said Tara.

  ‘Just put them on,’ mouthed Teriska Khan silently and she squatted down to help Ashti with his bundle.

  Kak Soran had woken Hero and was trying to coax her into her sweater and trousers.

  ‘Stop it! Go away!’ she said irritably, in a loud clear voice that brought four hasty ‘Shsh’ noises from the rest of the family.

  Teriska Khan tucked in the end of the strap round Ashti’s bundle and went over to sit beside her.

  ‘We’re going out,’ she said. ‘On a lovely horse. You like riding on horses. You’re going with Baba and Daya and Ashti and Tara for a little journey.’

  Hero frowned up at her. She was trying so hard to think of something to say she didn’t notice Kak Soran buckling her shoe on to her foot. She was holding her blue rabbit and its ears looked ridiculous, sticking up under her chin.

  ‘My rabbit’s not going on a journey,’ she said firmly. ‘He doesn’t like horses. He’s staying at home.’

  ‘Now come along, darling,’ said Teriska Khan in a cajoling voice. Hero wriggled out of the sleeve Kak Soran had just slipped over her arm. Her mouth had shut in an obstinate line and her chin was beginning to wobble.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I won’t.’

  Tara held her breath. It was obvious that Hero was building up to a tantrum. In a minute there’d be sobs and screams loud enough to wake the whole of Kurdistan.

  Kak Soran stood up. He was a tall man, and in the light of the oil lamp, which cast long, deep shadows, he looked huge, even to Tara.

  ‘Do what you’re told, Hero,’ he said calmly. ‘Get up and put your sweater on. We’re all going on a journey and we’re not going to leave you behind.’

  He turned his back on her and bent over to pick up his felt waistcoat. Hero glared up at him for a moment, kicking her heels on the floor, then she saw he was taking no more notice of her, and she suddenly gave in.

  Kak Soran was piling up by the door the cases and bags which Teriska Khan had been packing so carefully for the past few days.

  ‘Do we really need all this stuff?’ he said, holding up an oddly shaped bundle wrapped in a brightly printed cloth. ‘What’s in this?’

  ‘It’s my samovar,’ said Teriska Khan defiantly, ‘and I’m not going anywhere without it.’

  Outside it wasn’t as dark as Tara had expected. The moon was still up, and though it was only a half moon, it shone surprisingly brightly. It made the sleeping village, huddled against the steep hillside, look like a patchwork of deep shadows and faint splashes of grey.

  Kak Soran hustled the family out of the house, took a last look round, picked up a sock that had fallen from a bag and tucked it into his pocket, then blew out the lamp. He pulled the door shut behind him, and turned the key in the padlock.

  ‘Why bother, Father?’ whispered Ashti. ‘What’s the point? We’re never coming back.’

  Kak Soran didn’t answer. He lifted the two heaviest bags and went over to the door in the high wall of the courtyard. Tara picked up her share of the luggage and followed the others. She was the last to go through the gate. She turned back and looked at the two houses, their own and Baji Rezan’s. They looked cosy and familiar.

  Just over the wall in the next courtyard a dog started barking, rattling its chain as it strained forward. As if they’d been waiting for a signal, every dog in the village began to bark too.

  ‘Come on,’ whispered Kak Soran impatiently. Tara hurried out into the shadowy lane, stumbling on the loose stones, and he shut the door behind her.

  There was an old walnut tree at the edge of the village and just as they got up to it, two men stepped out suddenly from the pitch dark shade under it. Tara jumped, but then she saw four horses and a mule, standing patiently with their heads lowered by the side of the path.

  The guides were middle-aged men, and they looked as tough as their horses. They muttered something to Kak Soran, then began silently and efficiently to sort the baggage into balanced bundles of equal weight and lift them on to the backs of the mule and one of the horses, pulling at the straps and leaning heavily against the animals’ flanks.

  ‘He says we mustn’t talk at all, not even in whispers,’ Kak Soran said very softly to the rest of them. ‘The slightest sound travels for miles in the mountains. You never know who’s watching and listening, and once we’re near the top there’ll be government troops in the watchtowers. They’ll shoot at anything suspicious. The moon will have gone down by the time we get that far but if we’re to slip past them without any trouble they mustn’t hear a thing. Do you understand, Tara?’

  Tara nodded indignantly. Of course she understood! It was Hero who was likely to cause problems. She didn’t even know what the word ‘silence’ meant.

  The pack horse and the mule were ready. The men seemed to be nervous, and one of them swore under his breath when a horse snorted loudly through its nostrils, and tossed its head so that the bit jingled.

  ‘Get on,’ they said.

  Kak Soran gave Tara a nudge, and she and Teriska Khan climbed on to the two biggest riding horses, while Kak Soran lifted Hero on to the back of the smallest, a stocky mountain pony. Luckily, Hero seemed to have accepted the situation. She obediently plumped down in the broad saddle and let Ashti take the reins.

  They started off along the path away from the village. Tara couldn’t understand at first why the horses’ hooves didn’t seem to be making the usual noise. She peered down at the feet of the pony in front. Its hooves looked big and bulky, and she realized they’d been wrapped in rags to muffle the sound.

  The village dogs were still barking like mad, but there were no footsteps or voices. Anyone who’d woken up must have either decided to mind their own business, or thought that a jackal had come too close to the village and set the dogs off.

  A few minutes later the path had wound round the broad shoulder of the hill and the houses were out of sight.

  For the first one or two miles the going wasn’t too bad. Tara had been quite a long way down this path before. Years ago they’d all come out here for a picnic by that clump of willows over there near the stream. In that field she’d often watched the men winnowing the wheat after the harvest had been taken in. She used to love seeing the way they flicked basketfuls of seeds into the air, and she’d watch it spiral up in a golden shower, and the sunlight would catch on it, and the wind would blow away all the empty husks.

  The track was broad and reasonably flat. Tara had been on a horse before, but she felt a bit nervous at first in case this one was wild or temperamental. She soon realized she didn’t have to worry. It was a lazy old thing, and she had to dig her heels into its sides from time to time to make it keep up with the others. Its hooves plopped softly on to the dusty path in a regular rhythm, and she started to imagine they were saying something, over and over again:

  ‘Going
out, going out, leaving home, leaving home.’

  They’d left the house soon after midnight. By one or two o’clock the path was beginning to change. It was getting narrower. The fields and orchards were already behind them, and the ground was beginning to rise steeply. The moon had almost set now, but Tara could just see huge peaks towering up all around, with faint shimmers of snow on the jagged tops. Ahead there seemed to be nothing but a wall of rock.

  They’ve made a mistake, she thought. They’ve taken the wrong path. We can’t possibly get through that.

  The moon sank behind a peak but in the last cold glimmer of light Tara could just make out a dark gash in the side of the mountain, and as they came up to it she could see that it was a cleft in the rock. Her horse followed the others into it.

  She couldn’t really see anything now, but from the way the sound of the horses’ hooves had changed, she guessed they were surrounded by rock on all sides. From somewhere away to the right, down below, she could hear running water.

  From now on, Tara didn’t have time to think. The gorge was so dark she had to mind every step of the way. Hero had been surprisingly quiet for a long time, but she was getting restless now. She’d begun to chatter in a low voice, and had stopped taking any notice of Ashti, who kept telling her to be quiet. Her voice was getting louder and louder, until she suddenly called out, ‘Daya! Day—’

  She stopped suddenly as Ashti jumped back from the horse’s head and whispered something savagely into her ear. After that she didn’t say anything and Tara only heard a little dry cough, as she tried to clear all the dust out of her throat, or an occasional whimper when she came up against a branch or trailing root sticking out over the path.

  Tara straightened her back and wriggled her shoulders to get the crick out of her neck. She was beginning to feel stiff and sore. She’d never been on horseback for as long as this before. The guide behind her seemed to be able to see in the dark. He came up quietly alongside her.

  ‘Get off and lead your horse for a bit,’ he said softly, ‘but keep to the left of its head. There’s a very steep drop down to the river from here on.’