Khalid doesn’t get the chance to tell Tariq how he feels because none of it matters anymore. Anyway, there’s nothing to explain because his cousin carries on as if everything has always been fine between them. Now that they’ve joined forces, they keep each other going and are making up for lost time as good friends.
Later that week, after lunch, Marvin and another guard arrive for Khalid with an armful of shackles and unlock the door.
“Hey, Marvin,” Tariq calls from next door, but they haven’t come for him today.
“Not now, bud,” Marvin replies, his low tone of voice giving Khalid the impression Marvin’s on serious business right now. What, he can’t imagine. Marvin’s giving no clues away as he and the other guard enter the cell. His shirt pockets are flat. No smell of vanilla soap today, just the faint whiff of cigarettes, so Khalid knows he’s not going for a shower. Plus he went for exercise yesterday, so unless everything’s changed he won’t be going again until the day after tomorrow.
Marvin’s an expert with shackles, fastening them not too tightly. Smiling broadly to show he means no harm.
“Where we going?” Khalid asks, shuffling behind, trying to keep up with him.
“You’ll soon find out,” Marvin says solemnly, leaving Khalid in the dark as they cross the yard and walk round the corner to enter a small building. This place smells of white paint; it’s cleaner and brighter than the others. The long, low building has small windows in the roof that throw patches of sunlight on the immaculate concrete floor.
Marvin flings open the door to a small room with a black desk and two chairs.
Khalid’s first thought when he sees the two floor bolts is, Oh yeah, another interrogation room, but seconds later a man who looks like a teacher comes in and he changes his mind.
“Hi, Khalid, I’m your new lawyer. Name’s Harry Peterson.”
“Eh?” No one has called him Khalid in that way for the last two years. Looking him up and down as the guard undoes the wrist shackles and motions him to the chair to bolt his ankles to the floor, he’s sure he misheard him.
“What did you say, man?” It comes as a huge surprise to hear words like that from anyone, let alone this guy, Harry, who has a big, gentle face and fair, scruffy hair. “You’re my lawyer?”
“Yes,” Harry says. Khalid takes in the loose, navy shirt, the same beige corduroy trousers that Mr. Tagg always wears. He looks old-fashioned, way uncool. Plus he nods all the time, but he smells of a nice aftershave that reminds Khalid of one he used to wear at home.
“Yes, I’m your lawyer.”
“Pardon?” Khalid almost chokes he’s so shocked, which makes Harry laugh.
“Here. This has been a long time coming, I’m afraid.” Harry hands over a white envelope addressed to him here in Guantanamo Bay. His first letter. Trembling, Khalid tries to settle the wave of surprise and excitement that’s bubbling in his stomach.
“That’s my dad’s writing.”
“Yes, it is.” Harry lowers his eyes out of respect for Khalid, whose sweating fingers fumble awkwardly with the corner, which is stuck down tight. The ordinary, small, delicate task is an ordeal for him. He hasn’t even tied a shoelace in the last two years. Sighing heavily, he taps a knee with the envelope for a moment before mentally snapping his fingers in front of his eyes and starting over. This time he gently peels back the obviously glued and messy re-stuck edge with a fingertip, slowly working along it until it tears. Pulling each slice back until the neatly folded letter appears inside. With a badly trembling hand, he rustles the thin sheet from its sleeve and opens it carefully to read the letter in silence. Doing his best to hold in his emotions, he’s unable to stop the odd tear racing down his face.
Meanwhile, Harry is busy shuffling papers, trying to give him the space to take in the sudden, amazing news that Dad’s fine.
“I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get to see you,” he says when Khalid folds the letter away. “Your family is well and sends you their deepest love.” Harry explains he’s spent months attempting to get the Americans to follow the due process of law by giving Khalid access to a lawyer and family and friends.
Khalid drops his eyes. He doesn’t want to talk about anything—not yet. A few minutes’ silence passes before Khalid says, “What are they accusing me of?”
“Well, the trouble is you signed a confession, albeit under duress, and they’re using that to detain you indefinitely. I have to be honest—this might take a while, Khalid. There’s a paranoia out there about people they refer to as evil terrorists that’s difficult to dispel.”
All this is too much for Khalid. It’s the first conversation he’s had with an Englishman who looks and talks like one of his teachers and probably went to university and all that. Plus he speaks so properly and friendly, it sounds weird. But at least he doesn’t talk down to him. Feeling suddenly grateful for the last few weeks spent chatting to Tariq, Khalid realizes he’s not as out of his depth as he would have been before.
“The fact you were picked up when you were just fifteen might work in your favor.” Harry frowns, nodding slowly.
“How come? It hasn’t so far.”
At this, Harry laughs. “I know. It took us a while to find you. Your dad traveled all over Pakistan looking for you, refusing to go home to Rochdale until he discovered what had happened. When he returned to England they confiscated the family computer and hauled him in for days of questioning but were unable to find anything.”
Harry goes on to tell him what’s been happening in the past two years. The various bombings in India, Turkey, Indonesia, Bali, the Philippines. The capture of Saddam Hussein. Most of which is lost on Khalid, because he can’t bear the thought that anyone might think he was involved in something as terrible as the events Harry describes. The fact there’s a small window behind Harry through which Khalid can see a truck going past distracts him for a moment from fully imagining the pain these people have suffered.
Harry seems to think with his fingers; he keeps patting his open laptop while trying to reassure Khalid that everything will be OK. Then he clicks his short nails together when he explains how long it took to get permission from the American government to visit him here.
All the while, the letter from Dad is safely folded in Khalid’s shaking hand and its words pierce him with pleasure as Harry talks.
“Is there anything you want to know?”
“Don’t suppose you have Rochdale’s soccer results by any chance?” Khalid asks.
With a long, deep laugh, Harry throws his head back and flicks his forehead with two fingers. “Why didn’t I think to find that out? Your dad told me you’re an avid fan. I’ll do my best to get that information for you as soon as I can. Don’t worry, Khalid, one day all this will be over and you can go back to your normal life, even though it might not feel normal for quite a while!” Looking him straight in the eye, Harry frowns. “Are you OK?”
“Not really!” He guesses Harry’s trying to tell how this conversation, the letter and his time here are affecting Khalid, and by the way Harry’s pursing his lips right now, maybe he’s wondering whether Khalid’s all right mentally.
When they come to take Khalid away, Harry glances at the floor, clearly emotional but doing his best to hide it.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to take a statement about everything,” he says.
“About how they tortured me?” Khalid says loudly for the guards’ benefit.
“Anything and everything.” Harry smiles to give him confidence and keep him going until then.
As soon as Khalid’s back in his cell, the flap in the metal and wire door slams open with an earth-shattering bang. Dropping the letter on the bed, Khalid moves quickly to take the plastic tray smelling of rotten fish from the soldier outside. Hardly bothering to glance at the bread roll and ball of rice, the foul-smelling fish in runny tomato sauce, he rests the tray on the floor, ignoring Tariq’s whispers as he rushes to read Dad’s letter again.
My dear, dear son,
So much sadness that you are knowing nothing about has been in all our hearts since you are gone. My heart is breaking in two as I write this letter. Everything in my life comes to nothing when I count the days since I last saw you in Karachi. Now we have found out where you are we are doing everything in our power to get you home. We will not stop until you are with us again. This you can be sure of, son. Don’t worry. I will make certain of it.
First I will tell you what happen to me in Karachi. It is a long story but I know you must be thinking of this many times. Perhaps you been imagining I’m not in this world any more. So I tell you about it so you don’t worry. I was walking down the street when a bike came into me there. Knocking me to my feet. A young man took me inside his house and offered me tea. I’m thinking this is kind and of course I was still in shock because actually my leg was painful and I was feeling dizzy at the same time. But something bad he put in the tea and then he robbed me and locked me in the basement. This is sounding like a film, no? But it is true. Every bit.
There I remained for three days until the man returned. He was most shocked to find me still alive. He freaks out, as you would say, then he runs off. Extremely weak and ill, I manage to make it up the steps and then it’s too much for me and I pass right out. For how long I’m there, son, I’m not certain, but when I wake up I’m at home in my sisters’ house. Luckily, a neighbor went by and when he glances down on the steps for no reason he recognizes me. Everyone was knowing I’m missing from the house. Almost dead I am. Then, son, when they brought me home and brought me back to life, Fatima says by feeding me her special spicy chicken curry, I eventually got myself better again for you. Only informing me when I was well enough to sit up that you had gone missing soon after me. I looked down every street for you. I walked and walked until I became sick from worry. I could not eat. I could not sleep. None of us could. Your poor mum, every day she cries and cries.
Now we don’t understand anything about why you are there. Nobody tells us anything at all. It was only much later when [BLACKED OUT WORDS HERE] who is a friend of a policeman, who was talking to his wife about a boy called Khalid who was held in Karachi at that time, that we were able to put the numbers together. That was after we [THE REST OF THE LETTER IS BLACKED OUT]
Choking back tears, Khalid holds the letter up to the light in an effort to see what’s written under the black crossing-out, but no words are visible. How dare they wreck Dad’s letter? Staring at the clear, round writing, Khalid fixes on the certainty that, yes, Dad wrote this—to him. The loving words force him to climb back into all the things that have happened since he last saw him. All the horrible cruel things. But now he knows Dad’s alive, he’ll never care again if anyone tries to hurt him. He’ll never care if anyone likes him or doesn’t think he’s special. Nothing matters except his dad’s safe, he’s alive and he’s out there fighting for him, and so are all his family.
“Where did you go, cuz?” Once more, Tariq whispers from the corner of the cell next door, anxiously pleading for a quick answer. “Cuz?”
“A lawyer called Harry came from England to see me.”
“WHAT? Why?” Tariq’s shocked.
“He brought me a letter from my dad. He’s fine and Harry’s going to help me.” Khalid still can’t quite believe it himself.
“Why all of a sudden, though?” Tariq asks. “What happened to bring him here?”
“I dunno,” Khalid says. “I think they had to let the lawyer in when they found out how old I was. Or maybe they read all my letters and saw I was innocent. Or maybe Lee-Andy helped me and loads of lawyers are coming here. Who knows? Perhaps they’re closing the place down and letting everyone out.”
“That would be cool,” Tariq says, a bit deflated. “Can you ask him if he’ll help me?”
“Yeah, course. Didn’t have time today, but sure I’ll ask for you. He’ll help you if he can, I promise.”
“Thank you, cuz. Thanks!” Tariq sounds thrilled at the idea of an English lawyer helping him.
Barely able to sleep, bleary-eyed and weak from all the excitement, Khalid’s in a state of disbelief when morning comes and the call to prayer sounds across the camp.
Stumbling to wash himself quickly, Khalid unrolls the white towel and faces the wall to join the hundreds of prisoners looking towards Mecca. Only this time as he prays Khalid gives thanks for his family, for Tariq and Harry and for the chance that, one day, he might go home. A thought he gave up on a long, long time ago.
Soon after breakfast, when the smell of stale bread has left the cell, a weird and wonderful thing happens as Marvin tells Khalid, “Time for your visit.” Like those words are normal around here.
“Already?” Khalid’s standing in no time.
“Good luck,” Tariq whispers. Which gives Khalid another chance to pause in front of his door and wink and smile, as they always do, but today his head’s so full of questions, he wishes he’d taken the time to write them down and he barely notices Tariq.
Luckily, Khalid remembers a few.
“When can you get me out of here?”
“I wish I could answer that.” Harry sighs, scraping the metal chair closer to the table. A whiff of shampoo from his freshly washed hair fills the short distance between them.
“Parts of my letter from Dad were blacked out—how is he? And Mum? And my sisters?”
“I didn’t get to talk to him until the end of last year for the first time. Since then I’ve seen them many times. At first they were greatly disturbed by your disappearance, fearing they’d never see you again, but now your dad is back at work in the restaurant and your mum at the school, which is helping them cope much better than they were. The Muslim community and many others in Rochdale have rallied round your family to fight for your release. I can’t tell you how excited they all were by my coming here to see you. Aadab and Gul send you hugs and kisses, as they all do.”
Khalid lowers his eyes in an effort to stop himself from breaking down completely.
“Why did it take you so long to come and see me?” he whispers.
“It took a great deal of legal wrangling to get permission to visit Guantanamo,” Harry says, moving on quickly to explain that international law, including the Geneva Convention, requires certain conditions that still haven’t been met here. Including the one that child prisoners must be separated from adults and receive education while in detention.
“But I haven’t had any education!” Khalid says, wiping his tears.
“I know.” Harry shakes his head. “But US federal law has similar requirements, so you should have been receiving something.”
“This is all rubbish now, unless I can sue them.” Khalid likes this idea.
“Well, it seems they’ve only just accepted you’re seventeen.”
“Seventeen, yeah. I’m seventeen. I didn’t really care the other day when I figured it was my birthday but hearing you say it feels weird. They have to let me go now that they know I’m young?”
“You’d think so. But you signed a confession saying you planned with a number of accomplices to bomb various cities around the world,” Harry says.
“But it was a game. We weren’t gonna really do that. I was stupid to sign it.” Khalid still hates the part of him that gave in.
“Yes, it was an innocent computer game, and there’s nothing stupid about you from what I’ve heard. Can you tell me what happened, Khalid?” Harry clicks his laptop open, ready to record his story.
From now on, Khalid wants to be seen as honest and sincere, brave, forgiving and kind, so he thinks hard. Knowing once his words are taken down, they’re written in stone and he never wants to be caught out again.
“I didn’t even read the confession after I signed it,” Khalid begins. “They gave me loads of copies, about eight pages, I think. I should have read them. I only pretended to read them. They had the stuff printed out, ready for me to sign when they dragged me from the room after trying to drown me. That was after loads of times they took me for questioning . . . interrogation, I mean. They left me on the floor without any water or anything to eat. Like about the fourth time I thought I was gonna keep being taken there until I said what they wanted me to. And I was right. Some of the guards, it wasn’t their fault. One gave me some chewing gum and another gave me some chocolate and tried to help me. But the others, the ones in Afghanistan, they tried to—they pushed me upside down on a plank to drown me. That’s why I signed.”
Harry stops tap-tapping the shiny white keyboard for a second.
“Do you want to tell me about that?”
“No. Yeah. But not right now, or I might start crying.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Khalid, there are other young people here, some as young as twelve, who are in a worse situation than you. I don’t know their full names yet, but I’m trying to track down their families, who live in various places in the Middle East. In my experience, you did the right thing by stopping the torture.”
“How can they do this? That’s the bit I can’t understand, man.” Khalid sighs, gazing at the glowing white logo of Harry’s laptop. Still slightly stunned by his caring attitude.
“That’s the bit I’m trying to understand too.” Harry smiles, fully understanding Khalid’s weary glances.
“They tied me to a ring on the floor like I was a cow or something and put the air conditioner on until it was freezing. I was shaking and they kept blasting me with the same questions. Saying stuff like, ‘Just admit your part in the plot and we’ll let you go,’ until I was gonzo. They kept me awake for days until I was so wasted, man, I wanted to, like, chuck up. I didn’t know what the hell was happening and there was no one to talk to. Once I needed to take a leak and they wouldn’t even untie me.”
“Thank heavens you got through it,” Harry says.
Finally, Khalid smiles. “Yeah, I ain’t weak no more. Or stupid.”
“No.” Harry nods. “Many people haven’t made it through. Isolation is a tough thing to deal with. There were two suicides last week in Camp Echo.”
“Does anyone care about them, though?” Khalid asks.
“People do, Khalid. They do,” Harry says. “We must remember that once we divide the world into good and bad, then we have to join one camp or the other, and, as you’ve found out, life’s a bit more complex than that.”
“I know,” Khalid says.
“Right now it’s important to collect the evidence to close this place down,” Harry says firmly.
“Yeah, and they said they knew me from the demonstration in Karachi where someone was killed and they have a photo of me next to some guy they’re after.”
“Yes, it’s in the confession. I must say when I read that, I laughed, because the man next to you in the photo, we found out, is an Afghan doctor who agreed to attend the demonstration in case there were casualties. If you look closely you can just see the black doctor’s bag under his arm.” Harry nods. “He’s disappeared.”
It dawns on Khalid that Harry might just help him get out of this hellhole.
“So where are all these maniac terrorists, then?”
“That’s a good question, Khalid. No doubt there are some, and that’s why we have courts of law to decide who’s guilty and who’s innocent. From now on, what I can say is that you must be taken for exercise each day and given access to other prisoners, plus some form of education. Is there anything I can bring you next time I come?”
“When will that be?”
“Soon, I hope,” Harry says.
“How about bringing me my coursework and schoolbooks? Yeah, big laugh that would be, wouldn’t it? I should be working on A-levels now, not bloody GCSEs. Too late. Forget it. Who cares?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Harry scrapes the chair back and carefully folds the laptop under his arm.
“Maybe some sweets. More letters. Any more books by that Harper Lee guy and yeah, books, loads of books.”
Khalid’s sorry to see Harry go. He’s a nice guy. He likes his soft voice and restless, jittery hands.
“You’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird? It’s one of my favorite books!” Harry smiles.
“It was in one of those old Reader’s Digest things,” Khalid explains.
“Ah, I see.” A smile spreads over Harry’s face. “Like you, I thought Harper Lee was a man’s name when I first came across it. But I’m sorry to have to tell you, that’s the only book she ever wrote. Pity, isn’t it?”
“It’s written by a woman? Wow. Shame there’s no more of them. I really like that story.”
“Now, what I’m going to do, Khalid, is try and get you some more books and perhaps even a teacher.”
“Thanks.” Khalid smiles.
Then the door slides back right on cue, as if someone’s been listening the whole time. The guards quickly unlock the restraints bolting Khalid’s ankles to the floor and lead him away.
It’s only when he’s back in the cell that Khalid wishes he’d asked Harry to bring him some of that lane cake that Harper Lee mentions. Coming up with plenty of other things he wanted to say as he sits on the bed to think things over.
“Khalid, what happened?” Tariq whispers again.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” Khalid says, anxious to go through everything himself first. It’s not until he’s said the last prayers of the day that he moves to spread his hands on the wire mesh door to fill Tariq in on Harry’s visit.
“So what did you tell him about me?” is the first thing Tariq asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, let me think!” Khalid kicks himself for forgetting to mention Tariq. What’s wrong with me? How could I forget? So much for kindness.
“Sorry, Tariq, I forgot. I’ll do it next time. It went right out of my head,” Khalid humbly admits.
“No problem, cuz. You always were a dorkhead. Don’t let me down next time, eh?” Tariq says.
“On my mum’s life, I promise I won’t, man.” The muscles in Khalid’s face tighten as he tries to smile. “My hand’s on my heart, you know that?”
“Yeah, brother, mine is too.”