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46

The asylum seeker we called Yellow got his nickname because on the day he arrived at the ASC he was wearing a yellow shirt and was given a private room in Yellow. He had been sent to us from Utrecht, where he had spent three weeks in an RC. He immediately got a room to himself, and within nine months he had been given political asylum. Technically it should have been humanitarian asylum, his lawyer said, but a residence permit is a residence permit. He was friendly, and I heard he came from a wealthy family. Zainab once asked me if the person in Y-3 was a man or woman, because he always looked timidly at the floor when he walked through the halls. No one knew his real name, everyone called him Yellow. He didn’t mind, and always answered with a smile if someone called him by his nickname. When people congratulated him on getting the residence permit, Yellow reacted awkwardly, as though he had swiped it from someone else. In fact, everyone was happy for Yellow, except Abdulwahid.

An asylum seeker who got a residence permit usually tried to keep it a secret from the others. And when he or she was subsequently assigned a house or apartment, the address almost never got shared with anyone in the ASC. This was because the person with a residence permit did not want other asylum seekers showing up on his doorstep if they were evicted from the ASC or wanted to go into hiding to evade deportation. And there was a good chance of this, because who else could asylum seekers turn to? The only asylum seeker I ever saw hand out his address was Yellow. He wrote out many little slips of paper with his address on it and gave one to every asylum seeker who said goodbye to him. He said they were welcome and that his door was always open should they be evicted from the ASC. Before Yellow left, Sayid spread the rumor that the Justice Ministry had tested Yellow’s ass to make sure that he was gay. I’m sure he meant it as a joke, but people took it seriously. Talib joked vulgarly that getting a residence permit in the Netherlands wasn’t so difficult. It simply involved having your ass tested, and if you passed—he snapped his fingers—you got asylum.

Abdulwahid and I were walking down the hall when I mentioned that Yellow was leaving.

“Is he being deported?”

“No, he got a residence permit.”

“How long has he been in the country?”

“Nine months, I think. They gave him political asylum.”

“Come with me,” Abdulwahid ordered, and pulled me along like a sheep. He was in a hurry, and at first I thought he wanted to go to Social Services, but he led me to the yellow wing, knocked on Yellow’s door, and when he answered, Abdulwahid pulled him along, too.

“Let’s go, and bring that political asylum of yours.”

“Huh? My what?” Yellow was so taken aback by Abdulwahid’s fierceness and haste that he grabbed his letter from the IND and went with us to Social Services. Abdulwahid marched up to Mr. Van ’t Zijde’s desk, as he was the only one in the office.

“Mister!” Abdulwahid said.

“Make an appointment first,” Van ’t Zijde said curtly.

“What did he say?” Abdulwahid asked me.

“That you need to make an appointment.”

“Ask him why I need to make an appointment. Aren’t we all in the same building? Does he make an appointment with his wife at home if he wants to talk to her? Does he make an appointment with an asylum seeker if he wants something from him?” I translated. Van ’t Zijde asked what the problem was.

Abdulwahid grabbed the sheet of paper with the residence permit out of Yellow’s hand.

“Translate for him: Why does an ass get asylum in the Netherlands, and a head doesn’t?” he demanded. Spittle flew off his lips. Mr. Van ’t Zijde did not answer. “Look!” Abdulwahid shouted. By now, more staffers had come into the office to see what was going on, so I translated for everyone. “The Ministry of Justice tested this man’s ass to see if he was a political refugee. Why don’t they test even one head of the hundreds of other asylum seekers?” Van ’t Zijde went as pale has a ghost. He did not dare look at Abdulwahid. Anneke stepped forward and took the paper out of Abdulwahid’s hand.

“Listen here,” she said crossly, “don’t talk to us like that.”

He brought his face closer to hers. “How am I supposed to talk, then? With my ass?” he shouted. Anneke took a step back.

“Tell him that if he doesn’t leave our office immediately, I’ll call the Foreigners’ Police.” I knew that Abdulwahid would attack and strangle Anneke if I translated this for him.

“Oh, Abdulwahid,” I said, “aren’t you ashamed to shout at a woman like that?” because I knew this was the only way to calm him down. It worked; he went silent at once. I led him out of the office and to his room, where he sat wallowing in shame for having shouted at a woman.

A few minutes later, Anneke came to me.

“That’s totally out of order, that kind of talk. And he can’t force another person to come to us with his asylum papers. If he doesn’t watch out he’ll end up in a cell.” It was as though she were making me the guilty party. She waited for an answer, but I didn’t know how to respond.

“I think Abdulwahid is stronger than a cell,” I warned her. “They’ll let him out after a few days or weeks or months. Then he’ll calmly sharpen a knife in the kitchen and decapitate someone from Social Services.” Anneke could tell I was serious.

“Come with me,” she said. I followed her, and she gave me two day passes for the train, one dated that same day, and another without a date.

“Go give these to Abdulwahid, and say he can come back when he has calmed down.”

“Where is he supposed to go?”

“I don’t care. He’s been given train passes before, to go to see a friend in Nijmegen or somewhere.”

“What about reporting?”

“I’ll take care of that. He doesn’t have to come back until he’s calmed down.”

I brought the two train passes to Abdulwahid, but he didn’t believe he’d been given them just like that. He thought I had begged Social Services for them, so he insisted on giving me one.

“Do you think the woman from Social Services is still afraid?” he asked. His shame had not worn off.

“Maybe you should try to be less angry when you talk to Dutch people,” I said. “They’re always so soft-spoken.”

“Me, angry?” he exclaimed, surprised. “Have you ever seen me angry? I’ve never been angry, not in my entire life.”

“So you weren’t angry back there?”

“Of course not. If I had been angry, I’d have broken his neck and taken that bitch’s computer and smashed it on her head.”

But of all the situations involving Abdulwahid, the one I think back on most was his attempt to finagle a letter from Jens van Munster saying he had become a Christian. This was after Firaas also got asylum as a Christian convert. I saw the letter Jens van Munster had sent. The pastor’s name was printed at the top, and at the bottom was his signature. It was a brief, official-sounding letter. Firaas read it out to me and exploded with laughter after every sentence. Especially the part that said Firaas had “found the way to Jesus” and that there was no doubt that “Jesus lived in his heart.”