my diary.’
‘Rewriting?’
He didn’t speak for a very long time and I watched the half-dead dog, who was now looking up at me and moving his tail.
‘When I got to Turkey the army caught me,’ Baram said finally, releasing the words in one breath. ‘There were thirty-one of us altogether. They captured us and searched us all. They took three of us and let the rest of the people continue on their journey.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we are Kurdish. I was writing a diary. I had been writing it for two years, and they found it in my bag and they saw one word, only one word: “Kurdistan”. They took me to jail and they said, “What is that word?” and I said, “Kurdistan.” I had to say it because they already knew. So they locked me up for one month and three days. Then they let me go. But they took my passport and nine hundred euros and they burned my notebook. The money and the passport were not important to me, but the notepad had my life in it, and I cried when they burned it. They took my fingerprints and scanned my eyes, and I paid two hundred euros for the guard to let me go, and I ran to a Kurdish town. And from there I called my father.’ He closed the notebook, resting a hand over it.
‘How come you are still here?’ I said.
‘I’m trying to make enough money to leave. My brother is in Germany. I want to get there before he gets married.’
At the entrance to the Metro, the man with the worry beads approached people as they came off the escalators.
‘I hope you will go to your brother’s wedding,’ Afra said.
The three of us walked together to Acharnon. When we got to the café, Baram discreetly pointed out a man sitting alone in the far-left corner. He was wearing a black polo-neck and a black leather jacket and drinking cold coffee from a plastic glass with a straw. There was something immediately ridiculous about this man, but when I looked back to ask Baram if this was the right person, he was no longer there, and that would be the last time I ever saw him.
Reluctantly I led Afra to the table where the man was now slurping the last of his coffee.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said in Arabic.
The man looked up as if he hadn’t been expecting anyone. Then without saying anything he took the lid off his coffee and stuck his fingers into the plastic cup, trying to get an ice cube.
‘I’m Nuri and this is Afra. You’re supposed to be expecting us.’
The man managed to get hold of the ice cube and threw it into his mouth, biting down on it.
‘Do you not speak Arabic?’ I said.
‘Sit down,’ he said in Arabic.
We both took a seat, and maybe I was nervous, or maybe there was something about this man’s silence, but I began to ramble. ‘We met Baram in the square, he said you could help us, he called you yesterday and he said to bring our passports, which I have done, they’re right here.’
‘Not yet,’ he said abruptly. His words stopped my hand in its tracks. He smiled, probably at my sudden obedience, then crunched harder into the ice cube, grimacing in a way that made his face take on the appearance of a nine-year-old boy. It was amazing how much power this man-child had; in normal life he would probably have been struggling to make ends meet in some back-alley greengrocer’s in Damascus. There was a glint of something dark and desperate in his eyes, like the men in the woods.
‘This is your wife?’ he said.
‘Yes, I am Afra.’
‘You’re blind?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply, but with a hint of sarcasm in her voice that only I could pick up on, and I could almost hear her follow it with: ‘Clever man.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Poor blind woman – less suspicious. You’ll have to take off that hijab and dye your hair blonde. Not much we can do with you,’ he said to me, ‘but you’re not a complete lost cause. Good shave, clean shirt. Work on your expression.’
On the table the man’s phone vibrated and flashed. He glanced at the screen and his face changed, a twitch in his cheek, a clenched jaw. He turned the phone face down on the table.
‘So where is it you want to get to?’
‘England.’
‘Ha!’
‘Everybody laughs,’ I said.
‘Ambitious. Expensive.’
I lowered my face, the money in my rucksack making