‘Do something!’ the girl screamed.
Taslima nodded and went to the window. The lock was secure and the frame solid with layer upon layer of
paint. She looked around the bathroom for something to break the glass. Nothing.
The room was now filled with smoke and the girl began coughing wildly.
Taslima ran her finger around the frame to see if there was any give, but it was firm.
The girl’s coughing turned into a strangled wheeze and Taslima shouted, ‘Hold on,’ as the girl began to sink to the floor.
Taslima pressed against the glass. It felt heavy, unbreakable. She pulled off her hijab, the pain at the base of her neck nearly cutting her in two.
‘Give me strength,’ she prayed.
She wound the hijab around her hand and took a deep breath. Then she made a fist and punched.
The jolt of agony running from her hand to her shoulder made Taslima gasp. It felt as if the entire limb were in a vice.
She checked the glass but there was no sign of even a hairline crack.
She held her hand to her chest, tears running down her face. The girl was now sprawled beside the bath, her head to one side.
Taslima steadied herself, took another lungful of air and smoke, then punched again with all her might.
There was a hideous snapping sound and Taslima screamed. The glass remained intact but her knuckle was broken.
Her head spun both with pain and lack of oxygen. She could barely make out the girl through the smoke. They would both be dead within minutes.
She was so tired, so confused. Perhaps it would be OK. She would slip away quietly and sleep. She began to feel her knees bend and her shoulders slump. The darkness beckoned again.
‘No.’
Her own words jolted her back to life. She would not give up, she was better than that.
She positioned herself, legs akimbo, back straight. She wound the bloodied hijab around her other hand. Then she closed her eyes, pulled back her fist and thrust it at the glass.
She heard the smash, together with her own screaming. When she dared look she saw her entire hand had passed through the window. She pulled it back inside, wincing as sharp splinters lacerated her skin through the material of her hijab. She could feel the stickiness of blood pouring down her arm but bit her lip as she pushed out the rest of the broken glass.
She bent to the place where the girl lay and shook her.
‘I did it,’ she said. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
The girl stirred, murmuring gently.
‘Come on,’ Taslima said and pulled her to her feet. The girl leaned heavily against Taslima and another spasm shot through her.
‘Are we going home?’ the girl whispered.
‘En sh’Allah.’
The address the woman gave to Lilly was ten minutes outside the village. Jack drove at breakneck speed through tight country lanes. Lilly held on to the edge of her seat.
As they careered around a hairpin bend at seventy Lilly prayed they weren’t too late.
‘There,’ Lilly pointed to an iron gate in the hedge that flanked miles of single-track road.
Barely slowing, Jack pulled in, the side of his car scraping against the gatepost.
When they sped along the dirt track leading to the farm, the tyres hit a pothole with such force Lilly was propelled sideways into Jack, their shoulders clashing, the suspension heaving. Lilly’s hands flew to her bump.
‘Sorry,’ Jack shouted but she didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply.
Instead she stared straight ahead.
‘Mary Mother of God,’ said Jack, and Lilly knew he had seen it too.
The farmhouse was ablaze.
Orange and red flames licked the windows and doors while plumes of poisonous black smoke swirled skywards. The fire greedily sucked in the surrounding air and belched out a roar in return.
Lilly covered her mouth with her hand. ‘They’re inside.’
Jack pitched open his door and ran towards the building. Lilly followed him, the feverish heat assaulting her.
As they neared the front door it spat at them in anger.
‘I’m going in,’ said Jack, and pulled his leather jacket over his head. ‘Call the fire brigade.’
‘Don’t!’ Lilly screamed, but he was already on his way, face bowed by the heat.
He kicked out at the door, which gave way easily under his boot. Inside, Lilly could see everything was clouded
by smoke. Jack bent as low as he could and went in. In less than a second she could no longer even make out his outline.
‘Jack,’ she shouted, ‘this is madness.’
If he called back she couldn’t hear him over the crash of the flames.
He was fast, she told herself. Hadn’t he been training all these months? He’d find Taslima and Aasha and be out of there in seconds.
She scrabbled for her mobile and dialled 999. Help would be here soon. Everything would be OK.
No sooner had she held the thought than there was a throaty rumble from deep within the house, then a whoosh that she felt as well as heard. It knocked her off balance with its dizzying intensity. As she scrambled to her feet, she felt the heat scorch her skin and smelled her hair singe.
A window exploded outwards in a spray of glass and wood, and the entire ground floor was engulfed in flames.
‘Jack!’ Lilly’s screams were like wire in her throat. ‘Jack, are you OK?’
She stumbled back, her arms held protectively in front of her face. Tears poured down her cheeks. ‘Jack, where are you?’ She fell to her knees, weak from the blistering heat. ‘Jack,’ her words were no more than a scratch.
Sobbing, she held her stomach. ‘Don’t leave me.’
In the maelstrom of fog and flame a black shape catapulted towards Lilly. She turned her back, anticipating a flying piece of wood. She had to get away. There was nothing she could do for the others.
She crawled on her hands and knees, her belly low
to the ground. Her nails dug in the scorched earth. Behind, she felt something hurtling towards her. She curled into a ball, bracing herself. It landed at speed, glancing off her shoulder, rolling sidewards. She turned to look.
‘Jack?’
He lay on the floor, his face black, his eyes streaming, gulping air.
‘The girls,’ he forced out the words, ‘they’re at the back. On the roof.’
Lilly allowed herself a second to touch his arm before she raced around to the back of the house.
She scanned the roof, her hand shielding her eyes. At this side of the building the fire had reached the first floor, and orange fingers clamoured out of every window. At the very top, above what looked like a small bathroom window, two figures were pulling themselves towards the apex.
Lilly cupped her mouth. ‘Taslima.’
Both figures looked in her direction. Through the charcoal clouds Lilly saw it was her. The other girl must be Aasha.
‘Hold on,’ Lilly shouted. ‘The fire crew will be here any second.’
She checked behind her but there was still no sign of the engines.
The roof groaned and shuddered, tiles sliding down and detonating on impact with the ground below. Then a crack began to appear, sucking away the very fabric of the building. A hole gaped. Lilly realised the roof was about to collapse.
Taslima and Aasha clawed their way higher, flames hot on their heels.
Lilly could hear sirens in the distance. Come on, come on, she willed them.
‘They’re here,’ she shouted, but her words were drowned out by an enormous rip, as if a giant sheet were being torn in two. The roof gave way, tumbling into the depths of the inferno. Only the very frame remained, like a fragile skeleton, the girls perched like terrified birds.
Behind Lilly, the engines arrived, lights flashing, sirens blaring. A fireman put his hands on her shoulders.
‘Step back, love. It’s going to cave in.’
Lilly shrugged him off. ‘My friend is up there, and another girl.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered.
‘Bring a ladder,’ Lilly shouted. ‘Get them down.’
He shook his head and pointed to the walls, which were fast beginning to disintegrate. ‘There’s nothing to lean it against.’
Lilly put her hands in her hair, feeling the brittle ends where her curls were burned. ‘You have to do something.’
He turned to his colleagues and shouted something to them. Within seconds they arrived with a net.
‘Who’s the one nearest to us, love?’
‘Aasha,’ said Lilly.
The fireman held up a megaphone. ‘Aasha, can you hear us?’
She nodded, her face illuminated a strange orange by the fire.
‘I want you to jump out as far as you can.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand that? Jump out.’
Aasha looked towards Taslima. It was impossible to say if they spoke but Aasha steeled herself, then dived. She seemed to be suspended in the air, the burning building crashing around her, before she hurtled downwards and landed with a thump in the middle of the net.
The fireman gave a tight smile then turned to Lilly. ‘What about the other one?’
‘Taslima,’ said Lilly.
Again he lifted the megaphone. ‘Taslima, I need you to do the same for me.’
Lilly waited for her to turn around, to push back with her hands and jump to safety. Instead, Taslima crawled further up the roof.
‘Taslima,’ the fireman shouted, ‘you need to stop climbing and jump.’
Taslima didn’t respond but continued to make her way upwards until she was at the chimney. Then she clung to it.
Aasha was brought to Lilly, wrapped in a silver blanket.
‘I don’t think she can understand you,’ she said. ‘She got a whack on the head and she doesn’t seem to have any idea what’s happening.’
‘Taslima,’ the fireman shouted. ‘There isn’t much time.’
Taslima wrapped her arms even tighter around the chimney.
There was another sickening heave and the walls began to crumble. Any moment now, Taslima would be propelled into the fire.
Lilly snatched the megaphone. ‘Taslima, you listen to me right this second. Just stop buggering about and jump.’
Bricks began raining down and Aasha screamed.
‘We can’t stay here,’ shouted the fireman.
‘Please,’ Lilly begged. ‘I can get through to her.’
She looked up at Taslima. Without her hijab her hair streamed around her head like a wild waterfall.
‘Taslima, I know you’re very frightened but you have to do this.’
Taslima didn’t move.
‘After everything you’ve done for me I will not let you die. I cannot do without you and neither can Rogon.’
At her son’s name, Taslima looked up.
‘That’s right, Zahara, I know all about your beautiful little boy,’ Lilly’s voice caught, ‘and trust me, he needs you.’
Taslima couldn’t breathe. The flames and the smoke and the noise swirled around her. She imagined that this was exactly like hell would be.
It wouldn’t be long before the very face of evil himself came for her.
She had been sure that getting out of the bathroom had been the right thing, that she wanted to escape, live to fight another day. Now up here on the blazing roof, the bricks of the chimney unbearably hot beneath her hands, she wasn’t certain of anything.
She looked up at the sky. It looked so cool, stretching out into for ever.
From down below a shout pierced her thoughts. The voice was a woman’s. Oddly familiar. She could scarcely make her out through the shrouds of smoke.
‘I will not let you die,’ the woman screamed.
Taslima was sorry. The woman obviously cared but
she just didn’t have the strength. Though she couldn’t recall the details, Taslima knew she’d been fighting for a very long time. She was sapped.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered, a single tear wetting her cheek.
Then the word. The one word that Taslima did remember.
Rogon.
‘I know all about your beautiful little boy,’ the woman shouted.
The memory of him caught Taslima like a punch. She doubled over with the force of it.
He was eighteen months old. His eyes were like midnight. He was the reason she got out of bed each day.
The woman’s words filled the air. ‘…he needs you.’
Once more, Taslima put her trust in Allah.
And jumped.
‘You are so dead,’ Imran sneers into Aasha’s face as soon as she crosses the threshold.
After everything that’s happened, she’s surprised that she still feels a stab of fear in her belly.
‘Got nothing to say now?’ he growls.
Aasha looks at the floor. The doctor had suggested that she stay in hospital overnight but Aasha had begged her mum to let her come home. Now she wondered if hospital would have been better.
Imran’s eyes flash. ‘Or are you hoping your little boyfriend will come around to save you?’
Her eyes fill with tears at the thought of Ryan.
Imran grabs her chin and forces her to look at him. ‘Don’t you cry for him, you little slut.’
‘Enough.’
It’s Mum in the doorway.
Imran doesn’t let go. ‘She needs to know what she’s done.’
His grip is so tight Aasha can hardly breathe.
Mum moves towards them. ‘She knows what she has done, Imran.’
‘Does she?’ he snorts. ‘Does she know the shame she has brought us all? Do you?’
Aasha feels her knees begin to give way. After everything she’s been through, will they send her away? She doesn’t know if she can bear that.
‘I know exactly what Aasha has done,’ Mum says. ‘And I know exactly what you have done.’
Imran glares at her. ‘Someone has to keep this family in order.’
Aasha expects Mum to crumple but instead she reaches over and pulls Imran’s hand from her face.
‘I am your mother,’ she says, ‘and don’t you ever speak to me like that again.’
He stares at Mum with an intensity that makes Aasha shiver, but Mum doesn’t back down. She stares right back at him.
Aasha holds her breath, waiting. At last Mum speaks.
‘Things are going to change around here,’ she says.
5 May 2009
I arrive the mosque as if in a dream. In the days since Fighting4Islam left us, life has seemed unreal.
I have tried to focus on the forums, on my work, but everything seems so trivial. I know now that I want to make a difference. A real difference. I am just waiting for Allah to show me the way.