The Ink Bridge (8 page)

And then he stopped. He waited while the image of the Snake drained to a spot in his memory – the vision of him lying, bleeding on the hotel floor. Omed knew he wasn't safe. Even with the Snake gone, there was no one in Lahore he knew or trusted. The streets were slick with pollution and the dark glances of strangers.

He slipped into a shop and ordered a cola. It was the first time he had tasted such a drink and the bubbles were a surprise. But he sat, sipping it through a straw, until it was finished. Then he crunched the rough lumps of ice and swallowed them as well.

The light from outside lurched under the wide canopy at the front of the shop and crept as far as it could into the shaded interior. But at the back of the shop there was almost complete darkness. As Omed stared into this gloom, his eyes gradually made out the blurry half-shapes of men lying on bunks in a darkened room. In one corner a man, with a towel wrapped around his head, scrubbed at his teeth with the frayed end of a stick. The more Omed looked, the more he saw – a whole world looming out of the darkness. People sleeping, eating, playing cards, dreaming, drinking, washed by shadow. Omed turned and the light from outside stung his eyes. Did they ever stray into the sunlight?

Omed slid the box off the table and between his legs. Reaching in, he pulled out the roll of dollar bills and unwrapped one. He went to the counter and paid. The man looked at the dollar bill, held it up to the sun and nodded. He muttered something in Urdu. The word
money
, the word
boy
. Smoke from a cigarette curled from behind the jars of melted sweets. He pointed with his long nose towards Omed's box. Omed hugged it to his chest and turned from the man, not waiting to receive change. Omed could feel the eyes of the shadow-people on his back.

The sun was like a flash of gunpowder. Omed blinked against it, everything fuzzy. He felt a hard grip on his elbow and a rough hand clamped across his mouth.

‘I should kill you and take your money. That would be the clever thing to do. No one knows you are here. You are no longer a person. I should kill you.' Omed flinched. The rough bristles on the Snake's chin grazed his neck.

‘You cannot even speak,' he whispered. ‘What use are you?' He felt for the money box inside Omed's coat. ‘I could have all the money for myself.'

The Snake held the knife at Omed's back below his ribs where it would slide easily into his kidneys. It would be a painful death and a slow one. The knife was a silent weapon and Omed was sure the Snake knew how to use it.

A string of Urdu words came over his shoulder and the Snake spun Omed to face the man from the shop. In the same quick movement, the knife dissolved and the Snake placed his hand onto Omed's shoulder. He spoke to the shop owner in Urdu and Omed recognised the words:
uncle
and
nephew
among the complicated syllables. He slapped Omed's face affectionately and smiled.

The shop owner's eyes narrowed and he asked Omed something. He felt the Snake's grip tighten on his shoulder, so he nodded. The owner smiled warily and walked back to his shop.

‘You did well,' hissed the Snake. ‘Maybe you are of some use after all. A man travelling alone is suspicious but an uncle and his dear nephew, well that is another matter.' He let go of Omed's shoulder. ‘You should give me the money,' he said. ‘It will be safer.'

But even with the danger of the Snake and his thin-bladed knife, he would not give up the money. It was not his, it was the Poet's, and it was for one purpose only. Omed held his arms tightly around his chest.

The Snake shrugged. ‘Well, I shall keep the passports,' he hissed. ‘That way we each have something the other needs. That way we are locked together.'

The aeroplane was Malaysian, a red and blue kite on the tail. The seats faced forward like a bus, but the plane was wider and cleaner than anything Omed had ridden on before. Omed tightened his seatbelt until it hurt. He needed to go to the toilet, but he was afraid to enter the small room. Voices crackled out of the speakers above his head – in Malaysian and English, but he struggled to understand. They were flying to Kuala Lumpur, a small red dot many thousand kilometres away. They would skirt the mountains of India before crossing the sea. Then they would fall from the sky into a new land.

When Omed was young, he would watch the steel birds crossing the skies – fat-bellied Antonovs and the sleek darts of Russian MiGs. Once, he and his friends came across wreckage scattered over the rocky ground in the Kakrak Valley. The pieces were so heavy that, between five of them, they could not roll even the smallest chunk. How the machines clung to the sky was unimaginable.

Omed's flight crossed the plains of India at night; towns winking up through dust and smoke like fiery eyes. The clouds were tinged with moonlight as the brocaded edge of a fine kuchi skirt. The plane was among the stars, one of them, a comet across the blue-black night.

Inside the plane a movie was playing. Everyone's ears were wired to their armrests, their eyes stuck to the flickering images on the screen. But Omed could not bear to separate his eyes from what was passing below – cities full of people, sleeping, hiding, robbing, praying, escaping, dying. Town after town after town. As many people as stars.

Then came the sea – a liquid struck by the morning sun and spinning out forever. Omed had never seen water in such a great amount before.

As a boy he had visited the five lakes of Band-e Amir with his father. They had travelled from Bamiyan by bus, all day, walking the final two hours to avoid the mined road. The lakes had been a terrifying blue, caught like snatches of burqa in the folds of skun hills. The water, when they reached it, was cool and refreshing. They had camped overnight in a cave tunnelled into the cliff by Band-e Zulfiqar – the Sword of Ali. Him and his father, and a holy man, a
pir
, all wrapped in shawls against the cold. In the morning, they woke to the sight of the sun turning the water to sky.

It had been their final journey together, and Omed had never forgotten the blue lakes; the red painted stones where the landmines lay; his father's hands tearing bread for breakfast; and the kind words and soft face of the
pir
.

His father sat with the old man for a long time, writing his stories in the small green book he always carried with him. Omed had grown bored and walked down to the lake where giant fish circled in the deep water. When his shadow fell on the surface, they scattered.

Omed walked out on the shallow ledge and peered over the cliff that plummeted into the deepest blue. His shadow radiated spears of light and dark from the sun. It reminded Omed of the paintings of the Buddhas.

Suddenly, his foot slipped and he fell into the deep water. It was so cold that it stole his breath. The air was replaced by water. And he was sinking. And the surface seemed so far away. Too far. And he stopped fighting. He could see the beauty. He could hear voices, soft, fluid, like the water itself.

Above, there was an explosion of white. And from out of it a dark figure moved towards him. It was the
pir
, his long beard trawling behind, filled with bubbles. He dragged Omed up, towards the light.

On the shore, his father's worried face bent over him. Omed coughed the lake from his lungs, shivering. The water had been inside him, all around him, it had been everything.

This was his memory of water.

Below the metal bird, tiny boats rose and dropped on waves. Islands swelled like mountains from the cloudlike sea. Omed could not believe the world was so big. He had read of such things – towns, cities, oceans, countries, people – but a reader can only imagine with what he already carries inside. His father had said,
Omed, you cannot make
a cup without clay
. You cannot make something from nothing. By seeing, he could gather clay.

The strange magic of the plane made him crazy. He believed for a moment he could see his future; him standing on the beach in Australia with waves that reached to the sky. His toes curled into wet sand and the sun warmed his neck. He could smell salt as the Poet had described. There were white flocks of birds tumbling though the air.

It was as though the plane was swimming through milk. Skimming towards a city – a dot on the smooth shiny map on the screen.

The plane slowed and lurched through the cloud, dipping its wings at the lights of Kuala Lumpur. When the runway grabbed for them, the plane swooped gracefully and, kissing it softly, delivered Omed back to earth. Passengers tumbled from the gullet of the tin bird, faces as rumpled as their clothes.

The man behind the desk yawned until his nose ran, looking at Omed's photo and then at him and back to the photo. ‘Mohammed Afghani?' he asked. Omed nodded. The man held the photo up and then, as pearls of sweat ran into Omed's eyes, he brought his rubber stamp down hard on a fresh page.

Omed's worn shoulder bag travelled slowly beside fresh, plump cases on a long belt. Inside was everything he owned – a few old clothes bought with the bag at the bazaar, a lump of cheap soap. Omed had sewn the rest of his money into his coat while the Snake was sleeping. Stitch by stitch he would unpick it and unfold stone-faced men into the Snake's hand, buying his freedom a dollar at a time.

As they shuffled through the doors and into the thick heat, two men stepped in front of them. One had a bad limp, his friend wore reflective sunglasses. They spoke quickly in the Hazaragi dialect of Omed's homeland. The Snake turned them by their shoulders and walked away so they could talk without Omed overhearing. He stood and waited like a dutiful nephew. Like a lamb waiting for the Eid feast.

Suddenly the two strangers marched quickly towards him, grabbing his bag, and his arm, and shoving him towards a waiting taxi.

‘You ride in front. I must talk with your uncle.'

Omed opened the door and saw a man with skin so dark he seemed to be made entirely of night.

‘Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. Short way only, we are not touriss,' growled the man with the sunglasses as he followed the Snake and the limping man into the back of the taxi. His English was clumsy in his mouth. He smacked the driver on the neck. ‘And we pay air so turn it over.'

The driver looked at Omed and smiled, flicking the switch so the air conditioning moaned into life. He reached for another switch and a small statue on the dashboard was suddenly haloed in red and green flashing lights. The men behind snorted and Omed heard the word
kafir
. The statue was a Hindu god, its head heavy with a gold crown and in its right hand a thick spear with a heart-shaped head.

Although he had been brought up in a land where there was but one God, Omed knew from books that in other countries people worshipped different deities. In India there were elephant-headed gods and those with many arms and heads. He had heard the mullahs talk of these idols, deride them, and denounce them as demons. The people who followed them were infidels and beyond salvation; for them it would not be a smooth ride into the afterlife.