Читать книгу Favourite Dog Stories: Shadow, Cool! and Born to Run - Michael Morpurgo, Michael Morpurgo - Страница 24

“God is Good.”

Aman

All right, if you think it will help, I’ll go on then. The bus. We were on the bus. It was a comfortable bus, the most comfortable I’d ever been on. I was missing Shadow, of course I was; but apart from that, I was feeling really up. I think I imagined this bus would take us all the way to England. I was only eight then, remember. I hadn’t any real idea where England was, nor how far it was away, nor how long it would take us to get there.

I think if we had known what a long and terrible journey it was going to be, then I’d never have got on to that bus in the first place. As it turned out, that bus journey was the last time we were going to be comfortable, or happy, for a very long time.

Mother was sick with worry when we came to the frontier with Iran, I could see that. She told me we were going to play a game. If the soldiers came on board to check us, we had to pretend we were asleep. So that’s what we did. I heard them coming down the bus, but they passed by us without stopping. I only dared to open my eyes when the bus was on its way again. We were through.

“You see, Aman,” she whispered to me, “God is good. God is helping us.”

She told me then that she had telephoned from the army base to Uncle Mir’s contact in Teheran, the next big city, and he would be there waiting to meet us when we arrived, that he would take care of everything. So we had nothing more to worry about. I think I must have slept almost all the way, because I don’t remember much about that journey, only that it seemed endless.

Uncle Mir’s friend was there to meet us, as Mother had said. He walked us through the streets, warning us not to talk to anyone, and not to look anyone in the eye, particularly policemen. He told us that if we got caught they would put us in prison, or send us back to Afghanistan. So of course we did what he said. He took us first to one man, who took some money off Mother, then to another who Uncle Mir’s friend called ‘the fixer’, who took even more money off her.

I didn’t like any of these people. I didn’t trust them either. They treated us as if we were dirt. I felt lost in a strange and hostile world, with no Shadow to guide us any more. But I had my silver star. I kept it hidden in my pocket. I never took it out in case someone saw it. I’d squeeze on it tight whenever I was frightened, which was a lot of the time, and always before I went to sleep at night. It was my talisman, my lucky charm.

Uncle Mir’s friend kept telling us everything would be all right, that we would be looked after now all the way to England. Travel, food, we’d have everything we needed. There would be no problems, he said, no problems at all.

We believed him. We trusted him. We had to. We didn’t have a choice, did we? But it turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare. They took us down into a cellar, and said we’d have to stay there till everything was arranged. We were there for days on end. They gave us food and water, but they wouldn’t let us out, except to go to the toilet. Mother said it was like being back in the police cell in Afghanistan.

Then they came for us one night, took us out into a dark alleyway and shoved us into the back of a pick-up truck. I remember looking out of the back and seeing all the bright lights of the city. Once, when we were waiting at traffic lights, I said to Mother that we should climb out and make a run for it, that we were better off on our own. But then the truck moved off, and the chance to escape was gone.

We never had another one.

Somewhere on the edge of the city, the pick-up stopped. There were people waiting for us. They made us get out and climb up into the inside of a huge lorry. It looked empty at first, but it wasn’t. At the back, there was a large metal container, its doors wide open. They pushed us in, threw us a couple of blankets, told us we had to be quiet and just left us. It was pitch black in there, and cold. We sat huddled in the corner, Mother telling me all the time it was going to be all right, that Uncle Mir knew what he was doing, that these were good people who were looking after us, and that everything would turn out fine, God willing.

Hours later, when we heard the sound of voices outside, and when the lorry started up and moved off, I began to believe she was right, right about everything, that maybe the worst was over. I kept telling myself that we would soon be in England with Uncle Mir, and we would have a warm place to sleep, running water, television, and I could go to see Manchester United play and see David Beckham. I might even meet him.

But it wasn’t only those thoughts that kept me going, it was my silver star, and the memory I had in my head of Shadow, always trotting on ahead of us, her tail waving us on, how she’d stop to look back at us from time to time to make sure we were coming, her eyes telling us that all we had to do was to keep going like she did. I just had to think about her, picture her in my mind, and, however hungry or cold or frightened I was, it made me feel a little better, for a while, but not for long.

I was half asleep by the time the lorry stopped again. We heard footsteps from inside the lorry, then voices right outside our container. “Police,” Mother whispered. “It’s the police. They’ve found us. Please God, no. Please God, no.” She had her arms around me, holding me tight, kissing me and kissing me, as if it was for the last time.