The next day, a Somali man with one grey tooth comes and drinks coffee with Abshir while they haggle over prices to smuggle you to Australia. You listen in, and you’re horrified – it’s enough money to buy a car, or to set up a small business.
Two days later, Grey Tooth comes back with forged travel documents for you and Jamilah, and Abshir hands him an envelope stuffed with cash.
‘Where did you get the money?’ you ask Abshir. ‘Is it all of what Aadan sent you to look after us for a whole year?’
‘Yep, just about, walaal,’ he says and sighs. ‘He’ll want the same amount again once you arrive safely – what I gave him today is only half the cost. But I’ll worry about that. Now listen here.’
Abshir reaches into a plastic bag and takes out a pair of new blue sneakers in just your size. He lifts up the sole of one, takes some unfamiliar green notes out of his pocket, and stashes them under the sole.
‘That’s five hundred US dollars, walaal – more money than I make in a month, all right? It has to last you the whole journey – from here by plane to Malaysia, then by boat to Indonesia, and finally another boat to Australia. The whole journey is paid for, and there’ll be someone to meet you at each place, so don’t give the smugglers anything extra. The cash is mostly in case you need to bribe a border official, but also in case you need to pay for food or get a local simcard for the phone.’
Next, he hands you a new phone. You can scarcely believe your eyes.
‘This, walaal, is courtesy of my work,’ he says and chuckles. ‘Proud sponsor of Screw You, Al-Shabaab.’
You both laugh.
AS YOU FOLLOW Abshir through Nairobi airport, tightly holding Jamilah’s hand, your new blue sneakers make a little eek, eek, eek on the shiny floor.
When it’s time to go, you embrace Abshir with all your strength, until he laughs and gasps for breath.
‘Good luck, my little walaal’ are his last words to you before you and Jamilah leave Africa … maybe forever.
On the plane, the engine roars. The pressure of the take-off glues your back to the seat. Jamilah’s eyes grow wide as two coins. You have to jam your hands between your legs to stop them from shaking. You’re suddenly so nervous that it feels like your guts are trying to ride down a mountain on a one-wheeled bike.
You look out the window at the desert unfolding below you. A few weeks ago, you and Jamilah were specks in that desert, a hair’s breadth from death. You take some slow breaths and turn your attention away from the window.
The hours begin to tick by. So, this is what it’s like to be on a plane. There are headphones and blankets for free, movies to choose from in different languages, portions of food wrapped in crisp plastic, and a tiny bathroom with a toilet that sounds like a blowtorch when you flush it.
An English word you’ve never heard before, ‘turbulence’, is announced, and then – whoa! – the plane dips and lurches and you feel like food tossed about in a frying pan.
The plane straightens up, and after a while Jamilah falls asleep. Her shoulders shake as she coughs in her sleep, and you try – and fail – not to think about how completely she’s relying on you to get her through this journey.
But I’m relying on her too, you think. I couldn’t face this alone.
You don’t want to think about what could go wrong if the deal Abshir has helped you make goes bad and you get stranded in another country halfway to Australia. Abshir warned you that the Malaysian and Indonesian governments are just as merciless to asylum seekers as the Kenyan police.
You make yourself think about going to school in Australia instead. About meeting Aadan; helping him write articles about al-Shabaab and Bright Dream, making sure Zayd and Rahama didn’t die in vain. About getting Jamilah strong and healthy again, in a place where she can eat good food and see great doctors, and where both of you can even play sport, on a big grassy field, without al-Shabaab forbidding sport, and music, and education for girls, and drawing pictures, and all the other crazy things they forbid. You think about starting a new life in a place where you can be free.
The plane touches down in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You and Jamilah stagger off the flight. Uniformed guards stand everywhere, and you feel waves of nervous nausea begin to wash over you.
You try to arrange your face to look nonchalant, as though you travel all the time, as though you have family waiting for you on the other side of customs.
‘Just relax,’ you hiss to Jamilah, and she nods tensely.
You force your feet onwards to the customs counter and lift your and Jamilah’s forged papers up to the counter. The uniformed woman looks at them. She looks at you, then Jamilah. An eternity hangs in the air. She flips the paper over and sighs through her nose.
You’re reaching down to untie your shoe – you hadn’t thought about how clumsy it would be to get the bribe money out in public. You feel exposed as a snail without a shell. Then she gives a bored harrumph, and her stamp goes chomp on your paper, then chomp on Jamilah’s.
‘Okay,’ she says, gesturing you onwards, and you’re through.
A squat, balding Malaysian man with sweat patches under the sleeves of his shirt grabs you from the crowd, quickly checks your names, and hustles you into the back of his silver car.
He accelerates away from the airport, not speaking at all. On the car’s radio, a woman’s voice sings a high-pitched, lilting melody.
The air here
