by Muhammad Khurram Salim
Aahil tried to settle into his studies but found the going hard. “There are too many distractions,” he thought and wrote, pressing his pencil more. “I must find a way to side-step the brambles that thwarted my good thoughts. Ugh! Those pesky side-thoughts.” He had been studying concentratedly under desk-light, for a couple of hours, after his evening meal of roti and dal. The night town slept accompanied by the music of a light traffic sound and the passage of the south breeze in all the leaves, here and there. “I can’t write all this,” thought Aahil feeling drawn down, partly by fatigue. “English is hard to learn. I must translate from my native Arabic. I have to get it right. The subject verb object. The subjects …”
In his refugee hotel room, he sat with his pencil and foolscap paper and wrote out words, nouns and adjectives … connectives. A young man, in his early twenties, he recalled the face of his beautiful Chalipa who had such a smile and a way with her movements. They used to converse for hours in Palestine, never allowing themselves to mention sad things and there were many of those. Someone’s roof had collapsed, a few more children had died, the sight of blood never leaves you … “Chalipa, I will find you again,” said Aahil who had left her on the first available boat, hoping she could join him later, soon. “You are the angel light in the west, over the blue sea, the dawn fairness in the east, of the mornings.”
His friend Shahroz had passed away in his arms, speaking softly of the rays of eternal light, that light that only a seeker could find through toil and struggle. Shahroz had always liked wholesome things, his Muslim community, his Jewish well-wishers, his dreams of being wealthy that he endlessly wove, in days of work or idleness. The thought of Shahroz, his studious friend, who used to leaf through graphic novels and religious tracts, brought a tear to Aahil’s eye and it rolled down onto his exercise book where he’d written the word ‘peace’ in English. Aahil sighed, felt morose, but wrote on till he came to the end of a sentence. “The sage brought a gift of love.”
He stopped and rested his head in his arms on the table. “I can’t do this, it’s too hard,” he sighed and was a little lachrymal. An image of his aunt Basma in Palestine found his head and she consoled him with words like “Good boy” “Try” and “Allah always helps.” He looked up after a spell, thought he heard a lone dog bark outside in the dark and a distant siren, and put on a video sent by his friend in Palestine, Zain. He saw pictures of a child alone, after his family had been murdered by angry Israeli soldiers. The eight-year-old was learning English, trying, failing, sometimes crying. At the end of the short video, she looked up and said “I am learning today. My mum used to say, “Keep trying.””
Aahil switched off the video and started writing again and pretty soon he made progress. He saw the light of a large Moon in the Cardiff sky and knew he would learn and be better at English, somehow. A smile crossed his tired face.