The Unnamed

The Unnamed

The woman stands and observes the man behind the counter. Her unborn wants that crispy fried chicken. The woman asks for a portion. The man behind the counter is unkind. He ignores her unborn and talks to others with money in their hands. Outside, the heavy mammals of grey and black are ready for exploiting. The unborn wants to sit on the bench inside and smell that appetising Southern Fried Chicken. The man behind the counter does not like this. He says, ‘buyers only.’

Since yesterday, her unborn had a half-eaten microwaved veggie burger that a woman from above the shops thrown in her hand reminding her, ‘she should be eating for two!’

How funny, it wasn’t even enough for one!

The man behind the counter refills trays in the heated glass chicken display with fresh steaming and succulent potions.

“It’s mouth-watering,” says her unborn.

“It surely is,” the woman harmonises, licking her lips.

The woman and her unborn filling their craving by smelling the aroma of bubbling hot oil infused with flavours, from the other side of the glass door with red and yellow writing a happy rooter. The woman also can read Halal in Arabic. Next to it is an ‘Open’ sign lit up. The man is now on the other side of the counter and a woman replaces him; she is talking non-stop. He holds a big bucket full of fresh fried crispy chicken and sits on one of the red and black benches, placing his food on the stone black table. The woman behind the counter gives him a big portion of crispy, thick, golden succulent fried to perfection. The man fills a glass with bubbling cold drink. He sits and eats for two.

The woman and her unborn, observe the man. He is ripping the chicken with his strong hands. The chicken’s crispy skin burns his oily fingers, he bites with his front teeth, women and her unborn do too. His lips burn a little, but he manages. The sound of crushing, delicious crunchy chicken in between his strong jaws, makes that chicken more desirable for her unborn. The man’s mouth is greasy with the chicken fat. He wipes over his moist lips with five or so single-ply napkins. He removes the remaining residues stuck in between his front teeth with the nail of his left hand’s little finger. The man is dipping his thick cut, fried chips in a small plastic tub of mayonnaise. His fingertips cover with pale white sauce, he licks thoroughly. The woman and her unborn know exactly how it tastes.

The man leaves more than half of the chips and a roughly bitten chicken in his bucket. He is burping loudly after drinking his carbonated drink in one. He looks at the woman and her unborn picks up his paper bucket and gives the leftovers to a hungry bin.

The woman sits on the second step in front of a cardboard door that reads, ‘Do Not Enter’ next to the ATM. High street shops race to shutter their semi-transparent frontages. Workers go home after a long working day to enjoy the night with their loved ones, in the comfort of soft, cosy rooms. Shops now closed but the high street stays awake. It is a Friday night. Night traders are active to sell their desires to the voyageurs of dark destinations.

A trembling, irked man puts his hand forward to pull out a handful of crispy papers from a shy hole in the wall. The woman feels the aromatic infuse from the papers seep into the air. Her unborn is not familiar with the addictive smell of these papers. She thinks about her unborn who is still looking at the man eating crispy fried chicken with his stretchy red t-shirt which pulls up to reveal his lower belly when he stands behind the counter.

The hustler waits patiently in a black Mustang parked under the ‘No Parking’ sign on the high street. The woman is thinking about her unborn and crispy fried chicken. The hustler thinks she is thinking about him. He studies her, her face reflects an old, burnt, map from a geography book. Full of lines and patches, his sight travels through the dawns and dusks of her features, losing track in between her ditches and rises.

‘Street beauty.’ The hustler rubs his hands on his thighs.

She looks nowhere, focussing her eyes inside that black Mustang with its open window, blowing out loud music and smelling of alcohol. She notices the hustler; his eyes twinkle with dirty emotions. He throws a scary smile at her.

The trembling man looks at her unborn, drops a small number on the woman’s face then watches it slip down, increasing in value, onto her unborn. The woman feels tremendous pain. She bends forward to hide her face with dirty hands. The trembling man pushes her unborn hard and pulls her arm, shouting.

‘Come with me, I have everything. I will change your life and get rid of all this fucking dirt.’

Her unborn shrinks scared. The woman does not like the strong breath of the trembling man. She tries to escape his grip.

‘No. please… mercy!’ The woman says, pushing him away.

The trembling man walks to the wrong door of his car, looking at her, shouts on the silver running horse, “Fucking Refugees.” He opens the door and throws handful papers on the hustler’s face, kissing and biting his lips hard.

The woman’s unborn is restless. She rubs her skin to calm the unborn, who still wants that crispy chicken. She holds a small coin in her palm, rubbing and pressing, making a red stamp on the lines, like doing this will change them. The woman tries to stand, holding the wall with both hands. The coin slips from her hand, making a tin noise, rolling down the pathway, speeding down the gutter. The gutter locks the money behind its bars forever. The woman looks down. Her unborn is hopeless. She walks to the chicken shop. The man in the shop is not there. A girl is cleaning the floor, she cleans tables, throwing paper plates into hungry bins. The woman studies her from the other side of the locked glass door. The girl picks a disposable cup which is heavy little heavier than empty. Her unborn feels thirsty. The girl looks at the woman and checks an unwanted box, left on the corner table with a half-eaten piece of chicken breast without crispy skin, five or six chips completely buried under ketchup. The girl is walking to feed the bin, she stops, thinks and returns.

The woman is eating chips covered in ketchup, chicken is neither crispy nor hot. Her unborn does not like ketchup. She whispers to her unborn ‘survivors are not choosers.’ The thunder and rain scare her unborn. She hides under a sheet, wrapping around her body and head. The angry elephants of clouds roar and attack each other making lightening and load sounds. The woman sits inside a bus stop. A young girl is warming up a young boy rubbing and squeezing him. They do not like someone to be there. The woman sits quietly. The girl studies her, she can not breathe properly. The girl comes closer. The woman sits on the bus with the girl. The boy stands next to the girl touching her shoulder with his lower part.

‘I didn’t realise you were pregnant. When your baby is due?’

‘I don’t know, maybe after a month, maybe now.’

‘Don’t mess on the bus?’ The girl laughs.

Suddenly realises it wasn’t even funny. She turns to the boy. He is talking to someone on the phone. His voice is very quiet. The girl studies him. He walks away holding one hand to the small of his back. She is reading his lips. The boy is talking about a forest where police were searching for them.

‘Who is he?’

‘He is one of my clients.’

‘Clients?!’

The girl laughs, a shallow laugh, full of pain.

‘You are lucky, you do not have to sell your body to keep it alive. They pay me a tenner or sometimes even lesser. To please them.’ She continues. ‘He cannot pay, he is one of us, but he compensates in different ways.’

‘What?!’

‘Like I told him to help you, because—‘

‘Because?’

‘You are my friend.’

‘Your Friend?’

‘Forget the past, we should forget it, in such condition, what’s the point?’

‘Forget it, do you know that was only resource I had to survive on a strange land.’

‘I am sorry, now no more talk about it. I am sure he will arrange something for you, where you can stay until your baby is born or police let you live. If he find out you are not my friend, he will leave both of us nowhere.’

‘Thank you.’

The woman is lying on two velvety soft train seats. She doesn’t know where they were going. The girl and boy are kind. They tell her somewhere far from the city.

‘It is not safer to stay in big cities, countryside is open land, and full of nature.’ The boy sighs.

The train is fast, there are not many people. An old man is studying them, he gives a suspicious look. He leaves his seat and sits in front of the woman, when the boy walks around to check the toilets the girl follows him. The woman can see through the open door, they sneakily enter the same toilet. The old man is now reading news on refugees in an evening newspaper. He looks at her unborn, twitching his eyebrows.

‘Refugee?!’

Before she says something, the ticket collector comes and ask the old man for his ticket. The old man shows him a card. The woman sits up. Her unborn’s heart is beating very fast.

‘Ticket?’

‘Ticket!’

‘Ticket, the train ticket.’ The old man signs with his hands.

‘No— ticket.’

‘Where are you coming from?’

The woman looks at the old man’s face. He tells the ticket checker where she got on with her two companions.

‘Where are you going?’

‘No—‘ The woman looks at the door to the toilets.

‘You should have a ticket before getting on the train. It is illegal.’

‘No— ticket,’ she says again.

She looks at her unborn, then at the floor, and finally tries to look outside, it’s dark and daunting. Her head spines, she throws up. The woman holds a paper which reads, ‘Penalty Ticket.’ The old man leaves on the next station, giving her his business card. It reads, ‘Refugees Counselling Service. Contact us for legal support.’

‘Never contact such organisations, they will send you back,’ says the boy, tearing the card apart.

It is somewhere near the Lavender fields. Her unborn likes the calming fragrance of Lavender. The boy and the girl manage to stop the train in the wood, before the station.

‘This is the place, we should hurry before they find us.’

They help the women and her unborn to get down. People are panicking. They walk into the wood and disappear in the dark. The woman cannot walk fast. The boy is angry. He pushes her to walk fast. The girl is supporting her. After a long walk, they reach the place the boy was told about on the phone. There are a few more people waiting for them. The woman and her unborn are very tired.

The woman sleeps on the bare floor in a small tent next to a canal, under very strong, tall trees. The big tree’s roots are all over the ground. These roots hurt her unborn, so she sleeps on her back. It is making it difficult for her, bones against bones, hurt more. Her unborn misses the silky-soft bed, slipping under a mink blanket, with full aircon on. Her unborn is also missing a fatherly touch, a deep voice that ensures security and protection. Then her unborn recalls the thunder of gunfire, bombing, screams. Her unborn is scared. The woman sings lullabies to calm her unborn. The boy says she is not allowed to sing. It is risky for them. She bites her lips and sleeps helplessly.

In July, the morning defeats the dark quicker than ever. The woman sits on the side of the canal, she watches the water current flowing. The water is clean, fish swim underneath free, picking food like a shopper around the market. Sometimes fish come to the surface then quickly swim back. Her unborn likes this place, it’s peaceful and calm. The tall trees are carrying singing birds’ nests. The trees, birds and flowing water encourage life. There are three more tents, but all the residents have gone to find opportunities, food and a way to live on this land. The girl left some fruit in her tent and promised more on her return.

The woman sits on the edge of the canal, the water mirrors her face. She thinks about good days. She is happy, she is famous for her beauty, her infinite smile and her talent.

She has just finished her degree in medical science with outstanding results. Her father has arranged her wedding with his brother’s only son. She is very happy, she loves her cousin, who finished his education in the west. Before agreeing on this marriage her father comes to her room, she is talking to her future husband on the phone. She whispers, ‘I will tell you. I haven’t decided yet. Don’t push.’

They both knew what their parents were up to. Her maid enters the room she looks breathless and worried. The maid informs her about her father’s unexpected visit to her room. She was lying on her silky soft four posture bed, ‘Baba is coming, I will call you later,’ she whispers again.

There is knock on her heavy wooden door. She panics. ‘Please. Understand Baba is here. Ok, ok yes… now, please.’ She leaves her phone under her pillow, so her father cannot see who she was talking to. The maid helps her to wear her velvet slippers with zardozi work. She runs to the door to welcome her father.

‘Baba,’ she stands up respectfully for her father.

‘My beautiful daughter, my sweetheart.’ Her father places his hand on her head.

‘My baba, my life.’ She kisses his hand, and touches against her eyes and forehead, with love, respect and affection.

‘Your Baba wants you to lookup. My most precious doll.’

She never looked at his face before, she is hesitant.

‘Baba.’ She is shy.

‘Before asking for your consent, I want to see the results in your eyes.’

She knows her fiancé is still on her phone and is listening to the conversation. She struggles to look at her father’s face and when she looks her eyes are full of tears, she is happy, she feels she is the luckiest girl on the earth.

It is her wedding day. Early morning, she has been given a bath with milk and saffron, by her special maids, after rubbing her body with aromatic herbs and essential oils. No one is allowed in her room, but for a few old women with spirituality and good vibes, preparing her for her big day. They have smoked her dress carefully, burning aromatic herbs, dry flowers and fragrant sticks.

She wears her dress, prepared after months of hard work by the top skilled men in the area. Her mother paid special attention to every tiny detail of needlework. Her mother selected a pattern for Zardozi. She is famous as a perfectionist, and this is her only daughter’s wedding dress, it should have to be one without fault and difficult to copy. When her dress was ready, people could not take their eyes away from the beautiful hand-embroidered red Makhmal with real gold thread Zardozi and one hundred and one precious gemstones stitched in skilfully. Her father is a kind chief of the most powerful clan in the area. He asks his men to slaughter one hundred sheep as Sadqa, to protect the bride from the evil eye. Poor and rich everyone is happy at her wedding.

She is sitting on a decorated wooden chair as a bride. Her friends are laughing, making fun of her groom. They are teasing her. But she knows he is a very handsome and brave young man. She has known him since birth. Her uncle and his wife love her like their own daughter. She lives more in their house than in her own parents’ home. Their houses are the biggest houses in the town, and their fathers have asked to illuminate the whole village to shy the galaxy.

Children and grownups are enjoying a spectacular display of fireworks. Every day there are hundreds of new dishes to serve the guests from all over the country and abroad. The music bands are playing traditional music and the dancers are dancing to amuse the audience.

It is the beginning of December. The temperature is pretty low, but she is sweating. Women are looking at the designs of her Henna, they are praising her beauty. Some are predicting the love of her mother-in-law through the colour of her Henna. She blushes and smiles covering her face with her hands. The smell from henna fills her breath. She closes her eyes with gushing out emotions and opens them after sensing her fiancé’s smiling face peeking in through her eyelids.

‘Masha Allah, very beautiful.’ Women are looking and praising her beauty. They are praying to ward off any evil eye. Some old women are touching her head with both hands and then touching their own heads, curling their fingers, to signifying the transfer of all her woes, and troubles to themselves.

Sitting all day long as a bride makes her tired. She calls one of her close friends, her neck hurts with the weight of gold around it.

‘Take these stones of gold from my neck. It’s going to break my neck.’

‘Someone else will have to do it, not me.’ She giggles winking her right eye.

She shows fake anger to her friend, her friend laughs, refusing her request and disappears in the crowd of dancing women and girls.

Her husband is very loving, he helps to remove her heavy jewellery, rubbing and kissing her neck on her wedding night. They both feel lucky to have each other.

Eight months flew by. She conceives on the first night. Her husband is over the moon. She is not allowed to carry any weight. Her mother and mother-in-law are forcing her to eat more. But she feels sick.

‘You should eat for two.’ Her mother says forcing her to have another bite of the special energy dish which gives strength to assist the hardest job, labour.

‘Come on… come on one more, for my grandchild.’ Forces her mother-in-law.

Then one day, when she was in the hospital for a routine check-up, the doctor wanted her to stay for a few hours. Her mother and husband went to buy prescribed medicine and food. Her village was bombed, killing the whole of her family. She remembers her husband….

‘Ya. Allah?!’ she screams with pain.

The canal is washing away her tears. She wants to end her life. The canal is running without any emotions. The water knows the pain of falling from the height of the mountains, standing up to run again and crushing under mighty rocks. Many illusions to deceive, and uncountable hurdles in the way to flow. But the water knows, the stagnation is death. The sound of running water is saying something to the woman and her unborn. Its talking. It’s saying to them, there is no other way, but keep flowing, your steps are irreversible. Her unborn wishes to reverse the time.

The woman looks at her reflection in the water again, she struggles to recognise herself. She keeps looking— her face turns into her husband’s he is talking to her— never get tired— keep flowing like water through the woodlands of life. Life has barriers— hurdles and difficulties— just a hope to live will make its way through every impediment— He is combing her long curly hair with his strong and sophisticated fingers— he kisses her forehead and says politely— Life is a race, race for it— race against harsh realities of life— race against time— There is only one sign on the road of life that you need to follow—THE WAY AHEAD.

‘Life?’ woman replies in

‘Life is beautiful.’

‘Without love ones?’

‘Life carries on, with or without love ones. Time changes quite often, it will change again. These are the experiences of life, bitterness of time makes us stronger, humble and more grateful to the blessings we take for granted in our past and blessings we have in our bleeding hands. After losing everything, we overcome the fear of losing. Loving whatever is left behind after a deadly storm, is hope.’

‘For my love.’ The woman rubs her unborn with love, she feels life is beautiful. She sees a light, a hope for living…

‘I have to live for my child, I will fight for...’

It is a dark, rainy night in July when the police arrest several illegal immigrants residing in the tents next to the lake. The girl wakes the woman up.

‘We have to leave, now.’

‘Why?’

‘Police is here, just go.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, just leave. If you don’t want to be arrested and deported back to your country, run!’

The woman runs with a group of people in the heavy rain. Then there are a few and after few hundred yards, there is none. The woman, cannot walk, she changes her route, it’s just before dawn, rain stops, and a bright day is rising. The woman finds herself near the lavender fields. There is a private road, with a big huge gate which prohibits her from going in. Her unborn forces her in. She feels someone is coming, she hides in the self-grown lavender bushes by the wired fence. There is a group of people in a van, that reads “Spotty’s Spotless Cleaning Services.”

The woman walks inside the Lavender Farm. She wraps a purple and green blanket, which the girl gave her the other night, around as camouflage. She feels labour pains; her feet are flooded. Mentally, she is not ready to give birth to her unborn, but physically she cannot hold it any longer. She sees a scarecrow and pulls his clothes to use for padding, it falls on one side. She pushes it back and it leans over. The woman hears some voices coming towards her. She runs into the bushes to hide. When she is running, she falls over on the lavender bushes making them shake vigorously.

Her unborn wants to see this world as soon as possible, the unborn starts a move to the world of unseen. She wants her unborn to wait.

Then someone screams. The scream sounds like a child. The woman wants to ask for help. ‘The police will deport you back.’ Words by many in same situation echo in her ears. ‘No, I cannot go back, it’s not safe for my unborn.’ She whispers. There is a monument, made with black marble. The height of the monument is enough for a human to hide. She wants to ask for help for the sake of her unborn, but by the time she comes out her unborn is halfway down. Then all the voices are quiet.

Her unborn is a girl, with green eyes. The woman wishes to give her name, but according to her tradition, the babies are given names on the seventh day of their birth.

‘How unfortunate is your mother, she has nothing to dress up a most beautiful daughter.’ The woman tears her blanket in half to wrap her newborn. She also leaves her father’s amulet, which he gave her for protection from every evil thing, to protect her baby and to identify her if in future she gets a chance. The woman kisses her little baby girl. She hides her in her chest. New mother’s milk is gushing out but her daughter is not hungry, she forces her. Sun is getting hotter and stronger over the wind. She tries to save her fragile little girl from direct sunlight. Feeding her child combined with the heat makes her weak, thirsty and hungry. She wants to search for water. She cannot hold her new born any longer, so she leaves her in the shade of the monument and crawls to a side where birds are chirping. She walks too far and when she senses footsteps from both side, the lighter footsteps, are closer than the heaver. She wants to run to her new born, but it is too late. The soft footsteps have her baby.

She sings the lullaby; ‘Allah ho shalla ho, zama jana Allah ho.’

Allah’s name will protect you, sleep without any fear, sleep, my darling, God’s name is all that you need.