Chapter One
I checked the status icon next to Uncle Irshad’s smiling face.
Grey: inactive.
I gave a long, sputtering sigh and sank back into what passed for my love seat, fingers tightening around a cup of cooling tea.
“No news is good news,” I told myself, but I hated the patronising words as soon as I said them.
For Uncle Irshad Bashir — like so many others in Sudan — no news could just as easily mean something truly terrible. Militias, famine and plague had taken more than one could imagine from so many people in the homeland of my parents. Though Uncle Iry was always smiling during our chats, even he couldn’t pretend that things weren’t bad. After all, it was why my parents left.
The older I grew, the more I marvelled at my parents’ bravery. Leaving Sudan and everything they knew in the hope of a better life for themselves and their unborn child (that’d be yours truly) took a megaton of faith and guts.
Glaring at the icon, I narrowed my eyes and loosed a telepathic request that he come on-line. The grey disc sat there in mute rebellion. I gave up in disgust. I checked the time — 1:20am — and groaned.
Tomorrow is going to be the utter pits.
I should’ve gone to bed hours ago, but I wouldn’t sleep well unless I knew Uncle Iry was all right. I didn’t dare hope he’d gotten hired, but maybe that was because I was trying not to think about work. My gaze wandered across my tiny flat to where my work jacket hung on a peg beside my bed. My smiling face grinned from the ID badge clipped to the lapel.
Bashir, Ibukun
Collections
British Museum
“A better life for you, Ibby,” my mother had said one night. “A better life where you can grow up without fear of bad men with guns.”
“You never met, Adrian Shelton, ‘um,” I had muttered, using the Arabic for the word mum. “There are times I’d rather face bad men with guns.”
My eyes roved past the grey icon before settling on the pinched window that revealed only the wall of the neighbouring building.
I wasn’t serious, of course, but my supervisor was not to be trifled with. Adrian Shelton was a terribly demanding and critical man. He seemed to take particular satisfaction in scrutinising everything I did. I had little option except to adopt the old stiff upper lip. I didn’t just need the pitiful pay packet, the internship was the best shot I had in getting a real job once I graduated university. My whole future hung on making Dr Shelton happy, and I wasn’t convinced the man even knew how to be happy.
More important even than my future was my uncle’s life, which depended on my success. Every day he stayed in Sudan was another day his life was at risk. Putting an end to that risk meant money. Money I could earn if I finally got a good paying job, ideally (if I could dare to dream) with the Museum of Natural History.
I swallowed another sad sigh and got up with my now cold cup of tea. Hopping over a pile of folded laundry on my way to the countertop, which made the whole of my kitchenette, I turned the electric kettle on and stared at the blue light as the contraption began to rumble and hiss.
Like tyres on wet streets. Like that night.
My arms wrapped around my chest reflexively as the thought rocked me. It was nearly nine months since a lorry took a wet street corner too fast, sending both my parents to an early grave. They’d gone out to celebrate my mother getting a job as a nurse, the very occupation she’d had for years in Sudan before coming to London. It had taken her nearly two decades, but she was finally going to do the job she was born for.
My father had known my mother wanted to tell me the news herself, but when I’d called that night, he couldn’t help himself.
He’d blurted out, “She got it, Ibby! She got the job!” before I’d even said a word.
He’d apologised to my mother immediately afterwards and handed the phone to her, but she was too happy to let his outburst spoil things. My father was like my uncle, ready smiles and easy laughs, a man who wore his big heart on his sleeve. Mother was softer, quieter, yet somehow stronger for it. “Yes, Ibby,” she had said in her low, smooth voice. “I’m a nurse again.”
It was one of the last things my mother ever said to me. That and their plans to bring my Uncle Iry to the UK, with money from the new job.
Now I was Uncle Iry’s best hope. His only hope.
Still hugging myself, I glanced at the laptop screen. My tired eyes skidded over the status icon but everything snapped into focus when it flashed.
Green: active.
My tea and the kettle forgotten, I vaulted over the laundry and dodged a cast-off pair of shoes as I lunged for the laptop. Jamming the headset into place with one hand, I frantically worked the mouse with the other. Uncle Iry had to pay for each minute he was on-line at a small internet café, so every second was precious.
The status bar showed a connection being made, and my feet did a little dance of joy.
A few seconds later a window popped up. A dark, bare scalp and forehead lurked beneath a view of the ceiling with peeling plaster and glaring fluorescent lights.
“Ibby? Are you there?” My uncle’s deep voice came through the headset with only a little distortion crackling over his accented words.
“Try pointing the camera down, a’am,” I suggested. My uncle had asked we always talk in English so he could practise, but I couldn’t help slipping a little Arabic in here and there.
The view in the chat window shifted, pixelating, then resolved into Irshad’s handsome face, complete with a well-kept beard and our family’s bronze eyes. As the screen sharpened, he wore a frown of concentration. I couldn’t help noticing how hollow his cheeks looked and the deepening lines around his mouth and eyes. These all vanished when he smiled that immense grin. My heart ached. He reminded me of my father so much.
Every day costs him a little more.
“What’s a good girl like you doing up at a time like dis?” He sounded grave, but he didn’t put his smile away.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I lied, trying not to rub at my burning eyes. “I hoped you’d make an appearance. It’s been almost a week, a’am-mi.”
My uncle’s expression became contrite, and he nodded. “I’m sorry, Ibby, I should have got in touch earlier. Things have been … difficult.”
I clenched my fist and ground my knuckles into my thigh in shame for guilting him. Uncle Iry, along with living in one of the most unsettled regions in Sudan, had to walk many miles for internet. He only had time in the late evenings because he was either looking for or doing what work he could find. Though he didn’t say it, I knew he was exhausted.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s just …” I bit my lip, fighting to find words and trying to keep the tears at bay. The last thing my uncle needed was to spend his precious few minutes watching me weep. He’d endured enough of that when my parents first passed.
“But, I have good news, Ibby! Very good news!”
Uncle Iry coming to the rescue even from thousands of miles away.
I forced my voice to steady. “Really? Don’t keep me in suspense. Don’t you know it’s late?”
He chuckled, his smile returning in force.
“A company is expanding and needs construction workers. Their foreman was looking for men with welding experience, so I have work for the next few months. Possibly longer!”
This wasn’t good news; it was great news. Once upon a time, my uncle and father had worked as automotive mechanics in a garage in Nyala. When my father expressed a hope to take his newly pregnant bride to the UK, my uncle had used what little savings he’d had to make it happen. Shortly thereafter, the violence and the swelling tide of displaced peoples had driven him from Nyala back to their home village in the scrublands. It took years for the brothers to reconnect after the chaos, and both of them had hardly been able to scrape together enough to live. For years now, Uncle Iry has squeaked by, taking whatever work he could. A job like this, skilled and with potential for extended work, was very rare.
But something caught my attention, and I felt a tremor of suspicion twist in my belly.
“A’am, you said company. But what company? What are you building?”
Uncle Iry’s smile weakened a little, and he wagged a finger across the screen. “Now, Ibby, remember, English only.”
He was stalling. The twist in my stomach tightened into a knot. “Uncle … ”
The smile shifted into an embarrassed grin that might have won me over if I hadn’t known what was coming next.
“Greater Nile Petrol. We are expanding some of the oil rigs.”
The knot became a weight that took out the bottom of my stomach. “Greater Nile! Oh, Iry, no.” I sank into the love seat.
“Ibby, this is still good news. It will be safe, I promise.”
Iry has always been an honest man, but in this moment, he was lying. Not only was the GNP notorious for their callous working conditions, but they were a favourite target for whatever band of armed thugs was roaming the area. He couldn’t promise me he’d be safe because oil rigs throughout Sudan were one of the most dangerous places he could be.
There was no stopping the tears welling in my eyes this time.
“I know it is scary, Ibby, but if I’m kept on, I’m that much closer to rejoining my family.”
He meant me. The brutality of life in Sudan had taken everything from us.
I tried to shove away the thoughts, the guilt, the wishes, but they came in like a flood. It was beyond unfair. It was utterly cruel, and I was powerless. Nothing I could say, nothing I could do was going to keep him from those oil rigs, because nothing mattered as much to either of us as being together.
Crying wasn’t going to help. Uncle Iry needed me to be strong, no matter what. I brushed away my tears and smoothed out my voice. “And you’ll be that much closer to a complementary tour of the Museum of Natural History given by your niece, where she’ll soon be working.”
The last words caught in my throat, but I forced them out, a bright promise I’d do anything to keep.
Uncle Iry’s brilliant smile was worth it. “I can’t wait for that day, Ibby. Tell me, how is the internship going?”
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