Jahangol

Persian

There were two or three of them in the football pitch, passing the ball among themselves. The sound of Iranian LA pop music, came from far. I was sitting near the pitch, waiting for everyone to gather. The sound of music got closer. I turned back and saw them for the first time.

Masoud is twelve years old. He says: ‘I came here by container from Liverpool. The driver stopped and I went to the bathroom.’ He shrugs his shoulder, cracks up and continues: ‘As soon as I got off, the police arrested me. Now I’m not allowed to leave the city.’ Matin cuffed him on the head and says: ‘Did you really have to get off and have a crap?’ Matin is a bit in a temper. He says: ‘Anyone who messes with me, I’ll kick his butt.’ He tells me: ‘I lose my marbles fast.’ Ghasem pats him on the shoulder and says: ‘Matin makes us omelette the nights when he feels good.’ Amin says: ‘ Ghasem is a Kurdish Iraqi, the rest of us are all Afghans. I’m the only Iranian among them.’ He looks at me and says: ‘Don’t goof up! we hammered out a deal to say that we’re all Iranians. All of them shake their head and say: ‘They won’t deport Iranians but if you’re from anywhere else, they will send you back to your country at once.’

Amin had learned Kurdish and Pashto and was friend with everyone. All were friends with each other. The ones from Kenya with this group and this group among themselves, all of them. They played football sanely without quarreling, without swearing. Everyone was careful not to get the others hot under the collar. It was there that I fathomed human relationships. The first night I thought to myself, why do I get surprised? Wouldn’t I myself, act entirely differently if I saw Amin, Matin or any one of those youth in Iran? If any of them was in a taxi, I wouldn’t get in; if he passed me by in the street, I would move away; if he was behind me, I would slow down to let him advance in front of me so that I could make sure he was not chasing after me... It was then that I perceived the depth of my everyday prejudgements and it deeply unsettled me.

Among all those with whom I was acquainted, Jahangol was the only one who never went to the pitch to practice passing the ball. Jahangol was a juvenile with the face of a forty-year-old man. He didn’t speak Persian; he only knew Pashto. He rarely looked at anyone or anything. He used to sit in a corner and scrutinized everywhere. Some nights, those youth played music on their mobiles and we all danced around the pitch or in the sport club. Alone, together, one to one; all the dances in the world, all the invented dances or the dances we invented; every kind of music; every kind of leap, every kind of joy. I always tried to bring Jahangol in but he only clapped his hands, laughed and took a stealthy look. He never wanted to participate. His story was mysterious to me and I could rarely get Amin to translate his words for me.

Some days Amin called and asked me to go to the sport club and play table football. Some days he said: ‘Tesco has started its sales. We’re going there to buy some stuff. Come with us.’ One day he told me on the bridge: ‘Throw your passport here in the water and never go back.’ The river was running slowly like a worn-out snake. A part of it was shining. We sat and our feet were hanging on the surface of the water. Masoud smiled. The wind messed up our hair. Jahangol held the sack of milk and macaroni in his hand just like he was holding a kitten and then he hid his head between his arms. Amin showed us the photos on his mobile right there and said: ‘ Shiraz is my life, I’m nothing without my Shiraz.’ When we stood up to walk, he gave me his handset and said: ‘Come see the video of the execution that I showed to my lawyer yesterday.’ When we were alone, he said: ‘I’m telling this only to you; I’m not seventeen, I’m twenty one; but if they understand that I’m over eighteen, they will force me out tomorrow.’ I asked him: ‘How come they haven’t realized so far?’ He said: ‘I was deported from England three times. Every time I returned. Every time I somehow threw myself  on the ship. You have to place yourself between the onion gunnysacks such that when they lift them up to throw them in the container, they wouldn’t be able to see you.’ He moved his hand on his tattooed arm and said: ‘The last time I jumped below the container, between the wheels. I grabbed at the edge. The bloody ship travelled nonstop for three hours. I was bone-tired. It finally stopped before my hand got loose. I jumped down and walked alone on the road. My ear was bleeding, I didn’t know where I was until I saw the cars on the road and the drivers who sat on the right. It was then that I realized I was in England.’ He stood and stared at an unknown spot on the floor. He then said: ‘The police stopped me and took me to the police station. There, I told them that I was seventeen. They looked at my teeth and said that it was impossible yet I insisted and they opened a file for me.’

Sometimes when one thinks of a time in the past, a word, an image or a person comes into one’s mind. The person of that time for me was not Amin but Jahangol. The image of that time was the daring mien of the kids who grabbed hold of the bar below a container for hours, thousands of miles away from home, alone, in the hope of a better life. Whereas the words of that time for me, is the talk I had with Amin on a summer evening during the sunset. On the way back from the sport club, Amin said: ‘Jahangol just looks innocent.’ I said carelessly and insensitively: ‘Yeah, I know. He can commit thousands of crimes or even kill if he has to.’ I didn’t feel ashamed of myself at that moment. A few moments after I said goodbye to Amin and turned into the alley that led to the dorm, my own words reverberated in my ear. I thought to myself, why did I say such a thing? That night I wrote in my notebook: I, who had written about Jahangol in the last few pages, hadn’t even written this about him: that if you looked at his face, you could see things you didn’t want to see in an adult’s face, let alone a child’s face. I hadn’t written cuz I didn’t want it to be true. I had said those words out loud to Amin maybe because his words reminded me of the few lines that I had written about Jahangol but had crossed out later. Sometimes words, images and the people of a time coincide with each other. It is then that the envy of not insisting and not perceiving, wriggles around your neck, just like a river, writhing slowly.