Never



Tripoli was a big city, the biggest Kiah had ever seen, twice the size of N’Djamena. The downtown area had skyscrapers overlooking a beach, but the rest of the place was crowded and dirty, with a lot of bomb-damaged buildings. Some of the men wore European-style clothes but all the women had long dresses and headscarves.

Abdul took her and Naji to a small hotel, cheap but clean, where none of the staff or guests were white and no one spoke anything but Arabic. Kiah had been intimidated by hotels at first, and when the staff were deferential she had suspected them of mocking her. She had asked Abdul how to deal with them, and he had said: ‘Be pleasant, but don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, and if they seem curious about you, and they ask where you come from and so on, just smile and say you’re too busy to chat.’ She had found that it worked.

When they got up on their first morning there, Kiah began to think about the future. Until this moment she had not quite believed that they had escaped from the mining camp. As they had travelled north through Libya, driving on gradually improving roads and sleeping in more comfortable places, she had nursed a secret fear that the jihadis would somehow catch them and enslave them again. Those men were strong and brutal and they usually got their way. Abdul was the only man she had ever known who could stand up to them.

The nightmare was over now, God be praised, but what were they going to do next? What was Abdul’s plan? And did it include her?

She decided to ask him. He responded with a question of his own. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘You know what I want,’ she said. ‘I want to live in France, where I can feed my child and send him to school. But I’ve spent all my money and I’m still in Africa.’

‘I may be able to help you. I’m not sure, but I’m going to try.’

‘How?’

‘I can’t tell you now. Please trust me.’

Of course she trusted him. She had put her life in his hands. But there was an underlying tension in him, and her questions brought it to the surface. He was worried about something. It was not the jihadis: he seemed no longer to fear that they might be following him. He still looked behind him occasionally and checked out other cars, but not all the time, not obsessively. So what caused his tension? Was it thinking about their future together – or apart?

She found this frightening. Ever since she had first met him, he had given the impression of being in control, ready for anything, afraid of nothing. But now he admitted he did not know whether he could help her finish her journey. What would she do if he failed her? How could she go back to Lake Chad?

He adopted a bright tone and said: ‘We all need some new clothes. Let’s go shopping.’

Kiah had never ‘gone shopping’ but she had heard the phrase, and she knew that wealthy women strolled around stores looking for things to buy with their surplus money. She had never imagined herself doing the same. Women like her spent money only when they had to.

Abdul got a taxi and they went to the city centre, where shady arcades were lined with shops that put half their wares out on the pavement. Abdul said: ‘Plenty of French Arabs wear traditional dress, but you might find life easier in European clothes.’

They found a shop specializing in children’s wear. Naji revelled in the whole process of choosing colours and finding his size. He loved putting on a new shirt and looking in the mirror. Abdul was amused. ‘Such vanity in one so young!’ he said.

‘Like his father,’ Kiah murmured. Salim had had a touch of vanity. Then she glanced worriedly at Abdul, hoping he would not be offended by the mention of her late husband. A man did not like to be reminded that his woman had lain with another. However, Abdul was smiling at Naji and seemed not to mind.

Naji got two pairs of shorts, four shirts, two pairs of shoes, some underwear and a baseball cap that he insisted on wearing right away.

At a nearby store Abdul disappeared into the changing room and came out wearing a dark-blue cotton suit with a white shirt and a plain narrow tie. Kiah could not remember the last time she had seen a man wearing a tie other than on TV. ‘You look like an American!’ she said.

‘Quel horreur,’ Abdul said in French. ‘How dreadful.’ But he smiled.

Then it occurred to Kiah that he might really be American. It would explain all the money. She would ask him, she decided. Not now, but soon.

He returned to the back of the store and reappeared in his usual grey-brown robes, carrying his new clothes in a bag.

Finally, they went to a store for women. ‘I don’t want to spend too much of your money,’ Kiah said to Abdul.

‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Choose two outfits, one with a skirt and one with pants, and get underwear and shoes and everything to go with each one. Don’t worry about the price, nothing here is expensive.’

Kiah did not really think the prices were cheap, but she had never bought clothes – just the fabric with which to make them – so she did not actually know.

‘And don’t rush,’ Abdul said. ‘We have plenty of time.’

Kiah found that not worrying about the cost was a strange feeling. It was pleasant but also a bit unnerving, because she was afraid to believe she really could have anything in the shop. Tentatively she tried on a checked skirt and a lilac blouse. She felt too self-conscious even to step out and show Abdul. She then tried blue jeans and a green T-shirt. The shop assistant offered her black-lace lingerie, saying: ‘He will like it.’ But Kiah could not bring herself to buy what looked like underwear for prostitutes, and she insisted on white cotton.

She was still embarrassed about what she had done in the car, that first night after their escape. They had slept in each other’s arms for warmth, but when daylight came she had kissed his sleeping face, and once she had started she could not stop. She had kissed his hands and his neck and his cheeks until he woke up, and then of course they had made love. She had seduced him. It was shameful. And yet she could not bring herself to regret it, because she was in love with him and she thought he was beginning to love her. All the same, she felt worried that she had behaved like a whore.

She had everything put into a bag and told Abdul she would show him when they got back to the hotel. He smiled and said he could hardly wait.

As they left the shop she wondered longingly whether she would ever really wear these clothes in France.

‘We have one more thing to do,’ Abdul said. ‘While you were trying on clothes, I asked if there was somewhere we could get photos taken. Apparently, in the next street there’s a travel agency with a photo machine.’

Kiah had never heard of a travel agency or a photo machine, but she said nothing. Abdul often referred to things she did not know about, and rather than pester him with questions all the time she waited for the meaning to become clear.

They walked around a couple of corners and entered a store that was decorated with pictures of aeroplanes and foreign landscapes. A businesslike young woman sat at a desk wearing a skirt and a blouse a bit like the ones Kiah had bought.

To one side was a little booth with a curtain. The woman gave Abdul some coins in exchange for banknotes, and he explained to Kiah how the machine worked. It was easy, but the result seemed like a miracle: within seconds a strip of paper came out of a slot, like a child poking out its tongue, and Kiah saw four colour photographs of her face. When Naji saw the photos he wanted the same, which was good because Abdul said they needed pictures of Naji too.

Like any two-year-old, Naji did not see the point of sitting still, so it took three tries before they got good photos.

The woman behind the desk said: ‘Tripoli International Airport is closed, but Mitiga Airport has flights to Tunis, where you can catch planes to lots of destinations.’