Poppy #5
Poppy #5
The smell of the ink. The sound of the machine. The familiar sensation of the needle brushing against my skin. I thought that this time, having the last poppy tattooed on my back, I’d feel excited. Exhilarated, even.
But as Barry goes to work there is no adrenaline rush, no state of welcome catharsis as I let my mind drift beyond the pain to what brought me here. I’m too agitated.
‘Everything okay?’ Barry asks. ‘You seem …’ he chooses his words carefully, ‘not quite yourself today.’
He doesn’t say much, Barry, but he doesn’t miss much either. Ever since that night after the dance rehearsal, I’ve been questioning what Sarah told me about her and Danny. That things were over between them before she even got to Afghanistan. That she’d just never found the right time to tell him.
It always seemed so black and white to me. Sarah was with Danny. So I couldn’t be with Sarah. It didn’t make me happy, but it did make sense.
But now? Now I’m doubting all of it. Because is it right that she stays with him when she wanted to end things such a long time ago? Is it fair that she’s only staying out of a sense of loyalty and obligation because he got ill?
I should have been more understanding. More honest – told her that I felt the same way she did, but I felt honour-bound to keep the promise I made Danny. If only I hadn’t been so bloody proud.
‘I’ve been too hard on someone,’ I tell Barry. ‘I should have been kinder, more honest.’
There’s a rustle of paper as Barry adjusts the acetate stencil on my back. Then he switches off the gun for a moment. ‘But you still could, right? Reach out to them, I mean, tell them what you just told me.’
Barry turns the tattoo gun back on and I take a deep breath, square my shoulders and bury my head in the pillow again. I listen to the words of the song. Today it’s ‘Brothers In Arms’ by Dire Straits.
Listening to the lyrics as Barry works on the tattoo usually makes me feel better. I wait for the song to transport me back in time to a place before the pain and sadness that brought me here. I wait for the rush of happy nostalgia.
But the lyrics don’t bring me any comfort today, because I keep turning over the words Barry just said. About me still having a chance to reach out.
That’s exactly what Assami would have said. He actually did say that to me once, when he was telling me about a row he’d had with his brother. It was his wife, Habiba, who made him say sorry.
‘She is very wise, my wife,’ he told me. ‘She understands that men can be proud but that pride is a curse. Never be too proud to reach out to someone, Carl.’
Assami himself reached out to me in a letter, two months after I got back. I’ll never forget the words he wrote.
I am devastated. You were all brothers to me. You promised me.
The insurgents – they have scores to settle. It is a matter of honour to them that we are hunted down, but I know that you know this.
So many failed promises. I do not understand. It is hurting me inside that you have turned your back on me and my family. I pray every day that you will come, but still I hear nothing.
I trusted the British one hundred per cent. Why do they take so long? Do they not care? Do you not care either? I feel so betrayed.
Assami wasn’t just an interpreter, he also carried out crucial intelligence work for us, listening in on Taliban radio communications so he could warn us about ambushes and hidden IEDs.
Recalling his words now, I feel sick to my stomach. I remember one of the last conversations I had with him in camp. He was about to head into a local village to see if he could pick up any intelligence on the Taliban.
‘It’s too risky,’ I told him. ‘Too many villagers know that you work for us as it is. Any one of them could tip off the Taliban. This isn’t your job. You’re here to translate for us. Not to put your life at risk by acting like some secret agent, trying to find out which patrols they’re going to target.’
But Assami shook his head, waved away my concerns. ‘I am one of you now. If they target you, they target me. Besides, I know that if and when the time ever comes that I need your help, you will be there for me. The British army will help me.’
The song finishes but Barry doesn’t reach out to put another track on. With his usual canny knack of sensing that I might want to talk, he says, ‘Just so you know, we tattoo artists, we’re like men of the cloth when it comes to listening. Your secrets are safe with us.’
His voice is warm and trusting, and something about having my face down on the pillow – so I don’t have to meet his eyes, or risk his judgement on things I should have done better – persuades me to open up.
So I tell him about Assami and everything he did for us. All the lives he saved. And how ashamed I am that after all the promises top brass and the government made, when it came to it, none of us were there for him.
I wasn’t there for him.
While I talk Barry picks up the tattoo gun again, but this time I don’t register the pain. There is too much adrenaline flowing through me as I tell him the story of what happened to Assami.
How one of the people in his village tipped off the Taliban about where he lived. How at first they taunted him with intimidating phone calls. But then one afternoon they grabbed Assami’s son Mustafa, snatching him from where he was playing on the street and bundling him into a car.
I know all this, I tell Barry, because when I first got Assami’s letter I went to a reporter who had met us both back in camp. He’d interviewed me about Fridge’s death and he gave me his card, told me to get in touch if ever there was anything he could do for me.
‘I went to him,’ I tell Barry, ‘because when I wrote to my old unit they fobbed me off, told me they were doing all they could, that I should be patient. But it’s hard to be patient when someone you care about is in danger.’
‘I get that,’ Barry says.
‘He was great,’ I tell him. ‘The reporter I mean. Really sympathetic. He knew another reporter based in Afghanistan who visited Assami’s house and managed to piece together what happened.’
‘What about your friend’s son,’ he asks, ‘the one who got snatched? Was he okay?’
‘They held a knife to his throat and told him they were going to kill his father for being an infidel and feed him to the dogs. Then they slapped him around and shoved him out of the car while it was still moving.’
‘My God,’ Barry says. ‘They did that to a kid?’
‘A kid who was the son of an infidel,’ I explain.
‘Then what happened?’ he asks.
‘Assami went to the British embassy. He told them that he had worked for the British army for five years. He told them what had happened to his son –’
‘I don’t think I want to know what happened next,’ Barry says quietly.
I take a deep breath. ‘The embassy told him there was nothing they could do. They said that because they had paid him for his services they didn’t have any obligation to help him. They told him to move. It must have been around that time that he wrote to me. He knew he was running out of options, and he was desperate to protect his family. That’s when he went into hiding. He had been gone only a few days when the Taliban tracked down his brother, tortured him until he gave them Assami’s address.
‘The next morning, while his brother was still fighting for his life in hospital, masked gunmen with AK-47s arrived in a convoy of three four-wheel-drive trucks outside Assami’s safe house. They pulled him from his bed and dragged him, handcuffed, outside into the streets. They wanted to make sure that everyone saw what they did to “spies.” Then they shot him.’
My gentle friend with the knowing brown eyes. A man who knew right from wrong, who loved his wife and still read his children bedtime stories. Who wanted them to grow up in a better world and took a chance on us so that they might.
I think of Habiba. Her kind, gentle face. She came to the camp once. Security wouldn’t let her past the gate but she insisted on waiting there while Assami came to fetch me. She spoke no English but she held out a basket of cookies she’d baked.
‘We make them to celebrate Nowruz, our new year,’ Assami explained. ‘She says she wants to give them to you personally, to the man I talk about all the time.’
The same man who let him down. Who let them all down.
Unexpectedly, I find myself crying. Barry reaches behind him for a box of tissues but I wave them away. Embarrassed, I swipe my hand under my eyes to wipe away the tears.
Barry gives me a moment to compose myself, then he lays a hand on my shoulder and I feel a swell of affection for this gentle, considerate man.
‘We’re done, my friend,’ he says. ‘And I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to Assami. To all your friends. Are you ready to see it?’
Standing with my back to the mirror, I study the image staring back at me. The five beautiful scarlet poppies – and the one tiny bud – that cascade down from the top of my shoulders to my waist. The outlines are so smooth, the poppies so realistic, it’s perfect.
‘D’you mind if I take a picture for my hall of fame?’ Barry asks.
He points to the wall behind him. It’s covered in Polaroids of his other customers with their tattoos. Other stories to tell. He takes two pictures and gives one to me. I watch as the picture of my poppied back emerges, as if by magic.
‘Thank you,’ I say, looking at the floor. I’m so overwhelmed by what I am feeling, I don’t know what else to say.
I reach for my wallet, but Barry pushes it away.
‘Your money’s no good today.’
I protest, but he is adamant.
‘For all of them,’ he says. ‘I won’t forget them, and I won’t forget you.’