BY MARJORIE TOLSDORF
Bahram watched as his mother and sisters wept, soaking the white cloth that covered his uncle’s body with tears. He could hear his mother moaning her brother-in-law’s name over and over, morphing into a single monotonous tone. Flinching, Bahram realized the tone was coming from the car behind him on London’s Tower Bridge. He wasn’t in Afghanistan; he was stuck in motionless traffic on his way to his desk job in the center of London only a few seconds earlier. This happens to him frequently—the reality of London’s clamor conjures distant childhood memories from what seems to him like a previous life.
Bahram’s viewpoint is one of a refugee who left his beloved homeland out of necessity. His family fled in the face of imminent danger, while others he knew were driven away by horrific living conditions. Now, as a citizen of the United Kingdom, he considers his Afghani identity an indispensable part of himself in the context of a first-world society that frequently fails to recognize “refugee” as a legal status for a human being. Instead, the term is often used as an indicator for people with little intrinsic value.
Bahram drove over the Tower Bridge every morning on his way to work. He lived in London for over a decade, learned to speak English fluently with a flawless British accent, and changed his style from the traditional perahan tunban to ripped jeans and a fashionable man-bun. Yet still, each time he crossed one of London’s beautiful bridges, he always envisioned the one in front of his childhood home outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan where his uncle died.
“Assimilation never seemed equivalent to loss of identity for me, because I still carry memories with me everywhere I go,” said Bahram. “In the United Kingdom, I feel like a refugee every day.”
“I was six years old playing in a mud pit outside of my house,” Bahram recalled. His family lived in a tiny hand-built home. A dirt path connected their front door to a wooden bridge that led to the nearby village.
“I remember the view from the front of my house so well, because I thought it was the most beautiful view a person could see,” said Bahram. “I would go to the edge of the river frequently and try to climb the steep slope down the bank. One time, my brother dared me to jump off the side, and my mother was furious. She said I would float away and be lost forever.”
On the day of the accident, Bahram’s entire family was eagerly anticipating his uncle’s arrival from Kabul. From his mud pit, he noticed a tiny car in the distance approaching the bridge. He assumed his uncle was the driver and frantically attempted to finish the mud castle he had started to construct in time for the grand arrival.
Suddenly, he heard a loud crash from the direction of the bridge. When he looked up, he saw nothing on the horizon. He ran inside, tracking mud along with him, to find his mother. “I found her in the kitchen,” said Bahram. “I watched her facial expression change slowly from the warm greeting smile I knew so well to a look I had never seen before as a group of my male cousins ran past her screaming my uncle’s name.” They returned later with his body, but Bahram was not allowed back into the kitchen until his uncle had been covered by a white bed sheet. “I remember the tears, and I remember the way I could see the outline of my uncle’s body through the wet stains. These visual memories are always coupled with the sounds of my family’s verbal distress: wails, cries, shouts, screams. Sometimes I get so lost in the sounds of their sadness that I can no longer hear the world around me.”
Years later Bahram learned that the bridge had collapsed as his uncle drove over it. His uncle was unable to open his car door and drowned. Bahram’s uncle and father had been prominent radio journalists in Afghanistan, both vocally anti-Taliban. As a result of their public political preferences, they had been vehemently targeted by regional Taliban leaders. To this day, Bahram’s mother believes the Taliban were connected to his uncle’s death.
The Taliban eventually chased Bahram’s family out of Afghanistan. They first fled to Pakistan where they stayed until a few days after his tenth birthday. When they realized Taliban operatives had followed them across the border, they continued to run, seeking asylum in London where the family still lives today.
“It wasn’t my lack of knowledge of the English language, the cultural barriers, the unfamiliar fashions and foods, or my family’s poor financial situation during my first five years in London that reminded me everyday I am a refugee,” said Bahram. “It was these inescapable memories of my war-torn country, of our failed infrastructure physically and culturally. And these memories have remained long after my outward signs of my inner refugee disappeared.”