“Stand Clear of the doors!”
It was obvious to the people standing in the open entrance of the carriage that the two of them would try to beat the trap. They were running, her in front, him close behind. She squealed as she leapt between the closing doors, committed in the moment, despite knowing that he could not possibly make it too. She cannoned into the tall businessman, who twisted to avoid a direct collision, and the heel of her shoe broke as she stumbled into him.
“For gods sake!”
It was halfway to a shout, but loud in the confined tube train, and his irritation was mirrored across the wall of faces that recoiled from her reckless energy. He was holding her denim jacket, fending her off and preventing her from falling.
The boy managed to get his arm between the jaws and hit the face of the door hard with his shoulder. He had done enough, of course, and the guard was forced to cycle the doors, and he jumped in.
“Sorry. Thanks.” The girl glanced up at the businessman, who released her jacket and returned to his phone with a frown and a theatrical shake of his head. All the other phones were being raised too, the micro-drama over.
“Oh shit, look.” The girl pulled her shoe off and showed the boy the dangling heel.
“It’ll glue, just don’t lose it,” he said, amused.
She kissed him on the mouth, and everyone ignored them, sliding into their new positions to maximise the distance to their nearest neighbour as the tube jerked and gathered speed out of the station.
Rush hour was over, but Kings Cross is busy on weekday evenings, and the carriage was full. Not bodies pressed together full, but more intimate than most wanted. Most. There are a few happy to be forced against a fellow traveller of their chosen sex. Ahmed, in repose, was not a boy and shorn of the reckless air, transfigured into a young man. He was reading the poster about unwanted contact from strangers; assault, and the need to call it out. He glanced around, wondering what he would do if he saw something like that, what he would do if someone did that to his girlfriend. He was hopelessly entranced by her and her worldliness, her shocking and completely thrilling attitude to sex. He blushed at the memory of her guiding him and encouraging him, and had to look away to quell the instant arousal.
Jody, the girl, had likewise been transformed by calm into young womanhood and was gazing around the carriage, assessing her fellow travellers. She caught Ahmed looking at her and knew what he was thinking about. He was sweet. Ridiculously naïve, particularly about sex, but so many other things too. In retrospect, it was amazing that he had asked her out at all. The coincidence of seeing him twice in two days at the coffee shop, and his being rather handsome and polite, was just how the world sometimes worked; don’t overthink it. Of course, she had had to prompt him, heavily, to elicit the invitation. She had never dated a Muslim boy, and it was interesting, a first for her. Growing up in North London meant that she lived in an environment as ethnically diverse as one could find anywhere in the world. People used the words ‘black’ and ‘white’, but as far as she could tell, everyone was, more or less, brown, all a little the same, and a little not. But somehow everyone stayed on their tracks; she had no Muslim friends and few ‘white’ ones. They were the same age, both having recently finished university with good degrees, and both struggling to find a job. But summer was not yet over, and everyone was telling her to chill out, everything would be fine, she would be working for the rest of her life.
The train slowed, and she bumped into the businessman again, caught off balance. “Sorry.”
He ignored her.
The crowded carriage thinned as they headed south; many left to shop on Oxford Street and more at Victoria and Vauxhall. Now there were a few seats, and she quickly moved to one and pulled Ahmed beside her.
A moment later, she saw him. Well, she had seen him earlier, the boy with the large rucksack; then turned away from her, now she saw his face as he glanced along the carriage. Her mind made the connections, but it was so unlikely that she rejected the idea. She turned quickly away toward Ahmed, beside her. This could not be happening.
Ahmed glanced up from his phone, and whatever he caught on her face alarmed him. “What?” He glanced at the man in the seat beside her, but he was engrossed, watching his phone, earPod deaf. “What?” Ahmed looked around at the other passengers, and his eyes slid past the young man and then slammed back.
His mouth fell open. “Shit.”
It was a whisper and could barely have frightened her more.
“Is it him?”
Her words were too low to hear against the sound of the closing doors, but he heard them anyway.
She watched his jaw clench and the colour drain from his face as he too time-travelled towards an appalling near future that fit the facts of what he could see. He nodded slowly.
They had talked about him many times, his loss to the family, to Ahmed, the speculation, their mother’s fears.
“Oh, Jesus.” She whimpered, her imagination running wild, "Do you think ...".
Ahmed’s eyes were closed, and they held hands, bodily shaken as the train barrelled beneath London, heading for Pimlico, a minute away.
When he opened his eyes and looked at her, the relief she felt in his calm was overwhelming. “I’m going to talk to him. When the train stops, try to get everyone off without panicking them.” He made sure she was taking this in, “Stop the door closing, if you can, but be quick, get everyone out.”
She nodded, and her pulse slowed for a moment as she processed his words, then accelerated again. Her heart rattled in her chest in synchrony with the train in the tunnel. A tiny noise escaped her, and she thought for a moment she might wet herself, fear dimming her vision. Her world was out of focus, blurred to meaningless noise, her mind unable to construct any useful reality. His hand holding hers dragged her slowly back as the train began to coast and then brake.
“Wait until he sees me and I start talking to him, and then tell people.” He was looking at her as she blinked him into focus. “Ok?”
She nodded, but he was not convinced she could even stand. He squeezed her hand, kissed her on the cheek, and stood, grabbing the overhead bar to steady himself. With a deep breath, he took two steps towards the next set of doors and the young man with the large rucksack leaning against the glass partition. Ahmed’s movement triggered the man’s peripheral vision. He turned, and Ahmed saw his eyes widen in shock and fear. Pushing himself away from the glass, he held the handrail as the slowing train threatened to overbalance him.
“Mo.” Ahmed took two more steps, close now, “As-salamu alayk.”
They were identical twins, separated since Ahmad left for university and Mohammad left home, disappeared, no one knew where.
“Three years, brother, where are you going?”
Mohammad was panicking, his free hand making uncontrolled movements as his eyes scanned Ahmad frantically, disbelieving that it could be his brother.
Ahmed kept talking, holding his brother's eyes. Those so, so familiar eyes that faced him in the mirror every day, but now filled with fear and confusion.
“Where are you going, little brother, with that big rucksack?”
The familiar jibe jolted him back, “Three minutes, you old man.” Mohammad replied automatically. The words, their eternal joust, held their old rhythm, and closed out the thousand days since they had last spoken as if it were yesterday. But it was not yesterday, and the young man facing Ahmed was a different twin.
The train jerked to a stop, and as the doors screeched back behind Mohammad, Ahmed sensed Jody moving behind him, her voice low but urgent.
Mohammad was watching her go quickly from person to person. “What’s she doing?”, the first trace of alarm.
“She’s my girlfriend. She’s pretty, isn’t she.”
Mohammad’s mouth dropped open and he stared, disbelieving at Ahmed and then back to the girl, watching her, transfixed.
“She should cover herself. You should make her cover herself.” Mohammad’s anger swept upwards.
This forced a small laugh from Ahmad, “Mo, bruv, she does as she pleases, she’s smart –“
“Why are you with a woman like that, bro?” Mohammad’s brow was creased, concern for his fallen twin plain to see.
“Because she’s smart and pretty and nice, and I like her and she likes me.”
Mohammad’s condemnation was swift: “She looks like a prostitute.”
“She looks like every other woman around here, bruv and the fact that you don’t like the way she dresses is your problem, not hers.”
The riposte was more heavy-handed than Ahmed had intended, and Mohammad stiffened. “What’s happened to you, bro? Have you forgotten all your teachings?”
Ahmed held his brother’s gaze, suddenly aware that the carriage was fast emptying, forgetting what was happening around them. He avoided looking at the people on the platform, hurrying away, glancing over their shoulders as they fled. Fear, palpable in the frantic movements and strained voices, seeped into the enclosed space.
“Mo, Bruv, where do you think I’ve been for the last three years. All I’ve done is learn.”
“Learn their lies.”
They stared at one another, an island of quiet, each tracing forward from their inseparable childhood, from the almost telepathic intimacy of identical twins to the abrupt severance and loss, and now this. People moving away, sounds fading, leaving them bound together, stranded in this unlikely place.
“Lies, why would people teach me lies?” Ahmed said quietly. He watched as a different fear appeared in his twin’s eyes. “No, bruv, it’s still me, still your brother who loves you and will always love you.” He lowered his voice now as the last ambient, human sounds ebbed from the tunnel. “But when you learn things, you change. That’s the point. It’s just that we’ve learned different things.”
There was no announcement, the doors suddenly began to close, and Mohammad twisted to look around at the empty platform. Ahmed tensed, ready to grab his brother if he tried to leave the carriage, but the limb of the door was past him before he could react, and they were trapped. The train did not move, and Mohammad looked back at his brother, a complex flow of emotions crossing his young face in quick succession.
“What have you done? What’s happening?”
“Bruv, all I’ve done is talk to you,” Ahmed said, opening his palms in the universal gesture of trust.
Mohammad’s eyes danced up and down the empty carriage in disbelief. He twisted to see through the door and watched a tall man in a London Underground uniform leading Jody away. She was looking over her shoulder, fear distorting her face, tears bright on her cheeks.
“What’s in the rucksack, Mo?” Ahmed asked quietly.
Mohammad stared at him, calculating, understanding that whatever he had intended would, now, not happen. His shoulders dropped, and his lips began to tremble.
“Mo, bruv. I’m here. We can fix this.”
“You’ve ruined it.”
“What, what have I ruined? Where were you going?”
“It doesn’t matter now, I’ve failed. My mission is over.”
“Your mission! Bruv, what are you talking about? Mo, where were you going?”
Mohammad slid to the floor, leaning his pack against the door, his legs straight, head slumped forward.
“Talk to me, Mo, what’s in the rucksack?”
Mohammad looked up, “You don’t understand, bro, they are disrespecting us, killing our people all over the world, we have to show them we are strong, we have to strike back.”
“Strike, how? Who are you striking at on a Thursday night in South London?” As he said the words, a dreadful possibility dawned. “Oh shit, bruv, not the Academy.”
The clenched jaw and defiant look were his answer. Now, Ahmed slid to the floor, against the partition, his feet almost touching his brother’s. “That’s where we were going, Jody and me, to the gig at the Brixton Academy. You were going to try to kill me.”
“Not you Bro, all the deviants, all the sodomites, not you.”
“Oh, Mo.” It emerged as a lament for someone who had passed. “You want to kill people who listen to five young women in a rock band.”
“Degenerate whores.”
“Where is this coming from, Mo? Why are you so angry? You never used to be.”
“That was because we were brainwashed; they hid the truth from us while they were killing our people all over the world. Afghanistan, Syria, the Holy Land, everywhere.”
Ahmed retreated, replaying the last time they had been together, the day he left for university almost three years earlier. He had not believed Mohammad when he said he was leaving too, to study; bravado, just words. Their parents had not told him when Mohammad disappeared. It was his mother’s tears when he returned home at the end of his first term that forced him to believe what they were saying. His father had been strangely quiet, but his language suggested he felt both his sons were out in the world learning. Ahmed had wondered whether he knew where Mohammad was. He had heard rumours from friends, but had refused to believe them and never dared ask his father directly. Profound regret and sadness filled him.
“Dad knew where you were, didn’t he?” He looked at Mohammad, forcing him to face him.
“He sent me. He said one of his sons had to defend Islam.”
“Sent you where?”
“Manchester.”
“That’s where you’ve been for three years, Manchester?”
“Learning the truth, preparing for this moment, preparing for jihad and to bring honour to our family.”
Ahmed’s chest was tight. “So you think Mum would have been proud to see both her sons dead, along with lots of other young people.”
Mohammad’s head tilted forward.
Ahmed’s eyes were full of tears. “How many of us did you think you would kill?” he asked quietly.
There was no response, no movement, just the sound of the air conditioning fans, suddenly deafening.
“I mean, you’re going to have to kill a lot of us, Mo, to bring about your new world where women are treated like possessions and –“
“Shut up!” Mohammad looked up, crying and angry. “What do you know, you have a whore for a girlfriend, I bet you don’t even pray now, perhaps you deserve to die.”
“What do I know?” Ahmed was nodding slowly. Good question, little brother; what indeed?” He blinked away the tears to see his brother’s tortured face. “Do you even know what I was learning about at university?”
There was no reply, just an implacable stare, and the silence between them stretched.
Finally, Ahmed said, “What I learned is that people are just people and that most of them are kind and that we would be better trying to understand each other than kill each other. Oh, and that Edinburgh is bloody cold in winter. They call it philosophy, the degree I did and that’s what I learned.”
He could hear subdued movement and stifled sounds, and glanced down the carriage. Out of sight of Mohammad, the connecting door eased very slightly open, and there was the sound of something rolling along the floor, and the door closed again. His twin looked up, and they held each other’s eyes.
A blinding flash … and then nothing.
