Chapter 28

Ana and Binta shuffled together along in the queue of anxious people waiting to leave Alif. The barbed wire marking Alif territory was just metres behind them, with the striped barrier pole raised by an officer carrying a fearsome submachine gun. Ahead of them and temptingly near was the barbed wire border of Agdal. Between them and the border, however, were very officious looking customs officers and armed guards who were meticulously discomfiting all those ahead of them in the queue. Already, a couple had been rudely pushed to one side, and stood helplessly by in the midday sun attended by an armed guard. Their baggage was separated from them, perhaps forever, and the young woman was sobbing while her boyfriend comforted her with an arm around her shoulders.

The border officials examined every passport with incredible care, slowly turning each page and examining the visa stamps. Beyond were customs officials, in front of which had already developed a queue, who were being equally thorough with the contents of their luggage. Alif passports were particularly scrutinised, and their possessors were asked a frighteningly extensive list of questions. Did they have relatives in Agdal? Had they visited Agdal before, and if so, for how long? Had they ever drunk alcohol? Were they likely to do so on their visit? Had they ever been imprisoned or cautioned for any civil or criminal offences? Were they now, or had they ever been, employed by the government of Alif? One young man with a male friend was bluntly asked if he were homosexual. Ana shivered as she listened to this exchange in which the man indignantly declared otherwise only to be asked further blunt and humilating personal questions. The two men were then taken to one side. Ana feared what might happen to them, but less than ten minutes later, after Ana and Binta had shuffled a couple of metres nearer to passport control, they were walking, clearly shaken, towards the customs post.

"You've been to an awful lot of countries, young lady," remarked the passport official when it came to Ana's turn at the counter. "Gharab, Aras, and ... what's this? ... Dafathy?"

Ana had studied her passport well enough to remember the real name on the visa. "Thafady," she corrected.

"Thafady. Did you go mountain-climbing there, young lady?"

Ana was quick-witted enough to answer: "No. There are no mountains in Thafady."

"Hmm! No, maybe there aren't. Though Dafathy's well equipped with them. And what is your home town like?"

"Akin. It's very nice."

"Better than anything in Alif?"

"No, about the same."

"And did you enjoy your stay in Alif?"

"It was very pleasant."

"And what was the purpose of your visit? Do you have any relatives in Alif?"

"Not that I know of."

Eventually, the official seemed satisfied and at last picked up his visa stamp, flicked through the pages and pressed it down on the ink pad before transferring it to the passport. He then squiggled a mark over it in biro and handed it back to Ana, before proceeding to do the same thing for Binta.

Ana and Binta had pretended for almost an hour now not to know each other, had only exchanged smiles at each other, and Ana trembled as she strode on to the next queue while Binta was being interrogated in much the same nature as herself. She felt a certain degree of elation as she strode on, nearly but not quite free of Alif. As she settled at the end of the queue, she spent several anxious moments watching Binta from a distance who like her was asked a series of questions. It seemed like an eternity, but it couldn't have been more than five minutes, until a smiling Binta strode towards her, separated by an elderly couple from Agdal who had been processed by the other official.

The next ordeal was to have their bags searched, and questions asked on how much they had spent in Alif and where it had been spent. In the process, as Wahata had predicted, they were made to surrender their Alif money (some of which Ana had cautiously secreted into a pocket, more for reasons of sentiment than practicality). The customs official seemed quite satisfied by the amount which he meticulously counted separating one or two notes from the others which he carefully placed in an official box. Ana's bags were not so much unpacked, as tipped upside down, the contents of underwear, shoes and clothes scattered over the bench and onto the floor. Ana was instructed to pick up these items and to replace them on the table.

"You seem to have an awful lot of clothes," sniffed the customs official, hardly disguising his disappointment. "More changes of clothing than you had days in Alif I think."

"I like to be well prepared."

"Many of these clothes have Alif labels. Did you buy them while on your holiday?"

Ana could see the clothes were mostly too worn for that to be plausible. "They must have been imported into Agdal where I bought them."

"It's good to see that Alif exports something!" grunted the official cynically. "Let's look in your other bag. You may pack the first bag again." He opened the bag and produced a camera and a radio which were hidden among more clothes, towels and personal belongings of mostly sentimental value. "I see these are Alif goods. Have you got an export license for them?"

Ana shook her head mournfully, knowing that this was the last time she'd see either of them again.

"I'd best confiscate them, young lady. You presumably haven't been informed of our government's very strict policies regarding exportation."

As the official scrutinised the few books, ornaments and the travelling iron she had in the bag, she was very grateful that she had decided after all not to take with her the letters written to her by her parents and which she'd been so reluctant to throw away. The official would have probably opened them and read them, particularly on noting the fact that the stamps and postmarks on them were unmistakably of Alif origin, featuring the ubiquitous features of President Marmeluke. Several pens, two novels and a nail clipper did not rejoin the other items she was eventually allowed to stuff back into her bag, although no mention was made of any export regulations regarding them.