A King in Hiding Read Online Free PDF

suburb of Créteil, a mere stone’s throw – as luck would have it – from one of the best chess schools in France.

    France Terre d’Asile send us to the Préfecture, a big modern building with windows everywhere: the glass is orange, and to me it looks as though it’s holding the sun hostage inside. It must be a magic place, and I hope we’ll come back often. As soon as we get inside the illusion is shattered: there are crowds of people waiting, and the minutes crawl by. At last we are seen by a lady with funny red hair who isn’t very friendly and gives us a great pile of forms to fill in. Back at home, my father stares in dismay at the long list of questions to which he doesn’t know the answers. They ask for names, dates and places that he doesn’t know without looking them up. He rummages about in our things, searching for documents and evidence. Then, with M. Bamoun, he writes down our story and describes the problems we had in Bangladesh.
    When they’ve finished, M. Bamoun takes my father to have it all translated. I don’t understand why he can’t do it himself, as he speaks good French. He explains that you have to use a translator who has taken an oath.
    The next day we go back to Créteil. It’s raining, and the house of the sun isn’t filled with light any more. In fact it’s pretty ugly. When I see all the people waiting inside, I begin to hate the place.

    XP : That day, Nura was given temporary leave to stay, which meant that he and Fahim could legally stay in France for a month, the period needed to verify whether or not his application would be considered. Armed with this, they were given accommodation by France Terre d’Asile, initially in emergency hostels and subsequently, when space became available, at the Centre d’Acceuil pour Demandeurs d’Asile (CADA), the centre for asylum-seekers in Créteil.
    Thus Nura and his son embarked on the obstacle course that awaits all immigrants arriving on French soil. Of course they had absolutely no idea of what lay in store for them. Despite being involved in community work, I too had little notion then of what daily life was like for asylum-seekers, or of the obstacles they had to overcome. It was a subject in which Fahim was to become my teacher.

    â€˜The hostel at Créteil is full at the moment.’
    The woman picks up the phone and dials 115. After a brief conversation she announces:
    â€˜The Samu Social, an organisation that finds accommodation for homeless people, has found you a hotel room.’
    M. Bamoun translates. My father stiffens:
    â€˜I’ve run out of money.’
    Just as I thought.
    â€˜No need to worry. The cost is covered while your application is being processed.’
    I think about all the people living on the streets of Dhaka, all the poor people who are homeless. I’d never imagined there might be an organisation that could find them somewhere to stay. Let alone that one day it would be me needing this sort of help.
    It’s already late when we get to Fresnes. The man on reception shows us the room: it’s magnificent, with a television, and in the bathroom a tiny swimming pool called a bath.
    Gesturing with his hands, the man asks if we have eaten, and when my father signals ‘no’, he goes away and comes back with a tin of something. The label says ‘sweetened condensed milk’, which means nothing to us. But since we’re starving we accept it eagerly. My father opens the can. It’s full of white, sticky goo. I taste it. Milk, sweet and sickly: yuck! Who could eat that? We throw it away and go to bed hungry.

    By the next day I realise that this hotel is not the paradise I thought it was: in fact it’s more like a version of hell. During the day we have to get out of the rooms. Even if we have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no official stuff to take care of, no one to go and see. And it’s cold. Colder