The Centre(9)

“Listen, Anisa …”

“I mean it, Adam. Don’t speak to me.”

We didn’t talk for the rest of the flight. Six and a half hours. Then, just as we were about to land, I said, “It might be better if we got you a hotel.”

He looked like he was going to cry. “If I tell you how I learned, will you forgive me for not telling you earlier?”

“No, I won’t. But tell me anyway.”





TWO


Hamid, the driver, was waiting for us outside the airport. He beamed when he saw Adam. They wrestled over his suitcase for a bit, but in the end, Adam kept it, and Hamid rolled mine toward the car while we followed behind. As Hamid loaded the boot, Adam stopped and looked around, wide-eyed and sweaty. I saw him take it all in: the couples sitting outside McDonald’s, the crows pecking on the fries thrown their way, the drivers and the guards and the travelers weaving between cars, hauling suitcases and cartons in and out. The porters and trolleys. The blue, blue sky and the air so warm and humid that even in September it felt a few degrees closer to water than the air we’d left behind. I tried to look through his eyes, to understand what he was seeing, and I found myself feeling a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment.

“Wow,” he said before climbing into the air-conditioned car. “Just … wow.”

“Now?” I asked, the moment we got into the car, forcing him to tear his gaze from the window.

“What? No,” he said. “I told you. I can only talk about this somewhere private.”

He gestured with his eyes toward Hamid.

“Huh? He doesn’t understand.”

“Are you sure?”

Oh god, I thought. Where to start explaining my country to this man?

I just rolled my eyes and said, “Yes. I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he said, lowering his voice. “So, first of all, I’m not allowed to tell anyone—well, only one person—my whole life. That’s the rule. So, if I tell you, it’s a big deal. Do you understand?”

“Do you work for the government, Adam? ’Cause if it’s something like that, I don’t know if I want to know—”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just …” he lowered his voice to a whisper now, “it’s a language school. A super elite, super secret language school. It’s called the Centre.”

“Huh?”

“Anisa,” he said, “this is serious. There’s massive penalties if you tell. Like, millions of pounds. Do you understand?”

“I won’t say anything. Just tell.”

“Well, when I said I was in Berlin, I wasn’t. I was actually at the Centre. I went to learn Urdu. To, well, I guess to impress your parents.”

“And this language school gives you what? An earpiece?” I examined the sides of his head.

“No, I can actually speak it. And understand it. I can’t explain how it works. It’s kind of like … you just sponge it in.” He made a motion with his hands of squeezing sponges over his head while he sucked in air through his mouth. “Like that. There’s no other way to describe it.”

“And at this school, you become completely fluent?”

“Completely fluent. In ten days.”

“And you can only tell one person?”

“That’s right. You can recommend them. Just one your whole life. And once you choose someone to recommend, well, if they pass the Centre’s tests and things, they can go, too, and learn as many languages as they can afford.”

“How much is it?” I asked.

“Twenty.”

“Twenty what?”

“Thousand.”

“Twenty grand? How do you even have twenty grand?”

I hadn’t meant this in a patronizing way, but he looked stung by the question.

“I make back ten times that within a year. The returns are high when it’s your trade.”

“That is … wow.”

“Yeah.”

“And why the secrecy?”

“It’s probably an intellectual property thing. Also to maintain exclusivity I imagine.”

“What’s it like there?”

“Honestly, kind of like a monastery. You wake up at five every morning, and you’re not allowed to talk to each other. Not even eye contact. And you have to give up your phone and everything. No contact with the outside world.”

“But you texted me loads from Berlin.”

“That was Brian.”

“What?”

“Brian’s the one who recommended me for the Centre. We take care of each other’s socials when either of us goes.”

Brian was Adam’s boss and mentor. He came from a similar class background to Adam and had essentially taken him under his wing when Adam joined his company as an intern after finishing uni. I’d met him once, at Adam’s birthday party in our flat. They’d spent much of the party in a corner together, just laughing and joking and sort of making fun of the whole affair. The fierce solidarity between them that night made me realize there were parts of Adam that were inaccessible to me, certain languages he spoke that I would never know.

“Brian was the one texting me? Adam, that’s really weird.”