A King in Hiding by Fahim Page A

set up support networks and display an instinctive solidarity with each other – translating for newcomers and passing on useful tips – before they are forced apart again, as the currents of life sweep them on to different shores.

    You have to get to the canteen on time, pick up a tray and join the queue. In the morning my father goes down without me, as I’m not hungry. When I don’t have school, I have lunch with him. In the evening, we take our tray up to our room as we like to eat late. The man who dishes out the food isn’t fair. He gives bigger portions to pretty women and to people from certain countries. He tips them off when there’s something good coming up, and when we get there there’s none left. People in the queue moan about it, but my father never says anything, so I don’t either.
    Gradually I get used to French food. I like the grilled chicken legs, gateaux, strawberries, kiwi fruit, cherries and apricots. I don’t like tomatoes or onions – I leave them on the side of my plate – carrots and petits pois when they’re all mixed up together, or artichokes. I don’t like the bread either: it’s cold, like it’s mouldy. I refuse to eat merguez (which are all long and thin and disgusting) or figs (which are ugly looking). And most of all I hate being forced to eat anything, like I am at school.

    After two months at the hostel we aren’t allowed to eat at the canteen any more, and like the others we’re given money to cook for ourselves. My father’s good at looking after us. He cleans and tidies the room, does the shopping, cooks our meals, does the washing up and washes and irons our clothes. In Bangladesh he used to pay a woman to do all that. Now he does it himself, and he does it brilliantly. I am always well dressed with my hair neatly combed. I often hear the people who run the hostel say things like:
    â€˜He looks after his son so well!’
    â€˜Have you seen how clean and tidy their room is? You could eat off the floor.’
    â€˜At least that poor child has the good luck to have a father like that.’
    â€˜What a perfect family, look how attentive his father is!’
    My father is quiet and discreet. He’s popular with our neighbours. They are from Sri Lanka, Armenia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Iraq. Not all of them are as quiet as us. There are two women on our floor, one from an African country and the other from Chechnya, who have rows every day. They fight over their children, over crumbs left in the kitchen or over dirty toilets, and they scream and yell and pull each other’s hair. Sometimes my father tries to pull them apart, and then they hit him instead.
    One day they’re fighting with a broom when it hits me on the hand. One of my fingers swells up and turns blue. I’m so angry and think my finger might be permanently bent. Another time the old witches gang up on me: they shout at me and tell my father I’ve made the corridor dirty. It isn’t true, but my father believes them and gives me a slap. After that I hate them.
    There’s an Armenian couple who have fights in the evening. You can hear them hitting each other in their room. He hits her, and she hits him. Every night. It’s violent. The neighbours are worried and cluster outside in the corridor, but no one dares to interfere. I wonder why they stay together if they hate each other so much. When the noise stops, we hear whispering. In the morning, the woman goes out to do whatever she has to do as if nothing has happened.
    In another family it’s the daughter who gets hit. She’s the same age as me, and her mother makes her do everything: the cooking, the housework and the washing. She’s never allowed out. When her older brother tries to defend her, the mother locks the door so she can beat her daughter in peace. One evening he was desperate to help her and banged on the door so hard that he broke