Demolition and Eviction: Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1.

One day in spring 2017, I stopped at Aygul’s shop in the evening as I often did on my way home. 
Aygul kissed each of my cheeks in greeting. Guzelnur screamed out, “Hello! How are you! Good!” in English. 
“We’ve been studying your recordings together,” Aygul explained. I had recorded some simple English phrases on her cell phone for her to study.
Aygul was sitting on the carpet in the front room playing on her phone. Her eyelids drooped with sleep.

“How are things?” I inquired.

“Well…They are kicking everyone [the Uyghurs] out of Ürümchi. I can’t go back to rural Kashgar… The politics, the economic situation—it’s so much worse than here. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said with a wavering voice, tears pooling in her eyes.

It was then that I realized that the entrance to their back room was boarded up. A pipe had been installed and poked through the board to allow them to get water from the spigot inside.

 “What happened with the door?” I asked.

“Oh, the government made us do that. They said we can’t live here. We can open the shop but we can’t live in the back, they said. They didn’t give a reason. So much that they are doing right now is without logic. The real reason is that they want us [Uyghurs] to leave the city. The purpose is to make us leave. But they don’t say that. They just say, ‘you can’t live in the shop.’

“So we boarded up the living space, and I’m living with my parents nearby. I mean, I sleep there at night. I didn’t tell the government about Guzelnur,” she said, pointing her chin towards her daughter and looking at my concerned face and laughing.

“Everything’s fine! It’s not a big deal. We just need to take it day by day. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. We’re helpless,” she shrugged and rolled her eyes.

The next night, the lights were on in Aygul’s shop, a curtain and a table pressed up against the window and everything boarded up. I suspected this was to prevent the police from seeing that anyone was still living inside. But I could see the light leaking out into the night from inside. Aygul and Guzelnur were still living there despite orders not to. 

A couple weeks later at the end of April 2017, I went to visit Aygul again. 

I went inside the shop where Guzelnur was lying on the carpet on a raised platform. There was a thick blanket on top of her and pillow behind her head. She was ready for bed. Her smile revealed her crooked baby teeth and her bright, brown eyes greeted me. I knelt down next to her and embraced her with hugs and kisses. She played a peek-a-boo game with me where she hid herself under the blanket. 

“Guzelnur nede?” I said. “Where’s Aishe?”  She then suddenly threw the blanket off, and I acted shocked, giving her a shower of kisses as she squealed and giggled.

Aygul sat down next to me on the carpet.

“Our family has run into another difficulty. We just got word today that all the shops on this street will be demolished in three days. So our shop will be gone soon. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Where are you moving to?” I asked.

“There is no place to move to!” she said, as though she was talking to an incompetent child. “They are evicting all migrant Uyghurs from the city. They [government agents] are all so evil, they are breaking up families and they don’t even care.”

I told Aygul I was sad to hear this, but my words sounded flat as my heart sat in my throat.

“All of us here have broken hearts here, eh? We can’t do anything here, they won’t rent to us [Uyghur people], they won’t let us buy a house, they won’t let us live here or work here, nothing. They just want to send us away. So they’re evil. There’s nothing to be done.”

Some people came to buy naan, so she abruptly got up. I felt like I just got slapped in the face, even though I am not the one with a serious threat to my family’s livelihood. And yet, I felt strangely numb to the situation, my head blank and my mouth dry, empty of words as I sat in helplessness. 

I gave two more kisses to Guzelnur as she shrieked and laughed. I buried my face in her pillow for a moment while I fought hard to hold back the tears welling up in my eyes. I didn't want her to see my crying. I reluctantly said goodbye and left.

As I approached home, I felt sick. My brain was too full with everything. I felt suffocated as if I needed to get out for a breath of fresh air even though I was already outside. 

As I walked toward my apartment, behind me a few pairs of men were speaking loudly in Uyghur, wobbling down the street with their arms around each other. As they walked passed me, I smelled the alcohol. I heard them promising to always be there for each other in slurred and loud voices.