Victor's Story

Once, what feels like many years ago, I was friends with a man called Victor. He came from Kenya and he was always smiling and positive; seriously I don't think I ever even saw him sporting a frown. He was friends with everyone at our school. Victor was always up for a party and he would travel far and wide in search of them. I wasn't very close with Victor, probably because I couldn't keep up with him.

Victor had a problem though. You see he was born with the curse of dark skin. This condition didn't matter so much in Kenya but when he traveled to Britain everyone noticed like one notices a trail of ants passing crumbs across a floor. They didn't say anything though, that wouldn't be polite. But you could feel it in their quick stares and the way the Kashmiri kebab shop owner would almost ignore you as he took your money. It didn't matter how much he smiled his skin meant he was condemned. Though it took a while for this sentence to be carried out, after his tuition cheque had cleared of course.

Like so many other international students Victor enjoyed living in Britain. I loved Britain for the Guardian and Radio 4 and pub quizzes. I wonder what was most special for him. Maybe long winter nights, maybe the constant rain. I could ask him I suppose. Maybe it's better to keep guessing.

So like most unattached international students, Victor extended his education for as long as he could to stay in Britain. He was due to hand in his dissertation in September and managed to push the deadline back as almost all of us did. There was nothing sinister in this, nothing malicious. Even Americans did it and we know they can't be malicious.

But Americans are Americans and Kenyans are Kenyans.

Victor had a job working in a gym. He was super athletic so this was a natural fit. As an international student he could only work 20 hours a week when school was on and 35 when school was out. His extension complicated things. He worked full time while continuing to work on his dissertation. An American friend did the same and never asked any questions.

But Victor wanted to make sure, so he paid a visit to the local immigration office. As he explained his situation in perfect English and handed over his passport, the staff conferred and told him that they were confiscating his passport overnight. He should return in the morning to collect it, the lady at the desk smiled a dull smile and dismissed him.

Back at home Victor watched some TV, checked his emails on his computer, did some laundry and slept in his bed. He had toast, eggs and bacon for breakfast. His plan was to head to the immigration office before heading to work his afternoon shift at the gym.

It was raining. We all learned pretty early that an essential purchase in Britain is an umbrella. Victor entered the office and shook the drops of rain out of his umbrella. He took his number and approached the desk, leaning the umbrella against the cubicle. Why did they build all the government offices to look as though the staff were under siege from their patrons; where you couldn't see what was happening behind the desk? He asked for his passport politely, always politely, the British way.

After a few brief moments several security men approached him and took his arms in theirs. They led him to a small room where they left him. No explanation. No passport. After a few hours they returned and bundled him into a waiting van. He was driven for several hours. He couldn't tell where he was because there were no windows in the van. He was handcuffed to his seat; his wrists were sore.

When the van door opened it was night and he could hear the roar of jet engines. He had been brought to the world's busiest airport from his sleepy life in a fallen industrial city in West Yorkshire. He was taken to a British Airways desk by the two guards and waited with one while the other spoke with the staff; they eyed him suspiciously from behind their desks. Still no explanation but he knew what was going on. Summary deportation. No appeal. He had no bags to check, just the clothes on his back and his mobile phone.

The guard came back annoyed and pulled Victor outside to the waiting van. He was told there was no room on the flight to Nairobi; must be all those aid workers returning to their lucrative positions with the various UN agencies that called Nairobi home.

Again Victor was bundled in the vehicle and driven to a miserable place, worse than any government office. It was a privately operated detention centre near Heathrow where criminals mixed with the lowest segment of humanity in Britain, asylum seekers. It smelled of bleach. Everyone was quiet and looked down. If they were silent long enough, the authorities might forget they were there and let them stay, like ghosts.

He spent a week in detention. He was fed enough. He had a bed. But he was not given a change of clothes. They must have decided that he had already taken enough from their beloved state. Not even a scrap of cloth was good enough for Victor.

Then they came for him again. A seat must have been vacated on a flight to Nairobi. Perhaps an ex-pat had decided roughing it wasn't for him. Victor was angry at being denied clean clothes for a week so before they came to get him he threw away his fetid t-shirt. He wore his jacket over his bare chest. The guards didn't mind. This was a job and they were looking forward to the pub and Chelsea vs Bolton later that night. The sooner this stinking African was on the plane the better.

Back at the airport, he met those familiar stares from the BA staff. This time they looked at his bare chest and shook their heads. Rejected yet again. The guards were enraged. Now they had to take him back and process him again. This fucker was supposed to be on the plane and they were supposed to be at the pub. They took Victor back to the van and took turns pounding on him, making his cheek swell from their assault.

But they made a big mistake. Victor wasn't a timid asylum seeker or refugee. He was a fighter and he was smarter than them. Back in detention he asked for his mobile phone to get a phone number, not his lawyer's he assured them. Satiated by their beating, they allowed him his phone. It was a camera phone and in a second he had snapped a shot of his swollen cheek and texted it to a trusted friend.

This friend exposed Victor's disgraceful treatment at the hands of these thugs. Many kind white, brown and black faces appealed to the government on behalf of Victor. They tried their best to understand his deportation. Why him? But of course everyone knew the answer. He was black, unwelcome in the British Isles. It would never happen to an American or a Japanese.

Despite the appeals, Victor was deported but the guards learned to be weary his sharp mind and never laid a hand on him again. And they also gave him a clean t-shirt. Resistance matters.

They couldn't take Victor's smile away and today it beams on Kenya like the sun. It's Britain's loss, though I doubt they'd be able to recognize it in the cold dark winter.