Ana and Binta shuffled together along in the queue of anxious people waiting to leave Alif. The barbed wire marking Alif territory was just metres behind them, with the striped barrier pole raised by an officer carrying a fearsome submachine gun. Ahead of them and temptingly near was the barbed wire border of Agdal. Between them and the border, however, were very officious looking customs officers and armed guards who were meticulously discomfiting all those ahead of them in the queue. Already, a couple had been rudely pushed to one side, and stood helplessly by in the midday sun attended by an armed guard. Their baggage was separated from them, perhaps forever, and the young woman was sobbing while her boyfriend comforted her with an arm around her shoulders.

The border officials examined every passport with incredible care, slowly turning each page and examining the visa stamps. Beyond were customs officials, in front of which had already developed a queue, who were being equally thorough with the contents of their luggage. Alif passports were particularly scrutinised, and their possessors were asked a frighteningly extensive list of questions. Did they have relatives in Agdal? Had they visited Agdal before, and if so, for how long? Had they ever drunk alcohol? Were they likely to do so on their visit? Had they ever been imprisoned or cautioned for any civil or criminal offences? Were they now, or had they ever been, employed by the government of Alif? One young man with a male friend was bluntly asked if he were homosexual. Ana shivered as she listened to this exchange in which the man indignantly declared otherwise only to be asked further blunt and humiliating personal questions. The two men were then taken to one side. Ana feared what might happen to them, but less than ten minutes later, after Ana and Binta had shuffled a couple of metres nearer to passport control, they were walking, clearly shaken, towards the customs post.

“You’ve been to an awful lot of countries, young lady,” remarked the passport official when it came to Ana’s turn at the counter. “Gharab, Aras , and ... what’s this? ... Dafathy?”

Ana had studied her passport well enough to remember the real name on the visa. “Thafady,” she corrected.

“Thafady. Did you go mountain-climbing there, young lady?”

Ana was quick-witted enough to answer: “No. There are no mountains in Thafady.”

“Hmm! No, maybe there aren’t. Though Dafathy’s well equipped with them. And what is your home town like?”

“Akin. It’s very nice.”

“Better than anything in Alif?”

“No, about the same.”

“And did you enjoy your stay in Alif?”

“It was very pleasant.”

“And what was the purpose of your visit? Do you have any relatives in Alif?”

“Not that I know of.”

Eventually, the official seemed satisfied and at last picked up his visa stamp, flicked through the pages and pressed it down on the ink pad before transferring it to the passport. He then squiggled a mark over it in biro and handed it back to Ana, before proceeding to do the same thing for Binta.

Ana and Binta had pretended for almost an hour now not to know each other, had only exchanged smiles at each other, and Ana trembled as she strode on to the next queue while Binta was being interrogated in much the same nature as herself. She felt a certain degree of elation as she strode on, nearly but not quite free of Alif. As she settled at the end of the queue, she spent several anxious moments watching Binta from a distance who like her was asked a series of questions. It seemed like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes, until a smiling Binta strode towards her, separated by an elderly couple from Agdal who had been processed by the other official.

The next ordeal was to have their bags searched, and questions asked on how much they had spent in Alif and where it had been spent. In the process, as Wahata had predicted, they were made to surrender their Alif money (some of which Ana had cautiously secreted into a pocket, more for reasons of sentiment than practicality). The customs official seemed quite satisfied by the amount which he meticulously counted separating one or two notes from the others which he carefully placed in an official box. Ana’s bags were not so much unpacked, as tipped upside down, the contents of underwear, shoes and clothes scattered over the bench and onto the floor. Ana was instructed to pick up these items and to replace them on the table.

“You seem to have an awful lot of clothes,” sniffed the customs official, hardly disguising his disappointment. “More changes of clothing than you had days in Alif I think.”

“I like to be well prepared.”

“Many of these clothes have Alif labels. Did you buy them while on your holiday?”

Ana could see the clothes were mostly too worn for that to be plausible. “They must have been imported into Agdal where I bought them.”

“It’s good to see that Alif exports something!” grunted the official cynically. “Let’s look in your other bag. You may pack the first bag again.” He opened the bag and produced a camera and a radio which were hidden among more clothes, towels and personal belongings of mostly sentimental value. “I see these are Alif goods. Have you got an export license for them?”

Ana shook her head mournfully, knowing that this was the last time she’d see either of them again.

“I’d best confiscate them, young lady. You presumably haven’t been informed of our government’s very strict policies regarding exportation.”

As the official scrutinised the few books, ornaments and the travelling iron she had in the bag, she was very grateful that she had decided after all not to take with her the letters written to her by her parents and which she’d been so reluctant to throw away. The official would have probably opened them and read them, particularly on noting the fact that the stamps and postmarks on them were unmistakably of Alif origin, featuring the ubiquitous features of President Marmeluke. Several pens, two novels and a nail clipper did not rejoin the other items she was eventually allowed to stuff back into her bag, although no mention was made of any export regulations regarding them.

And then Ana was free at last. She strode along the desolate path to the Agdal border. A single guard stood there with his hands in his pocket. Ana showed him her passport, and he merely flicked through it with a bored expression. He handed it back to her with a smile. “Have a nice day,” he said before returning to the stool in the shade of the small hut where he was based and waited for the next person.

It was an agonising ten minutes Ana waited by the roadside as other people passed her through the border, her bags at her feet and sweat streaming down her forehead. At last, Binta wandered along, still trying to secure her case, and just managing to retrieve her passport to show to the guard.

“Welcome home to Agdal,” he said smiling, letting Binta through.

As Binta approached it was as if the cares and worries of the last few days and the trials of the last few months disintegrated like vestiges of cobweb from Ana’s mind. Binta was grinning broadly, scarcely capable of restraining her delight and relief. “Free!” she exclaimed. “Free! Really and truly free!”

“Oh, Binta! Binta!” Ana replied, rushing up to her lover and hugging her tightly against her. “We’ve done it! We did it! We’re here in Agdal. Where we can be ourselves. Where we can be a normal couple. Where we can say what we like. Where we won’t be put in gaol or sent back to the Brothel. Where,” she added slyly, “we can take our clothes off in public like Ketaba does when she’s in Agdal.”

Binta smiled, glancing slightly to one side at the shoulder strap of her skirt which was slipping down her shoulder. “I don’t think I’ll be taking my clothes off. At least, not for a good while. It’s more liberating for me to be able to wear them again after all these years. The first thing I’ll do when we’ve started earning, is build up a wardrobe of clothes I’ll be happy to wear.”

“Of course. Of course you must!” breathed Ana. “What’s important is that we’ve got the choice. No more Brothel. No more Director. No more ...”

“No more filthy, abusive, dirty-minded men. Ever again. I’ll never ever have anything to do with them again. Ever! From now on, it’s just you and I. Nobody else.”

She eased herself out of Ana’s grip, and allowed her bags to drop to her feet. She turned around, holding Ana’s hand in hers, and scanned the horizon. Ahead of them were the mountains they had seen from the deserted farmhouse, led to by a metalled road in good condition and dotted by houses in much better condition than those neighbouring the border on the Alif side. A few kilometres ahead, a tractor was slowly ploughing across a field followed by a flock of seagulls. Cattle were grazing in fields nearby. A bus was standing by a bus stop just thirty metres away in which the others who had come through the border were already sitting. Several green taxis stood by a taxi rank where men and women were sitting around, smoking cigarettes and chatting. Trees dotted the plain with wire protecting their bark from any unwanted grazing.

“Those border guards!” Binta remarked turning her head back to face the barbed wire defending the Alif border, which now seemed so much more distant than the few metres between them would suggest. There were still people being processed by the Alif officials, while the sole Agdal border guard was sitting on his stool reading a paperback with headphones over his ears. “They asked so many questions. They said my clothes were in a pretty poor state for someone from Agdal. I told them I didn’t wear them very often, which is true, but it was not really the right answer. They asked me what sort of a whore I was. Did I practice my loose morals in Alif? Had I imported any alcohol? All sorts of horrid questions. They searched me and found some Alif money I’d hidden in the handbag you gave me, and accused me of trying to smuggle it out. Of course, they took it from me. Such an awful amount! All the savings I’d ever had before I’d been sent to the Brothel. I thought they were going to turn me back. It was awful!”

“But they didn’t, did they? You weren’t turned back. You were let through.”

“I don’t think they’d really suspected me of being an Alif citizen. Safari’s such a long way from Jebel that I might as well have come from a foreign country. They just didn’t like me because they thought I came from Agdal. They think all women from Agdal are whores. Ironic, really. They just wanted to humiliate me. Alif’s last word, I suppose. They took the ivory doll Ferhana gave me. They took the bracelet Zabba gave me. It was horrible. I had to crawl on the floor to pick up all the underwear they’d dropped down there. But believing me to be from Agdal, they probably thought they couldn’t do anything to stop me passing through.”

“But we’re free now!” pointed out Ana.

“Yes. Free!” Binta turned to Ana, her arms outstretched and a tear running out of the corner of her left eye and over her cheek. “Oh, Ana! I’m so happy! So happy! This is the happiest moment of my entire life! We are here, together! You and I. No other moment could ever be so perfect. Oh, Ana! None of this could have been possible if it wasn’t for you! Never would I have seen a day like this if it wasn’t for all the selflessness you’ve shown towards me. All the suffering you’ve been through because of me! All that you’ve done for me, despite everything. Ana! Ana! I love you so much!”