Proof I was Here

by Becky Blake

  I slipped my fingers into the gap between his watchband and my wrist. I wondered what time it was in Ecuador.

  12

  When I woke up, a hint of daylight had crept into the room and there was a loud murmur coming through the gap in the wall. I realized it was the sound of people in the building behind us – people who were dressing their children, calling out reminders, making coffee, taking showers. At the construction site in El Raval, it was always the lack of noise that had alerted us it was almost morning. In Gràcia it seemed to be the opposite: all night it had been quiet and now the windows across the alley were filling up with sound.

  I sat up and looked around. Annika and Sylvain’s socked feet were just visible at the end of their bed. John and Enzo were both wearing Peruvian-style hats with earflaps, and had their sleeping bags zipped up to their chins. Two pigeons in the corner were sleeping as well, their heads tucked into their chests. On the mattress closest to me, Pau was snoring, his tattooed arm bent up under his head.

  I got up and went into the other apartment. Alone, I was able to really explore the space. Each of the balcony doors was covered by a cage of wire mesh bolted into the bricks. The same symbol I’d seen on the banner outside was painted on the living room wall: the circle with a jagged arrow passing through like a lightning bolt. Posters for protests and marches were taped up beside it. On the windowsill, a variety of herbs sprouted from teacups, and beneath the sill, a complicated-looking lineup of containers held food scraps and recycling.

  The table was still messy from our dinner the night before. I gathered up the dishes and set them on the kitchen counter. When I turned the taps above the sink, cold water came out of both. I bent my head down and took a drink, then began rinsing the dishes. A small ripped towel hanging from a nail smelled clean enough to dry with. There weren’t really any shelves or cupboards, so I just organized the plates and cups into stacks and rows on the counter.

  When I was finished, I wasn’t sure what else to do while I waited for the squatters to wake up. I wondered what the rules were for deciding who could stay – if you had to be an activist of some kind. The protest posters on the wall were about many issues. The ones for environmental causes I understood, but there were also political posters with screen-printed graphics of fists and barbed wire – posters with words I’d seen before but couldn’t exactly define: xenophobia, disbandment, expropriation.

  I picked up a thick book that was lying on a chair. I was expecting it to be a manifesto of some sort, but instead it was a novel in English, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The review on the back began with a quote in large excited-looking type: “Captivating, suspenseful, and complex!” I hadn’t held a book in my hands for quite a while, and the idea of reading a novel seemed somehow luxurious. The only things I’d read over the last couple of weeks were cover stories from Yaya’s newspapers. I thumbed through the book’s pages, stopping occasionally to skim a paragraph.

  “Good morning!” Annika said. She was stretching in the doorway.

  “Hey. Good morning.”

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Great. I slept great.” I didn’t think I’d even had a nightmare.

  “Have you read that?” she asked.

  “No. Is it good?”

  “Yes, it’s really good. It’s the first book in a trilogy.” She walked over to the kitchen area. “You can read it, if you want, when I’m finished.”

  “Okay, cool.” I wondered how long it would be before she was done, and whether she thought I might still be around.

  “Do you want some tea?” Annika asked. “We haven’t figured out where we can borrow electricity from yet, but we do have a little camping stove.” She poured water from a plastic jug into a small metal pot. “Don’t drink the tap water, by the way. We’re happy to have it, but we’re not sure where it comes from.” She looked at the lines and piles I’d made on the counter. “Thanks for cleaning up.”

  “No problem.” The tap water gurgled in my stomach.

  “So, listen,” Annika said, “I talked to the guys last night, and we decided you can stay for a few more days if you want. Sort of like a trial. You know, see how it goes.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t hide my excitement.

  “Yes. We were thinking you could help out with the shopping, maybe the cooking and cleaning too. Also, there has to be at least one person here at all times. So we’ll put you on the schedule once you get to know how things work.”

  “Sure. I can definitely help with all that.”

  “Good! It’ll be nice to have another girl around,” Annika said.

  My face flushed. Maybe we were going to be friends.

  “What kind of work did you do when you lived in Toronto?” she asked.

  “I was a graphic designer.”

  “Cool! Maybe you can design something for us.”

  “Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t imagine what sort of design work the squatters might need. I looked at the circle with the jagged arrow on the wall. “What does that symbol mean?”

  “Oh, it’s the squatter’s symbol. Hobos used to use it as a sign for other travellers. It meant, ‘Continue on. There’s a safe place up ahead.’”

  “So, having that banner on the balcony … is that like a sign to tell other squatters they can come here?”

  “Not exactly. It’s more about letting the community and the police know who we are. That we’re not thieves – that we’re just people who need a place to live in a city that’s full of empty buildings, and so we’re occupying this space for justified reasons.” She grabbed a pair of mugs from the counter. “Do you want black tea or peppermint?”

  “Um, black tea would be nice.” I wondered if she knew I was a thief. The disapproving way she’d said the word didn’t really make sense; it seemed like the squatters probably stole lots of things.

  A pigeon came strutting into the room. “Hey there, Mister,” I said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Ugh.” Annika grabbed the towel and ran at the bird, shooing it away.

  The intensity of her disgust surprised me.

  “They’re so filthy,” she said. “And they’re impossible to keep out.” She rummaged through a box on the floor, then handed me a water gun. “Here, you’re on pigeon duty. Keep watch while I make us something to eat.”

  Annika cut a banana into two bowls, then covered the fruit with granola. While we sat eating our breakfast, I confessed to her that I didn’t have any money at the moment, but that I could get some if I needed it.

  “Money’s not a problem,” Annika said. “We’re actually freegan.”

  “Freegan. Is that like …” I had no idea.

  “It just means we try to live without money. Dumpster diving for food and other things we need. Also, we’re pretty much vegan. So, free-gan. Although a couple of the guys eat meat if we happen to find some.”

  By Annika’s description, most of the people I’d met on the street were freegans too – they just didn’t know it. I’d never heard of anyone living without money by choice though. “You must need money for some things.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Here, wait. I’ll show you.” She left the apartment for a minute, then came back with an armful of clothes and dumped them on the table.

  “Whose are those?” I asked.

  “Nobody’s. We just found them in the garbage and washed them up. Eventually, once we get settled, we’re going to open a Free Store so we can give something back to the community.”

  “A Free Store?”

  “Yeah. The squat in Sants has one, the squat in Collserola too. It’s basically just a store where everything is free.”

  That sounded like something that couldn’t possibly exist. “Everything is from the garbage?”

  “Mostly,” Annika said. “Or donated by people we know. There are lots of unwanted things in
the world. You just have to match them up with the right person – the person who really wants them.”

  “We could use a place like that in my old neighbourhood.” I was picturing a storefront in Parkdale: a blank white box that could be turned into a Free Store on one side and a gallery on the other.

  “Every neighbourhood could use a Free Store.” Annika motioned to the clothes on the table. “Go ahead. Take whatever you want.”

  I started searching through the pile. The clothes all had a slightly herbal smell, like they’d been picked from a garden. I set aside a slate grey tank top, and a thin white blouse to wear over it. A black peasant skirt looked like it might fit me, as well.

  “That’s it?” Annika shook out a few other pieces and held them up for me. “What about this? Or these?” Everything she suggested was way too colourful.

  “No thanks.”

  Annika pulled off her dress, and I looked away from her nearly naked body as she tried on a floral-print wrap that could have been a tablecloth at a Mexican restaurant.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  I didn’t know her well enough to tell her the truth. “It’s not bad. Maybe try that one instead?” I pointed to a turquoise dress on the pile. When she grabbed it, I spotted a long saffron-coloured scarf that had been hidden underneath – a cheap version of the cashmere scarf I’d tried to shoplift at the department store in Toronto.

  I untangled it from the other clothes. It was silky and soft, long enough to wrap several times around my neck. I lifted the scarf to my nose for a moment, then dropped my hand back to the table. My mother had loved the scarf I’d stolen for her when I was twelve. Whenever I saw it on the hook inside the front door of our apartment, it meant she was home. I would bury my face in it and smell the bakery, her shampoo, her cigarettes. Sometimes if she was sleeping, I’d wind the scarf around my body while I watched TV. I didn’t even care that she had asked me to steal it for her. If I got caught shoplifting as a minor, I’d just get a slap on the wrist. She knew that because it had happened before. We might not have enough money, but we still deserved to have nice things. That’s what my mother always said.

  “That scarf is great!” Annika said. She was mostly naked again, slipping the turquoise dress over her head.

  “Yeah, I might take it, if that’s okay?”

  “Of course!”

  I glanced at the door to the hall. There was no noise coming from the other apartment, so I stripped out of my clothes and began wrapping the saffron scarf tightly around my ribs to keep them from moving so much.

  I thought Annika might ask me what I was doing or how I’d gotten hurt, but she didn’t. Instead, she waited until I was dressed in the new outfit I’d chosen, then stepped back to assess the result.

  “Fantastic,” she said. “And how about this to finish things off?” She held up a jean jacket with loopy gold words painted on it. They seemed to be in Italian.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ve got my trench coat.” I pointed to where I’d hung it on the back of a chair. The weather was getting too warm for coats, but I still liked to wear mine. It was one of the only things I had left from my old life.

  “Well, if you don’t want this jacket, maybe I’ll take it.” Annika slipped it on and pulled up the collar, posing with an exaggerated pout. “How does it look?”

  “Very chic.”

  She stuck one arm in the air, and then the other, shouting out the words painted on the sleeves: “Baci! Amore!”

  One of the sleeping guys from the other apartment groaned. “Shut up!”

  Annika stuck out her tongue in the direction of the voice. She pulled off the jacket and tossed it back on the pile.

  “Should we go do the shopping now?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  She went into the kitchen area, then handed me a large cloth bag with other bags inside. I reached for my trench coat.

  “I don’t think you’re going to need that,” she said.

  I held onto the coat for a moment, then hung it back on the chair. She was right. It was almost summer now. I hurried to catch up with her on the stairs.

  13

  Even though Annika was a foreigner, a lot of people in the neighbourhood seemed to know her. The first place we went was a bakery that had set aside a cup of wayward sesame seeds for her. The next place was a tiny supermarket with a carton of expired eggs waiting behind the counter. I noticed Annika was speaking Catalan with some of the shopkeepers.

  “People are a lot friendlier if you know some words and phrases,” she explained.

  As we continued our rounds, she told me that she’d just turned twenty-eight, and that she’d been away from the Netherlands for almost a decade, travelling and living in different places. “I’ve actually never gone back.”

  I knew there must be a reason, but I didn’t ask why. Annika and I both had places that we’d left behind for good. She probably didn’t want to talk about it either.

  We dropped off our first load of groceries at the squat, then rode into the city centre on her bike. Even with the scarf wrapped around my ribs, every bump in the road caused my vision to blur for a second. By the time we stopped behind the Carrefour, I was feeling light-headed. Tylenol was one thing we weren’t going to find in the garbage.

  Outside the back door of the store, a group of people were waiting: a mix of backpackers, vagrants and elderly locals. Annika knew a couple of the cleaner-looking people, and I knew one of the dirty ones – a junkie from the courtyard. Now that I was relatively clean from showering at the hospital, I noticed there was a difference between the smell of the backpackers and the smell of the people who lived on the street. The backpackers had a two- or three-day smell that could still be washed off; the street people’s smell seemed permanent, baked by the sun into their skin and their hair and their clothes.

  “The security guards always try to put out the garbage just before the truck comes,” Annika told me. “They don’t want people picking through it, but sometimes we have a little time.” She pointed at the door where two security guards with garbage bags were emerging from the store. They tossed the bags into the dumpster, then one of them stood watch while the other disappeared. A moment later he returned with a large jug of bleach.

  Annika sighed, and some of the other people shouted at him as he emptied the contents of the jug into the dumpster. An old woman standing beside us spat on the ground.

  “Why did he do that?” I asked Annika.

  “His boss probably told him to. They don’t want anyone eating the food because it’s a liability. So just to cover their asses” – her voice rose sharply so the security guards could hear her – “sometimes they destroy perfectly good food. Food that could feed hungry people.”

  I was worried the guards might come over, but they ignored her. Annika shook her head. “It’s the same reason dumpster diving is illegal – everyone’s afraid of being sued.”

  “How can it be illegal to pick up garbage?”

  “Well, it definitely shouldn’t be,” Annika said. “But technically we’re on their property, so in court they could say we were trespassing and that we stole stuff they were planning to use again.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I know. It’s obviously stuff they don’t want anymore if they’re pouring bleach on it, right? But you’d be surprised how hard it is to prove that something’s been thrown away – legally, I mean. Sylvain can explain it better sometime, if you’re interested. There’s this whole ‘law of abandonment’ thing.”

  The security guards went back inside, and most of the waiting crowd began to move away.

  “Shall we go try the market?” Annika asked.

  “Okay.” The junkie from the courtyard was inside the dumpster, throwing things over the side. The old woman was using a newspaper to wipe off an apple. She brought it to her nose, frowned, then
threw it into the gutter.

  Annika followed my gaze. “Yeah, that’s the problem,” she said. “People make a mess. The first rule of dumpster diving is that you should always leave things the way you found them.” She climbed onto her bike and swung her long braid around, almost hitting me in the face.

  I hesitated before getting on behind her. No one I’d met on the street had ever mentioned the etiquette of dumpster diving. Annika’s rules had been made by people who were less hungry. I kept the thought to myself.

  At the back of the market we found a box of overripe plums, and a large basket of lettuce leaves that had been torn off, maybe because they were ugly. After filling our shopping bags, I went into a coffee shop to use the bathroom. When I returned, I handed Annika a roll of toilet paper and some packets of sugar to add to our supplies. It was a habit I’d gotten into when I was staying with Manu. He sometimes liked to eat sugar on bread, and we always needed toilet paper.

  “Um, thanks,” she said. “But you don’t have to do that. To steal things, I mean.”

  My face went red. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s just that there’s so much stuff in the garbage. Sylvain and I haven’t bought anything for almost two years. And we try never to steal. It’s sort of a game for us.”

  I nodded. I’d been trying to live without buying anything for a while now too, although it didn’t feel like a game. “Do you want me to return this stuff?” I asked.

  Annika waved away my suggestion. “No, that’s a terrible coffee chain. Not a bad place to steal from … if you have to.”

  Annika was scheduled to be the person who stayed at the squat that afternoon, and we spent a few hours reading magazines and then having a long nap. When Sylvain returned to spell us off, Annika and I went for another walk in Gràcia. This time she pointed out places of interest on almost every block: a library where there were public-access computers, a store that pumped up bicycle tires for free, the tattoo shop where Pau worked and an elevator that led to an underground parking lot.