The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  Yasmin

  The writing was clear and unadorned. Purposeful, like Yasmin herself. My finger traced the slight grooves the biro had left on the card. Three more years, then. Three more years she’d be beyond my reach. Yasmin had outgrown our town. She had outgrown me too, and the longer I didn’t see her, the wider the gap became. She became a work of art constructed from my memories, shining brighter and brighter the more I missed her.

  I only saw her at night now, when I was tossing and turning in my sleep. We’d stroll together in a dreamy blue light, walking on water. I often walked on water in my dreams. On particularly restless nights, the sky above me would turn black, and walls of waves would tower over me as high as mountains. I’d wake from such nightmares drenched in sweat, gasping for air in my dark room, terrified I was drowning. The dreams were more bearable if Yasmin appeared in them, because she’d take my hand and lead the way. She always wore a white dress, the hem just skimming the water. Her hand was soft and reassuring, her stride unerring. I always woke up before we arrived anywhere, but when Yasmin appeared in my dreams, at least I woke up feeling that there was a shore somewhere.

  Three years of restless nights, rain-dark silence in my flat, and sluggishly meandering from job to job until I ended up in the copy shop. That’s where the time had gone.

  “Excuse me, can I get this bound, please?”

  My eyes fell on the stack of paper in the cardboard box the woman was holding.

  “Sure,” I said, still not looking up. “We can do perfect binding using thermal glue, and you can choose softcover or hardcover. Alternatively, we have spiral binding or comb binding, which …”

  “Hardcover, please, and the best quality. It’s a gift for someone.”

  “No problem,” I said, taking the box from her and glancing at the title page of a thesis: “Trauma and Identity: Subject Formation in Refugee Children in Germany.”

  I raised my head. She was looking straight at me.

  It’s hard to describe what I felt at that moment, except that it was something deep and true. The years had woven a magic spell, and here she was now, all grown up and radiant. Her hair was shorter, her face more striking, more self-assured, more beautiful than ever. Somewhere between studying, writing her thesis, moving, and doing her practical training, she had become a woman. Twenty-six and almost too beautiful to behold. I was speechless, terrified it might just be a dream, that Yasmin would vanish if I so much as moved a finger to touch her. I stood there in my silly uniform, taller, and skinnier than the boy she once knew.

  “Samir?”

  The affectionate way she said my name gave me a jolt of pain and joy. I closed my eyes for a second. Her voice was gentle and full of surprise. Her eyes flickered, as if she was trying to figure out what I was doing here. Then she ran her hand along my cheek, slowly, as if she were blind.

  Embarrassed, I lowered my eyes, although every millisecond I wasn’t looking at her was precious time wasted. How long had I been waiting for this moment? How many hours had I spent staring at her postcard on the wall above my bed, its colours fading with the years?

  If I’d managed to get out of bed in the mornings, it was only because I remembered there was a world out there in which she left her traces. Now she’d blown in here in her warm yellow coat like an autumn leaf.

  “Samir.” Her eyelids quivered.

  I swallowed. I couldn’t speak.

  Eight years. It was eight years since we’d said goodbye in the car park. Eight years since we’d gone back to the derelict estate where we used to live as kids. Eight years since that fleeting kiss at the door of our old flat. “Yasmin.” I was nearly choking. Next thing, she was hugging me close. After years of exhausted drifting, a wave was carrying me to shore. Mustering the last of my strength, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my head in her shoulder. She was my island.

  We strolled through town beneath a leaden autumn sky. Its dark border of cloud looked as if it had been drawn in heavy pencil strokes. Yasmin had linked her arm in mine. Our shoulders touched, and I stole sideways glances at her. Every now and then, she brushed a stray lock out of her eyes, just like she used to when she was a kid. Around us were winding streets and alleys, autumn window displays and the metallic rumble of cars hurrying over the cobbles. Inside, I felt like lights were exploding. My heart was pounding and my hands were clammy.

  Yasmin took it all in, amazed to see how much things had changed. To her, it must have seemed like a major transformation. She kept stopping in surprise, noticing a building where before there’d been nothing, or something completely different. For her, the town still held the nostalgic scent of the past. All I’d been able to smell for some time was decay. I still couldn’t believe she was really here.

  “This is where Aimée used to live,” she said, pointing at a big hole in the ground behind a construction fence. “Remember? Aimée from primary school?”

  “Yes … They’re going to build a carwash there.”

  I vaguely remembered Aimée. She and her family had left years ago.

  “I’ve been away for an eternity, haven’t I?”

  A whole ocean away, I thought; you were as far away as the other side of the ocean.

  Before we’d left the copy shop, I’d printed and bound her thesis. A corner of the black hardcover was sticking out of her bag.

  “When did you get here?”

  “This morning.”

  I nodded and did my best to sound casual.

  “How long will you be around?”

  The doors of a bus hissed open beside us. A man helped a woman and a buggy in. The bus rolled on.

  “I don’t know yet,” she said. “The clinic where I’ve been working has offered me a proper job. I’m probably mad not to have accepted straight away. I’ve made lots of friends there, I like my colleagues, I’ve grown fond of the patients, it’s a fantastic clinic with good promotion opportunities.”

  “But?”

  She looked at me. A falling leaf had landed on her hood.

  “But my father has been on his own for such a long time now. I think I’d like to be near him for a while. So I might apply for a job here as well.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced. It was as if her heart was influencing this decision more than her head.

  “Refugee children,” I said. She looked blank for a second, until I nodded at her bag.

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Right.”

  “What’s it about exactly?”

  “It’s about the subjective experiences of different generations of refugees.” We crossed to the other side of the street because the pavement was blocked by construction work. “And about their identify formation as children, to what extent the trauma of displacement played a role in that. These are children who are catapulted into a different life overnight. They have experienced terrible things in their home countries, and very often during the flight to safety. They grow up in an environment where they are confronted with the life histories and refugee experiences of previous generations, so they are exposed to different kinds of cultural memories. I’m particularly interested in how these children develop individual subject positions. However … Sorry, I’ve been working on this for so long that I tend to speak in academic jargon,” she laughed. “What I wanted to know is what makes these children who they are, and how much of what they embody might be attributable to behaviours and attitudes they have assumed subconsciously.”

  “Wow,” I said, lost for words.

  “There you go. But it’s crazy, isn’t it? These people go through hell to get out, then they meet people in the host country who’d as soon send them back to hell. That’s a further stress factor.”

  “You’re right. It’s not much different here.”

  The sports hall was still serving as a refugee reception centre. You’d see them in town from time to time; they couldn’t help standing out. You’d
also see the disparaging looks on people’s faces as they gave them a wide berth. Only recently, two Syrians who’d been in the sports hall were deported to Hungary, because they’d been fingerprinted there in transit. I wondered how much Yasmin’s own background had influenced her choice of research topic.

  “Have you seen him yet?” I asked.

  “Father? Not yet. I’m going this afternoon.”

  “He’ll burst with excitement.”

  “I reckon he’s expecting me already. After all, tomorrow’s the big birthday.”

  Hakim was going to be sixty-five. I’d been to see him quite often over the last three years, but it was true—he did seem rather lonely, and he seemed to have shrunk a little, especially since his retirement two years earlier. He spent a lot of time in the shed and going for long walks, collecting wood for the figurines he carved. It was obvious that he missed the joinery and the routine of work. The thought of Yasmin back in her old home for a few days was immensely reassuring.

  “Your room is just as you left it,” I said, rubbing my nose. “Well, almost—I got rid of your boy-band posters.”

  “I never had boy-band posters,” she replied, laughing out loud and digging me in the ribs. “I was nineteen when I moved out.”

  She still wore the same perfume. It triggered a storm of images that threatened to overwhelm me.

  “I know.” I glanced at her from the side. The lightness of her step was infectious. “Maybe it was a cool surfer with no T-shirt on.”

  “You had no right to do that,” she said with mock indignation. “I was going to take that poster with me to my new place.”

  “I think it’s still in a box somewhere.”

  “I certainly hope so, for your sake.”

  We passed jogging fathers pushing buggies, two homeless guys fighting over a beer bottle they’d found in the litter bin, old ladies lugging shopping bags with lettuces and radishes poking out the top, and a stag party whose hapless groom was trying to engage passers-by in conversation.

  Yasmin’s arm was still linked in mine. Our shoulders still touched. We jostled and teased a bit, checking whether we were the same children, just in grown-up bodies. Then we walked a few steps in silence.

  “It seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?” she said after a while. Her tone was pensive, and she smiled shyly, as if she’d only just realised that we’d grown older.

  I said nothing.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said, her eyes focused on the toes of her shoes. She was balancing on the kerb, still holding my arm.

  “Likewise,” I said, going weak at the knees.

  We were strolling down an old street of half-timbered buildings with garlands strung between them. It was the last bastion of small retailers, sewing and alterations workshops, little shops selling artisan chocolates and hand-carved wooden toys.

  “I’ve never believed in ‘out of sight, out of mind’.” She was looking at me now. “I thought of you so many times, wondering what you were up to.” She stopped to buy a little bag of chocolates. As she stashed the sweets in her handbag, she asked, “How come it’s been so long since we last met?”

  Because I couldn’t bear being reminded that I couldn’t be with you all the time, I thought.

  What I said was, “I don’t know.”

  “Father came to see me loads of times—you could have come with him.”

  Was there a hint of accusation or disappointment in her voice? She was right. Hakim had gone to see her often, and he’d always asked if I wanted to come along. But I’d never gone with him because the thought of seeing her again was inevitably linked to the knowledge that we’d have to say goodbye.

  “I know. I’d like to have gone with him …” I left the silent but hanging. “Why didn’t you ever come home?”

  A gust of wind swept the leaf off her hood.

  “It was all so new and exciting,” she said. “I was afraid I’d miss something. When I left here, I was scared of the unknown, but within a week I couldn’t imagine how I’d stuck it out here for so long without once getting out. It was a whole new world. I loved it. My timetable was full, seminars all day, then studying, writing presentations … Weekends were really busy too. We often went camping, or visiting other cities—I’ve been nearly everywhere in Germany. Then there were lectures and exams. When I moved in 2005, Alex couldn’t come with me. He tore a knee ligament and missed two whole semesters, so he was still catching up by the time I moved. So I ended up in a new job, a new town, and a long-distance relationship.”

  “Oh,” I said. That bit was news to me.

  “That’s right. Me in a long-distance relationship.” She kicked a stone and sent it skittering across the cobbles.

  “If I remember rightly, that was something you couldn’t even imagine before.”

  “Yes.” She sounded sad. “But sometimes you don’t have a choice.”

  Alex hadn’t entered my mind in a long time. He never featured when I thought of Yasmin or dreamed of her.

  “How is he?” I didn’t really care, but the conversation seemed to prompt the question.

  She shook her head. “It didn’t work out.”

  “Sorry about that,” I lied, extending a silent thank-you to the universe.

  For a moment, she seemed reluctant to talk about it. Then, before I had a chance to say anything else, she continued. “At some point I just felt there was nothing holding us together any more, if you know what I mean. I was in the clinic, dealing with horrific cases every day, and at the weekend I’d be back into student parties, snogging in the dorms, mouldy dishes in the communal kitchen. Maybe it’s unfair of me, but I felt too old for that. And Alex didn’t want to grow up. He loved the idea of being the eternal student, having poker evenings in his dorm, that kind of thing.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And you? Have you got a girlfriend?”

  “No.” I paused. “It didn’t work out.”

  The wind had blown her hair into her eyes. She looked at me through the strands. I was a whole head taller than her now.

  “D’you want to talk about what happened?”

  “I don’t know … I reckon we just didn’t have enough …”

  “No, no.” She had a firm grip on my arm. “I mean d’you want to talk about your job, why you’re not at the library anymore?”

  We had slipped back into our old companionship so easily. I wondered if it was a sign. If eight years had made no difference, if we didn’t feel the least bit strange in each other’s company, surely we were meant for one another? If anyone else had asked me that question, I’d have skirted around it, made up some excuse, like it wasn’t the right job for me, or I was going through a phase, figuring out what I wanted to do. But Yasmin wasn’t anyone else. Even if she didn’t see it that way, she was my soulmate, the stronger part of me.

  “Because I fucked up,” I said. “I fucked up and got fired.”

  She pressed her lips together. To my relief, she didn’t press me any further.

  “Hakim doesn’t know,” I added, embarrassed.

  Her eyebrows arched almost imperceptibly.

  “Were you planning to tell him?”

  I let out a big breath.

  “The reason I didn’t tell him is because I was afraid of letting him down,” I said. “He went to so much trouble for my sake. I didn’t want to upset him.”

  “I don’t think you could ever let him down,” said Yasmin, her tone implying I was an idiot to even think that. “He loves you. He often said to me, ‘I miss you, Yasmin, but I’m glad I have Samir. He’s like a son. He looks after me. He works hard. He does his own thing, like you.’”

  Like a son.

  “You don’t have to fess up on his birthday, but how about next week?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I’m sure he’d rather hear it from you than find out som
e other way.”

  “Are you going to tell?”

  She shook her head, but her face clouded over. I was forcing her to keep a secret from her father.

  “No. But I don’t understand why you …” She slowed her pace and looked at me. “How long is it since you got fired, Samir?”

  “A while,” I said.

  “How long is a while? A couple of months?”

  I shook my head.

  “Three years.”

  Yasmin stopped short and fixed me with her gaze.

  “Three years? What have you been doing since then?”

  “This and that.”

  It was the truth, if not the whole truth.

  Isolated raindrops started to fall from the dense clouds. They weren’t landing on us, but suddenly Yasmin was on edge. She stepped up the pace and headed towards the café where she’d always liked to hang out.

  “Let’s get a hot drink,” she said, gesturing for me to follow.

  Soon, two cups of hot chocolate were steaming in front of us. We hadn’t spoken since giving our order. It was as if we were waiting for a third person to arrive before resuming the conversation. Something subtle had changed, I realised. In the old days, a silence between us had never bothered me. It had never been uncomfortable. But now, because I found myself wondering what Yasmin thought of me, the silence was making me a little uneasy. Still, it was good to be sitting opposite her, looking at her without having to twist my neck. I could see that the carefree expression on her face had given way to earnestness.

  “How are you, Samir?” she eventually asked in a gentle voice.

  “I’m fine.”

  Yasmin gave me a silent look.

  “Are you analysing me now?” I asked uncomfortably.

  She shook her head.

  “No. I’m worried about you.”

  “There’s no need to worry.”

  “Don’t you have any dreams? Three years, Samir.” She held up three fingers, spelling it out. “Three years? I mean—don’t you want to make something of your life, achieve something? Earn some decent money and finally get out of this place, see something new, maybe settle down somewhere else?”