“Thank you,” she says.
I blink, and she is gone again.
We walk among the tents, keeping together. It is dark here, between them. In the beginning, everything is still around us. One of us, Arien usually, says hello, talks out loud, shattering the silence, when we stop in front of a tent. Someone comes to the opening then, holding up fingers. I learn quickly that these fingers symbolize how many people living in the tent. A man holds up four fingers, and we give him four blankets. A woman holds up five fingers, and we give her five. A little boy holds up three, and we give him three. Then, as we walk, as still as we can through the mud, the shadows begin to move around us, flickering in the corner of our eyes. I can feel the movement on my own body, tiny vibrations in the air, felt even through the tents. Now people are showing up in the openings of the tents all around us, looking at us, waiting, patient, desperate.
A man steps out of the shadows then, a big man, with a dark beard, a grimy face, his eyes are black. He is looking at me, holding my gaze, and I freeze, remembering the stories, hearing Jenny in my ear. They will rape you, they can kill you.
He stops in front of me, and I think about running, but there is something about his posture that seems to weaken him, and that keeps me from running away. I force my eyes away from his face and look at his body, a once tall and strong body, but now it seems to be collapsing inwards, his shoulders hanging forward, low, as if preparing to curl himself into a ball. But that is no wonder. He is only wearing a thin leather jacket, shorts. Sandals. Though his complexion is dark, his feet, his toes, are as white as the floodlights, the tips are blue.
He holds up one finger, and I give him a blanket.
We surge forward, faster now. Some of the braver ones step out before we reach their tent, holding up their fingers. Several times we have to walk all the way back to the car to get more blankets, but too soon we are empty.
Eventually we have to shake our heads, no, we say, when they hold up their frozen fingers. I feel like apologizing. I am silent, but I try, with my eyes, to say sorry. Inside me, there is a feeling growing strong, a guilty conscience. It burns. These are not animals. They are humans.
We retreat to the van. Mary is shaking next to me, and I know it’s not of fear. I can feel it too now.
As the others get into the car, I grab Arien by the wrist, so we stand alone outside.
“Why do they keep coming, why do they live like that? Why don’t they just go back to The East?” I am desperate for answers.
“Because what they are running from is much worse than this.”
16
That night, I have my first nightmare of The Camps. I dream that I walk through it, alone, I cannot find the others, and I do not dare to call for them. The floodlights have been turned off, and everything is pitch black, but somehow, I can still see. No, I can feel. I can feel the people around me, their bodies moving in the dark. The smell, that terrible smell, is everywhere. Somewhere a little girl is crying. I try to find her. I know, like you can know only in a dream, that it is the same girl I gave the blankets too. I stumble in the mud, doing my best not to fall, because I know that if I fall, this nightmare will end, somehow, and I want to find the girl first, I have to. I am coming closer, her crying is louder now, I can feel her tiny body somewhere near. Then I find her, I cannot see her, but I know it is her. She takes my hand, and we stand there, smiling, holding hands. Her hand is warm, and mine becomes warm too, as she holds it, for the first time since I came to the island.
Suddenly, the floodlights come on. I can see her face now, her expression is terrified. Then her hand is yanked away from mine, bombs falling from the dark sky.
I wake up with the smell of burning flesh still in my nose.
Madani is making breakfast. Eggs and bacon, with a piece of dark bread. She hums while cooking. I can hear her, up to the bathroom, where I sit, on the floor, trying to compose myself from the dream. Still it feels more real to me than any of my immediate surroundings. I can hear a mockingbird sing outside the window.
“Thank you,” I say, as I sit down to eat my breakfast. I’m composed now, but still it seems that Madani notices something is wrong, that special talent only mothers have.
“You went to The Camps last night.” It is not a question. She looks at me understandingly.
I nod.
“The first time is always the hardest.”
The second time, this night, wasn’t much easier, though I do not say it aloud.
“There was a little girl only wearing a summer dress,” I say. I have to say it. That is the only way to process anything, by speaking it, out loud, turning it into words, comprehension.
Madani sighs.
“I have seen children like that too. Stabs you in the heart, doesn’t it?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“They don’t look so much like animals as I thought. They looked human.” I have to say this too. I know I shouldn’t. I can feel the words fall like stones into the water that is my mind, making ripples, but I cannot help it, I need them, those words.
“That’s because they are human.”
I stare at her. She has just said something outrageous. Dangerous. She speaks like a sympathizer, naïve, but still, in my heart I cannot find it to disagree with her anymore.
“Then why are they called animals?”
“Because if they are animals, they can be treated inhumanly. If you treat a human like this, your conscience would burn you. But if they are animals, you can do as you like. They pretend they are animals to relieve their hearts. By repeating to themselves they are terrible creatures, wild, evil, they can tell themselves they even deserve to be living this way. And that is the most terrible crime of all, worse than any treatment they might be giving. Because conscience, I say, is the purest thing we have. The conscience of a man is like a mockingbird, and we are killing it.”
I finish eating and leave; my mind in waves.
17
I drive to the storage. I can feel a routine taking shape. Morning in the warehouse, afternoon in The Camps. Arien is waiting for me outside when I arrive.
“Are you OK?” he asks as I step out of my little bubble.
“No,” I say.
He grabs my hand and squeezes it.
In The West, if anybody asks if you are OK, they never mean it literally. It is a question with only one answer, and that answer is yes. No matter how you feel, it is a yes. And if you answer something else, anything else, you are considered weird, crazy. They would look at you like they would be looking at a child cursing in a wedding.
It’s not like that here. And I appreciate it. I feel more human here than I have ever felt at home. Human. Warm blood, flesh, bones, a beating heart, air going in and out. I can feel my body being alive, a body I have not paid any attention to for years, except to make sure its esthetics are in order. I let my fingers stroke my own skin, feeling, touching, warm skin.
As we fold, Maria tells me stories from her home. Her eyes are light brown, her hair a burning red, one of the few I have met who let their emotions show on their face, eyes. She lives closer to the border than me, and strays are a big problem in her city. No. I do not want to call them strays anymore. Homeless people, is the right word.
So, these strays, homeless people, got together in an old house, where no one was living, to have a home, a place to retreat to, to keep warm in the winter. But, for some reason, the Public Opinion did not like it. Many of them eventually gathered together one night, carrying gasoline, and set the house ablaze. Many of the strays died, she says. People. Who only wanted a home.
She asks me for stories too, and I feel ashamed when I realize that I have nothing to share. I have not paid any attention to the situation back home. It has been less than a background to me, the homeless in the streets, something unknown, unimportant. Instead, I tell her of our few old streets and houses, and the museum that looks like a castle. I tell her of the parks we go to in the summers, and the statues, a
ll of them so old they are about to crumble into dust when the wind blows.
“I like old things,” I admit, embarrassed.
“Me too,” Mary says, smiling at me. I smile back.
The storm is coming now. Outside the storage, I can hear the wind blow, roar, howl as it is swirling around the corners, down the streets. We have finished folding now, everyone is just standing around, hanging, as they say, waiting for someone to tell us what to do. There are no more clothes, everything is neatly organized. For a while, I just walk up and down the rows, looking at our work proudly. It feels good to do physical labor, to use only my body, and not my head. Have sweat gather on my forehead when I lift up the heaviest boxes, my back aching when I go to bed, but aching in a good way. Using my hands keeps me from thinking too much. I simply focus on my physical task, the fabric in my hands, and nothing else, letting that simple task absorb me, become the most important thing in the world.
Arien shows up again.
“OK, so, the plan is to go to the kitchen and make hot soups. We have enough paper cups for that still. And then we bring some warm clothes as well, before we head up to The Camps. There is a storm coming now, and the weatherman says it will be at its worst around midnight, so they will need some extra warmth. We can even make it a sort of occasion, I thought. Take their minds off the storm and the situation for a few hours. I’ll bring the radio, and we can dance.”
Dance? Is he joking?
I look around at the others. Clearly, the people in The Camps are not the only ones who need something to cheer them up. With the word ‘dance’ the faces of the workers light up immediately. We do not dance much in my city. Only in clubs, but I don’t think that is considered dancing, since we simply jump up and down.
Dancing is not my strongest trait, still, I am looking forward to it. How could I not? The mood around me is infectious.
18
We take plastic bags and fill them up with warm clothes, marking them with a pen. Sweaters in one, jackets in one, trousers in one. Women, men, children, teens. For a moment, I look at the bags filling up our trunks and think that it’s a lot. Then I remember all the tents, all the people.
Afterward, we drive to the kitchen. I sit in my own car, the bubble, alone. The van is in front of me, and I follow it closely, so as not to let it out of my sight, as I don’t know the way.
The wind is strong. For every traffic light we stop at, I can feel my car vibrate in the castes, shaking. I am not used to this, we do not have this kind of wind where I’m from, and I find myself sinking a little down into the seat, as if I am afraid the whole car might blow over.
The kitchen lays by the ocean. In fact, it is almost at the beach. A sandy beach this time, white but only in spots, covered mostly by seagrass. The view from the windows are still beautiful, like an advertisement for a place to go on holiday. I think the sunset here must be amazing. From the outside, it looks like a normal house, it even has a small balcony on the ground level, but inside there is only one, big room, walls, floors, covered in white tiles, and silvery kitchen desks at the sides. One big kitchen, in other words. Against one wall stand the biggest pots I have ever seen. I could easily fit into any one of them.
I am put on vegetable duty, positioned in front of one of the tables with a cutting board in front of me, a knife placed in my hand. The edge is razor sharp, that kind of sharp that you can physically feel, only by looking at it. I cut the greens into small squares, mostly onion, scallion and a little paprika, blood red. Whenever the cutting board is full, I take it with me to one of the pots and empty it. Later, as we wait for the soups to boil, I help with the dishes, washing the plates in salty, ice-cold water from the tap.
When the soups are finished, we pour the pots into paper cups with plastic caps over, so as not to spill it, the kind I could get on the coffee shops back home. We wrap them in paper bags and put them in the trunks with the clothes, carefully placing them so that they will not fall over as we go, the other workers have to take many of them on their laps. Still, it is far from enough for all the inhabitants in The Camps, maybe even less than one quarter.
I drive as careful as I can behind the van, constantly checking the rearview mirror to make sure everything is in order, that nothing has been spilled. My head is aching from the small amount of sleep I got. Before the nightmare, it took me hours to fall asleep, I thought about everything and nothing, not being able to focus on anything specific, my mind scattered like a broken vase, the edges of glass cutting me up inside.
The mountain road bends and curls its way around the landscape, and I remember how easily I got carsick as a child. This road would have been terrible, back then. The radio is not working, and there is really nothing that can make your thoughts wander like a silent car. I think about home. Remembering it feels like remembering a dream you had many years ago, that made such a strong impression on you that you cannot forget it, and it pops into your head at random, every now and then. What did I do? What was my everyday life? Of course I remember, but it feels so unreal now, it is hard to accept it as a reality, as my reality. It already feels like I have been here for years, like my everyday life back home was just a TV show, something to watch, not live.
We reach The Camps around two o’clock, much earlier than yesterday. It is still daylight, grey light from an overcast sky, though sometimes the strong wind will blow away the clouds, and the sun will shine for a few brave moments. It is strange to see the tents and all in daylight. It looks sadder than scary, more depressed than desperate. More people are out, walking, talking, standing in groups. I can see a couple of children throwing a ball back and forth, yelling at each other with words I do not understand.
I watch it all from a safe distance in my car, grateful that we needed it today, to transport all the soups. I am safe in my bubble. The others departure the van, again to walk up the steep hill, and I drive past them, parking at the top. As soon as we turn off the engines people start to approach us from the tents, to greet us, unlike yesterday.
I look for the girl, but she is not there. We arrange ourselves in a line by the beginning of the camp, and hand out soups. The people understand quickly, lining up in front of every one of us. I have a line of people in front of me, too. It feels strange. I can see them peeking around at each other, looking at me, and waiting with expectation in their eyes. It seems they can speak a little Common Tongue too, something I had not expected. “How are you?” some of them say. “Thank you,” they say, when I give them a cup of soup. We do not have any spoons to give out, so they have to drink it, like it’s a beverage. Children have to share, half a cup each.
It hurts to look at them in the daylight.
They are all so grimy and dirty. Their hair is a mess. When kids come closer, I can sometimes see lice in their hair. Small, white dots. I am glad my hair is in a ponytail. And their clothes. They do not match. Here, you can see the strangest kind of fashion. Colors, fabric, they collide completely. Most of them are wearing halfway winter clothes, and halfway summer clothes. Like bubble jackets and sandals. Or gloves and summer dresses. Most of the children are barefoot.
I can understand now, that from a distance, it is easy to make these people inhuman. You have to look closely, like me, to see their burning eyes, feel the warmth from their bodies, or see how they shiver, lightly, almost buzzing, in the cold. You have to be close like me to see the glow in their cheeks when they take their first sip of soup, see their smile, hear them speak, talking to me, their voices kind, polite. Little by little, we learn not to be afraid of each other. There is solidarity here, and slowly I become a part of that solidarity. I give them soup, a pair of socks, a sweater. They give me a feeling of belonging, of meaning, something. They make me feel real, alive. And I feel joy hearing the little children laugh, play games, clapping games with their hands, just like I did when I was little. I also catch them looking at me, the kids, peering at me behind the corner of the cars, or behind the fence. They make a game of it, I think, looki
ng at me, and I pretend not to see them at first, and then they come closer, and I look up, smile at them, and they laugh and run away, hiding, before I see them again, peering at me.
I think giving out clothes is the hardest part. For every item you hand out to one person, you have to say no to four more. We do not have enough sizes, enough clothes, enough jackets. And even what we hand out is sometimes so worn out it’s ridiculous. I wish I had brought more clothes with me, so that I could give away my jacket, anything, to stop them from freezing.
Dusk is upon us when we are finished, when all the soups have been eaten and there are no more clothes left in the car.
Arien takes the speaker, the radio, out of the van. This must have happened before, because as soon as he takes it out and shows it, a cheering goes through the crowd, everyone lights up simultaneously. I thought dancing would not be a hit, not here, not in this dirty camp by the foot of a mountain. But there is something truly magical that happens when a crowd of people is exposed to music. Smiles spreading around like rings in water, as if carried to their mouths by tones in the air. Everyone moving a little more melodious, maybe not dancing, but stepping lighter, weightless. That heavy sensation of waiting, waiting for nothing that presses down on us, disappears, and we all live in the moment.
I do not dance, not at first. I stand back, watching instead. I have always been happier observing than participating, letting the mood wash over me without pulling me with it.
“Hey.”
I turn my head, and Hasin is standing next to me. I had not noticed him coming over, absorbed as I was in the music and the dancing and the laughter. Someone is starting small fires between the tents as it gets darker; even the shadows are dancing now in the flickering light of the flames.
“Hey,” I say, smiling. I feel drunk, or tipsy, though I have not had anything to drink.
“They really like the music here,” I comment.
Color Me Blue Page 6