by Bel Mooney
Ion had been staring gravely as his friend, understanding the tone but not the words. Simplifying considerably Pushpa told him what Franklin had said, and the child nodded, listening carefully. Then he said, ‘Please … will you ask him why he thinks our parents sent us away?’
Pushpa translated, and Franklin replied with no hesitation, ‘Because they love us. Tell him that, Pushpa. They wanted to save us from danger, and so they were willing to spend a lot of money, and to give us up.’
‘He says they sent you away because they love you.’
‘Will Franklin go back home soon?’
The youth worker shook his head, not wanting to translate the question. But Ion insisted. ‘Ask him, please.’
Franklin ducked his head and he was silent for a few moments, as if trying to control himself. His black hair fell over one eye, and when at last he raised his head it was tossed back with defiant finality. ‘Tell him I want to go home. Every day I think about my mother, my father and my brother, and I pray the fighting will stop. But my mother told me I must try to settle in my new country, where there will be many opportunities for me – and make them proud of me. So I am going to do as she said. I will try … and one day I want to go home, and be an engineer, and look after them. But I have to face the truth that I may never see my family again, if that is God’s will.’
‘He says he does not know. But he will try hard to be happy here, because that is what his mother wanted. And you must do the same, Ion,’ said Pushpa.
Ion looked across at Franklin and smiled slightly. ‘If that is what he wants, I will try to be like him,’ he said formally, ‘Franklin – he is my best friend.’
The youth worker looked at this ten-year-old child who seemed so alone; all the other children, except one boy from Afghanistan, had one compatriot here – someone with whom he or she could at least share language. He tried to imagine what Ion’s mother looked like, and what she must be feeling at that moment, alone at home. He made no judgements; all the children who passed through their hands – until they were fostered, transferred to a permanent home, or (sometimes) ran away – came from countries where the level of human suffering suspended what people in the West would consider normal behaviour, or conventional value judgements. Once he had almost fought when, in a bar in Frankfurt, he and Bernhardt had got into conversation about the Home with some Germans and one of them had said, ‘Let’s be honest, these people, they don’t love their children as much as we do. If they did, how could they send them away?’
Bernhardt had restrained him, paid for the drinks, and led him away. ‘No point in arguing with such ignorance,’ he said, ‘and such complacency exists even in people whose fathers maybe tore Jewish children from their mothers’ arms in the camps. No doubt they thought those people didn’t know how to love either. Take no notice, Pushpa. At least you don’t have to listen to it knowing you are a German too.’
Ion said suddenly, ‘I want … to write to my mother.’
‘Of course.’ Pushpa was surprised. He and the other youth workers had remarked on how steadfastly the boy refused to mention his mother, and stuck to his original decision to give them no information, with the stubbornness of a much older child. He put a hand in his pocket and took out some marks. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I will give you paper. And this afternoon you can walk down to the town with the older ones – Franklin will go too – and post the letter.’ He was rewarded by a rare smile.
Sitting alone at the table twenty minutes later, the paper and envelope before him, Ion chewed the new ballpoint pen Pushpa had given him (and which filled him with such unaccustomed joy of possession he momentarily forgot its purpose, clicking its red plastic top in and out, in and out) and wondered what to say. The address of the Home was at the top of the paper, so that was easy, but how could he begin to tell her what he wanted to say? Already it was as if she existed in a totally different world; how could she understand if he told her about this one? He sighed, wiped the pen top very carefully, and began to write:
Dear Mama,
I hope you are well. I am well. This is a nice place, and we have lots of good food. Yesterday I ate two bananas, and today we had chicken. We have biscuits every morning after our German lesson and sometimes they have chocolate on them. Radu is well, but he is in a different place. I do not know where he is, but he telephoned me today. He said he will come to see me soon. Mama, I hope you will come to see me soon. Please write to me, or telephone, if you can, because I want to talk to you. I still wear your jacket and it makes me think about you. I feel sad when I think about you, and I miss you very much. I will try to be very good. I have done everything you said. The children here are from many countries, and I have a good friend called Franklin. He is brown. I do not remember the name of his country, but he is fifteen. I think it is where bananas grow. Anyway, Mama, I must go and play football now, and I hope you will write to me as soon as you get this. I love you very much.
Your son
Ion
When he had finished he put down the pen and for a long time looked at what he had written, feeling the unbearable longing well up within him, threatening tears once more.
He glanced out of the window. The rain had stopped, and a pale sun made the soft green leaves glisten. He was looking forward to going to the little town for the first time, surprised they were allowed to go out unsupervised. ‘This is not a prison,’ Irma had joked, pretending to cling to imaginary bars in front of her face. Ion liked her. He liked them all at the home – even the tall aggressive boy from Eritrea who rarely smiled, but once showed Ion the knack of the most rickety football table, where the handles tended to stick. And he, like Franklin, was much stronger than Daniel Corianu … They were good to him, all of them. It was what Mama wanted.
Knowing that to look at the word ‘Mama’ in his own, careful handwriting would make him cry, he felt for the sheet of paper and folded it roughly without looking at it, thrusting it into the envelope. Then he wrote the address on the front, and played with his pen for a few minutes before putting both in his pocket and going downstairs.
Later, a small group of children walked down the long leafy drive from the old mansion, and along the quiet main road. All around was high, lush, hilly countryside; the town itself was picturesque, with gabled roofs tiled in red and green. From certain points you could see the tower blocks of Frankfurt, just fifteen kilometres away, but in the small alleys and squares of the oldest part modern life seemed far away. Ion trailed behind the others, staring at the painted shutters, the half-timbering, an elaborate wrought-iron shop sign, flowers tumbling from windowboxes; it was all more beautiful than anything he had ever seen in his life.
And when they reached the shops he was dazzled. He stopped outside a butcher’s, and plucked Franklin’s sleeve. ‘But there is no queue,’ he gasped in his own language, his eyes saucers. Franklin did not understand the words, but shared the general sense of awe.
‘Yes, Ion,’ he said in English, his face as serious as it had been in the waiting room for unaccompanied children at the airport.
In the windows of small boutiques embroidered sweaters, linen suits and dresses of flowered voile were so expensive that the boys would have been astounded – had they had any means of translating sums that transcended a mere rate of exchange, but embodied expectations that were incalculable. Through glass Ion saw women his mother’s age – but not as pretty, he thought – parading before admiring assistants in clothes of such style and colour that, even though Ion had never seen a fashion magazine in his life, he recognized instinctively the cut of wealth. They passed a confectioner’s, its window crammed with cellophane-wrapped bon-bons, sugared almonds in glass jars, elegant boxes of chocolates decorated with ribbons and rosettes, and little frogs, cats, and teddy bears fashioned from pink, green and blue marzipan.
Franklin observed the shock that was a kind of grief, and murmured his helpless, repetitive, ‘Yes, Ion, yes,’ in sympathy.
‘It is beautiful – ja
?’ sighed Ion.
‘Yes, yes, beet … ful,’ said Franklin, hesitantly, adding, as an afterthought, ‘Ja.’
The other five children, in particular a confident fifteen-year-old girl from Iran who knew more German than the others, had been given a short shopping list. In the supermarket, as Ion walked down aisles stacked with tins and packets and bottles, and saw fruits and vegetables stacked in profusion, and looked down into frozen-food compartments filled with chicken legs, peas, pies and gateaux, he felt his eyes begin to hurt. There were rich cheeses with bright rinds; packets of butter in shiny foil; yoghurts and desserts in vividly patterned pots. The bland, piped music lapped around him, reassuring, yet mocking too. People were moving through this fantasy of food with utter indifference, picking up an item, reading its label, returning it to the shelf, or else casually plucking this and that until their baskets and trolleys were full. They don’t care, Ion thought – remembering what passed for a supermarket near their home: the shelves of bottled beetroot and peas, and huge bars of cheap carbolic soap, unwrapped, and … he squinted, his eyes watering … What else was there? Nothing; there was nothing else. Yet these people did not care; they were not smiling nor exclaiming at the miracles all around them. And Mama would get up early, in the darkness, and queue, returning home with stale bread and no milk. Poor Mama …
A woman bent over him. ‘Was ist los? Hast du dich verloren, liebling?’ she asked kindly, seeing his tears. Ion shook his head.
Then Franklin appeared at his side, took him by the arm and led him away, oblivious to the look of hostile curiosity the woman gave him. ‘Come, Ion,’ he said, proud of his command of English.
That night, conscious that some of the children seemed quiet, Bernhardt Mannheim suggested Irma organize a small party. After a normal supper, they arranged crisps and biscuits in bowls, and put plastic cups on a large tray, with three jugs of squash. The children sat on the chairs placed against the wall in what Ion had come to think of as ‘the dancing room’ since his first night. Three girls, all aged eleven or twelve, came in holding hands; they were inseparable, although one was Vietnamese, another Kurdish and the third Somalian, and they had no language in common. The Vietnamese girl pointed to Ion, and the three of them giggled, so that he hung his head, his face crimson.
Then Bernhardt unlocked the cupboard where the hi-fi was kept, and selected a record. To encourage the children, Irma and Pushpa started to dance, closely followed by the ‘Triplets’, as they called the inseparable trio. Their feet thumped hollowly on the dusty wooden floor.
Someone offered Ion a bowl of crisps, and when he took just one small one, put a handful in his lap. He ate solemnly, as more and more of the children got up to dance. ‘Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson,’ they cried, pleased the favourite had been selected, and (more) that they all recognized the sound – universal, unifying. At last only Ion and Franklin were left, and the other Tamil boys called out to them to get up. Embarrassed, conscious of the girls, Franklin shook his head.
Ion watched him, trying to catch his eye – but he stared straight ahead. As the tempo increased, the dancing children became more and more excited, throwing their arms around, and wiggling their bottoms as they had seen people do on the television upstairs. Their movements were mostly clumsy, though some danced with natural grace, dreamily surrendering to a rhythm that answered a buried need.
The Vietnamese girl smiled at Ion, and beckoned him to join them. Her Kurdish friend threw back her head and laughed – a small gurgling sound which seemed to be taken up by the dancers, rattling back and forth between them, beyond language.
Ion’s foot was tapping, and he grinned. He had bought the stamp himself, pushing his letter across, saying, ‘Bitte?’ It made him feel independent, almost adult. It made him feel free. And he knew it would reach her in a day or two perhaps, and then she would telephone at least. Or she might come.
He could bear it no longer. Briskly, he got to his feet, brushed off the crumbs and walked across to Franklin. The older boy looked up sharply, his vaguely sad, set expression replaced by affection. Ion pointed to the dance floor. ‘Come, Franklin!’ he said, pulling at his arm. ‘We dance together.’
Seventeen
Radu was filling his sketchbook; sometimes four or five refugees would gather round and watch, making admiring noises as they recognized themselves or friends. When the sketchbook was full he was given a blank notebook by one of the immigration officials who admired his work. Normally he would have been dazed by such a gift, but he was no longer himself. Faces, gaunt, sleeping, grinning, grimacing, filled the pages; sometimes he would rip out a sketch and give it away. The recipient would admire it for a while, then fold it up and tuck it away, a forgotten diversion as the grim business of asylum applications proceeded.
Radu did not care. His drawing was manic, desperate. At night he lay sleepless, listening to the incomprehensible mumbles and moans of nightmare. The days seemed longer and longer; now, when fights broke out and babies cried he would bite his lip so hard that blood trickled down on to his beard, and the knuckles of both hands were scabbed from hitting out at brick and plaster. When he drew his right hand shook, and one day he found himself staring at it for a long time, the pencil poised above the cheap lined page, shivering faintly. Each day he queued for the phone, and attempted to call Timişoara collect. It was impossible. Nor did it seem possible to make the journey to the children’s home; he mentioned it to nobody and felt guilty because of the omission. Radu felt caught in a paradox that made him cry out with rage, all day, all night, gnawing away inside: time dragged horribly as they all waited, humbly, for news, and yet at the same time the world whirled away all around them, indifferent, faster and faster, until he wanted to scream, ‘Stop! Stop!’ Even the vision of his wife had receded. He tried to imagine her at home, but found, to his horror, that the woman he knew to be Doina wore, in his imaginings, a mask that was completely blank. He tried to draw her, but her features became African, or Arab: the mask a Matisse or Modigliani. It was all slipping away … He would stand at the window, watching the planes pass low overhead, banking sharply upwards to reach altitude, and try to remember something which flitted in and out of shadows at the corner of his mind. There had been a plan, certainly, a plan born of a dream he had once had – but what was it? As the strain of waiting grew tauter and tauter, and with it the sheer effort of concealment (for in truth he knew that those around him had far more need of succour from the officials) Radu barely recognized the wild, dishevelled figure, with dark shadows under its eyes, who gazed back at him from the mirror. But the day came when it spoke to him, cutting through the bitter wailing of a man from Sri Lanka who had just been told he would be sent back, and who had locked himself in a lavatory as protest.
‘What am I doing here?’ it asked, and when he made no reply the pink mouth moved again, asking no longer, but telling him, ‘I don’t know why I am here. I don’t know what will happen. I didn’t think it would be like this. You’re a fool to have brought me here. You don’t belong. You’ll never belong.’
At the children’s home Ion waited for Radu to telephone again, convinced that he would. Still he clung to two articles of faith: that Radu, being in Germany, would come to see him, and that any day the telephone would ring with the news that his mother was on her way. He thought nothing of borders or passports, although danger, in the form of police and Securitate, was at the forefront of his mind. With the simple, common childish conviction that the parent can achieve anything, overcome any obstacle, Ion reasoned that once Ana received his letter she would drop everything and follow him. He tried to recall if she had actually said as much, but although he screwed up his eyes with the effort of remembering, the day of his departure remained a blur. No matter – she would come.
He still wore Ana’s jacket, although the weather was warm now. The youth workers had given him good second-hand clothes which were better than those he had arrived with. Sometimes he looked at his own reflection – short
and slightly spiky haircut done by Irma, faded sweatshirt with a Coca-Cola motif printed on it, baggy jeans in cheap blue denim – and barely recognized himself, turning his head this way and that to admire his new image. He could utter the basic necessities in German, and helped Franklin too, who found his daily English lessons with Ion easier than the classroom German, for which he had no aptitude. Glad when lessons were over the boys would rush outside and kick a ball around, even on the warmest day. And there were outings to the zoo and the swimming pool in the minibus, always Franklin and Ion sitting together, although the older boy might well twist over the back of the seat and talk throughout the journey to a fellow Tamil.
Yet they could talk too, in a halting, hesitant fashion which suited their shared stumbling towards a form of acceptance of how things were. The flux of thought, of memory, of fear, and the pain of their loss, was stilled momentarily by inconsequential conversation in a language that belonged to neither. So Ion said, sweating after a game in which he had been accidentally knocked over by a big boy from Eritrea, and picked up by Franklin, ‘Next year, Franklin, is the World Cup, and Romania win!’
Franklin shook his head. ‘No – Germany win,’ he grinned.
‘Romania!’
‘Germany.’
The older boy pretended to cower as Ion attacked him, jumping on his back, and unbalancing him, so that both sprawled on the bed.
‘Romania best footballers!’ shrieked Ion. ‘Say Romania, Franklin! Romania!’
‘OK – Romania win, but Ion not play – Ion little!’ Franklin turned the tables, tickling Ion until he shrieked.
Somebody shouted in Tamil from the corridor that Franklin was wanted in the office. Still laughing, he rose, leaving Ion gasping for breath on the bed. But at the door he turned and yelled, ‘Romanians no good footballers! Germany win World Cup!’ loping away before Ion could chase him.