by Bel Mooney
Ana shook her head, thinking only about Ion. Then she rose wearily, and said, ‘You are very busy. And I must go to the home. Please can you tell me how to get there?’
‘Have you money?’
‘I have some dollars – to change.’
‘OK … well, I’ll write here what you do. It’s very easy, on the S–Bahn. You get to Kronberg and ask anyone – say you want the Kinderheim – that’s all.’
Thirty
Ana looked down at the orange plastic motorbike that lay in Irma’s outstretched palm. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand. The wheels were white. The rider was made from black plastic, his boots and helmet roughly indicated by daubs of white. So cheap. So shameful. And already that day, walking through a tiny corner of Frankfurt she had passed shops which dazzled her with their colourful windows, though she dared not stop. She had glimpsed a toyshop full of wonders. So cheap.
‘It was a birthday present,’ she said quietly. ‘Not very big, I’m afraid. But there were two others. There were …’
I twirled him round and round, his eyes bound with my scarf, and he laughed. ‘Where are you, Mama?’ he called, stumbling forwards in his own darkness. From beneath the blanket where I hid, I could just glimpse his feet, moving slowly, hesitating, because when you can’t see you always imagine a chasm will open in front of you, and you will fall forever. But maybe Ion wasn’t afraid; maybe he always believed that if he fell though a hole in the earth he would reach our safe world, the well world, and live there forever, protected and at peace. Did you believe that, Ionica? But who would protect you? Surely it couldn’t have been me …
‘Please sit down,’ said Irma, very gently, easing Ana into the chair by Bernhardt’s desk.
‘He left it behind,’ Ana said, ‘maybe he didn’t want it any more.’
‘No, I don’t think that. It was behind the curtain. He forgot. He left in a hurry.’
‘But why? Why didn’t he write to me?’
‘He did. The other children told us after he’d gone. And before that we telephoned the British Embassy in Bucharest. We did try to contact you.’
Ana looked amazed. ‘You did that? He told you I worked there?’
‘Yes … and a woman said you had gone. Ion …’ She hesitated.
‘What did he say?’
‘He cried. He was sure you were dead. And you see, he was very very friendly with the boy, Franklin, who arrived on the same day. Franklin called Ion his little brother. But we couldn’t help it, they couldn’t stay together – it would have been different if they had both been the same nationality. Franklin was to move to another home, and we wanted to find a foster family for Ion. So …’ She spread her hands.
‘But where did they go? How did they go?’ Ana’s voice rose almost to a wail.
‘It happens a lot,’ said Irma. ‘You see, the Tamil children are usually looked after by their own people. They come here, their parents have paid a lot of money to an agent in Sri Lanka to get them here, and they maybe have a telephone number. They don’t tell us. Somebody is a relative perhaps, or not. They want to move, you see. They come here because it is easier, but they have a brother or a cousin or maybe the cousin of a friend, in Paris, or even Amsterdam, and they want to get there. They have to cross the borders illegally, and so they need help. There are many people willing to help, sometimes for money, sometimes just for kindness …’
Bernhardt added, ‘Sometimes the parents will have arranged all this in Sri Lanka, and had money brought over with a carrier. It is extraordinary …’
‘But Ion?’
‘This is very unusual. It’s normal for Tamils to stay together. We have never known of a friendship like this one. Pushpa will tell you.’ Irma stopped, because the Tamil youth worker had entered the room.
As she stared, unsmiling, at the small, dark man who put only the faintest of pressures on her hand, Ana felt a surge of terrible anger and despair, and could not trust herself to speak. She hated them.
You let him go from here, and you don’t care. You were supposed to look after him, you were supposed to make him feel comfortable, so that he would want to stay, and be happy. That was your job. Yet he went away into the night, and you have no idea where he is. My child! Did you tell your police, did you send out people to look for him, what did you do? Complacent Germans, you know everybody wants to come to your country, your rich country, and you pretend to care, you pretend to be kind. Yet you hope against hope that no mother will arrive to ask you why you – whose parents and grandparents allowed Jewish children to be loaded into trains and taken off to death in the camps – did not take better care of her child. Do you confess to your history – do you? I hate you for not taking better care of my child. I hate this country with its shops and its wide roads with all those cars, so many cars …
Ion might be dead; he might even be dead. Please God, don’t let him be dead, don’t let anybody hurt him.
Can you lose someone, like this, so easily? I lost Mamă, but I saw it happen, slowly, before my eyes, and when I stamped my flowers into the earth on her grave I was angry with her for leaving me, yes, but I knew she had gone because I saw her gone. With Tată it was different. He lost himself to me, and I never knew why – until that man told me, and shone a light into hell. It wasn’t my fault, none of it. And in my cell, with the women quarrelling around me, I could mourn Tată, at last…
But to lose someone by accident? No, that won’t do: it’s all my fault, all of it. I slipped into a dream – as absurd as Ionescu, like the history of my country – from listening to the BBC and reading in the library and smoking cigarettes with Robert and listening to Michael Edwards talk to his colleagues, so relaxed, so trusting, not like us … I had some foolish vision of a Heaven somewhere out there beyond the wall, where there was perfect freedom and nobody suffered. When I read that article, quickly because I was late, I thought how wonderful, how miraculous, for this great country, Germany, to take in refugee children and look after them … Do you look after them? Do you?
Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?
‘Do you want coffee?’ Irma was watching her carefully, afraid she might collapse. Very like him, she thought, remembering the child’s pale face, and the enigmatic look in those dark eyes.
‘Thank you – yes.’ Ana was polite, as if those small graces which kept chaos at bay might also harness her rage.
‘They told me you are the mother of the little Romanian boy. I’m sorry you don’t find him here.’
Pushpa’s voice was low and soothing; he pulled his moustache anxiously as he sat down near Ana, and leaned forward, as one might in hospital, visiting the very sick, at a loss what to say.
‘It has been – a – a –’ Ana struggled to find the correct word in English, and seeking ‘shock’ in her mind’s lexicon came up with, ‘a big surprise.’
They were all looking at her. She looked down at the little motorbike in her hand, then squeezed it until the plastic bit into her flesh.
‘We explained to her about the Tamil network,’ Irma said in German. Pushpa nodded.
Ana looked up sharply. She did not trust them; maybe they knew something they were not telling her.
‘Franklin was a very nice boy,’ Pushpa said quietly, reading her expression. ‘He was doing what he thought was the best thing. And I don’t believe your son would have gone if he had thought you would come.’
‘I was … in prison,’ whispered Ana. ‘It was all a – a – mess.’
Nobody spoke. Then something occurred to her and she was ashamed she had not thought of it before. Everything had been pushed into the background by the news about Ion; nothing was as important – even friendship.
‘Ion arrived in Frankfurt with somebody, a Romanian man. Do you know if he is still here?’
‘Was he a friend of yours?’
She nodded. Irma frowned.
‘Why did he say that Ion was alone?’
‘I read an article, in an English newspape
r,’ Ana said, speaking very quickly, ‘and it said that the children who arrive here have to be unaccompanied, with nobody who is their family. Or else they may be sent back. So that’s why … that’s how it all began. All this.’
‘I understand,’ said Irma, who did not.
‘My friend – Radu Kessler – how can I find out about him? He may have Ion with him. Ion may have gone to him …’ She nodded at them, as if trying to persuade herself.
‘I am very sorry, very sorry. But I have to tell you that your friend … died.’
‘Radu? Dead?’
Irma took a breath, wishing that Bernhardt would do this. He was in charge here; why didn’t he speak? Or Pushpa. They were both cowards.
‘Yes, I am sorry to have to tell you. We heard a couple of days later. He was killed on the road. A car hit him and he died at once. He ran away from the refugee centre. He had this address in his pocket. So maybe he was coming here to see your son. We can’t know …’
‘Radu …’ Ana whispered, shaking her head. ‘Oh, poor Radu. And poor Doina … I can’t believe …’
Irma, Bernhardt and Pushpa exchanged glances. Pity was in their eyes, but it was tempered by a weary helplessness. Every day they dealt with loneliness and loss; this was just one more manifestation. And in the end, there was nothing they could do. It was not their fault.
‘Did Ion know?’ she asked, in a louder voice.
Irma nodded.
‘We think it was another thing that made him run away,’ said Bernhardt, ‘because then he thought that Franklin was his only friend, you understand?’
‘You told the police? They must have gone to look for them.’
‘As if they’d be interested,’ muttered Bernhardt, in German.
Irma sighed. ‘The truth is, there are many missing children – foreign children. Last year we had 1,286 children coming here, and 250 of them ran away. There are not enough police to look for them all.’
‘That’s what the other woman told me, at the office,’ said Ana.
‘It is true,’ said Pushpa.
‘I believe it,’ Ana said woodenly.
She let her eyes travel round the office, gloomy and untidy, its old desk marked by heat rings, and paper spilling from trays on to the floor, and tried to imagine Ion standing there, talking to them.
‘He spoke English to you?’
‘Yes,’ said Irma. ‘We were very surprised he spoke so well.’
‘He began to teach his friend. It was like a game with them,’ said Pushpa.
‘The Tamil?’
‘Yes.’ Pushpa hesitated, then added, ‘It is important that you are not angry with Franklin. I know he will take care of your son, and so it is better to have good feelings – perhaps.’
‘But how can I find them?’
‘I have one thought,’ said Pushpa slowly. ‘When Franklin arrived here, the same day as your son, I interviewed him of course, because that’s my job. Like all the children, he was upset, and sometimes they don’t speak, sometimes they say many things. Franklin, he wanted to talk. He told me about his family, and many other things. And I think I remember that he let something slip out … you know? I think he said that he had a relative outside his country – though many people from his village have left – this was a distant cousin of his father, or something like that… I think. All people are related, we believe, in spirit if not in blood …’
Ana interrupted impatiently. ‘And you think he might have gone to him? Where? Where did he live?’ She leaned forward and grasped his arm.
‘Switzerland.’
‘Switzerland?’
‘Yes, Geneva. That is unusual. There are many of our people in Berne and in Zurich, but not so many in Geneva. So that may be a good thing – for finding them.’
‘Switzerland!’
‘And the Red Cross is there,’ said Irma enthusiastically.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Tracing. They trace people and find them. They bring families together. And the office is in Geneva, you see.’
Irma thought later that the hope which suddenly kindled the Romanian woman’s face was almost more unbearable than the expression of despair she wore when she rang the bell of the mansion. Why do they do it, these people? she thought. How can they send their children away, trusting that someone out there will look after them? I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t say goodbye to my own child, not knowing if we would ever meet again. And the children turn up all over Europe, and it’s the luck of God whether they arrive here or in some brothel the back end of Paris or Amsterdam. Jesus, what parents! Then she felt guilty at the thought, and knew that her momentary revulsion owed more to sadness than intolerance. And in any case – what of our guilt? she asked herself. In the thirties Jewish parents were sending their children away from my country, and knew they would probably never see them again … It was a different exodus. And Kohl is saying we’re all Germans together and we all cried and cheered when the wall came down, and now we’re reading in the papers of East German parents abandoning their children in parked cars and locked flats, to rush into West Berlin. What was the latest figure? Nearly two hundred kids, I think. Left. Lost children of another exodus. And their parents somewhere around, looking in shop windows and begging on the streets. My God! At least this woman wanted … Oh Christ, how in hell do I know what she wanted?
‘I can go there?’ Ana paused, then half-rose. ‘I must go there now.’
There was a silence. Then Pushpa said, ‘You will need a visa.’
‘Ion and the other boy – Franklin – they had no visa?’
‘I explained,’ said Irma, and Bernhardt and Pushpa (who knew her well) were surprised to hear a faint note of impatience, ‘Pushpa’s people, they help each other cross the borders. They do not need visas.’
‘But me? Can somebody take me across the border?’
Ignoring the question Pushpa said, ‘I am sure we can help you get a visa. But it takes time …’
Irma interrupted him in German. ‘And you know as well as I do it gets harder every day. Let’s be honest with her, for God’s sake. Romanians, Poles, Czechs – for all of them it’s hard to get visas. They need to have invitations, proof they’ve got enough money – all that. I think she might get one, but how long’s it going to take? Anyway, they mightn’t believe her story. There’s got to be another way.’
He looked down and shook his head. ‘Look, I know Tamils, but they will only take Tamils. I heard no whisper of who took Franklin and Ion. So what can I do? There are the passeurs, but they charge money.’ He switched to English. ‘Have you money?’
Ana shook her head. ‘To buy food, and to travel – just a little. But I must be very careful with it.’
‘There are ways’, said Irma, looking at her colleague.
‘I know,’ said Pushpa.
Turning to Bernhardt, Irma spoke German again. ‘Look, we have to help her get there. She’s got no money to speak of, so what’s she supposed to do? She won’t wait. If we try to contact the refugee people it’ll take time and I think she’ll just go. Or else she’ll crack up. What do you suggest? You know what I’m thinking …’
He was silent for a moment, then jerked his thumb towards one of the cupboards. ‘There’s a road map in there. I think you two should take her and give her advice about buses down to Stuttgart. That won’t cost her too much. Then …’
‘Pushpa knows, doesn’t he?’
‘Of course he does. The best place is near Schwenningen, if I remember rightly. On the way to Schaffhausen – more than one truck stop around there. She might be lucky. But don’t show her in here, Irma. I don’t want to know about it, OK?’
*
‘Please can I see the room he slept in?’
‘Of course.’
Pushpa took her up the stairs and along the corridor. The door of the room was closed. He knocked gently, then more loudly, then turned the handle. Ana saw two pine beds with a little table between them, and on one of the beds a boy
lying face down, arms cradling his face. His hair was dark, and for a second the world swayed about her; she thought it was Ion. Then, hearing them, he turned. His hair was bluish-black, instead of very dark brown, like Ion’s and her own, and the tears shone on his brown skin.
The youth worker murmured something gentle in Tamil, and sat on the edge of the bed, allowing his hand to rest on the boy’s shoulder.
‘He arrived three days ago,’ he said, looking up at Ana, ‘from near Jaffna. All the time he cries, because he misses his family. And I know of them. I know their name. In Jaffna, people know each other, because their grandparents knew each other. That is how we have always lived. It isn’t like here. So different. It isn’t like Frankfurt.’
His manner had changed. Up to then he had been quiet and collected, showing her the map, giving his advice, writing things down for her. Now he was agitated – and as if he understood the tone, though not the language, the boy on the bed stopped crying and stared at him.
‘It is so different,’ Pushpa repeated.
‘You miss your home?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Yet – it is better for you here? Living in Germany?’
He glanced down at the boy before he spoke, then looked up at her with a wry smile. ‘Oh yes, indeed it must be better,’ he said. ‘In my country I was in fear of my life, and if I went back I would be killed. The Tigers would see to it …’
‘Tigers?’
He made an impatient movement with his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. A complicated story – long and full of blood. So much blood. That’s why these boys are here. Their parents send them because they know they will be safe, and they think they will learn something. But they don’t realize that their children will be nothing here. Nothing at all. Look at me – I am nothing. Oh, I have lived here for ten years and I know people and I have a job here. But who am I?’ He paused then added, ‘Nobody wants to leave their country.’