Lost Footsteps

by Bel Mooney

  ‘But so many Romanians did,’ she protested, ‘and they died trying to escape. And Russians. And East Germans. Now even more people want to leave those countries. They want…’

  ‘I know what they want,’ he said angrily, ‘but I don’t think they will find it. At home I am somebody. People know who my father was, and they know who I am. Here – I have no country and no history. These Germans – don’t forget the war – they really do want to be über alles. They don’t want us here. They look at refugees – not so bad for you because you have white skin, but bad for him’ – he patted the boy – ‘and they don’t want us in their country. They say that we have got something by coming here. We are lucky, they say – we have got something. And they don’t like us for that.’

  ‘But it is true?’ said Ana. ‘I mean, what you have – here?’

  The sadness – or was it bitterness? – in his tone bewildered her. He was angry, and she half-thought it was her fault. She looked around the room and tried to imagine Ion there, but the only picture in her mind was of Radu in a blaze of colour, splintering, then fading. Dazed, she blinked and concentrated on the two dark faces before her.

  Pushpa stood up, said something to the boy, then walked towards the door. She saw moisture in his eyes, and how the lines of his face slackened. He said, ‘The Germans – they have two words, important for you to know. They are like the opposite sides of a coin, I think. Maybe you can understand … Freiheit, that is one. You know what it means?’

  Ana guessed. ‘Freedom?’

  He nodded. ‘But the other is harder: Heimweb?

  Ana shook her head.

  ‘I do not know the word in English. It is …’ – he struck his chest with a fist – ‘… a meaning somewhere in here. A wish for … You think all the time, you see, of that place. Where you came from. So – OK – they can say we have got something. But we have lost everything.’

  Then he turned abruptly and led the way along the echoing corridor, the map of Germany tucked under his arm.

  Thirty-One

  Ana gazed at her own reflection, then bent to splash her face with water. There were slight stains on the basin but the lavatories were clean. She found herself murmuring ‘Very German’, then pulling herself up short for the irony. In Bucharest, if you could find a public lavatory, it was likely to be filthy. She thought wryly that she had been in the free world (as she still thought of it) for less than forty-eight hours and already she was critical.

  Last night, they were good to me. They gave me a bed and food, and I went to sleep haunted by the cries of children – unable to tell, in the end, which were real and which were dreamt. Because of that I could not cry myself, since it would have diminished the pain all around me, actual and remembered, haunting the bricks and plaster of that great house. I have no right to cry, not any more.

  In any case, there is no time for that – not now.

  Numb as she was, unable fully to acknowledge her own misery, it still seemed vital to Ana that she should register the kindnesses she experienced among foreigners. How else could she possibly justify her original decision? Irma helped her with the German money, and Ana was sure that, at the terminus, she added some of her own to buy the ticket. They had been good to her.

  She had moved beyond fear now, driven by obession and the terrible anxiety that every day might take Ion further away. She could not afford to imagine where he was or who with, apart from the Tamil boy. Her faith was now fixed on the Red Cross, and one name and address on a piece of paper. After some time on the telephone Pushpa had come up with a Tamil contact in Geneva, a travel agent, who ‘knew everybody’.

  Now she had done what Pushpa and Irma suggested. She slept for most of the long bus journey, then walked until her feet ached, and the small bag made her arm ache. At last she found what she wanted. Walking round the huge car and lorry park she had seen one truck with what she thought to be Swiss number-plates. The café was noisy and crowded, and she was daunted. Yet there was no more time for that than for weeping; she knew what she had to do.

  So she surveyed herself critically as she dried her face, then opened her bag. She brushed her hair hard until it shone, and was just about to tie it back when she stopped. It was better loose. With little artifice and less vanity about her, Ana still knew it looked more attractive that way, and it was important. Then she took out a small, sewn bag fastened with a button, which Doina once embroidered for her. In it she kept her whole collection of make-up – the powder, single lipstick, and pale blue eyeshadow she had had for years, and the mascara wand the researcher with one of the television crews had given her. She dabbed at herself inexpertly, then stood back. So pale. She frowned and pinched her cheeks hard, then ran her tongue over her lips to make them shine. Suddenly she found it funny, and smiled at the mirror. ‘Ana Popescu, you look like one of the prostitutes in the Europa,’ she said aloud. ‘Let’s hope you don’t have to act like one.’ Irma had told her to be careful, but now she cared nothing for such warnings.

  She queued for a cup of coffee, then stood as if choosing a table. Men stared at her, and she quailed for a second, then started to move across the room, slopping her coffee in the saucer as she carried her bag in the other hand. Too fast. Move slowly …

  You could tell the drivers: something about the confident slump of men used to long hauls, tired by the road yet owning it. There seemed to be a uniform too, of blue jeans, and grey-blue shirts or once-white T–shirts under loose track-suit tops. Cups and dirty plates littered their tables, and the ashtrays were filled to overflowing. Smoke scrolled thick in the air about their heads, as impenetrable as the conversations in German Ana heard as she passed by.

  She sat at an empty table, and looked round casually. A couple of yards away four men sat playing cards, speaking only to mutter an instruction or a comment, absorbed in the game. A fifth, a younger man, was reading a newspaper. Each had a packet of cigarettes open on the table beside him. As Ana waited, trying to goad herself to courage, the clatter in the room seemed to fade suddenly, so that she heard it from a distance, sitting utterly alone in an icy wind, darkness at the edges of her vision.

  ‘Bitte – cigarette?’ The voice was her own.

  Hardly aware of what she was doing she stood by their table, smiling and pointing to the nearest pack. It belonged to the man with the newspaper. He grinned at the others and pushed it across to her, telling her to help herself. She took one, and bent to the match, her hair sweeping forward. They were all looking at her now, openly appraising. One of the men with cards showed her his hand with an exaggerated gesture and made a joke. She smiled shyly and nodded – not understanding he was referring to the heart. But smile, you have to smile, you have to make them want to help you, you have to.

  ‘Danke,’ she said, then wondered what to do. ‘Er … bitte, ich … er… sprech … English?’

  They shook their heads and spoke at once, making little jokes at her expense – that a beautiful English woman shouldn’t be wandering round a place like that, and so on. When they laughed, she pretended to laugh a little too. Then she shrugged.

  ‘Ich …’ She pointed to herself, then somewhere in the direction of where she believed the border to be. ‘Ich … Switzerland, Suisse …’ She pointed to them, made a slight driving movement with her hands, then added, ‘Bitte?’

  There was a shout of laughter, and they spoke together.

  ‘I get it – she wants a lift.’

  ‘Best-looking hitchhiker I’ve seen for years.’

  ‘Shall I tell her I’ll drive her to Moscow if she’ll sleep with me?’

  ‘Yeah, go on – you might get lucky, Mannie!’

  ‘Pity she doesn’t speak German.’

  ‘Who wants to talk?’

  Embarrassed, but still smiling, Ana looked from one to another, guessing the kind of things they were saying. ‘Suisse?’ she repeated, making the question sound coquettish as she pointed to each of them in turn.

  ‘Imagine having that in the
cab. Nice and small, just the right size.’

  ‘No, I like them bigger. Tits you can roll round on. Mind you, not that I’d say no …’

  ‘She’s not offering, Mannie.’

  The youngest of the men spoke quietly. He put down his newspaper and was staring at her. Something about the woman touched him; she wasn’t British, he guessed that, but he could not place her. And he saw the strain in her face, the desperation of that smile. ‘She wouldn’t look at you,’ he repeated. ‘Come on, she’s standing there, what can we tell her? Know anybody in here who’s going that way?’

  ‘Bloke over there,’ said his friend, sulkily, jerking a thumb at a table about ten yards away. ‘He’s a Swiss, isn’t he? Seen him in here before. Six months ago. I think he’s Swiss.’

  What are they saying? How can I stand here like this, being humiliated, smiling, waiting, while they talk about me, and laugh. Those people over there are looking at me, so are those, and those …

  Where have you gone? Where are you? Where have you gone?

  The young driver offered her another cigarette, indicating that she should put it in her pocket. Then he stood up, and pointed across the room, to where three men sat at a table.

  ‘Swi-ss,’ he articulated slowly in English, giving the word two syllables. Then he raised his eyebrows in a faintly comical way, and shrugged slightly, as if to tell her that he could promise nothing – but hoped.

  Ana’s shoulders sagged. She had geared herself up to the effort of talking to these men, and now wanted to crawl away into a corner. She stopped smiling, but looked so grateful for this effort to meet her that the man felt suddenly that he’d put her in the cab and drive her there right away. But he was heading back to Munich from Zurich and had to be there by late afternoon …

  ‘Danke.’ It was a whisper, and she had gone.

  The men at the new table sat silently, each locked into the monotony of his own journey. Two were in their forties; the other, stocky and blond, was younger. Ana walked slowly over, wondering if she could bear to ask for another cigarette. She passed a hand over her hair and moistened her lips, aware of curious glances.

  ‘Guten Tag,’ she said, standing by the table. ‘Er… bitte … ich …’

  ‘Ja?’ One of the older men smiled; the other surveyed her impassively, letting his eyes travel openly up and down her body. Ana felt dirty.

  The blond driver glanced at her for a second, then turned back to his food, eating quickly, as if behind schedule. Ana went through the same pantomime as before, saying Switzerland in French and English, pointing at each of them and making a foolish driving motion with her hands. As an afterthought she added, ‘Geneva?’

  The two Germans shook their heads, but the younger man looked up at her and nodded. ‘Oui, Madame – mais pourquoi?’

  Ana smiled now, and leaned on the table in her eagerness. ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’ she asked.

  ‘Un peu.’ He grinned. ‘Vousêtes anglaise?’

  ‘Non. Je suis Roumaine.’

  ‘Asseyez-vous.’

  She obeyed, gratefully. It was as if her bones were melting into her flesh. ‘S’il vous plait … C’est très important que … Voulez vous me donner … I have to go to Geneva today. Will you take me? C’est très, très important.’

  Head on one side, he gazed at her. This man’s look was not lecherous; he seemed rather to be assessing her. Then he held out his hand. ‘Je suis Lucien. Comment vous appelez-vous?’

  ‘Ana.’ She took his hand briefly, than made an urgent ball of her fists. ‘S’il vous plaît …’

  ‘Il faut que vous allez à Genève? Pas de problème!’

  ‘Mais monsieur … vous comprenez je n’ai pas un visa.’

  ‘Ah.’ He frowned.

  ‘Je suis une … refugee. My son … mon fils est à Genève – je pense. J’espère.’

  She flattened the air with her hand at about the height of Ion’s head, and looked pleadingly at him. ‘C’est très, très difficile pour moi,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Ce n’est pas facile pour moi.’

  Despair folded in from all the corners of the room, stifling her, driving the air from her lungs. She wanted to seize him, beat her fists against his chest and scream out all her grief and frustration. Please take me please take me please take me please take me please, you pig, you selfish cruel pig, please take me … ‘S’il vous plait, monsieur.’

  He looked at her, then round the room. The German drivers she had first spoken to were watching them, two of them laughing. One of them called something to Ana, who glanced briefly in their direction, then fixed her eyes again on Lucien’s face. He, who knew German, flushed slightly, and ran a hand through his blond hair in embarrassment. ‘Why don’t you try offering him something?’ was what had been shouted – and the innuendo was obvious. It irritated him.

  ‘Alors–OK,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll take me with you? Oui?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Oh – mulţumesc!’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Merci – merci!’

  ‘Ça ne fait rien … Alors …’ He got up, put on his denim jacket, and indicated that she should rise. Then he looked at her carefully, and paused. ‘Vous avez faim?’

  Ana hesitated, then inclined her head a fraction. Relief mixed with hunger; she was tormented by the smell of food all around.

  ‘Un moment.’

  When he returned he presented her with two sandwiches, a canned drink, an apple and a banana, and turned away awkwardly, seeing that she was moved. It was not just the kindness; when she held the fruit, she thought of Ion.

  Will there be bananas, Mama?

  Yes, lots of bananas, Ionica.

  The driver knew there would be no problem. He crossed at that point very regularly, and, with Swiss number-plates, he was always waved through. But as a precaution he made her curl up on her side on the floor of the cab, in front of the passenger seat, and covered her with a blanket. They never saw him with a passenger; they might think it odd … By this stage, he confessed to himself, he was almost playing a game.

  So it was easy. He liked the flushed excitement on her face when it emerged at his signal, as they rolled towards Zurich. It made him feel heroic, somehow. He glanced across at her as she slept, thinking of the German drivers with contempt, yet wondering vaguely at the same time what she would have said had he stopped the lorry in a side road and demanded a quick screw for the journey. He sighed. It wouldn’t be worth it; he had read about SIDA in Romania, and you never knew with these people …

  So … almost too easy, said the voice inside his head, thinking – despite himself, and despite the fact that she was pretty, female and white – that his father was probably right. He said again and again that they were letting too many foreigners into Switzerland.

  Thirty-Two

  Early next morning a small, somewhat dishevelled figure walked slowly up the Avenue de la Paix.

  Lucien had put her down in the Rue Lausanne, pointing out directions on a small map of Geneva. As he said ‘Bon chance,’ he paused, then put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out some notes and looked at them. ‘Attendez.’

  ‘Non … monsieur …’

  He hesitated between a twenty and a fifty, then thrust the latter towards her and grinned. ‘Ce soir, un hôtel peut-être? Alors – au revoir, Madame.’

  For a second afterwards he regretted his generosity. The twenty would have done. But during the night, as they had slept in the cab outside Berne, the moonlight woke him briefly, and he turned to contemplate the silvery face of the woman huddled in the big seat beside him. The shadows were huge in the hollows of her face; you could fancy there was no flesh between skin and skull, and that it was her soul which fluttered in the pulse at the temple. ‘Jésu …!’

  Instinctively he crossed himself, dimly aware he was in the presence of a pain he could not begin even to imagine. It was as if she had moved beyond the reach of hunger or desire or any human need – except love for this
son. She would tell Lucien no more than that she had ‘lost’ him, and she thought he was in Geneva. There was a problem with the world ‘lost’. She was unsure of the French, and waved her hands about helplessly, as her voice trembled. ‘Il … mon fils est … est …’

  He frowned, puzzled, and supplied various words in his mind before illumination came. ‘Ah – perdu.’

  ‘Perdu,’ she repeated, knowing it was right.

  Remembering this as he turned to sleep again, he wondered how it was possible, at the end of the twentieth century, to lose a child. After the war lost children wandered the wreck of Europe, and he had read of Vietnamese orphans on boats, and all that was understandable. But this? The mystery of it served to shift her, paradoxically, beyond normal humanity. Yet not, he had discovered (despite his father), beyond reach of his pity.

  Feeling unwashed and stiff, her mouth dry, Ana passed the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and reached the Place des Nations. She took out the creased street map and studied it, looking for Lucien’s scrawled circle. Then she picked up her bag again, and crossed the huge open square, dwarfed by the tall buildings which housed the offices of the international organizations – in which meetings would take place and committees would be established and working parties formed to discuss the problems of people like her, people somewhere else.

  Radu is dead and Ionica lost and maybe he is dead too and I will never see him again, as I will never see Radu. Dear friend … You were wrong, you see, Doina, in not trusting him, thinking he had got out only to forget you. Maybe living there destroys all our faith, even in love. Yet we got rid of Him at last and I’m glad they shot him; you would have been glad, Radu. You hated it, as I hated it, yet should we have hated our country? Does hate spill over into trees and hills and even painted churches? So beautiful, that train journey to Timişoara, and Ion was there, fiddling with his toy and sometimes looking up at me to smile. But I avoided his eyes; I felt ashamed.

  Shame is more appropriate than hate, Radu – that’s what I felt when I went around with the journalists and saw things … But I’m sure you know, I’m sure you were watching me. I didn’t used to believe in spirits, but now I know I have to, Radu. I have to love the dead for what they are – the manes, the souls of the departed, for whom we go on living, doing all the things they would want us to do, the things they could not do, and allowing them to add to the whole of what we are. Mama and Tată, and now you.