by Alex Day
‘Do you need a doctor?’ the one at the end of the line was saying as the shambling group of the saved passed by. She thought about saying, Yes, I’m pregnant, I don’t feel at all well. Can you help me, please? but didn’t. She just kept moving, along with everyone else. A couple of the tabarded men – for they were all men as far as she could see – were on their knees beside a child of about five. They were performing CPR but even Fatima could tell that it was useless. As she drew level with them, they stopped, sitting back helplessly onto their heels and staring at the little figure. Next to it was another, already covered from head to toe with a black cloth.
‘An hour in the water,’ one of the men was saying. ‘Poor little mite didn’t stand a chance.’
She could hear tears in his voice and her heart felt heavy and slow. It could so easily have been one of her girls – or both of them – but it wasn’t. Somehow, for some unfathomable reason, they were amongst the lucky ones and had survived. They must take heart from that and be strong for whatever other trials and tribulations were going to come their way.
It was in that instance that Fatima decided that she would try to contact Ali after all. No one in the world could be unaware of what was happening in this sea and on these islands. They had looked death in the face and somehow survived and now she felt braver than she had ever thought possible. And surely, if Ali knew of his own sister’s and nieces’ predicament, he would help.
Anyone would, wouldn’t they?
Edie
The jarring pain that seared through her spine as she landed on a sharp, protruding piece of rock made Edie’s teeth rattle and set stars jumping before her eyes. She pulled her knees protectively towards her, an instinctive reaction to the agony, as someone pushed her head between her legs. Vomit spewed out of her, covering the rock and the dusty soil. She was sick again and again and then, when it had finally stopped, found herself taking great sloughing gasps of air, desperate for oxygen.
Her whole body was shaking, her teeth jolting furiously together. She could hear voices all around her but not what they said. Then two strong hands lifted her under the armpits and she was being transported along the path and over the viewpoint platform and out to the other side of the restaurant, far from the gorge and the danger which she had thought was going to end her life.
‘What happened, Edie?’ It was Zayn and Vuk who had borne her to safety. Zayn was questioning her, gently, confusion and bewilderment suffusing his voice.
She couldn’t answer, had lost the power of speech.
‘She tripped on her shoelace.’ Vuk did the talking for her. ‘She should have tied it up.’
Zayn said nothing.
‘Get everyone into the bus,’ Vuk ordered him.
Zayn walked slowly away, motioning to the group to follow him.
Edie staggered to her feet. She couldn’t speak, was stunned by what had occurred – by the fact that she had just looked death in the face. Her eyes fell on Zayn, retreating towards the carpark, the guests trooping behind him, and then her gaze moved to Vuk who was lighting another cigarette and standing, his back to her, staring at the gorge.
Back in the minibus, driving to the first campsite on the banks of the river, Vuk reassured her.
‘You were never in any danger, Edie. You weren’t going over the edge.’
Zayn, listening silently from the driver’s seat, wrenched the gears, clumsily and noisily, missing second and almost stalling as their descent grew steeper.
Edie shut her eyes and pressed her fingers into them as if the pain would give her clarity. It didn’t.
She no longer knew who was lying and who was telling the truth.
Fatima
All along the dockside, all along the dusty road into the city, there were tents and flattened cardboard boxes and rolled up sleeping bags. On every bit of waste ground, in every doorway and alleyway, there were people sitting slumped in exhaustion or staring despairingly into nowhere or holding their heads in idle hands. Fatima had not imagined anything like it. In the time since they had left their country, during which period she had hardly heard or read the news, thousands upon thousands of her compatriots, their number augmented by those from any number of other failed or poverty-stricken states, must have been coming, daily, nightly, never-endingly.
Marwa and Maryam were exhausted and Fatima had to drag them along, sweating with the exertion as the heat of the day built. When they arrived at the so-called camp, it was to find a place of utter squalor and total disorganisation. In her dreams, Fatima had imagined order, had thought after so long that all the necessary procedures would be in place and that registering for documents and refugee status or asylum or whatever it would be called would be straightforward.
She had been utterly wrong. There was no one in charge, no one to ask what they should do or where they should go. Hanging in the air was the choking smell of urine, and flies buzzed around piles of rubbish, soiled nappies and faeces. It was disgusting.
Everybody they saw wore on their face their desperation, hopelessness and hunger. Where would all these people go, thought Fatima, gazing at them all, of whose helpless number she was now one. Where will any of us get houses, jobs, schools, healthcare? It was impossible to imagine that those things really existed anywhere, for any of them. We’re all just pretending, realised Fatima. Duping ourselves into thinking that there’s a future for us somewhere.
Looking at the destitution all around, Fatima tried to make the hazy, half-remembered picture of Ali that she held in her head more solid, more real, more recognisable. Most of the photographs of him had disappeared when he had. There had just been one that she had kept in her bedroom, of him pushing her on a swing, that she had taken with her when she married. Of course it had been destroyed along with the house and anyway had been old and faded. Despite the vagueness of her memories, Fatima was sure she would still recognise her brother – she just doubted whether he would recognise her. But that was no reason not to try and track him down, and whatever the consequence, it could hardly make things any worse than they were already.
The idea formed and reformed and finally cemented in her mind. She would find the right moment to put it to Ehsan and then pray that it would all work out.
Ehsan found a space, recently vacated by the look of the sparse clumps of dead grass, where they could put down their tarpaulin. There was a tiny bit of shade from a miserable looking, half-dead shrub and Fatima tried to settle the girls down to sleep. They were hungry and thirsty but they had no food or water. Youssef said he’d go to find a tap to fill up water bottles. He was gone for ages, during which time the twins grizzled and whined. Fatima wanted them to be quiet, felt momentarily impatient with their complaints and fussing and then hated herself for being so cruel. They were so tiny and helpless, just three years old. They had done nothing to deserve any of this and the least they should be able to count on should be her constant and unwavering love and patience.
She patted their backs and soothed them with a gentle lullaby she had sung to them in the white nursery of their beautiful old courtyard house. She tried to take no notice when they scratched their heads. As soon as she could, she would go into town and buy a comb and conditioner and get rid of the damn head lice, one by one. Youssef returned with the water.
‘There’s a tap over there.’ He pointed at some random location deep amidst the forest of tents and tarpaulins. ‘But there’s only one and the water comes very slowly so it took a long time.’
He watched Marwa drink, gulping the water down so fast that Fatima had to stop her for fear of choking.
‘Sorry,’ he added, his voice dull and toneless.
Fatima snapped a glance towards him. He was suffering badly from their daily degradations and humiliations; teenagers are proud and uncompromising anyway, and Youssef was even more so than most. Fatima doubted he would ever get over his experiences on this journey, let alone whatever horrors were still to come. Gazing around at the swarms of other children wandering
aimlessly around the camp, their movements listless and their heads bowed, she realised what a cataclysmic problem was being stored up for the future. The young people, battling their despair and hopelessness, lacking even the semblance of an education, were a simmering pot waiting to boil over.
The girls went to sleep despite the broiling heat and Fatima left them in Youssef’s charge whilst she took a look around. There were a couple of portaloos along the edge of the camp where it was bordered by a wire fence. She opened the door of one and was almost flattened by the stench that hit her, knocking the wind out of her. Just about managing to shut the door, she fled in the opposite direction. Putting her hand to her waist – and immediately feeling sick again with the reminder of her pregnancy – she felt the little secret pocket that held her money. There was hardly any left. They had no food, no shelter and no idea how long they would be here. The word doing the rounds was that it took days to get registered and receive the papers necessary to move on, to take the ferry to Athens to begin the long walk to northern Europe. She had no choice but to spend some of the precious funds that still remained on the search for Ali.
That evening, she broached the subject to Ehsan. The area of land adjacent to the camp, where the wire fence divided the rootless and homeless from the locals and tourists, was an open-air cinema. They could clearly hear the soundtrack – sirens, momentous music, urgent dialogue – carried to them on the still, hot air, between the wails of hungry, bored and spiritless children and the raised voices of adults arguing; there were frequent fracas between different groups of refugees. The irony of the movie world next to the real word was inescapable.
‘What will your good-for-nothing brother do to help us?’ Ehsan was scornful, his face twisted into an ugly scowl.
Fatima was taken aback by the strength of his antipathy. She wasn’t aware that Ehsan had such strong feelings about Ali. Against him. Whichever. She couldn’t allow his aversion to her brother, their last – their only – salvation, to foil her plan.
‘I think he’ll understand our predicament, if I can reach him and explain,’ she replied patiently, determined not to let Ehsan rile her. ‘I’m sure he’s doing well, wherever he is; he was always such a hard worker. If he could get us out of here …’
Her voice tapered off as she looked around at the wretchedness of their surroundings. Glancing back towards Ehsan, she saw that the idea that Ali might have money, and contacts, that he might be able to expedite their way out of the dirt and filth, had taken hold. His eyes held that same look of greed that she had seen when he had been lying on top of her. She suppressed a shudder at the memory and seized the moment.
‘You know what everyone is saying, getting registered is a nightmare. There’s only one place to get the papers, it has two officials working there, the queues are enormous, people wait for days and don’t get anywhere near the door … I’m sure Ali is a better option, our best hope. An option we should at least try. If you agree, I’ll go to the internet café tomorrow, first thing. You can find anyone online, absolutely anyone.’
She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. ‘If we don’t find him – if I don’t get into contact with him within a couple of days – we’ll forget all about it and join everyone else who’s waiting in line.’
It was a gamble, but Ehsan was the kind of person who needed to know that he had a get out.
‘All right,’ he replied, dismissively, making it plain that he thought her over-optimistic but was prepared to indulge her. ‘Two, three days, maximum. And then we’ll give up.’
***
The next day Fatima began the search for her brother. She walked into the town and found an internet café. It was in a basement where a few dilapidated fans stirred the soupy air, providing no relief from the summer heat. Facebook was her starting point, then Twitter, followed by every other social media site she could think of. But Ali is a common name and their surname, too, was one shared by many millions of others the world over. She found nobody and nothing that seemed to lead her any closer to her brother. The walls sweated and throbbed as the sun rose high in the sky outside and the heat built. Fatima spread the search wider, to friends of Ali’s, those she had heard the names of over the years, many of whom had also left their homeland for a better life elsewhere. There weren’t that many that she knew of, due to being so young when Ali had disappeared, but she racked her brain for any small snippet that might help.
She worked quickly, concentrating so hard she began to feel sick and lightheaded. A tinge of desperation underlay each click on the mouse; every minute, every hour online cost money, every cent she spent on the computer meant less for food, less for the onward journey that they had almost run out of funds for anyway. They were already eating only twice a day, bread and olives mostly.
Finally, just as she was going to give up for the day, perhaps give up on the whole idea, she struck gold. She found the website of a man who had been a student with Ali; Fardeen Muhammed. She remembered him for some reason, had a recollection of an ebullient person who would tease her and embarrass her, commenting on her beauty and asking Ali to let him know when she had passed eighteen.
‘Perhaps he’ll remember that now,’ she thought wryly as she tapped out an email. Fardeen was living in a town called London. At first, Fatima thought London, England, and her heart leapt. Perhaps Ali had gone to England, too, and would live nearby and be instantly and easily contacted, and not too far away for them to get to him. And then her heart sank again when she saw that it was London, Canada. But still, even so, if he knew where Ali was it didn’t matter where either of them actually lived. Easy communication made the world a small place.
She finished her message. She wrote in English, thinking that might make her seem more genuine, but ended with a traditional greeting in their own language. As an afterthought, she attached a photo of herself. It might bring back memories for him. After all, purported relatives and friends and hangers-on were probably coming out of the woodwork in these terrible times. Composing the English sentences, choosing the English words, sent pangs of wistfulness running through her. Her dream of going to university to study English literature was well and truly dead now, along with so many others.
***
Once she had sent the email, Fatima decided to give up for the day. Her current paid-for time was almost up and she was feeling weak with hunger and dehydrated from sweating profusely for so long. As she walked back to the camp, a greengrocer was packing up his shop for the siesta. He gave her a box of peaches that were on the turn, pressing them upon her and refusing to take any money for them. Fresh fruit didn’t last long here in summer, out of a chiller. Perhaps the shopkeeper discerned how her eyes feasted on them, how ravenous she looked. Carrying the box stiffly in front of her, the saliva gathered in her mouth and her stomach growled. But she waited until she got back to their slovenly abode to eat any, wanting to share each and every one with the others rather than greedily help herself. Ehsan and Youssef ate two each but she and the girls couldn’t hold back and gorged themselves on the delicious orange flesh, dribbles of juice running down their chins and onto the parched brown grass beneath them.
That night the three of them suffered the consequences of their gluttony. They had terrible stomach cramps and the resulting diarrhoea was crippling. The toilets could not possibly be braved and it was the utmost humiliation to have to use a corner of the camp, up against the fence that separated them from the open-air stadium, as a toilet. Fatima had nothing to properly clean the girls with, let alone herself. She was repelled by herself, by her foul odour, by the dirt that was engrained under her fingernails and into her skin. Wretchedly, she longed for a shower and clean clothes – clothes that fitted properly and did not dig into her ever expanding waist – and a bed.
That night, lying on the stony ground, Fatima gave up. It was all useless, pointless. They would never get to Northern Europe and even if they did, for what? For life as outsiders, hated, persecuted.
Pr
ostrate on the hard ground, weak from dehydration, stomach still cramping, she knew she would never get up again. She could feel the baby moving, its feather touch like the brush of a butterfly’s wings against her belly. She could not understand how it was still alive and kicking when she was dead, finished.
TWENTY-SIX
Fatima
The long night passed. By the morning, Marwa and Maryam were listless and fatigued, staring dull-eyed at the sunrise as it spread over the trees and rooftops.
‘Aren’t you going?’ demanded Ehsan, when Fatima had made no move to get up and start the walk back into town.
Wordlessly, she hauled herself to her knees and stood up. The world spun and she stumbled and nearly collapsed. The girls looked at her, appalled. Children fall over all the time. Mummies do not. Fatima broke a smile.
‘I’ll be back soon.’ She blew them both a kiss; anything to reassure them. She had no energy for anything else. It seemed too much to hope that the Canadian friend would have replied, and yet without hope what else was there? There was the despair of the night before and she couldn’t give way to that again.
On the way to the town, she passed a primary school, closed for the long summer holidays. The day before, the gates had been padlocked shut and the building’s windows darkly shuttered. But today, the gate was open and there was a big sign, multilingual, advertising clothes and baby equipment, available to all refugees on the island, donated by the local people. Fatima could hardly believe it, that those whose beautiful island had been so overrun, could still find it in themselves to be so generous and warm-hearted. A woman with dyed blonde hair and a cigarette dripping from her lips gestured to her as she stood, unsure, at the threshold.
‘Come in,’ she said in English. ‘We have many things here.’