by Alex Day
Fatima stepped inside. Trestle tables were loaded with garments that had been roughly sorted according to size or age. She found a pair of cotton trousers with an adjustable elastic waist that would be perfect for her, plus a long skirt and two long-sleeved tops. There was a shirt that would fit Ehsan, hardly worn. The irony of choosing clothes for her rapist did not escape her but in order to carry on, she’d had to push that night’s experience into the depths of her subconscious. Now, though, holding up the shirt and estimating its size relative to Ehsan’s form, the memory of his body, the stench of his sweat, the roughness of his sweatshirt, that had become hard and stiff with lack of washing, rubbing up and down against her flesh, suffused her so that she gagged and stumbled and had to hold onto the table to support herself so that she did not fall to the ground again.
When she eventually recovered, she looked around her. No one had noticed. Everyone was preoccupied with other things, busily arranging and rearranging the piles of garments, bustling around, kind and friendly but not seeking out problems that they knew they would not be able to solve.
Burying her hands amongst the heaps of soft fabrics and her memories along with them, Fatima forced herself back to the task in hand. She found a couple of T-shirts for Youssef to replace the ones he had that were torn and ragged from their travels, and some track pants that seemed to have been hardly worn. Next, her delving unearthed two cute T-shirts with beads and ribbons that the twins would adore, together with two tiny pairs of jeans, faded and thin, but better than what they had.
Gathering everything together, she held her haul up to the blonde woman, who she had located organising the unloading and distribution of more items.
‘I think this is too much,’ she said, apologetically. ‘Tell me which I can have, please. And how much.’
Secretly she was hoping that the cost would be minimal or she would have to put some back anyway. But there was no harm in at least asking; it might be cheap enough for her to afford.
The blonde woman removed the cigarette from her mouth and laughed, a hearty, friendly, tired laugh. ‘You can take them all, my love. As much as you like and you can carry.’
Fatima frowned doubtfully. ‘But what is the cost? I’m sorry, but I don’t have too much money.’
‘It’s free. Gratis. You pay nothing.’
Fatima looked down at the clothes in her hands as if she expected them to disappear or turn to stone.
‘Really? Free?’
‘Yes, really.’ The blonde woman turned away, her attention on an argument that seemed to have broken out in the far corner of the playground. ‘Now take your things and get on your way. Safe journey to you.’
Fatima wandered out of the tarmac yard and on down the street to the internet café, her little bundle clutched tightly to her. She had never imagined a time in her life when she would be overjoyed to be in possession of hand-me-down clothes, but now was that time.
At the computer screen in the sweating underground room, another miracle unfolded before her. The Canadian friend had replied. Amidst his trite enquiries of ‘how’s it going’, his news of himself, his house and, rather far down the list of priorities it seemed to Fatima, his wife and children, was the news she had been craving. He knew where Ali was.
Ali’s email address was there, in front of Fatima, waiting to be used. The message she wrote took a long time to compose. What to say to the brother you idolised but who left you so many years ago? How to ask for help without coming across as whingy, melodramatic, needy? She wanted to sound strong, independent, in control. The fact that she was none of those things right now was immaterial.
Finally, after an hour of contemplation, she was happy with what she had written. As soon as she pressed send, he would have her email address and Ehsan’s phone number; they had agreed ages ago to keep only one phone charged and topped up with credit to save money, and despite everything that had happened, she had not had the energy to challenge the decision.
Lumbering exhaustedly back to the camp, down the same long, dusty road, clutching the second-hand clothes to her bosom, she considered the bounty that fate had visited on her – on them all – today. The girls, recovered now from their upset stomachs, set upon her and showered her with love and kisses. She took them to the tap which gave, at its most enthusiastic, a thin dribble of water, washed them as best she could and dressed them in their new clothes. How lucky I am, she thought, with my girls and my unborn baby. Even here, even in this hideous place, I have something – three things – to live for. I must remember that. Please God help me remember that, whatever happens.
And then, that evening, the third miracle.
Ali called.
When the phone rang, Fatima could hardly believe it. And yet at the same time had expected it; had been sure that this was the moment when their luck would turn. Even Ehsan had to crack a smile of relief and happiness and to admit, afterwards, that she had been right and that it had been worth spending the money in the internet café. More than worth it. Because, once the greetings and exclamations were over, it turned out that Ali could help.
He had connections, people he worked with who could arrange their transportation to Europe and all the documents they would need. Fatima had many questions, but Ali reassured her on all of them; it would all be fine, nothing to worry about. No, no, not illegal at all, just a circumventing of the law and other obstacles that stood in the way of deliverance. He demanded to hear the twins’ voices, to see pictures of them, the nieces he did not even know he had. Fatima longed to tell him about the new baby but couldn’t whilst Ehsan was in earshot.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ali ended the call by saying. ‘I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through and that I wasn’t there to help you from the start. I think all day, every day, of my family and my country. Of what is happening to our people. I’m so sorry.’
Fatima smiled, though he couldn’t see her, and shrugged. ‘It’s okay,’ she replied. ‘You’re here now.’ Her instincts that he would help had been correct.
Ali promised to keep in touch daily, to send them money and to let them know when they would be able to leave the island.
‘But we haven’t registered yet, Ali,’ Fatima reminded him urgently. ‘It’s chaos here, it can take two weeks waiting in line – and then you have to wait again for a ferry.’
‘You won’t register,’ he instructed her. ‘Whatever you do, don’t do that. Don’t give fingerprints, nothing.’ His voice had become hard and stern, a tone Fatima had no memory of from before. ‘Wait for my instructions.’
‘All right.’ She held the phone out so the girls could shout goodbye.
‘Thank you, Ali,’ she said softly, as she ended the call. And then, clutching the phone to her chest, muttered ‘thank you’ again as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Now, maybe it would all be okay, exactly as Ali insisted.
Edie
The rest of the canyon trip passed in a blur. Edie couldn’t stop thinking about her brush with death and going over and over in her mind how it had happened, how she, who was not normally a clumsy person, could have had such a near-fatal slip. This, together with the ever-present anxiety about Laura, caused Edie to be unsettled and on edge. Everything with Vuk was falling apart, too. She felt that Vuk had lost faith in her and knew that she had in him. But even if she had felt inclined to talk to him about it, which she didn’t because she didn’t know what she would say or accuse him of, he was always busy, arranging activities or meals for the guests or disappearing with Zayn for muttered conversations by the van or under the black pine trees.
In her more paranoid moments, Edie had them plotting something, conspiring against her, getting ready to consign her to a loony bin, thinking her delusional, neurotic, crazy because of her belief that the messages weren’t from Laura and her increasing suspicions that they knew something they weren’t telling her. Nearly falling into a fucking canyon would only make her look even more unpredictable and unstable. So she said nothing and kept her own cou
nsel.
The group was divided into three for the rafting. Zayn had already driven off to the next campsite so there was no way out of the gorge but by river. Edie had no choice but to join in. She was placed by the guide into a boat with Patrick and his family. Vuk went in the lead boat. As the day wore on, Edie relaxed slightly. It was actually quite fun watching the children’s delight in the experience, seeing how they screamed at every bump of the boat’s bottom against the rocks and how hard they paddled in accordance with the guide’s instructions every time the water became remotely turbid. For much of the journey, though, the river was calm, its turquoise colour a reflection of the clear sky above. The massive sides of the canyon rising up on either side ceased to seem sinister but instead were rather comforting, hugging them tight as the current bore them serenely onwards.
They passed waterfalls and shingle beaches that looked untouched by human hand, and indeed the only access to them was by boat so there were no casual visitors or day-trippers. A simple sandwich lunch was taken on one such beach, a thundering waterfall providing a dramatic backdrop.
‘How are you feeling today, Edie?’ Patrick asked, joining her as she idly paddled in the crystal clear, glacial water.
She looked sharply up at him. ‘Fine, thanks.’ No need for him to know her doubts and worries. She didn’t need another person thinking she was ready to be dispatched to the funny farm.
Patrick nodded. He picked up a flat pebble and skimmed it across the river. Edie counted sixteen hops before it sunk beneath the surface.
‘Wow.’
‘Years of practice. Long holidays on the west coast of Ireland.’ Patrick pulled a face. ‘Beautiful, but nothing to do while my parents bickered except throw stones into the sea.’
‘Oh.’ Edie grimaced in sympathy. Her family holidays had always been of the adventurous and philanthropic sort, volunteering in marine conservation projects in Mozambique or teaching English in Malawian mud hut schools. She thought of her parents now, in some remote and generally inaccessible part of the high Andes, researching the travel guide they had long planned to write about mountain hikes around the world. Who they thought would want to embark on such a trip and call it a ‘holiday’ Edie couldn’t imagine but this was the kind of crazy undertaking her parents had always got involved in. At least she was old enough now not to be dragged along with them. Her brother James was really into all that stuff, though, and he was spending his uni holidays building a health centre in Sierra Leone or Liberia or somewhere like that, when any normal, sensible person went to Ibiza or Inter-railing.
Her heart ached and suddenly Edie recognised the feeling. She was missing them. Debs called Patrick over to admire some achievement of one of the children. It was like a punch to the diaphragm. Everyone else had someone special except her. Neither Laura nor Vuk had shown themselves to be up to the job.
‘Be careful, Edie,’ Patrick said, as he waved to his wife to indicate he had heard and was coming. Edie looked around, wondering what she was doing that carried any risk.
‘I mean in general,’ he elaborated, looking her straight in the eyes. ‘Just watch your step.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Edie felt foolish; her stumble on the cliff had made her a laughing stock, clearly. She turned away and walked towards the waterfall, the spray cooling her burning cheeks even from a few metres distance.
She was desperate for this horrid trip to be over. It had been a disaster.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Fatima
True to his word, Ali sent funds. Fatima picked it up from a small international money transfer office near the internet café, using a special password because of her lack of official documents. She couldn’t believe how easy it was. They could afford to book into a guest house for a night, now, and there were plenty of rooms available. But she was still reluctant to spend too much, feeling that they should preserve all the cash they could. And anyway, it felt wrong to be living it up on Ali’s generosity; she was sure he must work incredibly hard for what he earned and the last thing she wanted him to think was that she was a spendthrift and taking his assistance for granted.
So instead of booking a room, she just paid for them all to use a bathroom for a few hours, so that they could wash. Combing and combing the twins’ hair she felt a maternal satisfaction she had not experienced for a long time. It was lunacy to enjoy delousing her children but that was precisely what the sensation felt like. It was something normal, which served to make it precious. It was doing what a mother should do; caring for her children, making sure they were clean, healthy, happy. Every parasite she removed was one less left to feed on her precious offspring. If only she could find and destroy all the smugglers and traffickers and border guards who had tainted their journey, and the journeys of so many others, so easily and efficiently.
She herself had not worn her new clothes yet and the sensation of pulling on garments that smelt of sunshine and laundry powder instead of dried sweat and fear was almost as good as the feeling of stepping off that coastguard boat and onto dry land had been. Plus the trousers with the elastic waist were so much more comfortable than her old ones; she could almost see her belly spring out now it was no longer constrained by a too-tight band, blooming and blossoming. She could feel the baby inside her moving and kicking as if stretching out its limbs in delight at its new freedom.
She had to tell Ehsan. Waiting until the girls were occupied playing on the dismal broken metal roundabout that listed on its side in a doleful corner of the camp, she confronted him with it. Truly, she could not believe that he hadn’t noticed but it seemed not. His reaction was one of indifference. He had not tried to have sex with her since that terrible night when they arrived at the coast. The constant proximity of the children, combined with the ever-present fear and anxiety, seemed to have dulled his craving for her. For now. Fatima hoped that this new information would keep it suppressed. But he just grimaced off-handedly and carried on smoking. Fatima thought ironically of how she had urged him to take up cigarettes as an excuse to get in on the man chat, the local know-how, before they crossed the border.
Now he never stopped and his breath, when he came near enough for her to notice, smelt sour and stale and somehow always moist, like an ashtray left out in the rain.
The next few days, without the draw of the internet café and the quest to find Ali, were even more interminably boring than they had been before. Hopelessness, hunger and depression invaded all corners of the sordid, decaying camp. Fatima felt guilty about the cash in her pocket and the promise in her heart, when so few of those around her possessed such things. But even these precious, cherished attributes were hard to hold on to, to believe in, during the never-ending monotony of the long days and nights.
A girl, about twelve or thirteen, a similar age to Youssef, took to hanging around with Fatima and the twins; she taught them clapping games and had somewhere found a piece of chalk which she used to mark out a hopscotch grid on the bumpy, crumbling tarmac of one of the camp’s dilapidated paths. Marwa and Maryam were entranced by her, and by the entertainment she provided.
Just like how Youssef used to play with them, at the beginning, thought Fatima sadly. Now Youssef had no fun left in him and she marvelled that this girl, whose name was Sondes, had retained any of hers. Sondes was bright as a button as well as playful; she spoke some French and even better English. Fatima mourned on her behalf for her lost education. A whole generation of children deprived of the right to knowledge and learning, for when would she next see the inside of a school?
Fatima had bought a cheap notepad during one of her visits to the internet café, and a pencil – the two items had cost less than two euros and she wanted the twins to practise forming their letters, which she had begun to teach them back home. Some said the girls were too young but Fatima didn’t agree and they had both mastered the writing of their names.
‘I can help you with English,’ she told the little girl. She offered the paper to her. ‘Show me what you know.’
Sondes looked around her, at the sprawling dump that was home for the moment, at the haphazardly placed tents and flattened cardboard boxes that marked each groups’ territory. A stray dog was nosing around a pile of discarded meat bones, sending a cloud of black flies whirling into the tepid air above. She started to write. When she had finished, Sondes sat looking at the piece of paper with wide, tearless eyes.
‘Show me,’ said Fatima, gently. She took the paper out of Sondes’s hands and read what the child had written.
I like park.
I don’t like dog.
I love my country.
A child’s poor, pathetic life in eleven words.
And then, underneath the writing, a picture of a blown-up building, a fire and the small figure of a child with a roughly drawn speech bubble coming out of her mouth: HELP!
Fatima thrust the notepad and pen into Sondes’s lap.
‘You keep it.’ She had to speak quickly, before she lost control. ‘Keep writing, Sondes.’
And then she got up and ran along the jagged path, until she was out of sight behind some bushes by the barrier fence. Holding onto the wire, the view of what lay beyond segmented into diamond shaped sections, she rested her head forward. She and her girls were getting out; Sondes, in all likelihood, was not, at least not any time soon. And when she did, she would face a long and punishing walk where she and her family, such as it was, would encounter obstacles at every turn, would discover their way barred time and time again, would inevitably spend time in other, equally horrendous, camps.
The worst thing of all was that Fatima knew she was going to walk away from Sondes and all her sorrow, was going to put herself and her children above all others. There was simply no other way.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Edie
Edie just wanted the trip over now. The foaming white water, swirling in furious eddies all around the boat, mirrored her muddled mind. The only alleviation from her introspection was provided by one of Patrick’s children – the boy – falling out of the boat, causing much consternation (from Debs) and mockery (from Patrick). Edie kept stumm but she knew he’d done it on purpose. What eight-year-old boy wouldn’t? Surely going overboard was half the fun?