The Invisible Crowd

by Ellen Wiles

  When he showed up outside Kennington Tube, we walked to the park together, talking. It was a perfect day: the sky was blue as blue, the sun was yellow as yellow, the trees were green as green, and our Eritrean flag was everywhere – even small flags on strings were decorating the trees, and one enormous flag was flying from a pole. Most importantly, we Eritreans were out in force. The children were playing on the grass, the women were dressed in bright colours; it was a shame that Jamila could not come that time, because Freweini was ill, but that is how it goes. Some of the children were carrying plates piled with Hembesha bread, offering it around. I watched the eyes of Yonas get big as he took a piece. I told him: ‘There you go – no need to miss our national food any longer, my friend, you have arrived now!’

  So, then the donation box for martyred families came around, and I put in money. Yonas said he did not have cash. I told him how I sponsor a family back home, and send money to them every month; they have got one son who was killed, and one daughter who lost an arm.

  And he said, ‘It is good to help people who are suffering. But how can you even afford it here – it is so expensive, and all my spare money, that I got when I could work, anyway, I had to send to my sister.’ He told me how she was looking after her child, as well as his brother who lost his legs in the struggle, and his grandmother.

  I told him, ‘Do not worry. After a while you will get ILR, and you will be able to earn enough.’ Not that I earn that much now, even, but you have to send home what you can. It is not a choice for us Eritreans – we have to defend our country, and support our martyrs, so we can carry on fighting to keep our freedom.

  But I remember he said to me, ‘Do you think it is still worth all the sacrifice?’

  And I realized, then. I said, ‘Wait – are you part of the opposition?’

  He didn’t answer directly. ‘Our President started off with good intentions,’ he said, ‘but he got greedy for power and now he is ruining our country.’ I sighed. I liked this guy, by instinct, you know, and I did not want to argue. ‘I think a lot about what we fought for in the first place, what our parents fought for,’ he went on. ‘It was not just getting an independent Eritrea, right? It was about our freedom and democracy. But we still have no constitution, no rights, nothing. Of course we are all proud to be Eritrean, but how much does that mean when so many of our people, like my brothers, are maimed or killed, and our whole society is militarized, there is such terrible poverty, and we cannot even speak our minds?’

  It was this big speech, and I could feel my eyes rolling. I wished he had told me this was his attitude before coming along to Martyrs’ Day, of all days! The whole point is respecting the sacrifice of our people. ‘Of course it is worth it,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to lose everything we have already fought for? Unless you want to forget all the thousands of our people who have died in the name of a free Eritrea and give everything back to those Ethiopian bastards? We have got to keep defending our country, until the end.’

  ‘But when is the end?’ he asked. ‘My parents already died. My brother, my girlfriend… and nothing has changed for the better. Everything has got worse – does that not make you angry? Does there not come a point—’

  ‘Hey hey, listen,’ I said, putting my hand onto his shoulder. ‘Melahaye, it sounds like you have had a hard time. I get that. I am sorry about your family. My father died in the struggle as well. And your girlfriend as well – that is really bad luck. But you have to remember the bigger picture. We would not even have our country if it was not for our President. He has been protecting it, despite all the strongest countries in the world being set against us. We have to stay strong, stay together, stay united, because the Ethiopians want to take our country back and the rest of the world does not give a shit. Nobody is going to stick up for Eritrea except Eritreans. We have to keep fighting. As long as it takes.’ There was a long silence, and I knew that he was not agreeing.

  Eventually he said, ‘It has been too long. People cannot live like this any more. We need to stop conscripting everyone, stop censoring everyone, let our people speak and vote freely, let them start businesses to grow our economy, and go online to connect with the world, and trade our goods, so that our people are not stuck in poverty and ignorance.’

  He was starting to make me angry now. At the same time, I was thinking that I should not be too hard on him because I understood his suffering, and I knew he had been separated from his own people for so long, not even speaking his own language. I thought, maybe once he gets integrated into our community, he will see things differently.

  But then he asked me, like he was still making his point, ‘So why did you leave?’

  I nearly punched him. Right? I mean, I had just taken him under my wing, and I did not have to help him out. I brought him here to Martyrs’ Day, to introduce him to the community, I even offered to set him up with a woman, and now he was basically suggesting I was a hypocrite! I mean, sometimes I do feel guilty. I did leave because I did not want to do military service. But I came to the UK to study so that I could help Eritrea better; we need engineers to help build up our infrastructure and extend our railways and roads, so I thought if I study engineering in the UK, then when I come back I can make a real difference. It turned out I could not afford the fees to study engineering in the UK, and I could not get into a university because of my status, but at least I could earn enough to send money home. Also, now I have to look after my wife and my baby girl, so it does not make sense to go back, just to be conscripted. And the economy and education are still not good there, because the government has to focus on defence. But if Freweini goes to an English school, maybe she can become a doctor or something, and help Eritrea that way in the future. So I just told Yonas, ‘I came to study, and then I got married, and my wife wants us to stay,’ and then I put the question back onto him: ‘What about you? Why did you come?’

  He told me: ‘I was put in prison for writing the truth.’

  Well, I have heard that one before. But the thing is, people can write and publish in our country. There are newspapers and books and TV and radio, all supported by our government. Okay, so our government sometimes punishes people who want to broadcast things that could split the people apart and damage our national cause, but they have no choice! We are still fighting a war… Okay, no-war-no-peace, but if our people read articles criticizing our government at a time like this, they will start losing faith and fighting between themselves, and Eritrea will get weaker, and then we will lose. Simple. You can watch any Jackie Chan film: once the enemies start fighting between each other, they are done for. But some Westerners who claim to know all about human rights but who do not actually know or care about the Eritrean situation, they do not understand this. They go on and on about freedom of the press and all that, but it is okay for them to say, from here, when there is no country threatening to take them over. I was going to say that to Yonas, but then our ambassador got onto the podium and started to speak.

  He talked about our fallen heroes, about how it is the duty of all Eritreans in the diaspora to support our martyrs and their families, and to be proud of them, every single day. ‘We should all light candles and plant trees and think of them,’ he said. I nodded, and the rest of the crowd nodded too, and murmured yes. I started to relax. I got that tingle you feel from standing in the middle of your people and thinking about why you all feel the same way, why you all look and sound the same way, why you all want to have a homeland where you can live together again some day in peace and harmony. I looked at Yonas, and I hoped that some of this was affecting him too.

  After that speech, music started. A krar began to play, with a singer, and I clapped my hands… there is nothing better than music, especially Eritrean music, and especially Eritrean music played live, right in front of you! Yonas told me: ‘My mother was a singer.’ I felt sorry for him then. Even after all the shit he had been saying. I mean, music is like your soul, and it is hard for any man to lose his mother.
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br />   By the end of the song a few of my friends had spotted me and came over. I introduced them to Yonas and they all said, ‘A new brother! Welcome!’ But I wanted to tell them: wait, watch out, this guy is on the opposition side. I could have invited him to a party later on, but I knew that he probably would not fit in well, on a day like Martyrs’ Day. So, after a couple more songs, Yonas gave me a wave and left. That was it. He never got to meet Nigisti. His loss, I thought.

  Like I said, at that time I had recently got my ILR, so that was a high point for me. But I have to say, it did not take long before I realized that ILR did not solve all my problems. It was actually still difficult to find a job, the kind with payslips and stuff like that. I was still out of work after one month, and I was starting to panic about paying our rent and I could not afford nappies for Freweini, and our new baby was coming soon, and Jamila was getting stressed out. But then, I got a call from a friend of mine who had got dispersed to Newcastle.

  He had a very bad time up there at first. There was nobody he knew, and hardly any Eritrean community, but then he got ILR as well. And because rent for property is cheaper there, he was able to set up a garage, for car washing and maintenance, and he called to tell me that he had a job going if I wanted it. I told Jamila, and she agreed we had to give it a try, so we packed up and headed north.

  As we were preparing to leave, I texted everybody in London that I knew, and then I came to the name of Yonas in my contacts list. I nearly deleted it. But I was feeling good about the world because of my new job, and at the end of the day he was an Eritrean brother, so I decided I would just text him with my new address. I even said that, if he was ever coming up north, he should come knock on our door.

  Chapter 20: Yonas

  FAILED ASYLUM SEEKER STRANGLED AND DROWNED BAKERY WORKER WHO REFUSED TO MARRY HIM SO HE COULD STAY IN THE UK

  On election day, Yonas turned on the squat’s new-old TV and watched the British people queuing outside local schools with POLLING STATION signs outside, chatting on their phones, and telling the newscasters how they were planning to vote, some as lackadaisically as if they’d only just considered the question while brushing their teeth that morning. One girl said she wasn’t going to vote at all. ‘What’s the point – they’re all the same, aren’t they?’, she asked, apparently without expecting a response.

  That night, he was the only one interested enough to stay up watching as the results rolled in. After a string of blue rosettes, he started to feel a bit panicky, though he reminded himself that it really shouldn’t bother him as both the main parties were pretty much as anti-immigration as each other and this election would likely make no difference to his claim and he’d probably never gain the right to vote himself here, or in any country, for his entire life. But when it came to Great Grimsby, he leaned forward despite himself, searching for Nina, dressed up all smart and willing on her husband… No, he couldn’t see her.

  There he was though, Quentin Lambourne, blond and confident, chatting easily to the people milling around him. A pretty girl stood off to his left, dressed smartly. Was that Alice? Did they, or didn’t they? Surely he would lose, after those newspaper articles. The candidates filed onto the stage and a man stepped up to a lectern to declare himself the returning officer and read out the scores: Marlow, Dave, United Kingdom Independence Party, 8,263; Ackroyd, Jim, Monster Raving Loony Party, 254; Jessop, Anna, Green Party, 6,689; Summers, Tim, Labour Party, 11,521; [loud applause] and finally, Lambourne, Quentin, Conservative Party, 11,561 [even louder applause]. A majority of just forty? He’d really won? Yonas’s new favourite British saying came to mind: by the skin of your teeth.

  He curled up on the sofa in a renewed gloom until the red line on the illustrative graph crept up. Maybe not everybody in the country was thinking what you were thinking after all, he thought, and sat up again. When the final result was declared, he got to his feet and clapped.

  The next morning, he left before breakfast to hunt for some newspapers for the commentary. In twenty minutes he’d found three, one from the Tube station, one from a bus stop, and one from a recycling bin. Back in the kitchen, he read slowly, keeping an eye out for coverage of Great Grimsby. And there it was:

  Great Grimsby was the site of a surprising victory for the Conservatives, after their candidate, Quentin Lambourne, managed to regain the lead after being the subject of controversy. It was alleged, several weeks ago, that Mr Lambourne, whose main campaign pledge was to fight illegal immigration, had been concealing the fact that an illegal immigrant was working for his family. It was later alleged that Lambourne had been having an affair with his campaign manager, Alice Teal, eight years his junior. The candidate strongly denied both allegations, and while they caused his popularity to dip initially, his resilient response apparently caused it to rise again, higher than before, resulting in a narrow majority of just 40 votes over his Labour rival, the incumbent, Gloria Jensen. Lambourne’s wife was not with him while the results were announced, prompting renewed rumours over the alleged affair…

  So, Yonas wasn’t the only one to speculate over Nina’s absence. But the article was probably just grasping at straws – she could well just have been looking after their daughter at home that night, or standing off-screen somewhere. In any case, now that he was an MP, and all that campaign stress was over, she would obviously stay with him.

  A week or so later, he was attempting to wash up dinner plates in the kitchen, cursing his still useless left arm and the state of his life and the tedium of waiting and Gebre for taking so long to get to London and find him, when his phone beeped. Message from: Nina.

  Hi Yonas. Hope you’re well. I’ve been thinking of you. Knowing how closely you keep up with the news, I expect you heard the election results. Just wanted to let you know that Quentin and I have separated. I’m currently living at Mum’s with Clara…

  Would love to see you again. There’s an exhibition I think you’d really like at the Serpentine. An artist of Nigerian descent – Chris Ofili. Would you go with me?

  Nina x

  Yonas read it three times, then put his phone back in his pocket. His gut told him to go, but his head warned otherwise. He had to get used to the idea that Nina was just a character from his past. She’d betrayed him. He did not need her to take him along to galleries now that he knew they were free. And yet nothing had ultimately come of that article her friend wrote. And she had consistently denied knowing about it. Also, she had really been persistent about apologizing and asking to see him, and for no discernible reason other than that she either felt guilty, or liked his company. Or both. He decided to sleep on it and reply in the morning.

  When he awoke, there was a promising swathe of blue sky outside his window and a single, lonely cloud. Everyone else had already gone out. He made himself a cup of strong, sweet tea, and got out his phone to type a reply.

  Thank you for letting me know.

  Yes, I would like that. When shall we go?

  One minute later, she texted back.

  How about tomorrow? 12.30?

  He looked up the Serpentine on his A–Z. It was in Hyde Park, and close to Buckingham Palace, which he thought was probably a place he should see.

  The following morning, the sun was even brighter, so Yonas decided to leave his jacket behind as he stepped out of the squat, and felt almost glad that he couldn’t afford to take public transport. It felt liberating to be walking somewhere with a purpose, to meet someone, to have a change of scene from the neighbourhood.

  As he approached Buckingham Palace, hundreds of people crowding at metal barriers slowed his pace. He was just wondering whether the British were always so enthusiastic about their royal family, when he heard music, drumming, the sounds of a band, and then, over the top of a few heads, he saw a parade of soldiers marching along playing brass instruments, dressed in bright red jackets with huge black furry hats, three times the height of their skulls, fastened by straps that seemed to go across their lower lips, which looked like
the most uncomfortable and ridiculous military attire imaginable. These must be actors, putting on a show for the tourists, mustn’t they? But their marching was precise, and their faces solemn with responsibility. Yonas couldn’t help remembering his own military training, and the strangeness of learning to march, like being taught a dance for the first time. It was disorientating to see the military here in action, even these absurd-looking characters, when he’d envisioned the UK as a peaceful, soldier-free landscape, only ever deploying troops abroad to dispatch rogue leaders of oil-rich states.

  ‘Excuse me, do you know what occasion this is?’ he asked a woman next to him.

  ‘This? It’s the Changing of the Guard!’

  He decided not to ask what this meant. ‘Are they real soldiers?’

  ‘Yeah – with real bears on their heads and all!’

  Yonas felt like he was part of a mass re-enactment of the British Empire. The hundreds of people watching seemed to be loving it – but he reckoned, from the smattering of languages he could hear, that most were tourists. He wondered if the Queen were sitting right now next to one of the many windows in the palace. Was she lapping up the glory, or was she thoroughly bored of the spectacle by now, and wishing they would all just leave her alone? Would the British people ever rise up and knock their monarchy off this pedestal? In a way, it didn’t really matter, as long as they still had a parliament and a legal system, Yonas thought. As long as nobody was being forced to dress up in military garb and march. The bears probably didn’t have much choice though.