Confessions

by Loren Edizel

  The boy turned crimson when he caught my gaze. I smiled at him and nodded, “Listen to your mother, kid. Who would you rather be in life: the one who litters and walks away or the one who sweeps it all up?” I winked at him and continued sweeping, turning my back to them. There were a few moments of silence. I thought I had suddenly turned deaf; even cars were quiet. Then I heard the woman’s heels clicking on the pavement as they hurried away.

  I worked my way back home feeling heavy and slow. I sat under the linden tree and lit a Bafra. My wife came home and asked me if I had watered the tomatoes. I said no. She said, “well?” I was in no mood to worry about her blasted tomatoes, and I told her so. She mumbled something unpleasant and disappeared into the kitchen. I lit another Bafra. A while later my son came into the yard bringing with him the smell of the tobacco factory. “For heaven’s sake, go change your clothes, you stink!” I shouted, feeling guilty even as I did. He retreated into the darkness of the kitchen and never came back out. We sat outside quietly; the linden tree, the tomatoes, bell peppers and basil, the three sparrows flying from branch to branch, the clothesline with my wife’s faded, flowery blue shalvar hanging from it, and myself. It got darker. The lights came on in the house. Clanging pots and pans mixed with voices of women and children from all around the neighbourhood filled the quiet yard before spreading into the fresh night air. I rose and walked into the warm kitchen to the sweet smell of eggs cooked in tomato sauce. My wife and son were already eating quietly. I sat down and dipped my bread into the fragrant sauce.

  A Confession

  IT HAPPENED a few years ago. I was on my way to visit family, sitting at one of the cafés in the Amsterdam Schiphol waiting for a connecting flight a few hours away, chewing a leathery croissant and sipping an overpriced espresso while I scribbled in the worn notebook I carry when I travel, lest I’m caught with an idea doomed to evaporate by the time paper and pen come handy. Some ideas are worth forgetting about; I think the one I was scribbling down after a seven-hour flight from Toronto was that kind. Still, I wrote, out of a sense of habit, duty, and boredom. There were five hours ahead, and I had already been to Amsterdam a few times, visited Rembrandt’s paintings, admired the canals and tulips, and did not feel inclined to do it all over again. I sat on the café stool, imbibing the hollow sounds of the vast airport echoing from all directions into a loud metallic hum with occasional garbled instructions falling off distant speakers while I sipped the bitter double-espresso. It was seeping slowly into my parched tongue, rendered stale from sleeplessness and cabin food. I asked for a bottle of water to wash it down. I dislike these in-between moments when the small comforts of life one comes to count on effectively disappear and you are rendered dependent on a public washroom filled with strangers in which to brush your teeth; taking out your soggy toothbrush and miniature toothpaste from your handbag while holding on to your precious water bottle to clean your mouth. The intimate and personal get sucked away in transit, leaving you to face the clumsy business of being human. I was holding my pen in one hand and the bottle in the other when a man in his mid-thirties approached me. Before he even opened his mouth, I thought with dismay he was either one of those desperately dull people unable to stand being quiet for a few hours, or an unshaven Don Juan who was going to throw me a pick-up line in the hopes of getting me to spend a few hours with him in a hotel room.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any other available seat. Do you mind if I take the one next to you?” His face shone with sweat. The white T-shirt partly hidden by his black jacket seemed soaked, as if he had run to the café. I nodded in response and gathered my things to make room for him, avoiding eye contact. If you want a man to leave you alone, you avoid his eyes. Sometimes it works. I was hoping it would. This one did not seem eager to start chatting; he sat down and started looking around, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. His lack of attention awakened my curiosity. Under the guise of thinking thoughts with my pen in hand, I started looking at him, wondering about the sweat and whether he would do something to get rid of it. As if reading my thoughts, he suddenly turned to me, “Sorry about being so sweaty. Do I smell?”

  “Ah … I don’t think so, no…. Not at all.” Embarrassed, I looked back down at my notebook.

  “Could you give me your small plastic bag?” he asked, pointing to the bag next to me that contained a couple of boxes of chocolate. “I hate putting sweaty clothes with the clean ones.” He started rummaging in his backpack. I obliged, transferring the chocolates into the larger bag containing a bottle of scotch. “Can I leave my stuff here while I go change?” He gestured toward the washroom sign a little farther away.

  “No. I don’t feel comfortable being responsible for your backpack. Do you mind taking it with you?”

  “Then save my seat, will you? I’d hate to lose it. I need to sit a little.”

  I piled my duty-free bags on his seat when he took his backpack. He hurried away, lifting his right hand and waving vaguely in thanks.

  When he returned wearing a fresh, dry T-shirt and a clean face, he thanked me. Once again I gathered my things to make space for him.

  “I have this sweat problem. It happens all of a sudden, for no apparent reason. I get soaked. So, I carry extra clothing in the backpack wherever I go. A real drag, but, what to do? Can I have a cappuccino and a turkey sandwich please, and a bottle of water? Thanks.” The girl who took his order moved away and he leaned back into his chair. “Have you ever published anything?” he asked in the same breath.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aren’t you a writer?”

  “How would you figure?”

  “It’s quite obvious.” He gave me an impatient look.

  “Ah … sorry, I don’t get it. How is that?”

  “Pen, notebook. Looking busy with ideas when you’re actually having none,” he smiled. “Published anything?”

  “Yes, in fact. And, what do you mean about ideas, ‘when you’re actually having none’?”

  “You haven’t turned a page in over half an hour. You wrote three sentences, to be exact, and I have to say they’re going nowhere.”

  I instinctively shut my notebook and prepared to leave. “That’s very indiscreet of you.”

  “Stay. Please.”

  “What for?” I tried to sound aloof as I stuffed my notebook into my large handbag.

  “Because you could walk away with a story, if you stayed.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m going to tell it to you.”

  “You seem a pretty self-assured fellow. Why don’t you write your own? You’ve just finished telling me my ideas were going nowhere.”

  “Admit it: you’re bored and have nowhere to go. I wish I could write my own story. I just can’t. How long do you have before your next flight?”

  “Too long,” I sighed. I was not going to tell him my destination. He never asked.

  “One thing: you must promise me not to use any names when you write the story. And you don’t describe my physique. You don’t give me a name, you don’t mention my accent. You don’t make up a place that will make the reader think of a particular geography.”

  His order had arrived in the meantime. He took out some money and paid the waitress. “Pardon me for a moment. I’m starving.” He bit into his sandwich, chewing morsels energetically. I waited for him to finish, my curiosity finally piqued. He quickly wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I can tell you’re a decent person. I need you to promise all those things.” He took a swig from his water bottle.

  “Okay.”

  “Once I finish telling the story, we each go our own way. You never ever try to find out who I am, where I live and all that.”

  “Should I be scared of you? I’m starting to feel nervous.”

  “I’m no danger to you. I do wonder if your writing’s any good.”

  “Passable, I hope,” I
said meekly.

  He quickly glanced around. The first couple of times he did it, I had thought it was a tic of sorts. I leaned close to him and said in a very low voice, “You’re on the run, aren’t you?”

  He picked up his cappuccino cup and lifted it from the saucer. “Do you want to hear the story?”

  I nodded. He finished the coffee in a couple of gulps and placed the cup back on the saucer noisily.

  “I worked for a humanitarian agency. Many years, all over the map. Building schools, homes, helping set up farming cooperatives, distributing food, clothes to refugee camps, the works. There’s tons to do, and it never ends. I joined after I finished university and never went back to get a regular job. This became my life. I was keeping journals. I was going to write about all my experiences someday, when I had run out of steam. Had stacks of notebooks. That’s how I recognized you.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Record-keeping can be dangerous. You learn that in my line of work.”

  He looked around and said in a very low voice, “While I talk to you, you could smile once in a while. Smile and nod,” he said looking into my eyes.

  I smiled reluctantly and looked down to hide the fear in my eyes.

  “I’m not sure I want to hear this story,” my face was frozen into a fake smile.

  “Make up your mind now.”

  “Why do you want to tell me this dangerous stuff?”

  “You need a story. I need someone to tell it to. When I spotted you, I knew you could be trusted. If you’re not a good writer, you’re at least a good listener. I can tell that much.”

  I nodded for him to go on with his story.

  “I was stationed in this dusty town. They’re always dusty, those troubled places, no matter where in the world. There was a refugee camp in the outskirts; hundreds of people, some in tents, some not. A lot of women and children. Usually, the men are either at war, or were rounded up and killed before. Women get raped, but some make it to the camp somehow. Children also. Miraculously. The people living in refugee camps are basically the lucky few, who did not die of starvation, or beatings, or gunfire and gang rapes. You get the idea.”

  I nodded.

  “There were doctors volunteering. Peacekeepers, to protect the refugees. Supposedly anyhow…” He took out a large white handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. “Is it getting warm in here?”

  I shrugged. I actually felt chilled from the air conditioning.

  “There was an orphaned boy. Eight or nine years old, probably. We arrived at the camp within days of each other. I was there first. I was helping with the distribution of food. I was also helping the doctor any way I could. There were women in labour, dying old men, malnourished children that needed to be nursed back to health, trucks to unload. He arrived in a truck. His parents and sisters had been murdered in front of his very eyes, I found out. He had been hiding in the kitchen cupboard and saw everything through the slits in the cupboard doors. He sat motionless, in a catatonic state, long after the truck had stopped and everyone had descended. I got on the truck and gathered him up in my arms to bring him down. His gaze was eaten up by darkness. I put him in the makeshift hospital tent and motioned for the doctor to come over. He shook his head. ‘I’ll start an IV. He’s dehydrated.’ He gathered his equipment, looked for a vein, and poked. The boy did not even wince. His face was turned aside, and he was staring off into space, eyes open and not seeing anyone, anything. I found myself tapping his hand to soothe him while the doctor continued to look for a vein that was not rendered too small from dehydration. He did not seem to need the tap, but I did. Hundreds of ruined children in that camp…. It was this one who tore at my heart with that disappearing gaze of his. The doctor finally found a vein, the IV started dripping into those shrunken conduits, and I remained there beside him. I was going to help him back to health, and out of there. I was going to go back to teaching and he would live to be a hundred years old. You know, I sat there, half-elated, half-disheartened. Was it even possible to nurse a child back from the horror he had just witnessed?

  “He fell asleep. He slept for a very long time hooked to that IV. Once in a while his eyes would open and then he would drift off once more. Days, I think. I told the doctor that this boy would have a proper future and grandchildren someday. He shook his head sadly, the tired doctor, as if to say I was a raving lunatic. ‘This kind of life gets to everyone sooner or later,’ he seemed to imply, ‘and you have lost your mind before I.’”

  Sweat was gathering on his forehead in the form of drops over his eyebrows. He took out his handkerchief once again and pressed it on his face.

  “Are you all right?” I moved on my stool a little, remembering where we were.

  He put his humid handkerchief back into his pocket.

  “A few days passed, perhaps a week or even more in that motionless state. Eyes would open and close mechanically without any sign of recognition in them and I kept watch, neglecting my duties elsewhere. I kept wondering if he spoke any English at all. If not, how were we to communicate? Surely I would find translators in the camp, but beyond that, how would I make him trust me?

  “Then, it happened. He opened his eyes while my hand was waving over his head chasing a fly and looked straight into my eyes. He just kept looking — a bold, sustained glare. I thought I should talk, just talk, saying anything. I told him my name, told him he was at the camp, safe, and if he needed anything to let me or the doctor know. I told him I worked there. I rattled on senselessly, wanting him to hear my voice, recognize it, and if not understand any of my words at least hear in my tone that I cared. I told him to wait there, as if he could even go anywhere, and rushed into the camp to find a woman who could translate the things I was telling him. The woman came, with her baby in her arms, and leaned over him, said something. The boy did not respond. He looked away from her and straight at me. I imagined he wanted me to send her away. I thanked her for coming all the way there, gave her some money and told her I would call her back if I needed her. He had already made contact with me without saying a word. I ran to the doctor and spilled it all to him as he nodded, his face showing irritation. He had much work to do, and if I wanted to play saviour to one child, he had no time for all this blabbering, he seemed to say. I asked him if he disapproved that I wanted to make a difference; all these people at the camp, after feeding them and bandaging their wounds and curing their dysentery, what did we really do for them, I asked. We either sent them back into that misery, or we moved on. We were the bandage people, but their lives lay ahead of them. Who actually gave a damn to see them through there, to educate these kids, keep them well-fed and clean and give them hope that the nightmare would end? This sort of charity was no help at all, I said angrily to him. I want my actions to matter for once, I almost shouted. He ran his hands through his thinning hair and pushed his glasses farther back on his nose.

  “‘Listen pal, I am here as you are. God knows I could have chosen to be a physician back home, making a good living in the safety of an air-conditioned office with proper equipment, instead of this dusty fucked-up place that smells of shit. I’m here because I want to make a difference too. My job is to save people’s lives, not provide social alternatives. I’m a doctor and that’s all I can do. I can’t remember the last time I had a decent shower. Now if you can’t help me here, leave me alone; I have work to do.’

  “I had never heard the doctor speak this way. I apologized for interrupting his work and busied myself beside him for the rest of the day, feeling guilty for having neglected my duties over this child.

  “The boy got stronger every day and he was now able to walk around, sit, and eat. He did not speak to anyone and if someone happened to ask him a question, he just stared and moved on. I babbled senselessly to him whenever I got the chance. I found some old children’s magazines in his language and gave them to him to see if he would read them. He placed them
beside his cot and left them there for a long time, without so much as rearranging them or moving their position. He took to walking around the camp, hands in pockets in his tattered clothes, looking around, taking it all in. I felt he understood some of the things I was telling him in English from the way his gaze would change and deepen, but there was no way of knowing for sure.

  “One day, he was making his silent rounds again, and I went to the tent to find the magazines shuffled around; one had been folded open and bent, indicating that he had been reading that page. When you’ve seen the things I have, your heart shatters when you least expect it. I wept. The kid found me like that, crouching, with my arm around my eyes sobbing beside his comic books. He stood there, waiting for me to see him, I suppose. When I did not, he put a small hand on my shoulder and shook it gently. I looked up and those large deep eyes were looking at me like those of an old man’s. ‘Why you cry?’ he asked.

  “‘Nothing,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m tired and sleepless,’ wiping my face. ‘So you like these?’ I showed him the cartoons.

  “He nodded.

  “Conversations that followed were laconic, they did not necessarily lead to information; they were more like excuses to hear each others’ voices in that racket, be reassured.

  “He was afraid of knives. If one caught his attention on a table or in a man’s hands, he would start trembling, fear spreading into his entire being like a fever. One night, I told him of my town, of the lakes and parks and mountains. I asked him if he wanted to go there someday, go to school and I could adopt him. I had to mix his language and English, and make a lot of gestures as I spoke to make sure he understood me. He did the same. He only spoke a few words of English, but he was an energetic mime and his gestures had the economy of a bright mind. I gathered he no longer knew where his extended family might be. What were his choices really? ‘We take airplane?’ he asked pointing at the blue sky. I nodded. He moved his wrist and asked, ‘When?’ ‘Soon, hopefully,’ I smiled. The sky, the dusty ground, the tents and sacks of rice, everything was penetrated by brilliant golden sunlight and rendered starkly beautiful.”