How hard it is to tear up old boundaries, and how easy to set up new ones. Andriy watches with a heavy heart as the ferry pulls away from the dock. In addition to the sadness of parting, there is the sadness of knowing that he is on the far side of this new boundary across Europe. It will be a long time before he can work freely in England; even in Russia, now, Ukrainians are illegals. Will Ukraine soon be the new Africa? He puts his arm around Emanuel’s shoulder.
“Let’s go.”
They walk across the harbor, where a crowd is gathering to greet a ferry boat coming in. Andriy stops to watch, remembering his own arrival almost a month ago. Where is the innocent carefree young man with terrible trousers and a heart full of hope who disembarked from that boat? Well, the trousers are still the same.
A little ripple runs through the crowd. Two figures who had been standing together move away from each other in opposite directions. He spots a shaven shiny head cutting toward the terminal—Vitaly—and he remembers the £65 he still has in his pocket after filling up the tank with petrol. They’d better get going before he sees them. In the other direction a line of darkness opens up as the crowd gives way to a dumpy black-clad figure walking fast with his head down. Andriy knows at once that it is Vulk. His heartbeat quickens. Should he go up and accost him? Or should he be friendly and try to wheedle information out of him?
In the end he does neither—he just goes up and asks very directly, in English, “Please tell me, where is Irina?”
Vulk looks startled. He doesn’t recognize Andriy.
“Irina? Who is it?”
Andriy feels a red-hot surge of anger. This monster who tried to take her didn’t even ask her name. She was just a bit of anonymous flesh.
“Ukrainian girl from strawberry picking. You remember? You took in you car?”
Vulk looks around shiftily. “That Ukrainian girl is not vit me.”
“So where she is?”
“Who are you?” says Vulk.
Thinking fast, Andriy puts his hands in his pockets, narrows his eyes, and tries to put a Vitaly-like expression on his face. “I am from Sheffield. I know someone who will pay good money for this girl.”
Vulk gives him a canny look: This is a language he understands. “This is valuable high-class girl. I too vill give good money for it.”
“I am expert in finding disappeared people. My friend”—he indicates Emanuel—“is very skill in track and footprint.”
“Mooli bwanji?” Emanuel beams.
“And we have dog.”
Dog woofs.
“If you find it you vill tell me?”
“How much you pay?”
“How much is pay other man?”
“Six thousand. Six thousand pound, not dollar.”
Vulk whistles. “That is good price. Listen, ve vill make a business. I vill give three thousand, plus percentage of enning.”
“What is enning?”
“Ven it is enning money, you vill get percentage. Good money, my friend. This girl vill be enning every night five hundred, six hundred, even more. Maybe even ve vill take it to Sheffield. Exclusive massage. Plenty up there. Executive elite VIP clientele only. English man like Ukrainian girl. Good clean no-boyfriend girl like this one, first time is man take it pay five hundred.” Then he pauses, shakes his grizzled ponytail. His face softens. “No. First time Vulk vill take it. I lose a money but I heff a loff. Hrr. Good loff.”
He smiles a wet tobacco-stained smile. Andriy feels the blood beating in his head. He clenches his fists by his sides—this is not the time to lash out. He forces a smile.
“But this girl—this high-class girl. She will not stay with us. She will run.”
“Aha, it vill stay, no problem. I heffa friend,” he winks. “Friend mekka little visit to mamma house in Kiev, say to mamma Irina no good verk you family get big trouble. Maybe somebody get dead. No problem. Every girl stay ven I tell it this. In two three year ve vill be millionaire. And one more good advantage is this—ven it has time for rest, ven other man is not in, ve can enjoy.”
Pressure is building up in Andriy’s chest like a steam hammer. Control yourself, Palenko. Stay in control. His throat so tight he can hardly talk, he asks, “What percentage I get?”
“Fifty-fifty,” says Vulk. “Better money in girl than in strawberry picker. Strawberry soon finish. Girl carry on. One year, two year, three year. Always good income. Little cost. No wage to pay, only food. And clothings. Hrr. Sexy clothings.”
“Okay. Fifty-fifty is good business.”
Vulk gives him his mobilfon number and describes a grassy picnic spot on the Sherbury Road, between Canterbury and Ashford. Andriy knows the place exactly.
“She is there?”
“Was there. I was look. Now I think she gone. Or dead. Maybe dog will find it.”
“Where she can go?”
Vulk shrugs.
“Maybe London. Maybe Dover. I still looking. I heffa passport for it.”
“You have passport of Irina?”
“Without passport it cannot go far. Maybe on other strawberry farm. Somebody telephone to me yesterday from Sherbury, near this picnic place. Ukrainian girl no pepper. Maybe is same one. I go look. If it is same one, I vill heff it. Or maybe other nice Ukrainian girl vill come to Vulk. Make loff. Make business. I vill give it passport. I heffa plenty.”
five bathrooms
sherbury Country Strawberries was altogether a different kind of operation from Leapish’s ramshackle strawberry farm. The work was better, the pay was better, the trailers were better. There were facilities—a separate barn with a Ping-Pong table, a common room, a TV, a phone. Even the strawberries were better, or at least they looked more even in size and color. And yet each morning since I’d been here, I’d woken with a feeling of emptiness, like a big blank inside me where something vital was missing.
Maybe it was just the scale of the place—fifty or so trailers parked side by side in rows so close together that it was more like a city than a farm. You couldn’t see the woods or the horizon, and in the morning it wasn’t birds that woke you, it was lorries, and men clattering around with wooden pallets in the yard. You couldn’t hear yourself think because people were always talking or playing their radios. My head was full of questions, and I needed a bit of peace and quiet.
No, it definitely wasn’t that Ukrainian miner I was missing. There were plenty of Ukrainian boys here, and none of them was of any interest whatsoever. Okay, I know it seems snobby, but these Ukrainians were not my type. They just wanted to play pop music and talk about stupid things like who was going to bed with whom. Oksana, Lena, and Tasya kept saying, Hey, Irina, you’ve made a real hit with Boris. That pig. I’ve been keeping out of his way. Sex for entertainment doesn’t interest me—I’m still waiting for the one to come along.
Mother must have thought Papa was the one. The sad thing is, she still does. Last night I phoned her from the pay phone, reversing the charges. I didn’t want to alarm her, so I just said I’d left that farm and I was on another one. Mother started crying and telling me to come home, and how lonely she was. I snapped at her to shut up and let me be. No wonder Papa had left home if she went on at him like that, I said. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but it just came out. When I put the phone down I started crying too.
Today after work I was sitting on my bunk trying to read a book in English, but I couldn’t concentrate. I’d been crying off and on all day for no reason. What was wrong with me? Irina, you should phone Mama again. You should say sorry. Yes, I know, but… I put on my jeans and my jumper, because it had already turned cool, and I walked out to the pay phone. I asked someone for some change. There were a few people milling about there. Then I saw him.
There was no mistaking him, even from behind: the fake-leather jacket; the ratty ponytail. He was standing at the top of the steps, knocking at the door of the office and peering in. My stomach lurched. Was my imagination playing tricks on me? I closed my eyes and opened them again. He was still the
re. Maybe everywhere I look from now on I will see him. No, don’t think like that. If you let yourself think like that, he’s got you. Just run. Run.
Dear Sister
I am still in Dover where I have become entrapped in the passages of Time but I have some tip-top news for you.
Yesterday while I was awaiting for Andree at the pier Vitaly that tricksome mzungu from the strawberry trailer suddenly appeared and started urging us to travel into a different town for the slaughter of chickens. Then a great Multitude thronged around shouting and calling out in tongues some yearned also to partake of the slaughter and some cursed Vitaly and despised his name. One man cried out that Vitaly is a moldavian toy boy and I committed this saying to memory for I wonder what it means. But when we went to the chicken place Andree made an outstanding speech about Self Respect saying there are some things you should not do even for money it was like Our Lord chasing the moneylenders from the temple. So the chickens were saved and we brought back with us Toemash and Martyr and Yola who had been hidden there and returned them to Poland. And I was very sad to say good-bye to them especially Toemash and his guitar.
In Dover we met the Spawn of Satan and Andree asked him the wherebeing of the beauteous strawberry picker Irina for he is beloved of this lady and he says we must find her before the Spawn can seize her and exercise his Foul Dominion over her. So speeding up her Salvation we drove once again through this country which is as green as the plateau of Zomba with many thickets of trees and flowering bushes crowning the hilltops. Then Andree enquired about my country and I told him our hills and plains are outstanding in beauty and our people are renowned for the warmest hearts in Africa and everything is broken. Your country sounds very much like Ukraine he said in a brotherly voice. I told him that in the dry season everything is covered in red dust. In Ukraine the dust is black he said.
Andree is a good man with a heart full of brotherly love. Although he has a woman’s name and his English is feeble apart from Toby Makenzi he is the best mzungu I have ever met. Maybe he has an African heart also his dog. Also he is an outstanding driver for he delivered us from many perils aided by the intercession of Saint Christopher whose medallion I always wear upon my neck which was given me by Father Augustine with a prayer to bring me safely back to Zomba.
Sometimes I dream of the beauties of Zomba and the good Nuns of the Immaculate Conception at Limbe nearby who took me in after our parents died and our sisters went working in Lilongwe and you my oldest proudest dearest sister won your Nursing Scholarship in Blantyre and I was beloned. Then good father Augustine became like a father to me and before I came to England he spoke to me of the Priesthood with gentle words and kindness saying I would make a tip-top priest and I could go to the seminary at Zomba to learn the Mysteries which is very desirous to me for I hunger and thirst for Knowledge. And he said you will say Goodbye to Death for death is only of the body not the soul and you will sing in the Choir of Angels.
But Goodbye to Death means also Goodbye to Canal Knowledge which is an earthly delight and this is why I am turmoiled in my heart dear sister. For I have a Decision to make.
So as we drove along I asked my mzungu friend Andree do you understand the heart of God? He replied no one understand this and if a problem cannot be solve why waste time to worry about it? Then he brought us into the same leafsome place where we stopped once before and we ate like the Disciples of bread and fish. But I was still unsatisfied and I inquired Andree brother did you ever experience canal knowledge?
After some whiling he said Emanuel why for you asking me this question? And I put my turmoil before him for I said if I choose canal knowledge I will walk in the valley of the shadow of death. Andree shook his head and in a voice like a man possessed he said friend why you asking all this big question? Why you always talking about canal? Why you always thinking about death? You too young for this thought. Today is only one big question for us—where is Irina???
I AM DOG I RUN I SNIFF MY MAN SAYS GO SEEK SMELLS OF RIBBON-ON-NECK FEMALE I SNIFF I FIND A TREE PLACE WITH THIS FEMALE SMELL BUT SHE IS NOT THERE I FIND STINKING MAN-FOOD PAPER WITH FEMALE SMELL I TELL MY MAN HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND RUN SEEK SNIFF HE SAYS I SNIFF I RUN I AM DOG
Why is this useless dog running around in circles sniffing at old bits of paper and cigar stubs on the ground instead of following her trail? Does it mean she is no longer here? Andriy feels a cold breath on his heart. What was that other strawberry farm Vulk had mentioned—Sherbury? Maybe he should take a look there.
The turning to Sherbury is a few kilometers up the road. As the lane starts to climb, he slows down and eases carefully into first to take the hill. They pass the pull-off with the row of poplars, and there, down below, he sees their strawberry field, the prefab with its locked door, the men’s trailer, even the women’s shower screen he built. It all seems so familiar, and yet so distant, like childhood places revisited. At the bottom of the field is the gate where a different, more carefree Andriy Palenko used to watch the passing cars and dream of a blonde in a Ferrari.
If she is still alive and hiding, he thinks, maybe this is where she would come. He turns back and drives in through the gate, parking up by the prefab. The field looks neglected. It’s obvious that no one has been picking these strawberries for a while; many are overripe and rotting on the ground. Weeds are springing up between the lines of plants.
Emanuel jumps down and fetches all the bowls from their trailer, and working up from the bottom of the field, starts to fill them with strawberries. For every berry he puts into a bowl, he puts one into his mouth. Should he try and stop him? Never mind. If he has a bit of looseness in the bowels later on, it’s not the end of the world.
Someone has propped their men’s trailer back up on its bricks, but it has a desolate and abandoned air—dead flies beneath the windows, cobwebs, a smell of must and staleness that he never noticed when they lived there. He looks at his old bunk, the dirty and sweat-stained mattress. He never noticed that either. The Andriy Palenko who used to sleep here was a different man—he has already grown out of him, like a pair of too-tight shoes. It has happened so quickly.
Hm. Here are some signs of recent activity: a couple of glasses in the sink with a faint whiff of alcohol in them and a used condom on the floor at the side of the double bed. Some secret lovers have been meeting here. He smiles. Taking the condom, he wraps it in some paper and puts it in the bin before Emanuel spots it. But Emanuel has swung himself up into his old hammock and lies there with a blissful look on his face, swaying gently. Just for a moment, Andriy stretches out on the double bed and gazes through the window up the field to where the women’s trailer used to be. A misty feeling comes over him. He closes his eyes.
Holy bones! Suddenly it is a quarter past six! He shakes Emanuel awake.
“Come, my friend. Let’s go!”
To speed things up, they uncouple their trailer from the Land Rover and leave it to collect later. Quietly, without telling Emanuel, he takes the five-bullet gun from his backpack and stows it in his trouser pocket.
The strawberry farm at Sherbury is only a couple of kilometers farther on. It seems more like a factory than a farm, a soulless industrial place with big packing sheds and lorries waiting to be loaded. There are no strawberry fields here, but behind a low wire fence is a field full of trailers, dozens of them, anonymous oblong boxes parked as close together as cars in a parking lot. He pulls the Land Rover into the yard and looks around.
The brick building at the end of the yard has some steps up to a door marked OFFICE. It is closed, but people are hanging around down below. He approaches them at random—“I am looking for a Ukrainian girl. Her name is Irina.” They direct him to one trailer after another, jabbering away about who lives where, keeping him waiting. Come on, come on. Time is passing and they’re getting nowhere.
Then he sees it—he is sure it was not there a few minutes ago—the gleaming black curvaceous dark-windowed chrome-barred leather-seated four-by-four, crouching half h
idden at the corner of the barn like a predator waiting to pounce. A pulse starts hammering in his head.
“Emanuel—you start at that side of the field. I start at this side. Knock on every door.”
There are Ukrainians, Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, everybody seems to be here. Some people know Irina, some even worked with her today. Yes, definitely the same girl. Pretty. Long dark hair. Not sure which trailer she is in. Come on, come on, you idiots. Now all his pulses are hammering. He races frantically from one trailer to another. Eventually he knocks on the door of number thirty-six.
“Yes,” says the girl, “Irina lives here. Irina Blazhko. But she went out somewhere. And Lena, too. Maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Lena went out for cigarettes,” says another girl. “I don’t know where Irina went.”
They lead Andriy and Emanuel to the common room in the barn, where the cigarette machine and pay phone box are installed, but neither Lena nor Irina is there. A crowd of strawberry pickers has gathered, and now they’re all milling around looking for the missing girls in the trailer field, the packing shed, the barn, the yard. There is an air of excitement and chaos. Everyone wants to know what’s going on. Then he notices something that makes his heart stop—the black four-by-four has disappeared from the yard.
Is he too late? Where have they gone? Maybe they’re already on their way back to Dover. Or maybe, yes—the same place they stopped for lunch. Good place for make possibility. That’s where Vulk will have taken them. He tries not to think about what might be happening to the girls. Focus on what’s possible. Just get there quick. He’s glad he left the trailer behind.
“Let’s go! Let’s go, Emanuel! Dog! Dog!”
The useless animal has disappeared. He’ll have to come back for it later.
Without the trailer to slow them down, it takes less than twenty minutes to get back to the grassy picnic place. He stops a few meters short of the turning, then inches forward, as slowly and quietly as he can. Yes, as he guessed, the black four-by-four is there, parked a little way up the track, beyond the ruined picnic table, pulled well in under the overhanging branches of a tree. He brings the Land Rover in, so they are blocking the exit. Wait—are you crazy, Andriy Palenko? This type’s a killer. But the comforting weight of the gun on his thigh gives him courage. He jumps down silently. Emanuel jumps down too. Together, keeping close to the bushes, they sneak down the track.
Strawberry Fields Page 17