“Thank you,” I mumble, touched by the praise. “You’re right. I hate medicine. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less.” I hesitate then confess. “I lied on my application because I thought what I actually love to do isn’t impressive enough.”
“Hah,” Delphine laughs softly. “So what is it that you really love?”
“Something that doesn’t feel big enough, important enough,” I say. The rest of my team is emptying the van, illuminated in the headlights as they carry and organize. Kai hands out the supplies to waiting arms. Winnie hefts two crates of fruit with ease while Abel unloads pallets of bottled water and stacks them like a game of Jenga.
“I love to bake. I love everything about it—measuring the ingredients, working the dough, the smell of tasty things baking in the oven. I love giving people something that I made with my own hands, something that makes them happy. But it feels foolish to love baking when things like this are happening all around me.” I gesture out across the camp. “I can’t bake cookies while the world burns.”
In the glow of the headlights, Milo stops and juggles oranges for a group of children who clap and laugh delightedly.
“Eh.” Delphine tips her head, a Gallic gesture of polite disagreement. “It’s true, a cookie is a small thing, but many small things make the world a brighter and happier place, do they not? Perhaps I am biased. In France we take our bread and pastry very seriously. It is the stuff of life. It brings people together around the table, it sustains our bodies and our souls. That is no light matter. It is the essence of a good life, non? I think these small things can change the world for good.”
I’ve never thought of it that way, that food can bring people together, nourish body and soul. Small things can change the world for good. I like that phrase. It rings true.
“Hmm.” I tip my head and consider her words. For the first time in a long time I wonder if perhaps baking isn’t too flippant, just a pastime or a hobby while I’m waiting to discover my real calling in life. Maybe there’s more to it than I’ve realized. Could it really be enough?
* * *
Two days later we have happy news to deliver.
“Congratulations.” Delphine straightens and drapes her stethoscope around her neck. She grins at Maryam, who is perched on the edge of the examination table. “You are well enough to travel now.”
Yousef beams and Maryam claps her hands excitedly when he translates Delphine’s pronouncement.
“It is Maryam’s birthday on Friday,” he explains. “We hope to leave on a bus before then. It would be a great gift knowing we are on our way to our new home.”
I smile at their excitement. It feels good to be able to share in some happy news. The last few days since Ethan’s departure have passed in a monotonous blur. The camp numbers continue to swell with more people arriving every day and only a bus or two leaving sporadically. The line outside the medical tent stretches long at all hours of the day. I put my head down and work until I am numb from exhaustion, glad for the chance to not think about what I have done, glad to ignore my bruised heart.
I have not seen Kai except in passing. Once or twice I look up from a hasty meal to find his eyes on me, his expression wary and opaque, but he does not approach me, and I do not seek him out. I have made my decision. I need to figure things out for myself first. Kai is . . . too tempting. It would be so easy to just fall head over heels in love with him, but then I could end up back where I started, piggybacking on someone else’s dreams. I have to make my own way first, and then I can focus on matters of the heart.
Chapter 40
“Yousef, Maryam!” Early Friday morning I spot the pair standing exactly where I left them last night. I shift the white bakery box in my arms and wave. It’s been three days since Delphine cleared them to travel, and they have been waiting in the long line every day since, hoping for space on a bus to the Austrian border. A few times a day I stop to chat with them, spending a few minutes trying to make them laugh and relieving the tedium of their long hours of inactivity.
But this morning is different. It is Maryam’s birthday, and I have a surprise for her. Holding the cardboard box with its precious cargo, I head toward the siblings and stifle a yawn. I was up late using the restaurant kitchen (with the hostel owner’s permission) to make a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting from ingredients I scrounged up at Tesco.
Even using unfamiliar units of measure and an oven marked in centigrade, I loved being back in the kitchen. I stifle another yawn. Definitely need some tea at the break, if I can make it that long without caffeine.
When I reach them, Maryam throws her arms around me, hugging me fiercely.
“Happy birthday, lovely girl. It will be your turn soon.” I kiss her cheek. They are only a dozen or so people back from the front of the line. Surely they will get a seat on the next bus out.
“Look.” Yousef points to the three buses that rolled down the lane early this morning. A handful of policemen in navy blue uniforms and jaunty blue caps guard the buses while others gesture people forward in line and direct them to find seats inside. Two are already full, and the last one is being loaded now. “They will leave for the Austrian border as soon as they are full.” Yousef looks hopeful. “Perhaps we go today, a birthday present for Maryam.”
Maryam nods excitedly, her eyes eager.
The line inches forward a little.
“I bet you’ll get on today,” I encourage them. Now there are just two groups in front of them. The last bus looks like it is filling fast, but surely there will be space for the two of them. A cluster of young men are allowed to board. Now they are second in line. The young family in front of them is allowed onto the bus.
“We are next,” Yousef says, beaming with relief. “Finally.”
The police officer gestures them forward, and Maryam squeals with excitement. Yousef gives their names and documents to the officer, who glances at the bus behind him, then frowns and shakes his head. “No room,” he says, pointing back toward the camp. “You wait.”
“But we’ve been waiting for three days,” Yousef protests. “We are going to Sweden. Our sister is there.”
The officer shakes his head, granite-faced, and gestures back toward the camp. “No more room. You wait.”
Beside me, Maryam bursts into tears, covering her face with her hands. They’ve already been here far longer than anyone else because of her illness. Now there will be another interminable delay, and on her birthday. It seems doubly disappointing. I peer up at the bus and through a back window spy two empty seats.
“There’s space,” I tell the officer, pointing, surprised by my own boldness. “They can fit.”
The officer doesn’t look behind him, just shakes his head. “You wait,” he says.
Yousef puts his arm around a sobbing Maryam. On impulse I lift the lid of the box and hold it out to the officer in what I hope is a tempting manner.
“Are you sure there isn’t space for them?” I ask sweetly, before I have a chance to reconsider my course of action. What are you doing? a voice in my head shrieks. Are you really trying to bribe a Hungarian police officer with a carrot cake? I almost pull the box back, mortified, but before I can do so, the officer peers into the box and then looks up at me, his face stern. For a moment we lock eyes.
“My mistake. There is room,” the officer says abruptly, closing the box and taking it from me. He places the cake gently at his feet. For a moment I gape at him, flabbergasted that my harebrained scheme worked. Maryam shrieks with joy, and Yousef clasps my hand warmly, his face alight with relief.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“Happy birthday,” I murmur in Maryam’s ear, hugging her tightly. Well, what do you know? I think as I step back. See, Aunt Frannie, sometimes baked goods really can change the world.
“Go,” I urge them, “before the policeman decides he doesn’t like carrot cake.” Yousef grabs their backpack of meager belongings, and they run for the bus.
“
Wait!” I scramble in my satchel and find an old airline ticket, quickly scribbling the address of Nana Alice’s cottage on it. I run after them and thrust it into Yousef’s hand just before they board. “Send me a postcard when you’re settled in Sweden.”
He takes the paper and tucks it carefully into his pocket. “We will,” he says solemnly. “Goodbye, Mia. Thank you.”
I watch them until they are settled in their seats, until Maryam presses her face to the window and blows me a kiss, until the bus pulls away, carrying them toward the Austrian border and the new life ahead of them. They are carrying with them a little piece of my heart.
When I imagined this trip, imagined a life of service like Mother Teresa’s, somehow I didn’t factor in the people I would meet. I pictured how I would touch their lives, but I never thought about how they would touch mine. Yousef and Maryam have become friends.
Watching the bus trundle down the rutted lane in a cloud of dust, I think of Shreya’s words that first day in the slums in Mumbai. If we want to help people, she told me, we must enter into their lives, be a part of their community. That is where real change happens, person to person, day by day, when we live life together.
How right she was. In some small way I have changed Yousef’s and Maryam’s lives, if only with a carrot cake and friendship. And by their friendship they have changed my life too.
Chapter 41
“The buses are coming back from the border!” A few hours later a Hungarian student volunteer pokes her head into the medical tent where I am helping Delphine weigh a chunky Afghani infant. “Austria did not let them through,” she exclaims breathlessly.
Delphine and I glance at one another in puzzlement as the girl dashes off to tell others the news. Austria didn’t let them through? What does this mean?
An hour later all three buses return to the camp with every passenger on board. They were turned back at the Austrian border, the drivers tells Szilvia. A new regulation is in effect as of this morning. Refugees must now register in the country where they first enter the Schengen Area. For everyone at the camp, this means registering in Hungary. They are stuck at the border until further notice.
The refugees file off the buses, faces tight with worry and frustration. An older woman weeps into her hands, falling to the ground outside of the bus steps as her son and daughter-in-law try to comfort her.
My heart sinks when I see Maryam and Yousef disembark from the last bus. Maryam glances up and sees me. She waves but does not smile. Yousef’s expression is crestfallen.
I hurry over to them. “I’m sure they’ll get it sorted out soon,” I say, hoping I’m right. “Come on, it’s almost lunchtime. You should eat something.” They follow me to the food tent wordlessly, dazed and disconsolate.
At the food tent the volunteers are scrambling to organize a quick meal for more than a hundred people we thought we would never see again. I work feverishly alongside Rosie and Winnie, handing out meager allotments of food.
“Last of the cucumbers,” Kai reports as we eye the long line snaking around the tent. Then ten minutes later. “One bag of apples left.”
“I’ll post an update on Facebook asking for supplies,” Szilvia says, already whipping out her phone.
“I’ll drive to Tesco and get what we need before dinner,” Kai volunteers. He hasn’t looked at me once since I got to the tent. It’s become the new normal, and it makes me so sad.
We work late that day, far past dark, helping people get resettled and organizing for the morning.
At the end of my shift, I make the rounds of the other tents, gathering items to restock the medical tent for Stefan’s shift. When I return, arms full of supplies, I find Delphine outside the door, leaning against one of the poles, smoking. I can just see the outline of her face. She is sober, preoccupied. I quickly put the items away inside and join her.
“You know those things aren’t good for you, right?” I ask, only half in jest.
“Of course,” she says in her sleek accent. “I know they are bad for my health.” She waves away my silent consternation. “But so is war, so is displacement, so is treating patient after patient with insufficient supplies. This world is bad for my health.” She sighs heavily.
I lean against the other tent pole and say nothing. She’s right. A woman passes nearby, leading a small child by the hand toward the woods, a thin stack of blankets in her arms. It is chilly tonight, and many families are sleeping in the open. There were clouds earlier, piled up against a fiery orange sunset. I cross my fingers and pray against rain. There is no shelter for those who are sleeping outside. The camp is already at capacity, with more people arriving all the time. In addition to the three busloads of returned refugees, more are coming down the railroad tracks every few minutes. This evening the police patrol the edges of the camp, trying to ensure that no one leaves before they can be registered, although it is unclear how the registration process is supposed to happen.
“This is going to end badly,” Delphine says, taking a draw on the cigarette. “I can feel it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, following her gaze across the camp, over the tents and groups of people bedding down in the open for the night.
“This crisis.” She gestures with the cigarette. “It will end badly if the governments cannot come up with a better plan to handle the people who are coming. No one is prepared. But still they come. They will continue to come. We must be ready for them.” She sighs and glances at me. “This is just the start, you know. They will move on from here in a day or week or month, and then the real work begins. How to house them and feed them and teach them a new language and find them employment. How do we help them become at home in Europe? It is a very difficult thing. Some would say an impossible thing.”
“I’ve never thought about that.” The crisis is what people are talking about. The news is full of it, the perils of the journey, families fleeing for their lives from war-torn countries and bombed-out cities, crossing the turbulent water in overcrowded rubber boats. But Delphine is right. Their perilous journey is just the beginning. The harder work begins once they reach their destinations. What will it take to integrate thousands of displaced people into their new countries? Many are traumatized. Most have suffered great loss. Who will help them navigate a new language and culture and learn to make it their home? How long will it take?
“Do you think it’s possible?” I ask.
She laughs, a puff of air through her nose. “Oui,” she says after a moment. “I am proof that it is possible. My father, my mother, a cross-cultural marriage. And me, I am a French woman to the bone although Tunisian blood runs through my veins. It is possible, but it is a long and difficult thing.” She gestures to the camp, to the tents. “They are not ready. We are not ready. No one has any idea what is coming.”
* * *
After my shift, armed with a carafe of tea and a flashlight, I seek out Maryam and Yousef. Dots of light spread out around the rest of the camp as other volunteers take tea to the restless, disappointed occupants. I find the brother and sister under the oak tree once more, their makeshift home a jumble of blankets and their scanty belongings.
Yousef sits with his head in his hands, Maryam hovering beside him. They look up at my arrival, their expressions bleak.
“Here, I brought some tea.” I crouch down next to them and pour tea into three disposable cups, spooning a generous quantity of sugar into Maryam’s, leaving Yousef’s black, the way he prefers it.
They take the tea, and we sip in silence for a few moments.
“We were so close,” Yousef says, closing his eyes as though it pains him to speak the words.
“I know. I’m so sorry.” No amount of carrot cake can help them leave this place now. There are no buses, no open border. We do not know what will happen next, but for now they are stuck here. Everyone is stuck here.
“Maybe they’ll open the border again soon,” I say, trying for optimism. “They’ll figure out what to do.” I sincerely h
ope I am right, though Laszlo does not seem hopeful. His opinion of the European government’s efficacy is low.
Yousef toys with his cup of tea, rolling the liquid around the inside. “What if Sweden will not take us? We have nowhere else to go.” I hear a thread of panic in his voice. He glances at Maryam, who watches us worriedly, trying to follow the conversation in English. “I just want a safe place for my sister, a country where we can try to make our home again.”
“You’ll find it.” I cup my hands around my tea, feeling the warmth spreading through my fingers. The early summer night is soft around us, alive with the sound of insects and the low murmur of voices. “It may take some time, but you’ll find it. I know you will. Don’t give up.”
Yousef smiles grimly. “If only you were in charge of the policies, we would all be home already, Mia.”
“I’d bake carrot cakes for every EU country and—voilà!—citizenship for everyone!”
Maryam giggles, understanding enough to get the joke.
“You are right,” Yousef says. “We cannot despair. Even in the darkness, we must have hope.”
“Do you still hope?” I ask, curious. I think of his father, strung up for refusing to convert, and his mother, struck down in the street by the grief and shock. After what Maryam and Yousef have endured and seen and lost, I’m surprised they have any hope left.
“Yes,” Yousef says slowly, as though testing the word himself. “As long as there is breath in my body, I must choose to hope, for Maryam, for a new life.”
He glances at Maryam, and she takes his hand, holding his knuckles to her cheek for a moment, her face sad. Yousef briefly touches her face, then turns to me.
“Thank you for helping us, Mia, for being our friend. With you here, we do not feel so alone.”
“Of course.” I wave away the thanks. “You are not alone, and you will get to your new home. I know it.”
The Enlightenment of Bees Page 21