City of Jasmine

by Olga Grjasnowa

  They leave the store as quickly as they can, heading straight for the station.

  The train to Munich doesn’t leave for an hour so they have no choice but to sit down in a McDonald’s. Amal mixes formula with warm water and feeds Amina as Youssef eats a Big Mac meal. They’re still doubting their decision to keep the child but they agree it’s probably best for her if she stays with them for the time being. Once they get to the north they’ll try to find Amina’s family. She might have grandmothers, aunts, uncles or cousins who are still alive.

  The pain comes suddenly. Amal runs to the toilet, locks the door, sits down and waits for everything to come pouring out of her. Her stomach cramps up and she’s glad she’s here and not on the Mediterranean. Bent double, she sits on the toilet seat, crying. Once it’s all over and she thinks she can get up, she leaves the cubicle. As she soaps her hands at the washbasin she studies her reflection. She doesn’t recognize herself. Her cheeks have collapsed, her eyes are deep in their sockets.

  The city sinks in a sandstorm. A huge, dirty cloud of sand rolls slowly along the ground, burying everything in its course. It resembles an ancient mountain range, sprung up overnight. The dust worms its way into every nook and cranny in every house and into every lung.

  Even before Hammoudi decides to leave, Naji has contacted the smuggler. He collects him barely an hour later. It’s the same man who took him to Turkey, which appeases Hammoudi. Only now is he certain he’ll really be leaving Deir ez-Zor. Naji has given him money for his escape, which he hides beneath his clothing. The smuggler drives right up to the hospital and Little Man brings Hammoudi out on a stretcher, wrapped in white shrouds. The smuggler heaves him into the boot of his car. He offers to take Little Man along too, but Little Man decides to stay. He and Hammoudi say their goodbyes with a long hug.

  The sandstorm means visibility is down to only a few inches, so they drive at walking pace to the village of Abu Khashab, once known for its good wheat and now one of the few places that have not yet fallen to Daesh. The villagers are supporters of the revolution, still willing to help the people-smugglers. Hammoudi feels like he’s suffocating. He tries to stay awake but the dust is everywhere.

  Half an hour later, Hammoudi is able to leave the boot inside a dark garage, and switches to the front seat of a different car. There are two former Red Crescent helpers on the back seat, and a photographer. All of them have to leave Syria as quickly as possible.

  They take dirt tracks to the settlement of Al-Alyad and reach Tall Abyad near the border seven hours later. They’re usually waved straight through at the checkpoints as they come from the villages and not the cities, and even when they are stopped they soon set off again. All five of them try to look untroubled and harmless.

  They leave the car near the border crossing. Their smuggler takes his leave and returns to Syria’s interior. In his place comes a man who walks them to the border and then to Akçakale on the Turkish side.

  Only an hour later, Hammoudi is loaded into another car and that evening is let out in Gaziantep. Dazzled by the lights, he stumbles through the streets as though drunk. At some point he walks into a hotel and asks for a room. He’s handed a key and taken to the second floor by the porter. The room is decorated with some abandon, the furniture painted glossy white with golden detail; the carpet is worn and brown, just like the curtains, which smell of smoke; the sheets on the bed are in clashing colours.

  The first thing Hammoudi does is run a bath, and the hot running water shocks him as much as all the lights in the city. After his bath he falls into a long and dreamless sleep.

  Waking up hours later, he looks at the old-fashioned telephone on the bedside table. It’s dark green, all the numbers on it rubbed away. Not until he hears her voice on the other end is Hammoudi aware that he’s automatically dialled Claire’s number.

  ‘Yes?’ she says.

  ‘It’s Hammoudi.’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘Shall I hang up?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’ Hammoudi thinks he detects a hint of panic in Claire’s voice. ‘It’s just... Jesus, Hammoudi, I thought you were dead,’ he hears her sob.

  ‘Claire, I’ve got out.’

  ‘I was certain you were dead! You didn’t get in touch, otherwise I’d have…’

  ‘It’s fine, really it is. I’ve got out now.’ The line crackles; Hammoudi closes his eyes to understand Claire better.

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘I’m in Turkey.’

  ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Yes. How are you? What’s the weather like in Paris?’

  ‘Hammoudi, what the hell?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, sorry.’

  ‘Are you really alright?’

  ‘I’m alive.’

  ‘I waited for you.’

  ‘Claire, I could come back, I could come home.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Hammoudi.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have a child now.’

  ‘Is it mine?’

  ‘For God’s sake, no. Hammoudi...’

  Hammoudi hangs up and starts pacing the brown carpet. The phone rings; it must be Claire calling him back. He knows he couldn’t expect her to wait four years for him. They never made any agreement. And yet he still clung to a hope to which he had no right. Hammoudi answers the telephone.

  ‘Hello, this is reception. We just wanted to say we’ll have to charge the long-distance call to your credit card.’

  ‘I don’t have a credit card.’

  ‘I see. Would you please come down, then?’

  Hammoudi is standing on the shore, watching a simple black dinghy being inflated with a small pump that looks like a toy. The passengers are busy packing their documents, medications and a small amount of jewellery into watertight balloons. Hammoudi got himself a crossing in Izmir. After talking to Claire he’d wanted to stay in Turkey, where his parents and sister are living, but they told him he had to leave the country – Daesh men had paid a visit to their house in Mardin and asked after Hammoudi.

  Nervous, he smokes one cigarette after another. Next to him, a man in a tatty, brown leather jacket is also smoking as though his life depended on it. He has big brown eyes ringed by deep black shadows, bushy eyebrows and a large Roman nose. To judge by his accent, he’s Iraqi. Hammoudi offers him one of his cigarettes. The man introduces himself as Mohammed.

  The two of them watch the smugglers in silence as they patrol the beach in small, armed groups. Their boat is the last of eight; the others set off for Greece the previous day. The smugglers held their boat up at the last minute and ordered them to wait overnight near the coast. Fifty-odd people tried to get some rest on a forest floor, without blankets or any kind of bedding.

  One smuggler, a small man with warts on his face and a heavy Palestinian accent, gives instructions, and for a brief moment there’s a shimmer of normality – the traffickers are acting exactly like flight attendants on a scheduled flight. Perhaps this is simply the new reality. ‘If you see the Turkish coastguard, do nothing, they’ll take you back to Turkey. Nothing will happen to you. If you see the Greek coastguard they’ll destroy your boat, but they’ll take you safely to Greece.’ The smugglers’ instructions are clear.

  A little boy with a mane of dark curls and blue eyes stares at Hammoudi and then asks, ‘Are we going to die?’

  Hammoudi swallows and then tries to inject confidence into his voice as he answers. ‘No.’

  ‘Can you do anything?’

  Hammoudi shakes his head.

  ‘You know, it’s alright if we die, I just don’t want to go back,’ the boy says.

  The boat – designed for eight passengers – is loaded with fifty people. Children cling to their parents in panic. Two older women, one of them lame, adopt stoic expressions. As more and more people climb into the boat, one woman cracks and screams that there are too many, they’ll all go under. The trafficker, unimpressed, raises his gun in a gesture of indulgent superiority: an HK33 a
utomatic rifle, made in Germany, Heckler & Koch. But the boat really is too full; everyone has to leave their bags behind.

  The smuggler explains they’ll now be heading in a straight line to a Greek island, not telling them its name. He doesn’t get into the boat but tugs it out to sea behind his white jet-ski. His face is as relaxed as a holidaymaker’s. The outboard motor is entrusted to a young man. The only thing that qualified him for the job was the fact that he used to clean refrigerated containers at a harbour; he’s never seen the inside of a ship. He gets the crossing for free in return for navigating the boat – but he also bears the greatest risk. He’s responsible for fifty lives and he could be arrested for trafficking.

  The men sit around the outside edge with the women and children crouched in the middle, slightly more protected. Separated from the water only by the thin plastic beneath them, they’re all instantly soaked through by the spray. The wind is icy and there’s nothing for them to hold onto. People pray to God. They don’t even pray to arrive safely, only to die with their families. Parents hope they won’t survive their children.

  No one speaks to begin with, only the Iraqi who has squeezed in next to Hammoudi cursing quietly to himself. Hammoudi looks up at the star-studded sky and tries not to think of Deir ez-Zor and his patients. He’d rather think of the stars and how they’ve been extinguished, even though their light still reaches the earth. He gazes at the constellations, trying to remember their names. Dawn arrives gradually and the sun rises as a red ball of fire.

  A little girl, perhaps eight years old, with freckles and two dark plaits resting on her luminous lifejacket, suddenly screams at the top of her voice and points at three fins protruding from the water. She keeps repeating a word that must mean ‘sharks’ in Kurdish. Her face is wet with tears. Several women also start screaming as if on command, and the men would like to join in but are embarrassed to do so.

  ‘They’re only dolphins,’ Hammoudi tries to reassure the girl, but the whole boat is talking and yelling.

  As the first rays of the new day’s sun fall upon the boat, an island appears ahead of them – not far away at all. Hammoudi and the Iraqi try to make jokes to stop the children from being scared, but the island is no closer even two hours later. Hammoudi can’t help feeling the sea is expanding.

  He can barely feel his hunger now. It’s only his thirst that troubles him. His lips are cracked and his mouth is dry, his swollen tongue making it hard to breathe.

  At noon, they spot the lighthouse at the northern end of Lesbos, and they also see the lifeguards in orange vests on the beach, pointing the way for them. Some are about to jump into the water, but one lifeguard shouts in English and then in broken Arabic, ‘English, English, who speaks English?’ The Iraqi puts his hand up and translates the man’s words into Arabic: ‘Don’t worry! We’re not the police! Switch off the motor and sit down. Don’t jump out of the boat, it’s dangerous!’ The helpers now guide the boat to a makeshift landing platform. A human chain takes first the babies, then the toddlers and the older children, then the two old women, who look very relieved, then they help the remaining women and finally the men. The whole thing goes quickly and routinely. Hammoudi is startled though when he gets out of the boat – the rocks have sharp edges and it hurts to put pressure on his legs; they threaten to slip away beneath him.

  Their boat has hardly arrived before the locals start gathering, barely waiting for the refugees to disembark. Boats that land on Lesbos are taken apart immediately – the first to go is the motor, then the rudder and even the plastic sheets, which are used on farms for animals or for collecting olives.

  As soon as the people are on dry land, they cast off their lifejackets in joy. They thank the volunteers and calm down their children, now crying and trembling with cold. Some try to get a phone connection to let their relatives know they’ve survived. Their faces are radiant with hope. Naïve about the future.

  Hammoudi too is given a thermal blanket and exchanges his shoes and clothes for dry ones. The volunteers gather up the soaked clothing, which they will wash and bring back to the beach for the next new arrivals.

  After a while, a bus comes to pick them up. They are taken to Camp Moria, a former prison.

  The facilities consist of stuffy white container units and a sea of tents alongside the actual camp, which is sealed off with barbed wire. It is dusty and the inhabitants’ faces speak of absolute exhaustion. The containers are full and Hammoudi is allowed to buy a tent. An entire commercial district has sprung up around the camp: an improvised taxi rank, mobile-charging stations and kiosks selling water, biscuits and tents. Hammoudi decides against spending money on a tent. He hopes to move on that night. The size of the camp and the newly created logistics amaze him, and he involuntarily observes the scene through an ethnologist’s eyes.

  Illegal immigration is strictly regimented at the camp, though not by the European governments. There’s a hierarchy of refugees. Syrians usually arrive in whole families and in boats that are slightly better and not quite as overcrowded. They’re from the former middle class and they have small financial reserves that have enabled them to get to Europe. Pakistanis and Afghans cross the Mediterranean in extremely unseaworthy boats, in some cases so tightly packed that they don’t even have space to sit.

  The Afghans are also the best prepared for their journey – their rucksacks are very well packed and they often have instant access to dry shoes and socks. Syrians, though, often don’t have a plan, they don’t know what’s happening to them. The preparedness of its emigrants is still the best indicator of the state of a society. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the people from central and northern Africa.

  Queuing for initial registration, Hammoudi bumps into the Iraqi from the boat. He’s glad of a familiar face and Mohammed feels the same way. They stay together from that point on. There’s not much to do; all that’s demanded of them is to hold out. They have to wait overnight for their turn to register.

  As dusk draws in, a small fire is lit; people warm their feet and hands and eat tinned tuna and bread. The fire hisses. Hammoudi and Mohammed spend the night under the stars with others. Someone keeps the fire burning with pieces of wood. They tell each other nothing, saying nothing about their escape, their countries, their wars, their wives, their children, their houses or their futures. Too great is the fear of the all-powerful security services.

  By first light, the fire has burned out.

  Towards noon, the refugees are allowed to move on. Their route takes them a whole day on foot across the island, but they don’t mind. For Hammoudi and the Iraqi, it has been a long time since they last moved around legally – and they know it will be the last time in a while. So they decide to enjoy their walk, a little at least.

  They cross a forest, climb a mountain and then walk back down again, always following the narrow country road, past olive trees and cypresses, high grass, occasional houses with brightly painted shutters and ivory-coloured walls. They admire the view of the cliffs along the coastline and they see the sea, its crowns of foam and the rough furrows carved into the water’s surface by the wind.

  They talk about where they want their journey to take them. Everything seems possible: Finland, Sweden, Germany or the Netherlands. All they have to do is evade the police.

  Mohammed has left his family behind in Iraq and is determined to make it to northern Europe, to Sweden or perhaps to Britain; only there does he stand a chance of bringing the family together quickly. His wife is pregnant again. He probably won’t see the child until it’s started walking. He takes out his mobile phone and shows Hammoudi photos of his daughters.

  At Mytilene harbour, they wait beneath the glaring sun for a ferry to Athens. Tourists stare at them, unabashed. Hammoudi wonders when he last saw so many unharmed bodies.

  The ferry is huge, especially in comparison to the tiny inflatable dinghy by which they arrived in Europe illegally two nights ago. The final preparations are under way, the metal boarding ramps let d
own. Vehicles start their engines and drive on board. The foot passengers follow them.

  Almost everyone on the ferry is an immigrant; overwrought and overtired with children whining and whinging. Hammoudi wonders why it’s so easy now. Why he couldn’t just get on a ferry straight to Lesbos and donate the other 1,290 euros to the German or Swedish state.

  As soon as they get to Athens they try to head further north. They make it to the Greece–Macedonia border, cross it full of fear and then travel on towards Serbia. That leads to the absurd situation of having to leave the EU again to get further north. Helped by other refugees who provide them with key information about the various routes, they finally make it to Serbia.

  They try to sleep on the trains in which they spend a couple of hours without changing, but they can’t get a moment’s rest because their fear of the police keeps them awake. Time becomes a geographical specification, measurable only in terms of the distance to the next border or the next town. They lose track of the days of the week and Google Maps routes flicker behind their eyelids when they close their eyes. They’re in a permanent state of fear. Their bodies are constantly on the alert.

  Mohammed and Hammoudi spend several days in Belgrade, where it rains relentlessly and is bitterly cold. Without papers they can find no shelter, neither in hostels nor in hotels. If they slept on the street or in a shop doorway they’d risk getting picked up by the police. So they wander the city aimlessly and hope that something will happen.

  At some point, a man approaches them and asks whether they need accommodation. His eyes are far apart, his features crude. He suggests they sleep in his living room, for twenty euros each; they can take a shower and even stay for twelve hours, he says, and then the next people will be coming. They agree.

  The flat is small and warm. For Mohammed and Hammoudi, it’s the first real flat they’ve been in for a long time. Two camping mats are rolled out on the living room floor and then they take turns in the shower. Their host even makes them a thick lentil soup in the evening, with roughly cut bread. The warmth and comfort bring tears to their eyes.