Hand Me Down World

by Lloyd Jones

  After an hour we’ve had no luck. The dogs have barked once or twice. Leo is annoyed. We should have waited like he said. The food writer, Tom, is sweating heavily. He has to keep removing his glasses to wipe the sweat from his eyes. When he bends forward sweat drops from his face. I have never seen that on a man before. A cyclist, yes—but not on a man out on a pleasant hillside walk. Paolo is gazing up at the rocky terrain. The goats are up there. But we have not come prepared. We have only birdshot. On other occasions we have climbed up to the ridge to wait for the cloud cover to arrive. From up there you can look into Switzerland and Austria. It is always a surprise to see how close we are. A slip of the pen and we would be in Switzerland or Austria. And with that slip of the pen we would be eating different foods and reciting different poets. I was pleased when the Azzurri won the World Cup. I drove around with a little Italian flag. I tooted my horn along with all the others. After we beat France I danced with the plainest and fattest woman that night. I believe in good fortune being spread around. After the cup victory I packed away the flag. On the whole, nationalism disgusts me.

  While we are thinking what to do the forecasted cloud rolls in. There is no more talk of goats or rabbit. We have to wait another twenty minutes. We sip from Leo’s brandy flask. We always do that. It is made of pewter, belonged to his great-grandfather; actually, it was taken off one of Napoleon’s soldiers. That’s the story Leo tells. It’s one of those stories that no one would dare question and that we all want desperately to believe.

  We send the dogs ahead and fan out. Very soon there is a commotion. The dogs have banded together. So it is not a partridge. Perhaps it is a rabbit. Leo has a wonderful recipe for rabbit but it requires that someone, Paolo, climb up to the ridge and gather wild herbs. Or else it is a phantom. Dogs are the nerviest of creatures. We are threading our way through the brush when we hear a woman’s voice. Paolo runs ahead. We can hear a woman shouting at the dogs. The dogs are barking. Paolo is being quite rough with them, cursing them, kicking them away.

  As we come through the brush there is the black woman. She is wearing a blue coat. That’s the first thing that strikes me. How odd to be wearing a coat like that up in the hills. No. That is the second surprise. The first surprise is undoubtedly the woman. An African woman. Once, many years ago, we thought we had stumbled on bear shit. We stood around it, photographed it. Another time we saw two parakeets. Probably domestic—escaped. We have seen the odd soul—hikers—on the tracks through the hills leading down into the first valley of Switzerland. But never a black woman. Never an African. She has her arms up in surrender. A plastic bag hangs from her hand.

  I have to shout at Paolo before he lowers his shotgun. He wasn’t even aware. Later that evening, seated around the camp fire drinking while the partridge we eventually shot that afternoon turns above the coals, he apologises when reminded of how he had trained his gun on the poor woman. In fact he kept apologising to her. To the point where Leo had to tell him, that’s enough. The woman looked at Paolo as she might at one of the dogs licking her feet. A glimmer of a smile. She did not speak Italian. We’d found that out much earlier. She spoke English. All of us speak some English—and Tom, the food writer, of course. But it was Leo who asked most of the questions. Leo and myself. She answered as best she could. Tom could have asked some questions but he just sat there listening. Now and then a flame lit his face. Beneath the dried sweat, beneath that was another layer of endeavour (he made me go over the partridge recipe three times, then made me check that what he had written was correct), and beneath that layer I thought I caught a glimpse of another that was pure coldness. That’s the moment I decided I might not give him the rabbit recipe or the wild trout with almonds which he had already indicated a strong interest in obtaining.

  We asked the obvious questions. Where she was from, and she told us. I forget the country. Somewhere in Africa. We asked her where she was going and she told us. Berlin, Germany. It took a moment for that to sink in. Paolo had spent a season there traded to FC Union Berlin when his career was on the way down. He didn’t enjoy it. He said the fans were a bunch of tattooed beer-swilling white supremacists. Leo had also been to Berlin, to visit his daughter Maria, the younger, wilder one. He found her living with twenty-six other young people—Italians, Serbs, Australians, English, Poles, from all over, even a fellow from Vietnam, in an abandoned factory. Leo said the windows were broken. At night they cooked around an open fire. I expected him to say it was appalling and that he was ashamed to find his daughter living in this way. But he didn’t. He was accepting, reluctant to criticise. In fact, following that trip, there was a brief period when his marriage went wobbly. Then his daughter returned and things improved at home.

  We asked the woman why she wanted to go to Berlin. She stared into the fire. I did not think she was going to tell us. There had been some questions that she pretended not to understand. She could have lied and we would not have known. Instead she pretends not to understand, which is better in my view, more polite. So when we asked her—why Berlin?—this was one of those times I did not expect her to answer. She used the Italian— bambino. Bambino. Bambino. Very quickly she became emotional. Leo got up and went and crouched beside her. He rubbed her shoulder. She lay her head against him and cried. Leo managed to settle her down. He gave her some chianti. Tom spoke up then about the partridge. He was right to. Another few minutes would have been a few minutes too long.

  She ate with real appetite. But not with any appreciation. She ate to fill herself up. She tore at the partridge, which I admit spoiled the occasion. She did not savour the tastes. Everything went down the same way. She hardly touched the chianti. After a while we forgot her and the conversation turned to the partridge. Tom got out his notebook. He asked many questions. Then he took a photograph. But only of me, Paolo and Leo. Leo had brought some grappa. We poured five glasses—the African woman included. Leo made a toast. We tilted back our glasses and swallowed the fire. The African spat hers out. Her hand went to her throat. Someone handed her the flask of water.

  We were back to focusing on her. After the grappa she seemed less familiar, more like how the dogs had found her. I asked her about the baby. Why it was in Berlin. Why she was here. How they had become separated. She pretended not to understand. She sank further inside her coat, stared at the embers. Then Tom said back home she would be considered an illegal, an alien, I think he said—would he have called another human being ‘an alien’, it doesn’t sound likely, even from him, but it is what I remember— ‘an alien’ whom we should report to the authorities. We ignored him. That is, no one said anything. But it did make me wonder— what now? What should we do with her? We asked her more questions. She said a man in a van filled with trays of eggs had dropped her on the mountain road and pointed her in the direction of Switzerland. Then she opened her plastic bag. She brought out a book of maps. She turned to the page showing Italy, Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany.

  Paolo has the best eyes. He confirmed for her that we were on the border. She asked him to show her where exactly. But on that map it was hopeless. Too imprecise. Then, Paolo, me and Leo began to discuss among ourselves the best way to get to Berlin from here. That is a conversation I’d never had before. Nor had Paolo or Leo. But we all had opinions. The American sat silently. Switzerland was near. Very close. Two hours if she was a fast walker. It was just a guess. None of us had crossed that border. On the Austrian side we had probably strayed a number of times without ever being aware of having passed from one place into another. Switzerland was nearer, but Leo, backed up by Paolo and me, was of the opinion that Austria would be better. We spoke in Italian and quickly agreed. Paolo volunteered to escort her to the first town. He would put her on a bus or train, whatever he found. Get her to Vienna. From there she could catch a train to Berlin.

  We make these plans for her as if we are making them for ourselves. This is the way we would go. For one thing she will avoid running into trouble with the Swiss authorities
. They are a bit more lax on the German side, especially on trains. Then the obvious question. This plan comes at a cost. We haven’t stopped to ask if she has money. It would be impertinent to ask. So Leo gets us started. He stands up from the fire, reaches into his pocket and pulls out every note on him. Thirty-seven euros. Paolo does the same. He manages to come up with seventy-eight euros. I am surprised to find that I have as much as I do. Three fifties and a twenty. Leo works his way around the fire until he comes to the food writer. The American is staring into the embers. His hands in his pockets. Shoulders up around his ears. Of course he must be aware of Leo standing there. He has seen each one of us dig into our pockets. Finally he speaks up. He says he doesn’t think we should ‘aid and abet an illegal’. We are breaking the law. Worse. We are willingly breaking the law. We digest that. No one says anything. Then Paolo speaks up. Very calmly he asks Tom if he has any money on him. He doesn’t answer. The American. This fucking American. He has swallowed his tongue. Paolo is about to repeat himself when the food writer says he might have. Leo hasn’t left his side. The American has sunk even deeper inside of himself. He says he doesn’t want to break the law. He doesn’t want to get into trouble with the authorities. To give money to an illegal activity might lead to him regretting his foolishness.

  Leo looks at me. So does Paolo. As for the woman—we’ve forgotten her. But she is somewhere in Paolo’s shadow, to his right. I know what I must do. I stand up to make my speech. I tell the food writer that he may think he is in partridge country. But during the war this was partisan country. Partisans broke the law by their very existence. So, his fear of breaking the law is not a persuasive argument. His eyes lower. He picks up a twig and tosses it into the fire. He is like a man pretending that the rain isn’t falling on him, only on others. So then I tell him. I have to tell him—and I am sorry it has come to this. I tell him unless he empties his pockets there will be no rabbit or almond trout recipe. The photographs will be erased from his camera, and all the others he’s taken of Leo’s famous kitchen and of Leo beaming under his white chef’s hat, and I will personally throw his notebook with the partridge recipe into the flames. Now it is raining—in the figurative sense. At last he can feel it. Now he wants to get out of it. His face screws up. I see him then just for a fleeting second how he might have looked in the school playground. All the pain is on his inside. Slowly he gets up. His eyes remain half closed. It’s as if he does not want to be witness to his own actions. He is like a child. I spit at the ground by his feet. I am disgusted by him.

  Luckily he is the only one to have brought his wallet. He pulls out two hundred euros and hands the money to Leo. Leo remains on the spot, his hand out…until another stab of pain behind the closed eyes causes the food writer to retrieve another fifty, which he thought Leo must not have seen. Leo takes that, then he walks around the fire to the African woman and holds out the money. She can’t believe that it is for her. Leo has to encourage her. She looks across to Paolo. Maybe she thinks he will shoot her. He nods and so she takes the fifty off the top. Leo laughs and keeps his hand there. She looks at each of our faces. I nod. So does Paolo. The food writer is staring at the ground. She holds out her hand and Leo transfers the collection to her.

  In the morning we leave the shepherd’s hut nice and early. Leo and the American start off down the hill. I tell them I will catch up. I stay put and watch Paolo and the African woman climb up to and eventually disappear over the white ridge. It is a beautiful morning. Blue skies. Still. No good for partridge. But there is a lightness in my heart. I set off after Leo and the American.

  Back in the village I drop the American off at his rental. Then Leo at his house. Then I drive to Paolo’s lovely big home outside of town. His wife is younger, from Granada. I explain everything to her. She seems puzzled, unsure. I give her some reassurances.

  Next morning I pick her up and we drive up the mountain road. We climb to the shepherd’s hut and wait. Around noon we see Paolo come over the ridge. His young wife starts up the scree. I stay back. The figure on the ridge stops. Then he leaps—amazing to see—a man leaping off the side of a mountain. He bounds the rest of the way down the scree. By the time I catch up, Paolo, unshaven and sweaty, has his big arms around his pretty young wife. He is kissing her, panting over her. Then to my surprise I notice he is crying. Paolo ‘the strong man in defence’. I turn around and walk back to the car.

  part two: Berlin

  eight

  The inspector

  On this Sunday afternoon, in a park whose hills and winding paths are built on top of war rubble and the dead, new mothers gaze across lawns dotted with young lovers. There is new sap in the air. The sweet powdery smell is almond blossom. The light is green and filtered. At such moments the world trembles at the thought of itself.

  In this park the layers of the world coming into being and departing are more obvious. In the copper mulch of last season’s leaves the pigeons grub away. They do not care about anything other than what they may find. A job applicant occupies a bench: he leans forward on his spread knees—look at the way he hangs his head. There is a little too much hope and virtue combed into his hair. Winter is the season when separation is felt hardest. In the hard air the lunch crowds huddle in blankets and wait for the duck pond to freeze, and then for it to thaw. The leaves are not out yet, just the hard buds. The new world is coming.

  Feral dogs sniff at the ground where the pigeons were, and years ago in this same place a grieving mother in a coat and bare legs delivered her dead son in a wheelbarrow. With his teenager limbs hanging over the sides of the wheelbarrow she scratched out a grave on her hands and knees. And here too at the edge of the bushes, in more or less the same place, a man spreads himself on top of a woman who also faces the ground. His face is buried in her shoulder. Whereas, she looks up with a foolish bloated smile. She looks like she is being squeezed out of her clothes. With the last of the phantom light hanging in the trees, the paths lead into the dusk. Now the lanterns come on and people spill out of the woods.

  Across the road from the park fornicators is a large kirche with its administrative heartland of corridors indicating responsibilities for Africa, Asia and Eurasia. Here, the nameless, the unofficial, the windblown and the vermin climb the outside steps. Along corridors reeking of disinfectant they creep, cap in hand, past the doors with the unfamiliar names and allocated territories.

  The man in charge of Africa is a pastor of the Ibo order, a portly man used to his desk and the space that divides him from his visitor. Hardly a day passes without a reminder that he is a well-fed man with position. He smiles as the language of calamity and death parts his lips. He smiles endlessly and at times his smile stretches to the brink of hilarity.

  nine

  A pastor of the Ibo order

  If I am laughing it is because you have come here to Berlin to ask a pastor, a black man, about ghosts. Presumably you mean white ghosts. Yes. I am being facetious. I apologise, perhaps just a wee bit. I speak four languages. Besides Ibo, I speak Italian, English, Oirish. I was trained by the Holy Ghost Fathers, an order of sunburnt white men from Dublin. Others like me became the Ibo order ‘Sons of the Soil’. I prefer to speak Deutsch since, after all, we are in Berlin. But under the circumstances Italian may be more appropriate.

  It is true that I am an expert on some ghosts. For example, there are the ghosts we do not see, the spooky ghosts, the ghosts of the American imagination, creatures appearing in doors dressed in white bed-sheets with the eyes cut out. These are the ones small children worry are lying beneath their beds at night. These ghosts are a puzzle. I like American movies. But what I don’t understand about these particular ghosts is that we never see the consequences of the encounter. The ghost remains a spectre, no more than a possibility. Something to be afraid of. A manifestation of fear, such as the opposition parties in each and every undemocratic regime in Africa.

  The other ghosts—the real ghosts if I may call them that—are simply those whom we cho
ose not to see.

  These people did not start out as ghosts. God put them on Earth as human beings. Here, I will show you on the map. This is where they began life. Around the horn of Africa. Liberia. Sierra Leone. Senegal. Gambia. Ivory Coast. The Western Sahara. Many were fishermen. While they were fishermen they were human beings. But then the multinationals with high-tech trawlers scooped all the fish out of the sea and the fisherman with the net was left in the same state as his brothers gazing across fallow land in the midst of a drought. There is nothing left for the fisherman to do but leave.

  This is the way they go. They walk, they catch a bus, a bush bus, hitch a ride. It is slow progress. In some cases I know of, it has taken one of God’s souls two years to reach here and here, Tunisia and Libya. And there the human traffickers sit in cafes with their worry beads. By now the process by which a man turns into a ghost is well advanced. A human being is of no more value than a sack of rice. A human being is merchandise. Then, once money passes hands, it is cargo. The cargo sets off in unseaworthy boats. Old fishing boats. Open boats. Over-crowded, poorly resourced. Without sufficient food or water—since when did merchandise have such requirements? And they disappear. They disappear at sea.

  A Danish ferry capsizing in the North Sea is a calamity. It is international news. Fifty-one souls lost. A tragedy. Twenty, thirty, fifty thousand black people...Well, it is too big a figure to contemplate. It is apocalyptic. It is a sandstorm blowing across the African continent as fortress Europe nails down its shutters. It pretends. It pretends like the child afraid of the ghost under the bed. And instead it exercises its sympathy and shock and horror for the fifty or so lives lost in the North Sea. I understand. I don’t wish to make light of that event. It too is a tragedy. We see on television the grieving families on the shore. We hear them speak of their loved ones who drowned. Before our eyes those fifty souls turn into individuals, faces, trailing lives and families. The blacks continue to spiral down to the seabed of the Mediterranean, where they become food for sharks. The closest Europe will come to them is when Europeans eat the shark.