by Ele Fountain
When the sun is a little lower, I stagger painfully upright and start limping heavily in the direction the truck went. I will walk as far as I can toward the refugee camp. I will keep walking until I collapse.
Help
The reddish rounded hills grow slowly closer and taller. They are unlike anything I’ve seen before—almost straight-sided and smooth, like the mounds of paprika the spice sellers make to attract customers. As I hobble toward the vast base of the mountain, I realize that what I see in the distance is not a camp, but a town. There are white buildings with green trees between them. In front of the town are fields of what look like palm trees.
My ankle throbs, but I suddenly feel energy returning from somewhere. There might be water, food, shelter. But I will need money for water and food. Swirling in the heat of my brain is the memory of my mother sewing money into my shoes.
After two hours, I reach the first buildings at the edge of town. My head is spinning and I can’t focus. My mouth is so dry that I cannot swallow. The sun beats down, but I don’t feel myself sweating anymore. Some small boys and girls run past me, laughing and talking. The sandy desert gathers itself into a wide dusty road leading farther into the town. On either side are walled compounds and fruit trees; one of the fruit trees hangs over the street, creating a little shade. I need to look for the notes or coins hidden within my shoes.
I fall shakily to my hands and knees and start to crawl toward the shady spot. Stones scrape my skin. But I reach the cool sanctuary. The sounds around me become fainter, as if they’re moving away.
Just as I am about to lose consciousness, I feel a hand on my shoulder. A man is shaking me. He says something in a language I don’t understand and then drops a coin in the dust in front of me. It is gold around the edge and silver in the middle. As my head spins, it seems to shine with unnatural brightness. At home the coins are silver. They have the words Liberty, Equality, and Justice written around the edge. I don’t understand the writing on this coin. So I did cross the border. This town is in a different country. My coins may be worthless, but no one will know me here. No one will be looking for me.
I look at the new coin and am grateful but know that I cannot get up to buy anything with it. It’s then that I realize that if I let myself drift away again, I will not wake up. I think hazily about the people in the prison, about Bini. I am free and they are not. Somewhere people can help me.
I hear voices behind me. Two boys are walking into town with a donkey laden with onions.
I whisper, “Water,” and point to my mouth.
One of them gives me a piece of bread.
I mimic drinking from a cup and they pass me a goatskin water bottle. I take a sip, then another. I wonder if they realize that they have saved my life. How many times can my life be saved before my luck runs out?
As the sun sinks lower in the sky, I decide to try to walk down the wide dusty road with my coin in search of a market. As the road curves around, I hear the beeping of horns and buzz of motorbikes. I can also smell food and cattle and gasoline. I find the smells almost overwhelming. My senses seem to have become sharper now that I am properly starving. I wonder how I appear to people passing by. Poor and homeless. Like the people my mother would give a few cents to, before the police came to shoo them on or take them away.
Around another corner I see the edge of a market. The stalls spill from a central covered square out into the street. There are sheets on the ground, covered with vegetables and baskets of spices, rows of banana bunches and mounds of grain.
Near me a man crouches on the ground; next to him is a basket full of bottles of water. I give him my coin and take some water. I put my hand out for change and he gives me some. I do not know how to say “hello” or “thank you” here.
Toward the covered central area I see a kiosk with a glass front. Inside are rolls of bread. I limp over slowly and give the woman my money. She is wearing a bright headscarf like all the women around me, not a white netela like at home. She gives me two rolls and no change.
I turn to find a quiet spot to sit and drink and eat. A feeling of loneliness creeps over me as I realize that although I am free, it’s obvious that people are used to seeing boys like me because they don’t pay me any attention; they look around me. I have a strange sensation that I’m starting to disappear.
What would Bini do now? He would find somewhere to spend the night. He would not give up. So I try to think logically. I cannot walk far because of my ankle, which has swollen to twice its normal size, and because I am very weak. Maybe I can find a quiet corner in the market and sleep there. There will be old food on the floor of the market. Some of it will be edible, I’m sure.
I’ve never been on my own before. I’ve never had to look after myself. There’s always been somebody else to do it for me. It occurs to me that I might never see anyone from home again and an icy chill trickles through me. I would give anything right now to see my mother’s face, or Lemlem’s or Bini’s. To ask them where they think I should sleep, where I should look for food. I want someone to take my hand and give me a bed, something hot to eat.
Perhaps I will starve to death here, on my own.
By dusk, the marketplace begins to empty. Market traders cover their stalls with big sheets of plastic, or wrap everything up in the sheet it was laid out on.
From my hidden place behind the sacks of flour and grain I see two men who seem to be patrolling the area. They walk down each aisle of the covered market, maybe looking for stragglers or anyone trying to steal the traders’ produce. Three aisles are left until they reach mine.
There’s no way I can outrun anyone right now. I scan around for somewhere to hide, but behind me are more sacks stacked on top of one another. I look up and see that beneath the low tin roof are metal rafters close together. If I can get up there, I will be safe from the guards. They are now only two aisles away, walking slowly around sacks and baskets that litter the path. They are deep in conversation. I climb slowly onto the next sack, using my arms and my good leg to push myself up. The guards stop talking and I freeze. They peer around the deserted market, looking straight at me. My body hugs the sack. After a few seconds, they resume talking and I haul myself up onto the next sack, from where I can reach the metal beams.
Rats scuttle nearby but I don’t mind them. I curl across two beams next to where the wall meets the roof, panting. My arms feel shaky and my ankle throbs, but I have bread and water and shelter.
Numb
I wake to the quiet chatter of market traders returning to uncover their stalls or lay out their wares in the street. My arms and knees are sore from pressing onto the metal beams as I slept.
I am cold. I lie as still as I can, listening to people going about their lives beneath me. From time to time I turn to speak to Bini, only to remember that he’s not here. Like a shadow, I think I see him on a rafter next to me, or on the sacks beneath, but it’s my mind playing tricks on me. Showing me what I expect to see. What I want to see. A flash of Bini’s face steals into my thoughts without warning. He is shouting at me to go. Did he really mean go, or did he want me to wait with him while the truck drove toward us? Hot tears creep into the corners of my eyes. I blink them away. If I start crying now, I may never stop.
I doze off, waking to the sound of the call to prayer. I lie still and listen.
Perhaps half an hour later, I realize how hungry I am. The last of the bread has gone, but I have a little water. Outside the covered market area, a man is lifting two sacks of red onions from a cart onto a blanket on the ground. A large colorful umbrella provides shade for a woman sitting next to the sacks. She begins to peel off the dirty outer layers of the onions, discarding them in a pile.
Slowly, I ease myself from the rafters onto the topmost sack and slide carefully down to the ground. I hobble toward the woman and point to the onions. At first she thinks I want to buy some, then she looks at me more closely and understands. She points to a spot on the ground next to her, and I
get to work, peeling onions. It’s methodical work, which gives my mind a rest. Once I have finished, she gives me a small coin. I buy two more rolls and head back toward the grain sacks and the rafters. People are too busy buying and selling to pay me any attention.
For what is left of the day, I lie there, neither asleep nor awake but drifting somewhere in between. The hum of the market is comforting. It fills any spaces in my head where thoughts of Bini could creep in.
As darkness begins to fall and the traders pack up, the stillness frightens me, but my body is so exhausted that sleep comes anyway. Rats run across my legs and along the aisles between the stalls below. Dogs bark and then are silent.
I wake properly when I hear the call to prayer. It makes me feel connected to the rest of the town. Everyone else will be waking now, too. I think about the men back in the container, waking to the discs of light on the ceiling. For a second I picture Bini in there with them, waking without me, but alive. But in my heart I know that Bini is not in the container, just like he is not here. I cannot let myself think about his body punctured by bullets. I try to remember sitting next to him in class—smiling Bini, alive Bini—but the image seeps away like smoke.
The market begins to fill once more. I watch the women shop; looking and testing, asking and then shaking their heads, ready to walk away until the trader offers a better price. I watch the traders arranging their goods; piling and shaping, weighing and measuring, shouting and laughing at one another. In the middle of the morning the market is buzzing with people. I cannot see the onion seller today.
I crawl backward along my rafter and slide painfully down the sacks to the ground, then hobble slowly over to the man selling pots and pans and kitchenware all made from shiny metal. His new delivery is covered in dust and his stall is busy. I offer to wipe down the new items and make them shine again. He nods and throws me a cloth. The coin he gives me will buy more water and bread. After that I will choose my moment to climb painfully back up to the roof sanctuary.
The next few days pass with little variation. My ankle is less sore, but I am getting slowly weaker, and I don’t care as much as I should. I’m sure the traders know that I am sleeping in the rafters, but no one seems to mind. I realize that the Bini-shaped black hole is starting to win. Although I cannot bear the thought of traveling without him, I know that he won’t be coming to join me. I also know that he wouldn’t want me to live in the rafters with the rats. Nor would Mom. That’s not why she saved every spare coin to help me leave the country. And if I don’t take the information about the men in the container with me to England, then who will?
With no one to talk to I find it hard to make decisions. I also find it hard to truly feel anything is important. I know that I must not die in this town, that people are depending on me. But everyone I care about is so far away. I barely have the energy to climb up and down from the roof. I need a smile, a hug, a kind word that I can understand.
I lie for a while as these thoughts circle around and around in my head. What would Bini do? He would make a plan. I must make contact with a smuggler, someone who can take me north across the Sahara, toward a boat. There is one problem to which I have no solution: I cannot speak the language here, and there is no one that I know or trust. Searching for an answer to this problem will stop the darkness from creeping up on me again tonight.
Hope
A trickle of customers begins to flow through the market and I listen to the chatter, the words all foreign to me. A familiar numbness drifts over me. Suddenly several words float up to the roof, words I know. I turn around to lie facedown on the rafters so I can see who is directly below me. I catch my ankle and stifle a gasp.
A girl, maybe my age, is standing next to an older woman. They are both wearing colorful scarves over their hair, not the white netela of home. The woman asks for flour and I hear the girl ask if they can buy some sugar. The older woman says no and the girl looks upset. I never really talked to girls at my school. But now I want to shout something down at them. Say hello. Instead I watch as they walk away to another stand farther inside the market.
I feel a hollowness in my stomach that is not hunger. Although I must climb down to look for food, or offer to do jobs for the market traders, all I can think about now is whether I will see the mother and her daughter again. What are they doing here? They must have escaped like me. Was it easier for them? Are they looking for a way to head north, too? I move my left foot. I can bend my ankle a little without crying out in pain.
Seeing them, hearing them, is the hug, the smile, the kind word that I needed. Suddenly, it seems possible to do more than just survive.
The next day they come again, although not as close as before, and I cannot hear what they are saying.
The day after, they do not come at all. I picture them in a truck driving across the Sahara, smiling. I allow myself to wish that I had never gone out to buy injera that night back at home, to wish that I had never tried to leave the prison, to imagine that then I might still be with at least one of the four people I care most about in the world. Then I tell myself I have escaped from prison, trekked across the desert, survived on my own for more than a week.
That night I only sleep for a couple of hours, then climb quietly down from the rafters to the sacks of grain below. I look around. I see no one but feel watched. The security guards are probably sleeping. I have decided that today, if the girl and mother come, I will try to speak to them.
As the traders begin to arrive, I wait behind some boxes, hoping no one will move me along.
Soon after dawn, I see them, walking slowly through the stalls together. I stand up and then quickly sit down again. Beyond the woman and her daughter I see a man with a long scar on his cheek that snakes from his eye to the corner of his mouth. He is wearing a red keffiyeh, but I notice him because he is keeping very still. Now that I have experience in trying not to be seen, I can tell when someone else is doing the same. He is looking at the girl and mother. As they walk closer toward him, he turns his head away and then casually gets up and walks over to a woman with beautiful long black hair and a veil covering her nose and the lower half of her face.
I look back to where the girl and her mother were walking, but they have gone. I scan the aisles and then spot them walking toward one of the fruit sellers. I limp slowly along after them. I can feel my heart thumping as it did when I was about to run from the camp. I stop a few feet away. I cannot decide how to introduce myself, having had so little practice at meeting new people.
As the woman leans down to look at the grapefruits, she sees me staring.
“Kemay hadirkin,” I say.
Her daughter turns her head sharply to look at me.
“My name is Shif,” I say.
The woman says nothing for a few seconds, then becomes aware of the traders looking on with interest.
“Of course,” she says. “Shif. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Where is your family today?”
I hesitate.
“I hope they are well. You must all come by later this afternoon. Five o’clock. You remember—near the blue mosque.”
I nod.
She points to some grapefruit, which the trader weighs for her, then she and her daughter walk away down the aisle.
I turn and limp as quickly as I can back toward the flour stall, feeling like a real person again. Why did she pretend to know me? There is a warm glow inside me. I don’t even mind eating the spongy black bruises on an avocado I find on the ground behind one of the sacks.
The trader who sells chickpeas and other dried food is weighing out lentils, then pouring them into plastic bags, which need tying up. It is a painstaking and annoying job. I point and make a motion like tying the bags. He nods. When I have finished, he passes me a few coins. I buy a small bunch of bananas.
After that, the hours pass slowly as I wander aimlessly, trying not to attract attention, waiting for five o’clock. Just before four, I check the small clock on the counter of the bre
ad stall and start walking in the direction the mother pointed to. I know it will take me a long time to get anywhere. Three blocks down, I see the crescent of a mosque rising above the houses. I sit on the ground beside a wall and wait, watching a small brown lizard zigzagging its way toward an ant.
Maybe ten minutes later, a man walks slowly past without stopping.
A few minutes afterward, he walks past again and says, “Follow me,” in my own language.
I get to my feet and limp as quickly as I can behind him. He heads down a narrow dirty alley, then turns again to another alleyway with a green door at the end. He turns to be sure I am there. He looks beyond me, back down the alley, then knocks quietly three times and the door swings open.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I see a small room with four people inside. They are all looking at me. The girl and her mother are there, and a youngish couple in the corner. The mother looks at the man and nods.
“Welcome, Shif,” she says. “Come and sit down. You don’t look as if you can stand for very long.”
For some reason hot tears pool at the bottom of my eyes. I sniff and wipe them away with the back of my hand. I stumble inside and sit where the man points.
“Are you here on your own?” the woman asks.
“Yes.”
“Did you come on your own?”
I stare at her. “What do you mean?”
“You have run away, am I right?”
I nod.
“Did you leave the country alone?”
I want to say that I didn’t come on my own, but I am worried that all that will come out is a loud sob. I take two breaths.
