by Ele Fountain
Towards the covered central area I see a kiosk with a glass front. Inside are rolls of bread. I limp slowly over 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. 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. There are three aisles 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 each other. I look up and see that beneath the low tin roof there 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 which 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 towards 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 floor. A large colourful umbrella provides shade for a woman sitting next to the sacks. She begins to peel off the dirty outer layer 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 towards 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 floor 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 towards the grain sacks and the rafters.
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 each other. In the middle of the morning the market is buzzing with people. I cannot see the onion seller today.
I crawl backwards 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 travelling 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 my mother. 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?
Their greatest fear will come true. They will die there and no one will ever know.
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 round and round in my head. What would Bini do? He would make a plan. There is one problem to which I have no solution. I must make contact with a smuggler, someone who can take me north across the Sahara, towards a boat. I cannot speak the language here and there is no one that I know or trust. This is the problem which I will think about to 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 face down on the rafters so that 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 colourful scarves over their hair, not the white netelas 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 cross. 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 further inside the market.
I feel a hollowness in my stomach which 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 the next day. 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 let myself 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 round the stalls together. I stand up and then quickly sit down again. Beyond the woman and her mother 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 of 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 towards 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 towards one of the fruit sellers. I limp slowly along after them. I can feel my heart thumping like it did when I was about to run from the camp. I stop a few metres 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 towards 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 floor behind one of the sacks.
The trader who sells chickpeas and other pulses is weighing out lentils, then pouring them into plastic bags which need tying up. It is a fiddly and annoying job. I point and gesture 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 bread stall, and start walking in the direction the mother had 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 next to a nearby wall and wait, watching a small brown lizard zigzagging its way towards an ant.
Maybe ten minutes later, a man walks slowly past without stopping.
A few minutes afterwards, 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 check 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 am worried that all that will come out is a loud sob. I take two breaths.
“I came with a friend,” I say eventually. “He is dead now.” It’s the first time I have said the words out loud.
“I’m sorry, Shif,” she says, looking at me with genuine sorrow in her eyes.
“We also lost friends on our journey here. I am Shewit.” She holds out her hand. “Where is your family, Shif?”
“My mother and sister are at home. I don’t know where my father is.” I realize that not just the woman, but the young couple, too, are listening and nodding, as if they know exactly what has happened to me in the last few weeks. I cannot imagine anyone having been through the same things.
“Where are you going now?”
I pause before answering. Shewit is looking at me with interest. I feel I have nothing left to lose.
“I was supposed to walk south to the refugee camp,” I say. “But I hurt my ankle, and only just made it here. I couldn’t go any further. My ankle is healing now, though, so perhaps I will be able to leave in a couple of days. I want to go to Europe.”
Shewit and her husband start talking in low voices. As they talk, I look around the room again. It is very neat. There is a pile of folded clothes in the corner. Through an open door at the back of the room I see a small courtyard, from which wafts the smell of a wood fire burning. They must be cooking dinner. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten a hot meal.
My hunger must show because Shewit looks over and says, “Would you like to eat? We can talk more afterwards.”
“I would like to eat,” I reply.
“We have bread and lentil stew.”
She gives me a small portion and I eat slowly, feeling full after a couple of mouthfuls. She advises me not to eat any more until my stomach is used to food again. She knows of people who have died because they’ve eaten too much after nearly starving. Their stomachs had torn.
When we have all finished, the woman says, “You must not go to the refugee camp. There is a tribe in this area which kidnaps people who have escaped from our country. They live in tents outside the big tow
ns, but many can be found around the markets and bus stations too, looking for people like us. They know that we have few friends and no relatives to help us.”
“To send them back home again?” I ask.
“No, to sell them.”
“To sell the people?”
“Yes, they sell them to be used as slaves. If they don’t capture you on the way to the camp, they come and find you there. They have gangs who patrol the camps, waiting for anyone new. Children get good prices. But selling isn’t all they do. They’re experts. Before selling you, they try to get hold of your family’s money.”
“How? They don’t know where my family lives.”
“They make you give them a phone number for a rich relative, or your parents—whoever is going to pay for your passage to the sea.”
“You could just say no,” I answer, confused.
She smiles, a sad smile. “If you make too much trouble, then they kill you, or sell you again.”
“Like a sheep,” I say.
“Perhaps,” she says. “Although the farmer respects his sheep. Rest now. Your body needs to recover from what it has been through before you can go anywhere.”
Friend
“Wake up.” Someone is gently shaking my shoulder.
I blink and sit up. “Where am I?”
Then I recognize the lady kneeling next to me. Shewit. Pale light creeps under the door and round the shutter.
“We’re going to the market.” She nods towards the girl.
I rub my fists in my eyes. “I’ll come to help you carry things.”
“No. It would be better for you to stay here. Rest your ankle.”
I notice that the room will be empty except for me and the woman in the corner whose leg and arm are bandaged. She is sitting up but her eyes are closed.
