The Whip Hand

by Nadine Browne

  I live with friend of uncle and his wife but it not home. I meet them first time when I come off boat. My uncle say I must get on boat and go to Australia. He say it safe and there many jobs. When I meet wife I say salaam but she say to speak English. She speak like God pour honey in her mouth. She speak soft and her hands soft like baby skin and very beautiful. She ask me what I can do and I tell her I work in school at home. She ask if I want to be useful and I say yes, yes, of course. So I clean and cook for wife.

  And I go to English class and learn to speak like honey.

  And I write on pages for government to let me stay. I get form to write but not sure what it say. They say to read information carefully and I try but there many questions. There forty-five pages asking and telling and I not know difference. I ask Mrs Omar for help and she say ‘yes, yes, another time’. She say ‘yes, yes, another time’ every time I ask. My uncle call me and he say I must fill out form. Uncle pay Mr Omar so I can learn to speak nice in community centre with Mrs Copland. Uncle say I must get visa or I like shadow. He ask Mr Omar to help me and Mr Omar ask Mrs Omar and Mrs Omar say ‘yes, yes, another time’. And days go to weeks and to months and I cook and clean.

  Every Monday afternoon I walk to community centre. One Monday after class I ask Mrs Copland what radiological report mean. She look at me with eyebrows up like someone scare her. I show her form and ask again. She say it mean something doctor do. I ask why and she take deep breath and tell me to go to Citizen Advice Bureau. I ask where I find this but she already out door. I hear her car start and she drive away very fast.

  I walk home in dark. Night make any place feel like any other place. It nice to walk in dark with hot wind and sound of little animals. It feel like home. I take off shoes and walk barefoot. Uncle right. I am shadow. Maybe that why I feel happy in dark. During day I am nothing for people to see. During night I am like everything else.

  When I get to Mr Omar street I smell cigarette and I see Georgie sitting on ground breathing smoke. She wear little dress and red lipstick and she look like woman but I know she child. She ask me what I stare at and I tell her I stare at her. She look at me like she confused. Then she ask me why I here, why I not go home. I tell her this is home and she say ‘bullshit’. I ask why she speak so ugly and she swear at me. She stand up and throw cigarette away and walk off.

  I go to Mr Omar house and Mrs Omar see bare feet and get angry. She tell me I dirty and I make her house dirty but she speak in our language. I smile because it so long I hear my language. Mrs Omar think I rude. I try explain hearing words in my language make me feel less like shadow. It like rain and I like grass and when it fall on me I grow. I feel like me when I had home. I feel like me at mother table with my brothers and sisters and cousins. I feel like me listening to father read stories his father read when he little child. Stories about prince and princess and about thieves and witches. There magic in father stories and I think for long time that magic save me but magic trapped in stories like bird in cage. Magic cannot save shadow. Only visa save shadow.

  Mrs Omar look at me like I crazy and she call me ‘silly girl’. She tell me to wash feet in garden. She tell me I hurry up and fix dinner because Mr Omar soon home. I wash feet and then I fix dinner and while I cook Mrs Omar watch TV show with singing. She watch with little smile on her lips like she dreaming sweet dream. Mrs Omar sit in big chair holding soft hands and she smile.

  I stop ask Mrs Omar for help. I not write every day anymore. I forget when day and when night. I forget time. Time mean holiday or weekend or work for people but time not mean anything for me. People watch time and scared of time but I think time forget about me. It sweep over world in big wave and leave only me behind.

  I take walk sometime. Sometime I watch cars on street and I jealous for people who have place to go. I jealous for people who in hurry. I walk very slow like old person and my mind go very slow. Everything around me go fast, fast, fast but I go more slow every day and I scared one day I will stop. Uncle not call me for many week and English class over now. I go for walk and I hope I meet Somali lady or other lady from English class but I know city very big and people very small.

  One morning Mr Omar at work and Mrs Omar shopping so I alone in house. I sit in garden and watch sun move in sky. Then I hear loud noise. I look over wall between Mr Omar house and Mr Cole house and I see Georgie bang on window. Window locked and she try to open. Her dress very dirty and she look like she fall down. She see me looking over wall and I think she going to scream at me but she look scared and she say ‘Eric crashed his dad’s car’. I ask if she hurt and she shake head. ‘His dad’s gonna kill us,’ she say. She say car crash in trees and she walk home. I tell her to come to me and at first she look like she not want to, but then she stop pulling window and she come.

  I take Georgie inside and I make tea. I give her dress to wear. It only dress I have and it big on little girl. She ask me this and that and I happy to talk. I hear my voice like stranger but the more I talk the more it sound like me. I tell her I try to get visa but it very hard. She look at me and say ‘so you don’t have visa’ and I tell her I trying to get. Then I tell Georgie to call her mother and she does but she not happy. When Mrs Cole come to pick girl up she say that she lock window to teach Georgie lesson. Her face sour and she not look at me, not look at girl.

  When Mrs Omar come home she talk with Mrs Cole quiet like they talk secret and then she come and she tell me I not stay in their house anymore. She say Mr Cole angry I took girl in house and that it not my business. She say Georgie told Mr Cole I not have visa and he want to call immigration and police and they not want trouble. I ask her where I go and she say it not her business.

  At night Mr Omar come and he say I can stay. I ask what happen if Mr Cole call police and he say they send me away because I not have visa. I say that I try get visa but I need form and nobody help me. Mr Omar say he help me but I must be good and not make Mrs Omar angry.

  I scared now. I scared that Mr Cole call police. Police maybe lock me in centre and everyone forget about shadow. Police maybe send me back home but it not home anymore. Police send me to what was home long time ago like they send me to desert to find ocean. I scared and when I see Georgie I say ‘please not call police, please tell father I not make trouble’. Georgie look at me like I not there and she tell me it better if I fuck off home. I not understand. Why everyone angry? Why nobody help? This country full and rich and people have everything and can say anything and do anything. People not understand that I want what they have but not what is their. I want home and family and job. But I not take their home and family and job.

  When uncle call he speak with Mr Omar. Uncle angry because he give Mr Omar money to help me and Mr Omar not help. I ask uncle what I do and he say I get visa. I must get visa. When I get visa I not have to clean and cook for Mrs Omar. When I get visa police not send me away. After I talk to uncle I ask Mr Omar to help with papers. He say later.

  I go to street and sit on ground. It dark but I sit with form and I try write. I sit for long time and I try understand. I not know block letters. I not know dependants. For first time in Australia I cry because I scared I never have home again. I cry like baby and I embarrassed but I cry and cry.

  I hear sound and it make me jump. Georgie standing looking at me. She wearing big t-shirt and her feet bare. She look like she wake up from sleep. She look very much like little girl and I think about little sister. Georgie sit down next to me and ask why I cry. I say I sad and I scared. I say I need visa but nobody help me.

  She ask why I not go back home but she not ask with ugly voice. She ask like child ask where rain come from. She ask like person who think home something everyone have like body. I tell her mother and father killed and it not safe in my country. She look at me and her eyes very big and she say ‘that sucks’. Then she take papers from me and pen and she ask ‘what’s your name?’ She ask ‘do you have any dependants?’ and when I say I not understand she say ‘wait here’ and run ins
ide. She come back out with mobile phone and she look on phone and say ‘do you have, like, kids or anything?’

  She keep ask questions and write answers in neat writing like school teacher. I ask if it make her father angry if she help me but she keep writing and say ‘whatever’. She say we go to immigration office tomorrow and that we go early. I say thank you, thank you and she say ‘whatever’.

  When I go in house again it late and I smile. Mrs Omar ask why I smile and where I been and why I not work.

  I keep smile and I say ‘whatever’.

  Frozen

  A long time ago, during our many summers on Grundvik Island, I would wake up early every Thursday and run down to wait for Jonas Ström and the mail.

  I’d listen for his hoot in the pale light of morning, with the cool promise of a warm summer day climbing a horizon that surrounded me.

  He’d approach, just a blue and red dot from where I stood, barefoot, worrying that Helena or Toma would find me and tease.

  Then with a mighty honk he would pull up to the pier. Loud like Thor, tall and bright with a wide grin, he’d cast me in his shadow as he leaned down to hand me the newspapers and letters. He would say ‘flicka lilla’, little girl, ‘du vaknar med fåglarna’, you rise with the birds. Then, just as I’d prepare to open my mouth and say something, Helena and Toma would come tumbling down from the house, through the forest, and flank me, giggling, while the beautiful Jonas would be off with a final ear-splitting roar.

  ‘You love him.’

  ‘Mila is going to marry Mr Postman!’

  And we would race up to the house, through the heavy oak front door that we joined forces to open, and into the kitchen where we collapsed in laughter at our mothers’ feet.

  We’d listen to their gossip until we were thrown out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where our grandfather and my dad were locked in mortal combat over their backgammon board, brows furrowed, but conscious enough of the world outside their battle for my dad to mumble, ‘Your daddy is winning this one, honey.’ Grandfather would just smile, and wink, and tell me never to grow old. This is what he always told us kids and we’d nod solemnly, believing that we never would.

  Outside, Toma’s dad would be fixing something, hammering or sawing, and we’d stay well away.

  By the afternoon everyone would leave the house and scatter. Our mums would sunbathe on the pier, while our dads would take the boat out, and we’d flash around the island.

  ***

  On our final visit to Grundvik we had arrived in threes and fours, as always, in my uncle’s motorboat. It was the middle of winter. We never came here at this time – Grundvik Island was the place of summer thrills – but our grandfather was turning eighty-five and we all gathered to celebrate.

  Grundvik was a very different place.

  In between the islands of the archipelago, the Baltic Sea lay in great sheaths of broken ice. Closer to the mainland ice-skaters were still venturing out, but here the currents kept the ice shifting, the waves pulling in and out of deserted beaches with black fingers.

  Our island was abandoned to the wintry blues, covered in a blanket of pure white snow. Ancient pine and spruce swayed, green and lush, amid the black skeletons of oak, beech and maple. Here and there something stirred in the trees, scattering snow from the loaded branches. Then all was still again.

  The mail boat still drifted by once a week, though it did not stop by the island. Its hoot could be heard somewhere far out, above the restless rumble, though it was soon drowned out by the sea and wind.

  Summer dreams should not be trampled by winter boots. Had we not returned, and brought the dull season with us, Grundvik would have remained untouched by the chill that will now always remain.

  There was nothing of the long days and warm nights we knew from our summers. I didn’t venture out on Thursday mornings to wait for the mail boat. At night the water would freeze in the pipes.

  I asked my dad one morning, when I couldn’t turn on the tap: ‘Where does all the water go?’

  Dad smiled. ‘It’s still there, just frozen. Honey, ice is just frozen water, isn’t it?’ He laughed and pulled me to him.

  When I walked out that morning I looked around at the heavy snow that covered everything and thought: it is all just water. But light and dazzling, and nothing like the black waves that surrounded the island.

  My dad told us, while sitting by the fire one evening, that the ocean would be so cold now you would die within minutes if you fell in. It seemed as if the sea we had believed to be our tranquil friend, our comfort, had turned feral.

  But we didn’t really mind the cold. We were happy to be together and miss a couple of days of school. Helena and Toma were my best friends, and I had no reason to think anything would ever change.

  The house on Grundvik Island belonged to Helena’s parents. The island itself was public. Sometimes during the busy summer season boats would pull in and our beach would host strangers, but mostly we had it to ourselves. Helena’s parents had opened a restaurant when they’d arrived in Sweden years before, and now Helena and her older brother went to expensive schools and on holidays to California. They didn’t live in a high-rise; they had their own house with a large garden.

  In Romania, Adrian, Toma’s dad, had been a lawyer. When he came to Sweden he had been nothing for a long time before starting work as an office junior for an insurance firm.

  He had big expectations of Toma, but Toma didn’t have big ambitions. Toma wanted to watch movies and read comic books. He wanted to make friends and wander around town aimlessly with them.

  Instead, he did three hours of homework on weekdays, five hours on the weekends, and took extra lessons in maths and German three times a week. The rest of his time Toma spent in his room – scared to disappoint, scared of the Chilean boys that lived on his block and scared of the names the Swedish kids called him at school.

  During our summers on the island we would spend all of our time outside, either on the beach or in the forest. We sometimes even dared to go north to the cliffs, where we were forbidden to venture, and we would lay on our tummies right on the edge and watch the waves break, imagining what would happen if we fell.

  But on our last visit, the winter visit, it got dark too early and was too cold to stay out late. So we hurried inside where there was, as always, food waiting, and picked an empty room to sit in, by a bright fire. Toma was even quieter than usual, and when he spoke he said things that made Helena and I look at each other with furrowed brows.

  ***

  On the day of grandfather’s party, Helena and I were outside after breakfast, eager to take advantage of the short day. Toma had been led by his father to the small office at the back of the house and instructed to translate a news article from Swedish to German and from German to Romanian. During the summers Toma would get away with only an hour’s work, but now, in the middle of term, he had to follow his normal routine.

  Helena and I snuck around the house and knocked on the window of his prison. Toma looked up at us with a little smile, then back down at his notes.

  We pressed cold faces and mittened paws against the glass until he got up from the desk and opened the window.

  ‘Poor Toma.’

  ‘We’ve been on the cliff.’

  ‘We’ve seen bits of a shipwreck. We’ll show it to you. It’s right under our place: a real shipwreck.’

  ‘What’s “shipwreck” in German, Toma?’

  We sniggered as he leaned out of the window, snatched my fluffy hat and put it on his own head.

  Suddenly, the door swung open. Helena and I ducked below the windowsill, covering our mouths in an attempt to stifle the giggles. Toma’s dad slammed the window shut, glass rattling above us, his voice a low murmur. We couldn’t make out his words, but they were followed by the sound of impact; something fell off the desk with a rustle, and then a second heavy thump.

  Our hands still covered our mouths, but above the brightly coloured mittens our ey
es weren’t laughing anymore. The door was opened and slammed shut again, and we lifted our heads just enough to glance into the room, where Toma was at the desk again, his shoulders shaking and his face turned away from us.

  I wanted to knock on the window again, but Helena took my hand and tugged gently and we ran off and hid among the skeletons of the oak and maple trees, where my mum found us a while later. She handed me back my hat and pulled me into a long embrace, and I could see, even then, that she knew it wasn’t fair.

  A few hours later, we were collecting stones on the beach when, through the quickly rising darkness, we saw Toma making his way down from the house.

  He didn’t look at us, just sat down, and we joined him in silence on the wet granite.

  The sea was nothing but sparks in the dark.

  ‘I hate German.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘I hate him.’

  There was no need to ask who he was. His mark had been left on Toma’s cheek and was visible even in the premature darkness of the winter afternoon. We said nothing, but Helena put her hand on Toma’s arm.

  Toma stood up and looked down at us, his face in shadows. ‘I have an idea, come on.’

  We followed him down to the pier and up to the boat that lay rocking. He jumped in.

  ‘Toma! We’re not allowed.’

  ‘We have to get back for the party …’

  ‘You scared?’

  Yes, we were, and we couldn’t understand why he wasn’t: his dad would be furious, but we jumped in next to him and looked at each other, trying to find encouragement.

  Toma untied the knot that held boat and pier together, that held everything together, and pushed out with one of the oars.

  We were alone in the inky night, drifting further and further from the lights of the house and the shrinking island. Helena was holding my hand and Toma was rowing with his back to us, his shoulders moving back and forth rhythmically and his breath rising above his head in puffs.