by Alex Day
Calm down! Edie spoke severely to herself in her head. You’re getting hysterical. This is totally ridiculous, there’s no one here and it’s just some private storeroom – it’s probably got someone’s fishing gear in it, nice and near to the beach, save taking it home all the time. She was being absurd, skulking around a dark olive grove in what was by now practically the dead of night on some half-arsed mission to find someone who everyone else believed had left of her own accord. Who in all likelihood was absolutely fine. And yet … that feeling that there was something amiss wormed its way back into her attempts to rationalise once more. Emboldened anew, Edie took a deep breath.
‘Is there anyone in there?’ she shouted at the top of her voice.
‘There – there – there?’
Her words echoed around the silent hillside and faded away into the blackness. She began pounding at the metal door with her fists and booting it ineffectively with her foot, her open-toed sandals a distinct impediment to the job. And then the noise she was making became terrifying and she suddenly stopped, not wanting to draw any extra attention to herself, to bring anyone up here wondering what was going on and finding her beating up an old concrete hut having apparently lost her marbles. She sank down onto her haunches in the dusty soil and put her head in her hands. This was hopeless. She had no idea what to do.
And then she heard it. A snap of twigs underfoot and a rustle of fabric brushing against itself, as a man’s thick shorts do. She held her breath. One more crack of dry wood breaking and then silence, complete and utter, apart from the deafening roar of the cicadas.
Edie got up, shaking her head angrily. You just imagined it, she told herself sternly. Overactive imagination, isn’t that what Mum always used to accuse you of? Well then, she was right and you need to stop, right now.
Stepping forward deliberately boldly she began to sing a Miley Cyrus song that she and Laura both loved, the words of which she knew by heart. She was not scared and let no one prowling in the bushes think that she was. She struck on up the hill to where she believed was the ruined hut, determined not to fall prey to stupid presuppositions that might hinder her progress. By serendipity, she soon reached the glade where the ramshackle building lay. Here, the atmosphere seemed completely different to that at the concrete huts. By the light of the moon, the stone construction now seemed to be more of a cottage than a hovel, romantically rustic and unspoilt.
Edie went up to the paneless window and looked inside. It was empty. But as she shone her phone-torch around, she noticed that the dirt floor was scuffed as if many footsteps had trampled it and there was a clearly discernible print of the sole of a shoe that appeared to have been made recently. Peering more closely at the ground, she saw cigarette butts littered everywhere, and a discarded packet nestling between two stones at about hand height where someone had presumably stashed it to protect it from the sand and dust. There were a few pieces of dilapidated furniture; chairs, a table and an iron bedstead complete with soiled mattress. Probably where the local kids come to hang out and smoke weed, she pondered. She herself didn’t do drugs anymore; one too many nasty experiences had put her off and anyway it was a stupid way to waste money when she didn’t have much to spare.
Having satisfied herself that there was nothing more to be seen here, she turned away and began walking back down towards the resort. She had gone a few metres when she tripped on a half-buried olive branch that splintered apart, dry and brittle. Falling forwards, she only just stopped herself from ending up flat on her face. It was as she was righting herself that she saw it. Trailing from the spikes of some unidentified bush, caught up in a tangled bunch at one end with the other hanging free, was a scarf. Edie couldn’t make out its exact colour in the moonlight, but it was made of a thin, gauze-like material and had a pattern of stitches in the shape of ‘x’s upon it. Biting her lip and staring at it intently as if it might escape if she took her eyes off it, she crept forward. She reached out her hand and fingered the flimsy fabric. It was soft and yielding. Carefully she disentangled it from the bushes and held it up close before her. It seemed to be a shade of grey, the crosses white. Edie buried her face in it. It smelt of the sun and the earth and the sand – and something else, familiar, evocative.
It smelt of Laura.
FOURTEEN
Fatima
‘Town’ was an ambitious word for the shambolic collection of dwellings they arrived in, where a few families scratched out a living selling food and shelter to those trying to get out. Fatima couldn’t imagine what induced them to stay. She and Ehsan found a room, negotiating a price that seemed exorbitant, and bought a meal. Fatima insisted on ringing the smuggler every fifteen minutes. At least they were able to keep the phones charged whilst here. Ehsan had also brought with them a back-up mobile, with spare batteries. He said that it would enable them to ‘keep in contact’, though there was no one they needed to communicate with except the smuggler. At the twelfth attempt, when they had been about to give up for the night and try to get some sleep, the call was answered.
‘You try tomorrow,’ ordered the smuggler. ‘There was no chance today, border guards everywhere. Tomorrow. Early.’
They left at 4.30am. They had decided to walk, to save money, but Marwa’s knee was getting worse and Ehsan had to give her a piggy-back. That was difficult because holding onto her right leg to keep her stable was impossible, it hurt so much now. Fatima knew that she needed antibiotics but there was no pharmacy in the place they’d spent the night and Ehsan didn’t want to waste a morning going further afield to look for a shop when this might mean missing the opportunity to get across the border.
The sun was rising and the darkness slowly vanishing behind the distant hills when they got back to where they had been so few hours ago. Time was beginning to lose all meaning. Dozens of their compatriots were already gathered to wait under the trees near the barbed wire fence, praying for the opportunity to reach safety. Perhaps word had got round that today might be the day thought Fatima, gazing at everyone. There were many more people than the day before, youngsters, families with children, the elderly, some carrying laundry bags of food and clothing and anything they had managed to salvage or find space for, others equipped only with a carrier bag and a phone. Apart from the children, everyone’s eyes were scanning the border, waiting for the sign to run, hoping that if they did so they might get lucky and evade being apprehended and turned back.
Fatima fell into conversation with a couple who arrived to stand next to her. She didn’t ask their names and they didn’t offer them; anonymity seemed to be the order of the day here. Both husband and wife were clutching a small child, a one-year-old and a two-year-old. They wore their fatigue and exhaustion on their white, taut faces.
‘It’s the sixth day we’ve come,’ the man said to Fatima. ‘We’ve tried but we haven’t made it yet. It takes time and if the border guards are being vigilant in their patrols, you can’t do it.’
Fatima nodded, wordlessly. She was sorry for this family just as she was sorry for her whole country. But she must focus on herself, the twins, Youssef and Ehsan. No one and nothing else.
In the distance an armoured truck, windscreen glinting in the rays of the rising sun, sped past. The flag and official markings showed it for what it was. The border patrols were regular and efficient. She hadn’t seen them yesterday because she hadn’t been looking, hadn’t known that was what they were waiting for.
‘They check the guard positions all the time. Except sometimes, they disappear for a few hours and then you have your chance,’ the unnamed man explained. ‘The smugglers are watching them and they give you the signal.’
Fatima didn’t want to give the impression that she was completely naive, that she didn’t know the score. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, nonchalantly. ‘And your smuggler,’ she asked, working hard to keep her tone casual. ‘He’s reliable?’
‘If it wasn’t for him telling us we’ll get through soon, we would turn back, go home.’
Fatima digested this information slowly. Back home. She supposed that such a decision made sense, but only if you had a home. If you didn’t, the limbo of living in no-man’s land could go on indefinitely. She stared at the road beyond the wire and the trench. They would make it. They had to.
For the first hour or so, Ehsan walked out of earshot of the crowd to make the calls to the smuggler but as the number of people increased it got harder to push his way back through and so they gave up on privacy. The smuggler hadn’t answered yet anyway. Fatima could feel the sweat in her armpits and trickling down her neck and back and she knew she smelt. Everyone did. They were like a herd of cattle, reduced to their base elements, stinking and wretched. If she had had any energy Fatima would have felt disgust but she didn’t so she just stood amongst the fetid multitude and did what everyone else was doing. She waited.
Worsening the ordeal was having to hold Marwa, burning with fever and listless, in her arms. Fatima’s self-assurances of the day before that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed had clearly been false. The little girl now stirred only to scream if anyone so much as brushed against her. The infection had taken hold and spread rapidly. Her entire calf was hot and swollen now, the crimson skin stretched taut. When she opened her eyes, they were glassy and unfocused. Fatima held her tight although every muscle ached. There was no help available, no medicine, no disinfectant. Maryam clung silently, desperately, to Fatima’s legs. She had shrunk into herself, her usual babbling chatter extinguished, her expression one of constant wariness, her melting eyes dulled by fear as Marwa’s were by pain. Fatima had always noted how they seemed to feel each other’s suffering, to experience their own pain and each other’s, and now she knew it for certain, getting the proof in the worst of circumstances.
Suddenly everyone started running. The only way to stay upright was to run with them. Ehsan swept up Maryam, Youssef picked up Fatima’s bag and his own and they joined the stampede. The front runners were all young, unaccompanied men, unencumbered with hangers-on or baggage; a few were already at the top of the fence. Most of the time all Fatima could see were people’s backs, dark clothing, rucksacks hoisted onto shoulders. But every now and again her field of vision cleared for a second or two and then she saw the men ascending, dropping, sliding, climbing, over the fence and across the trench and then, on reaching the other side, running. Running for their lives, because the armoured vehicle was back, all glinting metal and flashing lights. Fatima heard shots echoing out into the morning air, along with cries of ‘Git!’
Just as suddenly as it had begun, the surge halted in its tracks like a flood of water stemmed by the turning of a tap.
The people at the back of the crowd stopped too late and bashed into those in front of them, setting off a domino effect of lurching, stumbling bodies. Marwa woke up, screaming with pain as her leg was continually knocked and jostled in the crush. Fatima, concentrating on keeping hold of her, tripped and fell. For an instant she saw herself being trampled like a fallen animal and began frantically groping for the floor with her hand, trying to stabilise herself so that she could push herself upright. She started to breathe quickly, too quickly, to hyperventilate, as panic took over. Her heart was racing, fleeting moments of blackness shuttering across her vision. Rivers of sweat coursed down her forehead and into her eyes, blinding her. Marwa’s leg was pressing on the floor and the child was uttering high-pitched, uncanny yelps that brought to Fatima’s mind memories of a dog that had once been run over on her street and had dragged itself to the roadside to die.
For a moment, everything stopped, darkness surrounded her and Fatima blacked out. And then immediately came to, screaming in agony, for someone was standing on her hand, crushing her outstretched fingers, pinning her to the ground. The pain roused her from unconsciousness and then subsided as the foot moved and a strong grasp clutched her elbow and pulled her to her feet. The swarm parted and she could see again, but the temporary relief at being upright and alive was soon replaced by the heavy weight of dread settling in her stomach. There was no sign of Ehsan, Maryam and Youssef. Fatima stood stock still, searching, willing God to catch a glimpse of them, praying that they had not been the recipients of the bullets she had heard fired.
Marwa was not moving at all but Fatima could not take her eyes off the people milling around her for so much as a second lest she miss a sighting of the others. She was hot, so thirsty she thought she might die and she could do nothing about it, dare not risk getting out water and drinking until she knew where they were, where Maryam was.
At last, she saw a face she recognised, walking towards her, arms opened wide, smiling. It was Fayed. Marwa whimpered as Fatima let out a cry of relief and began to stumble towards him, clutching the child’s dead weight close to her. But as she approached he disappeared, melting into the backdrop of the chaotic mass of humanity all around. Fatima remembered that Fayed was dead. She was hallucinating; it had been a mirage, her husband’s familiar, longed-for face taking the place of the oasis in the desert. Nausea rose in her throat and she was sick, the vomit splattering against the hard, dusty soil and onto her ankles.
Close to collapse, Fatima began to drag herself back to the dismal trees. She found a space there and wearily crouched down. Marwa had lapsed back into a deep sleep and she laid the child on the ground next to her. She regarded her daughter, so sick, so similar to her other daughter, now missing. She was about to lose everything and she was too numb to care.
The thump of Maryam’s little body against hers destabilised Fatima, causing her to lurch to the side and almost crash down on top of Marwa. It was half an hour at least since the surge to the border and she had been sure Ehsan, Youssef and her daughter were gone for good. She had begun to convince herself that it was good news, that their absence meant that they had got across and that three of them, at least, had succeeded. Now, incredibly, here they were and suddenly the time without them seemed like nothing because everything was back to exactly how it was before. Fatima couldn’t work out if that were good or bad.
Ehsan, catching her eyes, shook his head. ‘We didn’t make it,’ he said, unnecessarily. ‘Not a chance.’
There was nothing to do but stay in the shelter of the trees and continue to wait.
The smuggler answered the phone at some point in the afternoon.
‘You should have come before, when it was easier,’ he railed at them. ‘Now it’s very hard, since the last four, five months. Very hard. You keep trying but I don’t know if you make it. It’s very dangerous.’
‘We got it wrong,’ said Fatima, her eyes burning as she tried not to cry. ‘We’ve left it too late.’
The tears began to flow despite her efforts to quell them, dropping onto Marwa’s blue shorts where they left a dark stain. Her leg was even more swollen now. Fatima had hoped letting the air get to it might help, in the absence of disinfectant, drugs, bandages. But it was getting ever worse, and had begun to ooze thick, yellow pus that stank of fetid decay.
‘There’s no point in weeping,’ said Ehsan, roughly, his inability to solve the problem seeming to turn into anger towards everyone and everything. He glared hopelessly in the direction of the border. ‘All we can do is wait.’
Marwa’s silence was worse than the noise of her earlier screaming had been. She had passed into semi-consciousness, a slick of sweat covering her body, her skin, where it wasn’t scarlet, an unnatural shade of grey. Every now and again a swell of air from the movement of the crowd or the breeze brought the stench of rot wafting to Fatima’s nostrils. Marwa’s infection was destroying her flesh and would soon destroy her.
Fatima could no longer hold back the full force of her despair. ‘If we wait any longer,’ she sobbed. ‘Marwa will be dead.’
FIFTEEN
Edie
It was a relief to arrive back amongst the lights and activity of the resort. Although it always seemed quiet around the cabanas in the olive grove, Edie realised now that there was a comforting amount of coming and going; im
perceptible when you weren’t thinking about it but like Piccadilly Circus in contrast to where she had come from.
She set off to look for Vuk; she needed to ask his opinion about the scarf. Perhaps now she had a piece of the much vaunted ‘evidence’, people – namely Vuk – would start taking her seriously. As well as that, there was the poster to complete. There was no sign of him down by the bar or restaurant and he was unlikely to be in the office this late, so having made a detour to her room to collect her poster prototype, Edie set off for his cabin, clutching the scarf tightly in her hand.
If Vuk was around, he was usually sitting outside smoking as he had been the night before but tonight the chair was empty. She tried ringing his phone. No answer. She tried the door handle of the cabin. It was locked. She wandered around, peering in the windows to see if he were asleep and had not heard her.
He wasn’t there.
Pondering what to do, she decided to leave him a note and then remembered that she had neither paper, other than the poster, nor a pen. She was bound to find both such items inside if only she could get in. The bathroom window was open; it was quite low and just big enough for someone her size. She reached her hand up to the clasp on the inner edge, released it and pulled open the window. Placing both hands on the ledge she launched herself into one great effortful push upwards. Puffing and panting with the exertion, and really hoping that Vuk didn’t show up right now to see her engaged in such an inelegant activity, she hauled herself into a sitting position. From there it was a simple matter to kick shut the lid of the toilet, which was positioned directly below the window, and lower her feet down onto it.
