by Alex Day
The others ate but she couldn’t face anything. The smell revolted her. This was what made it all so much worse, made her even more of a dead weight. Because soon Ehsan would be bound to notice the other problem they had.
She had.
Having missed four periods, there was only one possible conclusion to come to. She was pregnant. She had tried to put the first, and the second, down to stress and fear due to the ever-worsening crisis engulfing the country. She hadn’t said anything to Fayed. But it wasn’t just not bleeding that made her sure, it was the metallic taste in her mouth, the physical exhaustion that was more intense, more overpowering than any ordinary fatigue, the craving for oranges and the nausea, which had continued throughout the time she was expecting the twins and seemed to be doing so again. The signs were all there and as much as she tried to ignore them, she knew what they meant.
She told no one.
They waited some more.
***
And then suddenly, in the early evening of the fifth day, word went around, confirmed by a hasty call from the smuggler, that now was good. A hiatus further up the border had redeployed the guards for the time being and provided an opportunity. Young men, the bravest and fittest, scrabbled to the front of the waiting hordes and launched themselves bodily against the fence; some scaled it with ease but others had to use the concrete posts to support themselves as they hauled themselves up, metre by metre. Once they had reached the top a few, the kindest perhaps, stationed themselves astride the wire to help others. Ehsan followed suit, managing somehow, even though he was overweight and unfit, to clamber clumsily to the summit where he balanced, half-standing, half-crouching, one leg on either side.
The fence was flimsy, built in haste to hold back the human tide, and it rocked perilously to and fro with the conflicting weights of those climbing up on one side and down on the other. Fatima watched as Ehsan swung around high above her, his lack of balance only too apparent. She muttered a brief prayer but had not had time to finish it before Youssef was in front of her, gesturing to her to give him a leg up, to help him follow on where the men had led. More and more these days, he was showing that he had left childhood behind. And yet, at only thirteen, he was far too young for adulthood – especially the brutal travesty of true manhood that their circumstances engendered.
Somehow, between Fatima hoisting and Ehsan pulling, Youssef conquered the fence and dropped down the other side. For one brief moment, they caught each other’s eye, and Fatima saw in his expression the hunted, panic-stricken look of the animal that has broken out of its cage and into freedom and feels not elation but utter terror, having no idea what to do with the hard-won liberty now it was achieved.
There were people behind her, hundreds and hundreds of them, bearing down on her, pushing her forward. Word got around quickly and refugees were arriving, by foot or taxi or car or by whatever means possible, from all over the place, desperate for the chance the brief absence of patrols offered. The sheer weight of bodies pressing towards her meant that Fatima would have to get up and over that fence quickly or she and the girls would be crushed by the mob. But the jostling and elbowing, the screeches and shouts of instructions, exhortations and warnings that filled the air threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to put her hands over her ears and scream to drown out all the noise and the panic and the hysteria.
A woman flopped down off the fence next to her. She had got about half way up and then fallen, hampered as she was by a full abya and two enormous carrier bags of food and clothing. Undaunted, she pushed her hijab back from where it covered her eyes and began again. Her determination brought Fatima to her senses. She seized hold of Marwa and lifted her as high as she could. Ehsan grabbed her arm and for a split-second she dangled there, hanging above the scorched earth and crowds of clamouring men, women and children. And then Ehsan pulled her up enough to get a hold of her body and swung her over the summit of the fence and down to Youssef’s waiting arms. Maryam was soon also over and then it was Fatima’s turn. Her paranoid fear of heights, her hatred of climbing anything, evaporated in a heartbeat. It had to. There was no other choice.
As she turned to make her ascent, she noticed a little boy, about six, who was standing next to her, seemingly alone. Incongruously fastened around his neck was a pair of sunglasses on a thick, elasticated band and under his arm he clasped a hastily bundled up piece of plastic sheeting which presumably served as his bed. His clothes were tattered and torn, little more than rags, but the expression on his face was new and unfaded. It was utter, profound, raw fear.
Fatima faltered, staring wildly around her. She could not leave this child here, abandoned. Where was his family, his mother? Just as she was working out what she would say to Ehsan about the fact that their party had added another to its number, the little boy was seized by the arm and swung up and over the fence. Fatima followed, hating herself for the relief she felt that she hadn’t, in the end, been called to act, hadn’t had to choose between a moral action and a selfish one.
Looking upwards as she began her ascent, Fatima saw that next to Ehsan was a youth of about twenty, curly haired, filthy clothes darkened by sweat stains down his back and in his armpits. They were both waiting expectantly for her to reach them. Between the two of them they managed to manhandle Fatima over the top of the fence and down the other side, where she fell heavily and painfully to the ground. The jolt sent a flash of pain searing through her stomach and for a fleeting second she wondered if it would harm the baby, cause a miscarriage, and if so, whether that would be a good or a bad thing. Frantically, disgusted with herself, she chased the thoughts away; it was sinful to wish a death of anyone or anything. She would never have let such a notion enter her mind before. Never.
The youth who had helped landed beside her and Fatima started to thank him but he was gone already, almost rolling down the trench in his hurry to get away, to get on with his journey. The fence was still rocking back and forth and the wire was now adorned with scraps of fabric torn from fluttering veils or abyas too voluminous to keep out of the barbs’ way. It resembled some sort of macabre bunting.
Most people had little with them, but just beyond where she stood Fatima saw a couple manhandling two enormous suitcases over the fence. One of them still bore the remnants of airport security tape, reminiscent of happier, normal times when one took a plane to a holiday and always packed too much.
Ehsan was trying to get down from the fence but had got involved in bundling across an elderly woman in traditional dress, her clothing completely incapacitating her, her skirts ridden up around her waist, her helplessness turning her into a pathetic overgrown baby, all dignity gone. Finally, she was over and deposited unceremoniously on the dusty, stony ground, looking dazed and confused, unable to comprehend how she had got there and what to do now. Through the wire diamonds of the fence Fatima beheld, approaching in a seething torrent, more and more people, all intent on one thing. They rippled up and over and down the fence, leaving more tattered remnants of skirts and scarves to join those already there, a ceaseless human tsunami.
Bags of provisions were dropped and spilled, ripe red tomatoes left to roll down the crumbling sides of the deep trench like so many tumbling balls. Anything extraneous was left by the wayside; nothing let go of could be gone back for. Somebody lost hold of a bag of rice that split open as it fell, showering everything with an incongruous confetti cloud of white grains. It was mayhem, a scene of Biblical intensity and dread.
Ehsan’s feet hit the ground beside Fatima with a thud. Urgency sent adrenalin shooting through her veins. She and Ehsan grabbed a twin each, checked Youssef was there too and descended into the trench. The sides were flaky and unstable, hard to get down and even harder to climb out of. Some were being hauled up with makeshift ropes fashioned out of hijabs. Fatima’s head spun with the exertion of clawing her way up the steep bank with Marwa in her arms. But she managed. She and Ehsan paused at the summit to pull Youssef out and as they did so, Fatima saw it
again, the tide of humanity that kept on coming, surging across the fence, down into and up out of the trench, more and more and more people.
Joining the flow of the human flood as it built up speed again, Fatima, Ehsan and the children crossed the patrol road and fled, into the scrappy, untidy undergrowth of another country. If the border guards caught them now, they would send them back. So they kept on running.
SEVENTEEN
Edie
Edie’s question hung in the air like one of Vuk’s smoke rings.
‘I guessed.’ Vuk’s tone was as laconic as always. ‘I was behind you when you arrived at my cabin and I saw the direction you came from; there’s only one place that path leads to.’
‘You were spying on me?’ Edie’s voice was far louder and higher than she intended.
Vuk took a long draw at his cigarette.
‘Edie, you are the one who entered my room without permission.’
He blew another smoke ring that shimmered in the moonlight like the ethereal outline of a planet before dispersing. ‘If we are talking about prying …’
He let the end of the sentence hang and Edie said nothing. She took her foot out of the pool, droplets of water darkening the tiles.
‘So,’ she paused, running the evening’s earlier events through her head. ‘You know how I got in?’
Vuk grinned. ‘You looked very funny, dragging your sizeable arse through such a small opening. I thought you were going to get stuck.’ He stubbed out the cigarette in a flower pot. ‘But you made it – just.’
Edie flushed deep pink. She had always been sensitive about the size of her bum. Vuk had picked the right subject to make her self-conscious. She said no more.
‘Bed time, Edie,’ concluded Vuk, once it was obvious she wasn’t going to respond to his joke. He gestured towards the bedroom.
Edie almost got up to obediently go where he indicated. And then changed her course and headed for the door instead. She was tired and she didn’t want to have sex again; it wasn’t as if he’d asked her permission the last two times.
‘I’ve got to go back to my room and send some emails,’ she lied. ‘And – well, yeah, just that really.’
Scuffling along the sandy path she could hardly fathom her own behaviour. Turning down eight hours in Vuk’s bed, held by his arms? Not wanting sex?
This Laura stuff must be getting to her even more than she thought.
***
Evil Ivana surprised Edie again the next day when she readily agreed to copy her poster fifty times. Vuk had told her not to put it up in the resort as it would unnerve the guests but bollocks to that. Edie intended to pin them up anywhere and everywhere. It was the local custom to announce a death by putting a picture of the deceased on display, usually on a conveniently situated olive tree. Edie had bought some of the tape and pins she’d seen used for this purpose and, armed with this and the sheaf of posters hot off the photocopier, she set off to find suitable places to advertise her missing sister.
She was struggling to break off the first piece of tape whilst holding the posters wedged under her arm when Zayn appeared, pool-clearing pole and net in hand.
‘What are you doing, Edie?’ he asked in his characteristically downcast way.
Edie barely spared him a glance. ‘Trying to find my sister,’ she replied. Mounting anxiety was making her short-tempered.
Zayn said nothing but continued to stand there, watching her battle with the roll of tape.
‘Grrrr! This stuff is useless.’ Edie flung it to the ground in frustration.
Zayn bent down to pick it up. ‘Let me help,’ he said.
‘Go on then, if you really want to make yourself useful you can hold these for me.’ Edie thrust the sheaf of paper at him. He looked down, studying the top one carefully. She managed to peel back a section of tape, bite it off with her teeth and, grabbing one of the posters from the pile he held, stick it onto the tree.
‘She’s pretty,’ Zayn said, contemplatively, as if he had made a great discovery.
‘Well, yeah, doofus.’ Edie regarded him with raised eyebrows. Zayn gave no impression of having noticed.
‘And just so you know,’ she continued. ‘It’s actually me, not Laura – I didn’t have any pictures of her on my phone.’
Zayn nodded, still scrutinising the poster.
‘I think you have a problem, Edie.’ His words were slow, deliberate.
‘Zayn, I’ve got a lot of problems, most importantly of all right now being that I don’t know where the hell she is,’ retorted Edie, rolling her eyes dramatically. ‘I thought you were here to help, not find fault.’ She tried to be nice to Zayn but really he was testing her patience today.
Zayn’s expression was pained. ‘I want to help.’ He paused, then seemed to summon the courage to continue. ‘The thing is – if someone rings up and says they’ve seen this person …’ He indicated towards the poster with an incline of his head. ‘How will you know it’s Laura they’ve seen and not you?’
Edie closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
‘You’ll get hundreds of phone calls and they’ll just be distractions because they won’t be Laura.’
Having said his piece, Zayn fell silent, looking as if he wished the ground would swallow him up.
Edie was about to snap back at him to stop being so negative and obstructive, had opened her mouth to do so, when she shut it again. He was absolutely right. Totally and completely right. The poster plan was a disaster and would more than likely lead to calls and ‘sightings’ that were a distraction from the search rather than assisting it in any way.
She sank down onto a hummock of rough grass. It scratched her bare legs and she knew she’d be bitten by something, some bloody ant or mosquito or another type of creepy-crawly; this god-awful place was full of them. But she didn’t move, feeling suddenly deflated, exhausted.
‘Sorry.’ Zayn squatted down next to her, resting easily on his haunches. ‘I didn’t mean to distress you.’
Edie let her head fall onto her knees and blinked back tears. When she was sure she had suppressed them, she turned towards Zayn. ‘It’s okay. I hadn’t thought it through. How could I be so stupid?’
Zayn tentatively stretched out his hand and patted her on the shoulder. ‘We’ll think of something else.’
There was silence for a moment, filled by the incessant humming of the cicadas. Edie’s phone beeped to signify a text message and out of habit she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it. Maybe it would be Vuk with some news, or just a kind greeting that would dispel the uneasiness that lingered from the night before. Perhaps he wanted to find out how she was. She read the message. Then read it again, hardly able to believe what she saw.
Hi Edie, sorry to disappear like that, I decided to move on already. I still dont have a phone I just asked someone a favour to send this so dont bother replying but I’ll call you soon. Dont worry about me, Im fine. Laura xxx
She held the screen towards Zayn as if there would be confirmation that it were real if he saw it too.
‘It’s from Laura,’ she stuttered. ‘A text to say that she’s OK.’
Zayn read it, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Gradually, a beaming smile spread across his normally careworn features.
‘So it’s fine, Edie. Your sister – she’s good, just like I said, like everyone said.’ Zayn stood and pulled her up to stand beside him. He made a gesture towards her that looked as if he intended to hug her but she stepped quickly sideways.
‘Thanks, Zayn, thanks a lot. It’s great news. Really good.’ Edie slid the phone into her pocket and looked uncertainly down at the bunch of paper still in Zayn’s hands.
‘I’ll put them in the bin,’ he suggested.
‘Yeah.’ Edie bit her lip as the tears threatened again. Why was she crying when Laura was alive and kicking?
‘I need to get to work,’ she blurted out, turning on her heel and hurrying towards the cleaning store and away from Zayn. ‘I’ll s
ee you around.’
Alone with the mops and buckets and bottles of detergent she sat on a box of washing powder, took the phone back out of her pocket and studied it again. It was unusual of Laura to call her Edie rather than Ed, and the phrasing didn’t sound like Laura’s. But if she’d borrowed a phone from a stranger, and was trying to send the message really quickly, that was perhaps hardly surprising. Edie thought about answering the message but there didn’t seem to be much point. By the sounds of it, Laura and the phone this had come from had nothing more than a passing connection – this, along with the fact that she’d expressly told her not to reply was reason enough not to respond. She would just have to wait for Laura to call as she promised to do.
Edie picked up a bucket, a mop, some cleaning cloths and the local version of Cif. She hauled herself out of the storeroom and towards Vlad’s office where she stood waiting while he finished a phone call.
‘Where am I today?’ she asked as soon as he hung up.
Vlad handed her a list of cabanas to be cleaned and any additional information, such as extra bed or cot requirements and whether a welcome grocery pack was to be included. Edie scowled as she took it from his hand and turned to go.
‘Edie.’ Vlad’s tone was harsh.
Edie made a deliberate show of stopping and looking round at him excessively slowly.
‘Yes?’
‘Please put a smile on your face. The guests are on holiday. You need to show them cheerful, happy.’
His thin face showed not a hint of the jocularity he was urging on her.
