by Emily Barr
She giggles and points up the hill. In the squeaky voice of someone who hasn’t known how to talk for very long, she explains at great length, in Portuguese, how to get to her English class, showing right and left turns with her hands, talking me through it all in words I don’t understand.
I turn to her mother, and soon I have a map, drawn with a stubby pencil on a thin napkin.
I want to hug little Ana, but I don’t know if that’s allowed, so I pat her head instead, as she did to me. I pay for my coffee and cheese balls, and I get a tiny amount of change which I put carefully in my pocket. I thank them and wave, and thank them again and wave again, and ignore the fat woman who is still watching, and do my best to follow the map to the place that teaches English to tiny children. My language feels like the only skill I have.
‘Hello?’
My voice is strange. I haven’t used it much lately and I’m not used to the way it sounds. I sound like Fiona Black trying to see if there’s a shop assistant in the back room. In fact I am no one and entitled to nothing.
I am standing at the end of an alley, on ground that is made of compacted earth, and I have no idea whether this is the right place. There is a strong smell of cooking which came from a doorway further back. I cannot walk any further because the building in front of me is the last in the alley. There is just a door, which is closed, and I knocked on it and nothing has happened.
I think I followed the map. It took me ages to get here – I have constantly gone back on myself, tried different turnings, interpreted the woman’s scribbled pictures and clues about what would be on the corner by the turning I should take, jumped out of the paths of motorbikes, and tried, at all times, to look as if I knew what I was doing. Also I am not very good at walking today.
I can’t get here, find it all closed and give up.
‘Hola?’ I shout, wondering why I didn’t do that in the first place. I am in a corner of Rio. Here, we say Hola. Or we say Oi.
I am in the shade and it is just cool enough. My clothes are stiff with salt, and I know they have white tide marks on them.
‘Hello?’ Someone is looking down from an upstairs window. I step back. It’s a girl of about my age, as far as I can tell. Her black hair is hanging down and she seems friendly. She is Asian and she looks like the girls from my sixth form, with creamy skin and a healthy glow. I wonder how different from that I am now.
I think I am very different.
‘Hi there,’ I say. I take a deep breath. I have to do this properly. I have to be Ella Black, but with Bella’s confidence. ‘Hi – I was just wondering. Do you give English lessons here?’
‘Sure. Hang on. I’ll come down.’
As I wait I try to line up the words I need. This girl cannot be in charge: she is too young. I need to get her to take me to the person who is, and then I need to beg them to give me a job as an English teacher. I cannot give my real name or a passport or spend any money at all. I’ll also need a place to sleep.
It doesn’t seem likely; and yet I have to make it happen.
I hear a key turn, a bolt being pulled back, and then the girl is standing in front of me. I see myself through her eyes, and then I try hard not to.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Jo. I’m wondering if you need an English teacher here at all …’
If I manage to make anything happen today it will be thanks to the person who left food and drink and money for Jo. That makes me Jo, I think.
‘Oh, hi,’ she says. ‘Hi, Jo. Normally people come out as part of the programme. Ben said someone just dropped out, but I don’t think …’
She doesn’t look at me with disgust, and I love her for that. She is talking to me like an equal even though I am a massive horrible mess.
‘I’d be happy to do anything,’ I say, knowing that I sound desperate.
‘Great. OK. Well …’ I see her hesitate. I watch her internal struggle as she tries to work out whether she’s allowed to invite me into the building.
I’m not sure where her accent is from, but it’s not the south-east of England. I think she might be Irish, but accents are not my strong point.
‘I’m Jasmine,’ she says. ‘You’ll need to speak to Ben or Maria. I’ll see if I can get one of them on the phone. We’ve no children in until later this morning. Would you …?’ She looks at me. ‘Can I get you a coffee or something?’
The sympathy in her eyes is going to make me fall apart. I have to hold on. ‘I would absolutely love a coffee and a glass of water if you’ve got one.’ I speak fast, desperately trying to be the person I need to be. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry if I’m being weird.’
‘Hey, no problem. Sure. Come and have a sit-down and I’ll get your drink. Your drinks.’
This room is a schoolroom, with murals of Rio all over the walls. The skies are pink, the sea yellow, and everything is painted in chunks of brightness. I look at the painted Cristo Redentor statue, who has a happy smile daubed on his pale blue face by a child.
‘Thank you,’ I tell Christ the Redeemer. When I visited him I had no idea what was about to happen. He probably knew. I could use some redemption right now.
There are laminated posters of colours and numbers, with the words in English. There are finger paintings pegged to a washing line going across the ceiling. The seats are child-sized plastic chairs with little desks clipped across the front of them, and I squeeze my body into one. Although my knees are up by my shoulders and I am not remotely comfortable, I decide I will lean my head down on my arms just for a moment.
‘Hello? Excuse me?’
I hear the words but I can’t move. When I dozed on the beach and down the alley I woke up knowing exactly where I was and what I needed to do. This time I am deeply unconscious, and I have to ascend slowly, through thinking I’m Ella Black, to remembering that we came to Rio, that my parents lied about everything, that my money was stolen, that I stole someone else’s money, that I’m in a favela, that Bella is part of me, that I’m homeless. I came to the place that teaches English and I have to make a good impression.
‘I’m so sorry.’ It is a man’s voice and he doesn’t sound sorry at all: even in my befuddled state I can tell that he is deeply pissed off. I am squeezed into a tiny chair. My back, my arms, my neck all scream in protest as I stretch, and I don’t dare to try to stand because I would definitely fall over.
The man is smiling but there is steel behind the smile. He is a black man, dressed casually in blue shorts and a Favela English School T-shirt, and he has long dreadlocks and his face is open, but his manner is formal and I think he is angry. I need to make him like me. I need to charm him, even though I am not charming at all and he doesn’t look like someone who is ready to be charmed. I have to do what I used to do: I need to pretend to be normal, and hope that this will actually make me normal.
He passes me a glass of water and I drink it in one go.
‘Hi. I’m so sorry.’ I echo his phrase back at him and shake my head to try to make some words of my own come. I beg Bella to lend me her bravery while withholding her nastiness, although I’m not sure where I end and she begins any more. I reach across to Bella’s side of my brain and take some courage. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say again. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep.’ He might have seen me in the paper. I know I invented a cover story and used a different name but I can’t remember what any of it was right now. ‘I was really tired.’
‘I can see that. So you’re looking for work? I’m Ben. I’m sorry but we don’t have anything and we don’t work like that. Jasmine should have said that at the start.’
I’m pretty sure he’s Brazilian: his English is American-accented and fluent.
Jasmine shouldn’t have let me in. He doesn’t need to say that because everything about him is saying it wordlessly. He wants to shove me out and close the door behind me.
‘I could help out. I can teach English, but I can do anything else too. I’ll do anything. I met one of your little children today. Ana.’
Ben�
�s eyes are noting everything about me. I can see every detail being transformed into data and filed away. He is like Mr Richards, the teacher we had in Year Ten. Once he saw me holding the point of a compass against my arm to try to appease Bella, and I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at me. I hated that. I wanted to tell him that I would never have done anything with it.
‘Forgive me,’ says Ben, ‘but you are clearly down on your luck and you’ve plainly been extremely ill. In fact you look like someone who should be in hospital. Our volunteers pay to be here. They pay up front before they arrive – that’s how we keep running – and everything is arranged before they leave home. It’s highly unusual for anyone to locate us like this. We run a programme that’s staffed by gap-year volunteers, mainly from Europe, the US, Canada and Australia, not by casual workers who drop in, and also not by EFL teachers. And if I may say so, you don’t look like someone who’s recovered enough to hold down a job.’
I take a deep breath and try to sound believable. I summon Bella, and she comes. My dark side steps in and actually helps.
‘I’m not ill,’ she says. He thinks I’ve had cancer. I look so shit that this man is assuming I’m terminally ill. ‘What happened, right, is this. I was travelling and it went wrong. I was robbed, so I’ve got almost nothing right now, as you can tell, but I will soon have access to money from home. It’s a long story how I’ve ended up here, but I haven’t done anything remotely illegal. I’ve been sleeping out of doors while I wait for the money, and I need to stop that. I promise you I’m not ill and I don’t want any charity or anything like that. I haven’t got any money to pay you today, but I can get some, and that’s a promise. I’ve taught English before and I know a lot about art and books.’
‘Have you? Where have you taught?’
Bella plucks a word at random. ‘Venezuela.’
It was written on a man’s cap on the train up the mountain. The picture of Christ the Redeemer in this room has taken me back there. Luckily Ben doesn’t follow up on Bella’s bold claim, since I wouldn’t even be able to tell him the name of Venezuela’s capital city.
He is sizing me up. ‘The thing is, Jo,’ he says, ‘I really can’t take you on as a volunteer. For one thing it’s our volunteers who fund what we do. I know everyone has an opinion about gap-year children coming into poor places to do good works, but we’ve made it function properly here. We’re not an orphanage – you met Ana, so you know they’re kids with families. We teach English to the local children because it improves their life chances. We have a relatively high turnover of teachers, but my partner Maria and I make sure there’s enough consistency for the kids. It’s a carefully run business and I cannot act as a charity for sick Westerners who need a bolthole. Sorry. It sounds harsh, but you have options. You can go to your embassy and they’ll get you home.’
I can’t go to my embassy because I cut a man’s face.
‘Can I do anything at all?’ I say. ‘Sweep the floors. Cook. Clean the toilets?’
‘You can go home and let us concentrate our efforts on the kids. With respect, Jo, we don’t owe you anything. And you know you can get home if you go to the British consulate. They’ll take care of you. That’s what they’re there for.’
‘Someone just dropped out though.’ Why not? I have nothing to lose. ‘Jasmine said so.’
‘Did she?’ He doesn’t look amused. ‘Well, people often get scared and pull out. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Give me a chance. A temporary one. Give me a day.’
Something in Ben changes, as if his refusals have been a test. He sighs and rolls his eyes.
‘You’re persistent. Jesus. Look, for God’s sake, have a shower. Then we’ll see, but it would be a couple of days’ boring work at most, and then you’re done. You would of course be welcome to apply for the programme while you’re sitting right here, if you can get hold of the money – and by the way it’s a lot, and every penny of it goes on our day-to-day running costs. But if you can shower and smarten up a bit, I might be able to let you fill in a very short gap. If you can teach like you say you can. You’ll need to work with Jasmine this morning so I can have a look at you.’
I smile at him with every atom of my being. It’s a tiny lifeline, but it feels enormous. I am dizzy and confused. He’s going to let me do something. I have to do this brilliantly. Pretend to be brilliant and then you will be brilliant. I wish I could ask him for food. I could ask Jasmine but not this man.
Jasmine leads me out of the room, and I follow her through a door and up a dark staircase to a corridor with a concrete floor. She doesn’t speak because she doesn’t know what to say, but she emanates sympathy and niceness. When she pushes a door on our left it swings open to reveal a tiny, concrete-floored bathroom with a shower and a basin and a loo.
‘Here you go. This is our stately bathroom. Just a sec.’ She leaves, reappearing almost instantly with a threadbare towel, which she hands to me. ‘Would you, y’know, like some clothes? We’ve a few that Kate left behind. She just went, a few days ago. Off to Argentina. I’d say they’d fit you. They’ll perhaps be a bit baggy.’
I look at Jasmine’s wide eyes and lovely face. ‘Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you so much. I’ve got to work with you this morning. I think Ben just said that because he was pissed off with you for letting me in. What are you doing this morning?’
‘Cleaning. Doing the admin. The first class is at eleven. They’re the older children, the eleven-year-olds.’
When I have the clothes as well as the towel I lock the door and turn on the shower. Running warm water is an impossible luxury, and I stare in wonder at the fact that people harnessed an element, made it run through pipes and invented taps. I think I’m delirious. I scrub the salt off my body and rinse my fuzzy scalp.
I mustn’t mess this up. As the water pounds me I want to lie on the floor and cry, but I need to help Jasmine teach some eleven-year-olds English instead. It’ll take far more strength than I have to get through this; but I have to do it somehow.
I dimly remember that there used to be different moisturizers for face and body, and make-up and perfume and all kinds of expensive things, but I know for certain that I have never had a better shower than this and I hope I never will. I hope I never will because a shower that was better than this could only come after something worse than my past few days and I can’t let myself picture such a thing in my future.
The clothes Jasmine gave me are a pair of shorts that are PE style, almost reaching my knees, and a T-shirt with FAVELA ENGLISH SCHOOL written on it. It is a big version of the one tiny Ana wore; a smaller version of Ben’s. She has even given me underwear. I don’t hesitate to put on another woman’s knickers and bra, and they fit well enough. Everything is clean. It smells of basic washing powder, and that is the best perfume in the world.
I brush my teeth with toothpaste on a finger and allow myself only the quickest glance in the tarnished mirror. I really do look ill. My skin has gone darker, but blotchily. Without hair I look weird and ugly. I still see myself in my eyes.
I try to remember French lessons at school. How do you teach a language to a class of children when they’re too old for nursery rhymes? I have no idea. I will do whatever Jasmine does and try to be confident.
I push everything else aside. This is the only thing that matters. My whole life depends on getting this right: if I can do this, and get a couple of days’ work, then maybe somehow I can find the money and end up living here like Jasmine and the invisible other volunteers. That would give me a chance.
‘What stage are they at?’ I am sipping the second coffee that Jasmine has made me, since I fell asleep before the first one arrived. It is instant, the kind of thing they would scoff at in the sixth-form common room, and it is the best drink ever. Everything about this place is the best thing ever. Even being able to say What stage are they at? like a grown-up teacher makes me go warm inside. I feel like I’m hanging off a cliff, clinging on by my finger
nails. Jasmine has no idea that she’s reaching down, hauling me up.
‘Oh, it’s a tricky age,’ she says. ‘It’s much easier with the little ones. This is actually art class, so just do an art class in English. Can you do art? It doesn’t matter if you can’t. I certainly can’t.’
‘I’m –’ I stop myself. The rest of that sentence would have gone: I’m doing it for A level. Instead I say, ‘I love art. I might not be brilliant at it, but I like it.’
‘Oh, I was useless at it at school too. I just let the kids get on with it. Some of them are good. So. You’ll be fine actually. I was terrified the first time I did this.’ She looks around, clearly checking that no one in authority is nearby. ‘I messed it up completely, but it was different because I was already in the programme. Ben likes to check everyone out when they get here. He’s very particular. But I’ll be with you, Jo. We never do this on our own. I’ll make sure you’re OK.’
I grin at her. ‘Oh my God, Jasmine. I love you. So what do we do?’
She has blushed pink. ‘Oh, we just start it off by talking, and then let them get paper and pencils. Today they’re sketching whatever they like. They’re cool. If you get stuck, just ask them about football.’
Twenty minutes later I am running on adrenalin. I’m leaning over a skinny boy’s bony shoulder, admiring his picture, which shows a footballer in action, his leg pulled back to kick the ball, an open goal in front of him, a rudimentary goalkeeper diving in what is clearly going to be the wrong direction.
‘Gooooooooaaaaall!’ I say.
He replies in Portuguese, so I tap his shoulder and say, ‘In English.’
‘The peoples.’ He gestures to the blank space around the edges of his sheet of paper. I take his pencil and look at the sheet. It would be wrong to do his picture for him, but I can do what Miss Cook, who in a different lifetime taught me art, would have done. I’m sure that would be all right. I look around, and no one is watching, so I do my best to fill in some spectators for him. I draw the structure of some seating, roughly sketch in the top row of a sea of faces, and hand the pencil back to the boy.
