Divinity Road

by Martin Pevsner

  When she reaches over to flip the off switch, she hits the radio with such force that the shelf judders and two cookery books fall to the floor. With her one flour-free hand, she selects a CD, an Ella Fitzgerald compilation, and for the first time removes the one inserted by Greg those months before.

  At four o’clock Mary drops both Beth and Sammy home as arranged.

  I’m starving, says Sammy. What’s for tea?

  Look, says Nuala. Look what I’ve made.

  She’s put the loaf on a grill to cool down. The aroma of fresh baking still fills the kitchen. The children gaze at the bread. There’s a long pause as the associations are made.

  What about some nice toast? Nuala begins brightly. She’s already sensing the depth of her error. Beth, you’ll have peanut butter, won’t you? she adds, though in her mind she’s saying, Please don’t think badly of me. This is meant to be a good thing. I’m not trying to usurp him.

  OK, says Beth, finally. Is that an accusatory look that Nuala reads in her expression?

  Sammy?

  Jam please, says Sammy. Nuala detects in his tone a combination of reluctance and hesitation and doubt.

  She cuts the loaf, slides slices into the toaster. When it pops, she spreads butter, passes around the plates. The appearance of food silences the children. Nuala busies herself microwaving a jug of milk for hot chocolate

  Is it OK? asks Nuala as Beth swallows a mouthful. Of course she means, but doesn’t say, Is it OK to have done this?

  Mmm, it’s good, Beth answers. Nuala tries to read between the lines but fails.

  Sammy?

  Mmm, great, he manages. Nuala is certain she can detect the but...

  Not too brown? Greg always used to bake a mixture of plain white and coarse wholemeal flour and she’s tried to get the correct blend. Greg’s loaves would be the colour of toasted pecan, the inside a creamy caramel flecked with wheatgerm.

  Just right, answers Beth. She doesn’t say, Just like dad’s.

  I could make it for your lunch boxes if you like, Nuala suggests. It’s what Greg used to do. To outsiders, the conversation would be innocuous, but Nuala feels she’s teetering on the brink. Beth and Sammy have still not responded. She’s about to repeat her suggestion, then realises that in their own way they have expressed themselves perfectly. In her mind, she has already returned the breadmaker to its place in the cupboard above the washing machine.

  Still, it’s not all stalemate. In other ways, Nuala feels a lifting of some unnameable burden. In the first few months after the crash, in conversation with friends and family, when talking about Greg, she’d hate to hear any information about him that she didn’t already know, stories of times spent with him in her absence, anecdotes of episodes she’d not shared, details of events she’d not been present at, things he’d said and done without her. She’d felt a deep resentment, a crazy sense of betrayal. But that seems to have lifted. She now welcomes these snippets and encourages such revelations. She understands that between the two of them there can be no treason.

  Has she started to forgive Greg? Has she started to believe that he’s forgiven her? These are questions that she knows have to be answered but that she’s not yet ready to face.

  Aman 3

  With every difficulty

  There is relief

  Yes, it is true, my love. I still cannot quite believe it, but here I am, some six weeks since my last entry, and I find myself a free man, sitting in this semi-detached house in leafy Levenshulme.

  How did this happen? Who can tell exactly why my luck changed, what caused that faceless Home Office bureaucrat, leafing through my case file, to make the decision to set me free pending the result of my court hearing?

  I will never know what chain of events led to my release, just that one morning I was told to pack my things, was handed a train ticket and an address in Manchester, told to make my way there. I was given clear instructions as part of my release conditions to report to the local police station once a week, had to sign endless papers, promise not to seek paid employment and then, with just a few minutes to say goodbye to my friends and neighbours, I found myself standing in front of the centre’s high steel gates, blinking in the late spring sunshine. Kalil wrote down my new address carefully, promised to look me up if, insh’ Allah, he ever got let out, and we embraced on the threshold of our shared cell.

  Despite our ideological differences, I recognised my debt to my fellow inmate, that whatever was left of my sanity I owed to him.

  I remember little of the journey north and the following few days as I negotiated my way through the bureaucracy of setting up a new life. I recall how colourful my surroundings seemed after the drab greys of the detention centre, how healthy everyone looked, ruddy and vibrant from mental and physical stimulation. And how green and lush the environment appeared, even in the city with its carefully maintained gardens and parks.

  At the beginning of the second week, I had to make a trip south, to my solicitor’s office in London. Under her relentless probing, I found myself unable to continue with my original story of half-truth and deception, and although I felt a great relief to be able to tell my real story, the car accident and the family’s subsequent blood feud, the solicitor’s reaction was not encouraging.

  Though she could make a good case out of fear of injury or death from such a feud, she said, it did not fit into the usual categories of political or religious or ethnic persecution. More importantly, the essential key to success with the Home Office, she explained, was to convince them of your credibility.

  One small discrepancy, a tiny detail of your story confused or changed, and however plausible your suffering, however real the danger awaiting you should you be deported, your case was doomed to failure.

  To help me understand, she gave the example of a Rwandan woman, traumatised after witnessing the slaughter of her family. After experiencing rape and torture at the hands of the same murderers, her case was rejected because, over the course of several interviews, there was some uncertainty over the colour of the tee-shirt of one of her rapists. If such a minor issue could lead to dismissal of a case, then to change one’s whole story in mid-process was to positively invite disbelief and, consequently, rejection. Still, she wrote down my statement and promised to do what she could.

  Back in Manchester, these first weeks were eventful, a hectic to-ing and fro-ing between social services, doctor’s surgery, housing department and all the other institutions and offices that were now taking an interest in my existence.

  I had been given the address of a local charity organisation, Refugee Welcome, and the elderly volunteer counsellor, a short squat woman with a body like a bullet and a head of tight, white curls, assisted me through some of the more arduous hurdles in setting up my new home and life in Levenshulme.

  Doreen, that is her name, helped me register at a doctor’s surgery, sorted out an eye test at an opticians and my first pair of spectacles, organised a grant to buy a bed, table and chair for the room in the shared house I had moved into and showed me how to enrol on an English language course at the local further education college. This hectic schedule was therapeutic after the months of enforced idleness in the detention centre, and within a week I had reduced my antidepressants consumption to a single daily dose.

  Most importantly, Doreen put me in touch with a number of other Eritreans and, for the first time since my flight from home, I have found myself integrated into a small community of my compatriots.

  We are a close-knit circle, all at various stages of the asylum process, from those awaiting the outcome of their initial court case to the lucky few who have been granted indefinite leave to remain in UK. Many are caught in limbo, their cases turned down, appeals rejected, emergency payments cut, reliant on help from those receiving benefits or paid paltry wages by exploitative employers within the black economy.

  My benefits aft
er housing amount to a handful of notes and a few coins, most of which I use for basic groceries to split with my hungry countrymen. We cook together sometimes, sharing information on everything from where to buy cheap international phone cards to which private landlords to avoid. From one man I inherited an unwanted mobile phone. Another took me to the public library and helped me take out my first books, both architectural in content, one entitled A Dictionary of Architecture & Building Construction, the other An Outline of European Architecture. I cannot really make much sense of these texts yet, but I leaf through the dictionary and the task of mastering them gives me a challenge to work towards.

  So I now have contact with some of my fellow expatriates.

  Still, however welcome this is, my recent experiences have turned me inwards, and I find myself unable to endure these group occasions for too long, and so I seek my own company as soon as I can. Once I am alone again in my room, I still look for the protective shield of the Qur’an, but I have also taken up my drawing pad and pencils again after a long lay-off. I have begun sketching out some building designs, towering and ornate fantasy edifices, sunny and airy, created as an escape from melancholic suburban Manchester. When I am not sketching or reading, I like to sit in the kitchen of this house, a messy but welcoming room filled with warm cooking smells. I sit at the large pine table and sip my sugary black tea and watch my housemates chop onions and dice carrots. Or I simply stare out of the grimy sash window at the street scene outside, the bus shelter, the zebra crossing, the traffic, boisterous children returning home from school.

  The house belongs to a Pakistani landlord who has a social contract with the council to provide accommodation for those on benefits. My housemates, eight or nine in total, are a mixed bunch, mostly asylum seekers with one or two ‘natives’. For the most part, we keep to ourselves, guarding our own privacy as carefully as we respect that of our fellow tenants. Only two of my co-residents talk to me at length, a Zimbabwean in his mid- twenties called Mahanya, and Derek from Scotland. They both address me in what I can only guess is fluent English, though I struggle to follow their conversation. Still, their loneliness is tangible. I can offer them no more than a sympathetic ear but that seems enough for the moment.

  So all in all, I suppose you could say that I am on something of a high. I have my own room in this shared house. I am about to resume my studies and have established a circle of friends. Things are looking up, my darling. Now all that remains is for me to succeed in my quest to locate you. Tomorrow I will ask Doreen about re-establishing contact with the Red Cross.

  ***

  I discover a copy of the Bible lying abandoned on top of the wardrobe in my bedroom. Who did it belong to? Why was it left behind? My thoughts turn to you and I wonder what comfort you are finding in your faith at this time. Ramadan is approaching and I shall find a sweet pleasure in my fasting, knowing that somewhere (close?) you are doing the same.

  ***

  Just when I thought it was safe to relax, the axe comes swinging back, catching me unawares. The call from my solicitor came this morning as I was preparing for my first English class at college. I had finished my prayers and was washing up my dirty crockery from last night, my first hot meal in a week, rice and lamb, the return of my appetite a real sign that I was on the road to recovery. She sounded tired, her voice low and dull. The court hearing had taken place and my case had been rejected. I felt my stomach tighten, my spirits plunge with fear and uncertainty. I did not know what to say. The line remained silent while she waited for a response. After a long pause she explained about the appeal process, that all was not yet lost. I listened, thanked her, hung up. My hands were shaking, so I left the sink full of greasy pots and returned to my room where I fumbled in my drawers for my medication. I swallowed two of the pills and lay back down on the recently vacated bed. I pulled my duvet over my head.

  I think of Doreen. She has given me her mobile number. She has told me on many occasions to call her if I ever have a problem, if I ever need to talk. But I feel overwhelmed by a dejection that renders me too apathetic to act.

  A little later I get up. I am in no mood for college so I stare listlessly at my architectural books, then the Qur’an, but find solace nowhere. Eventually I pick up this notebook and add these lines.

  I have never felt more rejected. I remember something my father used to tell me. In the jungle, he would often say, the lion is the most dominant creature, strong and powerful.

  The antelope, on the other hand, is the most harmless, weak and vulnerable. The test for the lion is to be tolerant. For the antelope, the challenge is to be courageous.

  Where is this country’s tolerance? Where is my courage?

  ***

  More bad news. I received a letter in the post this morning informing me that I am being given notice to leave my accommodation at the end of the month. I show the letter to Mahanya and he tells me that the landlord has sent similar letters to all the tenants, that he has decided to end his contract with the council. Mahanya explains that there is more money to be made in housing young single eastern Europeans, cramming three to a room, rather than putting up with the bureaucracy and delays of a social housing contract.

  My despondency grows, but Mahanya is upbeat. He has lived in Manchester for two years and been moved five times already. He reassures me that the council has a responsibility to find alternative accommodation for us.

  Don’t worry, my friend. They will sort something out for you. For all of us.

  He smiles and I try to respond. We are in the kitchen. He has been cooking, has produced a thick stiff maize porridge and a sauce made of green leaves and peanut butter. It smells good and he offers to share his bowl with me but my appetite has disappeared again so I shake my head and return to my room. My bedroom window looks down on our neglected back garden, a jungle of brambles and bindweed. I consider going for a walk but cannot summon up the will.

  I think: I was in a detention centre and they set me free. But I am still a prisoner now, it is just that my cell has got bigger.

  ***

  Weeks have passed. I am now in new accommodation, another shared house, another private landlord. I appear to have moved down in the world. The house is more cramped, a shabby terraced property sandwiched between two boarded up homes. This is Longsight and the streets are dirtier. There is an air of neglect and it makes sense that this is where I have ended up. The house is damp. The bathroom walls are flecked with mould and the kitchen is musty and dank. There are two other bedrooms, one taken by a skinny, taciturn Somali with delicate hands and eyes that avoid my own. The other room is occupied by a seemingly endless sequence of Chinese men, never the same ones, it seems to me, who come and go at odd hours, sleeping on the mattress-strewn floor, then emerging to our clammy kitchen to cook rice and slurp green tea. When I left the old house in Levenshulme, Derek shook my hand and told me to take it easy. I forgot to ask him how.

  ***

  The walls of my bedroom have been painted a deep blood red.

  As soon as I entered the room for the first time, I felt something slipping away. I began to tremble with weakness. I am sleeping in someone’s open wound.

  ***

  My first sortie from the house for a week. I collect my repeat prescription, then attend the interview with the Red Cross worker. I repeat all the details I had once before given, list your names and dates of birth. I tell her about the blood feud, about my hunted status, and receive her assurance that my own details will be kept confidential. She takes copious notes and promises to contact me as soon as they have any information.

  ***

  Ramadan is upon us but I have got into the habit of eating so little that I am hardly aware that I am supposed to be fasting.

  I spend my time sleeping and working my way through my scant collection of books, to which I have added my rescued Bible and an English dictionary. Yesterday I made a start o
n the Old Testament.

  ***

  I begin to harbour suspicions that my Somali housemate may be out to do me harm. It is nothing that he has said – indeed we have still exchanged fewer than a dozen words – more the way he avoids eye contact and seems to be concealing something from me. This morning I enter the kitchen to find him rummaging in the cupboard in which I keep my black tea supply. As soon as he becomes aware of me, he slams the cupboard door shut, mumbles something about an appointment and leaves the kitchen and then, shortly after, the house. I examine the tin in which I keep my tea. It seems untampered with, but when I brew up and sample the drink, I detect a slightly bitter aftertaste. As a precaution, I throw what remains of my supply into the bin and make a rare trip outside to buy a fresh packet at the corner shop.

  Later I begin to worry that he will see my discarded tea supply in the bin, evidence that I am on to him, so I collect up what I can in a dustpan, take it out into the back garden and scatter it among the beds of tangled weeds.

  ***

  Another week gone. I rarely leave my room, let alone the house.

  Having missed my first English language class, my place has been given to someone else and I am now relegated to a waiting list. Doreen tried to organise some voluntary work for me at a charity shop, then to recruit me as a counsellor for young people at the Refugee Welcome centre, but I oversleep for the interview for the former and say no to the latter. Directionless, indifferent and befuddled as I am at the moment, I do not feel qualified to act as mentor for anyone.