by Timur Vermes
Mahmoud hasn’t looked down once. Maybe his strength really does lie in his gaze.
“You can save a bit of cash if you don’t smoke,” the refugee says, offering Mahmoud a cigarette.
Mahmoud takes one and says, “But you save even more if you scrounge.” Still on his haunches, he puts the cigarette behind his ear and turns to the refugee like a car mechanic inspecting damage. “They look nice,” he says approvingly, “they even look genuine. If I didn’t know that you can’t get genuine ones here, I’d say—”
“Of course you can.”
The refugee rolls the packet of cigarettes into the left sleeve of his T-shirt. It’s important to keep them on show; in any camp cigarettes are indispensable, even for non-smokers. Everyone wants cigarettes, if not for themselves then their parents, siblings or for a friend like Mahmoud.
Mahmoud impatiently taps the refugee’s leg. Then he shakes it until the refugee lifts his foot so that the shoe mechanic can inspect the sole too. “Great colour. Who did you get them from? Mbeke? In that case they’re not genuine.”
“That’s for sure.”
“What did I tell you? Not genuine.”
“No. They’re not from Mbeke.”
“Who then? I know Ndugu isn’t dealing in shoes anymore.”
“They’re not from Ndugu.”
“Then they’re definitely not genuine.”
The refugee laughs.
Mahmoud straightens up. “Go on. Tell me!”
“O.K. . . . Zalando.”
“Zalando doesn’t sell shoes.”
“Maybe he’s making an exception.”
Mahmoud looks at him. Nobody knows Zalando’s real name. All they know is that he works for the organisation and he’s German. And that if you ask him a favour, he always gives the same answer. “Why are you asking me? Am I Zalando?” What a stupid thing to say, when nobody knows his real name. Maybe he is the famous Zalando after all.
“So you’re not going to tell me,” Mahmoud says. He plucks the cigarette from behind his ear and holds it out to the refugee, his eyebrows raised.
The refugee takes a lighter from his pocket. If you want to make people happy with cigarettes you need to be able to light the cigarette too. Otherwise they’ll look for someone with a light and you won’t have that useful conversation. They’ll stop listening or forget half of what you’re saying. Mahmoud and he wander down the dusty street in silence. Mahmoud looks at his smartphone.
“In Berlin they’re eating potatoes and pigs’ trotters now.”
“Who wants to go to Berlin?”
“Not me.”
“Me neither.”
“It’s lovely here!” Mahmoud exclaims.
“It’s magnificent!” the refugee says, throwing out his arms. “The most beautiful stones in the world. Free sun. What have they got in Berlin that we don’t have here?”
“Blonde women,” Mahmoud says, then takes a drag of his cigarette.
“So what? Who wants blonde women?”
“Me. To try out.”
“But Mahmoud!” The refugee steps in Mahmoud’s way. “Blonde women are the devil’s own creation. If you let blondes into your house you’ll reap bad luck. You’ll fall ill. Your crops will wither. Listen to your old father: a blonde woman will curse you and all your goats will starve.”
“What luck! My goats have already starved. So now I’m owed a blonde.”
“You’ve never kept goats.”
“Even more unfair! I might get two blondes now.’
They both laugh.
“So, where are the shoes from?”
“I bought them.”
“New?”
“New.”
“Where did you get the cash?”
“You’ve got cash too.”
“Sure. But I’m not going to spend it. At least, not on something as stupid as shoes.”
“On what then? A smuggler?”
“You bet your arse. Only a premier smuggler, mind.”
“Hear ye, one and all!” the refugee mocks. “A premier smuggler, no less!”
“Well, well, well. Someone else with travel plans.”
This is Miki, standing behind his bar on the camp highway. He cobbled it together from planks and chipboard, and a few scraps of corrugated iron and the bonnet of an old Mercedes provide the shade. The original plan was to paint it all one colour. But you know how it is, someone pops by for a visit, it rains, your best friend won’t help because you’re fooling around with his wife, and before you know it five years have gone by and you find yourself waiting for the bar to fall down so you can build a new one. But this one’s too stable for that.
The bar isn’t so small that Miki can run it undisturbed, yet it’s small enough that the gangs aren’t always breathing down his neck. But without gang protection, he doesn’t always get electricity for his fridge.
“Well, I am going to leave!” Mahmoud stops. “I mean, this shithole isn’t everyone’s dream destination.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Miki says. Reaching beneath the bar, he throws an ice cube across the street. “How about a cold drink before the big trip?”
The refugee is about to catch it, but Mahmoud snatches it out of the air and stuffs it in his mouth.
“Thanks, I’ve got one.”
“Come on,” the refugee says, “I’ll treat you.” He nudges Mahmoud over to Miki’s bar. “Two beers. Export. And have one yourself.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” Miki says loftily, placing three bottles on the counter. Mahmoud is taken aback.
“New shoes, export beer. Have I missed something?”
“Don’t know yet,” the refugee says. “Just drink. Perhaps it was a mistake to buy you one.”
“Beer is never a mistake,” Miki says, taking a large gulp. It’s very hot.
“Have the smugglers dropped their prices, by any chance?” Mahmoud probes.
“Yours won’t have,” the refugee teases him, then leans towards Miki. “Mahmoud is saving for a premier smuggler.”
Miki looks at him wide-eyed.
“Exactly,” Mahmoud says. “No way is this man heading off in some dark, cramped lorry.”
“What then?” Miki leans against the fridge. He takes the only beer glass from the shelf and starts to polish it.
“This man is going to settle down in the shade till the smuggler comes. In a white Mercedes. With cream-coloured seats. Then the smuggler springs out of the driver’s seat. He’s wearing a uniform like those men who work in expensive hotels, and he’s carrying a parasol. He runs around the car, holds the door open for me and says, “Please, get in, Bwana Mahmoud!”
“He runs around the car to hold the door open for you?” Miki holds the glass up to the sun.
“So it is written, O non-believers. I get into the car and we cross the border. He drives at a leisurely speed and asks whether I like the view through the window. ‘I can take a different route if you like, your wish is my command, Bwana Mahmoud,’ and I say, ‘No, this is fine. Just make sure we don’t get there too early.’”
“That mustn’t happen, of course not,” Miki mocks.
“Yes, yes, make your silly jokes . . . you haven’t got a clue. You know nothing about Germany. But I do, and let me tell you, Germans don’t like it if you turn up early.”
“If you turn up late,” the refugee corrects him.
“And early.”
“Rubbish!”
“That’s what the smuggler says too, but I say, ‘It’s not rubbish. Think how awkward it would be for their new Merkel if I get there and he hasn’t got my room ready yet.’ So I say to him. ‘Let’s cross the border again.’ And he says, ‘We can cross the border as many times as you like, Bwana Mahmoud. But the new Merkel rang earlier to say that he’s emptied two hotels for you. You have to choose one.’ And then . . .” Mahmoud takes a swig of beer before casually replacing the bottle exactly on the wet ring on the wooden table, “then I say, ‘I’ll take whichever hotel has the bedroom and toilet
on the same floor.’”
“Good plan,” the refugee says. He clinks his beer against Mahmoud’s and Miki’s bottles and drinks.
“It is good,” Miki says, “but you’re wrong. If there’s anyone who’s not going to end up in a dark, cramped lorry, then it’s this man.” He jerks a thumb towards himself. “Because this man’s staying here. Here, in the shithole. But you, my dear friend, you’ll be ripped off and your corpse will be shoved out into the desert. On a cream-coloured handcart.”
“Spoilsport,” Mahmoud says.
“But the best thing is: I’m already where you want to be. Because here the toilet is on the same floor, in any direction. You won’t find a floor like this in the whole of Europe: fifty square kilometres. It’s the largest suite in the world!”
“Hahaha!” Mahmoud says. He’s no longer looking at Miki or the refugee, but up at the endless blue sky beyond the tents. His fantasy may have been over the top, but it was lovely, the refugee thinks, and if Mahmoud looked them in the eye he would only see that Miki is right. Too much time has passed since Germany opened her doors. Since they still had a woman as their Merkel. Anybody within striking distance at the time had won the lottery. But that moment’s not going to repeat itself. They’ve been here for a year and a half now, and these months will be followed by many more.
The refugee turns and leans his back on the counter beside Mahmoud. It is afternoon and the faster, stronger children are coming back from collecting wood. When the refugee first noticed them in the camp, they would be finished by lunchtime. But when millions of people need fuel – wood, twigs, dung, whatever – it takes longer to find. Millions, and growing by the day. The equation is simple: new people arrive, but nobody can leave. In the past, the influx of people was moved on, to Morocco, Libya, Egypt, or back to their home countries. But that was in the past. Before Europe closed its borders one by one.
A sand-coloured dog saunters up. There is not much dog left of him, in truth; he’s little more than a fur-covered, panting basket on legs. He scours the ground, his eyes skimming the sides of the street. He can see there’s nothing worth sniffing around here. He stops and turns to the three men at the bar. He only has one eye, but in the camp that’s enough. Nobody beckons the dog, but nobody’s hurling stones at him either. The dog makes the effort to wag his tail. Miki flaps a hand at him wearily. The dog stops wagging his tail and continues on his way. This is how Europe thought it could deal with the refugee question.
When the people came aboard boats, Europe tried to close off the Mediterranean. And when Europe realised that you can’t close a sea, that you can’t even keep watch over a twisting coastline, umpteen thousand kilometres long, they moved the border back onto land, but this time in Africa. They paid Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, and gave some to the Libyans too, although less of course. Because even now they don’t know who to hand over the money to in Libya. But this wasn’t enough for the Europeans. Not least because the north Africans kept wondering out loud what might happen if they didn’t keep quite so vigilant a watch over the borders. It was something they’d learned from the Turks, having seen how much respect and recognition you can earn if you play around with the refugee button. So the Europeans spent more money and drew their next line south of the Sahara. Which is precisely why Mahmoud’s dream of premier smugglers isn’t even funny anymore. Because now there are only premier smugglers.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” the refugee says, without looking at the other two.
His eyes wander across the camp, the endless camp. He’s often walked to the outer edge. You can do that if you’ve got plenty of time on your hands. On one side you see nothing, and in the nothingness there’s dust and sand and stones and more nothingness in between. And on the other side you see tents and tent-like huts and hut-like tents and tents with patches and tents with holes and abandoned tents and tents bursting with people, and if you’ve nothing else to do you can ponder which view is the more desolate. If you can’t decide, you go to bed and come back a few days later. You could also come back the next day, but anyone with even half their marbles doesn’t inflict that on themselves.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” the refugee says again.
“Huh?” Miki is making squeaking noises with the glass.
“About the shoes.”
“There’s a shoe secret?”
Mahmoud points silently to the ground. Miki leans right over the wobbly, creaking counter and the refugee feels the plank of wood dig into his back.
“Wow! New shoes!”
The thing about the people smugglers was the biggest lie of all. It was said they wanted to combat the smugglers. But governments can’t combat people smugglers. It’s the same with drugs and prostitutes and alcohol. The only thing governments can influence is the price. Every police officer, every warship they dispatch only ever ends up raising the price, and this is exactly what happened. Prices rose and they’re still rising. Few people can afford the tariffs these days, which means that the smugglers can work less for more money. Not only that, but now they don’t have to give away so much of it because they don’t need to involve third parties anymore.
In the past, when the inflatable dinghy option still worked, it was an organised mass market with loads of jobs throughout Africa. There was always a need for people who passed on information, communicated meeting points, recruited clients for transports, acquired life vests. A boat full of people requires all manner of errands and a skipper. And so even someone without a penny to their name could earn themselves the crossing by being prepared to act as navigator on the dinghy. It was a fair opportunity for all involved, because any idiot can steer a rubber dinghy. But now?
Now, rather than dispatching eighty people in a dinghy they send off eight in a light aircraft. Or an old helicopter. The pilot is an expert. Although the aeroplane and helicopter need maintenance, and that’s another job for experts. These days the smugglers employ only experts. And the now-redundant helpers swell the refugee camps.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s pointless to save,” the refugee says.
“Are you giving up?” Mahmoud asks.
“That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, saving is pointless.”
“A good attitude.” Miki claps him on the shoulder from behind. “Another beer?”
“I said saving is pointless. Doesn’t mean getting smashed is a good idea.”
“So how are you going to get the cash together?” Mahmoud says.
“No idea. But tell me again how it’s supposed to work.”
Mahmoud falls silent. What should he say? No matter how much beer Mahmoud guzzled, the refugee would still be right. Just as the smugglers’ prices are going up, the chances of earning the money inside the camp are sinking. Even though the camp now has two million inhabitants. Enough for an entire city. But it can never become a city.
For the ailing country that is home to this camp has enough cities that don’t work already. It has a government that wasn’t in power three years ago, and which probably won’t be in power five years from now. It keeps being attacked by two other groups that could just as easily be in power, and in all likelihood will be soon. The only reason the camp exists and continues to grow is that it offers something you can’t get anywhere else: security, however scant.
The security comes from U.N. and European money. In return, the government currently in power helps to protect the camp, to its own advantage: money, development aid and deliveries of defensive weapons continue to flow. Essentially, they’re leasing one of the most barren areas on earth for a profitable sum, which is why the two rebel groups strive even harder to assume power themselves, to rake in their share of the refugee harvest.
As a result the camp has scarcely been touched in fifteen years. There is enough security for survival, but not for a future. You can get along in the camp, like Miki. One day you might even be able to buy a new second-hand fridge for your beer, if you dare believe in that
much of a future. But nobody’s going to build a factory here. Nobody’s going to invest money in this mass of tents, which might disappear in a fortnight. And nobody will offer work here, because there are no prospects other than dust and sand and drought.
Here a man can earn nothing, and a woman earns only in the unique way that women have been earning for millennia. But even the most beautiful woman in the world couldn’t earn enough to keep pace with the smugglers’ prices, which the Europeans have ratcheted up by closing their borders. This is true for everyone in the camp, including Mahmoud. It’s even more true of Mahmoud, in fact, because nobody wants to shag him.
“Saving is pointless,” the refugee says soberly. “Because even if you do save, every day the gap between what you’ve got and what the smuggler demands is widening.”
“It doesn’t have to be a premier smuggler,” Mahmoud says.
“Does that make any difference?”
“What difference will new shoes make?” Miki puts his beer glass back on the shelf. “You’re not actually going anywhere.”
“But I walk better.”
And that’s the truth. Most people here wear flip-flops or slippers, and the children wear nothing on their feet.
“It’s not as if you have to walk that far here.”
“But at least walking doesn’t cost anything.”
The refugee reflects for a moment. Maybe he’s onto something, some association he can’t yet pin down.
“Well?” Mahmoud looks expectantly at the refugee.
“Look, I can’t afford a smuggler because I don’t have the money. But I do have time. I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ve been here for a year and a half. If I’d walked only ten kilometres a day in that time, I’d be five thousand kilometres from here by now.”
To begin with Mahmoud can’t think of anything to say. Miki is silent too.
“Five thousand kilometres . . . not bad at all.” The refugee is thinking as he’s talking, or vice versa. He doesn’t know where he’s going with this, but he has the feeling there are other useful thoughts scattered about. “Five thousand kilometres. Free of charge. And I’d still have the money that would have gone to the smuggler.”
