The Stray and the Strangers

by Steven Heighton

  THE STRAY AND THE STRANGERS

  THE STRAY

  AND THE

  STRANGERS

  Steven Heighton

  Illustrations by Melissa Iwai

  GROUNDWOOD BOOKS

  HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS

  TORONTO BERKELEY

  Copyright © 2020 by Steven Heighton

  Published in Canada and the USA in 2020 by Groundwood Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license,

  visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

  groundwoodbooks.com

  We gratefully acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The stray and the strangers / Steven Heighton ; illustrations by Melissa Iwai.

  Names: Heighton, Steven, author. | Iwai, Melissa, illustrator.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190224711 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190225084 | ISBN 9781773063812 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781773063829 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773063836 (Kindle)

  Classification: LCC PS8565.E451 S77 2020 | DDC jC813/.54—dc23

  Illustrations by Melissa Iwai

  Design by Michael Solomon

  Map by Mary Rostad and Steven Heighton

  For the thousands of children

  who passed through the OXY transit camp on Lesvos in 2015

  1

  Boat Strangers

  The steep, narrow streets of the island town swarmed with stray dogs, and almost all of them looked alike. They were middle-sized, spotted brown on gray, and they had sharp, alert-looking ears.

  There was one exception. She was smaller and scrawnier than the others. Her whole pelt was the color of cinnamon except for her paws, which were white, as if she were wearing socks. Her long brown ears drooped like vine leaves wilted at the end of summer.

  An old fisherman was the first to call her Kanella, the Greek word for cinnamon.

  “She must have come here as a stowaway on one of your boats,” he teased the younger men. “You never seem to know what you’ve got aboard.”

  In the harbor, the fishermen would sort their catch and fling the smaller unwanted fish onto the pier. Kanella waited there each day beside a mob of stout, cantankerous cats. She lay flat on her empty belly, half hidden behind coils of rope or piles of netting that smelled of brine and seaweed. Whenever she tried to creep closer, the cats would hiss like vipers.

  The old man chuckled as the young ones tried to tease him back.

  “We know the dog arrived on your boat, old man!”

  “That’s right. They say you found her in your nets with the bass.”

  “No, with the shrimp! She isn’t much bigger.”

  “The old man’s eyes are too weak to see the difference.”

  “Or maybe she swam here from Turkey,” said another, pointing across the water to a mountainous shore. “The eels wouldn’t bother to eat her, skinny as she is.”

  “You think she’s strong enough to swim that far?”

  “Why don’t we throw her in and find out?”

  The fishermen went on laughing and tossing scraps at the strays. As the cats pounced, shrieking quarrels would erupt. If a fish head or tiny squid slapped down near Kanella, she would dart out, sweep it up in her jaws and flee.

  The fishermen cheered and chanted her name whenever she managed this feat.

  “Look, the runt has done it again! Clever girl.”

  “If she’s so clever, why doesn’t she find food at the dump like the other dogs?”

  “I hear the others chase her away.”

  She knew only a few of the words, but she understood the tone: cheerful and good-hearted. Still, she never approached the men or let them touch her. To her, all the townspeople were frightening giants, even the children.

  As for the island’s summer visitors, they were even bigger and louder. They would loom and lumber toward her, trying to pat her or scoop her up in their arms — an insult, as if she were a mere puppy.

  When her stomach ached a little less, she would trot uphill through a labyrinth of cobblestone lanes and stairways to the top of the town. There she slept in a hollow in the trunk of an olive tree that grew by the wall of a ruined castle. This had been her home for two hot, dry summers and rainy winters — as far back as she could remember.

  Other strays never climbed up here. It was too far above the harbor where the boats came in, too far from the dump, too far from the restaurants that threw out so much food in the busy summers.

  Her burrow was safe, but in the winter it was cold.

  And all year round it was lonely.

  * * *

  One day the boats returned to the harbor early, riding low in the water as if they were loaded with a heavy catch. Yet Kanella’s twitching nose caught no scent of fish.

  The decks of the boats were crowded with strangers. They looked and sounded nothing like the people of the town. Many wore bright orange vests over ragged clothing that was sopping wet, as if the fishermen had hauled them out of the sea. Dark scarves covered the hair of the women. The children shivered the way Kanella did every winter, when the winds carved the sea into steep, frothing waves and the boats huddled in the harbor for days.

  The fishermen helped the strangers climb down onto the pier, where they stood or sat in trembling clusters. The old fisherman called in a shaking voice to people at the restaurants along the pier, “Come help us! They are cold and hungry. We need a doctor!”

  Soon people emerged from the restaurants with water and platters of food. But some of the strangers seemed too ill and weary to eat. Kanella watched hungrily as the bolder dogs and cats darted in among their wet shoes to seize fallen bits of bread, cheese or fish. The animals worked quickly, afraid of being kicked or chased.

  Yet it was the strangers who flinched and backed away, as if they were the ones who should be frightened.

  * * *

  As the spring sun climbed higher and grew hotter, more and more strangers arrived on the island. Some continued to come on the fishing boats. Others appeared, sodden and silent, up on the olive-green decks of coast-guard ships. But most of them landed in black rubber rafts so crammed with passengers that they seemed more under water than above.

  Kanella’s sharp eyes would spot the rafts crawling across the sea as she stood outside her burrow above the town. Then she would hurry down to the harbor. She was hoping to find scraps of food left on the pier, but she was also curious. Where did the strangers come from? They shrank away from cats and dogs, so they scared her a little less than the townspeople did.

  Wherever they came from, they were wary, tired and thin.

  Strangers of another kind were arriving now, too. They came not over the sea but along the highway in cars and buses. Many of them looked and sounded like the summer tourists — yet these people didn’t climb up to visit the castle or swim in the sea. They walked fast and spoke urgently. Day and night they were in the harbor, bringing blankets, dry clothes and food to the boat strangers.

  Sometimes they helped carry sick people off the rafts onto the pier. The sick people would lie under blankets while helpers knelt beside them or rushed around them, pointing and hollering. />
  Kanella knew what it meant to be so hungry and tired that you could hardly stand up. Still, she did not move in to take the scraps that the helpers sometimes fed to the other dogs. Then one day she saw one of the rescued children give a piece of cheese to a cat. The child did not seem afraid, even when her parents pulled her back and scolded her.

  Kanella could almost imagine accepting food from a hand that small.

  2

  The Bearded Man

  One morning, some helpers led a crowd of boat strangers through the white-walled streets of the town, then along the highway cut into the face of the cliffs. Kanella followed, keeping her distance. The sea swayed and shimmered far below. Cars and trucks snarled and rattled past.

  The large group came to a wide, bare lot beside the road.

  Last summer, cars would park here in rows. Tourists would drink, dance and yell at the moon from the balcony of a building that shook with drumbeats and shone with light. Sometimes Kanella found tasty scraps in the dark behind the building — nuts, salty olives, oily strips of fried potato that looked like fingers.

  But at summer’s end, the building fell dark and silent. It remained that way now.

  Maybe the town no longer had room for tourists, with so many boat strangers landing?

  In the bare lot beside the building, two huge tents had sprung up. Around them were smaller tents and huts. Kanella ran around the edges of the camp, her nose skimming the ground. Everything smelled new, even the toilet shed with its harsh chemical scent.

  From a distance, she tried to see into the giant tents. Many boat strangers sat inside, eating or quietly talking. Behind them, others lay wrapped in blankets on mats.

  Never before had she seen people sleeping on the ground, like her.

  One of the huts gave off rich, mingled aromas of food. Was it a sort of restaurant, like the ones along the pier? If so, a dog would not be welcome, but scraps might be found around the back — maybe potato fingers, fish bones or bread crusts.

  A man came out the door. He had a beard like some of the fishermen, and he looked older than the other helpers. He held Kanella’s gaze. Then he waved to her and displayed his teeth.

  Was this a welcoming grin, or a warning?

  He ducked back into the shelter, then reappeared. He came toward her, limping a little.

  “Here, come on,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  Kanella backed away. He stopped and lowered himself awkwardly to one knee, as if trying to make himself small. His eyes were clear and pale as water.

  When he held out his open hand, she smelled and saw something on it. Cheese of some kind? She wished he would just fling it. But he kept holding it out and beckoning with his odd-sounding words.

  “That’s it. Come. We can be friends.”

  She crept forward, too hungry to resist. She lipped the food quickly. Then she backed off and bolted it — a flat, smooth shred of cheese without flavor, unlike any she had ever known.

  “There. You see?”

  The man’s scent was strong and smoky but not unpleasant.

  Again he edged forward, stretching out his empty hand. Again she withdrew.

  The man stood up. Once more his teeth showed in his beard.

  “All right. I understand. Real friendships take time.”

  He limped back to the food hut, glancing at her over his shoulder. She wanted to follow. She didn’t move.

  He vanished into the doorway. But soon after, a hand appeared there holding a bowl.

  The hand set the bowl down outside the door and withdrew.

  The door eased shut.

  On silent paws she snuck up and sniffed. Late spring was always a thirsty time. The sun had dried up the last winter rainpools and most of the streams.

  Fixing her eyes on the door, she lapped up the water and licked the bowl dry.

  3

  The Camp

  The next day, Kanella trailed an even larger group of boat strangers as they trudged up the road from the harbor. When they arrived at the camp, they formed a long and silent line outside the food hut. Through an opening in the wall, helpers handed out bottles of water, bowls of food and slices of bread.

  Face-to-face through the slot, the strangers and the helpers spoke to each other, not with words but with their eyes, hands and sometimes smiles.

  The water bowl sat on the ground by the closed door of the hut. The bowl was full again, but Kanella was wary of going closer with so many people milling around.

  Doors were a mystery. The many doors of the town were forever enticing her with the heavy scent of food — so she would sniff the air and edge closer. Usually the doors stayed shut. But sometimes they would burst open like great toothless mouths and people would spill out. A few had even yelled and kicked at her.

  Now the door of the food hut opened. Kanella leapt back. The bearded man stood there. He knelt with a puff of breath and pointed at the water bowl.

  “Come now. You must be thirsty.”

  His fingers, holding something, reached toward her. She sniffed — another piece of cheese. She edged forward and pinched it from his grip.

  He reached out to touch her head. There were gray hairs in his beard below his mouth, like on the muzzle of an old dog.

  He scratched her ears.

  “You’re not so shy now. And why should you be? We’re all friends here.”

  She didn’t understand him, but his words, like his hand, were calm and kind. She stood very still, her heart thumping in her throat.

  A younger helper, her face so dark it was almost black, appeared in the doorway beside the man. Crouching lightly, this woman offered a piece of cold meat. It was thin, flat and bland, like the cheese.

  “You’ll like this even better,” she said. Her voice was higher and thinner than the man’s, but just as kind.

  Kanella wolfed the meat down with a gulp. The belch that followed was louder still.

  The man and woman laughed.

  And Kanella let the woman stroke her head.

  * * *

  At sunset a few days later, instead of leaving and trotting back to town, Kanella curled up to sleep beside the water bowl and the food-hut door.

  The evening after that, the man invited her into the hut with his hands and his words.

  “You can sleep in here, girl. It’s going to be a windy night.”

  Never had she passed through the mouth of a door into a human space. It was warm, and like her burrow in the tree it kept out the sky.

  The man pointed to a gray blanket on the ground under a table. It was a dim place, a den within a den. Kanella curled up there and closed her eyes, though behind her heavy eyelids a part of her stayed awake and watchful.

  Her new den was a good spot to pass the hot hours of spring’s warmest days. But even in the heat, the food hut was a busy place.

  Nights were quieter. The bearded man, the young woman or one of the others would sleep there on a narrow bed that was like a long chair. Sometimes the sleeper would have to rise, unshutter the slot in the wall and pass drinks or bowls of food to a new group of strangers.

  Other times, helpers in white aprons stained with food would enter, bearing heavy pots or trays. Kanella knew this food came from a truck trailer by the road. It smelled like a restaurant, and smoke was always flowing from its chimney.

  * * *

  Everything about the boat strangers mystified Kanella. But the oddest thing was that they didn’t remain in the camp that they had taken such trouble to reach. Here there was shade, water, plenty to eat and friendly people. Yet early each morning the strangers who had arrived the day before would set off. They would plod and limp up the sticky black road that looped along the sea.

  Kanella had never known people to move so wearily and yet walk so far. How did the children do it? Adults carried the smallest, but the others walked b
y themselves, their short legs churning to keep up. With her eyes she could follow them all for hours, a straggling line crawling along the cliffs in the distance.

  One morning, curiosity pushed her to follow a departing group. She padded quietly behind them. In her mind she was one of the helpers now. She would keep the group moving and together.

  And so she did. When the lagging adults and children glanced back and saw her slinking along, they looked alarmed and sped up.

  Once she realized how much she was helping, she puffed up a little and allowed herself a few instructive barks. This way! Everyone together. Keep to the side. A truck is coming!

  She followed them until the sun was high and the road smelled of tar and stuck to her pads.

  Every morning after, she did the same, following until thirst and hunger made her turn back. And every noon as she returned, running at full stretch, the camp helpers would welcome her: “Kanella, Kanella, Kanella!”

  4

  Summer

  In the fiery heat of summer afternoons, Kanella rested in her cool den under the table. The man now wore a hat. It smelled like sweet grass and cast a shadow on his red face. His eyes seemed bluer than ever.

  The young woman and some others now wore dark glasses that hid their eyes in a way that made Kanella uneasy. But they continued to treat her fondly and give her so much to eat that her stomach ached, though in a different way than before.

  “Here, girl. Try what’s left,” the young woman said. “My lunch from town.” The little cubes of spicy meat wrapped in bread were delicious, mostly. Kanella spat out some bitter, crunchy strips that burned her tongue.