No Safe Place (3 page)

A gust of wind blew tear gas in their direction, searing Abdul's throat and making his eyes fill with water. He covered his face, closed his eyes, tried not to breathe and waited for the wind to change.

“What will you do?” he asked when the breeze shifted.

“There's talk of a hunger strike. Not just among the Kurds — among the Afghans, too, and the Iranians, and the Eritreans. A hunger strike in the middle of Calais, in Place d'Armes.”

“What good would that do?”

“Some think it will shame the French and the rest of Europe into helping us.”

“Europe would be happy if we all starved to death. Our dead bodies would be easy for them to deal with.”

“I think shaming them is good. But a hunger strike wouldn't work. We don't have the solidarity. We're attacking each other instead of coming together.”

As if to underline the point, the sound of an argument reached their ears from below. Two different groups, in two different languages, were fighting over some discarded cardboard they both needed to rebuild their shanties.

“What does the world expect of us?” the man asked. “When we are treated like animals, we become animals.”

“Then what can we do?”

“My son and I are going to make our way to Paris, on foot if we have to — what's another long walk? We are going to the Eiffel Tower, or to that fancy garden with the flowers, or to the place where the president lives. I will get some gasoline, and I will pour it over my son and myself. Then I will tell him how much I love him. I will hold him close to me, and I will light a match.”

Abdul wasn't shocked. But the man was making one big mistake.

“Spare your son,” he said.

“For what? For this?” The man gestured at the chaos and misery below them.

“Take him to a mosque,” Abdul said. “Or a synagogue or a church. Leave him there with a letter from you that he can read when he gets lonely. Leave him with anything you still have that will remind him of you and where he came from. But leave him there, if you are determined to do this thing. The religious people will care for him. They'll find him a home.”

“You think it's better he be cared for by strangers?”

“No, it's better he be cared for by you. Cared for, not set on fire.”

“Go away. You are too young to know anything.”

Abdul got to his feet. “Give your son a chance. If you don't like it here, go somewhere else.”

“Good advice. Go follow it yourself. How long have you been here?”

Abdul stomped away. He was thinking hard.

After every raid or riot, there was a huge crush of people at the Chunnel entrance. The security police would be there in force tonight, too, and they'd be angry because one of their own had been stabbed. His chances of getting through were very small.

But he still had a way out.

The smuggler was leaving at two in the morning. Abdul knew the place the boat was leaving from.

All he needed to do was to keep hidden until then.

“If you give me a hard time, I will dump you in the Channel.”

Abdul stood in the shadow between the canal wall and the light tower. Below him, almost close enough to touch, a small group of migrants were getting ready to make the final stage of their journey.

The smuggler repeated his warning in French, just to be sure he was understood.

“Now, give me your money.”

Abdul counted heads. There was a family of five. They looked to be from Eritrea or Somalia. One of the children was a baby and would sit in its mother's lap. So the five of them would take up four spaces.

There was a teenaged girl, downplaying that she was a girl by tucking her long braid inside the back of her jacket. She wore a big hat pulled down around her face, and men's clothes that were loose and big around her. Clearly, though, she was a girl.

Five spaces.

There was a white boy, medium height, young looking but trying to look older by frowning. White men were unusual in the Calais migrant world, but not unheard of. There was a war in Georgia. There were wars in lots of places.

Six spaces.

A tall teenager, male, with Central Asian features, stood next to the white boy. Was he Tajik? Mongolian? Abdul couldn't tell. Maybe Afghan. He was hunched over and also frowning.

Seven spaces.

“Piglet! Get over here and help!”

A small boy, ten or eleven years old, came running up to the smuggler. His hair was long and unkempt.

The smuggler yelled at him in English.

“You're supposed to be working, not playing around. Is everything ready?”

“I…I think so.” The boy spoke with a British accent.

“You think so. Useless brat. Get all this crap on the boat.”

The boy struggled with the two bags the Eritrean family had with them.

The boy would take up a space. That made eight spaces. And the smuggler would take up a space. Nine spaces.

Abdul was going on that boat. He crept behind the dumpsters and looked down into the water.

The boat tied there was barely a bucket. It bobbed like a cork in the harsh waves smashing the old sea wall. Abdul counted out seating spaces for maybe six, if they all squished together. Even then, the boat would ride heavy.

Evidently, the Eritreans thought so, too. The husband and wife discussed it furiously, the money in the husband's hands, not yet relinquished to the smuggler. The smuggler got impatient and snatched the bills away.

“The boat is too small,” the husband said. “The sea is too rough. My children…”

“You can always make more,” the smuggler said. “You people breed like rats.”

“We don't go,” the husband said, his arm around his child. “We stay, find another boat. Return our money.”

“Return your money? What do you think this is?”

“Our money,” said the husband.

“What money? Did you give me money? Better call the police.”

The tall young man with the Asian features stepped forward and took the smuggler by the arm.

The smuggler snorted and puffed.

“What do you think you're doing?”

The young man didn't answer, just took the money out of the smuggler's hand and gave it back to the Eritrean family. The smuggler glared hard at the young man, then signaled to the boy to get the family's bags off the boat.

“Enjoy the Calais winter, sleeping rough,” he said to the family. “You'll wish you all died at sea.”

To the tall young man he said, “You think you're going to paradise in England? You're going to hell — and I'll make sure it's a special one for you, you lousy Chinaman or whatever you are.”

“Uzbek,” said the young man, and he stepped back into the group.

“Uzbek,” the smuggler spat. “That goes for all of you. None of you have enough money for the voyage. Jobs have been arranged for you in England and you belong to me until your debt is paid. If you give me a hard time, now or later, I will make you disappear, and don't think I can't do it. I'm not forcing you to come. Remember that. I didn't force you to do anything. You chose to be here, and you chose to agree to my terms.”

Some choice, thought Abdul.

The smuggler raised his voice. “Hey, Piglet. Get over here!” The boy came running again. “This is my nephew. My lousy sister died and saddled me with him. He has a name, but it doesn't matter. To me he is a little pig eating my money.” He bent down and made pig-snort noises in the boy's face. Then he knocked the boy to the ground with a wave of his big arm.

The migrants started to jump forward, but held themselves back.

“See how I treat my own flesh and blood? Imagine how I will treat you out there on the open Channel, you who are not my family.”

The boy got up from the dirt and hurried back to the wharf.

“Now, give me your money.”

Abdul watched as the remaining migrants dug deep into pockets to bring out rolls of money — money that had made long journeys hidden in dark places, or had been earned with deeds too hideous to speak of. They had all come to the end of the land without arriving at a safe place. England was their last hope, but they could go no farther on their own.

The smuggler took the money from the Uzbek first. The boy looked about seventeen, and his shoulders drooped as if from exhaustion. Abdul saw him head down the steps to the boat, speak to the nephew and shake his hand.

Next was the white-skinned boy.

“You're fifteen?” the smuggler asked. “You look twelve. As long as you can work.” The boy handed over his money. “No Communist tricks. Behave yourself, Boris.”

“I am Russian, not Communist, and my name is Cheslav, not Boris.”

“Who cares, Boris? Get in the boat.”

Last to board was the girl. The smuggler stared at her with a hard and hungry look.

“The little Gypsy child,” he said. “Welcome aboard, sweetheart. If the journey gets dull, you can liven it up.”

“I am fourteen, not a child. And my name is Rosalia, not sweetheart.”

“Your voice I don't need. Keep it quiet and get in the boat.”

Abdul watched the little boat fill up. He moved around the edges, from dark place to dark place, until he could see that the smuggler's attention was focused elsewhere. Then he stepped down into the boat and quickly scrunched himself onto a space beside Rosalia. The other migrants made room, and no one spoke.

The little boat was half a mile from shore, the thick fog already making the coast of France a thing of the past, when the smuggler realized there was one person extra.

“Who's that? Who are you?”

“I'm Abdul. You told me I could come.”

“You're that dirty Arab, that Kurd. I told you that you could not come!”

“Well, here I am.”

The smuggler started to stand, but that made the little boat rock even more in the choppy water. He could not keep his balance and sat back down again.

“Then we'll turn back. Boy! Turn us toward shore!”

The boy was back by the motor, his hand on the rudder. He looked around. “Which way is the shore?”

The fog was thick. The lights of France had vanished, and the lights of England were nowhere to be seen. The migrants clung to the benches they sat on, and waves tossed their little vessel.

“You are a fool, just like your mother was,” the smuggler yelled at the little boy. “Just turn the boat around. Do I have to come back there?”

Instinctively, the migrants squished together to form a barrier in case he should try to pass through. One step and he could topple them all into the cold October water.

The boy at the back moved the rudder and the boat started to circle. The sea was against it. Waves smacked their faces and sent water flowing onto their clothes. The wind would not let them turn.

His uncle kept yelling, and the boy kept trying to make the turn.

“You will get us all killed,” Cheslav yelled. “Try to get the rest of your money then, when you're at the bottom of the ocean!”

Water sloshed against their ankles, filling their shoes. The migrants tried to bail out by cupping sea water with their hands.

“Straighten that rudder,” the smuggler ordered. “And pass up your money, Kurd, or jump off my boat.”

“I'll pay you when we get to England,” Abdul said. “If we get there.”

The smuggler cursed and ranted, but the growing storm gave him little choice.

“I'll get your money,” he said. “I'll get your money and a whole lot else. You'll regret this. You can't cross me! I am a powerful man.”

“You're a loud man, anyway,” Abdul heard Rosalia mutter.

For awhile they seemed to be making progress, although it was dark and foggy and windy, and they could well have been going nowhere at all. The waves got bigger, sending the boat climbing to steep heights, then dropping it into deep troughs. The Uzbek was sick over the side.

The smuggler took a flask out of his jacket and poured its contents down his throat.

“You all think paradise awaits you in England,” he said. “Think again. The British don't want you. The British don't want me and I was born there.”

The more he drank, the more he switched his languages between English and French. He shouted sometimes and mumbled at others, so the migrants could not follow what he was saying. They could guess, though. They'd heard it all before.

“Sure, I bring you over the Channel for money,” he said. “A man's got a right to earn a living. But I also do it for revenge. Each of you mongrels who lands on the Queen's soil is like a poke in the eye to Her Majesty.” Then he sang some lines of “God Save the Queen,” substituting “save” and “live” with words that were rude and vulgar.

On and on he went, ranting and drinking. He didn't even seem to notice when it started to rain.

Abdul pulled up the collar of his jacket, but the gesture meant nothing. He was already wet.

“And then on top of it, I get saddled with a kid. A useless insect of a kid. Afraid of his own shadow. Boy! Get up here!”

The boy didn't move. “I…the rudder…”

“Kurd-turd — you take the rudder. Send the brat up here.”

“He can hear you from his seat,” Abdul said. “We all can.”

“Well, maybe I don't want you all to hear. Maybe I want a private moment between uncle and nephew.”

“Then it would be better to do that on the shore,” said Cheslav.

The smuggler reached out and slugged the Russian. His seatmate, the Uzbek, grabbed hold so he wouldn't go over the side.

“Hold it like this,” the boy said to Abdul, handing him the rudder. “It's not hard.”

“You don't have to go up there,” Abdul said.

The boy didn't answer.

Balancing with his hands on the shoulders of the migrants, the boy walked the length of the little boat. The others kept him from falling as the boat rocked violently back and forth.

“Here he is,” the smuggler said, grabbing the boy's arm. “The cause of all my sorrow. My Jonah, my millstone. I had a good life until you came along. I had a woman — you don't think I could get a woman, do you, mongrels? But the kid came along, and she left. ‘You're work enough,' she said to me. ‘I'm not looking after someone else's kid.'”

The smuggler's big hand went down on top of the boy's head. He tangled his fat fingers in the boy's long, fine hair. Even in the dark and the rain, Abdul could see the boy wince. But he did not make a sound.

“You're bad luck. You're an unwanted puppy, aren't you?” the smuggler said, bringing his face low and breathing his foulness right into the boy's nostrils. “You know what we do to unwanted puppies? We do to them what the sailors in the Bible did to their Jonah. We throw them overboard.”

The next movements were swift and sudden and seemed to come from all over the boat.

The smuggler picked up the boy by his hair and moved to toss him out of the boat. At almost the same instant, the Uzbek jumped from his seat and flung himself at the smuggler.

The boat rocked viciously, the Channel water spilling in as each side dipped low.

“Bail!” yelled Abdul, but the others were already doing that, even while they screamed in fear.

The smuggler, clumsy and drunk, tried to shuck off his attacker.

A wave decided it. Over the bow went the three of them, the smuggler still clutching the boy. The big man fought the water, trying to keep himself afloat. He was forced to release his fingers from his nephew's hair. Every time he yelled and cursed, the sea flowed into his open mouth.

The boy was now loose, carried away by the sea. The Uzbek pushed off the smuggler, who had managed to grab hold, and went out after the boy, his long arms slamming through the waves.

Several times he just about grabbed the child, only to have the waves carry him away again. Finally, he took hold of the boy's jacket and held tight. They began the hard swim back to the boat, the Uzbek holding the boy's face out of the water.

There were oars in the boat. Cheslav and Rosalia held them out for the Uzbek to grab on to. Abdul steered the boat close to them, then cut the motor to hold it steady as the Uzbek pushed the boy out of the water for the others to haul back onto the boat. Then it was the Uzbek's turn, and the boat dipped perilously close to going right over as he reached up and climbed on board.

For a long moment, they could all do nothing more than breathe. Abdul took off his own jacket and put it around the boy, but everyone's clothes were more or less soaked, and the boat held no blankets.

Abdul had almost forgotten about the smuggler until he heard a voice roar up from the sea and felt a slap so hard on the side of the boat that the shudder ran up and down its spine. A fat hand appeared out of the depths and gripped the edge of the boat.

A second hand followed, and then it was as if Neptune himself was trying to climb into the boat. It tipped over almost ninety degrees and was edging to a complete flip when Cheslav took up an oar and smashed it down on the smuggler's hands. Abdul thought he could hear the bones break.