The Shadow Girls (13 page)

Humlin did not pick up. He sat down and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a monkey jump onto his back. But he couldn’t do it, his imagination failed him.

*

He didn’t hear her come out of the bedroom. She moved soundlessly.

‘Why did you go to bed?’ he asked when he saw her.

‘I was tired. I’m going now.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Tea-Bag.’

He hesitated.

‘Your passport fell out of your pocket while you were sleeping,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help seeing that your real name is Florence.’

She laughed heartily, as if he had told a good joke.

‘It’s a fake,’ she said.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘I bought it in the camp. On the beach.’

‘What camp? Which beach?’

That was when she started telling him her story. How she had crawled up onto the Spanish shore and been caught by armed guards and albino German shepherd guard dogs.

*

Even the tongues hanging out of their mouths were white. I don’t know how long I was in the camp. It may have been many years, perhaps I was even born there, perhaps the beach beyond the barbed-wire fence was the sheet on which my newborn body first felt the earth and sand. I don’t know how long I was there and that is something I don’t even want to know now. But finally one day, when my desperation was greater than it had ever been, I walked down to the fence and threw away all of the stones I used to count the days. I saw how they fell in a large fan shape of lost days and nights, and then they were washed away by the waves.

I had given up all hope of ever being allowed to leave the camp. The beach onto which I had crawled no longer meant freedom to me, it was a bridge to death and I was only waiting for the day when a finger would point at me and I would have to wade out
into the water and join those who were already dead at the bottom of the sea. Every day was like the space of time between two heartbeats. But suddenly there was a tall thin man who stood in front of me, a man who swayed like a palm tree, and then I heard for the first time about Sweden. I decided I had to go there because there there were people who cared about the fact that I existed.

There was a black market in false papers in the camp. Sometimes passports had been falsified several times over. An old man from Sudan felt that his time was near and that he would never leave the camp alive. He gave me his passport on the condition that I go to a church or mosque or temple once a month and think of him for exactly one minute. That was what he wanted in return, a reminder of his existence even though he had long ago left the land he came from. I had a photograph of myself that I had kept safe in waterproof waxed paper. With the help of a Malaysian refugee who was very good at falsifying stamps and seals although he had almost no tools, he removed the old man’s photograph and affixed mine in its place. The name was changed to Florence. It was like a holy ritual to give the passport with a dying man’s picture a new life. I blew my soul into the passport and helped the soul of the old man to free itself. I will never forget the moment the passport changed. It was one of the most important turns my life has taken.

I found Sweden on an old and torn map from a Moroccan man who was fleeing to Europe for the ninth time, trying to get to his brother who lived somewhere in northern Germany. I realised it would be a long journey, but I never understood how long. Or perhaps I realised but did not want to accept it. I don’t know. Since I never let my expectations get the better of me I decided simply to concentrate on getting out of the camp.

I made friends with some young men from Iraq. In secret they
had been constructing a ladder made of bits of rope, branches and plastic that they tore off from the tables in the camp mess hall. When I sought them out they did not at first allow me to join them in their escape attempt since they were worried that a black girl would not manage very well on a flight through Spain. But my loneliness must have touched them because they gave me permission to use their ladder if I waited one hour after they had gone.

One dark night when there was no moonlight the three Iraqi men took off. After exactly one hour – I had no watch but counted the seconds and minutes by tapping against my wrist – I climbed the fence and disappeared into the night. I followed the first path I found, then turned off on another as if I had an inner compass directing me. I walked in darkness without knowing where I would find myself in the morning. I slipped and fell several times. Tree branches and thorns cut my face, but I continued towards Sweden and the memory of that tall swaying man who was the first to show an interest in my story.

By the time the sun came up I was exhausted. I sat down on a rock and all I remember is that I was very thirsty. I discovered that I had climbed up through a rocky and mountainous landscape with many steep cliffs that could have sent me to the death I escaped once in the sea. On a field in the distance I saw people. The sun reflected off the windshield of a car in the distance. I started walking due north, avoiding civilisation and people as much as I could. I ate fruits and nuts, drinking rainwater in crevices. The whole time I kept walking north. Every morning when the sun came up I oriented myself to the north and kept walking.

How long I kept going, I don’t know. But one day I couldn’t do it any more. In the middle of taking a step I sank to the ground. Despite what my father had taught me about keeping my feet firmly
planted on the ground I was close to giving up at that moment, lying down and crumbling into the burned earth. If I had been walking for a week or a month I couldn’t tell. But I knew I had to find out where I was. I forced myself to get up and keep going until I came to a small town that lay exposed on a great plain.

I walked into the town. I had come during the worst of the midday heat. The town lay still like a parched corpse. I read on a sign that the name of the town was ‘Alameda de Cervera’. On another sign I read ‘Toledo 111 kilometres’. All of the shutters on the whitewashed houses were closed, some dogs lay panting in the shade but I did not see a person anywhere. I walked along the empty streets, blinded by the strong light, and found only one shop that was open. Or perhaps it was closed but the door was open and I walked into the dim interior.

In the corner there was a man sleeping on a mattress. I tried to move as quietly as possible; I had removed my tattered shoes and I still remember how cool the stone floor felt against the soles of my feet. I was holding my shoes in my hand when I realised that I had walked into a shoe shop. Shoes were stacked up on shelves along the wall. On another wall I found what I was looking for: a map. I found Alameda de Cervera, then traced my way to Toledo and realised that I had only come a short distance from the camp, even though I thought I had been walking for ever. I started crying, silently so that the sleeping man wouldn’t wake up.

What I then did I can only recall in unclear images. The heat, the dogs, the sharp white light that was reflected on the whitewashed walls. I walked into a church, it was cool in there, and I drank the stale water in the baptismal font. Then I forced open the cash box sitting on a table for people to put money for postcards that they bought. There was not much money, but I thought it was enough to cover a bus ticket.

‘Toledo,’ I said to the driver who looked at my dark skin with distaste and desire.

But my smile did nothing for him. Somewhere inside me a deep rage was born at these stolid European men who were not able to appreciate my beauty. I don’t remember much from the bus trip. I slept and was woken up by the driver who shook my shoulder abruptly and told me we were there. The bus was parked in an underground garage. I walked through the fumes, through the people who were crowding to get on and off the buses and at last found myself out on a street with so much traffic I became afraid. It was evening and I took shelter in a park. Suddenly I became convinced there were wild animals in the park. I don’t know where this feeling came from but it was very strong, stronger than the rational part of my mind that said there were no dangerous animals in Europe.

I stayed awake until dawn with fear beating in my chest. It was only when the first light of morning came that I saw a drunk man come stumbling down one of the paths. He sat down on a bench, leaned forward and threw up, then fell asleep. I crept towards him, stole his wallet and then ran away. Then I hid again, this time in a thicket that stank of urine. I found to my surprise that the wallet was full of cash. I put the money in my pocket, threw the wallet away and left the park. I ate breakfast in a cafe and realised I would not have to walk any more. I had money. I could buy a map and take the train to the border and then continue as long as the money lasted.

I made my way into France by crawling through a ditch at the border. In the distance I heard dogs barking and whining exactly like the albino dogs in the camp. The money that was left I changed in a small town. I still had enough to eat regular meals and buy train tickets. But as I was leaving the bank I was stopped by a policeman who demanded to see my identification. I got out my
Sudanese passport, then changed my mind and ran away. I heard the policeman shouting behind me but he was not able to catch me. At that moment I understood that I had been given magic powers. When I had crawled through the ditch my fear had made me invisible and when I was pursued by the policeman I moved as fast as one of the birds I had seen gliding on the warm air streams over the valley on the other side of the river next to the village where I was born. Now I knew I would make it to Sweden as long as I did not try to thwart my fear. It was my most important guide. It helped me to discover powers I did not know I had.

During the next few days I was so excited I ran all night, towards the north. Sometimes I followed paths that snaked along roads with cars speeding by. But I moved just as fast and my eyes could see in the dark as if there had been strong lights posted nearby. If there was a rock or a hole in front of me I knew it was there even though it was completely dark.

One morning I came to a large river filled with brown, slow-moving water. A rowing boat was pulled up on the shore and chained to a tree. I smashed the lock with a rock and pushed the boat into the water. That day I did not lie low during the day and wait for darkness. I let the boat drift along and stretched out along the bottom that smelled like tar and looked up at the clouds far above my head and noticed that I had started to breathe easily again. It was as if I had been short of breath ever since I climbed the fence in Spain and disappeared into the dark. I slept and dreamed that my passport was like two doors that opened into landscapes that I recognised from my childhood. I could see my father there, how he came towards me and lifted me like a feather he wanted to toss up towards the sun and then catch me again in his warm arms while I slowly floated back towards the ground.

I woke from the dream when the boat started swaying. A barge had passed me. Shirts were hung out to dry from a line aboard the vessel. I waved even though I didn’t see anyone.

*

Tea-Bag stopped abruptly as if she had said too much and should never have revealed her secrets. Humlin waited for her to continue but she didn’t. She zipped up her jacket and pulled her chin down towards her throat.

‘Then what happened?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘I don’t want to tell more. Not now.’

‘How are you going to get back to Gothenburg? Where are you going to stay? You can’t stay with me. Do you have any money?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I don’t know what your name is,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe your name really is Tea-Bag. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know why you came here. But I suspect you are in this country illegally. I don’t know how you manage.’

She still didn’t answer.

‘I’m going back to Gothenburg in two days,’ he said. ‘There I will meet with Leyla and Tanya again, and hopefully with you. Why don’t you take the train with me then? You can tell me the rest of your story. Meet me at the Central station at a quarter past two the day after tomorrow. If you aren’t there then I’ll assume you’re not coming. But if you do come I’ll pay your ticket. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘You have to go now.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?’

She didn’t answer. He gave her two hundred kronor in notes that she pocketed without even looking at them.

‘Before you go I would very much like to know your real name,’ he said.

‘It’s Tea-Bag,’ she answered.

For the first time since she had left the bedroom she smiled. Humlin escorted her to the door.

‘You can’t sleep in the stairwell.’

‘I’m not going to sleep,’ she said. ‘I’m going to visit my monkey.’

He watched her – suddenly filled with energy – dance down the stairs until she was out of sight. While he smoothed the sheets in the bedroom and checked to make sure she hadn’t left any traces of herself, he only thought of one thing.

Shirts hung out to dry on the line.

A dark-skinned girl in a rowing boat waving to a boat where there was no one to be seen.

WHEN HE WOKE
up the following morning Humlin felt more refreshed than he could remember being for a long time. It was as if his meeting with the smiling girl named Tea-Bag or perhaps Florence had allowed him to access some hidden energy reserves. He got out of his bed as soon as he woke up instead of lying in like he usually did. He decided that this was the day to confront his mother. He was also finally going to get in touch with his investment broker.

The latter was easier than he had imagined. His broker picked up one of his mobile phone lines.

‘Burén.’

‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve tried to reach you during the past week?’

‘Nineteen, I think.’

‘Why in God’s name can’t you return a call?’