Divinity Road (8 page)

Yes, this flat is only temporary, but who knows what that means in real terms, so I have decided to make the best of it and treat this corner of Bristol, a suburb they call Lawrence Weston, as my new home. I do what I can to lay down roots. I take Yanit and Abebe to the nearby parks and the local library. We do our shopping at the Ridingleaze row of stores or sometimes venture further afield, to the ugly Broadmead shopping mall to browse, or for the sake of our souls, to the vast grounds of Blaise Castle where we can spread our wings, fill our lungs, run and scream and fight and laugh.

For all these months I have watched our lives unfold, a helpless observer. It is difficult to express how I have been feeling, Kassa, but close your eyes and imagine that Abebe and Yanit and I find ourselves lined up on a dry dusty plain, standing with our arms straight down by our sides like soldiers on parade. Imagine that we then realise that we are part of some giant children’s game, that we are the skittles and these infant monsters towering above us are about to launch colossal bowling balls at us, that we are paralysed, waiting to take the full impact of these missiles, that they will cannon against us, sending us spinning off in unforeseen directions and that there is nothing we can do to prevent this bombardment. Can you imagine that, Kassa? Well, that is how I have been feeling.

So I yearn for permanency, for some stability in our lives and perhaps this letter, this words-on-paper process, is also part of my attempt to fix our existence, to make it more real.

I hope too that you will appreciate this account of our lives since we separated, Kassa, you whose passion was always the story in all its forms – the yarn, the fairytale, the myth and legend – you whose nose was perpetually buried in one novel or another, whose notebooks were filled with your own creativity, plays and tales of domestic discord, family betrayal, political machinations, broken hearts and unfathomable courage. Perhaps you will read our story and it will inspire you.

So where do I begin? Let us start here in Bristol and then go backwards. This city, I read from a local history book, my first borrowing from the library, has a population of over 400,000, was always a major urban centre, a wealthy commercial port, but only really made a name for itself with its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century. During that period, I discover, more than 2,000 ships were fitted out here, responsible for the transport of over half a million slaves during those ghastly but profitable years.

But let me take you back to our arrival, cold and wet and filthy, crawling out of that lorry somewhere south of London, our first contact with the authorities at the police station, the first days at the hostel. The initial shock at the women there, glazed and mute through surrender; or irritable, vicious-tongued, their tempers taut with tension, the slightest look or word a pretext for a venting of fury. And their children, feral with neglect, twitchy with boredom, sweeping through the rooms like packs of wild dogs.

And back we continue, ever further. Back to the dark, vile journey across Europe that brought us here across the Channel, no idea of our precise itinerary, only vague snapshots of signposts and advertising hoardings spied during the snatched toilet breaks, clues indicating a route from Turkey that may have passed through Bulgaria, the Balkans, Germany and Belgium.

And if we take one more rearward leap, we are again in the back of a lorry, dusty days and nights carrying us from Ethiopia through Sudan to Egypt. Weeks of waiting in Cairo, then up to Alexandria and the boat crossing to Turkey.

And then, between these two hellish journeys, somewhere in Turkey there is a black hole so deep and dark that I cannot, will not, must not attempt to penetrate it. Not now, not ever.

But that is not the only chapter of my story that I will not touch, my dear. The first chapter, our life at home, I must also by-pass. That whole world, my studies, my job, my marriage, my friends and, dare I say it, my family, the ups and downs, the mirth and misery, I roll it into a ball, box it up in a locked case, stow it under my bed. Besides, most of it you know already, of course. No, I will start my story in the here and now, the bright positive present.

Bristol is a strange city, a gateway to the countryside, a split personality, half cosmopolitan and half peasant; half Old England, half ethnic melting pot. A walk through the town is like a stroll through modern British history, the words from my library book made real: I see maritime commerce in the floating harbour and the tobacco warehouses; I pass through breezeblock Broadmead rebuilt after the devastation of German bombing; I admire the engineering feat of Clifton Bridge, what my library book refers to as a proud legacy of the Industrial Revolution; I observe another legacy, this time of colonialism and Empire, in the ethnic diversity of the inner-city districts; and finally I am struck by the elegance of the mansions and palatial townhouses of Clifton, built with the blood of African slaves, men and women and children torn from their families, their communities, by circumstances beyond their control.

I was with my solicitor today. With him, I walk a tightrope between truth and deception. My passport and our identity papers disappeared into the hands of the traffickers before we had even left Ethiopia. To give my real name, my authentic story, is to reveal myself to the world, open up the possibility of my discovery by that Asmara family and their boundless tentacles, to put Yanit and Abebe in danger. While our true identities stay hidden, we remain safe. Yet, as the solicitor told us when we were first interviewed after our arrival, any hope for our asylum case here rests on the plausibility of our story, and lies are always harder to maintain than the truth.

I had given this a lot of thought during our journey and in the end I decided it would be too risky to reveal the blood feud story. Instead I have created a political prisoner for my husband’s persona, fabricated a history of persecution. Much of what I told them was true – Ethiopian woman weds Eritrean man, our marriage and move to Asmara, even his imprisonment, though his misdemeanour has become political. And historical events are on my side – growing government repression in Eritrea has made my story more believable.

The case is backed up further by the interpreters and language experts assessing my linguistic competence in Amharic, Tigrinya, Arabic, as well as Yanit and Abebe’s language abilities. And of course when the children were interviewed separately, they could also confirm their father’s imprisonment, though they are vague about his so-called crime. You remember, don’t you, that they had been too young to understand what he had done? We had only told them that he was being jailed unjustly, hadn’t we?

Our names, too, are another half-truth. I have reverted to my grandfather’s name here. You remember that it is our custom for children to take their father’s first name as surname when they are born? To avoid identification, I have given Yanit and Abebe my own family name as theirs. I have drilled them since our arrival, it is what they use at school, and they accept it without question.

Today, the solicitor runs through the story again. There is still no court date, but I am told my presence is not required. Our future is decided in an unknown place by strangers who have never met me.

A further task completed since our arrival in the UK was to seek help from the Red Cross and its international tracing service. At the interview I told the truth, the full story of our misfortune, all the details I could muster, nothing withheld except our real family names. Now there is nothing to do but wait and pray...

It is late and I am tired. It is comforting to have re-established contact. I will let you know how Yanit and Abebe get on at school. It goes without saying that they miss you, just as I do. Give my love to Gadissa, you are both always in my thoughts.

***

Dear Kassa

Who am I trying to fool? I cannot remember all the details of my last letter, only the tone, a casual catching-up of news like two old classmates whose lives have meandered in opposite directions but who feel that their friendship is sufficiently significant to warrant these informal updates.

I am sure this was a deliberate stance on my part, my darling, a desire born out of necessity, a survival instinct, an inability to face the true nature of our connection.

Even now, you can see how I hide behind euphemism. Our ‘connection’? It is pathetic, I know, but for now that is all you are going to get. Indulge my tone, tolerate my voice, endure my trite twitterings, they are but the sweepings of my soul, seeping leaks from the hole blown through the centre of my heart. I am sorry, my sweet, but that is all I can manage for the moment

So where was I? How to describe our life here? Transitory, I think, sums it up adequately. Last week I was a Lawrence Weston resident perched on the north-west edge of the city. Today I am an inner-city dweller, forced out of my temporary accommodation and scrambling to find a property to match my housing benefit allowance.

With no time to pick and choose, I find myself jumping at the first opportunity, the downstairs flat of a converted terraced house near the local primary school in St Paul’s. The accommodation is OK, a little drab and damp. Unfortunately the couple upstairs seem at war with each other, with their children, with the world at large, so there are verbal fireworks every night, a constant background of angry conflict.

It was hard for Yanit and Abebe to leave our life on the estate. He was enjoying the structure of the classroom and she had begun to make her first friends. I debated keeping them on at that school but getting them from St Pauls to Lawrence Weston every day using public transport was just too daunting so I signed them up for this local school, a stone’s throw from our front door.

It is a nice surprise to see so many black faces around and it is a more vibrant environment than the estate. But I already have my reservations about this community. During daylight hours the streets and shops seem safe and the people friendly and open. I have already joined the Cheltenham Road library, have identified a favourite local grocer’s and a halal butcher.

But when night falls I sense the danger. The street that leads me out of the neighbourhood, by day congested with pushchairs and schoolchildren, is lined after dark with girls plying their trade. Cars prowl and cruise, their boom-boom boom music mingling with the clamour of pavement squabbles and the wail of police sirens. We stay inside after sunset, ignore the couple upstairs with their endless quarrels and bury ourselves in television and books.

A further development to report. At the children’s school I saw a flyer pinned to the notice board advertising government-run English classes. I plucked up the courage and went along to register, and here I am, back in the world of study, a part-time English language course, what they call ESOL, two mornings a week close to the city centre. And no sooner have I signed up than the teacher announces exams at the end of term! My poor old brain can barely keep up. I wish you were here to help me out, you were always so good at English, the teachers forever blowing your trumpet!

No news on our court case.

No news from the Red Cross.

Our love to Gadissa. You are always in our hearts.

***

Dear Kassa

And so it continues, our roundabout journey through life. Another change, this time voluntary rather than enforced. One evening last month the usual street sounds, shouts and screams, the squeal of brakes and sound of shattering glass. Only this time the following morning a knock at the door, a policeman politely enquiring whether we had witnessed the stabbing of two youths on the pavement right outside our house the previous night, one young boy dead, the other in intensive care. I saw the yellow police incident notice placed just outside my garden gate, fancied I could still see the dark brown traces of blood on the pavement, and realised I could no longer live there.

The decision has been made easier by Yanit’s unhappiness at her new school. She has never settled and does not seem to have made any friends. And nor, for that matter, have I. Arriving to collect the two of them each afternoon, I was struck by how sad many of the parents appeared. They seemed hollow-faced and edgy. Perhaps I was just experiencing the alienation of an outsider. Whatever the case, I did not feel that I belonged.

So back to bag-packing, to notice-giving and house-hunting, to scraping together a deposit from what little remains of my savings. Our new home is another converted terrace, this time right in the heart of Easton.

Again, the process of nesting, the discovery of amenities, where to buy fruit and vegetables, halal meat. A new library to explore. The closest school is as ethnically diverse as the last one, but somehow the atmosphere seems less aggressive. The local Muslim cultural centre runs an after-school club and I have enrolled both children for that. Outside the house there are still the night-time sounds of a world gone mad, still the police incident notice boards, but somehow here I feel safer.

I continue my English classes. My fellow students are from all walks of life and every corner of the globe. I arrive late for each session, breathless from the cross-town rush. I sit at my desk, pen in hand, scribbling new vocabulary into my notebook and feeling like a little schoolgirl. My brain is not as flexible as it once was and stubbornly refuses to accept new ideas without a fight. But I persevere and to my surprise I passed my end of term exam. I have the certificate to prove it. You would be proud of me, my dear! Still, no respite. The teacher has registered us for the next exam level, so my nights are spent toiling over my homework. I am ashamed to say that sometimes I go begging to Yanit for help!