The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society (9 page)

However, this simple pleasure is not always as easy to achieve as you might think, because the heart of summer
is also the time that visitors start arriving. For some reason people from the northern hemisphere like nothing better than to stalk across mountains in the fierce midday heat, arrive on the terrace of a complete stranger and blast their hopes of waking naturally from a siesta. In the past month I had been dragged from my slumbers by, amongst others, a Danish hiker, a German ornithologist, and a man from Dorset who told me that he had borrowed my last book from the library and read most of it, and would I mind
signing
his map and posing for a photograph?

So it was that one August afternoon, replete with
gazpacho, tortilla
and salad, and pleasantly lulled by wine, I retreated to my bed, in the hope of sleeping undisturbed. I was lying on my back in bed – that being the best way of dissipating heat (and why dogs in summer lie with their bellies in the air) – and was peering lazily behind closed eyelids at the thoughts ambling through my mind. This is a trick I’ve discovered to slip more quickly into a light doze. You try not to follow any thoughts in a conscious way but just watch as they go by. Little by little, as you lie bathed in sweat, the thoughts become more disjointed, their
rationality
dissolves, rogue elements appear, and you find yourself skimming the upper hills of dreaming before descending into the valleys. This is a delicious moment, the moment before you dip into sleep. You say to yourself, ‘I must be asleep because that last thought didn’t make sense,’ and then all of a sudden you’ve overcome the curse of the heat, and you’re deep down in the veils of Morpheus, cloaked in mindless sleep.

At this point, often as not, a fly will attempt to dart up one of your nostrils, jarring you straight back to irritable wakefulness. You get up and shut the shutters – houseflies
don’t fly in the dark – but once disturbed it is not easy to regain that sweet oblivion. You manage at last and, ah, such pleasure, and then all of a sudden there impinges on your consciousness a shuffling, as human noises are heard moving forward on the terrace – perhaps a ‘Hello, there!’ or a whispered ‘Do you think anyone’s in?’ A visitor has arrived.

Grumbling to myself, I ratch about for something to cover my ghastly nakedness and stumble out into the
glaring
light to face my uninvited guest. ‘Oh-h,’ they greet me, a slightly falling note if it’s someone who is clutching my book, as they register an older and less amiable-looking version of the author than the man on the book jacket. I usually offer a cup of tea, which is what people
unaccountably
seem to want on a blistering summer afternoon,
especially
if they’re English.

Yet this time things seemed different. The visitors didn’t call out at all and their silence unnerved me. Then I picked out whispers, very quiet and urgent, and it occurred to me that this could be the ham baron’s henchmen come to teach me a lesson.

I nudged Ana awake, raising a finger to my lips. Then I pulled on a pair of shorts and crept carefully to the front door. I peered out… Nothing. Then I caught sight of some figures at the bottom of the steps to the house. With relief, I realised that they weren’t marauding heavies at all, but four young men, all of them just as nervous as I was. A thin youth with dark features and curly, matted hair seemed to be the spokesman. He stepped up to the edge of the terrace and hesitantly, in a hoarse voice, asked for some water. The others waited in the shade of the pomegranate tree to see how I reacted.

‘Of course. Come up and I’ll get you some,’ I said,
smiling
in a manner that I hoped might put them at ease, and beckoned to them to come and sit on the patio. The youth stepped back and seemed to be conducting a mimed
conference
with the others, with the result that they stepped tentatively up behind him. If it wasn’t already obvious from their features that they were Moroccan immigrants (‘
without
papers,’ as they say in Spanish) the shabby sports bags they clutched gave them away. I dredged up the tiny bit of Arabic I knew.

‘
Salaam alekum
,’ I said – welcome; ‘
Alekum Salaam
,’ they answered uncertainly. It helped to galvanise the other three who, dusty and dishevelled like the first, moved closer to the table and chairs in the shade of the vine.

I went into the house to fetch a jug of water. When I returned, they were still standing around uneasily, holding on to their bags. ‘Go on, sit down,’ I said in Spanish, and placed the tray and jug and glasses on the table. Warily they moved to the chairs, perching on the edge as if still unsure.

The exhausted look on their faces told of a long and arduous journey, doubtless lasting many days. And they were clearly terrified of being reported to the authorities and deported. As well they might be, for, by sitting these destitute young men down and giving them water, I was breaking the law.

‘You speak Spanish?’ I asked, anxious to reassure my wary guests. Three of them looked in bafflement at the first, who shrugged apologetically.

‘
Aah, parlez vous français
?’ I tried.

‘
Oui, un peu
…’ he said as he gulped the water. I refilled their glasses.

 ‘
Je m’appelle Christophe
,’ I said, holding out my hand to the French speaker.

He bowed a little and shook my hand, afterwards
placing
it over his heart in that warm Moroccan way. ‘I am Hamid, and these are my friends Mustapha, Aziz, and also Hamid.’

We each shook hands, bowing and touching our
respective
hearts. Ana emerged then from the darkness of the house. They all stood up and repeated the hand-shaking process. It appeared that it was only the first Hamid who spoke anything but Arabic or Berber, so we communicated in French through him.

‘We have come from Algeciras,’ he said.

‘How are you travelling?’

‘On foot, through the mountains. It is safer from the police.’

‘On foot, all the way from Algeciras! That’s halfway across the country! How long have you been walking?’

Hamid turned to his friends and they exchanged
opinions
on this in Arabic.

‘We have walked for ten days, I think. We are going to El Ejido, monsieur. We know people who work there.’

‘That is a hard place,’ I replied. I knew a little of El Ejido and its hothouse fruit and vegetable industry, and wondered if it really would provide a better life than the one they were escaping. And yet it was impossible not to admire these determined youths. They were clearly exhausted, hungry, thirsty and destitute, and here they were wandering through a land whose language they didn’t speak, ever at risk of being caught by police patrols. They were seeking hope and opportunity – a future with the dignity of work.

 ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Ana.

‘We are a little hungry,’ replied Hamid.

Ana got up to go to the kitchen. As she did, she noticed that they were all eyeing the packet of cigarettes she had left on the table. She smiled and pushed it across to Hamid. They fell hungrily upon the packet, and somehow the tiny act of generosity, the ritual and the sweet smoke of freshly lit tobacco worked a magical effect. The fear seemed to fall away, there was a tangible feeling of relief, as they pulled the calming smoke deep into their lungs. (I suppose that’s the way it is with snouts; I’ve never managed to smoke one, so I don’t know.)

Soon Ana had a meal on the table for them. There was a tureen of thick
gazpacho
, a buttery, yellow omelette made with our own farm eggs, thick slabs of bread and butter and honey. It was a bit short on the meat, but all we had in the house was bacon and ham and sausages of pig. Still, the four of them set to the food like thin wolves. Pausing briefly, Hamid told us that they had not eaten a thing for two days. They had no food, no money and, worst of all, no tobacco.

We watched them as they ate. They were painfully thin and, from what I could gather from Hamid, were village boys from the desert border area in the south, where unemployment is endemic and secondary education rare. Quite probably each of these boys represented the investments of a whole village, or at least of an extended family. People would have scraped together their assets and given them to these ill-prepared young men so that they could find work in the distant fastness of Fortress Europe, and send home what money they were able to put aside. They didn’t look much – who of us
would
after ten
days in the mountains with barely a thing to eat? – and yet these boys bore upon their shoulders huge burdens of hope, and were risking their lives to bring these dreams to fruition.

It was shocking to reflect, given their appearance, that things were going well for Hamid and his party, thus far. They had survived the appallingly treacherous sea journey, on some barely seaworthy boat; they had travelled east for ten days without being caught by the Guardia Civil patrols; and now they had fallen in with us. The tobacco and food were visibly reviving the group, but still their eyes darted narrowly about, casting glances around at the farm, and us, and searching for warning signs. I wanted to say something to convince Hamid of our good intentions, but it wasn’t that easy, particularly in French. You can’t say: ‘We mean you no harm.’ It sounds silly. ‘Don’t worry; you’re safe with us.’ Not much better.

As the group finished their meal and talked among themselves in Berber, Ana and I discussed what to do. El Ejido is a wretched place: acres and acres of greenhouses, where Moroccan and other illegal migrants work in dire conditions, for pitiful wages. It was awful to think of them ending up there, but they seemed determined and we had no other plan we could offer in its place. Reaching El Ejido, however, would be no simple matter. There remained a good four days’ walk over some pretty rough and broken countryside. Ana looked thoughtful.

‘We can at least take the trauma out of the journey,’ she said. ‘We could drive them there – or you could. You could wait for nightfall and then go the back way, via Cádiar.’ Ana’s caution was as much for my sake as for the Moroccans. Helping illegal immigrants is against the law,
and carries the possibilities of a prison sentence and
confiscation
of one’s car. It seemed unlikely that I’d be caught, but nonetheless it would be best not to be too obvious about it.

Getting this plan across to Hamid and his friends was by no means easy. I could sense that they still did not trust us – and why should they? Okay, we had shown them some kindness, but the water, the meal, it could all be some kind of trap. Eventually, though, we managed to persuade them that they should go and rest for a few hours in the
cámara
, an annexe where I work, up above the house, and where there are beds and couches for visitors. I would come up and fetch them when it got dark, then drive them to El Ejido or wherever they wanted to go next. Grabbing their bags, the Moroccans followed me up along the path that skirted the border of succulents surrounding the house. They kept their guard up and, at a bend in the path, where the view opens up to reveal the river bed, a strange and quiet commotion broke out.

Hamid stopped in his tracks, one hand shooting out to prevent the others moving forward and whispered, nodding his head towards the track. The others crouched back, frowning hard at me. I stood rooted to the spot unable to work out what the hell was going on and then it dawned on me. They’d seen our scarecrow: a
deceptively
life-like hunter that a sculptor friend had erected in the field, as a folly and a deterrent to wild boar. He’d shaped the body on a wire frame, covered it with acrylic painted plaster, and to add an authentic touch had
positioned
a wooden shotgun in the cradle of his arms and a painted cigarette dangling from his lips. The clothes were my own cast-offs and, to keep the wild boar on its
toes, our model hunter’s neckscarf was soaked from time to time in
Zotal
, which, refreshed by dew, purportedly smells like BO.

As soon as they understood their mistake, Hamid and his friends broke into smiles, but they were the brittle, hesitant smiles of people who still had much to fear and can’t give anything unusual the benefit of the doubt. ‘Try and sleep for a few hours if you can,’ I said, handing Hamid another pack of cigarettes Ana had provided. ‘We’ll leave at eleven.’ And I unlocked the door of the
cámara
and handed them the key.

The Moroccans looked around the room in
open-mouthed
amazement, exclaiming at the number of books and beds and then, delightedly, as if finding a long-lost cherished item, picked up the
djelaba
and
babouches
– the traditional Moroccan cloak and slippers – that I had
hanging
on the back of the door. The impression that we were an alien people might have diminished a tiny bit. Once again we shook hands and bowed. ‘
Merci, monsieur. Merci
,’ said Hamid, holding on to my hand.

I returned to Ana at the table and we talked over the plan. I felt deeply uneasy about El Ejido. ‘The gangs who run some of those farms are hardly better than the Mafia,’ I worried. ‘I don’t know if it’s enough that there are other Moroccans there. If only we could employ them here, and pay them decently and house them like human beings.’

‘We couldn’t sustain it, Chris,’ Ana replied. ‘We don’t have enough work for them, or the money to keep on paying them properly, and we’re just too exposed. Someone would be bound to denounce them sooner or later.’ But she hated the thought of El Ejido even more than I did. We had both
heard stories of the farms’ brutal treatment of Moroccan and Eastern Europeans, who, without legal status, were worked like slaves and casually subjected to fearful levels of toxic chemicals. Such is the price paid for Europe’s out-
ofseason
fruit and vegetables. However, we couldn’t think of a better alternative, despite talking the subject round and round until late in the evening, so at ten-thirty I wiped the grime off the car windscreen and went up to the
cámara
to gather my passengers.