Mohammed got me the phone-card job. We teamed up, but it wasn’t easy work. It was very dangerous, in fact, and meant a huge loss for the Greek economy. Mohammed borrowed from a Pakistani a so-called joker card that worked in every public phone and, what’s more, recharged itself after every conversation. You could use up five hundred drachma on a call, then quickly remove and re-insert the card — and the five hundred drachma would be back on the card! The money earned in this way we had to split with the Pakistani. The Pakistanis in Greece were notorious for their technological tricks. Our customers were refugees for the most part and a few Greek down-and-outs who knew exactly where to find us. We used the phones round Omonia Square and in the Plaka, the area round the Acropolis. We sold five-hundred-drachma conversations for two hundred. The customers saved three hundred per call. The two hundred was our profit.
The only difficult thing was avoiding the asfalias—the security police in Athens. They were always out and about on their motorbikes and often came out of nowhere. That’s why, as a matter of principle, we worked in pairs. One accompanied the customer, the other kept watch. One night — it was my turn to keep a lookout — a gigantic asfali (as we called them) turned up without my hearing or seeing the slightest thing. Quick as a flash, Mohammed dropped the joker card. The asfali arrested us and searched the ground carefully. When he found the joker card, though, he just tossed it away.
‘Where are your drugs?’
He searched us but couldn’t find anything. So he punched Mohammed in the face and gave me a mighty kick. ‘Go. .’ he said, in English.
Relieved, and almost a little happy, we ran as fast as we could. Later, we came back, found the card and then went back home. Whooping and laughing cockily, we even did a few wild dance steps among the old Greek houses. Mohammed was acting like a child and burst into an old Iraqi folk song:
Fisherman! Can you catch me a sardine!
How odd, you a city boy, me a Bedouin.
The next day, Mohammed returned the card to the Pakistani and looked for another job. I decided to go to Patras. There, I had to wait for a long time before I could board the ship to Italy.
My paths in Italy were simple. I landed in Bari. I’d heard that getting from there to another European country wasn’t a big problem. I didn’t stay long in Bari and its narrow streets. After just an hour, I was determined to continue to Rome. So I went to the railway station. At a street corner, I saw two Kurds I knew from Patras. I went up to them and asked if they wanted to go to Rome too. ‘Yes, but we’re afraid. We can’t speak English.’
‘I can.’
‘Will you buy our tickets for us?’
‘Gladly, but will you pay for mine? I don’t have much money on me — and I want to get to Rome too.’
They looked at each other. ‘Okay!’
‘Your trousers are dirty,’ one of them said. ‘That will draw attention. Don’t you have any others?’
‘No.’
‘I do. Put them on.’
And so I travelled by train from Bari to Rome. The two Kurds thanked me and went into a different compartment. It was night. I fell into a deep and very calm sleep. Arrived in Rome early in the morning. Saw my friends there — the refugees at every corner and against every wall. Camping there, as if the main station were a bazaar. Some were selling bread-with-egg, tea or phone cards. Others were working as financial intermediaries. The Europe-based friends and acquaintances of a refugee transferred money to the intermediaries’ account. They then paid out cash to the refugee. Not without taking the appropriate commission, of course. The people-smugglers also had their patches, though the demand for their services wasn’t very great here. They worked, almost exclusively, for families that didn’t have a clue or that wanted to reach their destination as quickly as possible. Single men, who formed the largest part of the flow of refugees, organized their own onward journeys. Took a train to the border and continued from there alone.
On my first day in Rome, I met a Moroccan refugee who spent each night at the station. He showed me rectories, monasteries and other church institutions where I could have a shower and sometimes get food and pocket money. I stayed in Rome for a few weeks. I didn’t need much money there and I could move about freely.
I enjoyed my time there a lot — the broad streets, the old houses, the beautiful women. I strolled from one square to the next, then returned to the station. Walked through the town centre, looking at the old stones.
It rained one day and I felt an incredible desire to dance. Not because I was sad. No, not at all. Because I wanted to. And so I closed my eyes and danced. When I opened them again, I saw other people dancing round me. I stopped and began to applaud. I then went off, recalling Abba and Abd, the first people to dance with me in Baghdad. Abba wanted to be a philosopher, Abd a sociologist. We’d always wanted to dance in the rain in Rome. Why Rome? I don’t know. Each time things went badly for us or it was raining and the streets of Baghdad emptied, we’d head for al-Sade and dance. ‘Like Zorba the Greek!’ Abba would shout. ‘It’s as if we were in Rome!’ Abd would shout. We would dance until the rain dried up or our tears did. Abba and Abd stayed in Baghdad. Abba became a famous document forger and, later, the bodyguard of an Islamic leader. Abd a prison warder. I, though, danced in the rain in Rome. A refugee. A pigeon, lost and homeless.
The refugees at the main station told me that I had to go to the police and get a refugee ID that was valid for a fortnight. Within that fortnight, the refugee had to leave Italy. To get the ID, you had to spend a night at the police station. So I set out to look for the nicest central police station. I reached just as dusk was about to fall. The policemen fingerprinted and photographed me, then took me to a cell. They left the door open, though. I was the only prisoner. Finally, I could sleep in a clean room. In the days before, I’d either slept in the station building or in a tunnel with the homeless and the refugees.
That night, in my comfortable cell, I couldn’t sleep a wink. The guards were making a hellish noise with their night-time gambling and boozing. They got so drunk that one of them even came to my cell to take me with him. He found a chair for me, got me a bottle of beer and pressed a few cards into my hand. I hardly knew a word of Italian. And they had no Arabic. Their English, too, was so bad that it was no help at all. Nonetheless, we chatted all night and had a great time, laughing and roaring. I even began telling them something in Arabic. They laughed and laughed. We drank and danced as if we were somewhere else, not in a police station. By dawn, by about four maybe, we had totally lost control. No one knew what was going on.
Next morning, the men on the next shift arrived, gave me my ID and said in English, ‘Go!’
In Rome, I got a ticket and travelled to Bolzano, on the border between Italy and Austria. I spent a few days there, sleeping at the station, going to Caritas to eat and strolling through the town centre, watching the people shopping, talking, kissing. . Then, hidden in a train, I travelled one night to Germany and ended up in Munich. I didn’t want to stay there for long, though. The refugees at the main station in Rome had shared an interesting classification of the European countries. Britain, they said, was good for intellectuals as it had many different Arabic or Kurd newspapers, magazines, TV and radio channels and organizations. Sweden, they said, supported families, students and, again, intellectuals. Germany, on the other hand, was suitable for workers and people who wanted to save money. Germany was one big factory. Life in one big factory wasn’t for me. It was therefore my intention to travel through Germany and on, until Sweden. My journey was brought to a halt, though — by the German police.