Beg shook his head slowly. ‘There was a present left along the road; someone came and unpacked it. It would be unpleasant if we had to take it back.’
The ataman snorted and sputtered, then turned his head towards the bar and shouted: ‘Vladimir!’
Vladimir came to the table. At a nod from his boss, he produced an envelope from his inside pocket.
‘Pontus,’ the ataman said, ‘you’re taking me to the cleaners again. Here, buy something pretty for your girl.’
Beg put the envelope away and stood up. He said: ‘You know, I just might take her to the seashore.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. In search of fortune
There were thirteen of them. Whispered assignations had brought them to the warehouse. The afternoon was hot and muggy. What they wanted most was to be invisible; even their shadows were a nuisance to them.
They were brought together in a little office high up at the back of the warehouse. Men came in now and then, handing out bottles of water and rolls of biscuits. They would have to make do with that, but for no longer than twenty-four hours. Each of them was allowed to take along one bag of possessions. A woman wept; she had had to leave behind a suitcase with songbooks and a tablecloth her grandmother had embroidered.
The men were brusque, unrelenting.
There was a black man in the group; the others couldn’t keep their eyes off him. He sat apart from the rest and seemed not to notice their obtuse stares. He was carrying a little bundle on a strap — all his possessions were rolled into that.
His presence raised fundamental questions. Where did he come from? How did he get here? What was his name? Where was he going?
Questions no one asked him.
They were led to the truck. At the front of the trailer was the space where they would hide, a crevice left between plastic-wrapped pallets. There was a bucket in which they could relieve themselves. There was to be no smoking, and complete silence under all circumstances. Those who owned a mobile phone had to hand it over.
The boss of the operation wore a white tracksuit; gold glistened at his wrists and collar. His BMW was parked beside the truck, the door open, music blasting. Behind them the rest of the cargo was loaded as they covered their ears against the roar of the forklift in the trailer.
Slowly they disappeared in shadow. They would not only be silent; they would hold their breath and cease to exist until they were across the border.
The voices outside became muffled, and the tailgate closed. Someone pounded on it with a hard object. They tried to fathom the darkness, but their eyes found no hold.
When the engine started, a shiver ran through the trailer. The truck idled for a while, then began moving. A sharp turn — it was leaving the lot. A little later they were rolling smoothly down the road. Their thoughts grew a little calmer. They were all going to be fine; they would slip through the eye of the needle and act as though good fortune were a personal friend. Why should they be caught? Why not others? There were countless like them — let good luck turn its back on those others for once! No one needed it more than they did!
But every time the truck braked, their hearts leapt into their throats.
The trip would take about twelve hours, the man had said. Sometimes the luminous dial of a wristwatch would light up faintly. They had no idea how long twelve hours lasted in the dark. It was an endless, sleepless night. The clock that ticked in here was not the same as the one outside. The hour and minutes hands became bogged down; they dragged across the dial like flies caught in molasses.
A few times already, the boy has thought he is going to wet his pants, but each time the urge goes away. He shakes some life into his sleeping leg and looks down the row of others, leaning with their backs against the pallets. Shadows. Insubstantial, thin as air. He doesn’t know them, these others. As far as he can tell, there is one couple; the rest are on their own.
He knows that they are blazing trails for their families, their villages, their communities. Travelling in their footsteps is an invisible company of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. All hope is focused on them. They are the pioneer vegetation. You can submit them to anything — hunger, thirst, heat, and cold — and they will survive it all.
The boy thinks about his father and mother, and about his brother, who isn’t strong enough to make the journey. Endlessly far away, they are now. He knows he can’t go back. His road travels in only one direction.
He wept when they told him. Dry your tears, his mother said. You want to be a man, don’t you? A man carries what rests on his shoulders, and doesn’t complain.
The boy clenched his teeth and stopped crying.
It had still been dark, the morning he left. A stranger gave him a ride; they drove down into the valley in a rattling pickup and saw it slowly grow light behind the mountains. The man dropped him at the bus station and hoped that God would be with him on his way.
The boy took a bus westward, and by that evening was already further from home than ever. He ran through the words of counsel he’d been hung with like talismans. Don’t talk to strangers. Give policemen a wide berth. Be frugal. Avoid the company of people with red hair.
Around his neck was a string bearing an oval of blue glass, to protect him against the evil eye.
He slept in a corner of a bus station. He sat curled up against the wall, hiding himself in the shelter of his arms.
A guard woke him. He took him along to a cafeteria close to the terminal and bought him a spicy pastry and a cup of tea. The first buses of the day pulled in as an awesome blue unfolded across the sky. The boy slurped at his tea and felt protected for a time.
The guard gave him directions and he travelled on. In the next city he went looking for a coffeehouse called ‘Darius’. Strangers pointed the way.
He asked the barman about Nacer Gül. That was the name drummed into him; if he forgot that name, he was lost.
The man showed him to the back, where he waited amid buckets and crates for Nacer Gül to arrive. Gül was the gatekeeper; no one crossed the frontier into the other world without him. The boy waited until his thoughts died down and he forgot time.
With a great ruckus — the stamping of feet, and a bossy voice — Nacer Gül made his appearance at last. The door swung open. His head was shaven, like the children in the boy’s village. Perched on his forehead was a large pair of sunglasses.
‘You’re late, boy. We almost left without you.’
He laughed. The boy didn’t move a muscle.
‘The money,’ Gül said.
The boy held out the bundle to him, and his ringed fingers rustled through the banknotes. Gül stuck the wad in the pocket of his tracksuit. Money was something he dealt with offhandedly; it flew to him on obedient wings, so that he didn’t have to do a thing. The boy would remember everything he saw. This was how he would be some day — the money would fly into his pockets, too, and his mother would be proud of him, of her son who had made a long journey and triumphed over circumstance.
The darkness of the trailer deepened; night must have fallen almost. A river of asphalt rolled by beneath them, the road never ending. At times they fell asleep with their backs against the cargo, but most of the time they stared wide-eyed into the darkness. Everything will turn out all right. God is with us.
Those who once possessed proof of identity now possessed it no longer. Nacer Gül had said they should tear up their papers. It was better to arrive without an identity in the country of refuge. A person with no name or origin overwhelms the protocol. Procedures bog down; the chance that you’ll be allowed to stay increases. And so they destroyed the papers they had gone to such ends to obtain. Everything was formless now, except for the words of Nacer Gül, which were solid as coinage.