I turned right.
The sun had gone down and the light had started to fade, and now an annoying wind had sprung up. I’d better keep moving or I’d freeze to death.
I started to walk, swinging my arms briskly by my sides for warmth because I only had a light jumper. Lucky I’d put my jeans on over my shorts the other evening, when the midges started to bite. The lane wound around between tall hedges, so most of the time I couldn’t see where I was going, sometimes climbing a bit, sometimes dropping down again. Nothing looked familiar. The row of poplars had disappeared from view altogether.
I lost track of how far I’d walked. A car passed, its headlights blazing, but it didn’t stop. Then it started to rain. I didn’t mind at first, because I was thirsty, and I stuck my tongue out to catch the water. Then my jumper started to get soaked through and I started to shiver, with the wind tugging at my wet clothes and lashing the rain into my face. This was dire!
I started to run, my head bowed into the rain, my hands stuffed down into the pockets of my jumper. Another car passed and I waved my hand, but it had already whooshed away in a cloud of spray. Just as I could feel the rain penetrating through to my skin, I came upon an old shed or garage made of corrugated iron, set back from the road. I pushed the door and it creaked open. Inside it smelt of oil, and a hulk of some old motor was rusting in the corner under a plastic sheet. There was even a chair. That was a bit of luck! I sat down. The chair wobbled. It only had three legs. Well, there was nothing for it but to sit and wait until morning.
Snug in the warmth of her bunk, Marta listens to the rain pattering on the curved roof of the caravan, a soft, intimate tapping sound, like a friend asking to be let in. She is thinking about Irina. On the other single bunk, Ciocia Yola is muttering in her sleep, engrossed in some nocturnal argument. Even in sleep, her aunt usually finds someone to berate. The raindrops get louder, more insistent. A brisk wind has picked up, rattling the lightweight panels of their fragile home and blowing through the check curtains that are drawn across the opened windows. The Chinese girls in their double bed are wide awake too, huddling close together. Ciocia Yola wins her dream argument with a final snort and gets up to close the windows. Marta puts the kettle on and spreads some slices of bread with margarine and apricot jam, and the inside of the caravan is soon warm and steamy. They all sit on the edge of the double bunk in their nightclothes, eating bread and jam, and talking in whispers for no particular reason.
Then there is another louder tapping sound outside, and men’s voices. Marta opens the door. Andriy and Tomasz are standing there looking like two wet socks on a washing line. Their awning has blown away. Although this is a women’s caravan for women only, Ciocia Yola relents when she sees how bedraggled they are.
“Come in. You can shelter from the storm.”
They towel themselves dry, and sit on the edge of the bunk too. Marta pours them steaming mugs of black sweet tea. Then she hears Dog barking softly-snoof! snoof!-and there is another knock on the door. Dog and Emanuel have come to join them. They are not wet-it was dry in the back of the Land Rover-they just want company. To have friends come from afar is a pleasure, says Emanuel, wiping his feet on the mat as he comes in.
Somehow all seven of them squeeze in, Andriy perched on a stool, Tomasz, Emanuel and Dog sitting on the floor, the women huddling up on the double bunk, drinking tea, eating the rest of the bread and jam, and listening to the rain hammering on the roof. I will always remember this night, thinks Marta. Friendship like this is a gift from God.
After a while, when they start to feel sleepy, Tomasz and Andriy stretch out in the single bunks and Emanuel curls up on the tiny floor space in between. Marta and Yola squeeze into the double bed with the Chinese girls, and Dog goes underneath. Marta, who is in the middle, has to nudge off her aunt and the nearest Chinese girl with her elbows. The girl’s weight, when she rolls down onto Marta, is surprisingly firm and warm. She wonders which of the two it is. Even though she never got to know very much about the Chinese girls, the closeness of their caravan life has made them somehow intimate.
As she drifts between sleeping and waking, Marta rehearses last night’s meal over in her head. Really, it was a masterpiece. First she fried Andriy’s fish in margarine with wild garlic leaves, and some mushrooms which Tomasz brought back from the field. She used just a splash of wine to make a delicious sauce for the chicken, which was cut into small pieces and simmered slowly in herbs and tea. It was unfortunate that their earlier shopping was so limited, she said to her aunt, with a note of reproach in her voice, but there was still some stale bread left which she cut into delicate croutons and fried lightly with a sprinkling of fresh roadside marjoram to make a tasty accompaniment. The carrots were chopped into fine julienne strips, then boiled and served with a margarine and apricot glaze. She regrets the theft of the carrots, which she knows is a sin, but prays that their owner will be rewarded in heaven, for when we feed the poor, we feed Our Lord. And although there was only a small teacup of wine each, it was enough for them to raise a toast in honour of their friendship, and a happy reunion in the unspecified future.
“To all caravan dwellers everywhere!” Tomasz said, raising his cracked cup.
In fact nobody gets very much sleep that night. They lie awake listening to the storm outside, and talking in low whispers, until at last the wind drops, the rain patters away, and the sky grows light.
Vitaly is waiting for them at the ferry terminal next day. He is talking on his phone again and looking around with an edgy, anxious air. Marta notices for the first time the restlessness in his eyes, and it makes her feel uneasy. After the intimacy of last night, his brash mobile-phone patter seems to strike a false note. But he smiles with delight when he sees them.
He has a companion with him, a young man with the same shaven head and a complexion as dark as his own, but older, with slightly coarser features and a scar across his left cheek which has caught the tip of his lip, whom he introduces as Mr Smith.
“Mr Smith will be your escort,” he says to the Chinese girls. “He will accompany you to Amsterdam and introduce you to family of distinguished diplomat. Is this not so, Mr Smith?”
Mr Smith smiles, and the scar on his upper lip pulls tight against his teeth.
“Ladies. Please come with me. You have your passports?”
He leads them through the crowd to a large silver car that is parked outside.
“Goodbye,” they say, waving their hands through the darkened glass.
Song Ying, known to the others as Chinese Girl One, comes from Guangdong Province in southern China. Her father works in a new bank in a large industrial town, and is a person of some standing in the local community. Her mother is a teacher. Song Ying is their only child, and they dote on her, sparing no expense, so she is raised with rather an elevated expectation of what her life will be. She is a bright girl, and they have paid for her to have private lessons. At nineteen, she passes the entrance exams to be accepted into the prestigious Beijing University Business School. Her parents have saved up enough money for the fees. Her course starts in the autumn. Or at least that’s when it was due to start.
Sixteen months ago, her mother became pregnant. The authorities had become lax about the one-child rule, and she thought she might get away with it, but recently, in one of their periodic bouts of orthodoxy, they have been tightening up again. She is summoned to the provincial council and given the choice of aborting the foetus or paying a substantial tax. Song Ying’s mother uses some of her savings to have an ultrasound scan done privately. The scan tells her that she is carrying a boy. Song Ying’s parents discuss the choice facing them late into the night. Her father urges her mother to have the abortion, but her mother weeps so much that in the end he relents. They go ahead and have the child; and they pay the tax.