CHAPTER 11. THE WANDERING NON-JEW.
Nesim Ciawar crossed Southgate by the bridge over the river Slea. He wrapped his thin nylon jacket around his shoulders. Beneath the jacket, he wore last season's Arsenal top and his collar bones stuck out. All his clothes had been donated by a charity. He was thinner now than he had been when he'd fled Mosul, one step ahead of the Iraqi Sunni gunmen who had come looking for him and his brother, Behram.
They'd fled north, crossing the final northern ranges of the Zagros mountains into eastern Turkey where they had found shelter with their mother's cousins. The brothers had been welcomed with open arms and their mother's family gladly shared what little they had. But their cousins were poor, simple people eking out a living from their stony fields and the Ciawar brothers wanted more than a sagging mattress in a dirt-floored hovel that smelled of goats. Also, they were too close to the border and it would be easy for the gunmen to hunt them down.
So they thanked their hosts who even scraped up the fare for the brothers to catch a long-distance bus to Ankara and then onto Izmir on the Mediterranean shore. The brothers knew that was money the family could ill afford and they promised to pay it back as soon as they could.
From Izmir, they walked and hitched up the coast, the Mediterranean on their left, olive groves and wheat fields on their right, the heat always pressing down. Then one night, they bundled up their clothes in layers of bin bags and waded into the sea on two yellow inflatables they'd picked up that afternoon. It was only a few kilometres to the nearest Greek island and as they paddled they watched the lights on its hills grow closer and bigger.
Unlike many, Nesim and Behram made it. The high speed Greek patrol launch didn't pick them up and return them to Turkey. Instead they splashed up on the beach. The European Union. The promised land – or a part of it any way. Nesim pushed the inflatables back into the surf and watched them disappear into the pre-dawn darkness.
Shivering with cold and exposure the brothers ripped open the bin bags and dressed, hopping from foot to foot as they did so. Then they burned their passports before turning their backs on the sea and walking inland, into the nearest town. The brothers reported to the police, hanging about for hours in an overcrowded waiting room where the only sign of movement was the slowly revolving ceiling fan. Finally, with the aid of a translator padding out Nesim's limited English they claimed political asylum.
The Greek police inspector stamped some papers and, through the interpreter, told the brothers that they could remain in Greece for three months only but after that, they would be deported. Nesim nodded, thanked the policeman and picked up their new temporary documents. A church charity gave them some filled pitta bread and bottles of water.
Shortly after, they caught the evening ferry to the port city of Piraeus and, to save money, walked into Athens along the side of a congested highway. They weren't the only ones walking. Other people, singly or in small groups, were also trudging along. Most carried bags and a few women also carried babies or small children.
Nesim wondered how the families had made the crossing. They passed a young woman who looked exhausted. She had a baby in a sling on her hip and a large woven bag in her hands as well as a backpack. As they passed, she staggered on the rough concrete and would have fallen except Nesim caught her before she fell.
Not to be outdone, Behram took the woman's bag leaving her free to cope with her baba. "Thank you," she said. Nesim detected a Syrian accent and, asking politely, found she came from Al Qamishli, in Kurdish Syria which was only a hundred or so kilometres away from Mosul. Leaving his brother to struggle with the bulky bag, Nesim walked alongside her, chatting all the while in a mixture of Kurdish and Arabic.
Nesim soon found out that they had a couple of acquaintances in common – one of them a dentist who had closed shop in Mosul during the Iraq War and started up in Al Qamishli. They had a laugh about his habit of screwing up his eyes and sticking out his tongue during difficult procedures.
Finding out that the brothers had nowhere to stay, the girl suggested they stay at her step-brother's house for a few nights until they found somewhere. Both Nesim and Behram thanked her politely. The house was a shared apartment in a run-down block overlooking a park that was a no-go area after dark. Bars barricaded the windows and the brothers had difficulty finding any floor space to lay their heads as the step-brother's apartment, like all the others in the block, was packed. It seemed to the brothers as if the entire middle east was on the move, as if everyone had upped stakes and was seeking a better life in Europe.
Yet there was no better life in Athens. The step-brother warned them to beware of The Golden Dawn – a bunch of right-wing neo-Nazi thugs who hate immigrants, fearing newcomers and seeing them as a threat to Greece. Nesim and Behram nodded. They came from Mosul, after all. They had seen the bloody aftermath of sectarian violence.
Looking for casual day-labour work at the local market, they witnessed a Golden Dawn mob overturning and wrecking immigrants' stalls. They didn't need to speak Greek to know that the angry thugs wanted the foreigners out. Nesim looked at Behram. Greece would not be their long term home. Over a simple meal they asked the step-brother what they should do. Perhaps wanting a little more space in his apartment, he suggested they try for Germany or, even better, England. The locals were more tolerant and there was a large Kurdish community in both countries who would help.
More, the step-brother gave Nesim a list of contacts and fixed it for them to be hidden in the back of a lorry heading north. He told them the customs would be lax until they reached the north. The Romanians and Hungarians knew asylum seekers wouldn't be staying in their countries and didn't want the hassle of dealing with them. Instead, they'd wave the lorry through and let somebody else in the north deal with the problem at their end.
Things happened just as their friend said. The brothers wrapped up in blankets and extra sweaters and sat at the back of a refrigerated truck hauling horse carcases up to Bruges in Belgium for processing into dog food. With a laugh, the driver told the brothers to keep moving otherwise they'd freeze and end up in the dog food – waste not, want not. They weren't sure whether the driver was joking or not.
The brothers spent the worst forty-eight hours of their lives in the back of that Arctic artic. The cold stopped being funny after a couple of hours and then it became a matter of just holding out. Before entering, the driver had explained that he could not let them out before journey's end as customs insisted the container was sealed and there was no way he could open it. Behram took to punching the horse carcases, making the racks of ribs sway. After a bit, the cold seeping into his bones, Nesim followed suit. It helped if he imagined that the corpses belonged to their Sunni enemies.
The duty manager of the plant at Bruges was a fellow Kurd. When he flung open the rear doors, Nesim and Behram staggered out, more dead than alive. Behram collapsed, kissing the ground in relief. In the staff room, the manager gave them tea and soup but told them they couldn't stay for long in case a government inspector showed. However, it was only one hundred and twenty kilometres to Calais and after that came England. Their final destination.
Once thawed out, the brothers set out along the busy A16 highway with their thumbs out. Their feet were aching before some guy who looked like a superannuated musician complete with a greying ponytail and leather waistcoat gave them a lift in the back of his van which they had to share with a full drum kit. With a friendly wave, the artiste let them out on the outskirts of Dunkerque and then it was just a walk of thirty kilometres to Calais.
Calais twinned with Hell. Very shortly, they found their way to The Jungle – an area of woodland to the north of the city where those nomads seeking entry to England camped out until they got lucky. The woods were crammed with temporary shelters. The lucky – or more established – had tents, sleeping bags and had scrounged or been donated cooking equipments. The others made do with tarpaulins, plastic sheeting or simply benders made out of bent branches and sticks.
The place stank of cooking and human waste and the brothers heard dozens of different languages spoken in the first few yards. Instinctively, they huddled together. To Nesim, it seemed as if all the world was on the move in an unstoppable tidal wave of humanity, all of them escaping persecution and seeking a better, safer life in western Europe.
That first night, Nesim and Behram huddled around a camp fire, sparks and wood smoke spiralling up to the stars in a scene that could have been set in the Dark Ages. Were they the vanguard of part of a conquering army advancing into the failing states of Europe or were they defeated men, hiding out away from their enemies? Nesim couldn't answer that question.
He thrust those thoughts out of his head as another man, an ex-cabbie from Kirkuk, told the brothers that they had two choices here. Either they could pay the people-smugglers thousands of dollars to get them into England. The brothers shook their heads at this. They did not have that kind of money and neither did their family as their father's mother was so unwell now.
"What's the alternative?" Nesim asked.
The other Kurd stroked his moustache. His teeth gleamed in the firelight. "Then you must climb the fence, dodge the security guards and their sniffers and hop on a train or lorry. And if Allah smiles on you, then you might make it."
"But be careful," said another man around a mouthful of bread. "It doesn't matter if the guards catch you; all they can do is fingerprint you and then send you back here and then you can try again the next night. Or the night after that until one day you get lucky."
"They say 5,000 trucks a day go through Calais. Allah will smile on you one day," a thin Afghani muttered biting into an apple.
"No, it's the trains you have to watch. Fall under the wheels and you'll be cut in half...," said yet another.
An older man with grey in his hair and beard spoke up. "That's if you're fortunate. If not, then you'll lose your arms or legs and never enjoy the blessings of Paradise."
The conversation turned to stories of men they had known who had died beneath the unforgiving wheels of the trains or crushed underneath lorries. Nesim and Behram looked at each other. Even allowing for exaggeration the tales were horrifying.
Exhausted, Nesim and Behram found shelter under a bush, its branches reinforced with a golfing umbrella. A church group came around with sandwiches one day beyond their sell-by date and bottles of water. That was their only contact with the outside world. But that was alright. During the day, The Jungle slept. It was after night fell that it came alive. Ghost-like, in small groups, the men made their way to the high fence guarding the port area surrounding the Channel Tunnel.
It was a constant struggle between the port's security guards and the asylum seekers. The guards rushed from place to place, but it was like a child trying to hold back the sea. As soon as the guards' backs were turned, more men scrambled over the fence and swarmed towards the train tracks or tried the backs of semi-trailers.
Nesim looked at Behram. "Shall we?"
"It's what we've come for," Behram replied.
They hugged and then set their feet into the chain link fence. Somebody had flung a blanket over the barbed wire at the top and not yet removed it. In the distance, they saw a security carrier driving away a group of men whose attempt this night had failed. Perfect for them, if not for the unknown men. Nesim and Behram scrambled up and over, dropping down onto the brightly lit concrete of the port. Crouching, they ran over to the railway sidings, keeping away from the harsh glare cast by the floodlights. A long line of wagons stood waiting, the engine at the front already revving up.
The two men stooped and scrabbled over the track bed. Underneath the wagons were a forest of rods and niches. Glad that he hadn't wasted his time at the gym back in Mosul, Nesim swung up and gripped the rods, resting his knees over a convenient bar. In front of him, he saw the dark bulk of Behram also clinging on. Not wanting to attract attention, neither spoke.
Glancing to the side, Nesim saw black boots walking along the side of the track. One of the guards swung a mirror on a stick under the train. Nesim held his breath. Wearing dark clothes, he would be almost invisible.
"Hey," one of the guards shouted.
Nesim's English was just good enough to understand the man's strong accent. "I've got one! Let's be 'avin you, sunshine." Two guards leaned under the wagon and pulled Behram out and dragged him over the cinder bed. Nesim held his breath expecting at any moment to feel hands pulling him out as well. To the side, he heard Behram protesting loudly but his brother was wasting his breath. At least Behram was drawing attention away from himself. After a couple of minutes the guards dragged Behram away and then he heard a truck's engine start up and drive away. Apart from the usual sounds of a busy port, it fell quiet.
Nesim offered up a silent prayer. He prayed for Behram and hoped he was safe. But he also prayed for himself. Had he got away with it? Then he felt a jerk as the goods train started up. Taking a tight hold, Nesim clung on as the slow-moving train approached the Channel Tunnel, picking up speed as it did so.
If the journey in the refrigerated truck was hell, then this was twice as bad. Nesim's wrists and ankles and knee joints ached until he felt he could take no more strain or pain. Every nerve screamed with agony. Yet he had to. The alternative was to fall and be cut to pieces by the train's wheels. He prayed constantly, with a fervour he'd never shown before – an endless appeal for help as the train rumbled through the tunnel in its endless hellish trip.
Just when Nesim thought he could take no more, there was a change in atmosphere. The tunnel walls fell away and a wet, salt breeze flowed under the carriage. He'd made it on his first attempt. He'd made it! He was here! Despite feeling sorry for Behram, Nesim's heart soared. As soon as the train slowed and stopped, Nesim unclenched his fists and dropped to the ground.
Then he crawled out from under and stood up. Every joint ached terribly – it felt like he'd been pummelled unmercifully by the gym's wrestlers and boxers. Over to one side, across hectares of concrete and tarmac glistening in the rain, were a row of prefab buildings which were obviously offices. Nesim started walking towards them.
He was picked up within one minute and hustled towards the offices. There Nesim endured the first of a long series of interviews before, eventually when he was beyond exhaustion, he was given temporary paperwork and then put onto a minibus and taken to a nearby hostel.
The hard-pressed Kentish council, its funds drained by the constant inflow of immigrants claiming asylum, had made arrangements with other councils elsewhere in the country for them to take some of the surplus. After a few days of misery hanging around waiting for nothing to happen, Nesim and some others found themselves in another bus heading north.
Nesim and two others, a nervous young Afghan and a big Turkic man who could have come from almost anywhere between Istanbul and Kashgar in China's Uighur province, found themselves dropped off in the middle of a caravan park on the North Lincolnshire coast.
The social worker, who introduced himself as Kevin, wearily greeted them and explained that this was only temporary accommodation. They should be in a small town called Sleaford. However, the new mayor didn't like immigrants and had set up this camp instead. Nesim looked at the big man, whose name was Kasymguly, and whispered that it was still better than Mosul. The other nodded but didn't say anything.
Nesim changed his words over the following week. Safer to stay, yes; but better no. He'd never been so cold. Up in the mountains, Mosul might have lower temperatures on the thermometer but this unrelenting damp chill penetrated his clothes and settled in his bones. And this was supposed to be summertime here? What was winter like? He shivered. And where was Behram? He still hadn't heard from his brother and was getting worried now.
However, there were several other Kurds and an Iranian student in the camp and Nesim fell in with them. Without enough money in their pockets, the men loafed around Cleethorpes town centre. Even though the English mostly blanked them and avoided the refugees, Nesim and his friends noticed groups of burly young men with tattoos and shaved heads who scowled and spat curses as they passed.
Back at Kamp Kleethorpes, as it was known locally, they heard stories of how these skinheads would racially abuse, or sometimes even assault, the refugees. Kevin advised them to give the skins a wide berth. The refugees looked at each other, confused by the term 'skins'. However, the phrase 'avoid them' was obvious enough.
Their shared caravan was alright. Clean and basic but nowhere near as pleasant as his family's apartment in Mosul. How he missed it. How he missed his mother. Nesim wondered when the authorities would get round to processing his asylum application. He was desperate to get a job so he could wire money back home. As the days and weeks drifted into each other with no news of Behram to brighten his day, Nesim and his friends took occasional day-labour jobs working in the fields.
One evening, as Nesim watched the clouds build up, Kasymguly came and said a scrap yard near Sleaford was looking for some cheap labour. Cash in hand and no questions asked. If only for something to do, Nesim said yes. Nobody said anything as a group of men walked out of the gates of Kamp Kleethorpes and caught a bus to Sleaford.
It was hard graft at the scrap yard but Nesim didn't mind. The work filled his days keeping him occupied. The pay was terrible but Nesim squirrelled away what he earned and soon he'd wire some home to his mother. His job was the lowest of the low. Hard, dirty and dangerous.
Ignoring all environmental regulations, the manager told him to burn plastic insulation off wire to salvage the copper inside. He spent his days choking in thick, toxic smoke. When he'd run out of cabling, he burned radial tyres for the wires inside. As he worked, he wondered how much the owner was bribing the council to let him ignore all rules.
Big Kasymguly, who was acting as foreman, walked past. "The boss is taking a big delivery later. He needs you to get some more gasoline." Kasymguly handed Nesim a jerry-can and two tenners. Glad to get away from the thick, black smoke, Nesim hurried out of the yard to the filling station.
It was late now and dark, but the salvage yard worked 24/7 – especially as the manager ran a number of sidelines that clearly weren't legit – and as Nesim cut through the footpath by the side of the sports centre, he heard the wailing of sirens and blue lights bouncing off the buildings. As he emerged onto East Road, more police cars and vans shot past. He smelled smoke on the air, reminding him of the scrap yard. There must have been a fire nearby, he thought, and a big one, too. He prayed that nobody had been hurt.
Carefully, looking both ways, he crossed East Road. With no warning, a speeding police van swerved across and screeched to a stop in front of him. A huge man, dressed all in black and made bulkier by his bullet-proof vest, flung open the side door and leaped out.
Nesim froze in terror. This was like the bad old days back in Mosul when anyone could be arrested and dragged away for no reason.
"You. Where're you going?" the cop shouted. His voice was angry.
Before Nesim could explain himself or run, the cop gripped his arm and slammed him up against the side of the van. His wind knocked out of him, Nesim bounced off the metalwork until the cop grabbed him, pinioning the young man in place. Nesim dropped the empty jerry-can and it fell to the pavement with a dull clang.
"Sarge. I've got the little beggar."
Another big cop with stripes on his sleeves jumped out of the van. He picked up the gas-can and shook it in Nesim's face. "What's this then, sonny? Care to run this by me?"
"I... I...," Nesim stuttered.
"Save it for the station. You're nicked, sonny," the Sergeant said. "Arson with intent to endanger life. That'll do for a start."
"Nice result, man," said a third copper who was built like a Fijian rugby player, shoving Nesim into the back of the police carrier. "You know, I reckon Peachornby's right all along. You let them into the country and then they turn round and try and burn us out."
"That'll do," the Sergeant said as the driver switched on the blues and twos and shot off down the road.
Nesim didn't know what to say. It had all happened so fast.