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Authors: Chris Cleave
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the car park. Brightly colored umbrellas broke out above the somber suits. It was starting to rain.
Little Bee stayed behind with me. We stood by the side of the grave and we stared at each other.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It is nothing,” said Little Bee. “I just did what anyone would do.”
“Yes,” I said. “Except that everyone else didn’t.”
Little Bee shrugged.
“It is easier when you are from outside.”
I shivered. The rain came down harder.
“This is never going to end,” I said. “Is it, Little Bee?”
“
However long the moon disappears, someday it must shine again.
That is what we used to say in my village.”
“
April showers bring May flowers.
That’s what we used to say in mine.”
We tried to smile at each other.
I never did drop my own clay into the grave. I couldn’t seem to put it down either. Two hours later, alone for a moment at the kitchen table of our house, I realized I was still gripping it. I left it there on the tablecloth, a small beige lump on top of the clean blue cotton. When I came back a few minutes later, someone had been past and tidied it.
A few days later the obituary in
The Times
noted that there had been poignant scenes at their former columnist’s funeral. Andrew’s editor sent me the cutting, in a heavy cream envelope, with a crisp white compliments slip.
ONE OF THE THINGS I would have to explain to the girls from back home, if I was telling them this story, is the simple little word
horror.
It means something different to the people from my village.
In your country, if you are not scared enough already, you can go to watch a horror film. Afterward you can go out of the cinema into the night and for a little while there is horror in everything. Perhaps there are murderers lying in wait for you at home. You think this because there is a light on in your house that you are certain you did not leave on. And when you remove your makeup in the mirror last thing, you see a strange look in your own eyes. It is not you. For one hour you are haunted, and you do not trust anybody, and then the feeling fades away. Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.
For me and the girls from my village, horror is a disease and we are sick with it. It is not an illness you can cure yourself of by standing up and letting the big red cinema seat fold itself up behind you. That would be a good trick. If I could do that, please believe me, I would already be standing in the foyer. I would be laughing with the kiosk boy, and exchanging British one-pound coins for hot buttered popcorn, and saying,
Phew, thank the Good Lord all that isover, that is the most frightening film I ever saw and I think next time I will go to see a comedy, or maybe a romantic film with kissing.
But the film in your memory, you cannot walk out of it so easily. Wherever you go it is always playing. So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.
Some days I wonder how many there are just like me. Thousands, I think, just floating on the oceans right now. In between our world and yours. If we cannot pay smugglers to transport us, we stow away on cargo ships. In the dark, in freight containers. Breathing quietly in the darkness, hungry, hearing the strange clanking sounds of ships, smelling the diesel oil and the paint, listening to the
bom-bom-bom
of the engines. Wide-awake at night, hearing the singing of whales rising up from the deep sea and vibrating through the ship. All of us whispering, praying, thinking. And what are we thinking of? Of physical safety, of peace of mind. Of all these imaginary countries that are now being served in the foyer.
I stowed away in a great steel boat, but the horror stowed away inside me. When I left my homeland I thought I had escaped—but out on the open sea, I started to have nightmares. I was naive to suppose I had left my country with nothing. It was a heavy cargo
Little Bee stayed behind with me. We stood by the side of the grave and we stared at each other.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It is nothing,” said Little Bee. “I just did what anyone would do.”
“Yes,” I said. “Except that everyone else didn’t.”
Little Bee shrugged.
“It is easier when you are from outside.”
I shivered. The rain came down harder.
“This is never going to end,” I said. “Is it, Little Bee?”
“
However long the moon disappears, someday it must shine again.
That is what we used to say in my village.”
“
April showers bring May flowers.
That’s what we used to say in mine.”
We tried to smile at each other.
I never did drop my own clay into the grave. I couldn’t seem to put it down either. Two hours later, alone for a moment at the kitchen table of our house, I realized I was still gripping it. I left it there on the tablecloth, a small beige lump on top of the clean blue cotton. When I came back a few minutes later, someone had been past and tidied it.
A few days later the obituary in
The Times
noted that there had been poignant scenes at their former columnist’s funeral. Andrew’s editor sent me the cutting, in a heavy cream envelope, with a crisp white compliments slip.
ONE OF THE THINGS I would have to explain to the girls from back home, if I was telling them this story, is the simple little word
horror.
It means something different to the people from my village.
In your country, if you are not scared enough already, you can go to watch a horror film. Afterward you can go out of the cinema into the night and for a little while there is horror in everything. Perhaps there are murderers lying in wait for you at home. You think this because there is a light on in your house that you are certain you did not leave on. And when you remove your makeup in the mirror last thing, you see a strange look in your own eyes. It is not you. For one hour you are haunted, and you do not trust anybody, and then the feeling fades away. Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.
For me and the girls from my village, horror is a disease and we are sick with it. It is not an illness you can cure yourself of by standing up and letting the big red cinema seat fold itself up behind you. That would be a good trick. If I could do that, please believe me, I would already be standing in the foyer. I would be laughing with the kiosk boy, and exchanging British one-pound coins for hot buttered popcorn, and saying,
Phew, thank the Good Lord all that isover, that is the most frightening film I ever saw and I think next time I will go to see a comedy, or maybe a romantic film with kissing.
But the film in your memory, you cannot walk out of it so easily. Wherever you go it is always playing. So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.
Some days I wonder how many there are just like me. Thousands, I think, just floating on the oceans right now. In between our world and yours. If we cannot pay smugglers to transport us, we stow away on cargo ships. In the dark, in freight containers. Breathing quietly in the darkness, hungry, hearing the strange clanking sounds of ships, smelling the diesel oil and the paint, listening to the
bom-bom-bom
of the engines. Wide-awake at night, hearing the singing of whales rising up from the deep sea and vibrating through the ship. All of us whispering, praying, thinking. And what are we thinking of? Of physical safety, of peace of mind. Of all these imaginary countries that are now being served in the foyer.
I stowed away in a great steel boat, but the horror stowed away inside me. When I left my homeland I thought I had escaped—but out on the open sea, I started to have nightmares. I was naive to suppose I had left my country with nothing. It was a heavy cargo
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