The Monster Comes To Ceuta and Other Migrant Short Stories

The legendary old crosser


Billy stood in the shade arguing with the old man about something none of us understood. The moon was bright overhead. It was not a full moon, but it was bright enough to cast dark and scary shadows everywhere and to make us feel exposed. We could see the stars, bright and cool in the infinite expanse of the cloudless sky. The dark and hideous hills were etched inartistically against the greyish horizon alongside the silhouettes of hunched, wind-bent trees and craggy rocks. The surrounding scenery was of waste and wild – of boulders of rocks, towering trees and high-rising cliffs that made us feel so thoroughly inferior, insignificant and powerless. The damp and cool night breeze moaned from behind the adjacent hill, starting off blunt echoes from the ravines, valleys, caves, twists, bends and from the branches of trees and blades of grass. Now and then, a night bird flapped noiselessly across the silvery face of the moon. A cricket shrieked behind or around our feet. We heard a slimy motion, indistinct amongst the dark and stony undergrowth like some reptile slicing through clumps of grass. But we stood, chilled to the bones, not knowing any safer spot to put our feet on. Our eyes rolled and searched the dark and the damp undergrowth. Our ears were strained and painfully set. Our nostrils were dilated as the nauseating perfume of dust and crushed herbs played around the tips of our noses. We dared not sneeze or cough. We were warned strictly against any such mistakes. We could only scratch our noses to hold the tickling sensation in check.
The eight of us were huddled up at the foot of a small hill, near the crevice of a large boulder of rock. We were silent and trembling, more out of apprehension than out of the cold that later came with the breeze. The old-model Mercedes car that brought us here, its headlamps like the eyes of a grasshopper, was parked deftly beside a cluster of grass so that you saw only a little of its back fenders. The driver was still inside, waiting to take Billy back when the old man must have started taking us into the hills to Ceuta. That driver, I dare say, was a daredevil. He had given us not only the most frightening, but also the roughest, ride of our lives. And how he managed to cram us all into that car confounded us; the eight of us – Sandra, Tonia, Dolly, Chibuzo, Suzzie, Jerry, Osaro and myself. Jerry and Osaro were in the boot of the car, but that didn’t leave any more space, considering that Suzzie was pregnant and that only the driver, his friend and Billy sat in the front seat. Well, that wasn’t even the most confounding thing…
Why was Billy taking so much time arguing with the old man? We were getting more restless. From where we stood we could see the old man pointing at the moon and pointing at his wrist, indicating probably that he worked with time and that we had delayed. The tension in the atmosphere there was easily felt by every one of us. It seemed the old crosser wasn’t going to be persuaded. We could even hear his voice, tight and angry, from the distance. And we could see Billy, too, gesticulating feverishly and matching the old man’s antics in every respect. Was Billy withholding some money, or what? Why didn’t he pay the old man outright and get us out of here? None of us could afford a situation where the old man would accept this crossing half-heartedly only to bring us to disaster. After all, we had paid heavily for this man’s services. Six hundred dollars per head couldn’t be called chicken feed in any country. I heard that Jerry and Chibuzo paid only five hundred each, but Osaro and Suzzie paid almost seven hundred each (perhaps for the extra risk Suzzie’s pregnancy portended). My case was different from the beginning, although Billy tried to resist it. But I gave him only three hundred – after all, he had been my lover and had always had it free with me since I met him in Tangier. Silly. Why did men prefer it when you made them pay for sex?
Now Billy started in our direction, while the crosser followed him closely. The crosser was short and bent at the shoulders and didn’t at all fit into what I had expected of such a legend. The moment I came to Algiers I had heard about a certain old man, called Ediomwan, who, knowing the shortest and the safest route, crossed people through the heavily patrolled borders of Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta into the Calamocarro asylum camp. Others had said they heard about Ediomwan even while still beyond the desert town of Assamakka. It was said that all who had him as a guide eventually found their way to Europe. So it wasn’t with little delight that we had looked forward to meeting him. Earlier in the day the prospect of meeting him had made us lightheaded, breathless and fulfilled. You couldn’t quantify the chaotic flux of emotions that raged through us as Billy approached with the seasoned crosser behind him. It wasn’t surprising either that, despite the cold and the gathering mist, I was sweating on my forehead and in my armpits. Was the man behind Billy the famed legendary fox of the North African hills? Was this he who was said to be responsible for the crossing of over seventy percent of the asylum seekers into Calamocarro? Was he truly the man called the Messiah of the Foggy Mountains? Was this the legend of the Moroccan waste? Or had he sent someone else on his behalf?
A streak of disbelief ripped through my mind. Why had I expected to see a man who was tall and huge, with powerful biceps and tints of white on a coarse, medium beard? Perhaps I had battled with the weakness associated with my being a woman and the fear of the interminable ranges of rocky mountains on our way and had thought of a Superman or a St Christopher who carried one across obstacles. A man with thunder in his voice, whose powerful vocals alone lifted one across rifts and ravines. A man who could take up one’s defence at the threat of bandits and the border guards.
But Ediomwan the crosser was not a man like that. He fell far short of all my expectations. When he and Billy reached the spot where we were huddled up, restless like slaves awaiting a slave driver’s orders, we instantly gathered round them. I stood close to the old crosser but shuddered too much to peer into his dark and aged face. And as I began to remember that he was even rumoured to possess metaphysical powers with which he bewitched the border guards, I withdrew slightly and altogether avoided any eye contact with him.
Anyway, it was difficult to see his eyes. Below the bundle of Arab headgear he wound round his head, it was only his long and crooked nose, on which the moon fell, that you saw. But above his nose, the gap left for the convenience of his sight – a gap that was dark and puzzling, like a mouse hole – gave you the uneasy feeling that something toothy and creepy lurked and waited to snap at you. His lips, his beard, (he must have had some beard) and his neck were all wrapped up inside the dark headgear. He had a small shepherd’s bag hanging on his shoulder. Despite tying his bogus kaftan at the waist with a piece of cloth and folding its sleeves up to the upper arm, he wasn’t dressed as if he bothered about his chances of escape in the event of a chase. This was strange, because even pregnant Suzzie, like everyone else, wore jeans and a tight-fitting blouse. Rather, he wore only a pair of canvas shoes, which were easily seen in the moonlight alongside his wooden staff.
Then Billy began to address us.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you must be made aware of these vital points so that you don’t bungle your trip. First, you must bear in mind that the moment our man delivers you at the entrance to the camp, my commitment to you ceases. Right?’ This was too business like, I thought. Was this really Billy, talking like a lawyer too eager to protect his legal fees from an unsatisfied client? His tone this night was really worrisome to me.
‘Especially to the girls,’ he continued. ‘You must be strong by yourselves. And always, promptly do as the old man directs you. The responsibility for your success is directly on your shoulders now. Don’t count on the boys, because as soon as you are in these hills and mountains it is everyone for himself or herself. And at all times stay close to one another and be sure not to break the link, because you could be lost in the dark, where you can’t call for help. Of course, the border guards will be all too glad to rescue you, but you know what that means – not only to you but to others as well. And at all times your mouth must be shut, no blah-blah-blah along the way.’
The old crosser touched Billy’s arm and droned fiercely in Arabic, like a masked ancestral spirit.
Quickly Billy turned to us and continued, ‘The emphasis is that you must do whatever he tells you, even if the border guards are close by and are looking on. This is important. Then another vital issue: to avoid the stupidity of that girl whose photo was found by the Guardia Civil the morning they entered into the camp, you must tear up photos and documents now if you still have them. Chew them up and swallow them, ’cos you won’t need them for anything afterwards.’
Silence.
Billy then took a deep breath, looked us up and down one after the other – his eyes did not settle on me for even a second longer – and said, ‘Finally, phone me as soon as you wake up in Calamocarro in the morning. Safe journey.’
He turned and walked toward the old Mercedes car, while we looked on, speechless. The driver rolled the car noiselessly out of the grass, and Billy entered and closed the door quietly. And, without switching on its headlamps, the driver started the car and drove off. Soon, the noise of the engine dropped into a drone and then into a buzz that quickly fizzled into the solemn night.
Instantly, tears rushed to my eyes and my heart began to pound. Billy had not said an extra word of encouragement to me – not even a glance in my direction to show that I had slept with him for months. How callous and brutal are the ways of men. A feeling of abandonment creased my joints and ran like cracks all over my head. You must be careful, I warned myself, or others will notice what had happened. True. And the beast had told us to phone him. Who? Me? He’d never hear from me ever again! Callous men!
The tears rolled down, nevertheless. But I didn’t want to be caught crying. I wiped my eyes dry. With what lay ahead, wouldn’t it be stupid of me to let in further corrosive emotions to melt this final resolve? I had come a long way without Billy and I’d go a long way without him. A journey that had lasted for over eight months was bound to be peopled by characters like Billy. Hadn’t I seen worse in Abidjan and Tamanrasset? Ah, wipe your eyes, I told myself. And that was what I did.
‘…Cuatro, cinco y tu, aqui, aqui.’ The old crosser was counting us with his wooden staff. He cleared his throat and continued, ‘…seis, eh, siete y ocho… Que? Por que? Dios mio! Embarazada? Embarazada?’
He was muttering and examining Suzzie. He was clearly alarmed, and what he meant by those words we couldn’t tell. They were either Spanish or Arabic. Even Osaro, who claimed a little understanding of both languages, was at a loss. Yet everyone knew the cause of his outrage. Why hadn’t Billy the beast told him, or given him the extra money that Osaro and Suzzie had paid? What if this man were to leave us here and walk away? Sure enough, he hadn’t expected a pregnant woman as a passenger. And, as if he had read my thoughts, the old crosser turned away and railed in the dark, stomping his feet hard on the ground and swishing his staff through the air. When he was through, he came to us, shuddering and letting steam gush out of his nose. But we were relieved that he came to himself quickly enough.
‘Quien es tu hombre?’ he asked Suzzie, as calmly as he could. Suzzie pointed at Osaro. How did she understand that?
‘C’est moi, Osaro,’ Osaro said in French and stood out.
‘Tu? Con ésta?’ The old crosser pointed at Suzzie’s stomach.
‘Oui, si,’ Osaro nodded.
‘Vale.’ The old crosser nodded too, seemingly pacified that someone was at least going to take charge of that. And saying something else to Osaro which neither we nor Osaro understood, he motioned us to follow him, muttering, ‘Avance. Desde ahora es caliese y silencio. Caliese, silencio.’
We shuffled after him, apprehensive in our breaths and in our steps. The fear of the dark crept into my heart once again. This wooded side of the hill toward which he led us was so dark that it looked like an entrance into an evil forest, as if the paling moon did not shine on it. Walking blindly in a crooked line behind the old crosser and making frantic attempts not to break it, we soon disappeared into a hideous grove. The brightness we had enjoyed earlier was snuffed out by the absence of the moon and by the thick, matted foliage overhead. I felt a chill in my heart but kept on, reassured by the presence behind and in front of me.
And so we groped along until we came out on a short stretch of open field that was shut in on all sides by dark and clumsy hills. We could see in the hazy distance ahead the old man leading the trail but couldn’t for all the world imagine on which side an outlet lay.
Then suddenly the old crosser stopped and bade us lie down on the ground. He walked some distance ahead, crawled in short bursts and stopped. He waited, stood up and pointed his staff in the air, brought it down, pointed it to the left, then to the right and stabbed it on the ground before him. Then he motioned us to advance. When we got to him he raised his staff and bade us walk beneath it, all the time keeping the staff pointed to the sky. As I passed beneath that staff, the fear I had felt earlier melted away in his protective presence. But walking passed him my heart went cold again at what I saw on the side toward which the old man faced.
There, two patrol jeeps were parked a few metres away, behind a great mass of rocks. A man was leaning on one of these jeeps while another, with his back toward us, stood looking into the dull sky, exactly in the direction in which that old crosser’s staff pointed. Up in the sky I saw a shooting star swish through the air and vanish in a thin, colourful streak. And soon we were crawling on our hands and knees far away, toward the foot of an adjacent hill, my heart still beating wildly in my chest. Was this, I wondered, how the old crosser bewitched the border guards?
Right around the rocky track at the foot of this hill the old crosser led us, until we came to a clearing beside a dense mass of what looked like elephant grass. He counted us again and made signs that we should calm ourselves and wait for him. And quickly, he disappeared behind the misty haze of the grass beside us.
A blanket of darkness came over us soon afterwards, and I saw on looking up that an enormous mass of dark cloud sailed slowly, as if with difficulty, across the hilltops, obscuring what was left of the hidden moon. And from the side whence we came, a wide stretch of grey fog came unfurling and spreading toward us. I heard the sound of the breeze, whistling through the blades in the grass and rustling the dry leaves and twigs on the ground. The insects became festive and noisy, shrieking and chirping raucously as if tonight were the last hours of a mating season. This made the night more intimidating; we stood huddled up close to the clumps of grass, murmuring amongst ourselves in voices one could scarcely hear if one were a foot away. Our breaths were hot and steamy and if one listened hard enough, one heard his neighbour’s heart hammering at the cage of his chest. Suzzie sat down on the undergrowth and breathed noisily through her mouth.
‘I can’t make it,’ Suzzie muttered. ‘I can’t.’
Osaro knelt beside her, solemn and exhausted.
‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Don’t go on talking; try to catch your breath first, right? It will be all right. I’m sure we aren’t far from Ceuta now. We aren’t.’
‘I know I can’t. I can’t continue. Go with them, Osas; you can come and take me later,’ persisted Suzzie. The remoteness in her voice and the finality of its tone really made us panic.
‘No, Suzzie, you can’t say that,’ Sandra chided her. ‘How can we leave you here and go? And in such conditions?’ Everyone else was silent, not knowing what to say. We had felt earlier that Suzzie was completely Osaro’s responsibility, but that attitude had suddenly changed and I was fuming inside. How could any girl have allowed herself to be pregnant in these circumstances? Some girls are certainly nuts, I swore. I felt like letting a slap fly across her face. The bitch. Even before we left Tangier, the prospect of her imperilling this crossing was a constant concern. But now we could only cluster round her as if she were a queen bee and try to persuade her. We were so preoccupied with persuading her that we did not know when the old crosser crept upon us.
‘Qué pasa?’ he asked, circling us swiftly. And without waiting for an answer, he counted us again and motioned us to follow him.
As we rushed after him, leaving Osaro and Suzzie behind, Sandra, or whoever it was, stumbled on a stone and made some noise. The old crosser flew back from the front and gave her a knock on the head. And not a word of sympathy was uttered in the preceding silence. Then I turned and saw that Osaro and Suzzie had caught up with us. Osaro was carrying Suzzie in his arms in front of him. How else was one to carry a pregnant woman? Osaro was the strong, wiry type, but we hadn’t climbed any real hills yet and I wondered how he would manage a steep one.
Nonetheless our tense procession continued along the side of another hill. We weren’t taking the rocky cliffs straight on but went around at the sides so that it felt as though we were going up a spiral staircase. The old crosser certainly knew the terrain. And just at the point when we were in a sheet of stagnant fog and our legs were beginning to ache, we began a slow and trying descent to the bottom of the hill once more. Here the grasses were tall and thick and the earth was soft and in some places marshy as well. Then we heard the sound of running water and the solitary croaking of a frog. The smell of dung and goats’ urine wafted pungently through the air, quickly erasing the freshness from the cool air we had enjoyed earlier at the hilltop.
Unperturbed, the old crosser swiftly walked to the end of our trail and, in the dark, began to count us again. Then he took us through a path that was covered by tall reeds that rubbed against our faces. Out again on a clearing, beside a low-running fence of reeds, we began to hear a thunderous splashing of water against the rocks. I was convinced now that we were very close to the sea and my heart leapt up and began to beat.
But then we continued through a patch of small bush, jumped down a boulder beside another gurgling brook and burst out onto a dirt road that, on both sides, ended in darkness. We crossed this road after the old crosser had surveyed it and went towards another hill in front of us. At the foot of this hill he stopped and pointed out a path.
‘Arriba aqui, moreno, muchos morenos,’ he said.
We did not understand him.
‘Vamos,’ he said. ‘Aqui, Calamocarro, arriba.’
We looked up the path he had pointed out right to the top where it disappeared into a dense grove. From the way we stared at one another in the dark, I knew that I wasn’t the only one who was panicked. It was unthinkable that anyone could be living on top of that hill. Besides, we were expecting to be brought into a city, not into a forest. We were stone-footed and lost in wondering. But perhaps, if we got to the top we could walk into the city on our own. Maybe that was what the old man meant.
‘Vamos,’ we heard the old man mutter behind us once more.
And we began to climb the hill. When we were midway up, dogs began to bark. This put a fresh fear in us and we halted and searched around us for signs of life. From the height we had already gained we saw balls of light through the swaying foliage. On the ground were plastic bags, cartons, cans and bottles of all shapes and sizes littering the hillside. There was a sharp and choking odour of decay curling around us, sometimes taking on the pungency of stale urine. And there were sneaky movements on the ground that frightened us, until we saw that they were made by dozens and dozens of rats. Yet, all the while, the barking of dogs intensified and we looked back to seek courage from our guide.
But he was gone. Vanished.
Left with no option, we began to trudge up the hill with our hands on the ground. In the lowering darkness, worsened by the matted foliage overhead, we felt relieved that the winding path to the top was still visible. We followed it in single file, totally disregarding the hysterical barking of dogs around us.
When at last we got to the top, we examined the scene that awaited us. It was a dark and gloomy campsite with a few lampposts strenuously pushing the darkness away. This was no doubt the refugee camp that we sought to enter. It was like a clearing carved out of the heart of a forest with its thick canopy untouched. There were no brick or cement houses but rather clusters of loathsome tents lumped together like a herd of resting camels chewing the cud and contemplating a tedious trek at sunrise.