A canary yellow quilt and the beach at Fort Vert.
To look at it, it looks like a depiction of a 1980s joke, the politically incorrect kind: what is a six-foot-tall Chinese man doing in a Sudanese camp? T. has a face like an eternal child, with big glasses and wearing a canary yellow down jacket and neon orange sneakers. He has two huge feet. He definitely does not go unnoticed and is easily spotted even at a great distance. He wanders around with the confused and fascinated expression of someone who has just landed on an unfamiliar planet. Since arriving in the house he has shown a wolfish appetite – he will have to get busy with fundraising – we commented. He speaks only Mandarin and communicates with us through Google Translate. So he let us know that his dream would have been to go to North America, or to Brazil, but he managed to get to Europe, flying to Paris on a tourist visa. He says he plucked up the courage to leave after reading that China was refusing to repatriate a number of undocumented migrants to the U.S. He figured that, come hell or high water, no one would be able to force him back home.
France refused him asylum, and someone told him about a place in the north of the country called Calais from where you can embark to go to the UK. But it’s risky and it costs a lot, it costs as much as all the money he has left and he would have to entrust it to traffickers who look very shady. T. says that if he finds a country in Europe willing to take him with him and with all his papers in order he is willing to become the best citizen that country can imagine.
Catching the flight at Fort Vert
A few days ago we went to the beach at Fort Vert, where the seals go to sunbathe and where the tide plays to shape the sand along with the wind. T. came carrying his backpack with all the paperwork he owns; he carries it like a briefcase and never part with it, even when he has to go down from his room upstairs to the hall to greedily devour his dinner. I have no heart to tell him that those papers are basically useless for his current situation.
It was a sight to see in the distance the silhouette of T. with his jacket and a strange hood giving him a look like Disney’s Goofy dressed up as an aviation pioneer, intent on running back and forth across the vast beach, opening his arms to the wind, as if he were trying to take flight. Then slowly and with slouching gait he came back toward us and in his faint, gravelly voice, lifting his big thumb and flashing a big, happy child’s smile, whispered, “Okay.” And we reciprocated with conviction: yes, T. it’s okay and we’ll find a place for you in this ramshackle old Europe.
