Everyone to the sea!
“Tonight the kids are going to the beach”-a phrase that conjures up vacation, fun, music, dancing, and then off to the beach, perhaps around a bonfire to pull in the morning with the lapping of the surf in the background. But here in Calais, that phrase, takes on a different meaning. Here in Maison Effata, when the boys decide to go to the beach in the evening, they do so in search of a way to cross that damned arm of the sea that separates them from their longed-for England.
It is a dark, cold, capricious sea. During the day, when the sky is clear, the outline of the proverbial white cliffs of Dover can be seen on the horizon. When the sun turns to sunset the sea recedes, slow and inexorable and the beautiful fine sand beach, already very wide in itself, expands even more uncovering another one, ten, center meters of beach and then you find yourself hoping that that time the low tide doesn’t stop and the whole arm of the sea goes dry, letting it all pass through, the people of the jungles, that is, the terrible shanty towns where migrants who want to attempt the crossing live crammed in, sometimes sneaking into the trailer of some hauler who goes to board the vehicle or relying on some smuggler.
But the English Channel is not the Red Sea, and I definitely do not have, up there, the entrances of a Moses. The white beard, now, that I have but I’m afraid it’s not enough.
When the boys decide in the evening that they will go to the beach, everything follows a kind of ritual, at Maison Effata. Dinner, all together, as always is lighthearted and perhaps even more rowdy than usual. Afterwards, having finished tidying up, everyone retires earlier than usual to their rooms: they go to get ready. Then, in a huddle, they return to the living room and some improvise a game of cards, some play Dominoes, and some listen to the music spread by the bluetooth speaker where the most celebrated hits of the Sudanese music scene alternate with Syria’s best pop stars. Are these better or those others? The debate opens and I am elected as an impartial judge of an intercontinental X Factor. I sketch: but how do you tell, I say, whether mom or dad is better? Both are harassing, equally, of course….
At a certain time Camilla and I, who has been here on duty far longer than I, retire to our rooms, the boys stay and wait until it is time to go. We take our leave, almost awkwardly, with a kind of embarrassment at what is probably a goodbye to the next day, but could also be a farewell. And then you just nod or a little more, mutter in a half-voice, “Take care! If you do not return let us hear from you, if you can….” And you go to sleep sighing and cursing this whole absurd, damnable situation and its seeming inevitability.
When you wake up, first you go to the hall where the shoe rack is, for the shoe count: are they all there? Every now and then a few are missing from the roll call, and then the breath remains as if suspended: what does it mean? Maybe only good things, and those shoes are now treading on English soil. Or maybe nothing good and those shoes now lie under some hospital bed or, worse, dragged down to the bottom of the dark and capricious sea. Because this, too, can happen. This morning, the shoes, they are all in place and they are still damp and full of sand or gravel, those who had them on their feet have recently returned home, once again with nothing to show for it and dragged themselves to bed, dreaming of England.
It is a dark, cold, capricious sea. During the day, when the sky is clear, the outline of the proverbial white cliffs of Dover can be seen on the horizon. When the sun turns to sunset the sea recedes, slow and inexorable and the beautiful fine sand beach, already very wide in itself, expands even more uncovering another one, ten, center meters of beach and then you find yourself hoping that that time the low tide doesn’t stop and the whole arm of the sea goes dry, letting it all pass through, the people of the jungles, that is, the terrible shanty towns where migrants who want to attempt the crossing live crammed in, sometimes sneaking into the trailer of some hauler who goes to board the vehicle or relying on some smuggler.
But the English Channel is not the Red Sea, and I definitely do not have, up there, the entrances of a Moses. The white beard, now, that I have but I’m afraid it’s not enough.
When the boys decide in the evening that they will go to the beach, everything follows a kind of ritual, at Maison Effata. Dinner, all together, as always is lighthearted and perhaps even more rowdy than usual. Afterwards, having finished tidying up, everyone retires earlier than usual to their rooms: they go to get ready. Then, in a huddle, they return to the living room and some improvise a game of cards, some play Dominoes, and some listen to the music spread by the bluetooth speaker where the most celebrated hits of the Sudanese music scene alternate with Syria’s best pop stars. Are these better or those others? The debate opens and I am elected as an impartial judge of an intercontinental X Factor. I sketch: but how do you tell, I say, whether mom or dad is better? Both are harassing, equally, of course….
At a certain time Camilla and I, who has been here on duty far longer than I, retire to our rooms, the boys stay and wait until it is time to go. We take our leave, almost awkwardly, with a kind of embarrassment at what is probably a goodbye to the next day, but could also be a farewell. And then you just nod or a little more, mutter in a half-voice, “Take care! If you do not return let us hear from you, if you can….” And you go to sleep sighing and cursing this whole absurd, damnable situation and its seeming inevitability.
When you wake up, first you go to the hall where the shoe rack is, for the shoe count: are they all there? Every now and then a few are missing from the roll call, and then the breath remains as if suspended: what does it mean? Maybe only good things, and those shoes are now treading on English soil. Or maybe nothing good and those shoes now lie under some hospital bed or, worse, dragged down to the bottom of the dark and capricious sea. Because this, too, can happen. This morning, the shoes, they are all in place and they are still damp and full of sand or gravel, those who had them on their feet have recently returned home, once again with nothing to show for it and dragged themselves to bed, dreaming of England.
