Love on the Road 2015 (9 page)

She did not respond.

Eventually, we agreed to disagree. I donated the kidney and went through a period of recovery for a couple of months. This was one of the many times when Bibiana showed how much she truly cared about me. Despite her opposition to the idea, she was very supportive when the deed was finally done. She took leave from work to be by my side. There wasn’t any serious harm done to my body. I just felt tired for the first week or two and was unable to lift heavy items for a few more weeks after that. Eventually, I regained my strength, and felt ready for the long trip. But when all was set, Bibiana’s doubts returned.

‘Now that you have all this money, why not just start some kind of business?’ she suggested.

‘You think a business starts just like that?’ I snapped. ‘You have to have an idea, a plan. You must possess the right skills. It’s not just because you have money in your hands.’

I realised that my tone had been excessively harsh, for she looked pained, so I walked over to where she stood and put my hand on her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just that we can’t change our plans now. My mind is not here anymore. I feel this country has rejected me. We have to leave, my love.’

I kissed her, but she did not respond.

Her mood soon brightened, however, and she began to speak a lot about our future in Lampedusa. This was after matters were fast-tracked for us in a surprising way. A month before our departure, Abdul-Jabaar warned that we risked being separated along the way if we did not have a marriage certificate. There might be a need to prove to immigration authorities of some countries that we were travelling as a family. So we quickly arranged to exchange vows before the Registrar of Marriages, Births and Deaths.

‘We’ll have a proper church ceremony in Lampedusa,’ I promised her.

Now here we are, in this boat, heading towards our future in the company of strangers.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ I try to reassure her. ‘We’ve come a long way. Only a few more hours to go, my love. Only a few more hours.’ My arm circling her waist, I say: ‘Close your eyes if you can’t stand the sea. Think of the beauty of Lampedusa, where you’ll be working as a nurse, where your monthly salary will be more than your annual salary back home. Think of the house we’ll be living in. Think of only good things and you’ll be fine.’

She closes her eyes. The shivering has subsided now. I hold her tighter, her head resting on my shoulder. We’re almost there.

Less than ten hours to our destination and, oh God, the engine has stopped. Several hours after I managed to calm Bibiana’s nerves, without warning, the engine died.

I look around. There’s not a glimpse of land for a determined survivor to swim to. Water everywhere, up to the horizon in every direction. The captain looks at us. We look at each other, all of us, without a word. Bibiana’s grip on my hand tightens.

‘What’s happening, Captain?’ I ask.

He, however, speaks a language I do not know. He tries to explain, but I understand nothing. Some, it seems, have understood, because they speak among themselves, their voices rising in panic. Others begin to cry.

‘What’s going on?’ Bibiana asks me.

‘I don’t know.’ I say. ‘It seems we have engine trouble.’

‘Oh God!’ she screams.

‘Everything will be all right,’ I try to calm her. I wish I could believe these words myself.

The captain tries to start the engine again. It sputters and dies, sputters and dies, again and again. He shakes his head, sweating. He speaks. From the gestures of his hands and the gentleness of his voice, I think he is saying everything is going to be all right. It had better be. Everyone around me is crying.

I know that help will come from somewhere. I have seen ships along the way. I am certain that someone will soon spot us and rescue us. For the first time in years, I utter the novena of St Jude.

‘Most holy apostle, St Jude, pray for us …’

Now the situation has degenerated into our worst fears. The sea has suddenly changed its attitude. It is no longer calm. It is treating us like unwelcome visitors, as if we have invaded
its space. What began as welcome rain has turned into a violent storm. Mountains of water are flinging us up and down with force so great that about fifteen people were thrown overboard the first time a wave hit us. Everyone around me is wailing. Even as I think these thoughts, there is another torrent of water coming. And we, like the rest of the sea’s debris, are going in any direction the wind wants to take us. I have lost a sense of east or west, north or south. I am cold and hungry.

‘Water!’ Bibiana demands. ‘I need water.’

‘Water!’ I call out, my feeble voice battling the raging wind. ‘Does anyone have some water?’

Another wave comes with great speed, like a hungry shark. We can do nothing but shriek. It swallows us and tosses us and suffocates us and shakes us, and I am gripping the edge of the boat with all my strength. I cannot breathe, I cannot see, the force is too strong and overpowering. And then suddenly it is gone, and I am gasping. I can now see that the sun has risen. The boat is full of water. The others are using their hands and anything else they can to drain the water, or else we will sink. Bibiana is here, coughing and gasping at once. The boat is emptier, as many more have been sucked in by the deep and hungry sea – men, women, babies.

‘Most holy apostle, St Jude,’ I beg, ‘please do not abandon us …’

A helicopter! Oh, St Jude, thank you, thank you! First it passed us, but now it has circled back. Our captain is waving
at it. We all join in, waving. It’s flying low now, and some people are peering out from it. We wave more, crying and begging, ‘Please help! Help!’ and they are taking photographs, it seems. That black thing pointing at us, isn’t it a camera? A baby begins to cry, the kind of cry that can only be silenced with food. Maybe they have something they could throw down to us? A bottle of water, perhaps? Or a tin of biscuits? The woman lifts the baby with both hands and waves it at them.

‘We die of thirst!’ I shout, pointing at the baby.

But with the helicopter’s heavy engine sound and the whirl of the rotating blades above it, I doubt they have heard me. The helicopter circles around us once, then gathers speed and leaves us. We gaze at it as it becomes smaller and smaller until it cannot be seen any more.

‘I think,’ I say to Bibiana, ‘they’ll send boats to rescue us. Lampedusa can’t be far now. The sea must have tossed us close to the shore.’

‘You think so?’ She is not convinced.

‘Yes, we’ll soon be rescued.’

The wait begins. The sea is calm now. The sky is cloudless. It has become warm. Too warm. The heat is beginning to sear our skin. I hope the helicopter people will bring help fast. The hunger is so severe I could eat a raw fish if I got hold of one. Helicopter, please come back.

‘Most holy apostle, St Jude, pray for us. We are hopeless and alone.’

It is day three.

The helicopter has yet to return. Unable to stand the
thirst, Bibiana has been drinking sea water, despite my advice not to. It has made her sick. The waves came back last night and took more lives, including the captain’s. We’re completely lost. The sea is calm again, but this is of little comfort if help does not come.

I can’t count the hours or the days any more. I have lost track of day and night. I am weak, unable to sit up. From time to time I raise my head to look around, to confirm that I am still alive. We’re still drifting like those little paper boats Bibiana and I used to throw in the rainwater that formed rivulets next to the veranda of my parents’ house. I make an effort to confirm that Bibiana is also alive. Yes, she’s still lying here next to me, her weak hand curled around my backside.

‘Water,’ she whispers. She wants to drink more sea water.

‘It is the sea water that is making you vomit,’ I croak. I try to run a tongue on my dry and heavily-cracked lips, but the saliva does not come. It’s as though a fire is burning in my throat.

‘Water.’ Bibiana is desperate. ‘I need water.’

A man stands up all too suddenly, limps to the edge of the boat and plunges himself into the sea like a tree felled by stormy winds.

Another man, to my right, has taken off his clothes. He is twisting his pubic hair into nasty dreadlocks, howling like a dog.

I close my eyes.

‘Oh most glorious apostle, St Jude, we implore you. Bring visible and speedy help.’

I don’t know how many days we’ve been at sea, but somehow we’re still alive. Our boat is still floating, with just few of us lying in it, some face up, others face down, a couple sideways, their bodies curled into question marks. Bibiana cannot move, but I can feel her heart beating. She and I and about five others, including a toddler, are the only souls left clinging to life.

All my strength is gone. Still, I manage to raise my head, and behold, buildings! There are buildings in front of me! Looking upwards, I see signs of life. Carrion birds are hovering over us, waiting for us to die. Sorry, birds. You’ll not eat today. We’re in Lampedusa now, a few hundred metres from the city. They’ll come and rescue us.

‘Bibiana,’ I say, shaking her with renewed strength. ‘Bibiana! Wake up! We’ve reached the shores of Lampedusa. Wake up!’

Sounds of approaching engines. Men jumping on board. A babble of voices. Hands lifting me up. I feel a shadow of darkness passing over me. Who are these people? St Jude, save me! Please, most glorious apostle, save me!

Time has passed that I cannot account for. I have just opened my eyes to find myself lying in bed. I can see Bibiana in the bed next to mine, intravenous bags dangling above her, attached to some kind of stand. I want to speak to her but my voice will not come. She is trying to say something, but what comes from her mouth is only two words, over and over: ‘The sea … the sea …’

I am breathing with the help of a machine. I feel as
though a vacuum cleaner has been inserted into my nose. I can see two small bags of intravenous fluid hanging over me as well. I want to move my hand, but a nurse appears from nowhere and pins it down, muttering something that at first I fail to understand. She looks at me and smiles.

‘
Allahu Akbar,
’ she says. ‘
Allahu Akbar. Bismi-llahi r-rahmani r-rahim
…’

Allah is great. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate … My understanding of her Arabic stops there. Through hazy eyes, I can see the writing on her badge. It reads: ‘Amina Hussein. Metiga Military Hospital. Tripoli’, followed by some Arabic writing.

This cannot be true. We left Libya many days ago. We must be in Lampedusa. We must be on the island, on whose beaches Bibiana and I will soon dance. Perhaps I am still unconscious, or having a bad dream. When I wake up the nurse’s badge will read ‘Ospedale Santo Spirito’, or something like that. Bibiana will work as a nurse. I will get a job. They must have a job for me. I can teach the
Divine Comedy. Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso,
I can teach all that stuff.

Brussels has some unique features. It has a mishmash face, a face that maybe could have done with either a little more or a little less World War II and, yes, the people are a bit mishmash as well but, and stay with me here, where Brussels really stands out is in its odour. That smell that permeates life between the concrete and steel and glass rows of a city. When you turn a corner on a summer’s day, when the air is fragrant with the bloom of city trees and the humidity of life entangled and pulsating and living and, suddenly, your olfactory senses are assailed by civilisation. That queer funk that only the human body can produce. The smell of sweat and sex and hair product. Every city has its own unique combinations. In the case of Brussels you are
routinely assaulted at the gaping mouths of metro stations, those cavernous gateways to transitory perdition, by a smell that is both enticingly sweet and simultaneously foul. The smell of waffles and piss. It’s everywhere on a hot midsummer day. On Avenue Louise, Boulevard Anspach, Toison D’Or. Everywhere. If you live in a city you grow to love its
parfum,
its cologne, its inimitable body odour. If you love a city, as I do, you can’t imagine a moment without it. The busy high notes of fragrant coffees and pastries and car exhaust, the base low notes of dog shit. I love my city. I love cities. The noise, the humidity, the confrontations and conflicts of people and colour and choice. So imagine my horror when I am forced to leave for the cooler and more expansive climes of Scandinavia.

I rush through the concourse of Zaventem Airport loaded with luggage and panic and sweat because of my job. I do not hold down a nine-to-five, and I offer thanks everyday for this sweet miracle, but I do have to work to tight schedules and, as in the case this morning, I am often at the mercy of Federal Express. For, you see, I am a book reviewer. I can hear the wheels in your head turning already,
How can that be stressful? How can that make you late
? Well, since I assume you are asking, I write a biweekly column for a major literary review in London, I contribute to two monthly publications in New York and Los Angeles and I also have my very own blog and Twitter account to maintain. It is a lot to cover and often I am left waiting for a piece of literature to arrive for my dissection. So here I am, having left my oversized luggage at the baggage drop, and I have moved through the security check with relative ease. The joys of late afternoon flying are not to be overstated, if only because of
the lack of queuing. I find a nice little perch close to my gate and await the 16.50 Finnair flight to Helsinki.

The book I am reviewing is the third volume of Professor Peter Michelson’s Imperial America series, grotesquely and portentously titled
Camelot: An Unfinished Dream.
Just what the world needs: another insipid celebration of the gaudiness and the glamour of the VD president and his over-hyped, over-blown, over-sexed family.

I lumber onto the plane once called. No matter how many times I travel I am always quietly incensed by the glares of the air hostesses as I board the plane. Yes, they smile and welcome me aboard, but the up-and-down they give me is emasculating. I am big – round, to be precise. I have a relatively pallid complexion and my cut, be it on my head or the general state of my jib, is not what it should be. I am aware of this and I can attest that the myth of the jolly fat man is exactly that. I take my seat: business class, though on this flight the only separation is a finely embroidered curtain that partially disrupts the gaze of those behind. I fire up my laptop once informed that I may, and begin the simple task of putting my criticisms down, but today it is not coming easy. My mind is easily distracted by the offer of coffee, water or juice, by the complimentary copy of the
Financial Times,
by the shrinking view of my city and my civilisation below. I write best with the bustle of car horns and revved engines, and the quiet tintinnabulations of a city.

The woman next to me, her name escapes me now, initiates a conversation without my assistance, but with the expressed necessity of my involvement, about how much she loved her first trip to Brussels. I smile, nod and mmm-hmm in the right places, but her inane chatter gives me a throbbing
toothache. Everything rendered in mind-numbingly broken English and covering such topics as the divergent weather personalities of Belgium and Finland, Tove Jansson’s Moomin characters and the size and temperament of the Finnish mosquito. I couldn’t even enjoy my in-flight meal: reindeer mayonnaise salad on rye bread. The flight was made bearable by the landing however. The approach brought us into view of a fiery red sun burning hard and unforgiving over the spruce and pines below. The plane touches down smoothly, and I make my escape with smiles and safe-trip-homes. I fight the impulse to say, ‘Until next time’, for fear that the universe might accept this as a challenge.

Sadly, my journey has not come to an end. I have a ten-hour wait ahead of me at the Helsinki Airport, the local Hilton being fully booked, and I not up to traipsing into the city in search of a bed.

Now, usually, I would find the nearest spirit purveyor and order up a nightcap but, sadly, things have not been working out for me in that department of late. Many rages and stupors and blackouts have left my body, my soul and my marriage in tatters. The romantic ideal of the scribbler’s life is anything but. I can handle the rotten dysentery aftertaste in the morning. I can accept the lapses in recall, the trepidation and shame of not knowing what I said the night before and to whom I said it, and I can live with the penetrating construction work that wakes me right behind the eyes of a morning, the searing drops of solder dripping onto my frontal lobe with every loud noise or careless whisper. All of this I can do. What I can’t do, the element that wore me down and made me see the light, to bandy about a few clichés, was the look of horror and anger and frustration
and disappointment on my wife’s face each time I subjected myself to a binge. I always offered up a pitiful ‘Never again’, but, eventually, she said ‘Enough’. My credit was worthless. The words coming out of my mouth were just useless and empty sounds, with no meaning attached. So I became sober. That is, I abstain from alcohol and I have also tried to keep the caffeine intake to a minimum.

This is not easy when much of my travel time is associated with drinking at airports while enjoying the clippings of other people’s conversations, but I park myself in a leather booth at the airport’s Café Tori, the abating shades of indigo in the evening sky embracing the red-orange sun, and begin reading and note-making on Professor Michelson’s
disasterpiece.

Concentration is difficult with the din of the twenty-four-hour news cycle playing somewhere nearby. The usual celebration of carnage and human greed sang in the clipped resonance of Suomi, an inaccessible language I will one day have to call my own. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, my wife is Finnish.

Sleep does not come easily at an airport and has to be
snatched and held like a lover who is too quick to wander. The benches are at least leather, but the slight decline between seat and back leaves one lying in a semi-paralytic state after a short while. If fellow suffering refugees don’t wake you with their zombie shuffling, then the natural panic of a numb limb will. The subsequent vibrato of pins and needles will keep you awake and, before you know it, you will be back in the Tori Café. Sunrises are deceptive in midsummer here. The sun begins its skyward saunter at 3.30
AM
and is in full gallop by 8.00. My morning begins with a mind-quickening non-alcoholic Lapin Kulta beer (read: reindeer piss), followed by the airport greatest hits of stale croissant and weak over-priced coffee. Breakfast of champions.

I make my way to the gate for my connecting flight to Joensuu, a university town perched on the mouth of the Pielisjoki River as it rolls into Lake Saimaa. I feel stale, and I long for the concrete jungle I have left behind.

I pick up a copy of the in-flight travel magazine to read a little about my intended destination. Joensuu literally means ‘the mouth of the river’. It was founded in 1848 by Tsar Nicholas I and is often referred to as the forest capital of Europe. Super.

The view as we land is inspiring: pine and birch forests marching unchecked toward the horizon, with only pristine lakes to disrupt the uniformity. The plane touches down and I quickly remove my hand luggage from overhead and step out into blazing heat. The crisp air of my fantasies has been replaced with some Goya-esque Iberian nightmare. The breeze is a not-too-distant cousin of the whirling current that greets you when you open a fan-assisted oven to
check on a casserole. I choke it in and tread quickly to the terminal. It’s a small collection of bricks and mortar, provincial. Off-white walls, purple upholstery, grey uniforms and faces. There isn’t even a divide between arrivals and departures. So much for rigorous security. The single luggage belt creaks to life after a sweaty and uncomfortable eternity in the low air-con cattle shed, and I am delighted to quickly grasp my bag and run. I miss the artificially cooled sophistication of my city life, of a cool bar and my laptop and my reviewing.

Outside, I wheel my grey, hard-sided ogre of a suitcase toward the airline’s bus, a small shuttle with a friendly driver who smiles and nods me along when I say ‘to university’. I climb aboard and, within minutes, we are breezing through the countryside. Flashes of sunlight between the heavy forest walls create a disconcerting strobe effect, and I am forced to look at my feet for a time. The countryside is already trying to kill me. How do people live in the wilds like this? My wife is a native of the green and peasant land (that’s not a mistype). She was raised among the hill-billy dreams of reindeer farms and forests and endless winters. Of heaving axes and cleaving wood. Of beards and flannel. What on earth does she see in me? Fat and cerebral and nearly always carrying a layer of permasweat. I make her laugh though. Or, at least, I did at first. We’d go out together, and I’d be witty and humorous and we’d fall into bed entwined and enraptured. She always wanted to be by my side. She encouraged me to grow a beard and let my hair grow a bit and, yes, maybe it does suit me more but I would never tell her that. Sadly, my charms have begun to wane of late and, nowadays, I’m mundane and irritable and unsmiling. An amoeba of
bitter critiques and back-handed comments and stale beer breath.

My wife had headed north a month ago, ostensibly for work, but with a friend’s wedding tied into the bargain. Hence my tardy arrival. I am armed with my own meagre few wedding-worthy clothes, of course, but this hard-sided suitcase also contains the all-important dress that my beloved will don; she will shame all others.

I am a little concerned when we come to a stop and the driver phonetically pronounces ‘oo-nee-vur-city’. I step out into the unknown and, as the bus bleeds away into the light morning traffic, I struggle into the university’s quad to find shelter. Sadly, the unique design of this campus prevents any protection from the early morning sun, so I stand at the mercy of a lost Mediterranean orb while trying to call my beloved. ‘Oh-ate-nyan-won … is not available to take your call, so please leave a message … BEEP.’ The sky is a faultless azure pane through which the intense glare of a malevolent deity has its cruel gaze fixed upon me. ‘Fower-seecksate … is not available to take your call so please leave a message … BEEP.’ The gaze is pitiless and judgemental and asks questions.
Who are you? What are you doing here
? ‘… is not available to take your call so please leave a message … BEEP.’

The mean and brutal immortal taunts me.
You are alone in my land
? The air is still and the traffic has ceased. I am unsettled by the silence. Silence is not golden, it is dark and threatening. Give me the discarded symphony of traffic any day. I stand squinting into the distance, praying for the image of my significant other to emerge from the shimmering horizon beyond. Those familiar bars to the Grande
Valse begin ringing in my pocket, and I pull my Nokia (what else?) out and breathe a heavy sigh of relief as I see my wife’s name on the screen. I answer. She apologises and is surprised I am here already. She’s close by, so I hang tight and wait. Sure enough, she whirls along on her rental bike and is a monument to
beauté
in a white summer dress with oxblood bows, her flowing cinnamon hair trailing behind and sweeping forward as she brakes, framing her amiable face. Her coral lips ever smiling, and her eyes wicked and teasing, the green of an outraged sea. She leans forward and plants a kiss on my cheek. ‘Come along,’ she says. ‘We haven’t far to go.’

We are staying in a modern, semi-detached cottage on a campsite next to the lake. An agreeable breeze rustles the trees overhead and the light is dazzling gold, interrupted by occasional lapis hues. The cottage has one decent-sized bedroom and one spacious kitchen-cum-living room, double height with a loft area for more guests. This opens out onto a quaint deck with view of the water’s edge and a sunken brook but – and this is most important – like any self-respecting Finnish abode, it has a sauna and wet room. As I am not one to do without creature comforts, this choice of residence suits me fine. I am already picturing myself typing up my review with a cup of coffee at the small wrought-iron table on the terrace, my scolding critique tempered by the lake’s gentle breath. My reverie is broken, however, as we have to get a move on. We have guests tonight. This was my wife’s university town a decade ago, and she has many friends to catch up with.