faintly disgusted.
‘Oh right. I thought—’
‘Sorry, I’m running late.’
Yonas leaned against a wall. If he did spot an Eritrean who had time to talk to him, would he actually want to join an Eritrean diaspora community? He would inevitably be drawn into ferocious debates about the President and the current situation, and he’d be expected to go to church, and they’d quiz him on his past and he’d have to churn up experiences he didn’t want to share, not yet, maybe not ever, if he was going to keep going and stay positive. What he really wanted was a fresh start in this city, to make new friends here, British friends, generous people like Bin Man Joe who liked singing along to Bob Dylan, who didn’t have a clue about Eritrea and didn’t even want to know what side he was on, who could help him reinvent himself and show him the best way to live well in the UK and feel like a native. But what would his strategy be for doing that, and for finding work and a place to sleep? He couldn’t just linger here. He decided to walk while he thought, absorb the scenery, and keep an eye open for opportunities. Something would occur to him.
He picked up his bag, then strode out along the street. Caught up in the flow of people, like a leaf coasting along the surface of a river, he felt a surge of excitement. He was finally here, in London – and he was free! Freer than he’d ever been, without any commitments, tasks or other people to be responsible for – except Melat and the family back home, of course. His feet were pressing on London’s pavements, his eyes feasting on London’s oversized office blocks and London’s shiny shops, his ears were filling with the vibrations of London’s traffic, his mouth and lungs saturated by London’s bitter air, and he was now one of the masses of London people, who were all so different, not just racially, but in how they dressed: he had expected reams of smart suits, but there was a woman with a purple coat and a rucksack covered in spikes, and there was an Asian girl with a red streak in her hair and a tattoo sprawling down her neck, and there was a man with a thick, black, rectangular beard and skintight jeans that made him look top-heavy.
He noticed that there seemed to be an unwritten agreement to avoid smiles, or any kind of eye contact with other pedestrians except when absolutely necessary. Was it just his stinky self? But no – even when people stepped aside to let others pass, he noticed, they never seemed to look at each other either. Probably because they were all in such a rush, which made sense in somewhere as busy as London; but he wondered if there was any street in this city comparable to Asmara’s tree-lined Independence Avenue, where people would just wander along slowly, hand in hand with friends, sit outside espresso bars, watch the world go by, exchange greetings.
He stopped short in front of large metal sign outside an office block that read:
theguardian
The Observer
Was this really the headquarters of the famous newspaper? How fortuitous that he’d just happened to walk past it! Was it a sign? He paused, and imagined himself dressed in a pristine suit with a crisp shirt, briefcase in hand, getting ready to walk into the building. I’ m here for an interview, he’d tell the receptionist assuredly. Yes, for the columnist job. A woman came out of the building, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket, making a call as she passed him. Did she work in there, dressed like that? Was that normal here? What did he know? What would he ever know about the world of journalists in this city? Another woman came out, and gave him a long look – which prompted him to carry on walking. He couldn’t be caught loitering outside somewhere important like that. Realistically, he would probably never get to walk inside such an office except to clean it.
Cleaning toilets for small change donations in a run-down shopping mall or something: that was the kind of ambition he knew he should content himself with, at least at the beginning. But how would he even land a job like that, with no connections? Should he find a run-down shopping centre, wait nearby in a discreet spot until it closed and cleaners arrived, then dash over and enquire about work? But there didn’t seem to be any shopping centres around here, or anything particularly run-down. Perhaps he’d be better off away from the city centre and its elite workplaces, where police would no doubt be hyper-alert to scruffy, reeking black men…
The name Canning Town popped into his head. Bin Man Joe had said his brother lived there, that it was in the east of London. It was a bit random, but why not? The brother had moved there not long ago and found work, so why shouldn’t he? He looked around for someone to ask directions. A black lady with a wide smile was leaning against a wall, chatting on her phone, and cackling every so often with an infectious wheeze. He waited until she’d hung up, then approached her. ‘Excuse me. I’m trying to find Canning Town.’
She frowned. ‘Canning Town? What’s that on – Jubilee, I think.’ Yonas wondered whether the meaning of this should be obvious. ‘Take the un-der-ground train,’ she said, splitting the syllables as if he were deaf. ‘Farringdon’s just over there. Good luck!’ She walked off briskly, as if she didn’t want to be seen with him for another second.
Inside this station entrance, Yonas came up against a row of waist-high electronic gates. He looked up to see CCTV cameras perched like hawks. He would have to walk. Not the end of the world; he could tell from the sun which way was east.
Shortly, the afternoon dimmed, dusk intensified, doubt and hunger set in. Having strayed from the main roads, Yonas found himself wandering a network of residential streets. The houses around him were tall and elegant and forbidding, and long windows wore neat flower boxes underneath like military moustaches. A glow from a basement drew him over. Peering down, he saw a cream-coloured kitchen, spacious and clean, with wide counters. On one of them sat a fruit bowl, piled with apples, bananas and oranges and – yes – a mango. Yonas was tempted to force open the window, leap down, grab it and bite right into it. He could just make out the smell of something deliciously savoury. Curved lamps in corners cast a warm glow. When he crouched, he could see a candlelit table at the back, around which two parents and three children were eating spaghetti and laughing. He pictured his mother staggering to the table with a huge, steaming pot for her rambunctious brood and it struck him anew that he would not only never see her again, he would probably never see any of them again, and he would be lucky if he ended up with any kind of family of his own. Even with a table of his own.
He continued along more residential streets, past some apartment blocks and up some dead-end roads, until he was so tired his bones ached. He spotted a wide doorstep, big enough for a curled-up body. Nobody was around. He sat down, hooked his feet up beside him, eased down into a foetal position, and nestled his head in the crook of his arm, feeling like he had just climbed into a cold stone coffin. He pulled his wooden rooster out of his pocket. Just me and you, little friend, he whispered, stroking it with the top of his fingertip – the few millimetres between the nail and the scarring. He thought about what would happen if he died here. Nobody would have a funeral for him. What did the UK authorities do with random African bodies found on the streets? Burn them? He imagined being stuffed in a bin bag, then deposited on a pile of other vagrants, and tossed into a vast, bright, smoky fire, crackling and fizzling with amber, gold, orange, red, his trousers catching, the flames licking eagerly up his legs, but it didn’t feel hot, oddly, it somehow felt cold, numbing, stiffening…
He sat up, panicking, then rubbed his eyes. Daylight! He must have been asleep for hours. He was chilly, but intact. And alone. Utterly alone. No Gebre to consult with about what to do next. He watched the scattered white clouds drift for a minute or two across a faintly blue sky, imagining them floating gently over the ocean towards Eritrea. Then he got up jerkily, and staggered towards the sound of traffic.
Back on a main road, car horns blared like a tin pan band. His mouth was sour – all he wanted right now was a drink of water and a pee. He managed to blag some tap water from a small café, and the girl behind the counter reluctantly allowed him to use their toilet. The warm water from the tap on his hands and face felt delightful, the hand drier even better. Could he get away with a full body wash? Someone would inevitably knock on the door again. He wiped his armpits cursorily, and slipped back out.
By midday he found himself amid