| |
The circus tent dominated the cloudless sky, almost as if the swirling chaos had been a fragment of Yusuf’s imagination, as if the demons had been obliterated by the rising sun. He blinked into the streams of sunlight, and dust particles danced in his vision.
“That’s tough, man. I’m sorry you had to go through that,” said Isaiah, hearing about his encounter with the neo-Nazis.
“The police made us look at photos of known troublemakers. I recognised the leader of the group–Karl something or other–but with the CCTV footage erased and them escaping, there’s not much that can be done.”
“Same old, same old,” said Isaiah.
Yusuf touched his ribs and flinched. His t-shirt hid the mottled bruises on his skin, a swirl of mustard, blue and green. He longed to forget the chaos surrounding the circus. Speaking to the others whose anguish mirrored his own only led him further down a dark path, and he definitely didn’t need to speak to the journalist. Isaiah’s offer of a kick about had been a blessing. Yusuf kicked the ball. It curved away from his friend and became tangled in undergrowth.
Isaiah snorted. “You’re not much good at this, are you?”
Yusuf fetched the ball. “Damascus has a great team. Or it did.”
His friend raised an eyebrow. “Really? I bet Hertha Berlin could kick their arse. Maybe you should come to a game. All you do is perform, see to your chores and attend your language lessons. I know you have Doris and your circus friends, but there’s so many others, bro. Look how much fun Old Sayid has out on the town. Not all people are bad, you know. When was the last time you came spraying?” A cigarette hung from his lip. He barely puffed on it. “I’ve got so much to show you in this city, man. We’ll start with the humble kebab or pancakes dripping in raspberry sauce. Or maybe currywurst made thick with ketchup or Turkish meze. It’s up to you. Just say the word.”
Yusuf’s stomach rumbled. The thought of eating with the circus folk didn’t appeal. They’d lived in each other’s pockets even more than usual these past few days, clearing up after their attackers, rounding up the animals–although not all of Esme’s doves had returned–and fretting about whether they prayed enough. Perhaps they’d attracted the evil eye or the ire of a malevolent spirit to have such misfortune befall them. At least Simeon had recovered enough to be moved to a ward which permitted regular visits. Besides, the police would do their work, and the brutes would never bother them again. Or would they? He just had to close his eyes to taste the sawdust in his mouth and hear the ringleader’s warning.
This is not over. You have powerful enemies, my friend.
Could he have been referring to the journalist? He kicked the ball again and this time, it flew past Isaiah’s shoulder. Maybe Isaiah was right. Maybe his world had become too small.
“Okay, you’re on. Where are we going?” said Yusuf.
A slow smile spread over Isaiah’s sun-kissed face. “I know just the place.”
Isaiah tucked the ball under his arm, and they walked across the park and under the railway bridge. Underneath, the square footage had been divided between tiny food outlets selling pungent Middle-Eastern wares in tin foil and polystyrene trays. Yusuf rarely strayed this way.
“You’d rather eat here?” said Isaiah.
Yusuf wrinkled his nose. “No.” He longed for the scent of his mother’s homemade bread and pickles, for the recipes she’d made which had been passed down from his grandmother, and his great-grandmother before that. Food that tasted of home and brought back the nostalgia of his childhood.
“Let’s hop on the S-Bahn for a couple of stations,” said Isaiah.
Yusuf reached into his pocket for change. “I’ll just get a ticket.”
“Nah, you’ll be fine.”
They leapt onto the S-Bahn and the train hummed to its next stop, making their bodies sway as they held onto a central railing.
“What if we get caught?” said Yusuf.
Isaiah grinned. “We run. You got the metal?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be miles ahead of you.” Their energy reminded him too much of his relationship with his own brother. Yusuf gulped down the lump in his throat. “I wish I could be more like you. I need to inject myself with your carefree spirit.”
Isaiah motioned in the direction of a man slumped in the next carriage, in pipe-thin trousers with a curved back. “Believe me, you don’t need to be injecting yourself with anything. You seen the dopeheads around here?”
The S-Bahn jolted to a stop and they exited onto the platform, where the whiff of baked concrete drifted skywards. Isaiah tossed the ball ahead of him and kicked it. The ball soared through the air and thudded against a station bin. Startled passengers turned around.
“He shoots. He scores!” Isaiah ran a loop in mock celebration, right there on the platform, his arms spread like an aeroplane. He collected the ball and took the steps to street level two at a time. He bounded forward, his enthusiasm infectious. “This way. I tell you, man, you’re going to enjoy this. The doners are stuffed full of meat and the garlic sauce is to die for.”
“So this is a Turkish delicacy?” said Yusuf.
Isaiah guffawed. “Not quite.”
“It’s been passed down through the generations?”
“More like an invention for people who want a taste of the exotic that isn’t too alienating. It’s for people on-the-go, for people who like to party, to soak up a hangover, you know?” He paused. “You don’t drink, do you?”
“Nah. I mean, maybe I would. I don’t know. It’s not allowed in the Qu’ran, you know.”
“Yeah.” Isaiah pointed. “So, I work in the Hip Hop record store over there, at least until I find something my Ma is pleased with. I like it. I’ll take you in there sometime. I get to browse the records for hours, talk to the patrons. It’s a hub for the Afro-German community.” He slowed in front of a shop with a smeared glass front and shabby sign, and pushed a door open. “This is the kebab place.”
Inside, two men roasted meat on vertical rotisseries. They worked deftly, offering toasted pitta bread or wraps served with the sliced meat with an array of salad and sauces. Isaiah made his way to the counter.
“A lamb doner with all the extras and garlic, please,” he said.
“Same here,” said Yusuf, deciding it easier to follow suit.
“Eating here?” said the man serving, dressed in a white apron.
Isaiah nodded. “Yeah.”
“Great. I’ll bring it over,” said the man.
They slid into one of the four-person booths along the wall. Yusuf ran his fingers over the sticky table, slick with grease. A newspaper had been cast aside.
He unfolded it and sucked in his breath.
There, with Ellie Richter’s byline sitting proudly underneath the headline, was a picture of his circus family, himself included, against the backdrop of the blue and bronze circus tent.
Isaiah whistled, low and long. “Oh, man. What a headline.”
REFUGEES BEHIND SOARING TREPTOW CRIME RATES
By Ellie Richter
Yusuf’s grasp of written German lagged behind his spoken language. Nevertheless, as he scanned the words, a fury took hold in the pit of his belly. The words hurt. He didn’t understand them all, but he understood the subtext, the dog whistle call of blame and alienation.
In Ellie’s article, Simeon and Dawud had become distorted versions of themselves. She wrote neither about the wars and famine that had destroyed their day to day lives nor the provocations the circus and its people had endured. She’d painted the performers as broken individuals who couldn’t be fixed, who presented danger just by their mere existence.
His skin crawled. She had spent time with them. Why didn’t she have any sense of justice or balance? His gut churned at the omissions and manipulations presented in black and white.
“She pretended to be on our side.” He spat the words. “She disgusts me.”
Their food arrived and Yusuf pushed his plate aside.
Isaiah raised his eyes in surprise. “You know her?”
“She was poking around the circus.” Yusuf thumped his fist on the table. “I warned her to leave us alone.”
“Let it go, bro. She’s one person.”
How could Isaiah understand the fragility of an immigrant’s place in the world? Yusuf’s German came out clumsily, the cadences twisted apart by his climbing fury. “BAZ has a huge readership. We’re front page news. Our faces are going to be in every bistro in this city, in homes across the nation, pushed through thousands of letterboxes. She’s painted us as monsters.”
“Breathe, bro. You got to give people more credit than that. Not everyone will fall for it.” Isaiah leaned back against the worn red leather of the booth. “Know what your problem is? You think you’re alone.”
“That’s not true. I know I’m not alone. I have the circus. I have....” Yusuf stopped short.
“Forget the circus. I’m not talking about them. I mean, there are good people here, here in this country. Kind strangers. This woman–this Ellie Richter–so what if she’s a bad egg? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. There are others who want you here.”
Yusuf looked at the newspaper in disgust. “Look at yesterday. We don’t belong here. Where am I to go? My home doesn’t even exist anymore, not like I remember it.” He jerked up, no longer feeling bonded to this stranger who challenged him.
Isaiah’s passion reached across the table. “You’re going to let some arseholes tell you where you belong? Why give them the satisfaction? Why would blending in make you any happier?”
The air in the booth stilled. How easy for Isaiah—a man confident enough to graffiti his surroundings, to etch his mark onto walls built to keep him out—to spout this. “Look at the colour of my skin,” said Yusuf. “Isn’t it obvious I don’t belong here? As fluent as I’ve become in German, my speaking voice holds rhythms that weren’t made in the West. I stand out like an ogre in a land of princes.”
Isaiah’s tone sharpened. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?”
“We gravitate towards our own kind when underneath, we’re the same. Is Cameroon more my country than Germany just because I can trace my father’s ancestors there? You think I don’t feel like you when my family tells me my afro is the reason I didn’t get the job I went for last week?” He harrumphed. “As if my personality changes with my hairstyle, like some sort of Samson. As if I’m a disrupter just because I wear my hair big and curly and not shorn down like some sheep. Shit, it’s not like black Germans are anything new. We’ve existed since the colonies. They dominated us, and still it feels like we’re the ones who have to apologise.” He pulled at his hair. “You know what my afro means to me? I worked for it. It’s my badge of dis-honour, my don’t fuck with me sign, my I-know-who-I-am Batman signal.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to fit in?” said Yusuf.
Isaiah poked at his food, his buoyant enthusiasm mellowed into thoughtfulness. “I’ve got an auntie, one of those aunties every family has. She’s crazy. She taught me to be real because she tries so hard to fit in. She’s black like the midnight sky, with hips as broad as a bus, and couldn’t be any more different to the whiteys around her in Prenzl-Berg. You should see her at the baker or the butcher. I cringe. It’s like she’s a Doppelgänger. She has a special voice she puts on. It sounds more German to her. She hardens her syllables and always uses the same idiom. The one a German explained to her once, but the context is all wrong. She sounds like a clown,” he sighed. “You know, the Germans laugh behind her back. The funny thing is, at home, she’s the best story-teller, with a lilt to her voice that reminds me of long summer days under the African sun.” He flicked the newspaper with distaste. “I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t care about the colour of your skin, and I sure as hell don’t care about your funny German. To me, language is at its best if it’s not rigid. If it can be different things to different people. That way it’s authentic. Real. What could be wrong about that?”
“You make it sound so easy,” said Yusuf. “But not everyone is like you.” He picked up the newspaper again. “This hurts. It hurts all the more because I’ve tried to be what they want me to be. Since I left Syria, it seems like I change my skin like a coat, just to fit in. But you, you’re so accepting and unafraid of change. I envy that. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Isaiah tucked into his food and soon, lettuce, shreds of meat and garlic sauce dotted his chin. “It comes from roots, man. Yours have been pulled out. But you know, look around you, why are you so scared? You think you landed somewhere perfect? That their shit don’t stink? I got white German friends. They get things wrong too.”
“Yeah?”
“Hell, yeah.” He put down his kebab. “Like when someone in the supermarket queue strikes up a conversation and says, ‘Where are you from?’ Because with this skin colour, they assume you can’t possibly be German. Or when I used to get asked in history class for my perspective on race because, of course, I must speak for all black people if everyone else is white. Or worse, when my friend Markus came into the record store, slapped me on the shoulder and called me nigger, as a joke.” He palmed his face. “That’s not okay, man. You can’t use that word if you don’t share our history.”
“Did you call him up on it?” said Yusuf. Part of him wanted to see Ellie, to demand why she wanted to bury them in the rubble of her lies.
“Nah. It’s not worth it. How do you shrink centuries of history into something that teaches but doesn’t offend? I ain’t no professor. I’m just trying to live my life. It’s not like it was the first time, either. Once, he got carried away and sang Kendrick Lamar at me in a club. It was awkward, bro, believe me, however cool he felt in the moment, with his black man’s dance moves and the lyrics flying off his tongue. He’s still my friend, though. I’ve grown up with this shit, but he hasn’t. The universal experience is white. Where do you start explaining?” He drifted off. “I don’t know, maybe I should have said something. Without honesty, that friendship is worthless.”
“Maybe. Still, why should a white man have thought about race?” said Yusuf. Why should Ellie Richter have any idea what it was like to be him? Maybe it was too much to expect compassion from someone so different from him.
“The white man is the alpha. He has the penis and the alabaster skin that makes him the kingpin. You’re taking away your own power by excusing him.”
“Come on, give me a break. Not everything is about politics,” said Yusuf, although his mind strayed to Old Sayid, and how he’d been an outcast in his home town because he preferred men to women, and how even at home the structures had served to keep men in line if they deviated from the mould.
“That’s where you’re wrong, bro. In some ways, Markus is just as bad as the white men right at the top or the neo-Nazis that attacked you yesterday. He’s complicit. He benefits whether he realises it or not. A black man has to be a genius to compete with an average white man because the game’s rigged. At some point, we have to decide. Do we want to fit in or stand out? If we stand out, will they knock us down? Do we want to disrupt, to make this world ours, or do you want to squeeze yourself into their perceptions of what a brown man should be?”
Yusuf glanced at his friend and realised that, in the space of a few minutes, their friendship had deepened. For a moment, the rest of the world had faded away. The smell of grease and charred meat, the footfall of customers and the clang of the till had retreated, to leave just him and Isaiah and this connection on a very human level. In some way, their conversation had restored his sense of self and eroded some of the shame he carried since leaving Damascus. He’d lost dignity during his time as a refugee, but perhaps the time had come to take it back.
“This city...this city has promise, man. It can let you fly, if you escape the jailers, the ones who want you to stay in your box to make them feel safe.”
Yusuf swallowed down his food in huge mouthfuls. “I’d better get back and warn Emir about the article. Three hours ‘til showtime.”
Isaiah wiped his mouth with a tiny paper square of napkin and they left, taking the football and the newspaper with them. Isaiah tackled him for the ball and flicked it, so the ball bounced up once, giving him room to swing his leg and propel it high up into the air. It spun before descending, a white sphere against the cobalt sky.
“You know, my Ma always told me not to let them cut you down to size. Blast them with your dreams and one day, maybe they’ll thank you for it.”
Yusuf folded up the newspaper and tossed it where it belonged, in a dustbin overflowing with half-eaten food, gloopy sauce and fat-soaked paper. Ellie Richter wouldn’t ruin this new life for them. She could burn in hell. A small seed of hope sprouted in him, of all that he could achieve in this city.
“Tell me you broke up your friendship with Markus?”
Isaiah grinned. “Nah, he’s fun. And has a decent car. That’s mostly enough.”
“But not always.”
“No, not always.”
