Rapefugees Not Welcome

Late afternoon found the four of us back at the cookie dispensary in Moria watching another impromptu soccer game between pup tents, the brightness of the boys’ smiles a contrast to the lacy gray air with its veiled light. The cookie shack overlooked the tier below, where the game was, which was one tier above another level of tents, which in turn was above the lowest rung, where the riot police still picnicked not too far from the public bathroom that they did not use.

Emma seemed more agitated than usual, as if she’d woken up from a fearful dream. Mazen and Rasheed watched the young men kick the ball around, the latter more wistfully.

“I can’t help feeling that waiting here is a mistake,” Emma said between sips of dark tea. The lipstick on the Styrofoam cup was a shade lighter than the same on her lips.

Mazen nodded his head a few times in agreement, his top-heavy hair wobbling like a silver crown. He kept track of the smorgasbord of peopled scenes around him, his eyes darting here and there with a modicum of discretion: the soccer boys, the pup-tent refugees, the young volunteers in neon, the riot police in brutal gear, the cookie pushers, and our conversation.

A moist, limp breeze wiped my face like a towelette. One of the players kicked the ball too hard and it soared. We all leaned right, following its flight, four heads nodding in unison as the ball bounced down the hill.

“I’m hearing rumblings,” Emma said. “Unpleasant ones. Something happened on New Year’s Eve in Cologne. There are no official reports yet, but the talk online is that refugees sexually assaulted dozens of women. It’s not good.”

For some reason, whether the changing light or my darkening mood, I couldn’t take my eyes off the fetid pool next to the public bathroom, whose chocolate-colored surface seemed to be turning opalescent. A young girl poked at something in the pool with a stick, over and over.

“I’ve heard the same,” Rasheed said. “And it might be more than dozens. Early rumors are that migrants harassed hundreds of women in the subways. It’s being said that it was an organized attack.”

“Organized how?” Mazen asked.

“Not sure,” Rasheed said. “It seems that a few dark-skinned men, as they’re calling them, attacked women during the New Year’s celebration. They’re saying over one thousand young men arrived at the revelries around Cologne Cathedral in large groups and began to attack German women.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Mazen said.

Torn pieces of Styrofoam, breadcrumbs, and small bones were scattered on the ground next to a boastful dandelion. No other greenery could survive, the earth scarred by cigarettes quickly extinguished.

“It doesn’t matter whether it is or not,” Emma said. “Even one incident is terrible, and not just for the victim. Some will use any crime by a migrant to try and close the borders. Everyone will be in an uproar. Nazis go insane if one migrant so much as looks at a German woman. Can you imagine what will happen when this thing becomes public, organized sexual assaults by groups of migrants? My lord.”

“I don’t see how migrants could organize,” Mazen said.

“It doesn’t matter whether they can or not,” Emma said. “It’s a catastrophe.”

A hesitation in the free-for-all of a soccer game. A young man stood over the ball. No one attempted to tackle him. An instant. All the players glanced toward the incline behind the makeshift midget field before the game resumed. Two Greek policemen marched up the cement walkway. Unlike their friends below, they wore no helmets, carried no riot shields, no visible polycarbonates of any kind, but they did have their side guns and batons, as well as their bulletproof vests. They felt less threatening and probably felt less threatened. They walked slowly in sync.

“I love men in uniform,” Rasheed said. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

Three volunteers, young men, followed the policemen up the hill. American sounding, they chatted loudly, like noisy sparrows trying to outshout each other, paying little heed to anything but each other and their cell phones. They sauntered with slow shuffling steps as if on a promenade in their own sacred garden of Hera. One of them looked up, noticed me watching, and smiled generously, as if I’d caught him in the midst of a ritual I couldn’t possibly fathom.

“I’m leaving,” Emma said. “Taking the night off. Make myself a hot bath and disappear in it.”