Friend

Wake up.” Someone is gently shaking my shoulder.

I blink and sit up. “Where am I?”

Then I recognize the lady kneeling next to me. Shewit. Pale light creeps under the door and around the shutter.

“We’re going to the market.” She nods toward the girl.

I rub my fists in my eyes. “I’ll come to help you carry things.”

“No. It would be better for you to stay here. Rest your ankle.”

I notice that the room will be empty except for me and the woman in the corner whose leg and arm are bandaged. She is sitting up but her eyes are closed.

“Okay, thank you,” I say, but I would prefer to be useful.

Once they have left, I go around the room folding blankets and tidying the small space. In the corner is the pile of clothes, including some white netela, the type that women and girls wear around their shoulders and heads back at home. I wonder why they don’t wear them here. I lay new wood on the fire and then go back inside to wait for people to return. I hear the distant sound of a donkey braying. The room is quiet.

Soon there is a soft knock on the door, and Shewit and her daughter walk in with several bags.

“It’s our job to cook for those who are working or cannot cook for themselves—my husband and Genet and her husband,” she says, removing her brightly colored headscarf. “You can help us prepare the food.”

She points to the small courtyard and gives me a bowl of lentils so I can pick out the stones, then goes inside. I have watched my mother and Lemlem do it many times but have never done it myself.

The girl sits on the floor next to me with a pile of onions. We work silently.

After a few minutes, the girl puts down her onion and looks at me. “My name is Almaz,” she says.

“Hello, Almaz,” I reply quietly. I don’t know what else to say, even though my head is almost bursting with questions. “Why aren’t you wearing your netela?” I ask, realizing immediately that I sound rude.

She doesn’t seem annoyed. “Because it’s not safe.”

“Why?” I ask.

“It’s best not to attract attention. There are people looking for anyone from our country, and white netela are pretty easy to pick out in a crowd.”

“I thought your mother said those people were mostly near the camps?”

“Not only near the camps. There are just more of them near the camps.”

“How long have you been here?”

Almaz pushes back her headscarf. Beneath it her hair is braided in neat rows.

“Three months and four days,” she answers without hesitation, staring straight at me.

“That’s such a long time,” I say, alarmed. “Do you want to stay here?”

Almaz laughs. “No, we don’t want to stay. We want to travel to England, but my mother and father didn’t have enough money to pay for the whole journey, so Dad is working collecting and sorting garbage. Back home he worked in a bank. They wanted to leave before I was old enough to start my military training, but we heard that the government was carrying out a giffa in our part of the city, and one week later we left. Dad had enough to get us here, but not enough to get us to the coast. Do you have money?”

I am so happy to be sitting next to someone who is dealing with the same things I am dealing with, worrying about the same problems. I don’t even pause before answering Almaz.

“I’m in the same situation as you—my mother wasn’t planning to send me anywhere soon, but they started rounding up kids in our neighborhood. She had saved enough money to get me to Europe, but not enough for her and my little sister, Lemlem, to come, too.”

Almaz finishes peeling and starts chopping the onions. She is fast, and she can look at me to talk even when she is chopping.

“I want to leave as soon as I can,” I say, “but I don’t know how to make contact with a smuggler. I don’t think I can wait for three months, though.”

“Speak to my father when he comes home.”

She has a way of making me feel that I don’t need to hide things. Like she won’t judge me. I wonder if this is what it would be like to have an older sister. I immediately think of Lemlem and feel guilty. I hope she hasn’t been missing me as much as I miss her; her little smiles, her little games, the way she always runs straight toward me for a hug after school.

At dusk Almaz’s father returns, and then Genet’s husband. They seem tired, moving slowly as they go to wash their hands outside. I wait until Almaz’s father has drunk some tea before asking Shewit if I can speak with him.

He beckons me over with an impatient wave of his hand. “I’m Mesfin,” he says.

“I’m Shif,” I answer.

“I know,” he says. He doesn’t smile but the way he looks at me makes me feel welcome. “How’s your ankle healing?”

“It’s a bit better. Maybe soon I’ll be able to work a little.”

“You could,” he says. “Although it’s better if people don’t notice you’re here at all. So you have no money?”

“I have no money to buy food. My family can send money for traveling, though.”

He nods. “My wife has a kind heart. You’re lucky she found you first.”

“I’m very grateful,” I say. “It’s kind of you to let me stay here when you have little space to share. But I want to travel to Europe as soon as I can. Can you help me find someone who can take me north?”

“I can find you a smuggler. The trick is to find a smuggler who isn’t going to cheat you, sell you, or kill you.” Mesfin looks at me as if he is waiting for me to agree. “I’ve made contact with someone who says he can arrange for us to go.” He gestures around the room. “It’s safer to travel together. Who has the money for you?”

“My mother.”

“Have you spoken to her since you left?”

“No.”

“How do you know the military hasn’t put her in prison?”

“I don’t know.” I realize that I sound stupid.

“I have no phone,” Mesfin replies. He is quiet for a minute. “I’m going to see my contact tomorrow evening. I’ll introduce you to him. He’ll give you his phone to call for the money. We’ll be leaving in two weeks, by truck. If you can afford it, I recommend you do the same. The chances of your arriving in one piece, or arriving at all, are much better if you don’t have to walk across the desert. The truck will take you across the border to the port, then you’ll have to wait for a boat.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“If you can’t get the money, you’ll be on your own. We can’t wait for you.”

“What can I do in return?”

“You can help my wife and daughter. You can stay out of sight.”

Almaz faces the other way as she sits outside preparing dinner, but I can tell that she has listened to every word.

When her father goes to sit with Shewit, Almaz turns and beckons me to come outside.

I crouch down next to her on the step.

“Will you travel with us?” she asks.

“I don’t know. It depends on how much money I need to pay and how much my mother has saved.”

“I hope you can come with us,” she says. “I miss my friends. It’s been just me, Mom, and Dad for the last three months, then Genet and her husband arrived.”

“Do you have brothers or sisters?” I ask.

“I have an older brother but he went to military camp four years ago and I haven’t seen him since. My mother couldn’t bear to lose two children. Once we get settled somewhere, she’ll send money to my cousin to try to bribe some officials and find out where my brother is and whether they can get him out. How about you?”

“Just my sister, Lemlem.”

I want to let Almaz know that talking to her makes me feel like Shif again—not detainee eighty-seven or the boy no one knows. But I can’t find the right words to say anything at all, so I look at my feet.

“I would love a little sister,” she says.

“Maybe you can meet her one day,” I reply.

That night, as I curl up on the floor, I think about speaking to my mother tomorrow. I will be able to tell her that someone may have seen Dad alive, and that he was okay, which means there’s a chance he is still alive now. It makes me think about Yonas and the other men in the container. When will I have a chance to call their families? I doubt Mesfin’s contact will let me work my way through a list of phone numbers. Maybe my first chance will be when I get to England. I go over the information I know about each of them until I start to feel tired.

Tonight there is no black hole waiting for me, just sleep.