Then we go to The Camps. I leave my car outside the headquarters and squeeze myself into the van with the others. The road to The Camps are dangerous, Arien explains. He doesn’t say why.
It is a 40-minute drive from town. The afternoon light is fading quickly as we go; the shadows become more solid, darker, blacker. We have the radio turned on, like in the warehouse, but this time, no one is singing along. The mood is tense, the air electric. I can almost hear it, a sort of ringing in the back ground, a call for danger. My hands grasp each other in my lap.
The houses we pass come further and further apart. The main road turns into a mountain road, made up of stones only, and we all bump up and down in our seats. Outside, I can see hills, trees, some small forests and farmhouses, like the one I am living in. A wonderful landscape if not for the circumstances.
In the middle of the island, a mountain back is rising, each top sharp as a knife. Arien says The Camps are right by their foot.
It is already getting dark when we reach The Camps. I can feel everyone in the car straighten up at some point, but first I do not understand why. Everything outside the window looks the same.
And then I see it.
On the top of a hill. Two big, grey buildings, surrounded by a tall metal fence, with wire on the top. Strong, white floodlights get turned on as we come closer, throwing an almost grotesque light over the tents. Because yes, there are tents. Hundreds. Thousands.
They are spread out from a center, consisting of those two buildings, that seems to be the only real constructions in the area. Only a few of the tents get any light at all, the others are just mysterious contours, a pale shadow because of the white fabric they are made of.
Everything is surrounded by high fences, all of them wired at the top. By these, the guards stand, in black or dark green uniforms, walking or standing still. In heavy belts around their hips are weapons, their deadliness glimmering in the white light. Some of the bigger guards have machine guns over their backs.
We park just below the hill, at the side of the road. We do not speak to each other as we gravely departure the safety of the van. It is much colder outside now, and I bury my hands deep in my pockets, my body crumbling a little into my clothes, as if protecting itself against the cold, and the fear. Because there is fear here. In the air, a sharp, cutting sensation of fear. Of desperation. Like anxiety threw into the open.
Walking up the hill, we keep close to each other. Halfway up, I notice the smell. It smells of dirt, and sweat, and urine. It smells of something I only can describe as sickness. Death. Festering flesh.
I want to throw up. No. I want to turn around and run, hide in the van. What kind of animals live like this?
We come to a stop at the top of the hill, where the tents start. I try not to look at the shadows moving between them, watching us curiously with glittering, black eyes. But even when I am not looking, I can feel their eyes.
Arien clasps his hands together.
“OK, so I’ll go back and drive the van up this hill, since it’s too heavy with all of us in it, and then we all grab as many blankets as we can, and give them out among the tents. OK?”
No one speaks, but he must take our silence as a yes, because he leaves, and we all watch his back as he walks back down. We wait.
I look up, I do not want to, but I do, automatically, as if someone called my name. A little shadow is staring at me, from the opening of a tent. I look, and meet a pair of dark eyes, surrounded by beautiful long lashes, a little girl.
Now that I focus on her, I see that she is only wearing a dress, a tiny, pink dress, even though I am freezing behind my three layers of clothing.
When she sees me watching her, she runs back into the tent, but I am sure I could see a small smile on her face.
“Did you see that girl?” I ask Mary, who is standing next to me, in a whisper. I do not dare to talk out loud.
She shakes her head.
“Where?”
“No, she left, but she was only wearing a summer dress.”
“Many of them do,” Mary says.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t have enough clothes for all of them.”
Arien comes back then, with the van. He turns it around, so the trunk is towards us, and parks it. As soon as he opens the doors, I walk over and grab an armful of blankets. They all smell as if used. Then I walk directly over to the first tent, where I saw the little girl disappear into. My feet sink down in the mud.
“Hello?” I say, uncertain, as I reach the small opening of the tent. It must once have been white, but now it’s more brown, grey, covered as it is in the dirt.
I can feel the movement inside the tent freeze, for a moment, and I freeze too, automatically. A few seconds pass by in slow motion, before the little girl reappears in the folds.
I give her a couple of blankets, and as I hand them over, she grabs my hand with her little hand. She looks at me.
“Thank you,” she says.
I blink, and she is gone again.
We walk among the tents, keeping together. It is dark here, between them. In the beginning, everything is still around us. One of us, Arien usually, says hello, talks out loud, shattering the silence, when we stop in front of a tent. Someone comes to the opening then, holding up fingers. I learn quickly that these fingers symbolize how many people living in the tent. A man holds up four fingers, and we give him four blankets. A woman holds up five fingers, and we give her five. A little boy holds up three, and we give him three. Then, as we walk, as still as we can through the mud, the shadows begin to move around us, flickering in the corner of our eyes. I can feel the movement on my own body, tiny vibrations in the air, felt even through the tents. Now people are showing up in the openings of the tents all around us, looking at us, waiting, patient, desperate.
A man steps out of the shadows then, a big man, with a dark beard, a grimy face, his eyes are black. He is looking at me, holding my gaze, and I freeze, remembering the stories, hearing Jenny in my ear. They will rape you, they can kill you.
He stops in front of me, and I think about running, but there is something about his posture that seems to weaken him, and that keeps me from running away. I force my eyes away from his face and look at his body, a once tall and strong body, but now it seems to be collapsing inwards, his shoulders hanging forward, low, as if preparing to curl himself into a ball. But that is no wonder. He is only wearing a thin leather jacket, shorts. Sandals. Though his complexion is dark, his feet, his toes, are as white as the floodlights, the tips are blue.
He holds up one finger, and I give him a blanket.
We surge forward, faster now. Some of the braver ones step out before we reach their tent, holding up their fingers. Several times we have to walk all the way back to the car to get more blankets, but too soon we are empty.
Eventually we have to shake our heads, no, we say, when they hold up their frozen fingers. I feel like apologizing. I am silent, but I try, with my eyes, to say sorry. Inside me, there is a feeling growing strong, a guilty conscience. It burns. These are not animals. They are humans.
We retreat to the van. Mary is shaking next to me, and I know it’s not of fear. I can feel it too now.
As the others get into the car, I grab Arien by the wrist, so we stand alone outside.
“Why do they keep coming, why do they live like that? Why don’t they just go back to The East?” I am desperate for answers.
“Because what they are running from is much worse than this.”