but not enough to be comfortable.
There was noise and laughter and movement all around. Some children played football in an open space between the trees, boys and girls kicking up the soil. Others played cards, or chatted outside their tents. A group of teenagers sat in a circle on a blanket. They were telling one another stories, tales they remembered from childhood. One girl was speaking, the rest listening attentively, legs folded, eyes catching the light of the dwindling fire.
As I watched, an NGO worker approached them, a small blond man holding two white plastic bags, one in each hand. The girl stopped talking and they all turned to face him, the whole group erupting with excitement, talking over one another. The NGO worker put down the bags and they all waited with anticipation as he pulled out cans of Coca-Cola which the teenagers grabbed, one by one. Once they each had a can, they opened them, laughing with excitement at the tssssk and pshhhhhhhh.
Then they all drank, at the same time.
‘That’s my first sip of Coke in three years!’ one of them said.
I knew that Daesh had banned Coca-Cola because it was an American multinational brand.
‘It’s even better than I remember!’ said another.
The NGO worker saw me watching them. He took out one last can from the bag and came over. He was younger than I thought, with blond spikey hair and small dark eyes. He brought the laughter and the joy with him as he handed me the can, a beaming smile on his face.
‘Amazing, eh?’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ I opened the can and took a small sip, savouring the sweetness. Then I handed it to Afra, who was still shivering, wrapped up in the blanket. She took a huge gulp.
‘Wow, Coca-Cola?’ she said. It seemed to bring some colour to her face. So we passed the can between us and listened to the stories the youngsters told.
Later, past midnight, when Afra was finally asleep and her body had stopped shaking, I noticed some older men hanging around, watching the boys and the girls. One of them was leaning on crutches, the stump of his leg bare and visible even in the darkness. The emaciated man on the step of the statue was now playing a guitar. A sad and beautiful song as soft as a lullaby.
‘They bring you here too?’
I looked up and saw the black woman from the night before. She had a blanket around her shoulders and a piece of bread in her hand.
‘Make sure you get food in the morning,’ she said. ‘They bring food from the church but is finish quickly. They bring medicines too.’
She spread the blanket out on the ground and sat down beside me. She was wearing a headwrap the green of an emerald.
Suddenly, from nowhere, a violent wind swept through the camp, as if the gods of the place had awoken. Leaves and dry soil streaked past us, but she just waited for it to settle, which suggested to me she was used to these unexpected and short-lived blasts of weather. Then she plunged her hand into a small linen bag and pulled out a container of talcum powder, shook a perfumed cloud into her palm and smeared it all over her face and hands. This had the strange effect of making her look grey, the life and light in her cheeks suddenly extinguished. She was watching me the whole time.
‘They steal children here,’ she said. ‘They snatch them.’
From among the foliage, men’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
‘Why would they do that?’
‘To sell their organs. Or for sex.’ Again she said this casually, as if she had become immune to such things. I didn’t want to listen to this woman, and I wished I couldn’t see the shadows moving in the woods. I noticed again that her breasts were leaking, fresh wet patches on her white top.
‘My mind is ill,’ she said, tapping her forehead. Then, pinching the skin on her inner arm, ‘I am a dead. I’m turn black inside. Do you know what that means?’
Her dark eyes glimmered in the firelight, the whites slightly yellow. There was a roundness to her features, a wholeness, a softness, a transparency; it was in her expressions and her hand movements, and yet I wanted to get away from her, because I didn’t want to know. There was too much in my head now; there was no room for more. The wet stains on her top kept catching my eye, it