‘I wish my mum was here,’ Mohammed said, and I placed a hand on his shoulder and watched him as his eyes flickered, following the fish in the sea. Afra was sitting behind us on one of the chairs; an NGO worker had given her a white stick to hold, but she didn’t like it and so left it on the floor beside her.
When we disembarked, volunteers were already waiting. There was structure here, I could tell. Many people had passed through already, and the NGOs were well prepared. We were led away from the port, up a small hill, to the registration centre for new arrivals: a large tent. The place was brimming with refugees and soldiers and police officers who were wearing blue-mirrored sunglasses. From what I could see, there were people from Syria, Afghanistan, other Arab countries and parts of Africa. Men in uniform and straight faces divided us into groups: single females, unaccompanied minors, single men with passports, single men without passports, families. Luckily the three of us got to stay together. We were shown to one of the long queues and given some bread rolls with cheese. People were restless as they waited to be identified. They wanted their papers so that they could exist in the eyes of the European Union. And the ones who were the wrong nationality would get no papers – except for a ticket back to wherever.
Finally, after hours of standing in line, we reached the front of the queue. Mohammed had fallen asleep on one of the benches on the far side of the tent and Afra and I took a seat facing a man who was leafing through some notes on the desk. Afra was still holding the bread roll in her hand. The man looked at her and leant back in his chair, his stomach big enough to balance a plate on. Although it was cold in the tent, he had beads of sweat on his forehead and there were shadows under his eyes as wide as smiles. The man lowered the sunglasses from his head onto his nose.
‘Where are you from?’ he said.
‘Syria,’ I said.
‘Do you have passports?’
‘Yes.’
I took all three passports out of my rucksack and placed them open on the table. He lifted his glasses, scanning them.
‘What part of Syria?’
‘Aleppo.’
‘Is this your son?’ He pointed at the picture of Sami.
‘Yes.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Seven.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Asleep on the bench. He’s very tired after the long journey.’
The man nodded and stood up, and for a moment I thought that he would go and find Mohammed to check his face against the picture, but he walked across the tent to a row of photocopiers, then he returned, stinking of cigarettes, puffed out his cheeks and asked for our fingerprints. We were being transformed into verifiable, printable entities.
‘Do you need Sami’s fingerprints?’ I asked.
‘No, not if he’s under ten. Can I see your phone?’
I got my phone out of my bag. The battery was dead.
‘What’s your PIN?’ the man said. I wrote it down and he went away, again in the direction of the photocopiers.
‘Why did you tell him we have a son?’ Afra said.
‘It’s easier that way. They won’t ask so many questions.’
She didn’t say anything, but I could see from the way she was scratching her skin, pressing so hard that there were red streaks on her wrists, that she was uncomfortable. After a long time the man returned, out of breath, stinking of more cigarettes and coffee.
‘What was your occupation in Syria?’ he said, sitting down again, his stomach bulging over his trousers.
‘I was a beekeeper.’
‘And you, Mrs Ibrahim?’ He looked at Afra now.
‘I was an artist,’ she said.
‘The pictures on the phone, are they your paintings?’
Afra nodded.
The man leant back in his chair again. With his glasses on it was difficult to know what he was looking at, but he seemed to be staring at Afra. I could see a reflection of her in each lens. Although there was so much noise in the tent, the place seemed to fall into silence.
‘They are very special, your paintings,’ the man said. Then he leant forward, his huge stomach pressing against the table – pushing it slightly towards us.
‘What happened to her?’ he said to me, and there was an unmistakable note of curiosity in his voice. I could suddenly imagine him collecting horror stories – real-life tales of loss and destruction. His glasses were fixed on me now.
‘A bomb,’ I said.
The man’s glasses moved back to focus on Afra.
‘Where do you hope to get to?’