Country of hospitality;
Thy full gallant legions
Have restored thy dignity.
‘Beloved Ivory Coast, thy sons,
Proud builders of thy greatness,
All not mustered together for thy glory,
In joy will we construct thee.
‘Proud citizens of the Ivory Coast, the country calls us.
If we have brought back liberty peacefully,
It will be our duty to be an example
Of the hope promised to humanity,
Forging unitedly in new faith
The fatherland of true brotherhood.’
‘You know it in English?’
Diomande nods.
‘Did you sing in English for them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? What’s the problem?’ I say.
‘The words paint a very positive picture!’
Diomande sits down again, dejected. ‘But I tell them. I tell them life so hard. I tell them about Libya and prison and being beaten till I think I will die. I tell them my sister and mum’s life difficult because of civil war. I have no job and my mum she sent me to find better life. I tell them all this. I tell them that here there is hope. Here maybe I will find work. I can clean, I can cook, I can teach, I have many skill.’
The birds have silenced now and Diomande’s back is so hunched over that the wings under his T-shirt look as if they are opening up. ‘I also tell them how beautiful it is there, my country, how much I love being there.’
The Moroccan man is thoughtful, staring out into the courtyard, sometimes glancing over at me with a question in his eyes, but whatever it is he doesn’t ask.
Diomande decides that he wants to go to the fair. ‘I can hear it,’ he says, ‘this crazy music all the time and see the lights over sea. Can we go?’
The Moroccan man gets excited at the prospect of having company. ‘Geezer,’ he says, ‘let’s go! When we see the lights and the sea and hear the music, all our troubles and worries will be like a small grain of sand.’
They insist that I go with them. They drag me, one hand each, to the stairs so that I can go upstairs and get ready.
When I go to our room I see that Afra is already dressed and sitting again on the edge of the bed, but this time she is crying. I kneel down in front of her. The tears are streaming out of her eyes like dark rivers. ‘What’s wrong, Afra?’ I say.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand but the tears keep coming.
‘Since I told the doctor about the bomb, it’s all I can think of. I can see Sami’s face. I can see his eyes looking up at the sky. I wonder what he felt. Was he in pain? What did he feel when he looked up at the sky? Did he know I was there?’
I take her hand in mine but I can’t hold on to it for too long because I feel heat rising up through my spine and along my neck and into my head. I let go and stand away from her.
‘I’m going to go for a walk with the Moroccan man.’
‘But … I …’
‘I’m going for a walk with him and Diomande.’
‘OK,’ she says quietly. ‘Have a nice time.’ I can still hear her words – there was so much sadness in her voice – even as we walk along the wooden pier and enter the fairground, swept up in a tornado of slides and roller coasters and bumper cars. ‘Have a nice time’ echoes in my mind, even when Diomande is talking about the Ivory Coast.
‘The sea is like the crystal,’ he says, ‘not like this one. This one look like shit. No! Sea there is like the sky. So clear! You could see all the little fishes swimming. Is like glass. And when sun set everything is red – the sky, the sea. You should see this! Everything red.’ He sweeps his hand across the sky and I remember Afra’s paintings. We walk by the seawall, so that we’re close to the water.
We sit in a café in the arcade. It smells like vinegar and sherbet. The Moroccan man has some change in his pocket so he buys us all a bright red drink so that we can think about the sky of the Ivory Coast. The drink tastes like cherry-flavoured plastic and is made of crushed ice.
‘You be very quiet,’ Diomande says to me, his dark eyes illuminated by the sun so that they are a warm brown now.
‘What is the sea like in Syria?’ the Moroccan man asks.
‘I live by the desert,’ I say. ‘The desert is as dangerous and as beautiful as the sea.’
Then the three of us sit there silent for a long time, staring out across the water, imagining our own homes, I guess, what we have lost, what has been left behind.
By the time we head back, the sun is setting and a strong wind blows across the pier so that its foundations squeak and rattle.