Kenza stood on the doorstep to watch us leave. She gave me a massive hug, which made me cry a lot even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t, and as she held me tight she whispered, ‘Be brave, Green Eyes.’ And then we got a taxi to the port.
The queues were enormous there and everyone seemed very nervous and short-tempered, waiting to get on the Esmeralda. At last we were allowed to board, once our paperwork had been checked very thoroughly by three different officials at three different desks. The final one looked over the American visas and the doctor’s certificate and made a note of the date. ‘Just in time, eh?’ he said grimly, as he handed them back to Papa. He wasn’t smiling and his tone really wasn’t very friendly at all.
We found our cabin – which reminded me of when we left Marseille all those months and months ago because it smelled stale and we were all feeling pretty anxious – and tried to make ourselves comfortable in our bunks. Maman told Annette and me to go to sleep because then the time would pass faster and we wouldn’t feel so sick, which would be a serious risk once the ship got out into the Atlantic waves, which were going to be bigger than those in the Mediterranean. ‘When you wake up tomorrow morning, we’ll be well on our way,’ she promised.
Well, that turned out to be yet another one of those promises that didn’t come true. I opened my eyes in the grey light of the dawn, expecting to hear the thrum of the ship’s engines and feel the pitching and rolling of our progress, but there was an eerie silence. Papa wasn’t in the cabin, but he appeared a little later to tell us what was happening. He looked worried.
The ship hadn’t been given clearance to leave the port because some sort of military manoeuvres were taking place off the Strait of Gibraltar. That meant the ship would have had to sail further out into the Atlantic to avoid them and apparently the captain had neither the authorisation nor the fuel to do that. So we were stuck, and nobody knew how much longer it would be before the Esmeralda could sail.
We waited for two days and two nights, by which time my fingers were bleeding as I’d bitten the nails so much. And then the grim-looking official who’d noted down the expiry date of our doctor’s certificate came and rapped on the door of our cabin and told us we had to disembark. He had a list and he put a line through each one of our names with his pencil in a very definite way, which made me feel as if our lives were being crossed out. Then he told us to bring our belongings and report to the main deck where police were waiting to make sure all ineligible passengers got off the ship to make way for those who did have all their papers in order. We sat in stunned silence when he left, not moving.
We heard him walk along the narrow corridor and knock on the door of another cabin a bit further on. And we heard the wail of a woman and the sound of her begging him to let her stay on board and his voice very gruff and angry telling her to bring her belongings and report to the main deck before he had to call in the soldiers.
At that, Maman pulled herself together and wiped her eyes on her handkerchief. Then she stood up very tall and very straight, without saying a word, and began picking up our things. Annette and I followed her example, trying not to look at the expression on Papa’s face. It was utterly wretched.
Fortunately, Madame Bénatar had not yet found new tenants for the house on the Boulevard des Oiseaux, so we could move back in.
At least Nina will be pleased to see us, even if it does mean having to share the bicycle and the library card with me again.
Zoe – 2010
The quilt they’re making at the refugee centre is progressing far faster than the much smaller one I’ve been working on at home. So many of the women have contributed a block that it’s morphed into a sizeable piece of handmade art that will cover at least half of the longest wall of the makeshift building once we’ve assembled it. And, with Kate’s help, the children have made a whole meadow of bright felt flowers that will be added as embellishments between the blocks. We started laying it out this morning, spreading clean sheets on the floor as we don’t have a table big enough to accommodate the whole thing.
Each woman knelt to place her block within the outline that Kate had roughly marked out with strips of binding. Every individual square is unique, lovingly pieced together to tell one person’s story. Geometric Log Cabin, Bear Paw and Friendship Star blocks are interspersed with free-form designs, and motifs of exotic birds and animals in needle-turn appliqué. Plain sashing strips will frame each one, and the children’s flowers will be scattered among them, drawing the eye through the quilt so the viewer reads the individual stories represented there and the piece of history that they tell as a whole.