Maybe I'm unlucky. I was thirty at the time of my divorce. There were no children to be dealt with, thank God. But my husband was being a prick about the details. The thing was getting me down so much I decided to just walk away from it. One morning I packed a sleeping bag and a few clothes into a rucksack. I brought my passport and my bankcard - the money in the account was my own from a part time job. I left everything and went travelling.
I went back to Spain first. Before him I'd worked there as an au pair. My Spanish had faded a small bit but it was still okay. Nearly the only thing I can say about myself is that I'm good at languages. In Portugal the chance came my way to get a ride on a ship heading for South America.
That was the most awful experience of my life. I was so sick I amn't even sure how long it went on. I stayed nearly all the time under some iron steps wearing my sleeping bag. I couldn't get much food in. When we came into a port dropping some cargo I insisted on getting off. Glad as he was to get rid of me my captain was very uneasy. He was saying something like: 'This is nothing legal'. I kept repeating 'must' - I hadn't learned much Portuguese.
I tottered down the wooden steps. A sailor walked after me carrying my bag. Once I was standing on the quay he dropped the rucksack next to me and trotted back on. I supposed that people would be coming out to question me. I sat down on the black knob the ship was tethered to.
Those on the ship had forgotten about me already. On land nothing at all was stirring. The two bundles of cargo the ship had dropped were waiting away like me. Two sailors came down the steps. I had to stand up so they could free the ship's huge lasso.
"What must I do?" I asked in Spanish. One man muttered that he didn't know. They went to release the rope at the back end of the ship. Then they returned and trotted up the steps together. When these steps were being drawn on board the captain came to the side. He made a face to see me still there. I stayed watching them until the ship roared away from the quayside. I didn't know what port in what country this was.
And I waited. I practised sentences I figured I'd be needing. I had my thumb in the pages of my passport. It wasn't easy know which side I should be keeping a lookout on. There was a big long partition before me blocking my view. I could see only one building. It was some distance away to the left. It looked only like a warehouse. There was no sign of something like an office or a checkpoint. It was cold and grey here. And still no one was coming.
I got my bag up and came forward. The partition was made of sheets of hardboard nailed onto something. It was a few metres high and ran all the way along in both directions. It was painted white. This bit of harbour was completely closed off. I could see no door but there had to be some way of getting through. I turned right and began to walk alongside it. I was weak as a sop and I had that bag to carry.
What I found was a break between two sheets of the partition. The opening was just wide enough to squeeze through. I pushed my rucksack through the gap before me. Then, still with my passport in my hand, I high-stepped in after it. I got a nice shock. I was standing all on my own-i-o in an empty site. There was gravel on the ground with weeds and patches of grass growing up through it. Thirty metres away there were buildings and a street.
I didn't move a step for the next couple of minutes. I'd entered their country illegally, for christ's sake. I knew from films that breaking the law in these kind of places is a really bad idea. Should I go back and carry on waiting? God knows when someone would turn up there and I was dying. They'd have to realise that it wasn't my fault. I wasn't going to be doing any skulking around. As soon as I found some kind of an official I'd make myself known to him and explain everything. I got myself into the straps of the bag and I advanced on the street.
When I got near to those first houses I half-wondered was the city abandoned. The buildings were a few storeys high, brown and old. There wasn't a sound or a sign of life around. It looked like no one had been near them for years. It was very early morning. The appearance of the place didn't improve a pile as I walked on. The streets were quite narrow. And the houses continued to be these big brown things darkening everything.
I was watching out for but not seeing a poster or something. I didn't know yet if the language here was Portuguese, Spanish or something else. I didn't want to start a riot the first time I opened my mouth. I began meeting people on the footpath. Apart from not banging into me they took no notice of my presence. I suppose I should have been glad they weren't throwing down their bags and running away. I considered tossing out questions to them as I passed: 'Is it Spanish ye speak here? What's the name of this port? What country is this?' I held my tongue, of course. This was nothing like the gay South America I had heard about. It was all grey, cold and unhappy.
I came into a little square with a small green and some benches. I sat down and rested until later in the morning. It was there I met a policeman. At least that's what I was thinking his uniform signified as I walked towards him- he didn't have a satchel of letters or a yard brush.
"Excuse me... would I be able to ask you... for some information?" The point of this pointless question was to make sure this was Spanishland. He didn't answer a word. He just looked at me. Anyway I knew I was still alive. "You see... I have just arrived here... with the boat." I paused again, sure that now he would either say something or pull out a gun. But there was no change. He looked like he was waiting. The man was such a poker player I hadn't even answered the language question. "I needa... I thinka... Like I say I've just arrived. So I'll be needing some of yeer currency. Would there be a bank nearby?" I surprised myself with this sudden fluency. The man half-turned and his arm floated up. He was pointing to one street going out of the square. "There? down there?"
"The street after that one, Miss. On the right." He had intelligent fingers like a mime-artist. Hearing the Spanish coming out of him I almost went yipee-yi-o! But was he only speaking it to oblige a really stupid foreigner? He had turned to walk away.
"Would there be an office for tourists somewhere around?" I was smiling at the pole of his head. He didn't stop or look around as he answered:
"I don't know, Miss." At least I got a compliment for being young looking.
"Well thanks anyway very much and goodbye now." If he'd stood for me I'd have held gabbling away at him. My Spanish was rattling out like in its heyday.
I must have walked right past the place he meant. I was thinking about different things. When I did come across a bank it was on the left. The writing in the windows was Spanish. I went in. I still had a lot of Portuguese and Spanish money left over. I wanted to get only the value of that in the local stuff. I'd already decided to lose no time in this misery hole. If the rest of the country was along the same lines I'd try and whizz through to someplace interesting.
The girl at the exchange counter was not unfriendly. Anyway I was able to chat with her while she was taking care of my transactions. She click-clicked when I mentioned my hell on the high seas. I hoped she'd ask how I got into Whateveria but like the police/ traffic-man she wasn't curious. I couldn't think up of a cute way of getting her to say the name of the country. I did have one bit of luck: she wondered did I need a place to stay and then told me a relative of hers kept rooms for strangers. She tore off a corner of paper and wrote down the address for me.
"Would someone be there now?" I made a face as if expecting a slap.
"Yes, all the time," the girl smiled.
"And do ye have taxis in this town?" I opened my eyes wide.
"Try down in the Market square." She was pointing left.
Five minutes later I was settling myself and my bag on the back seat of a car. We were on the move. This city was like a small ugly old man. It was all made up of tight little streets shut in by brown four-storey buildings. I was building up my courage to ask the driver something. Sure it wouldn't be so bad to appear a fool in front of someone who'd never ever see me again. The question I had cooked up was: 'Tell me what's the right way to pronounce the name of this country?' But as I leaned forward and opened my mouth I fainted. It was just like a plug had been pulled out.
"Alright, Miss?" The car was stopped. The driver was looking back at me.
"Yes." I wiped my mouth. I tried to see out a window. "Did we...?"
"We have arrived," he was saying. I felt slow and stupid:
"How much do you... need?" I didn't catch his answer. I fished out the envelope of money the girl had given me. I hadn't even thought to look at it. Of course- the name of the country is written on bank notes! I held the envelope out to the driver: "I don't know them." He took only one note. He pawed some change out of his pocket:
"Thank you."
"Thank you," I said as well. I got the door open and stood out dragging my bag after me. The driver reached across to shut the door himself. "Goodbye," I called.
"Well thanks anyway very much and goodbye now," he said back. I stared after him as he drove away.
I got the money out of the envelope and examined it. There was no mention of a country or a government. There was no writing at all on the stuff- not even a name for the currency itself. Just numbers and pictures of nineteenth century guys with sideburns. The coins felt like something from a child's game. I looked up at the strip of gloomy sky. What kind of a place was I after finding?
I got out the jot of paper the bank girl had given me. The house nearest to where I was dropped seemed to be the one alright. It didn't have a sign. I lifted my bag up the few steps. I banged the doorknocker. The door was painted black. Left from the steps there was a bay window. I caught some movement at the near edge of the curtains. Trying hard to look sane and wealthy I watched the door. I was most afraid I might faint again. I went up on the balls of my feet a couple of times. I gave the knocker another belt.
At long last they came. The door was opened partly and a woman placed herself solidly in the gap. She was around sixty and wearing glasses: "Yes?" It didn't sound terribly friendly. I rolled out my prepared sentences:
"Good day. I have just arrived here. I was in the bank. I met your relative. She said you have rooms." I held the bit of paper out to her. She took it from me and looked it over very slowly. Then she made a pellet of it and put it in her cardigan pocket. Someone back behind her said something. After a pause she said:
"Are you a North American?"
"No no, I amn't." I shook my head.
"English?"
"Eh... yes." She looked out past me and mused for a while. I was doing a bit of musing of my own: this woman and the voice of her conscience back there were a small bit creepy. Could I say a quick 'thanks anyway' and just leave? I had passed her examination however. She slowly opened the door wider.
"Walk in, please." She gave a perfectly flat smile. A man of around the same age was standing down the hallway. I lifted up my rucksack and stepped over the threshold. I wasn't any less uneasy about them but I was simply too tired. "You see Mr Vallezo?" the woman said as she slowly walked the door shut behind me. The man was standing next to an open door on the left. The room of the bay window. I smiled at him. Without even a nod he turned towards the room he had come out of. The woman was at my side: "How long are you going to stay, Miss?"
"Well, two nights first. Then..." I let it hang and made a gesture.
"She doesn't know how long she wants to stay," the woman announced. Slow as a funeral the man had just gone inside the room. I heard his voice:
"She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know where she's going." I felt it jolt inside me. I don't know why I didn't run out of the place.
The woman's office was a table at the bottom of the stairs. She said the room she had for me was at the very top of the house. When I asked if I could see it first she looked at me as if this was a new idea and a very strange one: "It's an ordinary room, Miss," she said seriously. How bad could it be? I only wanted a bed. It sounded cheap.
"Okay," I shrugged. I had to show my passport. I was a bit red-faced over saying I was English. But she didn't pick up on that at all. Letter by awkward and square-shaped letter she printed my name in her copybook. I had to make my signature twice. When all was done she put my passport in a wooden box which she locked. That gave me a fair suck. But I supposed it was the way here.
I felt grand going up the stairs. I don't know where I was getting the energy from at this stage. I needed to eat something. The room was in the loft. In the half of it where you could stand upright there was a bed, a wardrobe and a sink. Seemingly the nearest toilet and shower were three storeys down. I left my bag on the bed and went back down to get food.
There was a dingy little shop just across the road. I got bananas, bread, cheese and milk. Over this milk I had a head-knocking session with the old man at the counter:
"Is this milk sterilised?" Blank. "Is this milk, you know- sterilised?"
"It is good milk."
"Of course course," I grinned nervously. "But is it, you know- first made very hot and then made cold again?" Blank. "I do not have a refrigerator in my room at the hotel. Will this milk stay good without being, you know- cold?" I accompanied each word with big round gestures.
"It is good milk."
Back at my new sweet home I had a sorry meal with the ingredients I had brought. I sat on the bed with the food on my lap. I chewed the bread without much desire. There was plenty left over for the next day's breakfast. The plan was for me to go out again in the afternoon and have a good solid meal. I lay back on the bed to rest.
This was a bit of a mess, wasn't it? I didn't know what damn country this was and I was probably in it illegally. They didn't seem to be very pushed about the integrity of their borders. If I did get in trouble what was the worst they could do? Probably just kick me out. Well, so long as they didn't deport me all the way home- yippee. But where the hell was this? I was on the right hand side of South America and they spoke Spanish. That meant I had to be in Argentina... Paraguay... wasn't there another one? Was there a part of Brazil Spanish-speaking? What confused me most was that grey sky.
I took more than a nap. I slept through the rest of the day. Sometime in the evening I held my eyes open long enough to get my shoes off and to cover myself. Then I slept on until early the next morning. After waking I lay there for a while thinking what a funny old world it was. I ate two bananas one on top of the other.
I got up and went out for a shower. Going down and coming back up I saw no sign of there being other guests. I had used all my milk the day before. I had to wet my breakfast with tap water. After I'd finished the food I emptied my rucksack onto the floor. Most of the clothes were mangy dirty. I had to put on my work clothes: a navy boiler suit, grey farmer socks and brown boots. When I'd packed them I'd imagined myself fruit-picking somewhere.
One thing was certain- I was getting out of this town the next morning. Whatever needed to be done here would have to be done before evening. I looked at the mound on the floor. It'd be handy to have some clothes clean. Mr and Mrs Slow motion weren't likely to be much help. If I got powder couldn't I handwash the things myself? I could hang them near the window and they'd be fairly dry by morning. I pushed up the skylight window. I put out my head and tried to see around. The houses across the way were as high as my one. The day looked like it might be a bit nicer.
I figured it was still too early for any place to be open. So I dawdled around the room awhile. I experimented with wearing my bumbag inside the boiler suit. But it was pinching me and I decided finally to leave it at home altogether. I transferred the money to my pocket and hid the pouch itself inside the pillowslip. There was a full-length mirror on the wall just outside my door. I was able to watch myself locking up. Frankenstina. I never care what way I look anyway.
Down below I didn't see either one of the blank faces. Still I acted as if I knew for sure they were spying on me. There was an official type letter lying on the mat. I tried to read the address as I was opening the door across it. The word at the bottom looked like 'Memdorp'.
I found a change in the people from the previous day: when I had been dying on my feet and would have liked some attention they hadn't noticed me; this morning I was getting big looks from nearly everyone. I came past a gang of awful urchins playing inside a skip. They climbed out and started following me.
"He's a bottle," said one deep voice.
"He! That's a woman, you arse."
"He's a female bottle so." A chorus of cackling.
"She- he isn't a bottle anyway." The voice of the second brat again. "Look at the socks." I crossed the road and walked fast till I was away from them.
I went into a café to top up my breakfast. When I was sitting down at a table I saw that the waitress of the place was looking at me as if I was a car crash. She was a fat young girl with glasses. She went through a little silent film performance. Then she came part of the way over, stood and goggled.
"Excuse me," I said with my jaw tensed. "Do you work here, by any chance?"
"Eh... yes." Suddenly her manner flipped over: "Yes! I do of course, yes! What... what would you like?" She kept fluttering her fingers before her mouth. I gave my order coldly. Back at the counter she had some big story about me for the coffee machine guy. He was gawking across without a care for anyone's feelings. I couldn't eat and get out of the place fast enough.
It was ten past eleven when I came back onto the street. I could afford to stroll around for another hour, I figured. It'd be handy to find the train station and have a look in there. It was probably beyond optimism that I might find out where I was and where I could get to. I might at least get the time of a train leaving early the next morning for somewhere. Then I needed to find a shop that sold washing powder and get back to the room. In the afternoon I'd be heading out again to get a dinner and probably buy a ticket. It didn't matter what I did for the rest of the evening after that.
I couldn't find the train station. I walked on through more narrow little streets under more huge houses. There were loads of cross streets and every so often a small square. Of course I should have collared one of the natives and just asked. But with the mood I was in and the looks I was getting I wouldn't style them. However I wasn't finding anything this way. I was more in danger of getting lost. I stopped and gave up.
I saw something. There was a side street going right from where I was standing. Halfway down it was blocked off by a wall. This wall was built right against the houses on either side. It went up as high as the eaves. That looked very strange. The slate roofs above seemed to continue on past it normally. It was a pale grey colour while the houses were the usual dirty brown. It looked like it had been shoved in there.
I was intrigued enough to waste another bit of time. I wanted to work my way around to the other side of it. I walked on to the next right turn. There was another wall, exactly the same, down there. I walked on again. In the next street there was the same wall again. It did look like the same wall was breaking through the houses and continuing on. I turned into this street and walked down to give the wall a closer look.
The base of it was set partly on the road, partly up on the footpaths. They hadn't left a crack for a spider to get through. On one side it was plainly cutting off part of a house. The windows of rooms that seemed occupied were only centimetres away from it. The grey blocks making it weren't fresh but, compared to the street, it was very recent. There was no graffiti. I could see broken glass sown all along the top of it. There were bushes of thorny wire going up onto the roofs on either side. How long did these walls go on for? Was this Memdorp some kind of divided city like Berlin?
I was standing three metres back from the wall. To my left two children were standing on the footpath looking at me. They were close enough to hold hands if they had wanted. They were just about old enough to be going to school. I forced a smile, pointed to the wall and said: "What's that?" Why had I bothered? They continued to stare as if waiting for me to die. The older one, a girl, slowly leaned in to her friend. Never taking an eye off me she cupped a hand before his ear. I took a step towards them wanting to say something cross. You'd swear I'd had a pot of boiling water in my hands- both children whirled around and ran at the house door just behind them. They hammered it with their little fists.
"Ma! Ma!" the girl cried. "There's a bottle, Ma! There's a bottle after us! There's a bottle! There's a bottle!"
"Boggle! boggle!" the little boy screamed. I walked away back up the street. Their piercing noise stopped after I'd gone a few steps. Whether that was from me leaving or Ma letting them into the house I didn't see. Back at the beginning of the street I stopped and considered my next move. I needed to get out of this place. This was some kind of divided city. I was probably on the wrong side. I couldn't find a train station. Who would I ask for help?
A police van braked in the street next to me. I thought that was funny. The side door rasped back and a large man in dark uniform swung himself out. He was looking straight at me. The smile went off my face. Why hadn't I told my story straight up to that first policeman? This guy's uniform was different though, more like a soldier's.
He barked a word I didn't catch. Instead of a gun there was an orange canister on his hip. There was a short length of hose rolled around it. He stepped towards me. His hand was holding what looked like a folded up sheet of plastic. He paused just before the footpath and gave that same order. I didn't know this word. I tried to think of what I would say: 'I was just going to- I'm sorry- I didn't know-' His face was terrifying. I backed back against the wall of a house.
He got angry at that. He hopped up on the footpath and shouted his word. There were two policemen lolling in the front seats of the van. People all around had stopped to watch. He shouted that bloody word again. I didn't know what to do. I hoped he was only telling me to go away. I moved out from the wall again. He sprang at me with his arm raised high. The thing in his hand was swishing down towards my face. I had no time to duck or even yelp. I shut my eyes.
I only felt a gentle slap. There was something slimy touching me. Gasping I opened my eyes. Something was covering me. "What are ye doing?" I whimpered in English. He had pulled a clear plastic sack down over me. I was just noticing that it went to below my knees when he tightened the drawstring at the neck of it. I had to fall back on my bum. "What are you doing? Let me go, you bastard!" I shouted in Spanish. My voice sounded strange. The plastic was strong.
My attacker was unrolling the length of rubber hose from his hip. The beginning of it was plugged into his orange canister. Holding the nozzle with two fingers he crouched down closer to me. "What the fuck is that? What are you doing? Are you crazy, man?" I tried to kick but the drawstring was tying my legs together. He held me by the ankles. He began feeding the tube into the bag with me. I couldn't get my hands down to push it out again. He nudged it up as far as my knees. "Leave me alone! Stop! stop! stop!" The two brats had appeared behind his shoulder. The girl pointed at my face and seemed to ask something. The man was twisting a black knob on the side of the canister. Through the grey plastic his face didn't look human.
My teeth were growing. They became so large I had to open my mouth. I opened it wide as it'd go. Still they were too big. When the bone of my head touched the stone of the footpath I heard 'dup'. There was writing on a brick before my eyes. It was upside down for me. I made out the letters b-u-r-c-o. There were other words but I couldn't see them. I knew 'burco' wasn't all of a word. While I was thinking that much the b and the o disappeared. Now only three letters. u and c went. r