The Invisible Crowd

So, I make him coffee in red Malteser mug and tell him to sit so I can start trimming, and we talk. Actually, it is me doing most talking at first. I try to ask him what he’s been doing, where he’s from, stuff like that, but he’s not saying much, just asking me more questions back. And I like talking, you know, so I keep going, but after some time I say to him, ‘Hey, it’s your turn now!’ But he just laugh and say oh, long story, he’s just happy he made it here, then ask more about me. And I get that. I mean, lot of guys in warehouse have shit lives before and not like to talk about past too much, especially if they don’t know you yet. So I just tell him about other guys and about work for Uncle and living in London. And for some reason I am already feeling easy with him, like, you know, he listens, and not everyone does that, right? And he’s sounding interested, he’s making jokes even… and then it just slips out. That I like guys.

I stop. I’m like, oh shit, shit shit shit, I kept that secret for so long, and now I just told to some new guy I don’t even know, who probably hates gays, or is gonna tell. I feel super-nervous, and my hands start shaking, I’m thinking I’m gonna accidentally stick scissors in his scalp. I mean, you know, he seem nice enough, but most straight African guys in warehouse don’t like gays from what I hear – but I am still hoping he will say, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gay as well!!!!’ Haha. Actually he just say ‘okay’, you know, just ‘okay!’, like it’s just one small thing about me, like my favourite colour, like he is totally cool with it. So that was big, big relief.

I ask him, look, can you do me a favour – don’t say nothing? He say no problem, he can keep secrets. Then, still looking away from me, cos I’m cutting his hair, he say his best friend from back home is like me, and he keep that secret too, because back home you can get put in prison. He tell me how that friend, Gebre, is closer to him than his own brother, how his parents basically adopted him as kid, after his father got disappeared. I’m like: ‘Disappeared?’ He explain how before independence Ethiopians would just come and take Eritreans from where they working, or living, no warning, then they never see again, no explain, nothing. He is telling me he feeling guilty now, meeting me, because he never tried to talk to his friend about it. I’m like, ‘You mean you could not talk about his father?’ And he say no – that is bad memory, but occasionally they talk about that – no, he mean he never talk to his friend about him being gay. Then he sort of burst out how he wish he could change that now, and also introduce his friend to me. I’m like, ‘Sure! Bring him right over! And I hope he looks like you!’ (I not really say that last bit.)

Then I ask him, ‘How about you, you married?’ And he shake his head, say no, but not look at me, just start talking about something different. He never ever talk to me about any wife or girlfriend, after that, even when we good friends – always keep private about that stuff. But also he don’t say nothing to other guys in warehouse about me, not whole time we living there. He is solid guy, Professor Jojo.

At first, other guys try testing him. Make him do bins and tell him he’s got to shower last in queue, all that. I’m thinking, How is he gonna deal with that, cos he’s quiet kind of guy, and mostly guys at top of pile are alpha guys, you know – maybe they push him around. But no, he stay cool, he don’t get intimidated. He even make people start to like him, just from small things, like buying pack of cookies, offering around.

So, Uncle tell me I gonna be Professor’s mentor, you know, like, person who’s gonna show him around for work and stuff. I remember first day we get on bus together, and he’s like, amazed that seats are so nice! Stroking his like he got new puppy! I’m like, okay, so today we go to bank where all guys working there sniff coke in toilets, then later we go to gym where guys pump truckloads of iron and grunt like pigs, then tomorrow we have solicitor’s company where they work all hours in clock, and PR company with brainstorming area like pre-school art room for kids who need to roll on beanbags and draw with crayons. He think I’m just being funny. Later he realize it’s all totally true.

So, I show him main sights as bus goes into City, like tower that’s named after a cucumber but looks like massive dildo, and Bank of England that looks like palace. We have fun, pointing out people wearing weird clothes, and just chatting. And he’s good to work with too. Doesn’t mess about, like me, but picks everything up fast, like I only ever have to explain one time, then he got it.

So one morning, after one week or two maybe, I remember one guy left newspaper on his seat on bus and Professor pick it up. Headline is something like ‘Rapist asylum seeker caught with pants down taking a shit on a solid gold toilet studded with diamonds that he bought for his fifty-bedroom castle in Chelsea after selling cocaine to hardworking British businessman who believed they were just buying expensive cornflour’, and he rips it out and puts in his pocket, then carries on reading. I’m like: ‘Wait, what are you doing?!’

He goes: ‘Collecting.’

I’m like: ‘Why?’

He goes: ‘This newspaper is always talking about immigrants and how dangerous they are. Like we are about to take over.’

I’m like: ‘You’re twisted, reading that.’

He just grins. He goes: ‘I just want to know how British people think of people like us. Some of them, anyway. Lots, actually. I think this is the biggest selling paper.’

I’m like: ‘So, you wanna walk around thinking how everyone hates you? I still don’t get it.’

He goes: ‘Look, some people collect stamps, I collect newspapers, okay? It’s normal!’ He’s a geek, okay, but I still not realize how much, until we find out about library.

Oh yeah, so that’s how he got name, Professor. He start bringing library books back to read. Of course, guys start laughing at him. I remember Alfonso ask him one time: ‘How come you get library pass anyway if you’re illegal?’ And he just say he has ways. We know he must be nicking books and we tell him: ‘Hey, if you wanna steal shit, why not get us drugs or alcohol or something useful? DVDs at least! Do you think you gonna win Nobel Prize from reading all these books?’ He says it’s not stealing, he’s bringing books back to library after, and he likes to read, he studied literature at university. University! Turns out he wrote big essay on newspapers in his country. Boris was first one to start calling him Professor, and it stuck – then I added Jojo, so he wouldn’t sound too smart. He used to read so much different stuff, like history books, story books, even dictionary – like, not just to learn English better, but reading meanings of words for fun. For fun! Who does that?

Oh, other thing about Professor I got to tell you is cooking. Haha, especially one meal! Okay, so normally in that warehouse, nobody cooks. Not properly. If we got enough money, we eat McDonald’s cos it’s easy and tastes good and you feel nice and full after. If we got less money, or wanna be more healthy, we eat like soup, or spaghetti hoops, or pasta and sauce or eggs on toast, that kind of shit. Basically, nobody cooks cos we’re guys, and we’re too tired from work, and all we got to cook in that place is microwave and two hotplates anyway. But when it came near to Christmas… okay, from like October – you know how in UK shop windows get stuffed way early with gifts, flashing lights, snowflakes, discount signs, and everybody is walking around with big fat shopping bags, cos all British people have credit cards – Professor read in one newspaper that average British person spend £200 on presents! What was I saying? Oh, yeah, so when it came near to Christmas, Professor ask me what we do in warehouse. Like, for celebrations. Especially for eating.

I tell him I guess we’ll do like year before: put up tinsel and some pound shop lights, then on Christmas Day get drunk and eat chips and cheese and watch TV. And then on 27th when there is discount everywhere, last year I buy frozen UK Christmas food like mince pies and turkey and eat later. But basically there’s no big meal or anything, we all eat our own stuff like normal.

But Professor say to me: ‘How about we have Christmas feast all together?’

I’m like: ‘Well, if you get the food and cook then maybe the guys will go for it!’

He goes: ‘Okay, I can try if people chip in some money.’ He tell me back in his country, only women cook, but he thinking it cannot be that hard – he seen male chefs cooking on TV and he want to learn himself now he is here. And also he say Christmas in his country is not even in December, so he wants to try British one.

I’m like: ‘What? Christmas not in December? Are you serious?’

He goes: ‘It’s Orthodox Christmas.’ Always happens on seven of January. And for dinner they eat roasted goat, and panettone, you know? – it’s like Italian bread thing that is all light and soft and taste of lemons – and bowls of popcorn, and super-strong coffee, beans roasted fresh that day.

I’m like: ‘Mmm, sounds nice! Wanna make it for me?’

And he say okay, he will try to make one of each kind of dinner, one for British Christmas and one for Eritrea Christmas, if he can get others to chip in money. I’m thinking the guys will just laugh at him, but they pretty much all up for it! They each give him, like, four quid or something.

So, on Christmas Day we all get up to eat toast for breakfast, then sit around on cushions and mattresses and get drunk, smoke, start to watch stuff on morning TV, like It’s a Wonderful Life, and some film about snowman. Professor is sitting at table, chopping parsnips and potatoes – he got extra paper plates and cutlery so we can all eat at same time, and they are towered up on table next to him, all ready, and he’s got stuffing and cranberry sauce, and we’re all thinking, Yeahhhh, feast time soon, and getting hungry, you know…

And then there’s this BANG! Like proper explosion. Like bomb. And everyone’s like, What the fuck? Is this terrorist attack? Some guys scream, and we all look around, and Professor Jojo has fallen on floor on his back, and there’s flames coming out of microwave, like, big flames! Oh my God, such a stink, of like burning plastic, and raw meat splattered everywhere like some crazy baby thrown its purée around… I grab fire blanket, and we throw on water and put out fire, then we asking if Professor is okay, and what happen? He gets up slowly and says he’s okay, but he look shocked.

So I say to him again, like: ‘What happen?’

And he goes: ‘I don’t know, I just put chicken in to cook…’

And then Histoire is like: ‘Ow long for?’

And he goes: ‘Just one hour!’

And Histoire’s like: ‘Fucking idiot, look what you ’av done,’ – all angry. But I’m thinking, oh my God – putting chicken in microwave for one hour!!! Like, of course it’s gonna explode, and maybe blow up whole building, and this guy probably never even used microwave before in his whole life, and it is kind of amazing all of us not covered in chicken guts and on fire ourselves, this is like most hilarious thing ever happen in warehouse, maybe even in my whole life, and I start laughing and laughing, like I’m crying, and other guys all start laughing too, even Histoire, and even Professor Jojo. We tell him don’t worry, we don’t need no microwave, we can live on McDonald’s for a while! And Uncle will probably buy us new one anyway if we say it broke. Plus we can still eat rest of Christmas food, like stuffing and potatoes – by some miracle most of it is not covered in raw chicken. And actually it taste not bad. We give Professor big round of applause, then eat in front of Queen doing her boring speech, then fill up on mince pies, and life seems pretty good. For a day.

So, when Eritrea Christmas come around, Professor is still gonna go ahead with cooking special meal like they have back there, but he refuse to take money from guys this time round, even though we try to give to him – I think he’s feeling bad about explosion even though it was just mistake. He fry up sausages for us, and make popcorn in a pan and strong coffee, and he keep on saying sorry it is instant coffee, but we don’t care. He stew up apples with cinnamon to serve with sausages, and we all sit together again to eat – this is second time in two weeks, and I mean, most of guys in warehouse are bastards so far as I’m concern, and I never thought I’d be sitting to eat with them – but it did feel kind of nice, almost like family, just for couple of hours. Everyone does a big ‘cheers’ with drinks for chef.

But after, when Professor is washing up, I go to help him out, and he’s kind of quiet. I ask what’s wrong, and he says nothing, just thinking about family, what they’re doing, if they’ve had Christmas meal already. I can tell he’s homesick. All of us are, even if we hate our homeland, even if we never ever wanna go back. It’s still home, you know? So anyway, I just got phone as present from sisters (Uncle banned phones in there but I had mine hidden), so I offer Professor to call home on it if he wants, so he not have to go out to phone box to speak to his sister like usual. He’s super-grateful.

So he takes it to corridor, and when I go to take rubbish out, I hear him talking. It’s not like I expected, a Happy Christmas everyone! type of conversation – he saying he promise he’ll send money soon. After, I ask if everything’s okay. He tell me things are hard for his sister, cos she could get arrested any time, because of him. I’m like, woah, you like gangsta or something? And he’s like, no, it’s just he wrote article saying everyone shouldn’t all have to do military service their whole life, and because of that, they put him in jail, and when he escaped, they came to his house and threaten his sister and took all his shit. I’m like, oh. That is bad. And then he say his sister got a little daughter and no husband, and she’s got to look after their brother who got his legs blown off, and grandmother who can’t remember what she did ten minutes ago, and they all rely on him for money cos their parents are dead, and now government is after them for extra tax money, just cos he left! He got all worked up talking about it, then suddenly he stop and ask if we can talk about something else. So we did. But I remember it, and I had proper respect for Professor after that. Like, my life was lush compared to his, but he never complain like me, he just tell me about it that one time, and then just cos I ask about it. I reckon if I was him, with all that going on, I would be in some kind of big black depression, you know, drinking vodka with Russian guys every night and crying like baby.

So anyway, yeah, few months in, we good friends, and one day I look at Professor Jojo coming out of shower, and remember day one when he’s stick thin and stinking, and I’m thinking, Wow, you got muscles now! I don’t say nothing, but I’m like: I knew you would be hot. And one night soon after that, Alfonso (who thinks he’s Leonardo DiCaprio), he take Professor out to pull women. But Professor never come back after and go on about how he got laid, even though I know the girls went mad for him, cos Udaze said. He just said it was okay, but he can’t believe how one drink in pub cost more than ten cans from supermarket, and he not get how people expect you to buy rounds for everybody, so that was last time he doing that. I told him he don’t need to meet no girls in pub anyway, right, he’s already married – to books!

Actually, one day I feel bored and I start looking into one of his books, and thinking, hmm, like maybe I need to make more effort with education, all that shit. But a few pages of English and my head hurt! So I put it down, switch on TV. I’m more, like, people kind of guy. For me life is for living.

And then I’m like: wait, but if life is for living, how am I still here in this warehouse after six months? I tell myself, okay Emil, you gonna focus now. You need get out of here and live in proper apartment or house or something, so you can come out to people you living with, like this whole London thing supposed to be about. No way you can save enough money or meet new people with this shit pay.

So, that night I take all my savings and I’m like, right this is it, I don’t have any family to support like Professor, so I’m gonna take risk: I’m gonna go to G.A.Y. – you know, like biggest gay club in town – and I’m gonna party like it’s last night on earth and meet people who got better places to live and can help make my life different, somehow. I mean, it’s big gamble, I know. But I’m like, fuck it, I’m gonna do this one big night, for me, just how I want it, this one time, and it’s gonna be amazing. So I go there, and oh my God. SO much fun. I dance like crazy, I pull a couple of guys and I go back with one of them to his flat and, wow, I’m like, life is good right now, even if it’s shit again tomorrow.

But it actually works out! So, not too long after, one of my new friends tell me he play in this band and that’s how I got to join... actually, I probably would not even be doing that if Professor Jojo hadn’t come along. Let me explain.

Back in Romania I used to play violin. Like all time when I was kid, and then I play in wedding band and earn my living for some time – it’s not much money, but I loved it. So I brought violin to UK, but I never play it. But then one day in warehouse when everyone’s out and it’s just me and Professor Jojo, he finds violin at back of big cupboard, and ask about it. I told him it’s mine but I not play any more. He ask me please to play for him, and I say no, no, but he keep pressing. And I’m like, okay, fine, so I pick it up, thinking I can just scratch some tune and put it back. But then I play this song my grandmother teach me, and it is first time touching violin since I left my country, and since I saw her – and oh my God, this feeling just hit me. I’m not expecting it, you know? And fat stupid tears just start falling out of my eyes, like river, so fast I cannot even play, and I’m like, what is wrong with me! I put violin away, and I cannot believe I’m crying in front of another guy, but Professor tell me wait, don’t stop, play more, and I tell him no, but I end up admit to him about my grandmother and how she disowned me when I came out to her, and how she die a year later, and how I feel so bad about letting her down. So bad, like maybe it was me breaking her heart and killing her, and how that was when I decide to get out of my country and come to UK.

Professor just listen. Then he tell me his mother used to sing, and he and his sister played an instrument called car or something like that, and he really miss music from home. He say, if I have violin here and I can play, I should do it, and keep my culture alive inside of me. He say my grandmother would want me to. But I tell him no no no – you know, I’m not into it any more.

But when I find out one of my new friends has got band that’s like Eastern European folk but with urban twist, it sounded cool, and I remember what Professor said, so I ask if I can try out, just jamming with them one time, and now I play with them regularly! It’s, like, music you go crazy for, and we perform wearing wigs and traditional dresses. It’s hilarious. I love it.

So, anyway it was one of my friends from the band who offer me place to live in house after the warehouse got raided – like, proper house in Brixton that look on outside like kind of house with normal family living there, except inside there’s six gays squatting. And then through another friend from that group I get proper job wrapping sandwiches for supermarket. Pay every week, better money – everything coming together. Best of all, I can stop pretending to be alpha guy – so I shave my hair at bottom and up one side, bleach the ends and get some piercing, and finally I can walk out on street and feel like me. Like the me I was supposed to be.

So anyway, I hope Professor’s not gonna get deported. How his chances looking like? And how about one more coffee? We had late gig last night.

Chapter 8: Yonas

MIGRANTS CLASH: FRENCH COPS USE TEAR GAS IN RUNNING BATTLES WITH HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS TRYING TO CLAMBER ON LORRIES BOUND FOR BRITAIN

‘Brother! Is it really you?’

The sound of Melat’s voice for the first time, after so long, made Yonas’s throat swell so that he couldn’t reply straight away, and he had to lean back against the phone box wall. Part of him had been convinced that he wouldn’t get through, that something terrible would have happened, that the police would have come, she’d have been beaten, worse…

‘Hey, are you still there?’ she asked.

‘Yes, yes!’ Yonas laughed, imagining her face in the contour of his reflection in the scratched Perspex window. ‘Sorry – I was just… Never mind. So, I made it to London! How are you all? I have been so worried – they haven’t come to intimidate you again, have they?’

‘Not the police, thank God, but the tax men came, demanding their two per cent. I fended them off this time, and obviously I am still here, but they kept asking me again where you were, kept telling me I must know, I must be getting money from you… they searched your room again and took everything they didn’t take last time. Of course I told them I didn’t know anything, I insisted I wasn’t getting anything from you, and said I feared you were dead, which was true – I even showed them what we had in our kitchen cupboards, just flour for injera and lentils, but they didn’t care, and if it wasn’t for Sheshy in his wheelchair, I think they’d have arrested me. But anyway, we’re okay. Now you – where have you been all this time? Are you with Auntie?’

‘No – I was about to say. That number you gave me did not work.’

‘What?’

‘I know. Every time I tried it said number is not in use. Can you ask if she has changed phone?’

‘Oh. I don’t know – the person who gave it to me moved away. I can ask around to see if somebody else knows but…’

‘Okay, thank you but do not worry yourself too much. I have found a place to live for now. And I can send you some money soon.’

‘Thank you, brother! We are really struggling. So how was the journey?’

‘After Libya? Long story. The boat was bad but the main thing is it didn’t sink. I had to pick vegetables in Italy for a while, and then I had to pretend to be a cabbage to get to France, and we got arrested there but—’

‘Arrested? Oh no – did you go to prison again? Are they looking for you?’

‘No no, do not worry, they did not keep us for long – some guys helped us to escape – it was easy,’ he lied. ‘When they got us to UK we had to work for them for some time to pay them back, so that’s why I haven’t called. But everything is fine now.’ As a little boy, when he used to sit with Melat under the mango tree in the garden doing homework and sharing secrets, he had assumed she would always be there to confide in, to dispense big-sisterly advice. Now it felt like he was the one who had to keep things from her, to protect her.

‘Oh brother, I am so glad,’ she said.

‘Why did I have to call you at Uncle Solomon’s?’ he asked. ‘Is your phone broken?’

‘Our line is cut off – we cannot pay our bills, even though I am braiding women’s hair at our house every spare hour God sends, and mending clothes and sewing for people. And getting hardly any sleep trying to keep the house clean and cooking, caring for Sheshy and Grandmother; even with Lemlem helping me, it is hard, I am always tired… Things are really difficult here, Yonas. It is not just the tax and bills, we have no money for meat or vegetables, and I don’t know how I am going to pay for Lemlem’s school fees next term, never mind the new shoes she needs – the old ones are hurting her feet and have holes in. She knows not to complain, but she keeps asking when you can fly us all over.’

Yonas laughed bitterly. ‘I would love, more than anything, to bring all of you here, but you need to tell the little one not to get her hopes up…’

‘I know, I know,’ Melat said. The sound cut off for a minute, but then her voice returned in a whisper. ‘Listen, I’m scared, Yonas. If the tax men come again, they won’t let me off so lightly. They kept telling me you know where he is, come on, admit it, you know where he is. They had guns and they kept putting their hands on them.’