Hidden Colours Read online

  Osman dragged Dawud to his feet and took him outside to await the ambulance. He pressed the boy into his rugged chest and held the sobbing child fast. Beside them, the heavy velvet-lined tarpaulin gaped open and Yusuf imagined Simeon’s soul passing through.

  The house band stuttered to a halt. “Ladies and gentleman–” Emir’s voice filled the tent. “This evening’s performance must now come to an end.” A cry of disappointment washed over them. Emir continued, soothing, jovial, apologetic. Old Sayid instructed the band to strike up a never-ending merry loop at odds with the dying boy, and the crowd dispersed.

  “I want my mother,” said Simeon in his native tongue, his pallor a sickly hue, his eyes glazed.

  The German woman knelt next to him, stroking his hair, talking to him all the while, though she didn’t understand his words nor he hers.

  “Be strong, Simeon,” said Yusuf.

  He willed Death to stay away. Just this once. As if prayers had ever worked before. Who had failed these boys? The country they had fled, their dead or absent parents, the country they had made their home, or the makeshift family that had come together around them like a car cobbled together from old parts? Would Silberling punish them for what happened tonight?

  The circus tent emptied, and the last remnants of magic of the night fled. One by one, the performers learned of Simeon’s plight. They gathered around him, a circle of love, while Aischa and the German woman tended to him. Eventually, in came Osman through the curtains, a sombre giant, his arms wrapped around Dawud. They led the ambulance crew to Simeon. The medics pierced the circle, stern faces dressed in red, the colour of death and danger. They moved aside the kneeling women and began work, calm and methodical, asking questions all the while, attempting to undo the damage Dawud had caused.

  The spectacle was over.

  Yusuf slipped away through the rain, past the waiting ambulance with its flashing light and the silhouette of Silberling behind the darkened glass of his car. He braced himself against the wind, pushed on past swaying trees to the tiny, lightless box he called home, and wept.

  Yusuf awoke naked in his bed. His costume lay in a ball on the cold floor beside him, still caked with Simeon’s blood.

  Simeon.

  He rolled out of bed, grabbing a threadbare towel for his hips and shower gel that smelt of Western men to him, as if certain scents indicated a higher civilisation.

  He was thankful for the meagre apartments provided to the immigrant circus by the German state. They curved in a semi-circle around the big top, more akin to battlements than a home. Last night, the apartments had rocked with the high winds, as if they were boats on the ocean. Erected as hastily as the circus tent, they had no foundations to speak of. A safe haven, but perhaps also a reminder of their precarious situation as immigrants. None of them had papers yet; their status could be rescinded at any time. Still, immigrants were a grateful sort of people. Who ran from the arms of untold horrors and demanded more than a hovel to recover?

  The block was comprised of little more than a series of interconnecting cubes arranged on one level beneath a canopy of trees. It had been stacked in three rows. Single occupants lived in the smallest cubes at the front of the building, with space for a bed, a chair and a light. Next came larger cubes for pairs: lovers, siblings or friends. Often the loneliness became so unbearable that even strangers decided to share a bed. The largest cubes comprised the rear of the building, reserved for families of three or more. Rarely did families survive the journey to Europe intact, and so the large units stood empty as a reminder of loss or as communal spaces to unwind, pray or dine together, as if they could erase the memories of the families left behind.

  Yusuf sighed as he trod wearily along the slim corridors, making out voices every now and then through the paltry wall divisions. Some doors he passed had been decorated with pictures or dried wreaths, others painted a bold colour in defiance of the rules.

  He washed and scrubbed himself clean in the communal showers, before rinsing his costume and wringing it out. Simeon’s blood disappeared down the drain, pink and diluted. Then he fastened the damp towel around his waist and hung his costume over the shower railing before padding to the far corner of the dwelling where Doris Kaun, the only German in residence, lived. Her door stood ajar, but he knocked anyway.

  “Herein.” She smiled gently, and put down her tea on the worktop.

  “You young men, so proud of your bodies that you forget to clothe yourselves. You should have seen me in my heyday.” She hugged him briefly. Her silver hair brushed his chin. “Sit. The kettle’s already on–I’ll make you some tea. You must still be in shock.”

  “How is Simeon? Have you heard?”

  The kettle whistled. “He’s not out of the woods yet, but he is young and you did well to apply pressure to the wound. The doctors think there is every chance he’ll live.”

  Yusuf slouched with relief, as if worry had pulled him taut. “And Dawud?”

  Doris poured out the boiling water onto a peppermint teabag and pushed the steaming mug towards him. Her voice cracked with age. “I vouched for him. I’ve emphasised the trauma in his past but his future here hangs in the balance.”

  It was Doris's job to help the refugees settle in, to be their listening ear. Talks with her had been instrumental in improving Yusuf’s grasp of German, and in helping the performers feel anchored to their new home. She coordinated their integration lessons in the German language and law and culture, provided information on voluntary initiatives such as Kreuzberger Himmel which had sprung up in response to the surge in refugees in the city, and offered a hand of friendship. In exchange for her efforts, Doris received food and board. Widowed, with fiercely liberal instincts and her children grown, the job suited her.

  The toilet flushed, and the bathroom tap sloshed. Yusuf spun in his chair.

  “Sorry, I should have said I have a visitor,” said Doris.

  Yusuf hadn’t even noticed she had poured out two cups of tea in addition to her own. The door opened and a woman entered the living room. He shuffled in his chair and rearranged his towel, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his state of undress. The woman tucked a strand of her long ginger hair behind her ear as she approached them in her clunky boots.

  He froze. “You.”

  Doris looked from one to the other. “Of course, you met each other last night. Yusuf, this is Ellie from the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung.”

  “Ellie Richter. Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand to shake his, unfazed by his nakedness.

  Heat rose to Yusuf’s cheeks as he grasped her hand in his. He frowned. “You’re a journalist?”

  Her eyes sparked with intelligence. “You’re an acrobat.”

  He smiled. “Thanks for yesterday. For calling the ambulance for Simeon, for staying with him.”

  “I hope he’s going to be okay,” said Ellie. She turned to Doris. “Maybe I won’t stay for the tea after all. There’s a lot going on right now for you all.”

  “If you’re sure?” said Doris.

  “Certain. Thank you.” Ellie swung her satchel over her shoulder and closed the door behind her.

  Yusuf raised his eyebrows. There was little point in speaking to journalists. Too often they already knew what they wanted to hear. “What’s she doing here?”

  “She’s doing a story on the circus. She wanted some background information, that’s all, and to speak to some of you.”

  A frisson of fear embedded itself in Yusuf’s belly. He’d learned over the years to ignore his instincts at his peril. Basking in attention during a performance made sense to him: he could control that environment. Nothing good, however, could come of increased media attention on refugees. The narratives they endured always came slicked in negativity. The best way to be happy in a new land was to fly under the radar. “That’s why she was there yesterday?”

  Doris nodded. “It’s not a great time for media attention, but who knows? Maybe some good will come of it. Bigger audienc
es, more understanding. Silberling’s ever ready to stick the boot in when once, he would have leapt to the circus’ defence. He’s a slippery eel, that one. I’m sure he’s realised the election will be here in the blink of an eye.”

  “Will he make things difficult for Dawud?”

  “I don’t know. The department is investigating. Simeon refused to talk to the police.” Doris placed a calloused palm on his hand.

  Yusuf’s sadness crashed over him like a wave. “Dawud needs us. They can’t send him back. He won’t make it. I can’t let that journalist stir up trouble.”

  “It’s going to be okay.” Doris reached out for him, pulling him into a hug, but Yusuf remained stiff, a husk that love couldn’t penetrate.

  Syria might just be a memory for him now, but his experiences had forever honed his senses. Yusuf could sense danger out on the streets of Berlin by the prickle on his skin, the guarded looks of strangers, and the way men bristled and women crossed the road. Try as he might to plant his roots in Berlin, it could never be home. Not while his kinked hair, brown skin and foreign accent marked him out as different. While the refugees performed on stage like monkeys to the script assigned to them.

  Monsters lurked beneath the veneer of progress in this city. Ghosts accompanied him when he passed old buildings. The crumbling stone and creaking wood in Berlin shuddered with the weight of the past, when millions of ordinary people had met a brutal end simply because they suddenly didn’t belong.

  And still, the world turned.

  Chapter 7

  Ellie pulled Doris's door shut, and listened to the muffled voices inside for a moment. Her heart skipped faster, remembering Yusuf’s athletic physique, the towel slung low on his hips. Hadn’t it been Yusuf she’d seen outside Berliner Dom, wearing his solitude like a comfortable old coat? How many times had she seen him perform at the circus, at great heights, without taking in his chiselled face, the sadness in his grey eyes?

  What a story had landed in her lap. She couldn’t be sure if her own affinity for the circus would help or hinder. Her parents lived a stone’s throw from Treptower Park and she knew this space like the back of her hand.

  On paper, the location for the immigrant circus couldn’t have been more perfect. She’d heard her father tell the land’s history many times. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this part of the city had been the home of an amusement park sponsored by the East German state. After reunification, the land fell into private hands, and was abandoned to the elements after its owner was caught smuggling a haul of cocaine into Germany in the masts of a Flying Carpet ride.

  The circus had sprung up almost overnight a few years back, as if it had materialised from a tear in the sky. Treptower Park’s colossal Soviet War Memorial stood on the same grounds, a shrine to men lost in the Second World War, its focal point a soldier, sword in hand, a child in his arms and a broken swastika at his feet. The placement of the circus nearby sent a powerful anti-fascist message. Had the state’s flagship integration project really failed? It made the story even more juicy.

  Marina would be thrilled if Ellie turned in an eye witness account of the violence between Dawud and Simeon, set against the drama of the circus in motion. This story wouldn’t fade into the reams of other information that seeped into the world each day. It would stand out nationally and cement her position at Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung.

  Still, Marina’s lack of nuance as an editor irked Ellie. How could anyone fail to pity Simeon and the path that had led him here? How could she turn her back on the haunting sadness in the performers’ eyes? Last night had convinced Ellie that the human story of the circus deserved to be excavated. Perhaps she’d stumbled across an opportunity to showcase some compassionate, complex journalism. She longed to be more than Marina’s blunt tool.

  To that end, she tossed out Marina’s idea of pen pictures of crime victims, and devised a three-prong approach to form the basis of her story: the papers Marina had given her; interviews with circus performers; and, possibly most interestingly, a visit to a local Imam about his community outreach work. Perhaps her curiosity about the real story here would even earn her brownie points with Marina.

  She strode down the hallway in her boots, rummaging in her bag for her list of interviewees and their flat numbers. The walls rattled as she walked. With steel beneath her warm exterior, Doris had refused her permission to speak with Dawud and Simeon, and the ringmaster Emir had been unwell. Instead, she had offered to arrange other interviews. After few false starts, Ellie found flat 23, where Osman Malik resided. She rapped her knuckles against the door. The door opened a notch, and through the gap came a pink nose, which Ellie thought at first belonged to a dog, until the accompanying bleat informed her otherwise.

  She jumped back. “What on earth?”

  A broad, hairy hand reached through the gap and pulled back the creature. “Sorry. They won’t hurt you.”

  They?

  The man swung the door wider and the stench of excrement and unwashed flesh hit her. Ellie peeked past the man’s considerable girth to where three small goats lay sprawled on blankets. The fourth reached past the man again to prod her hand with a cold pink nose.

  The man laughed. “She thinks you may have brought her some food.”

  “I have cheese sandwiches for my lunch.”

  “Hold onto them for dear life.” The shadows underneath the man’s eyes betrayed his tiredness. He waved his broad hands with a flourish. “Please, come in to my humble abode. Doris asked me to tell you a bit about myself.”

  “I’d appreciate it, Herr Malik.”

  He puffed out his chest at the mark of respect, and Ellie warmed to him, despite the stink, the skittish goats and confined space. Who was she to judge? Maybe those subject to the worst twists of fate made the best humans; bad luck eliminated the pride that made men brutes.

  Inside, Osman’s room measured perhaps three metres squared. There were no windows, and only a single lamp hung from the ceiling. A slim bed occupied one corner of the room, and Ellie struggled to imagine Osman in it. She’d grown accustomed to seeing him balance his giant body on thin stilts. Here, he seemed a caged animal. On the wall hung a small, stained tapestry in bright blues and yellows.

  He caught Ellie appraising it. “A gift from my wife.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Ellie perched on a lonely chair in the room, placed furthest away from the goats. One clanked its teeth against a drum filled with water.

  Osman motioned to the animals. The cadences of her mother tongue were unrecognisable when he spoke it, as if he had invented a hodgepodge language all of his own. “Are you scared of them?”

  “I’ve seen them at the circus. I didn’t expect them to be here. Frau Kaun, the warden, allows this?”

  He flashed a mischievous grin. “As long as they behave. They have their own barn but it comforts me to have them with me.”

  “Last night must have been difficult for you.”

  Osman splayed his hands. “We are family.”

  “How about your own family? I can record?”

  He bobbed his head.

  She pressed record on her phone and placed her notepad with her prompts on her knees. Being prepared made her more confident.

  Osman drifted off, occupying a space and time thousands of miles away. “My wife died when the boys were young.”

  “Are your children here with you?”

  “Amar is 23. Bilal is 19. Bilal is stronger than his brother. The muscles on that boy! He helped his brother after the waves rocked the dinghy. I could see their heads, but it was chaotic. I lost sight of them.”

  Ellie’s breath caught in her throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Bilal would never have left his brother behind.” A ghost of a smile passed his lips, and he rubbed his bald head. “They’d be telling me now, ‘Papa, your home stinks. What would Maa say?’ I always say, when my boys return, the goats will go back to the barn.”

  The happy ending hung
between them, and both knew it was impossible Osman’s sons would return. “You’re from the Middle-East?”

  “From Yemen. At first, I was stubborn. Who would want to leave their home? We slept underneath furniture in case of an air strike. Then our neighbour’s house disappeared overnight. All that was left was a hole in the ground. That night, we escaped with what we could carry, and took shelter underground. Still the bombs fell and the bullets whizzed.” His voice broke, and he seemed to shrivel in size. One goat snuck close to its master where he slumped on the bed. Osman twirled his fingers in its coat. “I needed to keep my boys safe. They are all that is left of my wife and me. We moved three times. The fighting and the cholera got worse. How could I protect my family? What could I feed them? And so we came. To start a new life. Even before we made the journey we were swindled, time and again. I would pay smugglers with what little I had, and there were promises, but the men would never return. We began to lose faith. And then, a man came and told us to be ready. I hid my fear from my sons. I knew how dangerous the journey would be. We’d heard stories of boats sinking, of families freezing to death trying to cross borders. But what choice did I have? Now, there is only one mouth to feed.”

  Ellie willed herself not to cry. Osman’s tragedy was so great that it seemed selfish to make it her own. “What was your trade in Yemen?”

  “A butcher. These days, we barely eat meat. It’s unhalal and expensive–unless it’s pork.” He laughed. “The Germans and their sausages.”

  “Good old stereotypes.” She smiled. “Don’t forget the cabbage. And this new life in Berlin, how do you find it?”

  Osman’s face clouded and he bit his lip, revealing teeth blackened from tobacco or lack of care. He shrugged. “We are safe, but it isn’t home. People like me are not important creatures.”