Fernweh

by Nele Herzog (Germany)

A leap into the unknown Greece

Lieber Freund, I want to show you how the ferries in the harbor have all lined up in the dock, right outside my window. They’ve stopped taking refugees to mainland Greece this week. Hundreds of thousands wait to cross over in Turkey, and there’s more waiting to pass further in the ports of Athens, by the borders of Macedonia. I stare out at the sea, wait for the water to erupt, a Frontex military boat to pass or a rubber boat filled above its capacity to appear. Working nightshifts in a makeshift camp at the foot of a hill towering over Mytilini, I have learned a few words in Arabic although I couldn’t spell them for you. I know how to say water and calm down and free. Last night by the fire I read poems with a few Pakistani men who taught me that there were no words for love or trust or volunteer in Urdu. One of them was called Bilal, another Shiraz. I have already forgotten the names of the others even though they made me repeat them each time I told them a new story about the stars. I ask myself what it means if I can’t even remember three names properly – what that says about this process of ‘integration’? These men asked me what I would believe in if not religion and I told them it would most likely be the sun and the moon. They nodded in unison, maybe understanding. There is a shared sense of identity, a longing for an idea of Europe that runs throughout the camp in whispers and smiles and in handing over tea, razorblades, different color pairs of socks over makeshift counters and wire mesh fences. Yes Freund, there are fences and hi-vis vests to separate volunteers from refugees - those who you will see on the news, who I will see standing across from me in the morning. Wrapped in wool and golden rescue blankets they populate the hill, trod to line up for biscuits, soap, men's pants in large sizes that I hear we ran out of weeks ago. I can shake their hands and read them stories and hide that we are all running from countries that we do not wish to belong to. The real crisis is in my inability to engage. Tonight I had dinner with Ali from Iran. His family are government officials, although Ali was the black sheep; a director who was nearly arrested for making films on child labor. When I talk to Ali I think of you, and I want to ask you where being human starts for you, where it ends? He told me that remaining quiet was his only way to live through his strict religious upbringing. His sacrifice is sound and self, but his question is not the same as ours. Ali keeps to his silent beliefs when the others call him names for getting close with the volunteer girls. We talk about the meanings of words. He is fascinated by how many we have in German, though he still prefers the feeling of how his mouth moves and sounds in English. Ali doesn’t sleep much. He sits by the campfire most nights with his notebook and a pen, writing down words from time to time, restlessly searching for meaning. That night we had a party for Greek carnival Patrino Karnavali. Ali and I turned a street corner into a dancefloor. Everyone held hands, drank and shouted Yallahs. There was a trumpet player, a large timpani, and in those few quiet moments in between deep breaths of the brass, I swear being there on that streetcorner together we were something universal. Not like an idea of Europe, that only ever existed in terms of what it excluded. We will dance on ruins. We will clean up when the sun’s up. We will remember why we came, how it feels to leave and try to leave again. In the meantime, I said to Ali and pointed at a line in German I put down in his notebook earlier: Lass uns tanzen. What are you waking up to? Deine Nele