darlin. Yu got to talk us out a here, fore dey change dey mind an lock us all back up.
I looked down at the telephone receiver and it was gray and dirty and I was afraid. I looked back at the girl in the purple dress. Where do you want to go? I said. And she said,
I dialed the taxi number that was written on the phone. A man’s voice came on. He sounded tired.
“Good morning, I would like a taxi please.”
“You want a cab?”
“Yes. Please. A taxicab. For four passengers.”
“Where from?”
“From the Black Hill Immigration Removal Centre, please. In High Easter. It is near Chelmsford.”
“I know where it is. Now you listen to me-”
“Please, it is okay. I know you do not pick up refugees. We are not refugees. We are cleaners. We work in this place.”
“You’re cleaners.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s the truth is it? Because if I had a pound for every bloody immigrant that got in the back of one of my cabs and didn’t know where they wanted to go and started prattling on to my driver in Swahili and tried to pay him in cigarettes, I’d be playing golf at this very moment instead of talking to you.”
“We are cleaners.”
“All right. It’s true you don’t talk like one of them. Where do you want to go?”
I had memorized the address on the United Kingdom Driver’s License in my see-through plastic bag. Andrew O’Rourke, the white man I met on the beach: he lived in Kingston-upon-Thames in the English county of Surrey. I spoke into the telephone.
“ Kingston, please.”
The girl in the purple dress grabbed my arm and hissed at me. No darlin! she said. Anywhere but Jamaica. Dey mens be killin me de minnit I ketch dere, kill me dead. I did not understand why she was scared, but I know now. There is a Kingston in England but there is also a Kingston in Jamaica, where the climate is different. This is another great work you sorcerers have done-even your cities have two tails.
“ Kingston?” said the man on the telephone.
“ Kingston-upon-Thames,” I said.
“That’s bloody miles away isn’t it? That’s over in, what?”
“ Surrey,” I said.
“ Surrey. You are four cleaners from leafy Surrey, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“No. We are cleaners from nearby. But they are sending us on a cleaning job in Surrey.”
“Cash or account then?”
The man sounded so tired.
“What?”
“Will you pay in cash, or is it going on the detention center’s bill?”
“We will pay in cash, mister. We will pay when we get there.”
“You’d better.”
I listened for a minute and then I pressed my hand down on the cradle of the telephone receiver. I dialed another number. This was the telephone number from the business card I carried in my see-through plastic bag. The business card was damaged by water. I could not tell if the last number was an 8 or a 3. I tried an 8, because in my country odd numbers bring bad luck, and that is one thing I had already had enough of.
A man answered the call. He was angry.
“Who is this? It’s bloody six in the morning.”
“Is this Mister Andrew O’Rourke?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“Can I come to see you, Mister?”
“Who the hell is this?”
“We met on the beach in Nigeria. I remember you very well, Mister O’Rourke. I am in England now. Can I come to see you and Sarah? I do not have anywhere else to go.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then the man coughed, and started to laugh.
“This is a windup, right? Who is this? I’m warning you, I get nutters like you on my case all the time. Leave me alone, or you won’t get away with it. My paper always prosecutes. They’ll have this call traced and find out who you are and have you arrested. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“You don’t believe it is me?”
“Just leave me alone. Understand? I don’t want to hear about it. All that stuff happened a long time ago and it wasn’t my fault.”
“I will come to your house. That way you will believe it is me.”
“No.”
“I do not know anyone else in this country, Mister O’Rourke. I am sorry. I am just telling you, so that you can be ready.”
The man did not sound angry anymore. He made a small sound, like a child when it is nervous about what will happen. I hung up the phone and turned around to the other girls. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought I would vomit right there on the linoleum floor. The other girls were staring at me, nervous and expectant.
Well? said the girl in the purple dress.
Hmm? I said.
De
Oh yes, the taxi. The taxi man said a cab will pick us up in ten minutes. He said we are to wait outside.
The girl in the purple dress, she smiled.
“Mi name is Yevette. From Jamaica, zeen. You
“My name is Little Bee.”
“What kinda name yu call dat?”
“It is my name.”
“What kind of place yu come from, dey go roun callin little gals de names of insects?”
“ Nigeria.”
Yevette laughed. It was a big laugh, like the way the chief baddy laughs in the pirate films.
Yevette was still laughing when the four of us girls walked out past the security desk, toward the door. The detention officer looked up from his newspaper when we went by. The topless girl was gone now-the officer had turned the page. I looked down at his newspaper. The headline on the new page said ASYLUM SEEKERS EATING OUR SWANS. I looked back at the detention officer, but he would not look up at me. While I looked, he moved his arm over the page to cover the headline. He made it look like he needed to scratch his elbow. Or maybe he really did need to scratch his elbow. I realized I knew nothing about men apart from the fear. A uniform that is too big for you, a desk that is too small for you, an eight-hour shift that is too long for you, and suddenly here comes a girl with three kilos of documents and no motivation, another one with jelly-green eyes and a yellow sari who is so beautiful you cannot look at her for too long in case your eyeballs go
I turned to look back at the detention officer just before we went out through the double doors. He was watching us leave. He looked very small and lonely there, with his thin little wrists, under the fluorescent lights. The light made his skin look green, the color of a baby caterpillar just out of the egg. The early-morning sunshine was shining in through the door glass. The officer screwed up his eyes against the daylight. I suppose we were just silhouettes to him. He opened his mouth, like he was going to say something, but he stopped.
What? I said. I realized he was going to tell us there had been a mistake. I wondered if we should run. I did not want to go back in detention. I wondered how far we would get if we ran. I wondered if they would come after us with dogs.
The detention officer stood up. I heard his chair scrape on the linoleum floor. He stood there with his hands at his sides.
“Ladies?” he said.
“Yes?”
He looked down at the ground, and then up again.
“Best of luck,” he said.
And we girls turned around and walked toward the light.
I pushed open the double doors, and then I froze. It was the sunlight that stopped me. I felt so fragile from the detention center, I was afraid those bright rays of sunshine could snap me in half. I couldn’t take that first step outside.
“What is de holdup, Lil Bee?”
Yevette was standing behind me. I was blocking the door for everyone.
“One moment, please.”
Outside, the fresh air smelled of wet grass. It blew in my face. The smell made me panic. For two years I had smelled only bleach, and my nail varnish, and the other detainees’ cigarettes. Nothing natural. Nothing like this. I felt that if I took one step forward, the earth itself would rise up and reject me. There was nothing natural about me now. I stood there in my heavy boots with my breasts strapped down, neither a woman nor a girl, a creature who had forgotten her language and learned yours, whose past had crumbled to dust.
“What de hell yu waitin fo, darlin?”
“I am scared, Yevette.”
Yevette shook her head and she smiled.
