A Good Land

She regrets being too headstrong in her youth, failing to see her father’s point of view while he was still alive, and being too crotchety in her old age; and once, standing outside the mesh fencing that surrounded a group of German prisoners of war, a young soldier, unkempt and with fear in his eyes, approaching her, asking for a cigarette: she took one out of its packet, lit it and then, the soldier watching, threw it on the ground and stepped on it for good measure.

What could have possessed me to do something so cruel? Margo muttered quietly to herself. Since the only god she believes in is the power of one’s own conscience, I know this is one transgression among many that she can never forgive herself for. I know also, because of my love for her, that she is so much more than her past or her present, more than her misdeeds and regrets; that within the immeasurable spaces of Margo’s heart lies the freedom to be without judgement, beyond fear. And at a time when my own anxiety over the situation here seems to be growing beyond my control, her strength is formidable to me.

This is what I also see in my dreams: Margo holding her front door open, the sun from the living room window lighting the air behind her so that she appears to glow through the outlines of her body. She is looking out with wonder, with the certainty of infinite compassion, and on the other side, trembling a little, is me.

When I first knew Margo, she volunteered at a centre for disabled children not far from where we live. She was stronger then than she is now and looked forward to the two afternoons a week she spent supervising a play group. She spoke to me often of the children, explaining that many of their disabilities were due to the poverty they lived in, lack of immunization, perhaps, or unsupervised home births. Yet despite the challenges they faced, Margo always insisted, the children made every effort to enjoy their afternoons in the playground.

‘They love the new climbing frame that we had put in recently,’ she tells me one day. ‘Now we’re trying to collect enough money for a sandbox. That should be great fun for them.’

‘Children like that sort of thing, don’t they?’

Margo’s eyes narrow.

‘You haven’t had much exposure to children, have you, sweetheart?’

‘I just don’t think I’d be any good with them, that’s all.’

‘Well, you won’t know unless you try,’ says Margo. ‘Why don’t you come with me next Saturday? We could do with some more help.’

The playground is small but very colourful, with several swings, a large slide and the climbing frame that Margo has told me about. We walk into a small structure at one end of the playground and Margo introduces me to some of the other volunteers she works with.

‘The children will be arriving soon,’ she says, turning to me. ‘Let’s go meet them.’

There are over a dozen girls and boys between the ages of four and ten, some in wheelchairs being pushed by their adult helpers, others on crutches or with walking frames, and still others approaching on their own, walking carefully and as if on the tips of their toes. I watch in silence as Margo greets each of the children, asking them how they are and encouraging them to have a good time.

I nervously walk up to a young boy as he tries to climb up to the top of the slide. He has a metal brace on one of his legs.

‘Would you like me to help you?’ I ask quietly.

He looks at me and nods.

I try to push him up the steps from behind and when that doesn’t work put my hands under his arms and half-lift him to the top. Once there, the little boy sits down, places his good leg on the slide and then picks up the other with both hands and swings it over while I hold on him. Then he stretches both arms out like wings and plunges down the slide, landing with a loud thump on his bottom. I run to him, thinking that I will find him in tears and will have to comfort him. Instead, he is smiling widely.

‘Can we do that again?’ he asks me.

‘Yes,’ I say, suddenly feeling sad. ‘Of course we can.’

I spend half an hour or so wandering around the playground with the other volunteers, watching the children and sometimes approaching to help them. I am not quite sure how to play with them as the other adults are doing and soon begin to feel inadequate. When Margo calls me to go back inside with her I sense that she has noticed my predicament.

‘They’ll be coming in for a snack soon,’ she says. ‘I’ll need you to help me with that, sweetheart.’

We roll labneh sandwiches and place them on individual paper plates, then we pour orange juice into plastic cups and set them all on a large table in the middle of the room.

‘There are some packets of biscuits on the top of the fridge, Layla. Could you bring them down for me? We’ll have to open them up and place them on those platters over there.’

I give Margo the biscuits and begin to collect plastic chairs from around the room and place them around the table.

‘Don’t do that yet, sweetheart,’ Margo stops me. ‘Some of the children will be sitting at the table with their wheelchairs so it’s best to wait until they come in to sort it out.’

I am unable to move.

‘Layla? Are you alright?’

I shake my head and sit down.

‘You’re crying.’ Margo lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’

‘It’s heartbreaking, Margo,’ I sniff. ‘They’re so small and it’s so difficult for them. How do they cope?’

Margo reaches into her sleeve for a tissue and hands it to me.

‘Come on,’ she says gently. ‘Let’s go back outside. I need a cigarette.’

We sit on a bench in a corner of the garden. I wait for Margo to say something but she is too busy lighting her cigarette. I take a deep breath and look out at the children. The sun has gone behind a cloud and the playground is now in half-shadow. It suddenly seems as though the children are moving in slow motion, swinging forwards and backwards on the swings, moving up and down through the climbing frame or just sitting in their wheelchairs, waving their arms above their heads. When, moments later, the sun comes out again and casts its rays over us, I realize that rather than awkwardness, it is grace that I have just witnessed.

‘I lived in London near a park that had a pond and a wooden bridge that floated above it in a gentle arch,’ Margo interrupts my reverie. ‘I used to go there now and then with a bagful of stale bread and throw it down to the ducks and geese that swam beneath the bridge. It was beautiful there, so green and quiet.’

She looks at me and grins.

‘And although it’s very different here,’ Margo continues, ‘it’s beautiful too, don’t you think?’

I laugh.

‘How is it Margo that you always manage to read my mind?’

‘Look at them, Layla. They’re totally absorbed in their playing and are oblivious to anything but the moment they’re living right now.’

‘Yes,’ I sigh. ‘They can’t help but be beautiful, can they?’

She draws on her cigarette and blows a thin cloud of smoke in my direction.

If I had ideas when I first knew Margo that there was anything romantic or exciting about the war she fought in, she soon changed my mind.

‘There was urgency, yes, and immediacy, but not pleasure,’ she tells me as we sit on the landing in front of her apartment one evening.

‘But you met the love of your life in the Resistance,’ I protest. ‘You and John were so brave.’

‘The war only made it more difficult for us, Layla, not easier.’

‘Surely, you only started to feel that way much later on, Margo. I can tell from the stories you’ve told me that you knew at the time what you were doing was important.’

‘Stories, yes,’ Margo sighs. ‘But it wasn’t long before we stopped thinking of ourselves as heroes, although I didn’t understand why until later.’

I wait for her to continue.

‘I remember once being in Paris while expecting John back from a mission. It was early summer and many people had left the city because of the occupation. The streets, homes and shops seemed completely deserted to me and it was sad too. The truth was, of course, that there were still many Parisians there just getting on with their lives and trying to avoid attention.

‘I walked into a café for something to eat and there was a middle-aged woman serving. I noticed after a while that she was the only one working there, so I asked her why that was. She just put a plate of food in front of me and walked away without replying.