The Swimmer

I was staring at him. What he was telling me seemed disconnected from what he was: a refugee-medic who played French jazz. And now, he told me, he would wait for asylum status. He had applied to the Home Office, two weeks ago.

‘They haven’t replied yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how long it takes.’

He sounded confident and I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him that his application might be rejected or that he ought to plan for that eventuality. I began asking him.

‘Have you actually been to the Home Office?’

He shook his head. I felt he didn’t want to discuss it. The farmer had sent the letter in for him, Ben said. The same farmer who was paying him a little cash and letting him sleep in the barn. It was all illegal, of course.

‘But how will they contact you?’ I asked, puzzled.

It didn’t make sense.

‘At the farm. The farmer will let me know when the letter arrives.’

‘There are centres where you can stay,’ I told him, tentatively. ‘I think there’s one that’s opened in Norwich. At least you’d have a proper bed and food.’

‘That only happens when you are registered. I have to be patient, to wait.’

There appeared no doubt in his mind that the letter would arrive any day now and meanwhile the only thing he missed was playing the piano. And the chance of a proper shower.

‘That is why I try to swim every day.’

‘Have you been here a lot, then?’ I asked him.

He shook his head sheepishly.

‘I have only been coming here for a week,’ he admitted. ‘Before that I used to bathe in the river further upstream. But it takes longer to get to and there are others there. I wanted some privacy.’

I digested this fact in silence.

‘You can come here any time,’ I said, finally. ‘And play the piano. No, really,’ I added, not understanding the look he gave me. ‘I would like that!’

I wanted to tell him he could have a shower too, but it seemed too intimate a thing and I had an acute sense of his wariness.

‘I would like to clear your garden by the river in exchange. And maybe you would like the grass cut?’

His face became closed. He looked suddenly stubborn. I could see it was necessary for me to accept the offer. Only then did he relax. He told me that he felt as if he had been walking through a page of history. To have his country’s history inscribed on him was a disquieting sensation, he said. I was appalled by his matter-of-factness.

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

‘It feels like years!’

In fact it had only been about four months. He was moving in some mysterious current of destiny, quite alone, as alone as a man dying, he told me. And travelling with him was the soul of his dead cousin.

‘It has been a long journey,’ he said softly, folding his hands together, intertwining the fingers. His voice belied the sorrow in the words. His wrists were slender. Once again I began wondering how old he really was when, without warning, he told me another story. That of the journey.

‘The air in the lorry was stale. After a while it became difficult to breathe and some of the women started to cry. We were banging on the sides, begging for the driver to stop, begging for air.’

I shuddered. He had sat in this way for hours as day and night became indistinguishable and the miles fell away unnoticed. It felt as if he were travelling through nothing but unbending time. On and on from one horizon to the other. The truth was, he no longer felt in the world.

‘I tried to imagine the sea,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But it was useless.’

The darkness in the lorry had blanked out every thought except that of trying to breathe. Even his grief at the last glimpse of his mother’s face had been blotted out, and in this way he had travelled, across endless land, feeling ever more mortal and insignificant as he went. Like the swimmer he was, he had moved further and further from the shore, until at last he understood the meaning of ‘no return’.

‘I have crossed a line,’ he said. ‘Even if my application for asylum fails, I know that I have crossed that line.’

I stared at his young, still unfinished face and saw how his experiences would slip into the fabric of his features. It would happen slowly, unobtrusively at first, but then one day someone would take a photograph and suddenly the change would be noticed.

‘There was not a single one of those miles that was not filled with memories,’ he said, very softly.

He was frequently conscious of not wanting to die. Which was not the same as wanting to live, he said. Then, just as he had thought he was on the brink of death, the lorry began throwing them out, one by one.

England had come to him in this way. Cold air filled with the smell of seawater. He remembered breathing deeply, thinking he would never again take breathing for granted. And, turning, he had seen the sea and his heart had filled with such longing for his home that he realised why it was considered a sickness. All that first day he had walked, keeping the sea in his sights, never knowing where he was until at last he found himself on the outskirts of a town. He had been the only one of the original group in the lorry who spoke English and he supposed this had saved him, although from what, he did not say. He never found what had happened to the others. He walked all night and finally stumbled on the farm. Now all he wanted was refugee status. The farmer had registered his letter and Ben had kept the proof of postage, along with a copy of the letter itself. I didn’t know what to say. It was simply a question of waiting, he told me.

‘I’m not able to earn enough money until I get my papers.’

It worried him that his mother knew nothing of his whereabouts. The farmer had given him stamps and paper and he had written home, but he didn’t know if the letter had even got to her.

‘Look,’ I said, swallowing, ‘you can have some stamps. Why don’t you write, giving this address?’

He glanced at me with a faint smile, shaking his head. Again I sensed an iron stubbornness, lurking.

‘You are kind, but you can’t do this. You don’t know who I am. Let me do those jobs for you, first.’

There was an awkward silence. It was growing dark, he needed to get back, he told me.