The Panic Years by Nell Frizzell

Author:Nell Frizzell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

11

NEW YEAR’S IRRESOLUTION

Standing on a Greek rooftop, a chipped mug of red wine in my hand, I watch fireworks explode over ice-dry hills, orange trees, sagging electricity cables, and a beach covered in snow and tents. A woman to my left is trying to light a cigarette off a sparkler; a short man so proud of his A-frame that he’s wearing a tank top in January is flirting unsuccessfully with a ballet dancer from Paris; a tall guy with long blond hair is proposing a toast; and a Syrian man with a beard like velvet is taking a selfie with a bottle of raki.

It is New Year’s Eve, 2017. Nick and I are on the island of Chios, volunteering at a school for refugees. After the 2016 EU-Turkey deal, Chios became a sort of island-wide holding pen for thousands of people trying to reach the safety of Europe via the Turkish route. According to the agreement, anyone found trying to cross from Turkey to Greece (and therefore Europe) could be sent straight back to Turkey, back to their war-torn homeland, or to prison. If those desperate young men, women, and their children did manage to stay in Greece, they could be stuck for years on a tiny island that had little water and the kind of medieval plumbing that turns even toilet paper into a weapon of mass destruction: stuck with no money, living in tents, with no hope of work or ever reaching Athens, let alone London. They were trapped in a wind-blown limbo for the crime of escaping war, famine, disease, bombing, state-sanctioned terror, or death. It’s an obvious place to ring in the new year.

Another firework screeches up from a neighboring roof and we all cheer. It is freezing; I’m wearing a coat that makes me look like a football manager; the sort of up-tempo reggae only white mainland Europeans like is blasting out of a Bluetooth speaker balanced on a plant pot; a lecturer from Newcastle is, unaccountably, drinking sherry out of a pint glass; Nick has his arm around my waist. A Swiss-German woman who has been in Chios for two years turns to me and, smiling innocently, asks a question that is about to tear my heart wide open: “What do you want to do this year?”

A pulse runs through my muscles like I’m about to dive off a bridge. My breath catches in my chest. My bowels quiver. Oh shit, I think. Oh shit. I’m going to say it. I’m going to say it out loud.

“I want to have a baby,” I say, the words falling out of my mouth like stones. “I’d like to have a baby this year.”

Studiously avoiding Nick’s eye, I stare off at the horizon, at the rocky hills and crumbling city walls. He and I haven’t spoken about babies for a while. I had been trying to give him space to think about it. He has been using that space to think about other things. I have been crying every time I get my period.

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