Two Blankets, Three Sheets by Rodaan Al Galidi

Author:Rodaan Al Galidi [Al Galidi,Rodaan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642860450
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2019-05-10T11:10:05+00:00

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33

Kadhem and I got back to the ASC at about midnight. I trudged off to O-139. I thought I’d said farewell to this building for good, and here I was, not even twenty-four hours after I left. I walked past the sign-in window. Tomorrow, I’d have to stand there with a pretty good excuse.

At nine the next morning Kadhem and I reported to Anneke Hamelinck at Social Services. Anneke had heard, maybe from Sayid, that we’d tried to go to Germany, and smiled when she saw us come in.

“Back so soon?” she asked. “Did you miss us?”

“Sent back,” I said, glad that it was Anneke and not any of her colleagues, because despite her moodiness, she was generally more flexible than the other staffers. “Could you do us a favor?”

“Smuggle you into Germany?” she joked. But my sense of humor at that moment was overshadowed by the IND and the Foreigners’ Police.

“We didn’t sign in yesterday. Maybe if you could tell them …” I was at a loss for words.

“Are you planning to try again? Germany, I mean?”

“They didn’t take my fingerprints,” I said, “so yes, sure.”

“And him?” she asked, pointing at Kadhem. I translated and he nodded.

“I’ll do my best about yesterday.” We were off the hook, for now.

I went to the canteen and sat there pondering my options. Sayid offered the solution. He knew another resident who had been sent back after being in Germany for a few months. He would know the best way to get there. Sayid wasn’t sure which room the man was in, and he knocked on countless orange and blue doors until we found him. The man, still in his pajamas, told me how I could easily get into Germany.

We would have to go back to Enschede, to a coffeeshop near the border, where a lot of Germans went to smoke marijuana. Some came from just over the border, but others drove from further away, and these were the ones you had to ask for a lift. The only thing we had to do was drink tea in a coffeeshop and chat with a German with a car.

Kadhem and I went back to Anneke and asked her for two train day-passes. The more rules Social Services had, the more exceptions there were. Exactly when the exception kicked in wasn’t always clear, but when Anneke realized we wanted to take the train to the border, she did not hesitate for even a moment. She handed us two tickets.

“Good luck, and I hope never to see you two again,” she said with a smile, and shook hands. The next day we took a taxi from the station to a coffeeshop near the border. We drank tea, and sure enough, most of the customers were Germans who came here to smoke pot. We bounced from table to table, and I chatted with the Germans in Dutch or English. I discovered that a coffeeshop is the best place to make small talk with people, because usually the spirit is on a higher plane than the body.

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