Girl on a Train: Just Another Refugee?

She pulled her coat more closely around her. It wasn’t cold but she needed to feel the security that it offered. Her rucksack was firmly wedged between her feet, its strap clutched in her hand – she must not lose its precious contents. Besides her an older woman, sat nodding – already falling asleep before the train had even set off and despite the clamouring noise of the station announcer and the other passengers.

She had been lucky. First in the carriage. She knew the train would be full; she could not stand all the way. Once past the barrier she had walked as fast as her tired legs and aching back would allow. Other travellers were simply getting into the first carriage they came to. She knew better. She knew how to find an empty seat. As she looked through the window she smiled and idly thought to herself; “rush hour” – it’s the same everywhere. She knew, for she had spent much of her short working life travelling in big cities. She knew all the tricks – how to use her elbows to push through a crush, how to use her heels to stand on the toes of a man who might try to grope her in the crush, and yes, while others scrambled into the first carriages they came to she knew it was best to walk to the far end of the train, the furthest from the barrier, to find an empty seat.

The carriage filled up. People standing now. It was going to be a long, hot journey – but she had a seat. Her back ached these days and she was tired. She looked around her. Here was all life – old, young, babies, men, women, families all thrown together. Across the aisle a young woman, shielded by her husband, was feeding a baby. The older woman at her side opened her eyes and smiled. She offered the girl a sweet. Smiling, the girl took it and thanked her. The two of them sat silently sucking their sweets watching the people hurrying past, peering into the carriages looking for space. And then, slowly at first, the train began to move and the platform began to glide by. A huge cheer rang through the train as the young men, who seemed to fill the carriage, slapped each other on the back, punched the air with their fists and laughed. They stood there as if part of the crowd at far away Stamford Bridge, the Nou Camp or Old Trafford – places they would probably only see on SKY or their smart phones - their football shirts emblazoned with their footballing gods: Messi, Van Persie, Rooney  ....... . But for the moment they, like her, were homeless, flotsam from the troubles of the middle east and further afield and now flooding into Europe to find a new home, a new beginning - economic migrants, asylum seekers, refugees from bombs, terror and poverty - all seeking a fresh start on the gold paved streets of northern Europe. She, too, was a refugee, but different from most of those who filled the narrow aisle of the carriage - for she had money, she had a passport, she was "legitimate" - an "ordinary traveller" - but she too was escaping her past and making a new life with what little remained of her family - for her own sake and for the sake of the unborn child in her belly. The train began to pick up speed; faster and faster as they left the station and slid out into the city landscape. She watched as tall city buildings, offices, flats slowly gave way to the suburbs where there was more greenery and then, at last out, into the countryside. She let out a long sigh – she was on her way. At last. Soon she would be “home” – it felt strange to think that – for she had no home.

She reached down into the bag and found the plastic bottle of water and took a sip. It was slightly warm and she offered it to the woman besides her. Her companion shook her head. She smiled and pulled out a bottle of her own. As the girl put her water back in her bag she quietly, secretly, peeped into the rucksack to check that her precious package was still there. It was.  Safe and sound. She smiled, pulled the bag closed, wrapped her ankles around it and grasped the strap firmly between her fingers. And then she closed her eyes, they were already drooping – it had been a long day and she was tired. In a matter of seconds she was asleep.

When she woke up the sun was low on the horizon, already evening. She looked at her watch. She had slept for almost an hour. Around her those lucky enough to have a seat were dozing, the young men, many of them unshaven were talking in whispers, sitting on the arms of seats, bedding down in the narrow aisle or just standing, swaying silently looking out of the window across the fields and forests or at the occasional village that flashed by. Already lights were going on in the houses; pinpricks against the darkening sky. Someone was humming a tune. Further down the carriage a baby cried. She looked at her watch again. Seven hours the timetable had said. It would be early morning, after two o’clock when she arrived.  But no matter. She would soon be with what was left of her family. And then a meal, maybe a shower and perhaps a long sleep. And then she fell asleep again.

When she woke all was dark, torch lights were piercing the darkness. The train had stopped. There was movement in the carriage. Men in uniform pushing their way through holding out their hands. She rummaged in her bag and her hand clasped the two precious passports. She pulled them ready to hand to the soldier. He took them, flicked them open to the photographs and peered at her face as she sat there in the half darkness of the torch light. She knew that she was one of the lucky ones – how ironic it was after the last four months to think that. But she knew that she was indeed lucky; she held her own passport issued by the Palestine Authority but also another and this with the priceless, gold legend “Bundesrepbulik Deutschland: Reisepass” – a result of her marriage. How grateful she now was to Dietrich – unknowingly - he had left her with this chance of a new life when he married her. She had automatically become a German citizen on marriage as would her unborn child who she could even now feel kicking in her belly. The soldier smiled and said "Danke Fraulein" and handed back the documents which she stowed away deep in her bag. The German passport gave her status and commanded the policeman's respect and for that she was grateful. These passports were her very life lines. Lose them and she was a non-person adrift in the world.  The train sat in the sidings for what seemed an age and then after an hour or so it began to move again. The moon was high now and her sleep had refreshed her. She sat wide eyed watching the dark fields slip by.

She calculated that they were probably in Austria. Occasionally they passed  a neatly tended station and she caught a few words of German – a language that she spoke with moderate ease – on advertising hoardings.

The older woman sitting beside her wore a traditional hijab, and had fallen back to sleep, resting her shoulder on the girl. The hijab had slipped exposing the woman’s hair. The girl gently pulled it back into place; it would not be seemly for this older woman to be seen by these young men without the head covering. The girl had never worn a hijab. From her earliest days, as the daughter of a university professor at the University of Palestine in Ramallah, she had been brought up in the western tradition. Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, was a quiet, laid back university place and cultural centre, where western lifestyles, dress and ideas were common. Her family were Muslims but rarely visited the mosque. As she sat in the half light a tear ran down her cheek as she remembered the sun, the olive groves and the quiet seclusion of the University Campus which had once been her world. A life which, less than four months ago, was ripped apart. She and her elder sister, Fae’da, had lived a cocooned life – their father quietly getting on with his teaching and his research, her mother  serenely running the house. As the girl had grown and attended the University herself she went out into the world more but still mixing with other young, western dressed Palestinian men and women. Life was good. At 22 she had left University with a good degree in foreign languages: English, French and a little German and at about the same time her sister had married a fellow student, Aneed, who had just qualified as a doctor. Within a year they had gone – he had taken a post at a German hospital near Munich - and she was left alone in Ramallah. Her language skills, however, were prized. She landed a job with a company exporting fruit to Europe and beyond and so she travelled: London, Paris, Milan, Oslo – wherever she was sent: discussing sales, setting up contracts. Once she managed a brief few days with her sister and brother in law in Germany. She got used to the western life style – hotels, airports, western food, the evening rush hour on trains! On her twenty fourth birthday she met her husband. Dietrich a young German teacher and relief worker for the United Nations posted to Palestine to help in the densely populated ghettos and with the never ending violence between Arab and Jew in the Gaza Strip. Dietrich was involved in setting up educational programmes for Palestinian teenagers and had come to her birthday party as the friend of a friend. She had been entranced by this young man; they had “clicked” immediately. Within a year they were married and within another six months she was attending the University Hospital being told that she was pregnant. They were overjoyed as were her parents. Life was good – even here in Palestine. She lived a privileged life – seeing the day to day problems and shortages of the people but never herself exposed to them; isolated and cosseted in her university and western enclave.

But then the world crashed into her life. A week after she had announced that she was 3 months pregnant her father arranged a celebration. The first grandchild – there could be no finer reason to celebrate. An expensive meal was booked at a local restaurant; old friends and family alike invited. For once they would leave their quiet University life and celebrate into the night. They might even break with custom and have a few glasses of champagne. “On such a day, Allah surely would not deny us that little pleasure!” laughed her father. And they all laughed with him. The laughter, however, did not last.  On that fateful evening, just as the sun was setting and the muezzin was calling the faithful to worship from the distant minaret they walked the short distance to the restaurant, smiling and chattering. Then, she suddenly remembered; she had left her mobile phone at home and was expecting a call from Amsterdam – the final decision on a new contract she had agreed to supply olives to a chain of Dutch supermarkets. With a smile she waved to her family, her husband and friends and trotted back towards the flat that she shared with Dietrich. Having recovered the phone she set off back the restaurant.

As she strode back to her flat and sixty kilometres to the west, a helicopter gunship rose into the evening sky from the Tel Nov Israeli military air base near Rehot. It momentarily hovered, and then swept east towards the occupied West Bank and Ramallah. Inside the gunship First Officer Benjamin Radnitz checked the sixteen digit coordinates again: 0345 7088/2565 3889. Satisfied, he punched the numbers into the on board computer: 0345 7088/2655 3889. “Done” he muttered through his mouthpiece. The gunship travelled along the border being careful not to intrude into the occupied West Bank and so that it remained out of the reach of Hezbollah ground to air rockets. “Twenty seconds and good” announced the second officer. “Ten.....Five....Three...”. There was a slight jolt as the Nimrod missile detached from the belly of the gunship and the crew watched as it wobbled away on its preset course towards Ramallah, the coordinates guiding it to the building identified as where four high ranking Hezbollah officials – terrorists – were, according  to the latest Israeli intelligence, gathered. The Nimrod disappeared in to the distance, its fiery tail like a shooting star in the darkening sky, its own onboard computer circuits making minor adjustments to its preordained course which would send four terrorist enemies of Israel, to oblivion.

She heard the whistle of the Nimrod just as she turned the corner and saw the restaurant in the distance. She knew exactly what it was. Palestinians were used to the sound and she threw herself against a wall. The whistling grew to a scream and then a brilliant explosion sent fire and rubble everywhere. She was thrown to the ground as dust, bricks, plaster, wood and bits of metal showered down on her. As she lay face down, her new dress already ruined and pin pricks of blood seeping out from a thousand little shrapnel wounds there was silence. Then the screaming began. She crawled to her feet. The dust was clearing. The restaurant had gone – just a pile of rubble and smoke. The call of the muezzin silenced. She stumbled towards the restaurant, to her family. There was nothing, just a pile of smashed wood plaster and stone. She stumbled through the detritus; personal possessions, smouldering wrecked furniture, bloodied limbs, broken crockery and smoking table cloths mixed with clothing, pools of water, and above all the stench of burning flesh. Her family, her husband were gone. It was then that she screamed; her demented bellows mixing with the sirens of emergency services already cutting through the Ramallah evening air.

In the days after she had sat in shocked silence watching the TV. Israel, grudgingly admitted responsibility but was brazenly defiant. The raid had been, what did they call it? - “a legitimate action” against “proven killers”. But “a very regrettable computer failure” meant that it had “misread” the coordinates. They would be taking this “unfortunate matter” up with the suppliers of the software. When she heard this she broke down – horrified at the lies that could so easily pour from the mouths of politicians and generals. It was never broadcast that First Officer Rabnitz’ minute error in punching in the numbers was the computer failure. She didn’t understand high politics but she was well versed enough to know that computers do not make mistakes – it is only those who operate them that make errors. But it was easier, and safer for generals and politicians to blame the computer for targeting the restaurant rather than the Hezbollah hideout. And such is the delicate diplomatic balance that operates, even between Israel and Palestine, that no one, not even the Palestinian Authority questioned this explanation by the Israelis. What did the Israeli spokesman call it?... “unfortunate and regretted collateral damage”.  Yes, she thought that it is – my mother, my father, my husband, my family and my friends......me and my baby.....we are just small, unimportant damaged pieces in the great game of war and peace. And the world will move on and then she cried again. Later, as she listened to another Israeli spokesman, again defiantly reject world opinion, she remembered a French book read long ago when she was French studying at University. What was it? Then it came to her – it was something said by Albert Camus. What was it Camus had said?.....”Every wrong idea results in bloodshed – but it’s always the blood of others”. And she had sobbed for the blood of  her family and her husband now gone and for her safe cocooned world now violated. She wept for her husband and her unborn child – who were just “regretted collateral damage”. And she wondered how much more callous was it possible for mankind become?

So here she was, speeding through the night in a foreign land. Her German passport gave her the right to access Europe freely and to a place where she could find a safe place for her unborn child to grow. She looked at her watch wondering if her sister had already set off for the railway station in Munich? People were already wakening, some sub conscious awareness reminding them that their journey was nearing its end. There was yawning and a rubbing of eyes. She heard the quiet voices of the other refugees – many with so little compared to her – no sister to go to, no prized German passport, short of money, few skills. Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, Iranians, their voices mixed together in the cramped early morning carriage. The whole world it seemed was on the move.  She felt again the kick in her belly and smiled to herself; yes she was lucky: her family had been modestly well off so she had money and her qualifications and business contacts meant that some kind of job would be possible. And above all, her baby was alive and would live – so she, too, must fight for life, look forward  and live for the future. Trying not to wake the sleeping woman by her side, she bent down and picked up the bag. There were the two precious passports. Besides them, safe in a leather wallet, her personal belongings: credit cards, bank account details, photographs of her lost family. Three priceless letters: one from a German Human Rights lawyer in Wiesbaden explaining that he represented Dietrich’s family and was seeking reparations   on behalf of them and their unborn German grandchild. A second letter from the Israeli Department of Justice which, while it did not admit responsibility and “subject to certain caveats”, hoped that a “satisfactory understanding” might be arranged between Israel and her unborn German child. And a third – from the United Nations expressing their grave concerns about the incident that had taken her family and husband. Their employee, it noted, had full diplomatic immunity whilst working in Palestine and they were currently working with the German government in Berlin and with the Israeli government in Jerusalem to ensure that “commensurate reparations for her and her child’s loss and an acknowledgment of guilt” were forthcoming. She knew that the latter requirement would never come and nothing in the end could replace Dietrich but she could, and would, somehow start again. She held the little parcel; it contained her life, and passports to her future. She had to start again – and she would.     

Tony Beale: November 2016