Free A Time of Miracles by Anne-Laure Bondoux Page B

Impossible to go through with a load of famished refugees. So we get out because the driver won’t go farther.
    “Those of you who are willing to take your chances have to follow this man,” the driver says. “He’s very familiar with the area and will be your guide.”
    “And then what?” we ask.
    “A truck will meet you on the other side, everything is arranged. Now go!”
    We don’t have a choice, so we get out of the truck. The guide requests his payment, and we have to pay him in cash down to the last dollar. Only then does he take us to the forest.
    We are about fifteen people, walking single file behind this man who opens the way with his flashlight. Around us the night looks like a dark and menacing mouth ready to swallow us. But when you want something badly, you have to suffer in silence. So I walk, twisting my ankles, trying to forget fear, tiredness, and hunger. I am used to it.
    It is raining. The mud becomes like glue under the soles of our shoes. I start thinking that it’s a waste of time to get clean in the public baths if we have to get dirty in the woods at each checkpoint.
    “Tsk, tsk, tsk! Stop whining, Monsieur Blaise, and walk silently,” Gloria tells me.
    I never thought it would be so difficult to be free. And now, with the humidity and the weight of the gear on her back, Gloria is coughing again. My stomach is in knots when I hear the horrible dog barking in her chest.
    “Are there good doctors in France?” I ask.
    Gloria catches her breath, hands on her hips. “I don’t need a doctor. It’s nothing … just … a coughing fit.”
    We move ahead between the trees for hours and hours. Our feet slide and roll over stones, dead branches, and other invisible things. To encourage myself, I repeat my everyday vocabulary: “
Helloiwouldlikearoom. Wherecanifindagoodrestaurant? Pardonsiridliketogototheeiffeltower.
”
    Later on we reach the edge of a village, and our guide tells us to hide in a barn and wait. Our small group huddles together to keep warm, and I finally drift off to sleep.
    When I open my eyes, it is daylight. Gloria is talking to the other refugees about what to do. Wait some more? Leave? I ask her where the guide is, and she explains that he has disappeared. He pocketed our money and left without keeping his promise. He’s a rat, and now we have to manage on our own.
    We leave the barn with tired eyes and enter the village through a street strewn with old tires and empty cans. The first living thing we meet is a yellow-furred dog that comes to sniff at us. As we move ahead, doors open. Children appear suddenly, then women, old people, and they look at us without a word, as if we had fallen from Mars.
    At the end of the street, men are gathered. Their faces are the color of wax. They smoke cigarette butts, they spit, and one of them has a rifle tucked under his arm. I can’t help but think about the Kalashnikov that killed Fatima’s father as he prayed on his rug. I shiver.
    “You must be refugees,” says the man with the rifle as we reach the group. “Where do you come from?”
    We tell him about Sukhumi, the insurrections, the truck, the walk in the forest, and the guide who left with our dollars.
    The man sighs. “These guides can’t be trusted,” he says. “All of them take advantage of people’s misery. It’s the third time this has happened in less than a month.”
    The other men nod sternly, and I no longer fear therifle. I see that they are just poor peasants who have to deal with the hazards of life.
    “We can’t do much to help you, but come with us,” they say.
    They take us to the door of a large hut, where we flock in. It’s warm inside, and a pleasant smell of bergamot lingers between the walls. At the back a TV is on.
    A woman motions to us to sit down on trunks. She serves us tea in small, decorated glasses, then gives us steaming pancakes with a dish of boiled cabbage. It is the best feast in the world.
    “See?” Gloria says, smiling at