The Replicant in the Refugee Camp, Part 10
A near-future novel in which the latest reality event develops in unforeseen ways. Unfolding in 50 parts. Chapter 1: August.
— in the residence —
They return to their residence at the fall of night, sweaty, exhausted, some with muscle cramps, some with blisters on their hands and feet, yet elated.
“I can’t wait to hit the shower,” Olga says, “I haven’t been this dirty in ages.”
“Fuck that,” Omar says, “we get to shower, while the refugees have to wear the same stinking clothes tomorrow. The sooner we get those showers over there, the better.”
“Well, we first have to get the Kickstarter campaign funded,” Rahman — always keeping a wary eye on their finances — says.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Agnetha says, smiling brightly, “it’s running like a freight train.”
“Really?” Dewi says, voicing everybody’s hope. “We were just too busy to check that out.”
“We’ve already made several stretch goals,” Agnetha says. “It’s only the second day. If we don’t destroy our stretch goals, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You don’t have a hat,” Esteban says. “It wouldn’t fit on that mohawk.”
“That means we can already order the showers and the toilets?” Dewi says, thinking ahead, “the sooner we get them here, the better.”
“I suppose we could,” Agnetha says, “but it’s after business hours in Sweden — where we’ll be ordering the showers — so we’ll have to do it tomorrow.”
“At the crack of dawn,” Katja — an early riser — says, “or at the opening of the office: whichever’s first.”
“Thank dog for good news,” Dewi says, “I’m exhausted, and my hands hurt like hell.”
“Why?” Piotr says, then looks at Dewi’s hands, “Oh, blisters. Of course, unblemished office hands. Let’s see if I can find some salve for you.”
“Salve,” Dewi says, surprised. “I though you hated us paper pushers?”
“Not you,” Piotr says. “You worked hard today. You’ve earned my respect.”
“Thank you,” Dewi says, “but why do you carry ointments? Aren’t your hands worn and weathered, already?”
“A good metal worker always carries all types of balms,” Piotr says, “against excessive UV exposure from welding, itches from wearing all the protective equipment, and exposure to other stuff like chemicals, abrasives and what-have-you.”
“And you took that all with you, here?” Dewi wonders, despite being happy that he did.
“One never knows,” Piotr says. “You didn’t?”
“I’ve got ointments and related stuff,” Dewi says. “It’s called makeup.”
“And none of these,” Piotr says, “can soothe pains?”
“Yes, they do,” Dewi says, “but they’re pains of the spirit.”
Piotr just stares at Dewi, uncomprehending.
“It’s a woman thing,” Dewi says, “you wouldn’t understand.”
Agnetha and Kristel laugh, together with Dewi and Olga. “By the way,” Olga says to Piotr in her most innocent voice, “you wouldn’t have some of that salve for another, well, white collar worker?”
— Interview with Olga Levitsa (Russia) —
A shot of a normal-height, white woman, platinum blonde hair tied tight in a bun with steely blue eyes in a stark yet pretty face. She wears hiking boots, sandy khakis with a fitted beige blouse and a buff jacket.
Question: Who are you, where are you from and what is your profession?
Answer: I am Olga Levitsa from St Petersburg, Russia and I am a journalist for one of the last independent newspapers whose editor did not choose cultural emigration.
Q: What are your strengths?
A: I’m fiercely independent, willing to go against the grain. On the other hand, I’m also very practical, perfectly willing to negotiate to get things done. If that sounds paradoxical, well, so be it.
Q: What are your weaknesses?
A: I’m a woman in a very old-fashioned, patriarchal society where not only do I — as a woman — get paid a third less than a man for the same job, but where also more than four-hundred-and-sixty jobs have been declared off-limits to women. Personally, I’m always fighting depression and constantly need to remind myself that it is worth carrying on.
Q: Why did you apply for the show?
A: To show the strength of the Russian woman. To help the progression of Russia towards a more egalitarian society. I know, I’m a hopeless idealist.
Q: Why are you not the replicant?
A: I understand that machines don’t have innate emotions: these will have to programmed. I don’t think any pre-programmed emotion can match my toska.
Q: What are your hobbies, or other non-work-related activities?
A: Watching Checkhov and Pushkin plays at the Maly Theatre and ballet at the Bolshoi when I can afford it. I still have a childhood crush on Vladimir Vasiliev. And reading, of course: not just the classics (Checkhov again, Tolstoi, Nabokov) but especially the often-neglected ones: Anna Akhmatova, Dina Rubina, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Svetlana Alexievich — OK, she’s not neglected outside of the Russian sphere.
Q: What is your motto?
A: Chem dal’she v les, tem bol’she drov. Roughly translated: the further in the woods, the more firewood you’ll encounter. The Russian equivalent of ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going.’
Q: Which word in your language should everybody know, and why?
A: Toska. The inevitable, deep-seated realization that life is meaningless. Yet, one must carry on because death is even more meaningless — if such a thing is possible.
— at an unnamed cemetery —
Despite their tiredness, Omar, Katja, Olga, Esteban and Kristel head for one of Nisí’s main cemeteries, to pay their respects to the refugee that was killed during the riot. It was hard enough to find out at which cemetery deceased refugees were buried — a sore point that the authorities try to cover up — until a lone volunteer told them, very reluctantly, where it was. Now they find it next to impossible to find the actual grave.
Eventually, the cemetery caretaker — Christos Tagaris — meets them, as he is wondering why they keep walking around. Since none of the five reality event candidates speak Greek, the universal translation app comes to the rescue once more.
“Are you lost?” Tagaris inquires. “I can assure you there’s no coffee shop here.”
“We are looking for the grave of a refugee,” Kristel says, “who died during a riot a few days ago.”
“Well, I can assure you that it’s certainly not here,” Tagaris says as his gestures encompass the lavish marble graves, adorned with flowers, “as these are the colonnaded tombs of the wealthy.”
“Then where could it be?” Kristel says. “We really want to know.”
“Follow me,” Tagaris says.
He leads them through a narrow plot of land that he calls the pauper’s section, where the graves are Spartan and cheap. They wind up at the very back end of the graveyard that used to be an unused plot of land, but is now scarred with makeshift, earthen, often unmarked graves.
“I’m sorry, but this is all we have left,” Tagaris says, “and since the refugees have no money, we dig these makeshift graves. Hopefully the person you’re looking for is somewhere here.”
“Hopefully?” Kristel says. “What do you mean?”
“Not all of the dead refugees are buried,” Tagaris says, “especially after our new, conservative government is secretly expelling boats full of them back to Turkey, or even abandons them at sea.”
“They do?” Kristel is shocked. “That’s murder.”
“Officially, they don’t do this,” Tagaris says, “but everybody knows the orders our Coast Guard has been given. Some of the conscientious people of the Coast Guard ignore these rules and do bring the refugees to land, while others don’t. Many refugees die at sea.”
“That’s criminal,” Kristel says, “why is nobody doing something about it?”
“As I said, officially our government denies everything,” Tagaris says, “but I’ve talked with fishermen who dump the bodies they find back into the sea to avoid having to hand them over to the authorities and face questioning and bureaucracy.”
In the meantime, Omar, Katja, Esteban and Olga are searching through this well-hidden backend of the cemetery. Some graves bear a small marble plaque with a name and date, some have no marking at all. Eventually they find a single grave labeled “Unknown” with the date of the riot.
“Let’s pay our respects here,” Olga says, “it’s probably the best we can do.”
“But we don’t know if this is the right grave,” Katja says.
“We may never find it,” Omar says, “so why not pay our respects here — irrespective of it’s the right one or not — and then do it again for all the refugees buried here.”
Esteban, Olga and Kristel nod in agreement. Katja’s still in doubt, until Esteban gently grabs her shoulder and says: “I’m sorry, but I really think this is the best option.” Katja gives a very slight nod of assent.
In front of the grave for the unknown refugee, the five of them hold a minute of silence right after an improvised speech by Olga. They repeat the short ceremony at the entrance of this dire graveyard section, honoring all refugees buried here, and those lost at sea. After thanking Tagaris the caretaker — who seems a good man with a huge lack of resources — they head back for the residence, their feelings a mix of despair, relief and anger.
— in the camp —
In the next few days, the group concentrates on cleaning up the camp. With an increasing amount of help from the refugees, this proceeds faster than many had thought, or even hoped. At some point, brooms and scrubbers and — Agnetha insists, to the despair of Rahman the bean counter — ecologically sustainable cleaning agents are purchased, and even the mud is cleaned from the paved and concrete streets of the camp.
It’s not all they do, as other matters are addressed as well. For one, Katja decides to witness how the daily food and drink rations are distributed. She joins Riham Saad, the exasperated twelve-year-old in the tent where the handouts take place.
It’s a mess. The volunteers try their best to give equal amounts of food to everybody, but it’s an uphill battle. Refugees scream, cry and beg for more. Strong young men cut the line, even before women and children. People lie to the volunteers distributing the food and water, saying they didn’t get anything while they just did, a few minutes ago. People steal extra portions behind the volunteers’ backs. In short, it’s a chaos where the strong and loud get more food than the silent and compliant.
Katja is utterly appalled. Eventually, she can’t take it anymore and freaks out. She moves forward, pulling the young girl along with her, and screams at the nearest volunteer that she won’t go away until Riham Saad gets her fair share. Under the glaring camera eye of Katja’s drone — and subsequently, the rest of the world — the poor volunteer complies. But Katja knows it’s not enough, and vows to Riham that they — meaning she and the other nine participants — will work to change this.
🌚🌝🌞
The next day, she’s gathered Omar, Piotr, Esteban and Akama — the strongest hands she could get — and makes sure the five of them are already in the food distribution tent well before the actual handouts begin. They meet with the volunteers — who are mostly young women — that will hand out the rations.
“We’re here to make sure that the rations are distributed fairly,” Omar says, “and while we realize that you try your very best to do that, as well, I understand from Katja that you’re a bit, well, understaffed and overwhelmed. You just do your thing, and we’ll do ours.”
As the first refugees enter the tent, they find a row of five reality event participants a few meters in front of the handout counter. “Women and children first,” they say, while stopping the first few young men that want to walk through. “Women and children first.”
They are with only five, while the refugees number in the hundreds upon hundreds. They could overrun the five volunteers, but they also suspect the repercussions will be huge. One should also not underestimate how five drones, hovering above the five reality event participants, drive the message “the world is watching you” home. Finally, the five participants don’t ask anything unreasonable, but for something that’s considered a common decency around the world.
So after a few initial pushes and shoves, the male refugees let the women and children pass, then — patiently or not — wait until each of the women and children have been served. Then the five participants let the males through, in an as orderly way as possible.
As the last ones approach, Omar and Katja hope there truly is enough for everybody, otherwise hell might break loose still. Luckily for them, there are sufficient ratios, there are even a few extra. Seizing the moment, Omar says, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Thank you, thank you all, we knew you could do it.” As everybody looks at him, “we have a few ratios left. Who needs an extra one?”
Reluctantly, a few female and children hands rise up. “For my brother, who’s sick in his tent,” one says. “For my sister, who is also very ill,” another says, and more speak up. Omar, Esteban, Piotr, Akama and Katja hand out the surplus ratios to them, until all of them are finished.
“Sorry that we can’t help you all,” Omar says, “and we’ll be here again, tomorrow, to make sure that all the food gets distributed fairly. As you can see, there is enough for everyone.”
Now that the food has been more equally distributed, Katja makes her way to one of the children’s tables where Riham Saad is eating. “I hope this is better,” Katja says to the young girl.
“Yes, this is so much better,” the fierce girl says, a rare friendly smile on her face. “Will you now enforce this every day?”
“I suppose we will the next couple of days,” Katja says, “but we can’t do it all the time. At some point, people have to learn to do this by themselves.”
“I don’t know if they ever will,” Riham Saad says. “It’s been as bad as this all the time I was here.”
“They have to learn,” Katja says, “and we can’t monitor this place every hour of every day. But the moment things worsen, contact me.”
“How?” Riham Saad says. “It’s a long walk to where you stay.”
Katja takes out her smartphone. “How do you prefer?” she asks.
“Do you snap?” Riham Saad wonders, hopefully.
“Of course,” Katja says, “here’s my username.”
Riham Saad types it in her Snapchat app, fires off a friend request that Katja immediately confirms.
“I’m Snapchat friends with Katja Maizie,” Riham Saad says, the tone of her voice rising sharply, “my friends will be so jealous!”
“You know the rap, right?” says Katja. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Katja goes back to her fellow participants and the five of them walk out, already being late for their own dinner. “What’s with the sick children,” Katja wonders, “shouldn’t they be in the hospital?”
“Uh-oh,” Esteban says, “that’s another can of worms you’re opening.”
“And I’ll keep opening up cans,” Katja says, getting used to Esteban’s sarcasm, “until no more worms are left.”
“That’s bad,” Esteban says, “worms are part of the ecosystem.”