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Chapter 1

        In the cold, dark interior, people sat or lay on the floor, separately or huddled for warmth in groups or couples, clutching the few possessions they had brought with them. There was little inclination to speak. Most were wary of their travelling companions and thought it best to tell nobody who they were or where they hoped to go and why. It was frightening to be so close to complete strangers yet unable to see them. A small dim light in the middle of the high roof did little more than indicate its own presence.
        Maria shivered, clutched her jacket more tightly round her body, pulled her woolly hat further down over her ears, and wrapped her arms around her knees, as much for privacy as for warmth. Her canvas bag was stowed under her bent legs, where she could feel that it was safe, although its most important contents - her passport and most of her money - had been taken from her before she was allowed on this vehicle. She still had her precious photographs and newspaper cuttings, though, and the thought of them gave her a small measure of comfort. Of more immediate physical importance was the food she had packed. Warned in advance that there would be few stops on the journey where food would be obtainable, she had brought as much as she could fit into her bag, along with a change of clothing and some basic toiletries.
        How long would the journey take? The driver had been vague about this - five days, if they were lucky, he’d said. It would depend on which of the EU countries they finally stopped in, and whether there were any problems on the way. Maria wondered about these ‘problems’ and prepared herself for a long and unpleasant ride in the smelly, airless container. How would she manage to sleep in these cramped conditions, as the old vehicle rattled and jerked on uneven roads, people talked or snored, and a small child wailed inconsolably? At least, she had only herself to look after. Would she have embarked on such an uncertain journey if she’d had a child to care for? What horrors must that baby’s mother be fleeing from, to take such risks? Maria thought of her last meeting with Pavel, just three days ago, and his final attempt to dissuade her from leaving Alborus. She had, briefly, been tempted to stay, but her mind was already made up. Now, with time for reflection, she shed a few tears for her relationship with Pavel. She would never see him again.
       
        Sitting quietly alone, though disturbingly close to strangers, she heard snatches of conversation, mostly in Alboruvian, some in other Slavic languages she couldn’t identify. How long had they been travelling? she wondered. With her watch gone, and the darkness in the container, there was no way of judging the time of day. Hearing quiet talk around her, she began to feel lonely. There must be other people travelling on their own, but it was impossible to see anyone clearly. When she noticed a few dim lights moving in the darkness, she wished that she, too, had thought to bring a torch. Once, she felt unnerved when a beam shone directly into her face for several moments.
        She almost started when a woman’s voice, quite close, spoke to her in Alboruvian.
        ‘May I talk to you a little?’ the voice said. ‘It is sad to be alone on such a journey. It would help to make the time pass more quickly for us, I think.’
        Maria turned to answer.
        ‘Yes, please,’ she said eagerly. ‘I was feeling so lonely. My name is Maria.’
        ‘Mine is Nina. I think I saw you, Maria, when we were waiting to hand in our passports. I did not like to do that - So hard to prove our identity without them.’
        ‘Yes, I was very worried about it.’
        ‘These are difficult circumstances,’ Nina said, her voice quieter than before, ‘I think it would be wise not to talk about our plans during this journey. Maybe you think I’m over-cautious, but I’m sure it’s for the best.’
        ‘No, I think you’re right, and it will take our minds off the journey a bit if we talk about different things. Isn’t it funny,’ Maria added on a lighter note, ‘to be having a conversation with someone we can’t see? I’ve never done this before!’
        The two women laughed briefly, then were silent for a while, but although each was absorbed in her own thoughts, both had shed the harrowing sense of isolation and the days ahead seemed less fearsome.
        When she boarded the vehicle, Maria had been dismayed to be told by one of the two drivers that he could not guarantee that they would go as far as England. When she’d asked why, he had muttered something unintelligible, about trouble with the police. Maria was well aware that the men she had paid for her journey were not working within the law. They were ‘people traffickers’, making money from those desperate to leave their own country. Almost certainly, they were not to be trusted.
       
        ‘I wonder if it’s still snowing,’ Nina’s soft voice broke gently into Maria’s thoughts, ‘It sounds as if the road is very wet, doesn’t it?’
        ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Maria answered, ‘but yes, it does. I expect wet roads are safer than icy ones, though.’
        ‘January!’ Nina exclaimed. ‘Not the best time of year for a journey of this kind!’
        ‘No, but we seem to be going faster now,’ Maria observed. ‘Perhaps we’ve left the mountains behind.’
        Silence fell. After a while, Maria dozed into a light sleep, but she was soon disturbed by a shuffling noise, and a man’s voice said, ‘Excuse me!’ as he stumbled over her feet in the darkness.
        ‘Sorry!’ said the man, regaining his balance and lurching on towards the door at the rear of the container. This was the first of many such disturbances, and Maria dreaded the times when she would need to make her way to the one toilet. Before the journey began, one of the drivers had told the passengers that there would be stops on the way, where they could get out if they needed to. What the facilities would be like at the stopping places, he had not said.
        Three hours later, the truck slowed down and stopped. The harsh noises of the metal doors at the back being opened roused everyone.
        ‘Fifteen minutes’ stop!’ the driver shouted.
        Stiffened limbs found flexibility at the mention of food, and everyone hurried to the rear exit to jump down onto the frozen ground. It was just beginning to get light and in the gloom Maria could see that they were in some kind of farmyard. A warm beam of light shone from the open door of a barn, onto the snow. There were other buildings, but they showed no lights, and it was difficult to see what kind of country they were in, though vague shapes suggested hills, or perhaps forests, beyond.
        Everyone hurried to get inside and eat the soup and rolls that had been promised, in the short time allowed. The barn was furnished sparsely with trestle tables and spindly folding chairs, which the travellers had to collect from a stack against one of the walls and which provided little comfort. At one end there was a rudimentary kitchen with a counter in front, where two women stood behind cauldrons of soup. They looked resentful, as if they had been coerced into this duty, and addressed harsh words to each other in Alboruvian. The one who served Maria gave her a contemptuous glance, splashing the greasy liquid carelessly into her bowl, so that half of it spilt onto the counter.
       
        The travellers had been told that the price they paid for the journey included a few meals on the way, and there were grumbles, mostly from the men, about the small servings of unidentifiable thin soup and the stale bread, which did not amount to a meal. Most people, though, were so dazed and disorientated by the light, after prolonged darkness in the container, that they lacked the energy to complain. The toilets, though rudimentary, were better than the overused one in the lorry.
        Seeing Nina properly for the first time, in the light of the barn, Maria was surprised to realise that her new friend was much older than herself, her face very lined and her hair almost white. Her voice sounded young, rather like Maria’s own, and she was twenty-three. She wondered why Nina was making such an arduous - possibly dangerous - journey, but both women kept to their agreement not to talk about their plans, although Nina once mentioned briefly her concern for her daughter in London, whom she had not heard from for many months.
        The air in the container was fresher when they returned to it, and much colder, but for people who had begun to fear suffocation before the stop, the chilly conditions were welcome. Most passengers tried to get back to the places they had occupied before, the instinct to find and inhabit an individual space asserting itself even here, and there were several quarrels over territory before the doors were shut, darkness descended again, and the journey resumed.
        Women were greatly outnumbered by men, Maria had noticed when they were all in the barn eating the frugal refreshments, and this, together with a smell of alcohol when they were back in the container, made her feel uneasy. She was grateful for Nina’s companionship and nearness to her, but she remained alert and wary. Once the truck was on its way again, she became aware of someone shuffling about quite close to her, and a slurred male voice said:
        ‘I know you, don’t I? I saw you in a police station two months ago. You were there with your father.’
        Maria froze. She had indeed been in a police station with her father, just before his imprisonment.
        ‘I never forget a face!’ said the man, or youth - Maria could not tell which - in a tone that made her tremble.
        ‘Your father wrote those dirty books, didn’t he?’
        Maria had determined to keep silent, but this was too much for her.
       
        ‘No, he did not! That was someone else with the same name. My father was a man of great humanity. He died protesting about injustice in our country. You should be proud of what he...’
        She stopped abruptly. Nina had put a gently restraining hand on her arm, and she whispered urgently: ‘Maria, dear, it is best to say nothing.’
        Maria subsided immediately, regretting her indiscretion. She heard a loud chuckle: ‘No luck there, Anton? Never mind; there’ll be plenty more opportunities, plenty of time! And quite a few to choose from in here!’
        Obscene laughter followed.
        Another voice added, ‘And it doesn’t matter what they look like, in this bloody box!’
        The youths guffawed again.
        ‘Calm down, you lads,’ an older male voice quietly intervened. ‘Let’s keep up some decent standards in here.”
        The youths subsided for a while. An uneasy quietness now prevailed, but there was never silence. Unable to sleep, Maria heard the whispering of couples, the rustling of paper when anyone opened a packet of food, suppressed sobbing, and restless shuffling as people tried to make themselves comfortable and inevitably disturbed others by doing so, sometimes provoking angry outbursts or just murmurs of annoyance. Sometimes she heard someone praying and the click of rosary beads.
        Maria wondered what the container normally carried, when people were not its cargo. She’d noticed a smell when she first came on board, a bit like rotting vegetables.
        During spells of wakefulness, she and Nina talked quietly, firstly about the places where they had lived and grown up. Later, discovering a shared interest in reading, they talked about books, recommended titles to each other, discussing novels they both knew well, compensating a little for the impossibility of reading here, in the dark.
        The next time the truck stopped, one of the drivers came into the container to announce that they would soon be entering the European Union. He refused to say which country it was. Some delay was likely at the border, and the truck would probably be parked in a stationary queue for some time. Total silence would be vital until they were moving again, and no one would be allowed to move from where they were. If police or customs officers came on board, no one was to answer any questions, or to ask any. Knowing that this was one of the most risky
       
        stages of the whole venture, nobody raised any objection to these rules. But then a man’s voice spoke:
        ‘There’s a two-year-old baby in here. It isn’t right to risk all our lives for the sake of a kid who might start to cry at any moment! That child and its mother should be turned off the truck!’
        A few murmurs of agreement followed, but most people waited in tense anguish, torn between humane feelings and the instinct for self-preservation.
        ‘I will enforce silence in here myself,’ their guard announced in a grim tone that no one would have dared to challenge. ‘You can talk now until I tell you,’ he added.
        A rumour began to circulate. Some people swore that they’d seen the butt of a gun sticking out of the guard’s pocket. Was it to threaten anyone who disobeyed his orders, or to shoot any official who showed curiosity about the container? Others wondered fearfully how the guard would silence the baby, if it should cry.
        ‘There’s always someone worse off than ourselves,’ Nina said to Maria. ‘Just imagine how that baby’s mother must be feeling now!’
        The period of silence at the border seemed never-ending, and it was made especially unnerving by their guard’s use of a torch to look at the travellers. Sometimes he would focus his attention on one individual for several minutes at a time. But the baby never cried, no officials boarded the container, the driver-cum-guard got out and returned to the cab, and at last they were moving again. The successful crossing into a country of the European Union - Poland, most of the travellers assumed it to be - produced a marked relaxation from the almost unbearable tension of the last few hours. There was singing in the container as the journey got under way - almost a party atmosphere - and people began to talk more freely.
        Several hundred miles further on, the truck stopped again, and after another frugal and unappetising meal in yet another unidentifiable place, some newcomers came on board. Their language was unlike any of those spoken in the container so far. But of much greater significance to the existing passengers was the obviously advanced stage of pregnancy of one of the new women.
        ‘That’s all we need!’ exclaimed the man who had protested against the small child being allowed to travel.
        All conversations stopped abruptly. The tension was almost palpable.
        ‘Is she going to have a kid in here?’
       
        The woman looked at him beseechingly, his meaning clear despite his unfamiliar language. The guard was standing impassively at the rear entrance, where he checked the people entering the container.
        ‘Chuck her out!’ the protester demanded.
        ‘No,’ the guard answered stolidly, ‘She’s paid her fare.’
        A woman who always sat alone, and had been so unobtrusive that few people had noticed her, stood up and walked over to the terrified newcomer, put an arm round her, and led her to the place where she usually sat and, without a word, made a space for her, trying to make her as comfortable as she could. The man who had objected said no more. Another crisis had been averted.
        On and on the truck travelled, until Maria lost all sense of how long it was since she’d left her home town, or how soon, if ever, she would reach England.

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