Her name was horrid to spell, embroidered with never-ending consonants making it an awfully long time to dictate it to anyone on the other end of the phone. Their patience would wear thin, and they would ring off for no apparent reason except the endless attempts to get the right letters. To an innocent observer, the whole process gave the sense of word scrabble over the phone, and for this reason, she decided to call herself Ana, even though that proved to be a hassle too.
People would ask is it Ana, or Ann with double n? She often thought the spelling rules should be abolished, at least for names, to make them phonetic. Call me Ana. Simple A–N–A!
The new name in the new country didn’t mean anything. She forgot who she was the day she landed at the airport, leaving behind her family to fight someone else’s war in some obscure Eastern European country. The feeling of being nobody was formalised six months later at the Home Office reception desk when she was officially stamped ‘Refugee’.
In the desperate quest for a place to call home, she moved more than 12 times from one rented place to another in less than a year, and developed a strategy for moving efficiently, without asking her few friends for help or using expensive removal firms.
Her strategy was very simple. You must not own anything bulky even if you could afford to buy it: washing machine, fridge, TV. These appliances are burdensome to get through the ticket barriers at tube stations and too heavy to take on escalators. Save money by investing in travel bags, preferably sturdy ones. Samsonites, circa 1970, are good ones. The only issue is that once closed they can’t be opened. A knife and chisel are very handy here.
From her experience, the best solution is to have a medium to large suitcase, of any make actually, with a sticky airline label wrapped around the handle. This way you can avoid suspicious looks from the occasional dopey London underground staff. These labels are easily obtained on the Piccadilly Line, the one which goes from London Heathrow all the way to north London. If you are unlucky and there are none lying around you can always approach a real traveller and ask for their luggage label. They are in holiday mode and happy to get rid of some rubbish. Just don’t be shy. If you find this process daunting, invest some money in a ticket to any terminal at Heathrow (there are other airports in London – choose the most economical one) and pick out labels from the rubbish bins. This exercise will be beneficial for your soul too as you will see happy people freely travelling. This will give you the hope that one day you may be in the same position – at the airport, travelling home to see your family who you haven’t seen since lord knows when. In your right hand you will be holding tickets and a valid passport while the left one will be busy too, wheeling the new suitcase, one for which you don’t need a knife and chisel to open.
That would be a real fairy tale moment, even just for a short time.
If your financial situation doesn’t allow you to invest in sturdy cases, do not despair. You can always buy bin bags, but make sure they are not the black kitchen ones. Ana learned very early on, at the beginning of her ‘moving around’ career, that kitchen bin bags are very thin. The temptation is huge as they are cheapest version available. If you must get them, make sure you travel early in the morning or late in the evening when traffic on your desired tube line is more sparse. This way you’ll avoid all the embarrassment if the plastic bags suddenly burst open and your lacy red knickers pop out on platform 1 on the Central Line to the delight of avid readers of The Sun.
Once she had moved all her valuables in a few trips on the Central Line, Ana would try painfully hard to settle into her newest so-called home. The arduous journey of settling into the new dwelling, marred by never-ending longings for her family, her lack of friends or a sense of belonging to anyone or anything, made her drink herself into oblivion. The enormity of her stumbling soul would be clearly visible the following morning when, surrounded by empty cans of beer, Ana would wake up in her own vomit.
That day, the day before she turned 26, she got up early and over a strong coffee brought over from her decaying country, she decided to change her life. Over the rankness of a cigarette mixed with the familiar warm, soothing coffee, she decided to become a human again. To feel human, one needed to feel sense of belonging and although she had a well-paid job at a fast-food restaurant, she was working under somebody else’s name. The room she was sharing with two other girls, in a big house, was under somebody else’s name too. Her old documents, the ones with which she entered this country, had expired a long time ago, and even if they hadn’t, no one would recognise a passport from a country which had ceased to exist. Her new documents, accrued here in this country, were reduced to a bus pass with a photo of her overgrown hair.
She was slowly forgetting who she was and where she come from. In her previous life, the one before she become nobody, she was an avid reader, with a book always close by, ready to take her into different worlds, even for a short time. Since she had landed on the shores of this island, her reading was restricted to adverts on the long bus journeys to work. She couldn’t afford journeys on the tube but she comforted herself with the thought that the adverts would be the same and so she wouldn’t lose out on improving her language skills.
That morning she decided to join the local library. The usual embarrassment of talking to native speakers, the sheer dread of making a mistake in pronunciation or, God forbid, grammar, disappeared with the second sip of coffee. She was ready to conquer the world and to start with the local library.
The first thing she noticed when she entered the grey building were arrows, traffic signs for stop and enter. She checked around if there was anything to limit her walking speed. Being a refugee in a foreign country makes you extra carful of the local customs, in case you break them, draw unnecessary attention to yourself and end up who knows where.
Slowly entering the building, she was asking herself if one needed to pass a driving test in order to get into the library. Luckily there were no traffic lights and she swiftly walked to the huge empty desk. There, she opened her heavy dictionary at the right page, the one which translated whole sentences which she couldn’t articulate clearly, especially when under pressure, so she had to read them out slowly, word by word. The sound of the pages rustling in the empty library prompted a lady to come out on the other side of desk and politely ask:
‘How can I help you?’
Ana understood that sentence as it was a part of her training at the fast-food restaurant. Feeling anxious, almost embarrassed, she concentrated hard on her reading, making sure she didn’t look at the librarian’s eyes.
‘Yes… Can I be… in relationship… with library?’
‘Of course… We need two proofs of ID. One of your address in the UK and one with a photo. Also, you need to fill in this form’.
Outside of the building, she frantically looked at her Communist Party-approved dictionary for the word ‘proof’ only to realize her conquest of the world had ended where it started, at the local library. There was no way she could provide two proofs of address in the UK.
On the way back to her bedsit, she passed a building society with big window adverts for opening new accounts. Having been in the country for over three years, she still didn’t hold a bank account, even though she had regular wages and made regular payments. All in cash, of course.
No sooner did she enter the bank, than she began to struggle. Who gave her the right to enter such an important institution? Having low self-esteem, mixed with the deep shame of being a foreigner, a refugee, made her doubt her decision to re-establish herself as a human. Before she could turn around a loud voice rang out: ‘Next.’
The smartly dressed man in a blue suit, the same one she saw in other official establishments, make her wonder if blue was the official colour of officials in this country. The police, Home Office, banks, solicitors…
As soon as she looked at his steel blue eyes, she began to stammer. Her trembling fingers couldn’t find the right page in the suddenly heavy dictionary. The whole branch, consisting of older people, instantly stopped doing what they were doing and begin to scrutinize her. The insufferable feeling of being the odd one out was overwhelming. It wasn’t just her accent or grammar but her dress code was so out of place too. Her worn-out trainers, bought at Shepherds Bush Market, and whose colour matched her stained t shirt, didn’t go well with others’ colour coordinated bodies. Her dark hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail, was in stark contrast with fresh blonde highlights that were leisurely floating around the branch.
‘I would like to open an account’.
A warm wave of pride for managing a whole sentence in one go was promptly stopped by the next question: ‘Which kind of account?’
She understood the question clearly but her banking experience was based on stealing money from dad’s wallet. She tried very hard to remember if her parents had an account and what colour it was.
‘Savings, current, offshore…’
‘A simple one.’
‘Current?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Fill this form in and bring your passport.’
Having brought her expired passport with her, she quickly filled the form in, putting her present address and admitting having had sex by circling yes next to it. As a refugee, or non-existent human, you haven’t got anything to lose by taking a chance, your pride is long gone and what is left is just the tremendous urge to get what you want. Yes, the passport was expired and the country was non-existent but there was a very pretty photo the bank clerk could ID. With his youth, and shame at dealing with a foreigner, there was little chance he would check the passport’s expiry date.
As luck had it, she was back in front of the same authoritarian man, surprised to see the unkempt foreigner again. It wasn’t his day.
‘How much money do you have?’
‘Three hundred pounds.’
That was the money for three weeks. Without hesitation, the bank clerk snatched it under the glass screen making her question the decision to open an account in a foreign country, but the idea of having library membership in London was irresistible. It was worth three hundred pounds.
The bank clerk’s loud counting of the money made her embarrassed for not having more. The lady next to her was talking in thousands and the gentlemen behind her had two thick white envelopes in his hands. The thickness of her money was the same as the letter from the Home Office asking her for an interview. Not for a job but to establish her worthless existence in this country.
She knew the sacrifice she had to go through was for a higher purpose, for membership of a library! She needed two proofs and opening an account with the bank was one.
The crisp blue suit, satisfied with the amount she had stuffed in his dainty hands, didn’t bother to check the dates on her passport, only the black and white photo. That was enough to issue her with a bank book which clearly stated her address.
Back in the library, her bus pass and newly acquired bank account was enough to issue her library card. She spent the whole afternoon browsing every single shelf in the compact library, with the employees occasionally checking on her in case she needed any help. They didn’t understand her inane happiness at being surrounded by books again.
The first book she borrowed in the UK with her new magnetic strip library card was ‘Fear of Flying’ by Erica Yong. Very ambitious considering her level of English but she was determined to read it with the help of the dictionary. She found it on the bottom shelf in the Military section amongst books about the RAF in WWII, and she guessed that someone had left it there without reading about the zipless fuck on the back cover.
Fear of Flying travelled all around London from one rented flat to the next until she eventually decided to give it to her friend for his 30th birthday. She carefully ripped off the front page with the St John’s Library stamp, wrapped it in shiny paper and presented it to him when she learned that people here don’t expect presents – the highest level of birthday appreciation is a card with serious, funny, inappropriate, or stupid slogans printed in strange fonts, enhanced by cartoons drawn by four-year-olds. In her country they didn’t have cards. Their birthday presents were feasts of presents like an LP from a group you had never heard of, or books by authors you didn’t know. And true to the present-giving skills learnt in her country, she gave Fear of Flying to her friend who had never heard of Erica Jong before. He was surprised, admittedly not pleasantly surprised, but humbled all the same by the present.
It's astounding the things you learn in order to adapt. To survive.
The new name in the new country didn’t mean anything. She forgot who she was the day she landed at the airport, leaving behind her family to fight someone else’s war in some obscure Eastern European country. The feeling of being nobody was formalised six months later at the Home Office reception desk when she was officially stamped ‘Refugee’.
In the desperate quest for a place to call home, she moved more than 12 times from one rented place to another in less than a year, and developed a strategy for moving efficiently, without asking her few friends for help or using expensive removal firms.
Her strategy was very simple. You must not own anything bulky even if you could afford to buy it: washing machine, fridge, TV. These appliances are burdensome to get through the ticket barriers at tube stations and too heavy to take on escalators. Save money by investing in travel bags, preferably sturdy ones. Samsonites, circa 1970, are good ones. The only issue is that once closed they can’t be opened. A knife and chisel are very handy here.
From her experience, the best solution is to have a medium to large suitcase, of any make actually, with a sticky airline label wrapped around the handle. This way you can avoid suspicious looks from the occasional dopey London underground staff. These labels are easily obtained on the Piccadilly Line, the one which goes from London Heathrow all the way to north London. If you are unlucky and there are none lying around you can always approach a real traveller and ask for their luggage label. They are in holiday mode and happy to get rid of some rubbish. Just don’t be shy. If you find this process daunting, invest some money in a ticket to any terminal at Heathrow (there are other airports in London – choose the most economical one) and pick out labels from the rubbish bins. This exercise will be beneficial for your soul too as you will see happy people freely travelling. This will give you the hope that one day you may be in the same position – at the airport, travelling home to see your family who you haven’t seen since lord knows when. In your right hand you will be holding tickets and a valid passport while the left one will be busy too, wheeling the new suitcase, one for which you don’t need a knife and chisel to open.
That would be a real fairy tale moment, even just for a short time.
If your financial situation doesn’t allow you to invest in sturdy cases, do not despair. You can always buy bin bags, but make sure they are not the black kitchen ones. Ana learned very early on, at the beginning of her ‘moving around’ career, that kitchen bin bags are very thin. The temptation is huge as they are cheapest version available. If you must get them, make sure you travel early in the morning or late in the evening when traffic on your desired tube line is more sparse. This way you’ll avoid all the embarrassment if the plastic bags suddenly burst open and your lacy red knickers pop out on platform 1 on the Central Line to the delight of avid readers of The Sun.
Once she had moved all her valuables in a few trips on the Central Line, Ana would try painfully hard to settle into her newest so-called home. The arduous journey of settling into the new dwelling, marred by never-ending longings for her family, her lack of friends or a sense of belonging to anyone or anything, made her drink herself into oblivion. The enormity of her stumbling soul would be clearly visible the following morning when, surrounded by empty cans of beer, Ana would wake up in her own vomit.
That day, the day before she turned 26, she got up early and over a strong coffee brought over from her decaying country, she decided to change her life. Over the rankness of a cigarette mixed with the familiar warm, soothing coffee, she decided to become a human again. To feel human, one needed to feel sense of belonging and although she had a well-paid job at a fast-food restaurant, she was working under somebody else’s name. The room she was sharing with two other girls, in a big house, was under somebody else’s name too. Her old documents, the ones with which she entered this country, had expired a long time ago, and even if they hadn’t, no one would recognise a passport from a country which had ceased to exist. Her new documents, accrued here in this country, were reduced to a bus pass with a photo of her overgrown hair.
She was slowly forgetting who she was and where she come from. In her previous life, the one before she become nobody, she was an avid reader, with a book always close by, ready to take her into different worlds, even for a short time. Since she had landed on the shores of this island, her reading was restricted to adverts on the long bus journeys to work. She couldn’t afford journeys on the tube but she comforted herself with the thought that the adverts would be the same and so she wouldn’t lose out on improving her language skills.
That morning she decided to join the local library. The usual embarrassment of talking to native speakers, the sheer dread of making a mistake in pronunciation or, God forbid, grammar, disappeared with the second sip of coffee. She was ready to conquer the world and to start with the local library.
The first thing she noticed when she entered the grey building were arrows, traffic signs for stop and enter. She checked around if there was anything to limit her walking speed. Being a refugee in a foreign country makes you extra carful of the local customs, in case you break them, draw unnecessary attention to yourself and end up who knows where.
Slowly entering the building, she was asking herself if one needed to pass a driving test in order to get into the library. Luckily there were no traffic lights and she swiftly walked to the huge empty desk. There, she opened her heavy dictionary at the right page, the one which translated whole sentences which she couldn’t articulate clearly, especially when under pressure, so she had to read them out slowly, word by word. The sound of the pages rustling in the empty library prompted a lady to come out on the other side of desk and politely ask:
‘How can I help you?’
Ana understood that sentence as it was a part of her training at the fast-food restaurant. Feeling anxious, almost embarrassed, she concentrated hard on her reading, making sure she didn’t look at the librarian’s eyes.
‘Yes… Can I be… in relationship… with library?’
‘Of course… We need two proofs of ID. One of your address in the UK and one with a photo. Also, you need to fill in this form’.
Outside of the building, she frantically looked at her Communist Party-approved dictionary for the word ‘proof’ only to realize her conquest of the world had ended where it started, at the local library. There was no way she could provide two proofs of address in the UK.
On the way back to her bedsit, she passed a building society with big window adverts for opening new accounts. Having been in the country for over three years, she still didn’t hold a bank account, even though she had regular wages and made regular payments. All in cash, of course.
No sooner did she enter the bank, than she began to struggle. Who gave her the right to enter such an important institution? Having low self-esteem, mixed with the deep shame of being a foreigner, a refugee, made her doubt her decision to re-establish herself as a human. Before she could turn around a loud voice rang out: ‘Next.’
The smartly dressed man in a blue suit, the same one she saw in other official establishments, make her wonder if blue was the official colour of officials in this country. The police, Home Office, banks, solicitors…
As soon as she looked at his steel blue eyes, she began to stammer. Her trembling fingers couldn’t find the right page in the suddenly heavy dictionary. The whole branch, consisting of older people, instantly stopped doing what they were doing and begin to scrutinize her. The insufferable feeling of being the odd one out was overwhelming. It wasn’t just her accent or grammar but her dress code was so out of place too. Her worn-out trainers, bought at Shepherds Bush Market, and whose colour matched her stained t shirt, didn’t go well with others’ colour coordinated bodies. Her dark hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail, was in stark contrast with fresh blonde highlights that were leisurely floating around the branch.
‘I would like to open an account’.
A warm wave of pride for managing a whole sentence in one go was promptly stopped by the next question: ‘Which kind of account?’
She understood the question clearly but her banking experience was based on stealing money from dad’s wallet. She tried very hard to remember if her parents had an account and what colour it was.
‘Savings, current, offshore…’
‘A simple one.’
‘Current?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Fill this form in and bring your passport.’
Having brought her expired passport with her, she quickly filled the form in, putting her present address and admitting having had sex by circling yes next to it. As a refugee, or non-existent human, you haven’t got anything to lose by taking a chance, your pride is long gone and what is left is just the tremendous urge to get what you want. Yes, the passport was expired and the country was non-existent but there was a very pretty photo the bank clerk could ID. With his youth, and shame at dealing with a foreigner, there was little chance he would check the passport’s expiry date.
As luck had it, she was back in front of the same authoritarian man, surprised to see the unkempt foreigner again. It wasn’t his day.
‘How much money do you have?’
‘Three hundred pounds.’
That was the money for three weeks. Without hesitation, the bank clerk snatched it under the glass screen making her question the decision to open an account in a foreign country, but the idea of having library membership in London was irresistible. It was worth three hundred pounds.
The bank clerk’s loud counting of the money made her embarrassed for not having more. The lady next to her was talking in thousands and the gentlemen behind her had two thick white envelopes in his hands. The thickness of her money was the same as the letter from the Home Office asking her for an interview. Not for a job but to establish her worthless existence in this country.
She knew the sacrifice she had to go through was for a higher purpose, for membership of a library! She needed two proofs and opening an account with the bank was one.
The crisp blue suit, satisfied with the amount she had stuffed in his dainty hands, didn’t bother to check the dates on her passport, only the black and white photo. That was enough to issue her with a bank book which clearly stated her address.
Back in the library, her bus pass and newly acquired bank account was enough to issue her library card. She spent the whole afternoon browsing every single shelf in the compact library, with the employees occasionally checking on her in case she needed any help. They didn’t understand her inane happiness at being surrounded by books again.
The first book she borrowed in the UK with her new magnetic strip library card was ‘Fear of Flying’ by Erica Yong. Very ambitious considering her level of English but she was determined to read it with the help of the dictionary. She found it on the bottom shelf in the Military section amongst books about the RAF in WWII, and she guessed that someone had left it there without reading about the zipless fuck on the back cover.
Fear of Flying travelled all around London from one rented flat to the next until she eventually decided to give it to her friend for his 30th birthday. She carefully ripped off the front page with the St John’s Library stamp, wrapped it in shiny paper and presented it to him when she learned that people here don’t expect presents – the highest level of birthday appreciation is a card with serious, funny, inappropriate, or stupid slogans printed in strange fonts, enhanced by cartoons drawn by four-year-olds. In her country they didn’t have cards. Their birthday presents were feasts of presents like an LP from a group you had never heard of, or books by authors you didn’t know. And true to the present-giving skills learnt in her country, she gave Fear of Flying to her friend who had never heard of Erica Jong before. He was surprised, admittedly not pleasantly surprised, but humbled all the same by the present.
It's astounding the things you learn in order to adapt. To survive.
Tara Goldsmith left the country of her birth and much later went back to the third version of the same country. In between, she has travelled the world, exploring not only the cultures of other countries but also her own identity and inner conflicts about family, tradition, loss and the struggle to create a meaningful future. She is now settled in the English countryside with her dogs and books.
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