Sahraa slides the items over the scanner, noting each beep, half listening to the chatter of the couple she’s serving. Her stomach rumbles. Half past ten, almost time for her break. Back in Kabul, at this time, she’d be in class. She can smell the art room; the sharp tang of the paints and turpentine, the bitter undertone of linseed oil, the musty paper soaking up watercolours.
Sahraa pulls her mind back to the present. There’s nothing to be gained from dwelling on what could be, or should be, or was. She is no longer a teacher of Fine Arts. That version of her is on pause. This version of her works the early shift in Aldi, in a waterlogged midlands town. Looking down the conveyor belt her heart sinks. Two bottles of white wine jostle. She waits for the woman to pause for breath so she can interrupt.
‘They all get free buggies, you know!’ The woman brushes her blonde hair back from her eyes as she reaches down for her reusable bags.
‘Ah, it’s desperate!’ The man shakes his head. ‘And all the homeless sleeping on the streets. It’s not right.’
Sahraa runs her eyes over him. He is wearing a grey tracksuit but the generous piste of his stomach suggests little recent physical activity. She fights the urge to roll her eyes. She hears variations of this conversation every day.
The country is full.
We should be looking after our own.
She wishes she could tell them she would give anything to be back in her parents’ home, surrounded by the people she loves.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t sell you alcohol until 12:30.’
The woman reddens. ‘What? I thought the rule was 10:30.’ She holds her phone screen for Sahraa to see the time. Her screensaver is the crest of the football team that Sahraa’s son has just joined.
‘I’m sorry. By law I am not permitted to sell alcohol before 12:30 on a Sunday.’
The man tuts. ‘For fuck sake! That’s nonsense. We’ll have to come back again after our walk.’ He glares at Sahraa as if she is the root of all inconvenience.
Sahraa shrugs. ‘Cash or card?’
‘Sorry love, I can’t understand you.’
‘Are you paying with cash or card?’ Sahraa enunciates slowly.
Glaring, the woman waves her card in front of the machine. Sahraa sighs and presses the button to turn her light red, signalling her checkout closed. She edges out of her chair and heads for the break room.
She sits alone and slides out her mobile. No messages. Her stomach tightens. It’s been four days now since she’s heard from anyone at home. That might mean nothing she tells herself. No power to charge the phones. No money to buy credit. No signal.
Or it might mean everything.
She opens the news app and the screen floods with images so familiar their horror doesn’t register any more.
Two men lifting a bloodied child onto a makeshift stretcher. A woman covering her face with her hands in front of a mound of rubble. An explosion, a market, an unknown number of victims, Dasht-e-Barchi, a Hazara neighbourhood, her people.
‘Are you all set for Christmas, Sarah?’
Sahraa looks up. Bridget is smiling across the room at her, bright-eyed behind thick glasses. A friendly girl but, like all her co-workers, she has decided to call her Sarah. After the first few attempts to correct their pronunciation Sahraa conceded defeat. But she feels a twinge each time she answers to it.
‘Will you not be thick?’ Maureen elbows Bridget. ‘Sure they don’t do Christmas. They’re Arabs.’
Sahraa bites her tongue and wonders, again, how it is that her education was cobbled together in a brief window of peace-time yet she knows more than these people?
‘The boys are excited for it,’ she answers. ‘We will get them some things.’
Yesterday Sajjad brought home a colouring of the Nativity scene and instructions for the class Kris Kindle. She felt that twinge again.
Bridget and Maureen continue smiling into the deepening silence.
‘Come on.’ Maureen stands. ‘We’ll squeeze in a quick fag. Bye, Sarah.’
The break-room door swings shut on their giggles fading down the corridor. Sahraa punches in a quick message to her brother.
'Radin, are you all safe? Let me know please!'
Serge releases the letter from the typewriter and reads over it once more before placing it in the out-tray. Margaret, his personal secretary, will go to the post office when she gets back from lunch. She will look at him with pity in her eyes as she lifts the letter, just like she does every time he sends one.
Bohermore,
Galway,
10th Dec. 1939
Dear Jean,
Many thanks for your letter. Please communicate urgently regarding the whereabouts of my wife, Sophie and my nine year old daughter, Rachel. I have had no news for many months.
Serge Phillipson,
M.D. 'Les Modes Modernes’
He is running out of places to send them to. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Sophie and Rachel. Happy, safe. Maybe ice-skating. Or reading together beside a warm fire. When they decided last August to return to France none of them realised the danger that was waiting. Tears leak out and Serge brushes them away. He stands, straightens his jacket, and heads for the factory floor.
La Normandie, décembre 1939
‘I found some!’ I call out to Stéphane, my voice muffled by the heavy snow weighing down the tree branches. My hands ache from the cold. Stéphane takes the bundle of twigs.
‘These are wet, Rachel.’
‘Everything is wet!’
All around me are frozen rocks and mud. We might be able to start a fire but I know it won’t build up any warmth. Maman has already burned old wooden furniture from the cellar and is threatening to start in on the dining-chairs next. The wet is seeping in through my shoes and I can barely feel my feet. At least the chill distracts me from the hunger pains.
‘Let’s go back,’ I say.
I lead the way slowly. Stéphane coughs all the way home.
Néris-les-Bains, juin 1940
Today I received a letter from Papa. I should have been happy but instead I cried. Oncle Henri says we might have to move again, further south, so that we are not caught and sent to the camps. I know we are lucky in many ways. Henri has money from the factory to help us all and we have a little garden where we’ve been growing vegetables. Ruth and Tante Ella have come to live with us awhile. Oncle Ernest must stay in Lisieux because he is German. Ruth and I pray every night that we will see our Papas soon. I like to imagine mine, making beautiful chapeaux in the factory in Galway. I wonder if there are other Jewish people there.
Cauterets, juillet 1940
There have been no more letters from Papa. He doesn’t even know that we have moved again. This time to la zone libre. Ruth and I hike in the mountains and look for blueberries. We can see into Spain! We could just walk over the border to safety. But we cannot. Grandmère is too old for the journey and we cannot leave her here alone. Henri and Stéphane have gone to Cannes. The mountain air was bad for Henri’s asthma. I miss Stéphane. I miss everyone.
Cauterets, août 1940
I thunder down the street, my wooden shoes ricocheting off the path. I am afraid. I shouldn’t be making so much noise and I am running towards danger. I skid to a stop at the schoolyard. It is crowded and I scan the heads. In there, somewhere, among the hastily packed bags and distress are my Tante Ella, her husband Ernest who has recently returned, and ma chère amie, Ruth. The air is filled with fumes from the buses and the shouts of the police. The crowd is being herded onto the buses, packed tight. A figure breaks from the crowd and I see that it is Ruth. I stand with my toes gripping the narrow wall so I can lean over the railing to grab her hand. Hot tears flow down my cheeks as we shout over each other.
‘Goodbye, my friend.’
‘I love you!'
She is pulled back into the crowd and I fall to the ground. Someone is gripping my elbow. It is Tante Choura, her face raw with grief. Her husband, Oncle Robert, is being loaded onto the bus. Anyone who was not present in France before 1933 is to be sent away, deported. Our life is governed by these random rules. Who will it be next time?
Nice, septembre 1943
Maman is rubbing at my face with her coat sleeve, issuing final words of advice. She is saying that I must always wash my hands with warm water. This is important, somehow. I hear her words 'l’eau chaude' and I wonder has she forgotten? We are no longer the type of people who can depend on having hot water. Stéphane kisses her on the cheek.
‘Goodbye, Tante Sophie. I will take good care of Rachel I promise.'
He pulls me towards the train. Our little group has to split up for our safety. I watch my mother’s face disappearing out of view on the platform. I am the one who is moving but it feels like she is reversing out of my life. It is her birthday in December. I resolve to save up my chocolate rations and send them to her.
St Etienne-de-St Geoirs, juillet 1944
'Jacqueline!'
It takes a beat for me to realise that I am being addressed. I have not been Rachel since January. For my safety I am now Jacqueline, a Catholic girl. There is no longer a Rachel, just as there is no longer a Sophie. Maman was deported in January and has not been heard from since.
The rumble of engines makes me look up from the well. A young, tanned soldier is standing beside his truck. He is smiling. He pulls off his boots and groans as he peels stiff socks from his feet. He hands them to me and I wash them in the well. While they dry he tells me about Canada. He gives me chocolate. I cannot eat it. We have been liberated.
Dublin, June 1945
A steel grey sea, teeming with jellyfish, chops at the boat as we arrive into the harbour. I disembark and walk towards my father. He is holding a bouquet of small, pink roses. For his small daughter, Rachel. But I am taller than him now. It is six years since we last met. In that time I have gathered wood for warmth, I have felt hunger, I have been hunted like an animal, I have said goodbye to people I love, I have lost people I love without saying goodbye. I am Rachel. I am French. I am Jewish. And now, it seems, I am to be Irish.
Sahraa turns onto her side, the thin mattress poking springs into her hip. Outside, on the street, two men are shouting as they leave the pub. She is used to city noise, but this is not her city. She checks her phone again. Still no messages.
She puts it on the locker, on top of the pages that have kept her from sleep.
“Form 8 - For Naturalisation As An Irish Citizen.”
It will be difficult but maybe this is how she can bring her family here, to safety.
She is Sahraa. She is Afghan. She is Hazara.
And now, maybe, Irish.
June O’Sullivan lives on an island in Co. Kerry. Her writing has appeared in the The Ogham Stone Journal, The York Literary Review, Seaside Gothic, The Storms Journal, The Waxed Lemon and Sonder. She is a student of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. She is represented by Francesca Riccardi of the Kate Nash Literary Agency. Her debut novel THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S WIFE will be published by Poolbeg in early 2025.
Where Your Heart Goes, There Your Feet Will Go was first published in York Literary Review in 2023.
A deftly told story this, subtly makes its point and left me thinking long after I finished reading it.