Chapter Seventeen #3
“Which you shouldn't be. Look, this is crazy—your guys in the
cars down there are doing something else.”
“What do they do when you leave the house?”
I haven’t gone out yet. Suddenly that
was too pitiful an admission. “Nothing. Forget them. I'm glad you
came back, because I wanted to talk to you about something
important. Can you stay for a few minutes more?”
“I... I think so, yes.”
“Good. And can we have the conversation by the pool, not up a
jacaranda? What sort of coffee do you like?”
The boy
coloured deeply. “No. My people—the staff and the gardeners here—we
have our own lives. We do well, and we don't...” He struggled for
the words. “We don't look down on ourselves. But we don't sit at
poolsides with—”
“Nonsense,” Sasha interrupted him mildly. “Don't give me any of
this my people stuff—you have no idea who you're talking to. I know I have to
keep you hidden, and chuck you out before Mrs Alvarez arrives, but
for now you're my visitor. My guest.”
Nevertheless Sasha keyed and thumbprinted himself back indoors
and crept into his kitchen like a thief. Just black was how Mateo liked his
coffee, but the Gaggia didn't seem to have that modest setting, and
besides would raise the roof with its hissing and clatter. Once
more Sasha cracked out the instant. Defiantly he added to the tray
a plateful of the biscuits he'd sneaked undeclared into the US,
certain that Laurie would get peckish around midnight and that
nothing else would do. He tucked his laptop and notebook under his
arm and awkwardly made his way back out. Mateo, perched on the edge
of the stone bench, smiled upon his homely offerings and looked
more at ease than if Sasha had whisked out with cocktails and
olives. “Rich tea biscuits on a little plate... You really are
English, aren't you?”
“No. I told you—part Romanian.” Sasha put the tray down on the
bench between them. “Not even fully a citizen there. I was—am—from
a Roma community, what many people in the West call gypsies. So
when I entered Britain, I learned very quickly what it meant to be
an immigrant.”
“An illegal one.”
Sasha
nodded brusquely, avoiding the sympathetic darkening of Mateo's
eyes. All that was over. He just wanted to convey the bare bones so
that the boy would trust him. “Not for long. I had friends,
sponsors, a lot of help. I'm telling you this because I think I
could help you.”
“What—with immigration?” Mateo smiled. He cautiously took up
one hot mug and sipped from it, regarding Sasha over the rim.
“Respectfully—your British authorities are like... well, like
little chihuahuas beside American bulldogs.”
“You said your friends and relatives around here would abandon
you if you got caught. Deny you. I know they've got a lot staked on
their jobs, but that's extreme, isn't it?”
“Not really. I don’t blame them.”
“Are they worried about their own immigration
status?
“It isn’t that. They’re legal, most of them. It’s just that I
am a black goat they wish didn’t belong to their flock.” Mateo
hesitated, then plunged on. “My father has links to the Colombian
cocaine trade. Only small time, bajo
nivel. But my relatives here, they want to
lose the connection.”
Sasha took this in. Mateo had coloured, but it was hard for
Sasha to be shocked, not with Stefan Petrica in the background for
perspective. Don’t worry—my dad’s a Romani
gang lord... “Okay. Where’s your father
now?”
“Back in Mexico. He brought me here with him when I was just a
kid, hidden with a truckload of migrant farm workers. He isn’t a
bad man—I think back then he believed he could get away, start
again.”
“Did immigration catch up with him? Or the
Colombians?”
“I’m not sure. But either way he had to run, and he left me
here with my aunt.”
“All right.” Sasha opened his laptop and turned the screen up
bright against the sun. It had been Laurie who'd first taught him
that there might be a difference between a migrant and a refugee,
between someone who chose not to go home and someone who couldn't.
Laurie who'd fiercely protected him, walked at his side every step
of the way. It was a debt Sasha could never repay, but Laurie had
laughed, kissed him, said he’d find a way to pay it forward. “I’m
sorry to ask questions about things which must be painful to you.
Did you ever go back to Mexico—leave this country at all—since you
arrived?”
“No. I haven’t dared.”
“And did you...” Sasha tapped through site after site, chasing
the thread of an idea. “Did you manage to get into a school
here?”
“Yes. The authorities are fierce with adults, but with children
they sometimes look the other way. All a kid needs to get into
school is an address, and Aunt Rosa gave me that.”
“And you graduated? From high school, I mean?”
Mateo
nodded. He looked at Sasha in a mix of pride and frustration. “I
did well. But now I am stuck. To get into a college or to take my
GED I’d need far more documentation than I’ve ever had. And the
moment I left school, I was liable for arrest and deportation
anyway, so...” He shrugged. “Here I am. Underground in paradise,
picking leaves out of pools. Likely to stay that way.”
“But you want more than that.”
“Of course I do. I’m good at math and science. This country
doesn’t love me, but I couldn’t live here all these years without
learning to love it, or some of the people here anyway. I thought
about training to be a nurse, a paramedic... What’s the point,
though?”
“The point is...” Yes. There it was. Just a month or so before,
Obama had sent a flurry through Republican waters and caused a few
ripples in his own by deciding that it wasn’t fair that illegal
minors should be packaged back off to their countries of origin.
“Have you heard of the DACA memorandum—Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals?”
“I heard something about it. I didn’t pay much attention. It
sounded like more empty promises.”
“No, this one went through. It was a half measure, nothing like
the DREAM Act was meant to be, but...” Sasha turned the screen
round so that Mateo could read it. “Look. It means that the
enforcement agencies should at least consider individual cases
before throwing kids out. It’s all pretty vague at the moment, but
there’s some ground rules in place—you had to have been brought
here before you were sixteen, have stayed here for five years
continuously and graduated from a high school. It’s early days.
They’ll be looking for test cases.”
“What—people like me? I wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d only
have to hear about my father, and...”
“What would happen to you if you were sent home?”
“If my father's still alive—I'm not sure. If a man runs away
from the bosses there, sometimes they take his family to persuade
him back.”
“You might be abducted. Good.” Mateo raised an eyebrow, but
Sasha ploughed on, copying a chunk of text from a website and
pasting it into his word processor. “Potentially that gives you
refugee status too. Listen—all of this is very vague. And even if
you did jump all the hoops, it doesn’t guarantee you permanent
legal status. The very best you’ll get out of it is a stay of
execution—the right to work and study here for another two
years.”
“But that’s all I want.”
“And in two years... Well, I doubt that DREAM will go through,
but there may be some kind of change in legislation that would be
of long-term help to you.”
Mateo
sat quietly. Already he seemed more solid, as if even the promise
of progress, status and a chance had made a difference. “Why are
you doing all this for me?”
“So far I’ve done very little. This is just information—stuff
everyone should have access to, but often it’s more convenient to
governments and authorities if you don’t.”
“No. It’s more than that.”
Sasha
tried to close his ears to the new warmth in his tone. “Well, I...
I have to study international case law anyway, for the next stage
of my qualifications. I might as well study you.” He drew out a
card from a pocket in his laptop case. “My organisation in London
has branches here too. This is a central number. Whether they can
help you or not, I don't know. But they will take you seriously,
and they won't ask for personal details until you're ready to give
them.”
Mateo
took the card and turned it over thoughtfully. He had nice hands,
Sasha observed without wishing to—strong and square, with blunted
finger ends. Yes, he looked made for risks and hard work. Sasha
would have bet on him in the race for life. “So... you started off
as an illegal. Now look at you.”
Sasha
glanced up. Mateo was studying him at least as intently as Sasha
had examined the internet screen and reports on his behalf. “Look,
I'm not holding myself out as an example to you, an if-I-can-do-it
story or anything like that.” He smiled and shivered, remembering.
“I wouldn't recommend anyone scrabbled their way to citizenship the
way I did.”
“You weren’t just illegal. You were a refugee.”
It
wasn't a question. Sasha wondered which of his shadows were
visible. They should have burned away to nothing in this
Californian light, but still there was the spare room—the
headaches, and his fucking stupid dreams. “Never mind,” he said,
getting up. “Think about what I've told you. Don't act on any of it
until you're sure you want to face the consequences. And come back
and talk to me again, but...”
“But I have to go now. Mrs Alvarez is due in five
minutes.”
Sasha
checked his watch. “Yes, she is. How did...”
“She's my tia Rosa's cousin.” Mateo smiled brilliantly. “I know her schedule
better than she does. I will think of what you've said, and...” He
held out a hand, the gesture oddly formal in contrast with the
warmth of his eyes. Still, they hadn't yet shaken hands, Sasha
supposed, and he reached back readily, good English manners by now
a reflex with him.
Mateo
turned Sasha's hand. He raised it, opened up the palm, and planted
there one soft-lipped kiss. “And I will think of you.”
***
Alone in