Refuge

Claude opened her eyes to a paved square in shades of green and gray, but she didn’t recognize the place. It wasn’t the housing complex of her childhood in Congo—the beige wooden-homes intact before the conflicts started. It wasn’t the wide backyard facing the sea she shared with the other twenty people after her family had arrived in Brazil asking for asylum either. She tried to find the narrow alley packed with brick houses she was living in now, but she couldn’t. For instance, it wasn’t any of the places she had been before, so she stopped looking around and focused on what she could recognize: herself. She saw her jeans, her striped blouse, and orange sandals. She was in the clothes she wore to work that day.

There was a mist in the air. She noticed people coming and going, a rush of white moving around them, but she couldn’t really see their faces. Her stomach twisted with nausea. Her palms were damp to the touch.

“You?” a voice startled her.

She turned on her heel to see a boy looking at her. He was lean, his dark hair in wide curls, his full lips pressed between his teeth.

“Do I know you?”

“Yes. No.” The boy paused, his brows furrowing. “You knew me once. But you shouldn’t be here. It’s not right.”

“Here? Where’s here?” Claude asked.

The boy just shook his head, his eyes scanning the square. He stepped forward and clasped his small hand on hers. Claude jumped to the silky touch.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We weren’t supposed to meet yet, we have to understand what’s going on.”

He pulled her onto a paved trail guarded by low bushes. Claude tried to make sense of the place, but all she could see were the faint shades of green and gray coming into view. Pairs of legs were passing by, a track of white behind them. Her breath was short.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Archange,” the boy said over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Claude said, a giggle escaping her lips, “you mean, like an angel?”

“What?” he said, his head turning side to side in pursuit of something she couldn’t see. “No. Archange. An ordinary name in Congo. Don’t you remember that?”

Claude’s mouth opened. No one in her family had such a name, neither the people who used to live with her in the wide backyard. And she couldn’t really remember the country she was born in. She had blocked most of the memories the day she left her hometown to board a cargo ship with her parents and five siblings. No doubt she didn’t recognize the square they were walking through.

“So you are also from Congo?” she asked. “In which part of the country are we?”

Archange glanced at her but didn’t say anything. The paved trail ended in a turn and Claude was in front of a white building—its shape jutting diagonally into the sky, concrete spines rising from a glassy box-like structure.

“We are not in Congo,” said the boy. “And we’re not going back there.”

“Oh! Then where—” Claude wanted to ask about her bearings—when she arrived in this place her lunchtime was about to end—but Archange’s silky touch pulled her toward a door in the glassy box-like structure. Her stomach twisted again and she tried to take a deep breath not to vomit. The mist and colors out of focus weren’t helping either.

They were in a mezzanine overlooking a wide saloon. Stairs on both sides led underground. Narrow stalls were organized in rows, and the buzz suggested there were people behind them. The white rush she had seen outside was everywhere. Archange chose the left side and down they went. Soon, they were in a cubicle.

The boy freed Claude for the first time as he clasped his two hands on the desk. She heard her name being called. Her head spun. A long bench without backrests sat between the rows of stalls and she dropped herself on it. She kept an eye on the boy, though. She couldn’t see who he was talking to, but she could listen to his words.

“Hi, excuse me,” said the boy. “My name is Archange, there’s been a mistake. I shouldn’t meet her yet. Her name is Claude. I’m about to start my process!”

“Archange and Claude you said?” a rough voice came from behind the desk.

Claude bent forward. She could only see a white cloak, the face under it a blur to her eyes. She saw the boy nodding, though, his thin body almost climbing the desk.

“I see here there isn’t anything wrong,” the rough voice said.

The boy’s shoulder relaxed a bit and a smile came to her lips. Archange was so serious despite his young age. She wondered if he, too, was a refugee in this place. She remembered all the times her parents grabbed her and her siblings by the hand to go to the Social Development Department to check the status of their papers. The powerlessness of someone else deciding if you are allowed to be there or not is a feeling that never really leaves you. Even all those years later, she couldn't avoid the notion of being stateless; an impostor in Brazil—especially lately, as her troubles have been out of her grip.

She looked at Archange to ask him about his status in this place, but his shaking body called her attention. The boy was again half-bent over the desk, his head turning side to side. She stood up in time to get a few words.

“... as I’ve told you there’s nothing wrong. The case is clear,” the rough voice was saying. “There isn’t any Archange attached to a Claude in the registers. You have to go to dormancy again. It’s just the time to fill your papers to take you there.”

“No!” shouted the boy. “I can’t go to dormancy again. I’ve been like this for so long!”

He released a sob at the same time as Claude was laying her hand on his shoulder. He twisted violently to her touch. His eyes were bloodshot.

“It’s all your fault!” he said to Claude. “You are weak and vicious and reckless! Why would you do it to me? I’ve never done anything to you!”

Claude stepped backward. What was the boy saying? She couldn’t remember him. “I… I… what are you talking about? I can help you, I can talk to them and—”

Claude stopped. Her lips parted as she faced the officer—if she could call him that. Behind the desk was a tall man. He was fully covered with a white cloak and hood, the color emulating the same tone of his skin; his nose, cheekbones, and jaw a lean marmorated shape. His eyes were the most remarkable: the pupils and irises were the same color as the sclera and the eyelashes. Despite the lack of a familiar shape, Claude could tell he was holding her stare. The sobs of Archange were a faint sound in the back of her mind. She clawed her fingers into her clammy palms.

“I knew it could happen,” she said, her eyes searching the wide saloon until they rested on Archange. The boy blinked tick tears. “Is this a Department of Labors? Am I fired?” she asked then, turned again to the officer.

She wanted to tell him it was an accident, that she had never meant to steal from her employers, that her need was stronger than her will. She intended to plead, if necessary. When she locked eyes with that monochromatic form, though, it made sense.

“It’s all a hallucination,” she said, looking at Archange.

“A hallucinat—” The boy’s eyes widened. Two identical officers in white cloaks were walking toward their stall. “No! You have to trust me! You know me! I’m as real as you are!”

Claude searched for an answer. She could see other people in the nearby stalls. There were adults too, but most of them were kids—some even younger than Archange. She felt a tug at her sleeve. The boy was in front of her, his eyes wet, his forehead wrinkled. Her heart shrank.

“Please, Claude! You have to believe me! If you are here it means there is hope! You have to fight!” She wanted to pay attention to what he was saying, but she was so dizzy. The mist she had seen outside was inside the building too. Her breath couldn’t find its way to her lungs. 

She searched for the two officers in white walking in their direction. They had stopped mid-way to let another set of hoods pass. A toddler was being taken away, her chubby legs kicking the air. A howl from the child pinched the air. A pale woman wearing a kimono was standing in that stall, her back turned. Claude couldn’t see her face, but she wondered how that woman could be numb to the scene.

“That’s what is gonna happen to me!” Archange’s voice made her look down. The boy had his mouth torn, his cheeks wet. “They are coming for me! Please! Don’t let them do it! I can’t go to dormancy again!” he said before throwing his arms around her waist.

Warmth ran through Claude’s body when those soft limbs clenched tight around her. Soon, Archange’s head was also pressing against her belly, his wet face soaking the thin fabric of her blouse.

“You have to fight! You have to fight!” the boy’s voice was coming in muffled waves, but Claude didn’t know what to do. Her legs were too weak. If it weren’t for the boy, she would have collapsed by then. His touch was reassuring. Involuntarily, she wrapped her arms around him, too. Her heart swelled. Archange was so brave, so defiant. And even though he was pleading with her. Asking for her help.

She held him closer and looked at the officer behind the desk. He stood tall in his whiteness. The little she could make sense of his face suggested impassiveness. She thought about checking on the ones coming for Archange. They were moving again. Only two stalls away now.

“Please! Don’t let them take me!” the boy’s voice was imploring her. “You have to fight for me! You have to fight for us!”

“I don’t know how!” she was screaming back. “I don’t know!”

The officers were entering their stall, their arms outstretched. Her heart clenched. An urge was growing in her chest. The officers were in front of them, their milky hands contrasting to the ebony skin of Archange’s bare arms. Claude couldn’t let go of the boy. Her entire body ached, the urge running fast in her blood. The officer’s grip was powerful, but her arms were crossed. She wanted to ask for help, search for an escape, for a weapon she could use. Instead, she met her eyes.

The woman wearing the kimono was looking at them the same way Claude had done before. Across the saloon, the sets of dark irises were locked on each other. A flash ran between them. The woman seemed like fading into the air. Claude narrowed her eyes to see it better through the mist. A spectrum was staring back, though. Before disappearing completely, she nodded to Claude and wrapped her hands around her abdomen. The stretched kimono outlined a baby-bump.

Claude startled. The officers were all over her, pulling her arms, grabbing the boy. From the corner of her eye, she could see more of them coming in their direction. She bent to look at Archange. In the middle of the frantic, he glanced back at her. Time froze. Absorbed in their stares, they could see more than black irises. They could see souls.

“Archange,” she said. “I know you.”

“Yes, you do.” He smiled. “Mom.”

The urge in her chest exploded. Her heart grew bigger than her body. Her blood rushed only to keep her son safe.

“Archange, my baby. I lov—”

She didn’t have a chance to finish her words. A hole swallowed her while the white hands gripped her son’s arms. Then, there was nothing.

Claude opened her eyes lying in a clear room she didn’t know. It wasn’t the bedroom she shared with her sisters during her childhood in Congo—the faint magenta of the walls a ghostly note about the conflicts that were about to start. It wasn’t the narrow room she shared with her parents and five siblings in the wooden-cottage the family occupied with the other twelve refugees in Brazil, either. She hoped to find the brick bedroom she was used to hiding when migraines were too strong to bear, but she didn’t. For instance, it wasn’t any place she had been before, so she stopped looking around and focused on what she could recognize: herself. She saw the tubes coming from the back of her right hand—her forearm in different shades of purple and green, plus the cotton gown covering her upper body. Soft sheets over her legs. She didn’t know how she ended up in that place. The last thing she remembered was having lunch at work.

“Claude?” a mild voice startled her.

She turned her head to see a woman in green scrubs looking at her. She had a clipboard in her hands.

“Do I know you?”

“Yes. No.” The woman smiled and moved closer to her bed. “I’ve been taking care of you for a while now, but you don’t know me yet. I’m doctor Zhang. You’ve been in ICU for five days now. Your coworkers brought you to the hospital after finding you unconscious. When you arrived here your lungs were failing, so we had to intubate you. We had to be very cautious given your condition.” 

Claude closed her eyes. Flashes of the last day she had been at work were, slowly, playing on her mind. She remembered arriving at the ontological clinic where she was an assistant. The pain. She could almost feel it all again. Her memory was coming back to her. As she looked at the doctor, her cheeks warmed. A migraine; it had started because of that. The doctor at the Family Care Unit had prescribed her some pills. At first, they offered her the relief she was, desperately, seeking. But soon, just one pill wasn’t enough, and she decided to double the dose. In the morning of the incident, she had woken up with a blinding pain in her head, but the frequency she had been taking those pills left her without a single one. Her next medical appointment was scheduled just in a couple of weeks. She couldn’t wait that long.

“I’m sorry!” Claude blurted to the doctor. “I’m not a robber. I swear. I have these migraines and I was desperate. I’ve just taken some pills in the clinic’s cabinet because the pain was too much. Am I going to prison for it?”

Doctor Zhang checked her vitals on the monitor before looking at her. She waited for a moment. “I can't tell you about that, but I’d risk saying they don’t know about the meds. When they brought you in they couldn’t fill out any information. It took us a good time to track your medical records to discover what drug had most likely caused the overdose.”

Claude inhaled easier. Her shoulders relaxed.

“It doesn’t mean, though,” the doctor kept saying, “we are not concerned about your situation. Addiction to opioids is a tough fight and, right now, there is something else we are worried about.”

Claude waited. How bad could her condition be? She was sore, true. Her voice was raspy. Her limbs seemed like they were floating. But overall, she was feeling okay.

“I’m signing you to a gestational program for women fighting addiction. You’ll receive the visit of a social worker and a nurse every week. You also have to go to support meetings, starting as soon as you are discharged.”

“Am I…? Am I…?” she tried.

“Pregnant?” the doctor said. “Yes, four weeks to be more precise. I wasn’t sure if you knew. Congratulations. Since your own life was at stake, it’s a miracle you and the fetus are okay. It has shown the right development.”

Claude only nodded. Doctor Zhang took some notes in the clipboard and excused herself, entering in a new stall made of blue plastic curtains.

Claude stared at the ceiling until she gathered the courage to rest her hand on her belly. It was still flat, but she knew there was a child inside. Her son or daughter. She would have to break the news to her boyfriend and organize herself financially, but she would find a way. A baby. The offspring of a refugee would be born in a new land. A fresh start. She prayed she would be able to write a new story to her child at the same time she honored her motherland and ancestors. She wasn’t sure about what names were popular in Congo. She had never thought about it before. She let her mind wander for a while.

“Archange,” she said finally, trying the sound. “My baby.”