Short fiction: A Little Piece of Europe.
Jason O’Mahony
She was half his size, black, and everything from her beret to her rifle to her communications headset threatened to overpower her. They wore the same uniforms, and both had the blue EU flag on their shoulders and the French flag too. “Good morning Mr Hadid!” the Frenchman said clearly, cheerfully. “Good morning Sergeant Baston,” Achmed returned in heavily accented French. He’d always been a quick study with languages. Along with his native Arabic, his English was good and his French halting but passable. Truth be told, English was the universal crossover language of the zone, the filter by which the near 30 languages passed through. Of course, everybody knew that the French were very touchy about that, and so that became another lesson of the zone: learn French if you want to keep on the good side of the French officials. Anybody who wanted to get on eagerly took free French lessons offered across the city by the Academie Francaise. Not only did you get to learn the language, but you got to meet French officials, which was always useful to store away for the future. “Morning papa!” Achmed’s ten year old daughter said, stepping out onto the street in her uniform. She was an early riser like him, and would make him breakfast as he prepared the store front for the day. The store, as they called it, was three large shipping containers stacked on top of each other. They had been built by the German Army engineers who had wired and plumbed them, installed windows and plaster lined and floored them, turning them into a reasonable sized family apartment. Achmed’s heart has plummeted when he had first seen them, as their settlement officer had led them to it, but he’d grown to like it. Amira, his wife, had transformed it with cushions and throws and soft lighting, stretching their very modest grant from the settlement office, and now he regarded it as home. It was comfortable, dry, clean, but most of all, safe. It wasn’t his house in Aleppo, but then, neither was that anymore. No 23 Martin Schulz Strasse was home now, and it was safe, and looking at his little daughter putting out a display of Kit Kats, he was happy with that. The sergeant patted the daughter on the head. “Good morning little one!” She smiled, let out a “Bonjour!”, and ran back into the store, clomping up the metal circular stairs that corkscrewed through the structure. Achmed was always polite to the EU officials and soldiers when they passed. He knew who was in charge, and that having friends in power was as important here as it had been in Syria. In the three years the family had lived in the safezone, he had become a shrewd judge of the different nationalities of the EU, and how to interact with them. The Northern Europeans were never to be bribed, and tended to be formal. The southern would always take a gift, but would be relaxed and helpful, and remembered favours. The Central Europeans didn’t really want to be there, and tended to show it. Sergeant Baston had been a regular for the last six months, and Achmed liked him a lot. He always paid for anything he took, despite Achmed’s protests. But he did look for information occasionally. New residents on the street, new businesses, the sergeant was always eager to know, and Achmed also had a little gossip. More to do with who was cheating on whose wife, or on the state of the district’s football team. But the sergeant and the businessman had an understanding. Any troublemakers, as he called them, and he expected to be told. The businessman knew the score. He didn’t want to get a reputation as a snitch, but nor did he want the fanatics getting a toehold in the city, especially not in his district. He was a devout man, he went to mosque, but he’d no time for the crazies, and would have no problem sharing anything with the sergeant with a clear conscience.