Ground Almonds

George reflected on his new life as he stared out of the thirteenth
floor window. Urban desolation was all around him. The rain streaked
the glass and gusts of wind blew papers and rubbish in the air. It was
depressing. He had been in the country for only a short time and had
severe doubts that it was a good place to be. Winters were just as cold
here. He had yet to experience a summer.

It had been such a fearful struggle to get to this point, through war
and fierce fighting between factions in his homeland. Almost continuous
shelling had been a part of that life: he and his family were in
constant danger. He had thought by escaping that it was a second chance
for them all in a stable country with no shortages and plenty of money
to be earned. Now he knew the reality, and it did not match his dreams
in any way.

The asylum seekers had been told not to 'offend' anyone. They had all
found this simple instruction very difficult. Not one of the three
hundred of them had failed to 'offend' in one way or another. His wife
was now afraid to go out at all since religious police had beaten a
neighbouring woman. She had apparently crossed moral boundaries by
cheerfully greeting a local man who she knew by sight.

They had been put in what at home he would have called a 'deprived
area' even though the flats had been upgraded for their arrival. This
had caused serious resentment by the occupants of surrounding tower
blocks, which were still plagued by damp and lacked almost all
facilities.

To begin with they had been relieved to be able to live in peace, but
they were now all wary of the locals. Most treated them with suspicion
and hate, although a pitiful few of them did go out of their way to be
cautiously friendly. He was sure that their reaction was based on fear.
He suspected that terror was a common feeling in that country whether
there was a clutch of asylum seekers amongst them or not. It was almost
palpable: a feeling that every move was being examined to see if it
measured up to impossible moral or political standards.

Some of his companions were so resentful of this, and afraid of the
local mutterings as they passed, that they made themselves ready for
trouble. Perhaps it was a throwback to the situation in the old
country, but they took every chance to arm themselves with metal bars,
and bricks, and even Semtex. How this had been found he never knew, but
he knew it from the old days. Even the familiar smell of ground almonds
brought on nostalgia, which he found extremely difficult to
rationalise. He supposed it was a yen for the familiar, or what had
become familiar through many years of struggle.

George hadn't really been surprised when the confrontation actually
came. A young asylum seeker had been attacked on his way through the
centre of town. The maze of narrow streets with overhanging balconies
gave plenty cover for such an attack. A crowd of resentful locals had
started to throw stones at him. He had managed to struggle back to his
flat, but the sight of his bruised and bleeding body was enough to
inflame simmering resentment. After all they had been through, how
could anyone treat them like this?

George didn't mean to take command, but old habits die hard. He
arranged a protest march through the town, which was broken up brutally
by armed police. It was like being back in the war. After coming
through all that, they were still not safe. It was a turning point.
What could they do to protect themselves and their families?

Looking round at his injured compatriots, he decided on a plan of
action. He and he alone would try to make people understand their
plight. They were not there to challenge anyone or to take away
resources from the locals. They only wanted a good life with a minimum
of needs met, and to compensate the country for taking them in. He knew
it was only because his own country had helped their host country in
similar circumstances many years before, that aid had been offered and
accepted.

George set out on a one-man mission to make the locals understand. He
talked wherever he could be sure that people would listen and not
immediately throw stones. He actually met a modicum of understanding.
Locals stopped being afraid of him. He was allowed to walk unmolested
through the old town. He became a mediator. And of course that caused
resentment too. Was he becoming too powerful? George still had an
overwhelming feeling of impending doom.

The resentment rumbled on. One sunny spring day it reached a zenith.
George had been speaking at the university to undergraduates and a few
enlightened lecturers. As he approached his home, he saw a black plume
of smoke in the sky, spoiling the perfect blue. He started running. The
tower block had been bombed. The acrid smell of smoke hung over the
devastation.

Many hours later, he discovered the truth. His wife and toddler son had
been killed. There was no sign of the baby. The smoke cleared but it
was a long time before he got the imagined smell of almonds out of his
head. Was it the Semtex that had caused the blast? No, he had told the
man who had found it to get rid of it. He had thrown it into the
harbour watched by George.

The next day, the baby was found in the rubble. He was unharmed but
weak and dehydrated. The authorities needed a scapegoat, and George was
the only high-profile asylum seeker left alive. He was deported for
'inciting violence'.

Many years later, George returned accompanied by his student son. The
area was struggling to attract tourists again. Many, like George, were
there to pick up on strands of their past lives. The flats had been
rebuilt. They were taller if anything, but bright and clean, with wide
balconies shaded from the sun; some glassed in to give yearlong
use.

His student son had been adamant that he would wear the kilt. George
had thought this was asking for trouble, but because of his own past
rebellions, he didn't feel that he could stop him. It hardly attracted
attention. People seemed as wary as ever and preferred not to see
rather than draw attention to themselves.

George caught up with some of those who had been civil to him when he
was an asylum seeker. They had a lot to talk about. The books and
articles he had written of his struggles both then and later had sold
well. They were widely distributed, but had been banned by the new
government. George realised that his being allowed into the country had
been an oversight. He was sorry to hear that all was pretty much as it
had been there. A government collapse had followed the uproar of
publicity after George's first book had been published. To save face,
the authorities had to improve conditions in the town. The new flats
were the result. However, if he met any of his old friends in the
street, they were still looking over their shoulders continuously. He
looked at the plaque placed by a hypocritical authority immortalising
the death of so many dead 'freedom fighters from Scotland' on one of
the new buildings.