Trust The Wind

Enzo kicked fallen leaves and twigs away from the sparse grass and eased himself down on it. He was sweating and tired from the long, slow climb along the track that rose up from the village and his legs were beginning to hurt. The blistering sun had been beating down directly on his back for half an hour or more, but as he turned to lie on the grass it shone on his face, beaming on him through the filter of the dark, shiny, green leaves of an orange tree. A breeze shifted the leaves back and forth above him throwing down an ever-moving, lacy camouflage that blended his brown body into the hard earth and the thin, brown grass. He rested for a while and enjoyed the cool currents of air that moved around the circle of shadow that swayed slowly about him, purposely trying not to think about the letter that had arrived that morning and had caused so much trouble.

Few people ever walked that track: not many people had any reason to visit the village it led to, and not many villagers ever ventured out beyond the limits of the orange groves that they worked. Oranges were the life blood of the village and had been for a long time. The make-up of the soil, the temperature, the long sunny days and the right amount of rain that fed the streams that criss-crossed the area all combined to produce fruit that was succulent and sweet, the kind of fruit that Northern Europeans associate with sunshine and well-being, luxury and holidays; fruit that was commonplace and readily available, but at the same time hinted at the exotic. What Europeans didn’t know when they picked out oranges in the supermarket on cold, dismal European mornings was that the winter snows were part of the story of their oranges every bit as much as was the summer sun. Not heavy European falls of snow of course, but a light dusting of white powder that fell once or twice every year well before any signs of new fruit began to appear.

The snow was always a welcome diversion for the villagers but it never lay for long. Frost was more common than snow, but again not a hard, heavy, northern frost that would freeze even slowly moving water, just a skein of white satin that faded away at the approach of the morning sun even before it had fully risen from beyond the mountains. But even though snow and frost were short-lived, the days of winter on the high plateau could still be bitterly cold, and on those days everyone looked forward to the return of the spring rains and the warmth of a new sun.

This was not a day like that. The winter days were well passed when Enzo set out to climb into the mountains that day, but the balmy days of spring had also gone and the heat of summer was as hostile as the cold of winter. He knew the mountains well, had chased his father’s goats up through the orange groves, higher through the rough grass then higher still, up to the stony crests of the peaks, but that had been boy’s work. Now he was a man and looking after goats fell to his younger brothers. Enzo’s job now was to oversee the orange harvest, securing the best price for the fruit and dealing with officialdom.

However these arid, rugged mountains that Enzo loved were also the barrier to his dream of a different kind of life. Beyond the mountains lay the cities on the coast, the gentle influence of the Mediterranean and the rumoured delights of modern life. The mountains were the watershed between the stony Algerian desert and the coastal plain, the watershed between village life and the bright lights. They represented either a barricade or a gateway whichever way a person chose to regard them. For Enzo’s father the mountains were the last line of defence against the evil and pollution of modern ways and influences, for Enzo those same mountains were the obstacle to a new life, he felt hemmed in when he looked up at them, but that debate wasn’t worth having.

So Enzo settled for sitting on top of the mountain gazing into the distance toward Algiers, towards Europe, towards life, or towards where he imagined those things to be, without ever seeing them. That’s why he ventured up the steep climb on such hot days when work was slack and the smell of oranges offended him beyond what he could tolerate: he loved to fantasize, to escape for a while even just in his imagination, to give himself for a few hours to the mirages that presented themselves through the desert haze: Paris, New York, Algiers …..

And then the letter arrived. It was respectfully addressed as always to Enzo’s father, but it was written in English, the language only Enzo could read and that aroused his father’s suspicions, and not unreasonably. Enzo’s uncle had written, his mother’s youngest brother, and the content of the letter was obviously directed at Enzo.

Abdelaziz had left the village five years before when Enzo was fifteen years old. He wasn’t much older than Enzo and they had grown up more as brothers than as uncle and nephew. It was with Abdel that Enzo had chased goats on the mountainside and they had dreamed dreams together and had fantasized about Europe and America. Then suddenly Abdel had left. There had been a few letters at first from Marseille where he tried to get work but then the letters tailed off and the one that had arrived that morning was the first in over three years.

The stamp wasn’t French. The letter wasn’t written in French. The content was brief, beginning with the formalities of asking after everyone’s health, but the meat of the letter was for Enzo, and it came in the form of an invitation.

According to Abdel there was plenty of work to be had in Ireland. Work on building sites, work in cafés and restaurants, work in supermarkets and on boats, and Enzo was tempted. There was no talk about pay or conditions or what life was like in Ireland, no talk trying to sell the idea, trying to convince, just a bare invitation, and Enzo had to decide. His father had immediately started talking about responsibilities, family loyalties and orange harvests that were now beyond a man of his years. He reminded Enzo that he was the only one who could decipher and respond to the business letters from the cooperative that bought his oranges. He impressed upon his son that oranges were all he knew, he wasn’t born to work for someone else – he had the family business that would one day be his own, but Ireland still sounded good.

As he climbed the track up the side of the mountain Enzo went over the arguments time and again. He knew nothing of life in Ireland but everything about life on the farm in Algeria. That thought didn’t help. He had no way of finding out about Ireland but here he had security. He had family, with everyone depending on him – parents, brothers, sisters. Enzo had never had to make a decision this big in his life before. There was no-one to help him, no-one to confide in because no-one would want him to leave.

Pressure mounted in his head and in his heart as he lay in the shade. He got up and pushed himself the last half hour to the summit of the mountain and sat with a divided heart looking north then south then north again. He had never seen the sea, didn’t know what it was, but he knew what oranges were and he didn’t want to know any longer.

Ireland. It sounded like a strange place, it had a strange sounding name, although he had heard of it. He tried to imagine the clamour of strange voices speaking a language he knew how to read and write but had never spoken. Through the imagined babble in his ears the strains of the call to prayer began to filter in, mixing and diluting the call of a new life. The voice of the Muezzin hung in the heavy air, representing security and a sense of home. The letter burned in his hands as he re-read it trying to uncover some sense of what a new life would be like, but he knew that in the end the choice would not be a reasoned one. He stood up, again looking to the north and the south. Indecision. God would decide, God of the winds and the mountains, God of goats and oranges and steamers heading out from Algiers taking the courageous to Marseille and beyond. Give God his place he told himself. Let God decide.

He stood facing along the ridge with the life of the village on his left and the possibilities of Europe to the right. He held the letter high above his head and determined that he when he let go of the letter he would follow whatever direction the wind would carry it, and he would obediently follow the breath of God.

With his eyes tightly screwed up against the fading sun Enzo slackened the fist his fingers made around the piece of paper. He opened his closed hand and trusted his future to the wind.