By Celeste Cantor-Stephens
Fences in Calais. Photo Credit: Celeste Cantor-Stephens.
My sister lost herself,
Crossing the Sahara
She was a soldier
Practically enslaved by the state
who pushed her
Situps, pressups
at the barrel of a gun
Practice, accuracy
at the trigger of a gun
Five-hundred times a day
A soldier
Practically enslaved by the state
who pushed her
encouraged her and the rest of her nation to hate
the bodies at the other side of the border
who looked the same
felt the same
even had the same names
but whose fate was drawn with the shape of a line
a national border of political worthiness, criminality,
life-time
A soldier
Enslaved by the state
who pushed her and all the others they call ‘citizens’
mentally, and physically,
unbearably, damagingly
but not geographically
A soldier enslaved by the state
she could not leave
where national borders were barbed wire barrier
compounds that screamed
‘You belong here!
Thou shall not pass
to the other side.
Not without a document
that tells us
why:
that tells us
that we say
that you belong
outside.
You belong here!
Isn’t that nice.
A soldier for your state
A soldier to the president
of the only party there will ever be.
You cannot leave! Because then everyone will see…’
My sister lost herself,
Crossing the Sahara
Uncle at her side
she passed over the border
in the back of a truck
crammed tight between others
each with one well-packed little bag
grasped in one hand
as the other holds on
for dear life
for the bumps in the Saharan sand
for the border controls
for the breath that they held
for their dear life
and for the dear life of those they have left behind
My sister lost herself, when,
crossing the Sahara,
the driver
with hands already grasped around a fat stash of grubby cash
had a change of heart
and my sister was abandoned
to the sand
the tightly-packed little bag still in one hand
while the other flails
with nothing to grasp
but sand
and air
and her uncle’s words
of despair
for the lack of direction
the lack of control
My sister lost herself
She was a soldier
trained
like her uncle
and the five other abandonees
who stood
beside her
lost
in the Sahara
where all the training and press-ups
at the barrel of a gun
came to
none
But by some…
not ‘miracle’
nor ‘good fortune’
but simply being human
Another one
another rickety van
across the sands
steering wheel in the hands of another trafficking man
They dropped their
one
bag
each
and ran
My sister was an engineer
She was an unwilling slave, a soldier to the state
who after enforced training
would stay up late
to study the principles of
structural integrity
contemporary componentry
to withstand emergencies
so that the citizens could be
- maybe one day - free
But my sister was a soldier
a slave too
and when the opportunity came
she knew
We met over Elsa Kidane
singing at the top of her voice
on the outskirts of… Calais
My sister - and I - lost
in yet more sand
between the dunes
in a barren, town dump, wasteland
A tiny fenced-off area
where permitted women used to hang
to avoid unknown men
and police officers’ hard hands
While many more
along with lone children and fathers and granddads
remained outside:
‘Désolé; we only have beds for a certain number of women whom we have already identified.’
We found each other across the music
streaming out between a borrowed phone
held in the same fingers
that held some months before
a little, well-packed bag
now lost to Saharan desert sands
My sister lost herself,
Crossing the Sahara
that never ended
African land became European sand
tiny bits of grit
that get stuck under your fingernails
and never leave the sole of your shoe
or the soul of you
a sol-dier
Practically enslaved by the state
Sit-ups and press-ups
at the barrel of a gun
turned into scaling spiked fences
an endless need to run
to dodge racist abuse, state-fed dogs
the eyes of authority, the thud of police batons
the cruelty of traffickers
and the cruelty of loss
doubled each time something goes wrong
each time another friend is suddenly gone
My sister was an engineer
who transformed her study of structural integrity
into late-night plots to skip the country
to scale national borders
overcome emergencies
Because my sister was a soldier
Practically enslaved by the state
by the state to which she’d come
in order to be safe
where most of those around her were soldiers too
and all the new friends, all those that she now knew,
were also trying to do what she was trying to do,
and were trapped there for weeks, months, or years,
or simply disappeared
I lost my sister,
Somewhere beyond the Sahara
We met in Calais,
but I don’t know where she went after
Celeste Cantor-Stephens is a scholar, musician, interdisciplinary artist and activist. Much of her work focuses on human displacement, borders, (in)equality and social change, and on the place of music within this. Celeste's work includes research into the roles of music in makeshift refugee camps, a book chapter on 'Institutionalised Abuse ... at the Franco–British Border', multimedia pieces on related – and unrelated – topics, and journalistic writing for music magazines. Celeste is a trumpet player, with projects ranging from free improvisation to klezmer. She has an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and an MSt from the University of Oxford.