Cherry blossom days

In the days following the momentous events in Egypt earlier this year I heard a brief exchange between a woman and a young man. She had not been able to hear what he had called out to her across the road.

“Sorry?”
“I said, I like you better without the hat!”
“Oh. Right.”

I told her I thought it was a compliment and would have forgotten it if it were not for the fact that she was a sturdy, no nonsense British police woman and he may well have been Egyptian . For a moment, thousands of miles away from Tahrir Square, the uniform that she wore represented so much more than it did to the average Brit. In Egypt the police had been obliged to withdraw from the streets, hiding away from an enraged population who had finally had enough of their corruption and cruelty.

As I grew up in London it was impossible to ignore the many refugees who regarded it as a place of safety. They brought with them their food and customs, for the most part keeping them behind their front doors unless a bond was formed with neighbours or business contacts. Most of the time they did not confide their reasons for fleeing their countries. When they did, it was often a shock to those who had grown up in a free and democratic society, even hard to believe.

Hardest of all to hear was the news that someone my family had come to like had died a prolonged and dreadful death at the hands of people who had lured him back to his former home. We came to understand why the children next door would not drink perfectly safe tap water. A childhood in Beirut meant a mistrust of any that did not come from a bottle as you never knew whether damage to pipes had led to contamination. I watched their mother pull handfuls of crumpled £20 pound notes from the pocket of her fur coat in Harrods toy department to pay for anything that would take away her little girl‘s memory of being kidnapped. Her au pair wept as she watched Sadat and Begin make peace on our television in 1977.

When I moved to the suburbs I found that I had not left these sad, sometimes terrifying tales behind me. There are pockets of the rest of the world all over the outskirts of every British city. From the restaurants and cafes where proprietors wait for the lunch time rush to the empty offices where cleaners spend their evenings, there is always someone who remembers long ago and far away, a time when things were better. Last night the scent of hyacinths wafted towards me which, at this time of year, speaks to me of Iran and exile.

Some of the best stories come from minicab drivers. I used to hear a lot about the former life of a young Sri Lankan, a former policeman who had been obliged to leave his wife and child behind when he fled from death threats. He pulled over to show me the scar on his leg, sustained in an accident, and gave a graphic account of what it is like to be in a car while being attacked by an elephant. He was waiting for his family to join him but I have not seen him since before the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.

In the suburbs we have the pleasure of seeing blossom at this time of year as the trees whose ancestors were brought back from the East give us a brief but lovely show. In Japan there would have been picnics under the trees as they came into bloom, spreading from the south in a wave of creamy pink. This year the picnics and celebration of Spring have been forgotten as the country comes to terms with the aftermath of the latest tsunami.

Here, anyone who looks even slightly Japanese is avoiding eye contact in case someone mistakes their nationality and expresses their sadness. It is hard to know what to say when I do encounter someone who is actually from Japan. The enormity of what has happened is hard to take in. In a matter of days all those petals will fall and clog up the ventilators in cars parked along the street and create sticky drifts in the gutter. There is nothing to make me think that those trees will not blossom again next Spring but for many people thousands of miles away it must feel as though the world has come to an end.

British Red Cross appeal for Japan
Shelterbox
Save the Children