Calais Red. Washed red trainers tucked into the rotting tree stump, red Berbere spice, red Harissa, the hot chili pepper paste in a large tub at the food distribution – ‘but too much,’ says Yonas, ‘is bad for the stomach’.
Gebre shows me his cracked phone screen. “The CRS* he hit me and broke the screen. He hit my friend too, in the face.” He points to his nose. “Blood, too much blood.”
A red candle burns, a red sanctuary light, signifier of God’s Presence.
The fumes of a makeshift heater killed a young Nigerian exile. His orange tent is now a small shrine, red sanctuary light burning, a dozen small candles flickering. His photo is set into a shallow wooden box. Nearly midnight, and among the dark shapes of small tents, dying fires, dripping black trees, there’s an intense, sad silence.
White on red - the No Entry sign near the stadium where Eritrean Orthodox Christians meet for prayer. A wooden cross, a rosary and a small icon of the Theotokos, Mary, the God-bearer, with the Child Jesus are bound to the signpost. A tarpaulin is laid on the cold tarmac, shoes are removed, heads bared, and the young men listen attentively to the Eritrean deacon’s words. As he speaks, a white minibus parks twenty metres away. A CRS officer winds down his window and films.
More white. The whites of eyes veined red from exhaustion. A white full moon. Breakfast before Sunday prayers. On the fire, steam rising from a white circle of milk. The Sunday sun bleaching white the two deacons’ prayer shawls.
Tall poplars shedding their late season blackened leaves cloak the small encampment where we meet. After weeks of persistent rain, a lake has formed close to the camp. The half dozen tents are raised on pallets. Woldu, in his perfect white shoes, balances on a section of pallet that acts as decking to his tented home.
“I clean my shoes every day,” he says.
We go to another Eritrean camp. Semere attempts to light a fire, but the wood is wet. By burning white plastic jerry cans and dousing the wood with cooking oil, the fire comes to life and Tesfay starts preparing a meal, but the acrid fumes of burning plastic sting the eyes.
The flames light up the blue tarpaulins that protect sagging tents from the rain. A discarded blue camping mat floats on the large puddle beside the tents. It’s cold and damp. Birhan wears blue flip-flops. The only shoes he has – no socks.
Aziz, on the other side of the fire, was badly beaten three nights previously.
“Four white guys got out of a car. They kicked and beat me and took my phone. I’m ok. But - there are good and bad people in Eritrea too.”
Beside me at the fire is Fessehaye. He locates Calais on Google maps then he moves the across the Channel. “Small, small distance,” he says. He then flits across the world to Eritrea, opens his photos and there he is, in a boat on an absurdly blue sea, smiling in the bright sunshine. Blue.
Red, white and blue.
Tesfay looks up from his cooking at the passing lorries, the only means these exiles have to cross the Channel and seek asylum in the UK.
“Getting to UK is too hard now. It’s Mission Impossible,” he says. Somehow he manages a smile.
*CRS: Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (the French riot Police)