No Safe Place Read Free

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    The charity people wore orange vests and tried to keep order.
    â€œTake your plate, go out to your left,” they said, trying to keep the human traffic flowing. But there were too many people. They were too hungry.
    Abdul got his plate of food. He tried to reach for a plastic fork, but was shoved out of the way. Circling his plate with his arms, he moved to the left, trying to follow the rules. He saw a woman trying to shepherd her children at the next table. One child was shoved and his rice and stew spilled all over his clothes. The noise from the crowd was so loud that Abdul couldn’t even hear the child’s cries.
    Abdul got away from the main crowd and started to eat, still standing, using his fingers to get the food to his mouth. He ate quickly. Having food stolen was not uncommon. He used the rice to encircle morsels of stew and didn’t take his eyes off his plate until his tongue had lapped up everything.
    This would be his last meal until tomorrow.
    He looked up then at the crowd. It didn’t seem to have gotten any smaller, even though he could tell from how deeply the ladles were going into the pots that the charity would soon run out of food. He began to look for an exit, but the only way off the quay was through the crowd.
    He’d just reached the bin to toss away his plate when a roar rose up from the crowd. Abdul checked the tables. Food was still being served, but something was going on.
    He scooted behind the servers and jumped up on the loading dock. From there he could look out over the crowd.
    Something was happening in the middle of the lake of people. Bodies were bumping up against each other, the movements becoming harsher and rougher. In minutes the shouts turned to screams, and the edges of the crowd became wider as people in the middle tried to get away from the growing brawl.
    â€œWho is it this time?” one of the charity workers asked Abdul as he jumped down to help her load the empty pots into the back of the van.
    â€œI can’t tell. Looks like everybody.”
    There were too many people in too small a space. The crowd by the tables was pushed from behind, shoving one of the charity workers right into the wall.
    â€œThat’s it, clear away!” the woman in charge yelled. She had a voice like a megaphone.
    It caused more panic. The people near the tables who had not yet been fed were desperate for food, and they saw their chance to eat being taken from them. One man took a pot that still had some rice in it out of the charity worker’s hands. He tried to tell her that he would distribute it, that she should get into the van and be safe, but he didn’t speak her language, and he had to yell to make himself heard through the crowd. All she heard was a man yelling at her and trying to take something out of her hands. She didn’t understand. She screamed.
    Abdul watched the tables collapse, the legs snap and the pots fall to the ground, spilling the food that was left. Hungry men, women and children tried to scoop up the food with their hands, swallowing stew with pebbles and dirt. Several people were stepped on. Their cries were lost under the trample.
    Abdul stayed on the truck helping to load pots, giving a hand up to the distraught workers.
    â€œIt’s the Afghans and Eritreans,” one said. “An argument. Someone’s been stabbed.”
    â€œWe have to get in there,” another worker said, digging out the first-aid kit.
    â€œYou can’t. You can’t get through.”
    â€œI’ll help,” Abdul said without thinking. If anything, he was smaller than the woman with the medical bag. “Stay behind me.”
    The woman grabbed firmly onto his jacket and they jumped down off the truck into the crowd.
    Abdul plunged blindly, going against the wave of people, feeling backed up by the woman clutching his clothes.
    â€œMedic!” he shouted in Arabic, in French and in Kurdish.