Chapter II – Midsummer Madness

Summer was in full swing, both at the shop and the immigration institute. There were constant comings and goings. The old man had hired new workers to load and unload new shipments. They had a special contract. They were made legal on the basis of temporary menial work needed and left once the season was over. As part of their contract, they were not allowed to talk or tap their fingers, because they did not stay long enough for that to be meaningful. 

The pace of the shop was different from the previous months, although it still synchronised with that of ÚTL. Packed buses poured out torrential waves of customers, sometimes travellers, sometimes applicants. The first waves of summer had left a lasting impression on Valur. He had never seen so many people with such divergent interests sharing such a small space. 

“And tell them that the toilets are for our customers only!” the old man was set on repeating all day long. He had an overwhelming love for controlling his space. The summer context allowed him to practise this love from morning to evening.

Amid the chaos of bodies and voices, Valur often noticed the Ankú carrying on his routine, unbothered by the crowd, always dressed in his oversized long coat. He was like a persistent shadow in the almost unbearable brightness of the summer sun. The constant movement in the entrance hall seemed so contagious that no one paid attention to the Ankú’s activities. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of the crowd, tap on a visitor’s shoulder, and escort them to his van. Some protested, but their voices were drowned out by the constant swell of footsteps and chatters. 

Valur was still waiting for the results of his third-party to first application. He sometimes used his lunch break to join the queues at the institute and check the status of his case. It was in one of these queues that he realised a crucial difference between the institute and the shop: the shop’s customers were never the same, whereas those at the institute were, at least for a while. 

Valur had befriended a pair of applicants whom he met at the same time every week, in the queue. At first, their meetings were accidental, but over the weeks, they became an implicit choice. They couldn’t really communicate easily, but they drew or tapped their fingers to understand each other, and above all to pass the time. 

Valur learned that they were applying for residency on the grounds of mortal danger due to involuntary activities. They had already been refused once and were now attempting a second application. The two men had four children with them. Valur understood that not all of the children were theirs, but that given their situation, they all had become their responsibility along the way. 

One day, while waiting in line at his lunch break with his by-now regular companions, Valur heard the distinctive hum of the van and watched Ankúli begin his daily patrol in the crowd. Suddenly, his usual pace shifted.

“No, no…” whispered a trembling voice to his left. 

Valur noticed that the Ankú was heading towards them. As if in a well-rehearsed exercise, the two men picked up the two youngest children and encouraged the other two to follow them. They tried to make their way to the exit when a new wave of freshly disembarked travellers filled the lobby. Out of fear, or habit, the crowd parted before the Ankú’s tall figure, as the family scrambled to make their way through. 

Valur stood frozen at first, unsure of what was happening. He had never seen before such a display of opposing forces moving through the institute’s lobby. When he finally realised that the Ankú was not coming for him but for the family, he followed suit. 

The Ankúli easily reached the family, who had taken refuge on the other side of the institute. The surge of bodies had organically directed them towards the shop doors. Suddenly, with an expert gesture, the Ankú spread his arms, revealing the enormous span of his coat, momentarily obstructing visibility for Valur who had been following him close behind. Valur remembered the absurd weight of that same coat during their first encounter. A shattering scream followed, then a heavy silence. Even the chatter of the crowd had gone quiet. The Ankú lowered his arms. He turned and began walking at his usual pace towards the institute, brushing against Valur’s shoulder as he passed. Valur was perplexed. One of the children had disappeared. He stared at the Ankú, terrified by the realisation that had just struck him: somewhere within the folds of his shadow, he was carrying one of the children. 

Cries broke the silence. One of the men, his face resigned, began to follow the Ankúli, accompanied by one of the elder children. The second man tried to console the youngest still in his arms, crying and refusing to let go of the door of the Souvenirs shop. 

“You tell the world you’re good, so we came. You tell the world you’re good!” he shouted at the Ankúli. 

Valur had had the opportunity to observe the Ankú’s resigned abductions in the crowd, but had never witnessed such a confrontation. Administrative rejection suddenly took on an extremely physical dimension in the narrow hall of the institute. 

“Sometimes they need a little help to fly away,” said a quiet voice behind Valur. It was the old man from the shop, shaking his head in the direction of the airport. With the chaos around him, Valur hadn’t noticed his presence. 

Valur stood frozen, watching the man he had known for several weeks now struggle to convince the child to follow the rest of the family. Suddenly, Valur realised that he had been clutching the broken puffin in his pocket with all his might since the abduction began. At the same moment, his eyes fell on the shop window. Without thinking, Valur picked up a stuffed puffin that sat at the entrance of the shop and handed it to the crying child. The crying subsided, and the child hugged the soft puffin. The Ankú paused for a moment, glanced quickly over his shoulder, before continuing on his inexorable trajectory. The man seized the opportunity to take the child’s hand and they began to walk. He exchanged a final look with Valur before joining the rest of his family, who were following the Ankúli at a steady pace. 

“I’ll pay for it,” said Valur, without looking at the old man. The latter remained silent. The crowd slowly began to buzz again as the distinctive hum of the Ankúli’s moving border van could already be heard from the parking lot. 

Over the next few days, Valur tried to meet the Ankú’s gaze, but to no avail. He seemed even more elusive than at the beginning of the summer. Towards the end of the season, Valur received news about his residency application. It had been rejected. He tensed up. At least he would have a good deportation. 

One morning, the old man burst into the shop and started tapping his fingers energetically on the counter. 

“Your idea! I suggested your idea, and they liked it! It’s great, we’re going to give it to all of them!” he declared with unfiltered enthusiasm.

Valur barely reacted. Dazed by the constant tapping of fingers, he had become accustomed to not understanding what was going on around him and no longer reacted much to the outside world. 

“They signed it! They signed it!” continued the old man. 

“They rejected my application, the Ankúli will come for me soon,” replied Valur, resigned. 

“No, they haven’t! Look, come here!” interjected the old man. 

He took Valur by the arm and led him to the counters of the immigration institute. “Look, you can make your new application here,” he said, pointing to one of the thirty-something forms displayed on the main board. 

Valur didn’t quite understand. 

“We’re going to write a skilled worker application! We’ll say we need your expertise here to develop remigration! I gave them your idea, you know, the one about the puffin you gave to the child to make him stop crying and follow the Ankútl. We’re going to cooperate with the institute, make migration packages to facilitate remigration and carry out good deportations! It will boost sales and at the same time, people will feel better! Win-win!” declared the old man in an unstoppable tirade. 

Valur stood incredulous before the old man’s gigantic smile. Expecting no further reaction from Valur, the old man returned his focus to the shop and began to guide himself through his imagined new business. 

“If we move this stand here, we can put the packages in the entrance. We’ll add a sticker to the left window, and then a…”

The old man continued to share his unreciprocated enthusiasm from the other side of the shop. Valur did not bother to follow him. The crowd was thinner than it used to be in the past months, the end of the season was near. Not daring to think, Valur shoved his hands into his pockets and clenched his fist around the damaged puffin figurine again.