This is a story set in Malta and Europe in the near future. In the form of a letter from a mother to her daughter Maddy, it shows a family trying to navigate the crisis in the region caused by a rapidly warming climate.

See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.

That van brought us here, to ‘Il-Hilton’ as everybody calls it.

Nobody laughs at the tired joke anymore.

It’s a huge, sprawling camp run by the EU’s Humanitarian Office somewhere in the River Po valley, between Turin and Milan – hundreds of converted shipping containers sleeping up to 20 people in each, surrounded by electrified wire fences and patrolled by armed guards. They generally try to treat us well and are careful to always call us residents; but we cannot leave, so we know that we are prisoners.

The camp has informally divided itself into national groups. The Maltese contingent is the smallest, maybe 20 strong. There were a few Lejla Maltijas in the earlier days, with ħobż biż-żejt, imqarrun il-forn, and even a guy from Żejtun singing għana spirtupront, but it’s been a while now since anyone has had the energy. 

There are also many different ethnic groups from the Balkans, many Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis; but the bulk of the detainees are from the Middle East and Africa, subdivided into their regional and then national groups.

They feed us bland institutional food that leaves many of us weak, dependent for any extras on a black market run by the guards and some enterprising inmates. 

We cannot leave; we cannot work. 

Some of us try to organise, when we can rouse ourselves to do so. We put on lessons for the kids, and for anyone else who wants them. English, Italian, French; reading and writing; preparing CVs, in the hope that we might one day be in a position to apply for a job again. Wood and metalworking unfortunately fell through because we didn’t have the right tools, and the camp admins were not keen on giving them to us. Gardening and vegetable-growing, on the other hand, were a hit, and there are now vegetable rows between some of the containers.

We try to negotiate with the camp administrators. They don’t really like to engage, but if we can convince them that something will keep us quieter, if we can subtly make out that appeasing us might reduce the threat of the riots that they are so keen to avoid, then they will sometimes play along – an hour of internet every day; basic gardening supplies; white paint to make the containers just a little cooler in the summer… a few footballs, chess sets, boxing gloves, a couple of basketball rings so we can improvise a court and writing materials, like the notepad this letter is written on.

Sometimes the NGOs are allowed in, and they really do their best to help, even if they are completely overwhelmed by the needs of all this cooped up, frustrated humanity.

It is a place of waiting, of grumbling, of irritated boredom. Despite many people’s best efforts, there are long hours of nothing that play with your head. Lives just being frittered away, wasted.

“Why won’t they just let us work?” is the most common sentence that you will hear in the camp. Nobody seems to have an answer.

The hope is ground out of us little by little, every single day. Many succumb to that loss of hope. Lethargy and inertia grow.

But for many of us, even as it is lost, hope, somehow, irrationally, still keeps bubbling up from someplace deep inside.

Sweet Maddy, hopefully by the time you actually read this letter, things are better for you, for us all. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Tom has found Melesse, a tiny dreadlocked Ethiopian girl who rarely talks to anyone but him. She rarely smiles either, but when she does it’s a huge toothy grin that lights up the whole room. They sit together for hours every day, talking softly and giggling.

And we all – Mum, Tom, Melesse and I – have you. You are hard work, but you’re also great fun. The challenge of keeping you entertained, of teaching you, of making you safe, keeps us always on our toes, giving us purpose.

Our container is your palace, everyone is your friend, every blade of glass or flying ant that you find and carefully examine is brilliantly fascinating to you. Some of that wonder rubs off on us all.

We refuse to give up on you having a life. It keeps us fighting to get out.

And there’s a chance – we’re waiting for employment visas from Norway.

For all the migrants heading north, Norway (together with Canada) is the Promised Land. Large areas have apparently become more liveable all year round as the winters became much milder; and as tourism died away in all of the traditional holiday countries in the Med and further afield, Norway and Canada were cornering what remained of the market. Apparently it’s full of new resorts for the ultra-rich opening in the mountains, forests and even near the sea. There is still work to be found there, even land in remote areas being parcelled out for agriculture if you are insanely lucky.

I know some of this sounds too good to be true – from the research I’ve managed to do with my one hour of patchy internet a day, I know they get their share of extreme flooding events and storms there too. Much of their ecology has been dying away, and has to be artificially re-engineered, with the old cold-adapted species dying off and new ones introduced or migrating up from central and southern Europe. But with all that land, with all their old oil money that had been stockpiled and invested, and with all the new money still flooding in, life can still be good for the lucky few who live there, or for those who somehow manage to get in.

Rami found me online about 18 months ago and is trying to get us jobs up there. She’s the housekeeper at an agrotourism farm where a sheltered micro-climate in the valley between three hills means that they are actually trying to grow olives, vines, even pomegranates and peaches. 

Rami has talked us up with the owner, making out that we are seasoned Mediterranean farmers with a wealth of knowledge to share. We even had an online call with him; he seems nice, earnest. He looked so clean, like he’d just taken a bath, with maybe a bit more money than sense. He’s applied for all of us to emigrate up there, and we have begun a process that should see Norway offering us employment visas. 

I’m hoping Il-Hilton will be only too happy to get rid of the five of us since we have somewhere to go and an offer of employment. Admin tell us it should happen, but it takes time. Nobody seems to be in a hurry except us.

So, we wait. But at least we wait with purpose.

Sweet Maddy.

Hopefully by the time you actually read this, things are better for you, for us all. 

I want you to know that even here, when your family was at its lowest point, you were always surrounded by lots and lots of love.

Mum 

See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.

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