My Name Is Eva

by Suzanne Goldring

‘You’d think so,’ Sally said, ‘but America only wants the fittest to come. They want workers who are completely healthy. They need farmers and strong labourers. Why on earth would they want many of the people here? We may have done our best to feed them up and get them fit, but after their years of deprivation so many are not good enough for the United States. Or they’ve got relatives who are in a poor state of health, or children with handicaps. America doesn’t want to be burdened with people like that.’ ‘At least everyone leaving today is stronger and healthier than when they first arrived here. We’re sending them back in better condition.’ ‘Yes, but they’re not the same people who left their villages all those years ago,’ Sally said. ‘Look around you. In every car there are tired mothers with demanding babies and grandmothers weakened by years of starvation and gruelling labour. They may all be happy to be going home, but not everyone of them is able to dance with the energy of those girls.’