A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(49)
When the passengers were settled and the boat started its engines again, a member of the crew circled the deck with a large bag full of stale pita bread. When he handed a few pieces to Bassem, he looked at Doaa and told her, “You need this to stay strong.” Doaa shook her head. “Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” she replied flatly. Bassem was furious with her as he took her share of the bread anyway. It was their third day at sea and she had only eaten once, just a few mouthfuls from a can of tuna someone had given her. Walid was nearby, in visible pain, clutching his hand. “I feel like I am going to die, it hurts so much,” he told Doaa, shaking. She knelt next to him and read him a few verses from the Quran in the hopes that it would provide him some comfort.
The crew on this boat was kinder than that on the first boat. Shoukri Al-Assoulli, a Palestinian passenger from Gaza who was on the boat with his wife and two small children, Ritaj and Yaman, learned from chatting with the captain that he was not a smuggler, but was also on his way to Europe in hope of refuge. The captain told Shoukri that he had been in prison for years, and that when he got out, he needed to find a way to support his family. So he and some of his friends made a deal with the smugglers to man the boat in exchange for free passage to Europe, where they wanted to look for work. He begged Shoukri and the others not to turn him and the crew in once they got to Europe. They were just like them, he explained, people who couldn’t get by in Egypt and were seeking a better life.
The refugees promised him they would not turn him in, but they were beginning to grow impatient and more and more frustrated with the journey. They had all been told that the trip would take two days at most, and nearly four days had already passed.
At about 3:00 p.m. that afternoon, they watched in dismay as yet another boat approached theirs. Not again! Doaa thought. This ship was even smaller than the one they were crammed on. The boat hardly looked seaworthy, with paint that was chipped all over and all the metal parts covered in rust. The crew of about ten men pulled up alongside their boat demanding, “Everybody switch over or we’ll send you back to Egypt.” The refugees, bonded by days in proximity and their common goal of reaching Italy alive, collectively refused to disembark. The new boat was just too run-down. “We’ve already moved so many times,” one refugee complained. A parent stood up and protested, “There’s no way we’re getting on that boat. The children have already suffered too much!” Doaa thought of Walid’s missing fingers and shuddered at the thought of switching boats again. Everyone adamantly refused to move. Confronted by the passengers’ resolve, the smugglers had no choice but to oblige. A deal was struck—the passengers could remain on this boat as long as everybody agreed to stick to the story that the captain and the crew were refugees escaping the war in Syria as well and that no smugglers were on board, that they were steering the ship on their own.
The passengers readily agreed and the crew seemed relieved. The captain started up the boat again, leaving the other boat in its wake. “How much longer?” someone asked him. “Just nineteen hours and we will reach Italy,” the captain assured them. The passengers cheered and clapped when they heard this. “Inshallah”—God willing—“we will make it to Italy!” they called out. Um Khalil hugged Doaa first, then Bassem. For the first time since wading into the sea, Doaa thought that they might actually make it to Europe.
NINE
All That Is Left Is the Sea
Doaa and Bassem returned to their place on the starboard side of the deck, wedging themselves between the others and settling in for the last leg of the journey. Feeling so close to their destination, people began to relax and the mood brightened a little bit. Relieved parents helped their children remove their life vests so they could be more comfortable and set them on the hard deck. The boat seemed to move faster than before over the calm sea, as passengers laughed and joked together. The sun shone bright overhead and, feeling the heat of the day, some people took refuge under plastic rice sacks that were tied together and rigged to provide shade. But Doaa remained in the sun, relishing the feeling of warmth on her face. Nineteen more hours, she told herself, and all of this will be over. Then Bassem and I will be in Europe, on our way to a new life together. The time they’d spent in jail, the miserable hours in the backs of trucks and on crowded buses, the exhausting runs through the desert, would all be worth it. She squeezed Bassem’s hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. He gave her a confident smile and whispered, “We’re going to make it, Doaa.”
Doaa smiled at hearing this and allowed herself to close her eyes and drift asleep with the boat rocking her and the sun beating down on them. She’d only been napping a few minutes when the sounds of an engine and men shouting insults in an Egyptian dialect startled her out of sleep. By then a half hour had passed since their encounter with the other boat. She and Bassem stood up to locate the source of the conflict, grasping the side of the boat and leaning over the railing to see a blue fishing boat with the number 109 painted on its side approaching at full speed. A double-decker, it was a bigger and newer model than the boat that they were on. Doaa could see about ten men on board, dressed in ordinary clothes, not the all-black outfits of the smugglers. Some wore baseball caps to obscure their identities, but others didn’t seem to care if the passengers saw their faces. Doaa had never seen pirates before, but the malevolence she saw in the men’s faces brought the word to her mind.