A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(58)
Doaa’s mouth was so dry that the sound coming out seemed to make a crackling noise through her lips. She wasn’t sure how long she could continue shouting or keeping herself and the girls afloat. But her fear that if she stopped yelling the searchers would give up and the girls would die kept her going. Masa and Malak were both limp now, lying listless on her chest. Doaa felt as if their blood circulated through her own veins and that all their hearts were beating in unison. Their lives depended on her getting to that rescue boat. Once Masa and Malak are safe, she thought, I can go back to the spot where Bassem drowned and be with him again. The thought that she only had to last a little while longer and then she could rest and be with Bassem comforted her.
Finally, after two hours, a sailor looking out of the window of the lifeboat cried, “I see her!” Suddenly, the spotlight swiveled toward Doaa. A futuristic red capsule the size of a small bus floated before her, like something out of a movie. At first she thought she was imagining it; it looked nothing like any other boat she’d ever seen. Men on the boat gazed down at her in astonishment, shocked to see such a slight young woman afloat on an ordinary inflatable beach ring, her bottom half submerged underwater.
A side door swung open and something that looked like an entry to a cage emerged from it. A man at its entrance called to Doaa and extended a pole to her. Doaa grabbed it and held on tight as they pulled her and the girls in. As she neared the boat, Doaa spoke to the men at the other end of the pole, her voice weak but her tone urgent, but she soon realized they didn’t understand a word she was saying.
When Doaa finally reached the boat, the men grabbed her arms and legs to try to hoist her inside with them, but she resisted. With the last of her voice, Doaa pleaded in Arabic to her rescuers that they had to save Malak and Masa. Frantically she pointed at her chest and lifted her thin jacket to reveal the two small children lying on her chest, her weak arm clasped around them. The men were astonished. Not only had this fragile-looking young woman survived when so many others had died, but she had somehow kept two young children alive as well. One of the officers of the ship, Dmytro Zbitnyev, pulled the first child out of Doaa’s arms, then the second, and carefully handed them to his fellow crew members, who wrapped them in thermal blankets and clutched them in their arms, their tiny lives so precious amid so much death. Finally, Dmytro reached down to pull Doaa into the boat. But again she resisted.
I love these girls so deeply. Please let them be all right, she thought as she pictured Malak’s sweet two-toothed smile. At least they are safe now and I don’t have to fight for them anymore. Now I can join Bassem. On her own for the first time in days and filled with a sense of relief that she had fulfilled her duty, Doaa drew her knees up to push away from the boat. I want to go back to Bassem and die with him. Doaa wasn’t sure if she had said it out loud or not.
At that moment, one of the crew members reached for her leg, drawing Doaa in closer so that they could pull her up into the boat and into the warm cabin. She was delirious with thirst and exhaustion and had begun to lose track of what was real and what was just her imagination. I can’t stand living without him, she thought to herself. But even as she resigned herself to perishing in the sea with Bassem, she was too weak to resist the men who were trying to save her. Even heavy with complete exhaustion, Doaa still didn’t weigh much, and Dmytro easily lifted her up into the boat and carefully laid her on the floor. Doaa was immediately wrapped in a blanket and someone placed a wet sponge to her lips so she could draw moisture from it. Tasting the freshwater, she felt thirstier than she had ever been in all those days she was afloat in the sea. She signaled for more and tried to reach her hand to the water bottle, but she couldn’t move it. A man brought a straw to her cracked lips so she could fill her mouth with the clear liquid and draw it all into her parched body. The water tasted heavenly, but Doaa gulped it so quickly that she vomited.
Meanwhile, Masa and Malak were not moving. “We have to do everything we can to keep them alive!” Dmytro ordered his colleagues before radioing the chief officer on the ship to alert the coast guard and request a rescue helicopter. Dmytro looked around him in astonishment and would later ask, “Is this a miracle? Or destiny? For merchant seamen like us who aren’t trained in search and rescue to find a person in such conditions at sea is like finding a needle in a haystack. And with the bad weather, there is no way they would have survived another hour on that little ring.”
Doaa lay limp in the lifeboat, weak, emaciated, and unable to move a muscle as they made their way back to the Japan. She could feel the waves pushing the lifeboat against the big ship as it took several attempts before it could be lifted and secured back on the ship. When they finally boarded the Japan, the men carried her out and carefully laid her on a stretcher. She lost sight of Masa and Malak but instead saw curious, worried, and kind eyes all around her. No one spoke Arabic, but they understood when she told them she was not Masa’s or Malak’s mother.
Doaa lay on the stretcher shivering in her wet clothes. A man held out a crisply ironed orange coverall, just like the one that all the crew members were wearing. She somehow managed to communicate that she wanted to dress herself and in private. They seemed to understand and formed a circle around her with blankets, with their backs to Doaa, so she could discreetly peel off her wet clothes as she sat on the deck and pulled on the coverall. It took all her remaining strength to get it on her body. As she brushed her hand over her pounding head, her fingers grazed over the white scrunchie that tied her hair back. She remembered the smile on Bassem’s face when he had given it to her, the thought of which made her cry. Overcome with emotion and suddenly feeling exposed, Doaa longed for a scarf to cover her hair. She had never before been in front of men outside her family with her head uncovered. Seeking comfort, Doaa felt around her neck for another gift that had meant so much when Bassem had first given it to her. The charms that dangled from her beloved necklace were of a Syrian opposition flag and a spent bullet that Bassem had collected in Daraa before he’d fled.