A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(60)

But it was too loud in the helicopter and she couldn’t quite make out the man’s response, and even if she could, he was speaking English. She asked again, and this time one of the other survivors translated for her. Little Malak had died, he relayed to Doaa. The crew did everything they could to resuscitate her, but she was gone. Doaa’s breath caught in her throat as she heard this news and she began to sob. She felt as if her heart were being torn out of the exact spot on her chest where Malak had nestled her head. Doaa couldn’t stand the unfairness of it. Malak had survived four days in the water only to die after being rescued. Doaa would rather she had died and Malak had lived. Racked with grief, Doaa wondered whether the baby would have survived if only Doaa had insisted on keeping her safe in her arms as Doaa sang songs and recited verses from the Quran, just as she had done in the water. A doctor approached Doaa looking concerned and feeling for her pulse. Then he turned abruptly away and quickly made his way over to Masa, laying her flat on her back and starting CPR, the heel of his hand pressing down on her chest. Doaa held her breath. She couldn’t bear to lose Masa, too. After a few tense moments, the doctor stopped the chest compressions and sat back with a relieved smile. Masa was breathing again, and a faint hope flickered in Doaa’s heart.

After an hour, the helicopter landed at a military base near the port city of Chania in western Crete. Two ambulances were waiting outside. As the sun began to rise on the horizon, Doaa was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.

When she awoke, Doaa was in a hospital bed and a policeman was at her bedside speaking in a language she’d never before heard. Next to him was a man about her father’s age who spoke to her in Arabic with an Egyptian accent. He asked for her name and where she was from, explaining that she was safe in a Greek hospital. He began translating the policeman’s questions: Where did the boat leave from? Who was on it? How many? Where were they going? Who were the smugglers? How did it sink? The questions made Doaa dizzy and she wanted to go back to sleep. She told them as quickly as she could manage that a gang of evil men intentionally sank the boat and that almost all of the five hundred passengers had drowned. The policeman asked Doaa if the girls she was rescued with were her daughters. When she shook her head, he asked, “How come they’re not yours?” She thought that was a strange question, but explained that the baby that was still alive was Masa and that she was from Syria like Doaa, and that the other girl, Malak, was from Gaza and was the only survivor of her family of twenty-seven who had also been on the boat, but that she had died. Through a stream of tears, Doaa told them that the girls had been entrusted to her by their families and she’d tried to keep them alive. Overcome again with sadness as she thought of Malak’s passing, Doaa sobbed and sobbed before falling back into a long sleep.

The next time she woke up, Doaa saw that she was now in a large hospital room with other patients. She peeled off her blankets, looked down at her arms and legs, and saw that they were covered in ugly purple-and-black bruises. Doaa tried to stand to go to the toilet, but she fell over. As she attempted to pull herself up from the floor, a sharp pain ripped through her legs, and she wondered if she had lost the ability to walk. Besides the pain in her legs, the muscles in Doaa’s arms ached from having held Masa and Malak for so long in the same position. A nurse hurried over to Doaa and carefully eased her into a wheelchair and pushed her to the bathroom. Doaa signaled for privacy, and the nurse closed the door. Once alone, Doaa lifted herself with both hands and leaned heavily on the sink, peering at her reflection in the mirror. She almost didn’t recognize her own face. It was sunburned and peeling, and her eyes looked as if they belonged to a stranger who was staring back at her with a forlorn expression. She raked her fingers through her disheveled hair and large clumps came out in her hand. Doaa must have screamed because the nurse threw open the door and entered with a worried look. She helped Doaa back into the wheelchair and brought her back to her bed. Doaa was relieved to get away from the haunting reflection of herself in that mirror.

Back in bed, Doaa thought of calling her mother, but had no idea what she would say. How could she tell her what had happened? Besides, she felt too dizzy and disoriented and wasn’t able to remember any phone numbers. Doaa reached for her mobile phone and tried to turn it on, but it was dead. She stared at it and thought, I feel like I’m dead, too, even though I am alive.

*

Little Masa had been taken to another clinic, Crete’s University Hospital in Heraklion, where she was in the pediatric unit’s intensive care station. Dr. Diana Fitrolaki, who oversaw Masa’s treatment, said that Masa was on the verge of death when she arrived. She was suffering from acute kidney failure, hypothermia, and severe dehydration. She was lethargic and semiconscious. The doctor worried that if she did survive, she would have brain damage. The hospital had never seen a case like Masa’s before, and the staff worked around the clock to do everything they could to save her. She was put on mechanical ventilation and an IV to restore her glucose and liquid levels. The staff named her Nadia and would often take her into their arms and sing songs to her, never leaving her alone.

Soon the press arrived, and Masa’s fight for life became a top news story in Greece. A photo of her in her hospital bed, looking into the camera with wide, sorrowful eyes, was printed in the papers and appeared online. On the fourth day after the rescue, hospital director Nikos Haritakis spoke to the media: “The child battled the waves for days and nights. When she came here, she was completely dehydrated, burnt by the sun, and suffering a multitude of biochemical imbalances. Yet she was taken off mechanical support in just four days. Today she has excellent awareness of her environment, is eating and drinking normally, and is in very good shape. A child as young as her could have suffered irreversible brain damage from the dehydration.”