As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (101)

“Kenan! Where are you?” I shriek. God, please let him live. He’s had enough.

I swivel helplessly, my eyes jumping from one body to the next, but I only see strangers.

“We need to get away from the boat,” I say. I look back and it’s starting to sink. They nod and with effort try to swim after me. We keep looking, calling out for Kenan. I splash around, my life jacket making it impossible to easily move. I strain, searching the boat with my eyes, but there’s no one.

“There!” Lama screams, pointing at a floating figure. Both his arms are spread out like he’s trying to embrace the sea, and his head droops to the side. I make my way to him and brush his hair out of his face to make sure it’s him.

“Oh, thank God,” I exclaim, hugging him close. “He’s here. It’s him!”

Awkwardly, I try to check his pulse. It’s weaker than I’d like. The shock of the water must have thrown him unconscious, and he can’t stay like that for long. His face is ice cold.

“Is he okay?” Yusuf asks, and I lift Kenan’s head. His neck muscles are completely slack.

“He’s unconscious,” I say, and I hear the boat finally going below, but I can’t care about that right now. “Kenan. Wake up!”

After minutes of slapping his face and praying to God, his eyes flutter open, and he mumbles something incoherent.

“Hey,” I say gently, grasping his cheeks and then grabbing one hand to see that his fingers have taken on a blue hue.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“We’re in the water. The boat just went down, and you were unconscious. You can’t fall asleep. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he says foggily and grimaces from the cold.

“All right, everyone,” I call out, looping my hand under Kenan’s life jacket. “We need to head to where the others are and see if the captain made contact with the Italian coast guard.”

“I’m cold,” Lama sniffs.

“That’s the other thing. I need you all to keep moving. Keep the blood flowing. Or else you’ll fall asleep, and that’s not good.”

They mumble a yes, and we swim slowly toward the cluster of floating survivors. One man is splashing desperately and screaming for his young son. We paddle beside bodies, either corpses or unconscious, I don’t know, and I can’t stop to find out.

“… contact and told them, but I don’t know when they’re coming,” the captain is shouting to the frenzied crowd. “We’re far from shore. They’ll take a while to reach us. Hours at least.”

The small flame of hope in everyone’s eyes flickers like a dying candle. No one cares about a bunch of Syrian refugees stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We aren’t the first or the last people to do this. So what if a hundred or so meet their deaths? It’ll make a nice headline to spur a small protest or donation campaign before we’re forgotten again like foam on the sea. No one will remember our names. No one will know our story.

“K-Kenan,” I falter. “D-d-don’t s-sleep!”

He nods his head, but it’s taking every ounce of energy he has to stay awake. I pull him close and try to encourage him to kick his legs. The life jacket is the only thing keeping him up, and it’s barely doing so. The clouds curdle even more until it feels like we’re surrounded by sea and sky. Not a single ray reaches us.

“Lama. Yusuf. Keep on moving,” I stutter an order. “Help will come.”

“I’m tired,” Lama whines, half-heartedly shimmying in the water. Yusuf kicks his legs and arms for a minute before surrendering.

“No,” I yell, pulling myself closer to them with Kenan’s arm encircled in mine. “Keep. Moving!”

Yusuf takes a hold of Lama’s hands and starts shaking them, sending ripples along the water.

“We’ll be fine,” I babble, focusing on my words and not the hypothermia slowly shutting down each cell. Slowly killing me. I try not to think of the sharks. “We’ll be fine.”

Some people have already surrendered to the cold, their screaming and crying dying out, and I know without looking that the Mediterranean Sea has claimed them for his own.

“Lama, talk to me.” I lick the salt from my lips, and it burns my throat. It burns the cut on my neck.

“I’m okay.” Her voice is barely audible.

“Yusuf?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

I grab Kenan’s shoulders and shake him, and he starts. “Kenan, don’t you dare sleep.”

“I won’t,” he says and coughs and kicks his legs for a bit. He brings his free hand behind my soaking hijab, pressing his forehead to mine.

The waves have slowly inched Lama and Yusuf away from us and we move closer again, forming a circle, holding hands.

“Good,” I encourage. “Now, k-keep kicking!”

We create little froths on the sea’s surface as the blood moves sluggishly in our veins. My clothes stick to my shivering body, my hijab slowly slips, but still, I keep kicking.

“Kenan, look at the colors,” I say, and he gazes at the horizon.

There’s nothing but gray sky and sea.

Not like the gray in Homs.

Gray like Layla’s painting with blue scraped between the streaks.