La Superba

by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

  “And then?”

  “We were happy to see the sea. The sea looks a lot less scary by daylight than when you’re at its mercy in the pitch dark. It was calm and blue. It was transparent and glistened. This was the Mediterranean Sea we’d been taught to dream of, just as the same can be said of you. For us, it was the topaz highway to our dreams.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “What went wrong, what went wrong? Ilja, you’re such a terrible interviewer. Let me just tell it. It’ll save us both a lot of bother.” He laughed. “But the funniest thing was that the sunlight wasn’t our friend.”

  He took a sip of his beer. Bare legs walked past. He reached his arm up past his face, made a mouth with his hand in the air and sang, “O mami sera boutuo mbele, o mami casse boutou mbele.”

  “What does that mean, Djiby?”

  “It’s from my song, from ‘Fatou yo,’ the song my mother always sang to me when I was a child. I always sang that song when I was frightened. It’s kept me alive, really. But I don’t know exactly what it means. Something about giraffes. Everyone speaks Wolof in my region. But the song isn’t in Wolof. My mother came from the southeast. It’s probably in her native language, though I don’t know what that was. Balanta maybe. Or maybe Jolaa or Soceh. My mother never taught me her language.” He nodded in the direction the bare legs had gone. “We’re lucky, you and me, that we can live in this country full of giraffes.”

  “Are there giraffes in Senegal?”

  “And in your home country?”

  “Sorry, Djiby.”

  “Do you have beautiful women in your homeland, too?”

  “I’ve already said sorry, Djiby.”

  “In the light of the rising sun we saw that we had truly left Africa behind. The continent was no longer visible. Can you imagine the feeling, Ilja? Europe was not yet in sight, but we were almost there. We thought we could see the golden glow of its streets.

  “And then it began to get hot. I had Julia on my lap. The men took turns to bail out with the cut-up plastic bottles. The sun glowed. There was no shadow in our boat. It was forty degrees around midday. We didn’t have any water left, but that didn’t matter, we were almost there. In half an hour we’d see Europe. Perhaps even sooner. We were in high spirits.

  “And then the engine cut out. We were out of fuel. That was all the Libyans had given us. We stopped moving. There we were, floating on the open sea, fifty-one of us in an orange inflatable dinghy. A few men began to paddle with their hands, but soon realized it was pointless. There was nothing else to do but wait and see if anyone rescued us.”

  “And how long did that take?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re sitting here with me, so you must have been rescued. How long did it take?”

  “Twelve days.”

  12.

  “Twelve days?”

  “Twelve days.”

  “But no one can survive that long.”

  “We survived, all of us, even little Julia. It was a miracle. Twelve burning hot days and twelve bitterly cold nights without food or water with fifty-one people in a boat seven meters long at the most. It was hell, but I don’t need to tell you that. We kept ourselves alive by drinking our own piss from the cups we’d made from the plastic bottles, the ones for bailing. Fights regularly broke out when someone tried to steal someone else’s cup of piss. In the meantime, I tried to look after Julia. I gave her my piss to drink. Right from my dick, so that no one could steal it. It might have looked a bit weird to anyone not involved, but I didn’t care.” He laughed. “I’m so proud that Julia survived.”

  “And then they took you to Lampedusa?”

  “If only. From time to time, a ship would pass in the distance. At the risk of falling overboard, the men stood up and screamed while waving their arms frantically. But they didn’t see us. Or they didn’t want to see us. Finally we were rescued by a Spanish fishing boat. The Francisco Catalina, I still remember it well. They’d set off twenty days earlier from Alicante to fish for crab and shrimp in the international waters between Libya and Sicily. The captain told me that. He was called José Durante Lopez. I talked to him a lot because I was the only person in our group who could speak a bit of Spanish. He told me we were one hundred and thirteen nautical miles from the coast of Libya and that Lampedusa was just as far again. The Libyans had given us exactly enough gasoline for half the journey. Typical Libyan humor, let’s say.”

  He took a sip of his beer and looked at me with a broad smile.

  “We were lucky, Ilja. Captain José was a brave man, do you realize that? Other captains have gotten into big trouble helping poor wretches like us. To start with, it’s quite a big deal to take fifty-one starving and dehydrated people onboard your own ship. You’d have to really want to, let’s say. And that while you set off from your home port with totally different plans, like catching shrimp and crab for example, you have to keep the wolf from the door, you have a wife and children to keep, and the same goes for the twelve-man crew. Reeling in black men isn’t very profitable. On the contrary, it only costs you, because you have to give them food and drink and you lose valuable time. I’m only too aware of all this.

  “And then there’s a much bigger problem than that. Do you know what they did two years previously with the captain of the Cap Anamur when he rescued thirty-seven outcasts from the open sea and took them to Lampedusa? Don’t laugh. They arrested him on the charge of assisting illegal immigration. Captain José wasn’t the one to tell me that. I heard it later, when I was already here. But then I suddenly realized why so many boats had gone past preferring not to notice. And that’s exactly why Captain José is a brave man.”

  13.

  “As soon as we were all onboard the ship and had been provided with food and water, he broadcast a call on the international distress frequency, channel sixteen, asking what he should do. The Italian authorities replied that he should take us to Malta. But as soon as we entered Maltese waters, we were stopped by their coast guard. They told Captain José to go away. They said he’d picked us up in international waters and therefore there was no legal reason for Malta to accept us. He got into contact with the Italian coast guard to ask whether he could take us to Lampedusa, but they used the exact same argument.

  “The deadlock lasted seven days. We could see the coast of Malta in the distance. Europe was there. The Promised Land was there. But we weren’t welcome. In the meantime, the situation onboard became more acute. The Francisco Catalina was a ship of twenty-five meters, significantly more comfortable than our seven-meter orange dinghy, but built for twelve Spanish crewmembers and a captain, not for thirteen Spaniards and fifty-one Africans. There was little space on deck because there were nassa everywhere—the cages they use to catch shrimp and crabs. The happiest of all of us was Julia. She and her mother were allowed to sleep in one of the three cabins for the crew. She’d just turned twenty, Julia’s mother. The rest of us just had to make do in the open air. During the day we had shade, and at night, blankets; we had food and drink, so all in all we couldn’t complain. But some did anyway. We were tired. Arguments broke out. The Egyptian threatened to jump overboard at one point. Then Captain José decided it was no longer possible to go on like that and something had to give.

  “A compromise was reached with the authorities in La Valletta. The two pregnant women, Julia, and her mother, were allowed off the boat. The coast guard sent a boat to pick them up and take them to Malta. The rest of us would be taken somewhere else by Captain José.”

  “To Lampedusa?”

  “Captain José confided in me. He said there was nothing else for it. And he said not to tell the others otherwise a mutiny would break out. I understood. ‘Fatou yo,’ I sang. ‘Fatou yo.’

  “After a day and a half’s sailing, we reached the coast. Everyone was over the moon. We were being dropped off in Europe. Captain José dropped the anchor close to the shore. Everyone jumped overboard and ran onto the beach cheering. I walked
along behind them, singing softly. Captain José waved to me apologetically and sailed away.”

  He took a sip of his beer. He began to laugh. “It’s really quite funny if you think about it.”

  “Where were you? In Sicily?”

  “In Libya.”

  14.

  “It wouldn’t be long before the Libyan militia or the human traffickers who worked with them noticed us and everything would begin all over again—the hitting, the kicking, the spitting, the torture, and the rapes. And it would only be worse than the previous time because none of us had any money left—to compensate our hosts for the inconvenience, let’s say.

  “We had to hide. I was just about to shout to the others, who were running on ahead of me, that this wasn’t Europe, but then I changed my mind. There were still forty-seven of us and it would be impossible to hide as such a large group. And how long would we be able to keep that up? And what would our plan be? I realized I only stood a chance if I was on my own. I decided not to warn the others. I let them go. That hurt, Ilja. It hurt a lot because I know they were walking right into the arms of their torturers.

  “I went off to look for a hiding place. It wasn’t easy. I was on a wide beach that turned almost seamlessly into desert. There was hardly any vegetation. I instinctively continued to follow the tideline. I didn’t want to get too far from the sea because although I didn’t have the slightest notion of how I was going to manage to get away from here, the sea was my only prospect for salvation, the only route to freedom. After a while, I spotted something on the beach, about a hundred meters inland. It was an empty, rusty barrel. Probably had contained oil or gasoline. At least, it smelled like it had. I dug it out a bit and climbed in. After that I swept the sand back until there was just an opening left that was big enough for me to breathe and see what was happening on the beach.

  “Night became day and I soon realized that my hiding place was far from comfortable. It was cramped, it stank, and long before noon, it became unbearably hot. Luckily, I’d brought a bottle of water and some bread from the Spanish fishing boat. But it became clear I wasn’t going to be able to stay here for long. At the same time, leaving my hiding place wasn’t a real alternative because Libyan militias were driving along the beach in their jeeps on After I while a regular basis. It was a rather comical situation. For fear of being taken prisoner, I’d made myself a prisoner and I didn’t have a clue how to escape my self-imposed captivity.”

  He laughed. “Will you order another beer for me, Ilja? A big one, because I get incredibly thirsty remembering all this.”

  “How long were you there in that oil barrel?”

  “I was very lucky. During the third night, I was jolted out of my sleep by shouting. I wasn’t really sleeping, that was impossible in my awkward position, but I had dozed off. I saw a group of men walking over the beach. Around twenty-five black men and four armed Libyans swearing at them. They were walking toward the tideline. I recognized the ritual. They were being taken to a boat. I couldn’t see the boat from my position but there had to be a boat, nothing else was possible. My heart began to thud so loudly, I was almost worried they could hear it.

  “The Libyans left. I heard the sound of attempts to get an outboard motor started. This was my chance. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I crawled out of my barrel and began to run as fast as I could. I’d never run that fast in my life. I got to the boat at the exact same moment the engine began to purr. I jumped onboard. The Libyans had seen me. They came running up. But they were too late. The boat was already moving. But the others weren’t very happy that I’d jumped in with them, uninvited and without a valid ticket. They tried to throw me into the sea. ‘You need me,’ I shouted. ‘I know the way.’ With some reluctance, they decided to believe me. And so I set off on the journey to the Promised Land for a second time.”

  15.

  “It was a terrible experience. The others were just as excited about their newly regained freedom and the fact that their big dream was finally coming true as I’d been the previous time. Only I knew what was coming next. I saw the jerry can of gasoline. It wasn’t any bigger than the one the Libyans had given us last time. I saw that we only had two bottles of water again. I told them we had to use it sparingly. They thought I was just a worrier. I said that Lampedusa was much further than they thought. They didn’t believe me. It was nearby, the Libyans had said so. We were probably nearly there. As they joked and laughed, I quietly sang ‘Fatou yo.’

  “The boat was just as big—just as small, I mean—as the last one. But there were fewer of us. Twenty-seven in total, all of us men, all of us about my age. Almost all Senegalese like me, but there were also two Nigerians, and a boy from the Ivory Coast. And because we weren’t as overloaded as last time, we hardly took on any water. We didn’t need to bail. So, luckily, there was something positive to say.”

  Djiby laughed.

  “You tell it all in such a happy way.”

  “How do you think I should tell it, then? It was bad enough, the way it went, so it’s better we laugh about it.”

  “And did the engine fail halfway?”

  “Of course. Everything was exactly the same as the first time. The original elation made way for fear and the cold of the night and the original relief at dawn melted under the burning heat of the sun and when the gasoline ran out. It was all just as bad as the first time, apart from that, then it got much worse.”

  “How long was it before you were rescued this time?”

  “Twenty days.”

  “But twenty days without food and water—no one can survive that.”

  “That’s right. You’ve hit the nail on the head, Ilja. More than half of us didn’t survive. When we were finally intercepted by the Sibilla, an Italian navy boat that had sailed out for us after a small Sicilian fishing boat, the Pindaro, had spotted us and raised the alarm, there were only thirteen of us. Fourteen strong young men had died by then. We’d thrown their bodies into the sea. What else could we do? We no longer had the strength for the fourteenth. We just left him lying there and that was lucky because he wasn’t completely dead, he was in a coma.

  “But all of us were practically comatose. We were in a truly pitiful state. We were all severely dehydrated and malnourished. When the Italian navy came, it was really difficult just gesturing with my hands for them to help us. Most of the others couldn’t even do that. Our lips were swollen and had burst from the sun and the salt. Our eyes were empty and hollow. We were ghosts. Moussa, a Senegalese boy, was the only one who could still speak. He was holding a necklace with a cross and said he was a Christian. He just kept repeating it.

  “The captain of the Sibilla called for an air ambulance. The worst cases were taken to Palermo hospital. Along with six others, I was taken onboard the Sibilla and nursed there. At sunset, we sailed into the port of Lampedusa. I was in Europe at last.”

  16.

  “But Europe wasn’t what I’d imagined. It looked like Africa. All blacks. And I didn’t get very far with getting rich without trying. I’d never seen so many poverty-stricken black people in one place, not even in Africa. The only difference with Dakar was that the policemen were white. But they were just as bastardly in Dakar.

  “The fact was Lampedusa was one big concentration camp. Big isn’t the right word. It was a small island. A rock in the sea. It was a small concentration camp. Too small. There wasn’t enough room for that many prisoners. And every day new ones arrived, while no one left the island because that wasn’t allowed. They needed papers for that and clearly that posed a major logistical problem to the Italian authorities—bringing papers to Lampedusa.

  “Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, they’d built facilities to accommodate Africans like me. A grass plot with a barbed wire fence around it. Two barracks, hundreds of tents, and a soup kitchen. Piss in the woods and wash in the sea. You could probably piss in the sea, too. In any case, there was no active policy of checking what we were doing. But that reception center
was full, so they let us roam the island. We slept on the streets. Three times a day we were allowed to fetch water and some food, but a Mercedes and an income weren’t provided, though they were just what we had all come for. Food and drink was something we had in Africa. And it was better. And there was more of it. And at least we had a roof over our heads there. But without papers you were forbidden from becoming rich and the papers didn’t arrive. I spoke to fellow Senegalese who had been on Lampedusa for a year. A year. Do you know how long a year lasts, Ilja? Do you know how long a year lasts if you can’t remember how long it has been since you set off?

  “There were frequent uprisings. There were just too many angry, frustrated black men sitting on a rock. I saw other men setting fire to a shop because you had to pay with real money there. I didn’t join in but I understood. I understood only too well.”

  “But you’re in Genoa now.”

  Djiby found this very funny. “You have such great observation skills, Ilja.” He roared with laughter. “Give me another beer.”

  “But I meant…”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Yes, that’s what I wanted to ask.”

  “Ha ha ha, Ilja. Don’t you read the papers? That was because of that excellent joke that…What’s his name? The last one? The last Italian prime minister.”

  “Berlusconi.”

  Djiby roared again. “Yes, exactly. Handsome man, that. With his bunga bunga. He could have been an African. Berlusconi. I’ll never forget that name. He came to Lampedusa in his private helicopter to solve the problem. He liked that, solving problems. Especially when there were TV cameras pointing at him. And when they were pointing at him, when his hair was all combed and they’d finished his makeup, he said he’d give us all a temporary residence permit.”

  “I read about that.”

  “It was brilliant. In fact, he was telling the rest of Europe, if you don’t help us by sending army ships to the Sicilian Channel to stop those dehydrated, starving black men and send them back to Libya, I’ll give them a permit so that they can come to you.”