Without Refuge

by Jane Mitchell

  to go to Greece or not?”

  Baba stops. We stand on the beach. There is the

  boat. There are the men to launch it. Across the dark

  water is Europe. We have no money. No food. No

  belongings. What else can Baba do?

  “We need to go,” Baba says. The hard edge to

  his voice is gone. There’s only soft dead air in his

  words. Like loneliness. Like darkness. “But my son

  can’t swim.”

  Alan whimpers. I realize I’ve tightened my grip

  on him like I’ll never let go. I ease my hold and rub

  his back to comfort him.

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  The Turk grunts. Shrugs. He turns back to Dayah. Finishes strapping her in. He mutters under

  his breath: Turkish words I don’t understand, but his

  feelings are clear. The Turk doesn’t help Baba with

  his life jacket. He’s still angry. But something unspo-

  ken passes between the two men when he tightens

  the cords at the side. Baba looks into the Turk’s eyes.

  “My youngest,” Baba says. His voice is like dead

  leaves. “I ask you. Please understand.”

  The Turk grunts again. Shrugs. Baba nods.

  I don’t understand this conversation. It has no start.

  No words. Only some silent understanding between

  two strangers.

  The Turk snatches up the last life jacket. The one

  he said is the smallest. He turns to me. Alan won’t

  let me go. I won’t let him go either. I clamp myself

  to him.

  “Alan,” Baba says. He reaches over.

  “Leave him,” the Turk says.

  Baba lets go in surprise. I stare at the Turk, his

  breath almost in mine as he straps on the life jacket.

  “They go together,” the Turk says. “Both small

  enough.”

  “I’ll take Alan,” Baba says. “It’s too much for

  Ghalib.”

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  “No,” Alan and I say at the same time.

  “We’ll stay like this,” I say.

  And so Alan and I are strapped into the one life

  jacket. The cords are crossed over and back, binding

  us as one. Alan puts his good arm around me, his

  bad arm curled snug between us. I wrap both my

  arms around him. He peers up at me. “I’m with you,

  Ghalib.” I hear the smile in his words.

  The Turk checks our straps, slaps me on the back.

  “In the boat,” he says.

  He grabs Bushra and tosses her into the dinghy.

  She tumbles onto the slippery floor and instantly

  vanishes from sight.

  “You,” the Turk says to Dayah.

  She looks at him. Looks at Baba. She hesitates. I

  can’t see her expression in the dark but I feel her fear.

  I have the same fear in my belly.

  “Go!” says the Turk.

  Behind us, other people are ready to board.

  Strapped in their life jackets or holding inner tubes,

  some with nothing, they shuffle close, urging us on.

  We’re the first.

  Dayah wades into the sea until she’s knee deep

  in swirling black water. The man helps her into

  the boat with Bushra. The Turk grabs Alan and

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  me by our life jacket. With a sickening swing, he dumps us into the boat. We slither along the floor,

  splashing and spluttering in a shock of cold seawater.

  We struggle to stand as the boat rises and falls with

  a terrible rhythm. We grab Bushra and Dayah. We

  cling together. Baba arrives next and we’re all here—

  all five.

  The boat fills quickly—ten, twenty people—

  yet still the Turks push more in. The woman with

  her baby. A family. Four men. Baba and Dayah pull

  us close. I grip a length of rope tied to the side of

  the boat. The seawater collects in a pool on the

  dipped f loor. I fight not to slide toward it. My feet

  slither on wet rubber. My new trainers are soaked

  through.

  The boat is so full, it no longer rises and falls

  with the waves. Instead, we wallow deep and heavy.

  A voice rises above the wind and waves. It’s

  Baraa.

  “Where’s the other boat?” he says.

  He stands on the shore with his wife, strapped

  tightly in their life jackets. The Turks ignore him.

  “I said where is the other boat?” Baraa says again.

  “One boat,” the Turk says. “Everyone together.

  Get in.”

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  “I paid extra!” Baraa says angrily. “For my wife and me.” His wife stands next to him. She says nothing.

  “Everyone in one boat,” the Turk says.

  “He’s right,” says another man still on shore.

  “Too many people for one boat.”

  A few people with him mutter their agreement.

  “We won’t all fit,” the man says. He stands firm

  with his family.

  “One boat!” The Turk’s voice is louder now.

  “Get in!”

  People hesitate. The Turk lifts his stick. Other

  Turks move next to him and raise their sticks. Two

  people splash through the sea and into the boat.

  “Start the engine,” the leader of the Turks says.

  The Turk holding the rope clambers into the

  boat. He brings a wash of sea water with him.

  “You want in the boat or not?” the Turk onshore

  says to the people left behind. “No refund if you stay.

  Your choice.”

  “I paid extra for a boat without that cursed boy!”

  Baraa says. “We’ll drown with him!”

  A sudden silence falls, even among the Turks.

  Nobody says anything. My heart shrivels when I

  realize which boy Baraa is talking about. I squeeze

  Alan against me to protect him from the cruel words.

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  “Evil old goat,” Bushra says under her breath.

  The man with his family looks at Baraa. He spits

  on the sand in front of him, then clambers on board

  with his family. Now only Baraa and his wife are on

  the beach with the Turks.

  The Turk in the boat lowers the motor into the

  water. He points to the controls. “Speed, direction,

  on, off. All from here.” His accent is thick.

  A mighty roar from the shore splits the night as a

  dozen men burst from the darkness. Waving life jack-

  ets and car tires and thick branches, they charge down

  the sand to attack us. A woman onboard screams.

  “Men from the settlement!” Baba says.

  Everything happens at once. Baba thrusts us into

  the bottom of the boat. The Turks bellow and lunge

  toward the men. Moonlight glints on long knives in

  their hands.

  Baraa turns to see, and his wife plunges into

  the sea. She lunges for the boat. The motor coughs

  and splutters. Two men onboard reach out to grab

  Rawan. Baraa pushes the settlement men as they

  pitch into the sea. They shove him to the sand. They

  splash and wade toward us. Rawan slithers into the

  boat. She coughs and splutters as settlement men

  grab the boat to clamber on.

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  Men in the boat snatch up paddles to beat them back. Paddles strike heads, backs, arms, with horrible crunching, battering sounds. The boat tips. Cold

 
seawater rushes in. Everyone screams.

  With a sudden belch of smoke and a fountain

  of white water, the engine kicks. The Turk in the

  boat leaps into the water and wades ashore. The

  boat lurches and spins. Two from our group tumble

  into the waves and are lost. Baba digs his fingers

  into my shoulder to hold me safe. People shout and

  grunt and scream. Water splashes and churns. Most

  of the settlement men let go. They sink into the sea.

  The boat rocks and steadies. A man grabs the con-

  trols. We gather speed and buzz from the shore into

  deeper water.

  Back on the beach, Baraa is on his feet. He wades

  out, but we’re already too far. He shouts words we

  don’t hear. He’s too late. His wife stares at him. She

  says nothing.

  One settlement man still clings to a rope trail-

  ing in the water. He’s being pulled behind us in

  the sea. He gurgles and splutters in the water. The

  men in the boat pry his clutching fingers off the

  rope. He screams as he drifts off to sink beneath the

  black waves.

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  I stare at the water where I last saw him. My heart pounds. My hands grip the rope and the wet

  rubber. Alan howls.

  Heads bob in the water. Small figures move onto

  the sand. Baraa stands alone. Then everything melts

  into the darkness as Turkey vanishes from sight.

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  23

  We’re the only humans in a dark and salty world.

  We pitch and dip on a heaving sea. We cling to each

  other and the slippery rubber.

  I never thought a sea held so much movement.

  I never thought a sea held so much fear. All I can

  think of are the bones of drowned refugees, of our

  brothers and sisters who went before us, lifting and

  turning on the seabed below, drifting like bleached

  ghosts pulled by moon and tide. Fish and octopus

  and coral make watery homes in their empty eye

  sockets and tooth cavities. Up above them, our little

  boat rolls and plunges.

  “We’re all going to drown!” Bushra says.

  “Shut up,” I say. Her words make me more

  frightened than I already am.

  Black waves loom over us and roll beneath us,

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  dark and shining. We lurch between cloud and water. Every wash over the side adds more to the

  water sloshing in the boat. Men with seawater

  streaming from their hair scoop up handfuls to toss

  over the side, but their efforts make no difference:

  the water still rises. It’s past my ankles now. The

  man steering the boat fights to keep the engine in

  the water.

  “Turn into the waves,” one man says.

  “Keep sidelong to the wind,” another man says.

  “Head straight across the water,” a woman says.

  But nobody knows for certain. Nobody knows

  anything about steering boats across open sea in the

  middle of the night. The engine splutters and coughs

  and whines.

  “It won’t hold up,” a man says.

  Men grab paddles and sweep them through the

  water. It changes nothing. The Turk said we would

  see the lights of Greece as soon as we rounded the

  headland. We’ve been plunging and rising a long

  time. There are no lights. I don’t know if we’ve

  rounded the headland. I see nothing of land or sea.

  The water, the sky, the air are all made of the one

  blackness. It seeps into my heart and crawls through

  my blood. Only this dark, wet hell exists now. Wind

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  whips my damp skin and hair, chilling me even though the air isn’t cold.

  Apart from people shouting instructions to the

  engine man, nobody talks. We’re too busy clinging

  on, willing Greece to appear. But we aren’t silent

  either. Noise fills our boat, and none of it is a

  comfort. People moan and cry out and vomit. They

  shriek when we dip beneath a trundling wave, gasp

  when we crest its top. They send salty prayers up

  to Allah or the contents of their heaving bellies

  down to the fish. Alan has thrown up twice already.

  Because he’s strapped to me, everything he throws

  up is down the front of our life jacket. We’re wet

  through from waves washing over the side. His

  whole body shivers.

  “Are we going to drown?” I say to Baba.

  “Stay strong, Ghalib.”

  Baba was never one to sugar lemons. We can

  only hold on and wait.

  “Lights!” someone says.

  I strain to see in the dark, but there is only

  black. We heave over a wave. There! A sprinkle

  of lights strung along a distant shore. We roll into

  the next trough and the lights vanish behind a wall

  of seawater.

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  “Did you see them, Bushra?” I say.

  “Alhamdulillah!” Bushra says.

  The sight of land gives everyone hope. Bright-

  ness wells inside me. This will end. With a direction

  to aim for, the engine man hunkers down and grips

  the controls, motoring our little dinghy through

  choppy water. Even though I only see lights when

  we crest a dark wave, it gives me something to live

  for. Maybe we’ll get through after all.

  “Greece, Baba?” I say.

  “Looks like it,” Baba says. He grips Dayah’s hand.

  “Look, Alan,” I say. “Greece.”

  But Alan doesn’t look. He slumps low, head sag-

  ging. He is heavy against me.

  “Alan?” Baba says. He leans over and lifts Alan’s

  chin. Alan’s eyelids f lutter. His skin is white, his

  lips blue.

  “Cold, Baba,” Alan says. His teeth rattle.

  We have nothing to wrap around him. No blan-

  kets, no bedrolls. We left everything in the back of

  the truck. Our clothes are sodden.

  “Not far now, son,” Baba says. “We’ll get you

  warm and dry as soon as we arrive.”

  The night isn’t so black any more. Stars glitter in

  the western darkness, but the sky pales to gray in the

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  east. Dawn is coming. Soon we’ll see where we’ve come from and where we’re going. The waves still

  break with foaming tops, the wind still chills damp

  skin, but with every rolling wave, I see the distant

  shore. Greece swells to a dark shape on the horizon.

  Its lights draw us in. I see the shape of the hills. Soon I’ll see trees and houses. Then cars and people.

  The engine sputters and dies.

  Everyone falls silent. After such bright hope, my

  heart sinks.

  “Water in the engine,” a man says.

  Our eyes lock on the engine man. He pulls the

  starter cord. The engine whines and dies. He pulls

  again. Harder this time. The engine whines and dies.

  “The choke,” a woman says. “Try the choke.”

  With the choke out, the engine whines, gives a

  little cough and dies. Whines, coughs and dies. It

  burps a puff of black smoke. Nothing more. Some-

  one curses.

  “Empty tank,” a man says.

  “Not even enough fuel to cross,” a woman says.


  More cursing, this time directed at the Turks.

  The engine man sinks to the floor like a deflated

  balloon. I stare at him as fear rises in me. He releases the rudder, slumps against the sagging sides.

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  “Keep steering! Keep steering!” a woman says.

  “We’ll drift with the currents otherwise.”

  The engine man leaps up. “I know nothing about

  these things,” he says. He grabs the rudder. “I sold

  shoes in Damascus.”

  With no power, we drift with the mood of the

  breeze and the pull of the tide. Seawater slops and

  slaps over the side. The men with paddles dip them

  in the water and pull hard. Greece gets no closer.

  “It’s teasing us,” Bushra says. “Near but still

  too far.”

  The sky blushes from gray to pink to blue. The

  sun peeks above the horizon. Alan lifts his head

  to squint in the new day. “Are we nearly there,

  Ghalib?”

  “I hope so,” I say. “The sun will warm you.”

  With the rising sun, the waves calm. The wind

  stills. Sudsy foam no longer flies from the tops of

  waves, which are now only sharp little peaks. We

  have no power, but there are no scary waves either.

  I dare to release the rope I’ve gripped since we left

  Turkey. I straighten stiff fingers. My knuckles are

  chapped, battered raw by salt water.

  “Look! Look!” a boy says. He points across the

  sea. For a second, I think we’re near Greece. I spin

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  to see as something dark leaps out of the water. It plunges beneath waves and vanishes from sight.

  “What was that?” I pull back with fear.

  People scream. The boat rocks as they leap away

  from the side. I grab the rope again. Wind it through

  my fingers. Another something leaps from the water.

  “What are they?” I say.

  “Dolphins,” a woman says.

  “They won’t hurt,” Baba says. “They’re curious.”

  The dolphins jump around us for a while. Every-

  one relaxes, settles into the boat. We watch. They

  help us forget we’re drifting on the open sea. I let go

  of the rope. Move my feet. Water splashes around my

  knees. Our boat is lower in the water. Every wave

  sloshes over the sagging sides, bringing more water.

  I nudge Bushra to show her. She questions with her

  eyes, but I’m afraid to say anything. Putting words to

  it will make it real. But someone else soon notices.

  “We’re sinking, we’re sinking,” a woman says.

  Her voice rises and breaks like the waves. She grabs