by Ele Fountain
As I jump down into the hull of the bigger blue boat, I feel safer. The wooden sides and gentler motion are reassuring. Almaz pushes through the closely packed bodies to reach me. I think we are lucky to be near the edge. From the middle of the boat wafts a sour smell of vomit. Not everyone is OK with the rolling of the waves. Lots of people are wearing the bright life jackets they were selling by the jetty. They look warmer than everyone else. There is no roof or shelter from the wind, and although it’s not yet dusk, the clouds make it feel later.
There is a grating vibration through the floor of the boat as they haul in the anchor. The boat spins around, and we start bumping through the waves towards Europe.
Almaz and I have been thrown together once more with people we know nothing of. Only this time there has been no time to talk, no chance to learn anything of the lives that brought the others to share this boat with us. Are they scared too? There is no one to turn to for reassurance. Then, as I look up, I recognize the doctor, separated from us by two or three rows of people. He must have stayed in a different safe house.
“Hey, doctor!” I shout. The words leave my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.
He turns around, as do many others to see who is making the noise. He nods at me, and shouts hello.
It is a small thing, but I feel better. Safer. I feel Almaz slip her hand inside mine. I feel a flicker of warmth as I realize that she has no doubts about me; she trusts me to look after her.
We haven’t been sailing for very long when the wind becomes much stronger and the clouds lower. The engine of the boat splutters as we ride the waves, struggling under its heavy load. I can hear the men steering the boat shouting to each other. The first few drops of rain begin to fall, and I put my arm around Almaz’s shoulder. We are both shivering, our faces shiny wet with spray and rainwater. I don’t know if the sea is always this rough. I see my fear reflected in the faces surrounding us.
Boat
Cold salty water stings my eyes and soaks my T-shirt. I cling to the clammy wooden edge of the boat as a huge wave swells towards me. The boat tips and I gasp as people slide against me and the air is pressed from my chest.
The sky is turning from light to dark grey; white foam tops the waves. The wind pushes relentlessly against my face, and with the next rolling wave the boat dips so low that buckets of water gush in over the side, soaking me again with freezing water. I feel it creeping above my ankles. No one cries out. Even the baby strapped to the mother beside me is quiet.
Green-grey waves make a wall around us. We rise to the top of another but there is nothing to see except spray blowing like rain in the icy wind. Europe is sprawled somewhere in front of us but I can’t see land. As we slide into the trough, more water rushes over the side of the boat. It is up to my knees. My feet are numb but I can tell that my shoes are heavy with water. I look up again and see a swirling wave bigger than the others rolling towards us in fury. The boat tips. This time we keep on tipping. The boat is full of water so it doesn’t roll up on the wave—it rolls into it, and the wave crashes over us like we are on the shore, only we’re in the middle of the sea. I hear screaming and then nothing as water rushes over my head.
I can’t tell which way is up to sky and wind, and which way is down towards the metres of sea beneath. I open my eyes and they sting but show me nothing more than cloudy bubbling water and the legs of someone just out of reach. I kick up once, my chest burning. I kick up again, knowing that in a second I can no longer fight the desperate urge to breathe in. I kick one last time, my legs tingling. I am about to black out just as wind blasts my face; I suck in air and some spray.
Choking, I pant and gasp; the currents tug me left and right as the swell lifts me up and down. I cannot swim but instinct makes me kick my feet to stay afloat. The shoes my mother bought with three weeks’ wages are so heavy I try to push them off without going under. I know I can’t kick water for long. Already my thighs and arms feel tired. I see four, maybe five, other heads swirling in the waves. How can three hundred people disappear so quickly?
A yellow plastic bag washes towards me. There are clothes inside. The knot has been tied tightly so that the bag is like a floating pocket of air. I cling to it.
A boy appears next to me, bobbing up from under the waves like I did seconds before. I reach out my hand to him. He looks at me. His eyes are big and oval-shaped and he reminds me of Bini. I reach my hand out to him again and he tries to grab it but instead sinks beneath the waves. He doesn’t come back up.
Who will come to save me? Who knows where I am apart from the others tossing and bobbing in the waves like me? What would Bini do now?
As the next wave lifts me up, I see Almaz clinging to a yellow container. I lose sight of her in the spray but the container is bright and I fix my eyes on it with absolute determination. Slowly I kick my legs, which does nothing, but the waves are moving us together. As she drifts closer, she turns and sees me. She reaches out a hand. I stretch mine and grab her fingertips, then her wrist. We cling to each other, with the container and bag to keep us afloat.
Our lives depend on a plastic bag and a water container.
Almaz’s lips are blue and her hands keep slipping from the container.
“Kick water!” I shout.
I put my hands over the top of hers and press down.
I become aware of a new sound over the roar of the wind and waves. It is coming from overhead. The sea around me flattens in a circle of white spray, as if pushed by a great wind from above. I look up and see an orange figure slicing through the sky towards me. Above the figure a red and white helicopter hovers.
I look down to Almaz, but she is no longer clinging to the yellow water container. I turn frantically around, the seawater streaming down my face. I cannot see her anywhere. Her hands must have slipped from beneath mine, my fingers so numb I didn’t notice; she has gone.
I feel something touch my leg and plunge my head beneath the waves, reaching my arms downwards. I grab some clothes and, with my muscles burning, pull upwards. There is an arm, and I tug it towards my chest, dragging the rest of the body with me to the surface. Almaz’s whole face is bluish.
The orange figure is next to me and clips something on me. Then they clip something to Almaz. We are flying up through the air towards the helicopter. The orange figure pats me on the back.
We reach the helicopter’s mouth and strong arms pull us in towards the centre. They strap me into a seat in the corner, then turn immediately to Almaz. One person holds her wrist; another sweeps their fingers inside her mouth. They place a mask over her nose and mouth. It’s attached to a small bag, which one of them squeezes, while the other presses down on the mask. Almaz coughs and they push her to sit upright; she coughs more and some water comes out. They lay her on her side. Her eyes flicker open and look at my bare feet.
I sit back in my seat and close my eyes, as someone pushes a bottle of water into my hand. I can barely grip it. My body feels so heavy; my legs and arms ache as if they have been bruised all over. But I don’t care.
Almaz nearly sank beneath the waves, like so many others, but now she is lying here, next to me, alive.
We have the chance for a second life.
Inside my head I carry the stories of what went before. Those stories are the threads which will tie me to my other life. I am still Shif. But from now on there will always be two parts to me.
About the Author
Ele Fountain worked as an editor in children’s publishing, where she was responsible for launching and nurturing the careers of many prize-winning and bestselling authors including Angie Sage, Philip Reeve and Sarah Crossan. She lived in Addis Ababa for several years, where she was inspired to write Boy 87, her debut novel. Ele now lives in what she describes as a “not quite falling down house” in Hampshire with her husband and two young daughters.
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SAVE THE STORY
GULLIVER · ANTIGONE · CAPTAIN NEMO · DON JUAN GILGAMESH · THE BETROTHED · THE NOSE CYRANO DE BERGERAC · KING LEAR · CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
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Copyright
Pushkin Press
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London, WC2H 9JQ
Copyright © Ele Fountain 2018
Boy 87 was first published in Great Britain
by Pushkin Press in 2018
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eISBN 13: 978 1 78269 196 9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
Quotation from Sean O’Casey Plays 1 by Sean O’Casey
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