The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller

by Gonçalo Coelho

  The rain had softened, but it was one of those respites that had already lasted several minutes and therefore let it be known that it was about to start pouring again. Yousef abandoned the car, taking with him just his wallet, money, a few documents and his gun. Thinking of these items, he remembered that he had left some important belongings in the hotel in Tirana, that were also… revealing. Best not to think of this now, he told himself. At the hotel they would find some money and false documents. Certainly careless on his part, but now it was best to leave all that behind. As he began to ascend the lower part of the mountain, the rain, as expected, increased in intensity, soon becoming a torrential downpour. Within minutes his hair and clothes were sopping wet. It was the ideal moment to make this passage, he thought. Night and heavy rain considerably improved his chances of getting through undetected. The mountain was not too steep, and it would not be necessary to do any rock climbing, but the heavy rain hindered his progress, making the ground slippery and lashing incessantly at his body. He made his way up the mountain, steadily glancing in all directions, and it wasn’t long before he caught sight of his first group of Albanian soldiers. He stopped and hid as best he could, until their dim outlines vanished completely in the darkness. He then resumed his climb under pelting rain, very carefully, one foot in front of another. He ran into border patrols several times, each time availing himself of the same technique, hiding until they moved out of sight, and so he made his way, fleeing and moving forward through the night and the inclement weather. Once again he gave thanks to God for this torrential downpour at the very beginning of March.

  He had been walking in the rain for two hours when he saw a cluster of lights on the other side of the mountain that indicated at last the presence of a Greek village. Finally reaching the bottom of the mountain on the Greek side of the border, he hid one last time and slipped undetected past one last group of border guards. With another hour of walking he reached the Greek village of Krystalopigi, completely exhausted and drenched. He did not know a word of Greek, and the village at that hour, standing in the rain deep in the night, with all doors closed, not a living soul in the streets, and all the signs written in that strange Greek alphabet of unknown symbols, had a sinister, hellish look. Considering the sinister and fearsome dimension of his own appearance, his figure fit in admirably with the setting.

  Meanwhile the rain had become absolutely impenetrable, relentlessly pelting the side of the border that was predominantly Muslim, whence Yousef had come, as well as the side of the border that was predominantly Orthodox Christian, where he had just arrived. Walking through the town, Yousef came upon a restaurant, a place emanating light, the sound of voices and the smell of food. The moment the tall, slender frightening figure with his habitual downward gaze came in streaming liters of water from his clothes and body, his hair sopping wet and plastered to his head, what followed was inevitable: all heads turned to examine him. The space was reminiscent of a saloon out of an American western. He went in, and at the back there was a counter with a man in an apron eyeing the stranger with a frown. To his left and right were a handful of round tables occupied by natives who stared at Yousef from the moment he came in, with that look of mistrust with which strangers are greeted in most of the world’s remote villages. There was no TV anywhere, as if the news of the world were not of the slightest interest here, there was nothing but a fireplace lit by crackling firewood.

  There was no need to say much. Yousef addressed the owner behind the counter in English, asking for a room. Without taking his eyes from the stranger before him, the owner immediately summoned his wife, who came out of the kitchen behind him and gestured to Yousef to follow her, showing him a key in her hand with a white string. He complied and followed. He went up a narrow flight of stairs, down a hall and finally reached a very simply decorated room, just a single bed against the wall, a night table, a dresser and a door that gave onto a bathroom with a shower. There was no decoration on the white walls, just a window through which one could see the rain behind the fine translucent curtains falling constantly outside. Then very gravely, in English with a heavy Greek accent, the woman said:

  “One hundred euros for the night.”

  Yousef said nothing in reply, simply looked at the women with his fearsome gaze. She was of dark complexion, short and middle-aged, wearing an apron over her clothes. She took a step back as though she had been struck and said, “Ok, fifty euros.”

  Without further ado she extended her arm towards him with the key in her hand and he took it.

  16

  The next day, Yousef had no other recourse but to wait at the inn for someone headed towards Salonika, and only after lunchtime was he able to arrange a ride in an old, slow truck. The truck driver, when he saw the figure waiting to share the journey with him, got into a heated argument with the restaurant owner and then with his wife, who were very relieved to see the last of this guest, something they had never felt before towards anyone paying them good money.

  Despite all this, the journey elapsed without incident; Yousef didn’t utter a word the whole way, and in mid-afternoon he arrived in Salonika. To avoid attracting attention, he did not wish to steal any more cars, so he went to the city’s main railroad station to ascertain the schedule for trains to Istanbul. This struck him as the safest way to travel, since at the slightest sign of danger he could leap from the train, and even then, if he were forced to do so, at that point he would be closer to the Turkish border, which he wished to cross without showing any passport, just as he had gone from Albania into Greece. He reckoned it was possible that his photo was by now known to the Greek police, which might be circulating it at railway ticket windows in Greece, but he had to take the risk. When the man at the ticket window looked straight at him, a doubt hovered in Yousef’s mind, a sudden moment of tension, but after typing something, the man simply printed out his ticket, placed it on the counter and stated the price in English.

  About an hour later, Yousef boarded the train for Istanbul. Instead of sitting in the seat stated on his ticket, he preferred to remain standing at the door to the car, where he remained until he heard the train whistle announcing their departure as the train finally started up. Again, it was raining heavily. At each stop, Yousef got out onto the platform and observed who was getting on and off the train. When it pulled out, he went back to the same spot by the door. After several stops, this routine became wearisome, and Yousef sat down in one of the seats. When he noticed the train was braking and approaching a station where it would stop, he would get up to inspect the platform. The fact is that he had slept very little, and badly, at the inn in the small border town of Krystalopigi, and it wasn’t long before his fatigue began to assail him, abetted by the gloomy weather. It shouldn’t be supposed that he did not resist, but at a certain point, his eyelids fell shut, and when he realized this and started awake, he wasn’t sure whether or not the train had stopped during the interval. With the heavy conscience of someone who knows that he should not have yielded to his desire to sleep, he straightened up abruptly in his seat. If at least there were a restaurant car, he could have a coffee, it would certainly do him good, but there wasn’t one. He walked along the corridor of the train and went into the next car, deciding to walk on through the train to catch a little fresh air, but suddenly he felt the train braking until it came to a stop once again. When it stopped, Yousef got off and looked around both sides of the station. Seeing nothing suspicious, he got back on board and the train started up again. He then set out to find the bathroom, where he allowed himself to remain for about ten minutes. When he got out, he decided to resume his walk through the train, so he went into the next car but as he entered, he came upon a group of policemen headed his way. They were showing a photo to all the passengers and asking questions. One of them saw him at the end of the car and pointed at him, shouting to alert the others. Yousef drew back instantly, walked back through the car to his rear, opened the door to the outside and perched on the step, read
y to leap. And how delighted he was at the prospect of this leap, how it appealed to him! For seconds, he stared at the outlines of the earth and shrubbery whipping past, as though hypnotized by them. He heard the police approaching at a run, and with no other choice, leapt into the unknown, something in all his life he had never failed to have the courage to do. As long as he firmly believed that his destiny lay that way, he had always plunged into it with total conviction, regardless of what might be waiting for him on the other side. And so he leapt, and whirled across the muddy ground under a heavy rain. A prolonged and strident screeching could be heard then. He looked in the direction of the train that had stopped some meters ahead and saw a group of armed men in uniform climbing down coming after him. He heard shots and set out running into the countryside with all his strength. Night had already begun to fall, and in the dusk it would be easier to vanish from the sight of his pursuers. When he looked back again it seemed there was no one after him, but with the heavy rain and the light growing faint, he couldn’t be sure. He kept running without stopping for long minutes. If he had a map or knew the Greek alphabet, he would have read the cluster of symbols that said,Αλεξανδρούπολη, as Alexandroúpoli, and he would have known the name of the town where the train had stopped earlier. At all events, he had managed to catch a glimpse of the sea from the train window, so he knew he would reach it if he kept running in that direction, and it was certain that the sea attracted him, even if the rest of his escape plan had not yet taken shape. At a certain point, worn out, he stopped again and looked back, panting. Seeing no danger, he turned forward again and suddenly caught the smell of salt air on the wind. At this he felt renewed motivation and started running again. He could hardly feel his legs now. After running another half hour he finally reached the sea, where he came upon a settlement of fishermen’s houses built on pillars of wood alongside a small dock, where three small, modest fishing boats were tied up. He silently approached one of the houses and snuck in close to look through the window. Some men were playing cards inside, drinking and shouting, their red faces lit up in the electric light. They were so comfortable in there, with him here outside in the rain and wind. Yet comfort is the friend of carelessness, and the fact was that the boats were there at Yousef’s mercy. Silently he approached them. They were simple, fragile boats. He jumped right into one of them and started the motor. With the noise, the men playing cards were alerted to the intruder, abandoned their game and appeared in the doorway yelling, but Yousef cast off before they could do anything to stop him. Even so, one of them, probably the owner, ran towards the shore and stood shrieking insults in Greek as he watched his boat vanish into the rain.

  Yousef was now navigating the waters of the Aegean Sea in a small motor boat. His next objective was to cross over to Turkey – extremely ambitious if we bear in mind that he had no map and was navigating in stormy seas that made it extremely difficult to hold to any course whatsoever. He imagined that perhaps the fishermen had gotten into a bigger, faster boat to try to catch him, yet this terrible storm could also be quite a deterrent to anyone, and perhaps they thought this boat wasn’t worth the trouble, better to drown their sorrows in alcohol and keep playing cards. The essential thing now was to stay afloat. If he were out in the open ocean in the storm, he would certainly be lost, but here in the usually placid waters of the Aegean, struggling, the boat stubbornly refused to sink as it lurched from wave to wave, requiring an immense effort from Yousef at the helm, who was sweating profusely.

  At a certain point in the swirl of seething waves a trawler emerged headed out to sea guided by strong floodlights. Yousef tried hard but there was no way to turn aside – his boat was practically uncontrollable – and then the blinding light swept across him. Seeing that capture was inevitable, he flung off his leather coat and threw it to the bottom of the sea with his wallet. Then he knelt down, took out his automatic pistol, snapped off the safety, put his finger on the trigger and holding it in his hand, began to pray with his eyes closed, letting the boat drift in the stream of the waves, as the skies poured down still more rain onto him. He would not risk being taken alive. He had no difficulty ending his life there. As he saw things, this particular moment in that storm, adrift in this boat, could well be the doorway for him to enter into eternity and … perhaps into paradise. Why wouldn’t paradise have its doors open to him, who had strictly obeyed his religion, his ideology and his cause? He felt himself ready to face the Final Judgment. As the trawler drew closer, the boat lurched precipitously at the whim of the jolting waves. A very strong light was trained on him as he now opened his eyes and was forced to hold up his palm to block the light and quell its dazzling brightness. Although it was limp and sopping, a Turkish flag was discernible on the trawler. Behind the intense light, Yousef also saw a figure wrapped in what seemed to be a hooded plastic raincoat. The figure yelled something in Turkish that he could not understand and threw him a rope. He seized it, with his gun behind his back now hidden from the man on the trawler. In the glare of the light trained on him he could see a million drops of water pouring endlessly from the sky, which he could not help interpreting as synonymous with the presence of God. The moment had come. He raised the gun to his head determined to pull the trigger, but suddenly a vast flash lit the heavens, rending the darkness, instantly followed by a shattering clap of thunder. The beam of light from the trawler vanished, and Yousef seized the opportunity to start his motor in a last desperate attempt at escape. He advanced over the raging waters but could not hold the boat to any course or even clearly see inches in front of his face. Just a few meters ahead a boulder thrust out of the water. It was all but impossible for Yousef to see it in time, and even if he had, it would have been extremely difficult under such conditions for him to avoid it. The boat plowed hard into the rock with a wrenching shock. He was violently jolted and, slamming his head into the gunwale, fell down unconscious. From there on he drifted, inanimate, at the whim of the tempest, floating off into the Aegean, shoved by the wind and waves, lit up intermittently by pale flashes of lightning erupting again and again in the darkness of the night.

  AMNESIA

  1

  Gökçeada, Turkey

  March 2002

  One fine sunny morning, of the sort when the sky and sea appear to be one magnificent stairway reaching out to God, four men came walking along the beach towards a cluster of boats tied up on a dock.

  “What a wonderful day! Hard to believe we had that terrible storm last night pounding at our door…”

  “Nature does things like that, Okan.”

  “Well last night I would have bet there was no point in even thinking of going anywhere in a boat today, and now just look, we’re all going to catch some fish! Uh... hold on... what’s that there?” The man stopped, pointing.

  “Looks like a boat – or what’s left of one.”

  “Yeah, but inside it – what is that?”

  Okan approached the ruined boat followed by the other three. A few steps farther and they all stopped short, looking at one another in consternation: inside a hull that looked more like a shell, there was a man, a ship-wrecked survivor, prodigiously cast up on this shore by the waters of the Aegean. His clothes were tattered and stained in several spots by coagulated blood. He was injured and lay completely still.

  “Maybe just a drunk, Okan?”

  “Only a drunk like you would think of such a thing, Jemal!” retorted a third man. “Look at his wounds!”

  “What slanders I have to endure!” complained the man called Jemal.

  “I never touch a drop. I follow religious teaching to the letter!”

  “Yes, we know,” put in the third man. “Just a few stiff shots of raki,[17] every now and then…”

  “But this is outright slander! If you and I didn’t go way back...”

  Okan, meanwhile, knelt down and took the pulse of the inert man.

  “Well, he’s alive, at least,” he told the others.

  “But look at him,
he’s covered with wounds and that one in his head looks pretty ugly.”

  “What are we going to do with this poor wretch? Do you suppose he’s Greek?” asked Jemal with his hands on his hips. And showing his concern for practical matters, as always, he added, “as you all know there isn’t room for a soul at my house.”

  Ignoring these words, Okan patted the shipwrecked man’s pockets looking for a wallet or some kind of identification and, finding his pockets empty, got up and positioned himself to lift the stranger up.

  “Help me carry him. We’ll take him to my house.”

  “But you don’t even know who he is!”

  “When he wakes up he’ll tell us soon enough. Let’s go! Who’s giving me a hand?”

  2

  Let us see what is this gift that Allah has brought into my life, thought Okan, like someone wondering about the quality of a melon just before opening it. He was a widower living in a house practically on the beach in the northeast part of the island of Gökçeada, in the tiny hamlet of Kaleköy. He lived with his two daughters: Leyla, 16, and her older sister Nefise, 23. His house was less than a kilometer from the beach where the shipwrecked man was discovered, so they were able to get him there without too much difficulty. When Okan got home, accompanied by his fellow fishermen, he met his older daughter comfortably relaxing in a hammock on the sun terrace leading into the house. She held a book on her lap, and sensing the sudden arrival of people, she looked up to see who was coming.

  “So? No fishing today? Who’s this man you’re bringing into the house?”