Rachel was wet and cold, but she couldn’t have faced herself if she didn’t pass off her coat to the little boys who were shivering together by themselves. She draped the coat around their shoulders and zipped it up over their bodies.
“Here,” she called to a volunteer. “Help them. They need to get dry right away.”
She was surprised when Vincenzo shouldered her aside and scooped them into his arms.
“I’ll take them,” he said. He lumbered up the beach to the waiting vans. Rachel lost track of him as another arrival tugged her hand.
The night seemed endless. The rescuers as much as the new arrivals were cold, tired, and hungry; helping, processing, calming, and reassuring. Finally the beach was empty. The living had been driven up the road to the camp; the dead would have to wait for the van’s return.
Exhausted, they huddled beside the fire, listening to twin sounds: the waves slapping the shore, and the paltry spitting of the fire. Rachel had never felt so wretched, or so grateful to have a man’s shoulder at her side. This had been one night out of her life.
What of those who made the crossing? What of the longer journey they’d risked in the name of sanctuary?
Her lips and her fingertips were numb. She wanted to cry but didn’t. How could she? She was remembering that Audrey Clare had been on this island for months, seeking to make things better. Trying to improve conditions. Trying to make sure her NGO could do its part to meet the overwhelming need.
She said as much to Illario, who nodded, telling her stories of how deeply Audrey had been engaged, of the survivors she’d interviewed, of the police officers, Coast Guard, asylum lawyers, and officials she’d spoken with in order to create a comprehensive picture of the crisis.
“She came to Italy several times in the beginning. After that I didn’t see her. I heard she’d joined up with the Hellenic Rescue Team.” He smiled down at Rachel, whom he’d sheltered inside the warmth of his jacket, his shoulder strong and steady against hers. “By the way, you can’t give everything you own away. The NGOs have supplies, especially for the kids. I go up there to check on them regularly. Members of the Guardia Costiera are always sending things across with me. You have to stay well, Rachel, so you can help others.”
Beginning to warm up again, Rachel saw the wisdom of this, though she couldn’t square it with her conscience. It was one thing to read about a crisis whose scale you couldn’t fathom; it was another to take a child from its mother and find it dead on a pile of life jackets.
“I don’t know how you do this,” she said. She was looking at the wet pile of life vests, a spark of recollection striking. She puzzled it through. When refugees landed on the shores of Lesvos, they left what they no longer needed behind. They expected their next step to be the chance to catch the ferry from the Mytilene port to Athens—a well-equipped and safe means of transportation. So then why—?
“Illario, what do the islanders do with these life jackets? Do they have any further use?”
She remembered now that volunteers had used discarded life jackets to make art: on a hill on Lesvos was a giant rendering of a peace sign formed by the orange vests.
Illario wasn’t listening. He’d let go of Rachel and now had his binoculars raised to his eyes again.
“Come on,” he said to the group. “I see another boat.”
22
Aegean Sea crossing
Lesvos to Chios
“Come on, Aya.”
Ali lifted her onto the boat. Audrey had purchased it from a fisherman who’d done the deal in cash. Ali was always finding problems with the boat, not least the fact that Audrey no longer piloted it.
She’d steered it with the competence born of a lifetime’s experience, her gun stowed in the hold in case they ran into trouble on their way to Izmir. They’d discovered things in Izmir, bad things done to innocent people, refugees burned like matchsticks on first use.
He wouldn’t accept that as his fate. He was going to fight for Israa, the way he knew Audrey would fight.
Aya was with him, because Shukri claimed to be too busy to keep her eye on her. After what had happened with Audrey, he couldn’t risk leaving Aya on her own. She was all that was left to him now, the only thing in his life not stained like the blood of a poem. He wondered if Nizar Qabbani had envisioned this future for Syria when he’d written, “O my sad homeland, how in a moment you changed me.”
He shook off the thought. It was daylight and they were safe. He’d be able to steer them to Chios. He was following the detective who’d tousled his hair with a smile that reached his eyes, and a look of pain about his mouth that said he understood him.
The man’s name was Esa.
It was a Muslim name, an Arab name, a name to live up to, the way Ali had tried to live up to the example set by his brothers. They’d disappeared inside Sednaya, where he prayed they had met their fate at once. These were terrible prayers to make—the only ones he could summon from the knowledge of what he’d fled. He loved his brothers like pieces of his heart; he prayed for their release from the evil of the torturers, the kind of evil that lurked in hell, banished for eternity, except that the torturers, like Assad himself, still reveled in their earthly pleasures. On the day that Aleppo was pounded into submission, the nightclubs in Damascus were packed.
The material journey was a brief one. In the eternal life of the Akhirah, his brothers would reunite at the foot of the Prophet’s throne, and Esa, the son of Maryam, would call them home as companions.
He was following a less saintly Esa to Chios. If this one proved reliable, he would tell him what he knew about Audrey’s journey to Hatay, and her subsequent visit to Holland. He would also confess about Audrey and the van.
23
Souda refugee camp, Chios
The Souda camp on Chios occupied the rough trough of the moat of a ruined castle, close to the central plaza of the main town, Chios, locally known as Chora. The castle was a heritage site that had housed previous generations of refugees. Recent arrivals were confined to its outskirts, a camp designed for a thousand people overflowing with thousands more; the attendant health and sanitation problems had become unmanageable.
A row of UNHCR shelters ran along the trough, service tents on the opposite side. Electricity was minimal, most of the tents were unheated; men and women often had to share makeshift public showers and toilets. The first thing Esa noticed as he looked down the length of the trough was a concrete barrier painted over with slogans that read like cries of despair: no borders, no borders, no borders, the prayer of the stateless.
The Greek islands were bearing the brunt of the crossing: some sixty thousand people were trapped, with no assistance from the European Union to boost the islanders’ best efforts. An appalling lack of asylum services coupled with a refusal to assist in relocation had resulted in growing tension between the local population and the refugees who were detained there. The pace of asylum proceedings was too slow to accommodate the flow of arrivals from Turkey.
A generation was losing its childhood: six thousand children were trapped on Chios without access to education or adequate health care. All around the camp were groups of people, young and old, with no occupation, no chance of earning a livelihood, unable to return, unable to move on. The camps were not a permanent solution, yet no other solution had been proffered. They were so far below humanitarian standards, the camp on Chios the most crowded on the islands, yet the demands to improve could scarcely be met by Greece, one of the EU’s poorest members.
No wonder tensions were rising. Despite the best efforts of those who understood the extent of the humanitarian crisis, the current situation was unsustainable. Islanders had been pushed to the limit of their goodwill and resources; refugees were facing mental and physical health crises from enforced isolation.
Khattak could read the danger signs from a distance. A group of Greek men were gathered around a fish restaurant’s patio, smoking, talking, and studying the refugees encamped in a nearby lo
t with expressions of judgment.
Khattak had hired a taxi to take him to Souda, parting from Eleni Latsoudi with thanks. She’d gone on to meet with her volunteers, he was making for the Woman to Woman service tent at Souda.
The tent was occupied by an Australian exchange student named Peter Conroy, who offered Khattak a hearty handshake and a seat on a plastic chair. The tent was open to the alley that ran between the service tents and the UNHCR pre-fab shelters. People passed in front of it in groups; Khattak’s conversation with Conroy was frequently interrupted by people asking Conroy for his help with myriad problems.
Despite the urgency of his search for Audrey, Khattak let the interruptions flow. Now that he was here, it was better to see for himself the nature of W2W operations. Peter Conroy handed out maps, he occasionally translated English terms into Arabic, he pointed applicants in various directions, and with cheerful warmth, he offered children sweets from a stack he kept on his desk, which was no more than a plastic table with two sets of plastic drawers. He had a habit of leaning back in his chair, catching himself just before the chair up-ended. Khattak suspected that a good deal of the time, Peter Conroy was bored.
“Woman to Woman doesn’t usually recruit male volunteers,” he said. “It’s a little at odds with their mandate.”
Peter Conroy smiled a broad, gummy smile. “Oh, I don’t work for Audrey Clare. I’m actually here with an Australian NGO, but they’re overstaffed at the moment and Shukri asked me if I’d keep an eye on things. Just the basics, mind you. I don’t know a heck of a lot about operations.”
Khattak looked around the service tent, searching for signs of the package Eleni had mentioned. There was a pile of boxes at the back, half-hidden by a large canvas roll.
“How long have you been filling in?”
“Since last December, I would say.”
Khattak asked how well Conroy had known Audrey and when he’d last seen her, but he learned nothing new or of value. Apart from Shukri Danner, everyone either he or Rachel had spoken to about Audrey had the greatest admiration for her work. Conroy knew none of the details of Audrey’s travel, though he confirmed that several of the names on Ali’s list were known to him, friends to the islanders—people who regularly assisted with intake work, despite the fact that it fell outside their purview.
“We all have to be a little improvisational here, you know? There’s a different need at every hour of every day. If we could just get more translators—I honestly think we need them more than medics, though OB-GYNs and dentists are really in demand. Most of these kids haven’t had dental care in years.” He let his chair tip forward, speaking with the great earnestness of the young. “I mean, this is a tragedy compounded by fresh tragedies every day. And people get so upset, I don’t get it.”
“The islanders, you mean?”
Conroy took a moment to answer this. “To be fair, there’s no way as many refugees would have transited through as they have without the assistance of the islanders. For the most part, the people here have been incredible. But every other day or so, I get wind of a new complaint. Like, why is this five-year-old kid getting dental treatment when no one cares about me?”
Khattak had heard similar sentiments in Canada, particularly through social media, when Canadian dentists had offered free dental care to new arrivals. One of his friends had taken the challenge head on by inviting anyone in need of treatment to make an appointment at her office.
It came back to a hierarchy of need, and a balance of competing interests.
He didn’t believe it was a case of people not wanting to help, or of not having empathy for what refugees were enduring. The marginalized existed among every group of people. If their voices cried out in need, he couldn’t blame them, and he didn’t. He tried to understand, he tried to extend solidarity where it was needed, regardless of personal affiliation.
He thought of the graffiti on the concrete wall: no borders.
There were no boundaries to human need; there should be none to his compassion. This was how his faith governed him, and he thought perhaps his despair could be eased by turning back to prayer—he’d heard there were mosques on the islands, but he didn’t know if they were in operation. Or if they were, how wise it would be for him to join the congregants, in light of present tensions.
He could see the Greek people couldn’t solve the crisis on their own. They needed and deserved help. More than that, they deserved gratitude from an often irresolute world, unwilling to contend with what Assad had done in his deadly desire for power. The question remained: What other losses would Assad inflict?
The ripple effects of the war in Syria had spiraled out.
But here to this island? To the death of an Interpol agent who’d kept company with a refugee; to the kidnapping of a foreign citizen?
Had Audrey been kidnapped? Or was she following a trail of her own?
“Did Audrey receive a package a few weeks ago? Something on the bulky side? Perhaps she stowed it behind that canvas. I’m also looking for a group of boxes—maybe the size of shoeboxes—at least twenty of those. Would Audrey have stored them here?”
Good-natured and obliging, Conroy got up to look. Khattak joined him. He wanted to see what else was behind the canvas.
Conroy kept up a pleasant stream of conversation as they searched the pile together. “Apart from Audrey’s team, I haven’t seen that many Canadians.”
“What about Australians? You mentioned an NGO.” Khattak picked up a box that was larger than the others. It was empty. He set it aside.
“Yeah, Australians are really feeling it. The boats where the kids wash up dead? It’s like decent people won’t have it, do you know?”
The blithe assurance behind this remark made Khattak suspicious. Peter Conroy had come a long way to volunteer with an NGO with limited resources. Supposedly this left him free to help out at Woman to Woman, but he could have made himself useful to anyone on the island. Why, then, had he brought himself specifically to Audrey’s attention? And what had made Audrey believe that Conroy could be trusted with her NGO’s work? What had made them compatible?
“If you wanted to help, you didn’t need to come halfway around the world,” he said.
“How’d you mean?” Conroy sounded aggrieved. “You’ve had a look at this place. You can see what the need is like.”
“Surely, Australia has a crisis of its own?”
Conroy’s blank look confirmed Khattak’s suspicions. For someone who’d traveled to Greece with a volunteer’s zeal, Conroy seemed oblivious to problems at home.
Khattak tested his theory. “There’s Nauru,” he said. “And Manus Island.”
Conroy began to shift things around the tent, searching for Audrey’s package. If he was invested in the refugee crisis, he’d be aware of Khattak’s meaning. His sudden, frantic search could mean he was giving himself time to come up with an explanation.
Nauru and Manus were two islands in the Pacific where asylum seekers were detained at the Australian government’s insistence. None had been settled in Australia. The offshore processing policy meant that asylum seekers innocent of any crime faced mandatory detention in warehouse facilities on the islands.
But in the past year, explosive leaks from within Nauru had revealed that assaults and self-harm were prevalent at the detention center, with more than fifty percent of the assaults against children. An opposition movement had risen up against the so-called Pacific Solution. Khattak wondered why Conroy hadn’t joined it.
When Conroy straightened up from his search, his face was deeply flushed. His tone defensive, he said, “If Australia is guilty of mistreating refugees, we’re not the only ones.”
It was a deflection. It didn’t explain Conroy’s decision to travel to Greece. His trip and his room and board would be costly, spending resources that could be better used to enhance the efforts of established organizations. Or the effort back home.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Khattak said. He was pus
hing Conroy, but if there was something Conroy was hiding, he needed to uncover it now.
Conroy’s eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun.
“Canada, mate. Don’t you detain refugees in jail along with convicted criminals? Doesn’t sound much better than Nauru.”
Khattak didn’t deny it. A lack of legal status in Canada meant that refugees could be subject to detention for status offenses indefinitely. There had been hunger strikes by detainees, and protests by NGOs who championed humanitarian solutions. Thanks to their efforts, the criminalization of refugees was under renewed scrutiny, though the needle had hardly moved.
So Conroy was aware of both countries’ refugee policies, something for him to consider.
A little nervously, Conroy moved away. He shuffled around the boxes until he uncovered a bulky yellow envelope. “I think this is what you’re looking for.” His tone made it clear he was anxious for Khattak to leave. Khattak studied the package.
Audrey Clare’s name was scrawled on the outside. It was addressed in care of Woman to Woman, and extra postage had been paid for personal delivery.
Khattak took the package and opened it, mystified as two orange life jackets with the Yamaha logo fell into his hands. As so often happened when he and Rachel were working a case and their discoveries synchronized, Rachel chose that moment to call him.
He went to stand outside the tent for better reception on his cell phone.
She sounded tired and frazzled, as if she hadn’t slept. She was on her way to Chios. She’d hitched a ride with Commander Benemerito, and she hurried over preliminaries.
“Remember those inventory lists Gaffney got us from Audrey and Nate’s e-mails?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’ve been on the beach twice in the last twenty-four hours, but I didn’t take it in right away.”
“Take what in, Rachel?” he asked patiently, waving at a little girl who darted down the alley. He was looking over the trough to the castle, and thinking how precariously placed the camp was—vulnerable to torrential rain or to an attack from higher ground. But what made him think of an attack? The Greek men at the restaurant with their closed, suspicious faces? Surely their grievances were minor and would not amount to harm. He made a note to check in at the UNHCR office to get a better sense of relations between islanders and refugees.
A Dangerous Crossing--A Novel Page 17
