No Safe Place

by Deborah Ellis

  FIVE

  It was a night without sleep. The rain fell without mercy, and the waves tossed the boat around like a plaything.

  There were no lights to row toward and there was no rescue coming. No one on earth knew where they were, and no one had even noticed that they were missing.

  The migrants clung to the boat, riding out the rise and fall of the waves.

  Abdul tried to hold the rudder steady, but he didn’t know why he bothered. He didn’t think it was helping or hurting. The sea kept swirling.

  “Bail out!” someone would yell, and everyone would bend and scoop, the waves easily replacing what they labored so hard to get rid of.

  Dawn came slowly, hidden behind the thick clouds. By the time Abdul realized he could see, the rain had downshifted from a deluge to a drizzle. The air was still cold and the wind still blew, but the waves rolled instead of rocked. The migrants rolled with the waves and, exhausted from fear and shivering, they slept.

  / / / / / / / /

  “We killed the boy’s uncle.”

  Cheslav’s voice startled Abdul out of his slumber. It seemed to be around mid-morning. The rain was more mist than drops.

  “It was self-defense,” Rosalia said. “He would have tipped us over, climbing into the boat with his giant body.”

  “Who will care?” asked Cheslav. “We did it. The man was a pig, but he was all we had to guide us to England. Now we are stuck on the open sea in a piece of crap boat with a little boy who will turn us in as murderers. Boy, what kind of a boy are you?”

  Abdul’s arm was around the nephew’s shoulder, trying to keep him warm. He could feel the heat from the boy’s fever through his wet clothes.

  “He’s sick. Leave him alone.”

  “Soon. But we need to know. Is he the sort of boy who will cry to the authorities? Will he go, ‘Boo-hoo, my uncle is dead and these are the people who killed him’? Or will he say it was an accident?”

  “It was an accident,” said Rosalia. “It was. Until we smashed his fingers.”

  “And those smashed fingers will still be attached to his body when it washes up somewhere. There will be questions. What will the answers be?”

  “Can’t this wait?” Abdul asked.

  “For what? We could be picked up at any time. His body could be fished out of the water at any time. Maybe there is something in his pockets to tie him to us. He has our money. Maybe he has something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know! A list with our names on it? I did not come all this way to end up in a British jail. I can see that the boy is sick. It will not make him sicker to answer a question.”

  “We will all say he fell off the boat,” Rosalia said. “We will keep our mouths shut about the broken fingers and the kicks to his head.”

  “It’s the boy they will listen to. He’s one of them.” The Russian crouched down in front of the boy. “You are young, but you are old enough to look us in the eye and say what is in your mind. Do you want to put us in jail for killing your uncle?”

  The nephew raised his head. His eyes met Cheslav’s.

  “I’m all alone.”

  “So are we. What’s your answer?”

  “You all saved my life,” the boy said. “Especially him.” He nodded at the Uzbek, who hadn’t moved or spoken during the whole discussion. “I won’t send you to jail.”

  Cheslav straightened up. “You hear that? That’s a good, strong answer. If we are caught and questioned, we will all say his uncle fell off the boat, and we know nothing about how he got injured. Are we all agreed?”

  Abdul and Rosalia agreed.

  “What about you, Uzbek?” Cheslav put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re the big hero. What do you have to say?”

  The Uzbek slumped under the pressure of Cheslav’s hand. Abdul knelt beside him and looked in his face.

  “I think he’s dead.”

  “He’s not dead! He can’t be.”

  “I know what dead looks like. Come and see.”

  Cheslav and Rosalia looked. The tall young man had died.

  “It was the cold,” Abdul said, “and the wet. And maybe the fear.”

  “What should we do?” Rosalia asked.

  “We throw him into the sea,” said Cheslav. “We can’t sail into England with a dead body in the boat.”

  “We didn’t even know his name,” said Abdul. “What are you doing?”

  Cheslav was taking the jacket off the dead boy. “This is a warm jacket, warmer than mine. He doesn’t need it anymore.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “Look around you. None of this is right.”

  Cheslav maneuvered the Uzbek’s arms out of the sleeves and spread the jacket out to dry.

  Abdul sighed heavily. He bent down and undid the boots the dead boy was wearing. They were in much better shape than his own shoes.

  “What’s in the wallet?” Rosalia asked Cheslav, who was taking a small black wallet out of the inside pocket of the Uzbek’s jacket.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll share it with you.”

  “I mean, is there a name?”

  Cheslav opened the wallet. In the place where the money would have been there was a photo of a man, a woman and three children, all dressed up and stiffly posed on a sofa. There was also a folded piece of paper.

  “No money.” He carefully unfolded the wet paper. “It’s a letter.”

  “You can read Uzbek?” Abdul asked.

  “Uzbekistan used to be part of the Soviet Union. They still speak Russian there.” Cheslav read the note to himself.

  “What does it say?” Rosalia asked.

  “It’s from his mother,” Cheslav said. “What do you think it says?” He tossed it into the sea.

  “Was there a name on it?”

  “No.”

  “So we can’t write to her,” Abdul said. “She’ll never know what happened to her son.”

  “If she wanted to know, she would have kept him with her,” said Cheslav.

  “We should have a service,” Rosalia said. “We should say some prayers. We should say goodbye with respect.”

  “From Uzbekistan, he was probably a Muslim,” said Abdul. “I am also Muslim. We should lay him out and pray before we send him on his way.”

  Rosalia used the Uzbek’s neckerchief to cover his face. Abdul said a Muslim prayer. Rosalia said the Our Father in Polish and Cheslav prayed in Russian.

  “Do you know any prayers?” Rosalia asked the boy.

  “I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

  “Why are you sorry?” Abdul asked. “This is not your fault.”

  “I’ve been bad luck since I was born. My uncle was right. I’m a curse.”

  “Your uncle was a bad man,” said Rosalia. “No one cares what he said.”

  “I’m bad luck.”

  Cheslav threw up his arms. “Little boy, we are all alone on the ocean with no working motor, no map, no food, no water, no papers, no dry clothes, and no home. Why do you think an unimportant child like you could make our lives any worse?”

  “It’s my name. My name is Jonah.”

  Everyone stared at him, and for awhile, no one spoke.

  It was the Russian who started laughing.

  The others watched him, stunned, and then, one by one, they joined in.

  “What’s so funny?” demanded the boy. “Don’t laugh at me!”

  “We’re all going to die out here,” said Cheslav. “After all we have been through, you really think your name is what gives us our bad luck?”

  Jonah wiped his eyes and stopped crying. He almost smiled.

  “Let’s finish this,” Abdul said. “Let’s say goodbye to this Uzbek with no name. I think I would have liked him.”

  “I don’t know any prayers,” Jon
ah said. “But I know a Christmas carol.”

  He sang “Silent Night” while they lifted the Uzbek up and out of the boat. They placed him in the water as gently as they could. For a little while his body floated next to the boat, until the waves took it in one direction and the little boat went in another.

  “Sleep in heavenly peace.

  Sleep in heavenly peace.”

  SIX

  “We should row,” Rosalia said.

  The sea was calm enough now that rowing might actually get them somewhere.

  “Which way?”

  The sky was a little lighter on one side of the horizon, under the clouds.

  “That way is east,” said Abdul. “England is west. We row toward England.”

  The boat had two oars. Abdul took the first shift, turning the boat with some difficulty. He had never rowed before, and he did a great deal of pulling without seeming to get anywhere.

  “Oh, this is much better,” Cheslav said. “We are really moving now.”

  “Shut up,” said Rosalia.

  “We will row and we will row and maybe in a month we will reach England. Maybe we are off-course and we’ll row right by England, right into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Abdul kept pulling on the oars. It felt like he was moving the boat along, but how could he say for sure? Maybe for every meter he moved them, the waves and currents moved them two, and in a direction they didn’t want to go.

  “How big is the Channel?” he asked Jonah. “How long does it usually take you to cross it?”

  “We leave when it’s dark and get there when it’s light. If the motor is working.”

  “Where do you land?”

  “Different places. Sometimes a bigger boat comes out to meet us and takes away the cargo.”

  “The cargo? You mean us?”

  “No. The bundles under the floorboards.”

  Abdul, Cheslav and Rosalia looked at each other.

  “Are there any bundles on this trip?” Cheslav asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Where?”

  Jonah pointed to places around the hull. “Under the boards.”

  Cheslav tried to pry up the boards with his fingers.

  “Hey. Gypsy, got a nail file?”

  Rosalia ignored him.

  Abdul secured the oars, reached into his shirt and unwrapped the knife.

  “You’re going to kill me for my words?”

  Abdul didn’t answer. He bent to one of the floorboards and started attacking it with the knife.

  “You’ve never used a knife before, have you?” Cheslav taunted. “The boat is made of wood, not cake.”

  Abdul swung his arms up so the knife point was at Cheslav’s throat.

  “I stabbed a security officer. I’m not afraid to stab you.”

  “Go ahead and try,” Cheslav urged. “You want to be king of the boat? Try. You don’t know me.”

  Abdul lowered the knife and went back to attacking the board. It started to loosen. The boat tipped precariously as they all leaned in to look.

  Jonah was the one who reached in and grabbed the two packets.

  Wrapped in heavy, clear plastic, each was about the size of a deck of cards.

  “Heroin?” Abdul asked. “Cocaine?”

  “It’s heroin,” Jonah said. “I heard them saying.”

  “How many are there?”

  Jonah showed them the spots. “Three hiding places.”

  Abdul didn’t know how much money was involved, but he knew it was a lot. “We should throw it away.”

  “Are you crazy?” Cheslav asked. “Before this, we had nothing. Now we are rich. And, if we’re caught, we have something to bargain with.”

  “If we’re caught with drugs, we’ll go to prison,” said Abdul.

  “I will not get caught,” Cheslav said. “I will turn this into money. When I have money, it will be easy to do what I want to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “None of your business.”

  Abdul was already tired of the Russian. He handed Cheslav his knife. “You want to work instead of talk?”

  Cheslav took the knife and chopped at the places Jonah showed him. One by one, six heroin packets were uncovered.

  “Any more?” Cheslav asked.

  Jonah shook his head.

  Abdul took the knife back.

  “So we have heroin,” he said. “So what? It’s not food, it’s not water. It won’t fix the motor or keep us dry. It’s useless.”

  “I’ll take your share, then,” Cheslav said.

  “You can have it,” Abdul said. “I want nothing to do with it.”

  Cheslav grabbed Abdul’s share and tucked it along with his own into his waistband behind his back.

  Rosalia picked up one packet and put it down again.

  “I don’t like trouble,” she said.

  Jonah reached for a packet but Abdul stopped him.

  “Leave it in the boat. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “Why should the boy get a share?” Cheslav asked. “His country will take care of him.”

  “It belongs to him as much as to you,” Rosalia said, as she took up the oars and got them moving again.

  The sun climbed higher and the clouds began to drift away. The day warmed up. Abdul allowed his body to relax and his mind to drift.

  Cheslav was fooling himself if he thought the heroin would save him. Abdul would throw Jonah’s share overboard before he allowed the boy to leave the boat with it.

  Stop worrying about him, he told himself. He reminded himself that he had something to do. He had to get to England, and then he had to get to Liverpool. And he couldn’t let anything get in his way.

  SEVEN

  Abdul woke up, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was.

  He’d been dreaming he was a small boy, visiting his grandparents in the Kurdistan countryside. He was chasing a baby goat, running over the rocky hills and laughing in the sunshine.

  But when he opened his eyes, the little farm was gone, the goat was gone, and the sun was gone. Everything was dark, and he was cold once again.

  He’d slept slumped over, and his back and neck ached. He yawned and stretched, then rubbed his eyes.

  He was looking at another boat. They had drifted right into it.

  It was a cabin cruiser, a yacht, four times longer than their little boat and many times higher.

  Even in the dark, Abdul could see it was expensive. Tiny lights twinkled here and there along its sides.

  Abdul nudged Cheslav and Rosalia awake and motioned to them to be quiet. Jonah stirred but didn’t quite awaken. Abdul could tell from his fever and labored breathing that the boy was really sick.

  “Should we shout out for help?” he wondered.

  “Why would they help us?” whispered Rosalia.

  “They’re all asleep up there,” said Cheslav. “We go up, we get blankets, water and food. We take what we need, and then we get back on our own boat and row away.”

  “I’ll go,” said Abdul. “One of us is enough.”

  “Why would I trust you? I’ll go.” Cheslav was already on his feet, securing their boat to the yacht.

  “I’m going,” said Rosalia. “I won’t waste time, and why would I trust you?”

  “Someone should stay with Jonah,” Abdul said.

  “You think he’ll run away?” Cheslav was already pulling himself onto the yacht after Rosalia. Abdul followed him.

  Empty liquor bottles littered the deck.

  On one of the cushioned benches they saw a man, passed out and snoring.

  “I’m going below. You go round the back,” Cheslav whispered to Rosalia. He told Abdul to check out the wheelhouse.

  Abdul didn’t like to be ordered around by Chesla
v, but this was no time to argue. He went to the little covered deck that held the ship’s wheel and control panel.

  There were more bottles and paper plates with the remains of a meal. Abdul picked up a half-eaten chicken leg and finished it off in two bites. There was a roll, and some kind of cold potatoes in sauce. It felt great to eat, but then he felt bad when he remembered the goal was to get things they needed and get away.

  He spied some large bottles of drinking water. There were four unopened bottles and one that was still half-full. On the back of one of the chairs was a sweater, and two towels were bunched up on the floor. He used the larger towel to bundle up what he found.

  Abdul looked around carefully for anything else they might use. Whoever owned this boat had a lot of money. The console was full of fancy electrical equipment. He thought he recognized a radio and gears, but most of it was a mystery.

  They needed to find out where they were, and how far away they were from England.

  We could get there quickly in this, Abdul thought. The man who owned the yacht could take them to England easily, but Abdul knew he never would.

  He figured he’d taken all that was useful, and he was just turning to go back to the others when he heard a shout from below.

  He froze.

  There was another shout, then another. At first they were just shouts of surprise. Then they were shouts of anger.

  Up from below came Cheslav, and right behind him was a man with white hair and a thick body, wearing an open bathrobe over his boxer shorts. The man held a pistol pointed at Cheslav’s back.

  “We have a thief,” the man said, in English with an American accent. “Came right up onto our boat, Harry. Right into my bedroom! Trying to steal my wallet!”

  “I was after your blanket,” Cheslav said. “It was on the floor. You didn’t even need it.”

  “Are you all right, Frank?”

  “I caught me a baby pirate,” said the man with the gun.

  Harry grabbed Cheslav and spun him around so that he leaned against the yacht’s railing, looking out at the black sea. The man kicked his legs apart and started to pat him down, searching him. It took no time at all to find the heroin packed away in Cheslav’s clothes.