Yet the dinghy was parallel to the stone pier, and a dozen Greek hands grasped it and pulled it in against the wall, securing it fast. Amid great yelling, I saw Selena pull Ahmed and Omar along, shouting, “I’ve got translators! I’ve got translators!” Three drenched figures stood shivering in the fishing boat, shrouded in blankets; Eleni was helping them onto the pier like a footman. Only then did I see that Kostas and Alex had just returned with a second dinghy in tow. This one, however, had already taken on water, dragging heavily behind their fishing boat like a wet diaper; in fact, a few of the passengers had already spilled out into the water beside it, clinging to the deflating vinyl, paddling and kicking furiously, their faces fixed in terror.
An older man who’d already alighted onto the pier, his face bracketed by eyeglasses in heavy tortoise frames, kept pointing to the ground and shouting, “This is Europe? Are we in Europe? Please? This is Europe?” I watched a woman in a pink chiffon headscarf yank her two small children, an older girl and a younger boy—Salt and pepper—down onto their knees beside her—first in prayer, then to literally kiss the flagstones.
Ashley and I were helping to hand out water bottles—there wasn’t time to think—we were just doing—the passengers gulped them down in three or four greedy swallows, though a few poured it over their heads like an anointment.
“Does anyone here know CPR? CPR? Anyone?” Cathy was shouting from Kostas’s fishing boat. “Please, someone!” Inga and a burly young Greek man started running down the pier. “CPR! CPR!”
It was only as I watched them leap into the boat that it struck me: Fuck. I know CPR. I’d used it barely two weeks ago.
“Hey!” I hollered, waving. “Hey!” Yet my legs refused to move. For a moment, I felt so disembodied, so bifurcated and dizzy, I wondered if I wasn’t having a stroke. Finally, finally, I felt myself lurch forward, pushing my way through the crowd on the pier—Good God, watch me slip and give myself a concussion—but I shouted, “I know CPR!” I shouted and slid down into the hull of the fishing boat, nearly twisting my ankle in the process. “Who is it?”
Inga looked over her shoulder at me. She and the Greek man were crouched over a wet body, prone on the bottom boards of the boat. She brought a single finger to her lips and her eyes were unreadable. I clamped my hands over my mouth. An Arab man knelt beside the figure, clutching the white hand, shaking his head, silently weeping in that openmouthed way where the voice catches at the back of the throat and sounds like a car stalling.
I dropped to my knees.
“False alarm,” said Inga. She raised her eyebrows at me.
The Arab man coughed apologetically. “My brother, he does not have a heart attack.” He emitted that raspy staccato sound again. “He is only drunk.”
He wasn’t weeping; he was laughing with incredulity. He shook his head, trying to contain himself. “My brother. He is devout Muslim. He never takes a drink in his life.” Sniffling, he dabbed his eyes. “But in Turkey, we hear so many bad things about the boat trip, my brother, he is so frightened, in Izmir, he buys little bottle of vodka. Pours it in his canteen. Says it is water. Drinks it all the way here. First time in his life having alcohol. As soon as we land here in Greece, what does he do? He is falls down drunk.”
“Exactly how big was the bottle he bought?” I asked.
The man calipered his fingers.
“That’s not enough to kill him from alcohol poisoning.”
The Arab man chuckled. “No. But my mother? Please, do not tell. If our family hears Mohammed is drunk, he will be the first person not killed by bombs in Aleppo, but by his mother in Greece.”
I rejoined Ashley on the waterfront, laughing. I started to tell her about the drunken man when a voice bellowed from a rooftop, “Boats! Boats!” There were more? A couple of Spanish lifeguards bounded into view from beyond the trees. High up in the distance, on the edge of a rock, someone was signaling frantically. Three dinghies were suddenly approaching the coast far down the beach to our left; one going at full speed, bouncing along in the water. Another seemed to be having engine problems. I could hear the asthmatic wheeze of a dying outboard motor. The third, cutting in toward the shore at an angle, was much closer, but already, it was starting to list. You could see the people on it beginning to scramble and panic.
It happened so quickly, it didn’t fully register. Their bottoms scraping against the rocks, the boats were bobbling up to the shore now, and some of the refugees who had made it were slipping and staggering up onto the pebbled shore, clapping and crying, taking selfies with the lifeguards and the volunteers to celebrate their landing. Someone shouted in English, “We’re safe! We made it! Praise Allah!” It was a sudden, surreal party. People were throwing off their life vests and dancing around a little bit. But then Ashley grabbed my arm, hard. “Mom!” she cried. And then we froze. I heard it too. Howling, the most anguished, chilling wails I had ever heard. A young woman was keeled over in the sand, shrieking, “NO NO NO.” “She says there’s a baby! Does anyone see a baby?” someone shouted. And then there was splashing and shouting and total pandemonium. Two other men—volunteers or refugees—emerged from the sea, bellowing, carrying a man whose body was so pale and purplish, it was almost iridescent. He was limp and heavy, like a bag of wet cement. And another man was brought out of the sea, his mouth and his eyes wide open as if he were still screaming at the sky. And then. Then a little girl in a flowered dress, no more than ten years old.
“Mom, Mom.” Ashley was sobbing into my neck, clutching me fiercely. I clamped her face in place in the crook of my shoulder, trying to shield her—to shield both of us—from seeing, my eyes squeezed tight, my pulse furious in prayer. Please, God. Please, no. Make them live again. Make this not be happening.
A moment earlier, the Aegean before us had seemed calm and empty. But now, again, we heard the relentless cry—“Boats! Boats!” Ashley and I looked at each other, seized with alarm. More? How could there be more so quickly? Her face went pale; she glanced frantically toward the village, as if calculating distance. “Deep breath, Ash. We can do this,” I said, though my own heart started punching. But I’d decided: There was no more running away for either of us.
An air horn bleated. Fishing boats were starting up in the marina, though given where the new boats seemed to be approaching from, I knew that Kostas and his men would have to maneuver around an outcropping of rocks before they could reach the dinghies. More Spanish lifeguards had pulled on their swimming shoes. Without hesitation, they plowed directly into the water, slogging through the waves until it was deep enough to dive. Then they plunged like a school of dolphins, swimming with astonishing speed toward the dinghy.
“Make a human chain! Make a human chain!” someone shouted, and suddenly, I glimpsed Igor and Inga and the dreadlocked Swedes and Amir, and a few of the Senegalese refugees from the night before with Amadou, then Alex and Eleni running and the Afghan teenagers and the Greek with the expensive sunglasses. Ashley and I barely had time to exchange glances before we were separated and swept up by the group—“Ash, you got this!” I shouted, my words borne away in the wind—as my arms were linking through other arms, people grabbing each other, still more people joining, all of us lunging toward the water in a crazed zigzagging line, weaving and swaying as if performing a folk dance.
I felt the frigidity of the sea before my brain actually registered that I was in it. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so cold, nor so deep, and the stones underfoot managed to be both slippery and jagged at the same time. The water seeped down into my absurd New Jersey Turnpike boots and up the legs of my jeans. My left arm was hooked through Selena’s, my right through that of one of the teenagers from Afghanistan, who smiled at me with incredulity, shivering. Ashley was in the line parallel to mine, a few positions back from me, one arm linked with Francisco, the other with Inga. We were both being pulled forward by our teammates deeper and deeper into the water. “Ashley,” I shouted.
She shrugged her shoulders helplessly
, her face flush with fear but also, I saw, resolve—the same terrified determination she’d had as a small child, pedaling furiously, Joey running behind her, cheering her on. “I guess we’re doing this,” she shouted back. Our lines slogged deeper into the water a few more feet, then halted at the signal of one of the Spanish volunteers coordinating with the lifeguards. She showed us how to join and cross our arms, gripping each other’s wrists for stability to form a human bridge. The lifeguards had seized the dinghy and were now paddling furiously as they swam back toward the shore towing it in. I heard a commotion of splashing and shrieking; people in the dinghy were tumbling into the water as the rubber collapsed farther beneath them. Yet it was shallow enough now that after they plunged, they discovered they could easily stand. As they struggled to get their balance on the slippery rocks, they started yelling in languages I did not know, raising their hands to the sky and motioning and gesturing. More and more refugees were now voluntarily sliding off the boat into the water on their own, helping one another off, holding each other’s hands as they wobbled up the last few feet to the shore.
And then I saw the baby. The mother, sobbing and terrified at the helm of the raft, did not want to surrender it to the lifeguard, but the dinghy, still taking on water, was starting to give way beneath her. With a sob, she finally held out her arms beseechingly and relinquished her infant, then leapt off the boat. One lifeguard placed the baby gently into another lifeguard’s wet arms, and then it was passed in its tiny wool blanket like a secret, like a firefly clasped between a child’s cupped hands, from one set of arms to the other down the entire length of our chain. I was positioned across from one of the dreadlocked Swedes. As soon as it came to us I was filled with panic—Good God: please, don’t let us drop it, don’t let us drop it—but also, too, with awe and a fierce, animal desire: I wanted to snatch the baby to my breast and encircle it in my arms and dash up onto the beach with it by myself. Instead, however, treating it with the fragility of a robin’s egg, the Swede and I together placed the baby carefully into the attending arms of the Afghan boy and Igor beside us, who then passed it carefully along to Francisco and Dagmar.
When the baby was finally redeposited into the arms of its mother on the shore, a huge, sonorous cheer went up. Refugees and volunteers alike began laughing crazily with relief, fist-pumping, throwing back our heads to the sky and hooting “Woohoo!” and “Allah Akbar!” and “Gracias a Dios!” And maybe, because in the middle of life’s tragedies, there is often some absurd nugget of humor—a gift from an ironic god—several of the children on the road, swept up in the gloriousness of deliverance, still dripping wet in their life jackets, started running back into the water, falling down comically and splashing each other, delighting in what had terrified them just moments before.
“Get back in place,” Selena shouted. “Everybody get back in place.” The second dinghy motored in. It moored in the shoals to our left, and we all slogged over toward it in the sunshine, holding fast to one another, trying not to slip. Yet something did not go as planned, because all of the passengers tried to alight as soon as the motor stopped, and the lifeguards were suddenly overwhelmed, and refugees everywhere were dropping into the water, then struggling back up onto their feet, and some of them were so happy, so happy and thrilled to be safe, that they started hugging the volunteers—or maybe they were still terrified—so they clung to whoever they found, and the chain fell apart and people were splashing and thrashing and cheering, some of them dancing, some of them weeping, and all was chaos.
The light was blazing over the Aegean now, as bright and crazy as mercury. My arms were no longer linked through Selena’s, or anyone’s, and I felt myself slip. As I stumbled backward deeper into the water, I heard Ashley shout, “Mom!” She was on the edge of the shore, holding a tiny girl in a life jacket. I waved and smiled, though I was fighting to regain my balance. The tide was getting rougher: There was a drop-off in the seabed. Waves generated by the third dinghy and the fishing boats tumbled in now, slapping me from behind, jouncing off my shoulder. My cheap sunglasses fell off and started to sink. A wave broke over me fully, leaving me ravaged with salt on my tongue.
A few feet away, a woman in a sopping headscarf flailed toward me. I flailed toward her, paddling with my arms through the chop as best I could, trying to keep standing. I reached out to grasp her at the precise moment she reached out to grasp me; we clung to each other, our cheeks pressed together, our wet shirts swirling around us, entwining us in fabric. Each new wave lifted us up off the seabed, splashed over us, then set us down gently as it receded.
I heard someone laughing, her voice pealing against the sky, trilling over the octaves in a caw of pure ecstasy. I saw my daughter shimmering distantly on the shore, waving frantically. “It’s okay. It’s okay!” I shouted, as another great web of sea foam exploded over us. We squeezed our hands together, and it broke around us in a million dazzling shards of light, and again, I heard that wild, clear note of laughter, and again we went under.
Author’s Note
Although this is a work of fiction, the refugee crisis in Greece and around the globe is very real; it is, in fact, the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. This novel is set in 2015 and inspired by events that occurred in Lesvos and elsewhere in Greece at that time. Since then, however, the crisis has only continued and conditions for the refugees have only worsened. Although boats still arrive in Greece, EU borders have effectively shut down. Refugees are now finding themselves trapped on the islands and in camps for years. Facilities intended to house them for just a few days have turned into virtual prisons. Indeed, Moria, which was first established as merely a weigh station on Lesvos, is now being called, at the time of this writing, the worst refugee camp in the world. People are confined there indefinitely without shelter, running water, electricity, toilet facilities, heat, blankets, or a modicum of safety.
Much humanitarian aid is being provided by nongovernmental organizations and volunteers like the ones depicted in this novel.
If, after reading this book, you feel compelled to help, here are a few small, well-established, effective organizations doing vital work on the frontlines in Greece. They regularly need volunteers and monetary donations. You can learn about them here through their websites:
Advocates Abroad: advocatesabroad.org
Dirty Girls of Lesvos: dirtygirlsoflesvos.com
Drapen I Havet (Danish for “A Drop in the Ocean”): drapenihavet.no
Lighthouse Relief: lighthouserelief.org
Project Elea: projectelea.org
Samos Volunteers: samosvolunteers.org
There are countless others—and not only in Greece. But these, at least, are a start.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to so many people for their help and support throughout the writing of this book.
First and foremost, I bow before my agent, the Phenomenal Molly Friedrich, and my co-agent, the Incomparable Lucy Carson. They fell in love with Donna Has Left the Building and committed to this novel in its earliest stages; they have been tireless advocates and readers ever since. Thank you for your literary savvy, dedication, frankness, wit, professionalism, and exquisite care. It is a joy and privilege to work with you both. I owe a special debt of gratitude as well to Heather Carr of the Friedrich Agency for her smarts, conscientious feedback, and warmth.
And then…there is simply not enough poetry, live gospel music, or hyperbole in the universe to adequately convey my gratitude to my editor, Millicent Bennett. Millicent, if I could be reincarnated as Cole Porter, I would come back and write a classic song about you to be played throughout the ages. You are the proverbial tops. Your editorial brilliance astounds me. You brought inexhaustible faith, energy, and insight to this book and envisioned it in its entirety even when I got lost in the sentences. I cannot imagine writing this without you. A million grazie milles, ragazza.
I am continually grateful for all the support and attention I’ve received from the publ
ishing team at Grand Central Publishing and Hachette Book Group USA—including, but certainly not limited to—Matthew Ballast, Staci Burt, Karen Kosztolnyik, Brian McLendon, Meriam Metoui, Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski, Michael Pietsch, Luria Rittenberg, Ben Sevier, Charles McCrorey, Michele McGonigle, Thomas Louie, and Karen Torres.
Ellis Avery, Elizabeth Coleman, Brigette Delay, Susan Dalsimer, John Seeger Gilman, Valerie Lack, Eric Messinger, Karen-Lee Ryan, Desa Sealy, Adam Smyer, and Linda Yellin: Thank you for so willingly being my readers, sounding boards, and champions.
Maureen McSherry, you deserve deification for all the love and support you’ve given me. Thank you for your astute multiple readings, extensive editorial advice, beach time, wisdom, and, most of all, enduring friendship.
A huge thank you as well goes to Dr. Rachel Seidel, Josh Sherer, Paul Stefanski, and Veronica Vera for their professional expertise that informed aspects of this story. I am also deeply indebted to two of Tennessee’s top attorneys, J. Michael Shipman and David Louis Raybin, for their legal counsel and for taking the time in particular to illuminate for me Tennessee’s drug policies and search and seizure laws.
A heartfelt danke/merci/grazie to the staff of the Cambrian Adelboden—to Anke Locke and Stephane Gheringer in particular—for continuing to give me a “room of one’s own” and keeping me well cared for while I completed this manuscript.
To my parents, David Gilman and Ellen Gilman, for simply being my parents—and not asking too many questions.
I am profoundly grateful to Andreas Ashikalis, Simone Plassard, and Paula Johanna Pleuser of Project Elea at the Eleonas Refugee Camp in Athens; the Mariola Family at the Aphrodite Hotel in Molyvos, Lesvos; and Nikos Molvalis in Vafios, Lesvos for their extraordinary work and for sharing their stories with me. Also to Francisco Gentico, Malen Garmendia Gomez, Santiago Jatib, Isabel Reardon, Emily Wilson, and the countless other volunteers and coordinators in Athens. To Thodoris Birbas and Vasso Stavropoulou for being my family in Greece.
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