In the Sea There are Crocodiles Read online

  Not a single jacket was still intact.

  But we’re on the beach, said Rahmat.

  Yes, we’re on the beach, echoed Hussein Ali.

  Is there a school where they teach you to state the obvious? said Liaqat.

  Quick, let’s inflate the dinghy, suggested Rahmat.

  It’s too late.

  What?

  It’s too late, I repeated. We have to wait till tomorrow.

  It isn’t true, we can make it.

  The trafficker had told us it took about three hours to cross the strip of sea separating us from Lesbos. But it must have been about two or three in the morning by now and the risk was that we would arrive in the first light of dawn, when we might well be seen. We needed darkness and invisibility. We needed to do things properly. We had to wait for the following night.

  I’m the oldest, I said. I’m the captain. Let’s put it to the vote. Who’s in favor of leaving tomorrow night?

  Hussein Ali was the first to raise his hand, followed immediately by Soltan and Rahmat.

  Liaqat sighed. Then let’s get some rest, he said. Not too close to the sea, if possible. He threw a pointed glance at Hussein Ali. We don’t want a wild wave to attack us while we sleep, do we?

  Hussein Ali didn’t get the joke. He nodded and said, Or a crocodile. And he said it seriously, with his eyes wide open.

  There aren’t any crocodiles in the sea, Liaqat said.

  How do you know?

  I just know, stupid.

  Well, you’re talking rubbish. You can’t even swim.

  You can’t swim either.

  That’s true. Hussein Ali shrugged. That’s why I’m afraid of crocodiles.

  But there aren’t any. Can’t you get that into your head? There. Aren’t. Any. They live in rivers.

  I wouldn’t be so sure of that, whispered Hussein Ali, looking at the water and shifting a small stone with the tip of his foot. There could be all kinds of things down there in that darkness.

  ———

  It was a good day, the next day, a really good day, even though we’d used up all our supplies of food and water. Soltan tried to drink water from the sea, and after the first mouthful he started to scream that the water was poisoned, that the Turks and Greeks had poisoned it to kill us. We kept ourselves to ourselves (well there wasn’t anyone else), slept for a long time and built traps for wild pigs. We didn’t think about the dangers of the crossing. Death is always a distant thought, even when you feel it close. You think you’ll make it, and so will your friends.

  Around midnight we came out into the open. We moved the equipment close to the rocks, to be protected and not be seen by passing boats. The dinghy had to be inflated with the pump, a pump with a balloon that you pressed with your foot. It was a blue and yellow dinghy—not all that big, to tell the truth, and the maximum weight it was intended for was lower than the combined weight of the five of us, but we pretended not to notice.

  We were so busy inflating the dinghy and setting up the oars that we didn’t see a light approaching, a light at sea.

  It was Rahmat who saw it. Look, he said.

  We turned our heads in unison.

  Out on the water, I couldn’t say how far out, a boat was passing, with red and green lights flashing at the sides, and it may have been those red and green lights or something else, but we became convinced it was the coast guard. It’s the coast guard, we said. Did they see us? we asked each other in panic. Could they have seen us? Who knows? How can we know? We deflated the dinghy, ran back up the beach and dived back into the undergrowth.

  It was a fishing boat, almost certainly.

  What should we do?

  Best to wait.

  For how long?

  An hour.

  What if they come back?

  Tomorrow, then.

  Best to wait until tomorrow.

  Yes, yes. Tomorrow.

  Shall we sleep?

  Let’s sleep.

  What about guard duty?

  What guard duty?

  We ought to take turns at guard duty, said Hussein Ali.

  We don’t need guard duty.

  If they saw us, they’ll come looking for us.

  But maybe they didn’t see us.

  Then we can leave.

  No, we can’t leave, Hussein Ali. And besides, if they came looking for us, we’d notice. You can’t park a boat on a beach without making a noise. If you want to, you can take first turn at guard duty.

  Why me?

  Because you suggested it, that’s why.

  Who should I wake up after me?

  Wake me, I said.

  All right.

  Good night.

  Good night.

  When Hussein Ali started talking in his sleep I was still awake. Anyway, there wasn’t really a need to keep guard.

  On the third evening, we had a discussion and decided to leave a bit earlier. Since the boat had passed at midnight, then it was just possible, we calculated, that at ten they would still be having dinner or watching television. So a couple of hours after sunset we went to the rocks, inflated the dinghy and put it in the water. We stripped down to our pants.

  As I’ve already said, I was the oldest, and I was also the only one who could swim a little. The others not only couldn’t swim, they were more scared than I can say. When the time came to get into the water to hold the dinghy still and let everyone get in, I stepped forward, like a hero, and put a foot down where I thought I’d find the seabed, though I had no idea what the seabed was like. That was how I discovered that even in the sea there’s rock. Boys, I said, there’s rock in the sea. And they all said, Really? I was just about to reply Yes when, attempting another step, I slipped and ended up with my whole body in the water. Groping with my hands, my arms stiff, I managed not to drown. I grabbed hold of the dinghy and held it steady so that the others could get in.

  Hurry up, said Hussein Ali. The crocodiles will eat your feet.

  Liaqat gave him a slap on the head.

  If not a crocodile, he said, maybe a whale.

  With the help of Soltan and Rahmat I climbed on board.

  Then what did we do? We grabbed hold of the oars and started hitting the surface of the water really hard, as if trying to give it a thrashing, so hard that I even broke an oar. Our strokes were fairly random, because if one thing was certain it was that none of us could row. We all rowed on one side. When we rowed on the right, the dinghy veered to the right, and when we rowed on the left, the dinghy veered to the left.

  What with one thing and another, we ended up on the rocks.

  Now I don’t know how dinghies are made, but ours must have had two layers of inflatable rubber, because although it got a hole in it, it didn’t sink.

  Still, we needed to fix it.

  With a huge effort, we managed to get back to land and pull the dinghy up onto the shingle.

  Fortunately we had the adhesive tape (so that was what it was for), and we patched up the hole with it. But we weren’t sure that it would hold so we decided that Hussein Ali, who was the smallest of us, would keep his hands pressed on the patch instead of rowing.

  Rahmat and I took up position on the left.

  Liaqat and Soltan on the right.

  Now, I said. And the four of us started to paddle.

  At last, we set off.

  Greece

  The sea started to get rough about midnight, I think, or thereabout. We were rowing fast, but we couldn’t shout out encouragement to each other, the way professionals do, who always have someone either behind them or in front saying, And one and two, and one and two, and so on, because rowers row in unison. We couldn’t, because we didn’t want to make a noise, we were afraid even to sneeze—which, as we were half naked, wearing nothing but underpants (we’d packed our clothes into plastic bags which we’d sealed with adhesive tape to stop water getting in)—was something that might well happen. We were afraid to sneeze because we thought the coast guard would pick up our sneezi
ng on their radar over the noise of the waves.

  We’d been told that by rowing fast we would land on the coast of Greece in two or three hours, but that was without taking into account the water coming into the dinghy. When the sea got rough and started pouring down on us as if it was raining, I took a water bottle, tore it in half with my teeth to make it into a bowl and said to Hussein Ali, Leave the patch and start throwing the water back in the sea.

  How?

  With this, I said, showing him the half bottle. At that moment a wave ripped it out of my hand, as if it had heard me and didn’t agree. I made another one. I took Hussein Ali’s hand and pressed the bowl into it. With this, I said again.

  We were still rowing. But why then did we feel as if we weren’t moving? Or worse still, that we were going backward? And as if that wasn’t enough, the inflatable tubes got in the way, the inflatable tubes we’d been given to use as life preservers. We’d tied them to the dinghy with long ropes because we were afraid they’d bother us as we rowed, so unfortunately, when the wind blew hard, it lifted these inflatable tubes, turning them into balloons that made the dinghy rotate or swerve.

  Every now and again, the current or the wind or the waves threw us back toward the coast of Turkey—or so we assumed, because when we were tossed about like that, we weren’t really sure which way was Turkey and which way was Greece—and little Hussein Ali, still collecting the water that was filling the dinghy, started whining. I know why we can’t get to Greece, he said. We can’t get to Greece because the sea goes uphill in that direction.

  Our point of reference was a lighthouse on the Greek coast. But after a while we stopped seeing it. The waves were so high they covered it, and at that point Hussein Ali started screaming, We’re only as big as a whale’s tooth. And the whales will eat us. And if they don’t eat us the crocodiles will, even though you say there aren’t any. We have to turn back, we have to turn back.

  I’m not turning back, I said. We’re near Greece, and if we aren’t near, at least we’re halfway by now. It’s the same distance, so it makes no difference if we go on or turn back, and I prefer to die in the sea rather than start this whole journey all over again.

  We started arguing, right there in the middle of the sea, with the darkness and the waves all around, and with Rahmat and me saying, To Greece, to Greece. And Soltan and Liaqat saying, To Turkey, to Turkey. And Hussein Ali still bailing water and crying and saying, The mountain’s falling, the mountain’s falling, because the waves were so high—two or three meters or even more—that when they towered over us, when the dinghy was in the hollow between one wave and the next, it was as if they were about to collapse on top of us. But instead they lifted us right up and, when we were on the crest, let us down again with a bump, like the carousels I’ve been on here in Italy, at the amusement park. But, right then, it wasn’t amusing at all.

  So the situation was this: Rahmat and me rowing like mad toward Greece (or in the direction we thought Greece was), while Soltan and Liaqat were rowing toward Turkey (or in the direction they thought Turkey was). The argument degenerated into name calling, and we started hitting and elbowing each other like complete idiots, in a dinghy that was just a little dot in the middle of nowhere, while Hussein Ali was crying and saying, What’s going on? I’m doing my job of throwing out the water and you’re hitting each other? Row. Please, just row.

  I think it was then that the boat appeared. Or rather, not the boat, the ship. A very big ship, a ferry or something like that. I saw it coming up behind Hussein Ali as he spoke. It passed very, very close to us.

  How close?

  Do you see the florist’s shop outside the window? The distance from here to there.

  As close as that?

  As close as from here to there.

  ———

  These high waves were different from normal waves. They got mixed up with the others, and the dinghy made a strange movement, like a horse stung by a bee. And Liaqat couldn’t hold on. I felt his fingers slide over my shoulder. He didn’t scream, he didn’t have time. The dinghy had suddenly tossed him out.

  Let me get this right. Liaqat fell into the water?

  Yes.

  And what did the rest of you do?

  We looked for him as best we could, hoping to see him in among the waves, and we shouted. But he’d disappeared.

  When the waves from the ship—which didn’t stop: maybe it saw us, maybe not, we couldn’t tell—anyway, when the waves subsided, we kept rowing and calling Liaqat’s name. And rowing. And calling. Turning in circles around the spot where we’d been, or so we thought, though in all probability we’d already moved a long way from there.

  Nothing. Liaqat had been taken by the darkness.

  At that point, I’m not really sure what happened: it may have been exhaustion, it may have been discouragement, it may have been that we felt too small, infinitely too small not to succumb to all of these things—but at that point we fell asleep.

  ———

  By the time we opened our eyes again, it was dawn. The water around us was dark, almost black. We rinsed our faces, spitting out the salt. We looked along the horizon and saw land. A strip of land, with a beach and a hill. It wasn’t too far away. We could make it. We started rowing quickly and painfully, without knowing whether it was Greece or Turkey. We simply said, Let’s row in that direction.

  After being on our knees for so long, our legs had gone numb. We had tiny little cuts on our hands: we didn’t know how we’d got them, but they burned every time the salt water made them wet. As we approached the island, the sky grew lighter, and it was then that Soltan saw a flag on a hill. All he said, in a thin voice, was, A flag. He pointed with his index finger. It kept flapping in the wind, but at those moments when it was fully stretched we could see horizontal stripes, alternately blue and white (nine stripes in all), starting with a blue stripe at the top, and in the upper corner, on the same side as the pole, a square, also blue, with a white cross in the middle.

  The flag of Greece.

  Reaching shallow water, we got out of the dinghy. We dragged it ashore, close to the rocks, our backs stooped so as to be as inconspicuous as possible, although there didn’t seem to be anybody about. We deflated the dinghy, first squeezing the air through the plugs, then, getting impatient, ripping the plastic with stones. We folded it quickly and hid it under a rock, and covered the rock with sand. We looked at each other.

  What shall we do? asked Hussein Ali.

  We were in our underpants. We’d lost our clothes. What could we do?

  Stay here, I said.

  Where are you going?

  To the village.

  What village? We don’t know where we are.

  On the coast …

  On the coast, said Soltan. Congratulations.

  Let me finish, I said. We were supposed to get to Mytilene, right?

  Do you know which way Mytilene is?

  No. But there has to be a village around here. A few houses. Some shops. I’ll look for food and even some clothes, if possible. You wait here. There’s no point wandering around like four stray dogs, getting ourselves noticed.

  I want to come too, said Hussein Ali.

  No.

  Why?

  I’ve already explained.

  Because you can hide better when you’re alone, said Rahmat.

  Hussein Ali gave me a dirty look. Make sure you come back.

  I’ll be back as soon as I can.

  You won’t leave us, will you?

  I turned away without replying and set off along the path that climbed the hill. I walked for a long time, without knowing where I was going. I may even have got lost, which is quite possible when you don’t know where you’re going.

  The houses appeared out of nowhere, behind the trees. In among the houses was a supermarket. There were groups of tourists, families on holiday, elderly people out for a stroll. An ice-cream parlor with a long queue in front of it. A newsagent’s. A garage that hired out
scooters and cars. And a little square with benches and a playground. From the ice-cream parlor came cheerful music, played very loud.

  The supermarket. The supermarket was paradise. The supermarket was my target. All I had to do was go in, take some food, nothing too difficult, fruit would do, and clothes, maybe bathing trunks, if they had any. Young boys walking around in bathing trunks in a seaside resort is one thing, but young boys walking around in their underpants, well, that’s another matter entirely.

  A police car passed. I hid behind (more inside than behind) a flowerbed. I squatted there for a few minutes watching the movements at the front of the supermarket, to see if I could get in without attracting attention, and came to the conclusion that there was no way I could go in through the front. But I could always go around the back. So I flattened myself against the walls of the houses like a lizard, slid under a gate, getting a couple of nasty scratches on the stomach in the process, and finally climbed a metal fence. I entered the supermarket like a ghost, taking advantage of the fact that the assistant unloading boxes of snacks was too busy to notice me. As I placed my bare foot on the cold, slippery tiles of the section of the supermarket selling household goods, I heard voices I recognized coming from behind a shelf. I poked my head around.

  Rahmat, Hussein Ali and Soltan were strolling along the aisles, watched from a distance by a bewildered young blond assistant.

  They’d disobeyed. I had no idea how they’d managed to get there before me. I stepped out, signaling to them to act normally and pretend we didn’t know each other.

  Each of us took something for himself: food but no clothes, because they didn’t sell them. People were looking at us in astonishment, wide-eyed. We had to hurry. But, when we tried to leave, we found the door of the storeroom at the back was blocked. There was still the main door, but to get out that way we’d have to make a run for it. As we sped down the fruit and vegetable aisle, then the toiletries aisle, then some other aisle I can’t remember, I wondered if the person yelling in Greek was the manager, and if the manager who was hurling insults at us in Greek had picked up his Greek telephone to call the Greek police. Oh, if only those three idiots had waited for me! I would have done everything differently, much more discreetly. Instead of which, we hurtled out through the glass door—without crashing into anyone, thank God—but no sooner had we taken a few steps along the pavement, surrounded by children with ice cream running down over their fingers and little old ladies in silvery sandals and people with scared looks on their faces (although I doubt young boys in their underpants could really scare anyone), than a police car slammed on the brakes—just like in the films, I swear—and three huge policemen got out.