‘I’ve spoken to a few people, and there is a bus that can take us to the next town, and from there we can find a smuggler. I’ve seen people go and not return. I didn’t want to try alone.’
When I agreed to go with him he told me his name was Elias.
For the rest of that day, Elias was on a mission; he spoke to a few people, making calls from my phone, which had just a tiny bit of battery left. By the afternoon he had arranged for the three of us to meet a smuggler in the nearby town and from there we would go to Istanbul. It was strange to think how easy it had been to set up, that there existed an organised system for those of us who were lucky enough to be able to afford it.
The next day we walked to the bus station and took the bus to the nearest town, and there we met the smuggler, a short asthmatic man with eyes that buzzed around like flies. He drove us to Istanbul in his car. When we arrived, Elias was never far behind me. The buildings in the city were tall and bright, old and new, gathered around the Bosporus, where the Sea of Marmara meets the Black Sea. I had forgotten that buildings could still stand, that there was a whole world out there that was not destroyed like Aleppo.
At night, we slept on the floor of the smuggler’s apartment. There were two rooms, one for the women and the other for the men. In my room, there was a picture on the wall of a family who had lived there before. The photograph was nearly white from the sun and I wondered who they were and where they had gone. The night was cold and a wind blew in from the seas. It whistled beneath the wooden door frames and windowsills and brought with it the howls of dogs and cars. It was so much warmer than the open land, and at least here there was a toilet and a roof over our heads.
Early in the morning, when the birds had started to sing, the people unfolded themselves from their sleeping positions and prayed. There was nothing to do but wait. Each day the smuggler returned from wherever he’d been hiding and informed us about the conditions of the weather and the sea. We couldn’t risk crossing while the wind was so strong. When he left, people talked for a while, telling stories of the ones who never made it across to Greece, of whole families, men and women and children, lost at sea. I didn’t join these conversations; I listened and waited for silence to return. Afra sat on a wicker chair by the window, her head twitching slightly to the left or to the right, listening to everything.
When I went over to her she said, ‘Nuri, I don’t want to go.’
‘We can’t stay here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if we do we’ll live in the camps forever. Is that what you want?’
‘I don’t want anything anymore.’
‘Our life will be stuck. How will I work?’
She didn’t reply.
‘We’ve started the journey – there’s no point giving up now.’
She grunted.
‘And Mustafa is waiting for us. Don’t you want to see Dahab? Don’t you want to be settled and safe? I’m tired of living like this.’
‘I’m scared of the water,’ she said finally.
‘You’re scared of everything.’
‘That’s not true.’
That’s when I noticed the little boy, about seven or eight, sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling a marble across the tiles. There was something odd about him, as if he was far away, lost in his own world. He seemed to be there alone.
Later, when I went outside to stand on the balcony, the boy followed me. He stood beside me for a while, shifting from foot to foot, picking his nose, wiping it on the back of his jeans.
‘Will we fall into the water?’ he said, and he looked up at me with wide eyes, just like Sami would have done.
‘No.’
‘Like the other people?’
‘No.’
‘Will the wind take the boat? Will the boat turn over into the water?’
‘No. But if it does we’ll have life jackets. We’ll be all right.’
‘And Allah – have mercy on us – will he help us?’
‘Yes. Allah will help us.’
‘My name is Mohammed,’ the boy said.
I held out my hand and he shook it like a little man.
‘Nice to meet you, Mohammed. I am Nuri.’
The boy looked up at me again, this time his eyes wider, full of fear. ‘But why didn’t he help the boys when they took off their heads?’
‘Who took their heads off?’
‘When they stood in a line and waited. They weren’t wearing black. That’s why. My dad said it was because they weren’t wearing black. I was wearing black. See?’