Chapter 11

In the morning we introduced ourselves to our fellow migrants, who painted a grim picture of the situation. Every day the police grew wiser to our movements and, like Tripoli, the city was teeming with fraudsters who snatched your money before melting into the city bars. It was impossible to track them down, particularly when our own movements were so restricted.

A group of a hundred and seventy people were waiting to set sail in three days’ time, lying low in a group of rented apartments. Among them was a friend of mine, Ali Khayrat, who’d once been a fisherman on the Red Sea before working for goods-smugglers between Yemen and the African Horn. I had known him in Eritrea and for a short time in Sudan. He was to be the boat’s sailor. I met him at lunch in a cheap restaurant. He gave a booming laugh as he caught sight of me and embraced me heartily, moving his body from right to left as though engaging me in a wrestling match.

‘How d’you make it all this way, old man?’

‘I’m younger than you, you old codger!’ He led me to a table at the back, welcoming me lavishly as though I were royalty. It was peak time and the restaurant was crowded with city workers, suspiciously eyeing us foreigners at the tables next to theirs.

‘What will you eat? This place may look shabby, but the food’s excellent.’

‘I’ll let you choose.’

‘What about julbana? It’s meat, peas and herbs. And it’s spicy too! They put chili pepper in everything here!’ Our food was brought by a cheery looking waiter and Ali Khayrat continued to chatter: ‘So, you old daredevil,’ he smiled, picking his fish from its bed of couscous and laying it to cool on a side plate, ‘apparently you crossed the border on the seventh! How on Earth did that happen?’

‘Stupidity! Stupidity alone prevented us from realising what the date was. And it was pure blind luck that got us through.’ I took a mouthful of julbana while Ali Khayrat eyed me expectantly.

‘Well?’ he asked, as though my opinion were crucial to the dish’s good name.

‘Wonderful!’

‘Well, you’re in Tunisia now, land of tourism! They take good care of their dishes here!’ he beamed.

‘So, you’re a captain now?’ I quizzed him sceptically.

‘I used to work at sea, don’t forget!’

‘As a fisherman, yes.’

‘I understand motors, and I can steer.’

‘This is a dangerous business through. You won’t be sailing alone. You’ll have human lives in your hands.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. This isn’t a case of “the one-eyed man ruling the land of the blind,” like in the old saying.’

‘Just think carefully,’ I insisted. ‘Working on boats is one thing – steering them is another’

The fate of the unlucky boat, however, turned out to be far beyond Ali’s control. Before disaster struck he acted exactly as he should, albeit a little hesitantly. But when red lights began flashing on the GPS system, the boat’s deviation from its pre-programmed coordinates became clear. His heart raced as he watched the lights. What should he do? When they had told him there would be GPS to guide his steering, he had defensively informed them that the boats he knew possessed no such contraptions.

‘But never mind,’ he had reassured them, ‘just teach me how it works. I have a knack for electronics.’ On the evening appointed for teaching him, I accompanied him to the harbour. The boat was anchored in the port, surrounded by other vessels. At first glance it looked reasonable, but when we climbed on board my misgivings returned with a vengeance. It had originally been a fishing boat, eighteen metres tall and with a horsepower of two hundred. To make more seating, freezers used for storing fish had been carelessly removed, leaving screw holes and deep scratch marks on the deck. The floor was covered in a layer of oil and dirt – except for the clean patches where the freezers had once been – and the roar of the engine was deafening as it belched out suffocating acrid smoke.

‘Just focus and follow your instincts,’ they advised him.

‘I’m an excellent navigator at night,’ he replied quickly, ‘I learned to follow the stars when I was a fisherman.’ They attempted to demonstrate how simple the system was and he listened to their long and at times complicated explanation, nodding his head to show he understood. But from everything they told him, all he really grasped was that, ‘If the boat deviates, the device will flash red.’ As I later realised, he had failed to absorb the rest of their instructions: ‘and when that happens, just turn the rudder to the left or right until the flashing stops.’

Ali had completely run out of money by this point, and was spending his days hungry, under the blazing sun, in the fly-infested courtyard of his friends’ rented house. As he slowly grew more desperate he decided his only option was to put himself forward as a sailor and get himself over to Europe without paying the thousand dollar fare.

And so they set sail on schedule, with Ali at the helm, but the boat’s weaknesses immediately became apparent as it was lashed by the waves. Ali directed the rudder with all the skill of an experienced fisherman but was unable to calm the passengers’ racing hearts. Malouk – one of the terrified souls onboard – withdrew into himself, staying silent amidst the anxious murmurings around him, desperately praying they would reach dry land. As the situation grew steadily more perilous, he began to fear the onset of collective hysteria.

‘Make it go away. Make it all go away,’ he whispered to himself, head in hands, as waves the size of mountains smashed angrily against the groaning boat. Several passengers were already close to despair, and Malouk feared they would soon begin to throw themselves overboard. The deck creaked and bits of wood began to splinter off, sparking screams of terror. The real danger, however, lay not in the ferocious waves but the water that had begun to slop onto the deck, threatening to drench the engine. Ali attempted to locate the source of the leak, while also calming his terrified passengers.

‘We’re in international waters now, so other ships will rescue us if necessary. Just keep calm and let me repair the damage.’ A hundred eyes were fixed on him and, for a few moments, all was quiet. But soon another wave lifted the boat and then plunged it back down into a deep abyss, rekindling hysterical cries. Suddenly an optimistic voice cut across the weeping and moaning. ‘We’ll get through this!’

‘Will we? Honestly?’ came a hopeful reply.

‘Definitely – they’ll repair the hole, for sure!’

‘I hope so … ‘ the second voice faltered, trembling with fear.

The water was spreading to the area around the engine. At first it didn’t look too serious – almost as if someone had just tipped out a small bucket of water. Only Ali was concerned. But three hours later, water began to pour in through a leak created by the careless removal of the freezers. Having located the hole, they attempted to plug it with a large wad of plastic, fortified by an iron bar. But as the boat was hurled across the water, rising and falling, the crack merely grew wider and water began to gush onto the deck. The passengers found themselves almost up to their knees in it, and began scooping water out with whatever containers they could find. At first, everyone worked diligently, spurred on as a voice was raised in song. But after hours of gruelling work, with water flooding in faster than ever, the engine finally died and despair set in.

A few passengers continued to battle, diving down to block the hole throughout the night and shoving more wads of cloth into it. Malouk spent hours with his hands and feet pressed up against it while others managed to empty out almost half of the water, but the motor was beyond repair. Ali took it apart and reassembled it at least once a day during the first five days at sea. The weather, meanwhile, grew calmer and the quarrelsome waves died down. Everything was still.

Two passengers died from a sudden illness. Their corpses remained on the deck until the evening of the seventh day. Having despaired of fixing the engine or being rescued, the others finally threw them into the sea. In the morning, the bodies reappeared, floating alongside the boat. Black clouds gathered overhead and storms enveloped the boat once again, lashing it relentlessly as rain poured down for hours on end. The hole was reawakened and Malouk’s efforts could do nothing to quench the flow that poured from it. On the eighth day – four hours before the boat sank – hunger and thirst began to claim their victims. By dawn, twenty people had collapsed and at sunrise they died, one after another.

‘We may yet be rescued!’ came Ali’s exhausted voice, ‘Climb onto the roof and look out for a steamer. I know the sound of an engine when I hear one.’

They scanned the horizon and, after nearly an hour, a massive oil tanker hove into view. They waved at it furiously with whatever they could lay their hands on and, as it drew parallel, they saw a small group of sailors grouped motionlessly on its deck, surveying them in silence.

‘Let’s throw out one of the corpses so they can see what state we’re in!’ Malouk suggested. They hoisted up a woman’s body and threw it into the water. The sailors made no response – so they threw out more. But the steamer continued on its course and the sailors remained on deck, their arms folded across their chests, smiling and sniggering.

‘If God loved me he would not have brought me here,’ groaned one of the passengers, attempting to block out the sailors’ mockery as despair finally won out over hope. His words seemed to freeze in time, for seconds, then minutes, for an unidentifiable stretch. These words were all he wished to say. They were his final prayer. Assured he had uttered the most fitting farewell to life, he threw himself into the sea. The boat moved forward at the whim of the waves. The passengers waited with baited breath to see him for the last time, but his body did not surface. They would never see him again. How greatly they longed to see him! How greatly they wished to see him climb smilingly onto the boat as though what had happened had been an illusion, far removed from reality. The fateful wave came in the dark of night. The boat shook so violently that even the unconscious must have felt it. Wood splintered in an ear-splitting cacophony and wind whistled through the cracks. The surging water level in the cabin forced the few people remaining inside to clamber desperately onto the roof.

‘It’s over. The die’s cast,’ Malouk whispered to himself as he hauled himself up the ladder.

The boat began to go under and people threw themselves into the icy water. A long strip of memories flickered through Malouk’s mind, returning him to moments both happy and sad, until eventually reaching the dawn when they had set sail, as the lights of Tunis faded behind them and the sun rose over the Mediterranean, joyful dolphins escorting the boat out into open water, and clouds of seagulls spreading their shadow over them. Finally his memory caught up with the present moment where he lay floating on a plank in the sea, as lifeless bodies drifted around him, hungry fish nibbling at the women’s breasts. Occasionally, he regained consciousness and scrabbled weakly to regain his purchase on the plank as it slipped from under him. Fragments of Rimbaud flashed through his mind. He had written about the young poet once and began recalling all he could still remember of his work, murmuring verses with his final breaths as he floated on the waves.

‘Don’t take me now, Death,’ he whispered.

‘Everything must end, and it must end now,’ said a voice rising from the depths.

‘You alone in this world refuse even a single minute for a decent farewell!’

‘I know no other way.’

‘Can you show me no kindness? Just a few days. I have business to settle.’

‘Of what sort?’

‘I must return home.’

‘Home?’

‘I took a gamble on it!’

‘A gamble?’

‘A gamble that I would make it back, with a great poem inspired by my journey.’

‘You lost your gamble.’

In my mind, I hear Malouk reciting verses, the product of those terrifying moments.

Their unnamed boats
Like unmarked graves
Are escorted by playful dolphins
And shadowed by clouds of seagulls
They hurry through alleys
Stirring sleepy harbours
As city walls bounce them back
Like rubber balls
As waves march forward
Rank after rank

The soul’s armour
Collapses
And, mumbling, it asks: ‘Where
Are you taking me Oh fleeting hours?’
Their souls spill forth
Over the salty sea
The bones of their corpses
Abandoned
In the desert
Are stripped
As storms snatch
Their sandy shrouds

Oh Sea!
In the name of the faces
Etched on your memory
In the name of those
Who have imprinted their cries
On the air
Restrain this tyrannous wind And still these hungry waves
The sea hurls them
Like lanterns
Lowered from the heavens
Civilisation crucifies them
Above the border’s barbs
Their corpses are raised high
Like plunder