Boat

Cold salty water stings my eyes and soaks my T-shirt. I cling to the clammy wooden edge of the boat as a huge wave swells toward me. The boat tips, and I gasp as people slide against me and the air is pressed from my chest.

The sky is turning from light to dark gray; white foam tops the waves. The wind pushes relentlessly against my face, and with the next rolling wave the boat dips so low that buckets of water gush in over the side, soaking me again with freezing water. I feel it creeping above my ankles. No one cries out. Even the baby strapped to the mother beside me is quiet.

Green-gray waves make a wall around us. We rise to the top of another but there is nothing to see except spray blowing like rain in the icy wind. Europe is sprawled somewhere in front of us but I can’t see land. As we slide into the trough, more water rushes over the side of the boat. It’s up to my knees. My feet are numb but I can tell that my shoes are heavy with water. I look up again and see a swirling wave bigger than the others rolling toward us in fury. The boat tips. This time we keep on tipping. The wave crashes over us as if we are on the shore, only we’re in the middle of the sea. I hear screaming and then nothing as water rushes over my head.

I can’t tell which way is up to sky and wind, and which way is down toward the depths of sea beneath. I open my eyes. They sting but show me nothing more than cloudy bubbling water and the legs of someone just out of reach. I kick up once, my chest burning. I kick up again, knowing that in a second I’ll no longer be able to fight the desperate urge to breathe in. I kick one last time, my legs tingling. I am about to pass out just as wind blasts my face; I suck in air and some spray.

Choking, I pant and gasp; the currents tug me left and right as the swell lifts me up and down. I cannot swim but instinct makes me kick my feet to stay afloat. The shoes my mother bought with three weeks’ wages are so heavy. I try to push them off without going under.

I know I can’t kick water for long. Already my thighs and arms feel tired. I see four, maybe five, other heads swirling in the waves. How can three hundred people disappear so quickly?

A yellow plastic bag washes toward me. There are clothes inside. The knot has been tied tightly so the bag is like a floating pocket of air. I cling to it.

A boy appears next to me, bobbing up from under the waves like I did seconds before. I reach out my hand to him. He looks at me. His eyes are big and oval-shaped and he reminds me of Bini. I reach my hand out to him again and he tries to grab it but instead sinks beneath the waves. He doesn’t come back up.

Who will come to save me? Who knows where I am apart from the others tossing and bobbing in the waves like me? What would Bini do now?

As the next wave lifts me up, I see Almaz clinging to a yellow container. I lose sight of her in the spray but the container is bright and I fix my eyes on it with absolute determination. Slowly I kick my legs, which does nothing, but the waves are moving us together. As she drifts closer, she turns and sees me. She reaches out a hand. I stretch mine and grab her fingertips, then her wrist. We cling to each other, with the container and bag to keep us afloat.

Our lives depend on a plastic bag and a water container.

Almaz’s lips are blue and her hands keep slipping from the container.

“Kick water!” I shout.

I put my hands over the top of hers and press down on the yellow plastic.

I become aware of a new sound over the roar of the wind and waves. It is coming from overhead. The sea around me flattens in a circle of white spray, as if pushed by a great wind from above. I look up and see an orange figure slicing through the sky toward me. Above the figure a red-and-white helicopter hovers.

I look down at Almaz, but she is no longer clinging to the yellow water container. I turn frantically around, the seawater streaming down my face. I cannot see her anywhere. Her hands must have slipped from beneath mine, my fingers so numb I didn’t notice. She has gone.

I feel something touch my leg and plunge my head beneath the waves, reaching my arms downward. I grab some clothes and, with my muscles burning, pull upward. There is an arm, and I tug it toward my chest, dragging the rest of the body with me to the surface. Almaz’s whole face is bluish.

The orange figure is next to me and clips something to me. Then they clip something to Almaz. We are flying up through the air toward the helicopter. The orange figure pats me on the back.

We reach the helicopter’s mouth and strong arms pull us in toward the center. They strap me into a seat in the corner, then turn immediately to Almaz. One person holds her wrist; another sweeps their fingers inside her mouth. They place a mask over her nose and mouth. It’s attached to a small bag, which one of them squeezes, while the other presses down on the mask. Almaz coughs and they push her to sit upright; she coughs more and some water comes out. They lay her on her side. Her eyes flicker open and look at my bare feet.

I sit back in my seat and close my eyes as someone pushes a bottle of water into my hand. I can barely grip it. My body feels so heavy; my legs and arms ache as if they have been bruised all over. But I don’t care.

Almaz nearly sank beneath the waves, like so many others, but now she is lying here, next to me, alive.

We have the chance for a second life.

Inside my head I carry the stories of what went before. Those stories are the threads that will tie me to my other life. I am still Shif. But from now on there will always be two parts to me.

I hope the people I love can join me and Almaz soon. Then the raw edges of my divided world can begin to heal. In the meantime, we have each other.