In the Sea There Are Crocodiles - Fabio Geda [41]
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