In the Sea There Are Crocodiles - Fabio Geda [43]
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.