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I stayed in Athens until the middle of September. One day I shook Jamal’s hand and got on a train for Corinth. It was rumored that the police in Patras were really bad, that some boys had come back with broken legs or broken arms or worse, and that, even though the journey to Italy was shorter from there, it was unpleasant and unhygienic, and you had to share it with the mice. I have a phobia of mice. Corinth, on the other hand, wasn’t so bad, from what I’d heard. I found a Greek trafficker who hid people in lorries. The danger with lorries is that you’re never sure where you’re going to end up. You might think you’re going to Italy and instead you find yourself in Germany, or if things work out really badly you might even end up back in Turkey. The trafficker asked me for four hundred and fifty euros, but I’d left the money for him in Athens, with Jamal.

I can’t give it to you now, I said. When I get to Europe I’ll call my friend and he can bring it to you. That or nothing.

All right, he said.

The thing to do in Corinth is go to the port, find a lorry and hide in the trailer, with the merchandise, or between the wheels. Over the next few weeks I hid several times, sometimes in quite dangerous places, but the inspectors always found me. The inspectors in Corinth are wily, and clued up to what goes on. They come in with their torches and they even look inside the boxes or sacks or go under the trailers and inspect every nook and cranny, which is what they’re paid for, and I think a lot of them deserve every last cent of their salary. If they catch you, they don’t arrest you, they just grab you by your jacket and chase you away. Sometimes with dogs.

So, after a while, I got fed up with these traffickers who couldn’t organize anything and decided to do it myself. Jamal would hold the money for me.

I moved to the beach (you can sleep well on the beach, and take a shower). I joined a group of Afghans who were also dreaming of leaving, and it became like a kind of game. Every now and again, three or four of us would go to the port and try to get on a lorry. Some days when the weather was nice, and we were in a good mood, we even tried ten or eleven times, in a single day I mean. I managed it once, but the lorry—I told you this could happen—instead of embarking on a ship drove straight out of the port. I had no idea where it was going. I started to beat on the bodywork, from inside the trailer, and when we were about twenty or thirty minutes from the city the driver must have heard me. He stopped, got out and opened up. With a wrench in his hand. Although, when he saw that I was young (I think that was the reason), he didn’t hit me. He screamed a few insults at me, which was only fair, and chased me away.

One evening, with a lovely sunset over the sea, I said to the boys on the beach, Let’s go and try.

At the entrance to the port there were three containers one on top of the other, like a three-story building. I climbed to the top and, making myself as small as possible, squeezed in through a little hole. Suddenly, a machine hooked the building. I held my breath. The building was moved into the ship. One hour later, the freighter closed its hatches. I was very happy, I swear. I was really bursting with joy. I’d have liked to shout, but now wasn’t the time. And besides, it was quite dark and I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t have anything to eat or drink, so I immediately calmed down and realized that before I could say that I’d made it, I had to see how it was going to end.

I stayed there for three days, shut up inside the belly of the ship. There were weird noises, all kinds of rumbling and roaring. Then the ship stopped. I heard the noise of the anchor dropping, which is a noise that’s easy to recognize. Where am I? I wondered.

Italy

I mustn’t get up yet. I mustn’t move. Keep still, breathe, wait. Be patient. Patience can save your life.

Once it had left the port—fifteen minutes had passed, I’d say, anyway less than half an hour—the lorry slowed