Spoken slowly enough for him to get the gist.
“Never,” Mohammad said. “Inshallah.”
Yeah, right. Inshallah.
“He says they won’t wake up,” Dima said.
“Mohammad, are you sure the oars will be in the dinghy?”
“I, myself, see them when we do the safety in the start.”
“He says, yes,” Dima said.
“Are there life jackets?”
“What means this?” he asked.
Dima spoke, and Mohammad replied at length.
“He says yes,” she said.
“One baby-sized?”
He and Dima exchanged glances. Then came their animated dialogue until she turned to me and took a deep breath. “He wants me to say how it will be in the little boat. Waves.” She made waves with her arm. “Bigger boats will crash you.” She smacked her fist into the palm of her other hand. “You must keep looking at the red and green going on and off.” She flicked her middle finger rapidly against her thumb to imitate flashing lights. “You feel land, you walk to the shore until the water’s dry, then push and push the little boat back into the deep.” She mimicked difficult pushing. “The boat goes away, and they think the driver’s drowned. You’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
“Providing no-slip, twist the cup and the lip.”
“What means this?” Mohammad asked.
“Among other problems,” I said. “How do I get from the port to downtown Algeciras with no money, no identification, and wearing only a tee-shirt—” I lifted and dropped a corner of the burka. “Under this.”
“Don’t worry,” she said.
Then she burst out with, “So you see, taking Hamid’s not possible. He’ll be drowned dead. Say to me, please, where can you leave a baby while you leave the boat? Where’s his food? What if it rains? Think of him. We’ll keep him safe. Don’t worry.”
“Will you please stop saying, don’t worry?”
She placed her hand on my arm. “Khodiadad’s father’s a big doctor and owns the building where Khodaidad does his clinic. We give the boy everything he wants. You, like a Christian, can’t make him be as good a Muslim as his father can.”
That was the whole point. She hit the nail on the head.
“You can’t say no to us,” she said. “Impossible.”
Try me.
“We’ll marry him a good girl,” Dima said wistfully. “Such a beautiful boy.”
But not yours.
Nor mine, either, but I plowed ahead anyway. “You’re very kind. Hamid would have a good life, however, no, it can’t happen.”
“You want him for yourself?”
“It isn’t that.”
I thought of the mosques popping up everywhere from Denmark to Malta. Headscarves in grade schools and supermarkets. How could I tell a Muslim I would not contribute to the rise of her faith and the decline of mine?
Fatima must have regained consciousness. Her moan followed by racking sobs filled the room. How could I explain I would not risk contributing one more monster to measure the distance between an ankle and the hem of a burka.
“You don’t care for him,” Dima said, her voice bitter. “You don’t care if your idea is all wrong. If you are all wrong.”
There weren’t enough words between us for me to explain.
“What you do is wrong,” she added with a catch in her voice.
I thought of Mother Teresa’s advice on the futility of one single person trying to combat evil. She would agree my cause was futile but would say. “Do it anyway.”
“You are wrong to keep a baby from his people,” Dima said.
“I’ll do it anyway,” I said as gently as I could.
If Dima grasped a fraction of what I felt but could not express, it didn’t show. As if resigned, she quietly watched Hamid chew on the penguin’s beak. Slowly she reached into a pocket hidden in her burka and looked at Mohammad who held up his palms as if saying, ‘I don’t care.’ She came over to me and pressed a wad of euros into my hand.
“Please, no.” I tried to thrust the money back, but she wouldn’t take it.
Instead, she stepped away, and all business now, said, “Be ready tomorrow time at night when the men get the boat for you.”
Judging by the decrepitude of ferry, the lifeboat would be a leaking wreck. I had no clothes. Hamid had no onesies or blankets… just then, all the common sense on the planet flooded my brain. Dima was right. It would be impossible to hold Hamid and row at the same time. What about rough seas? Assuming we hit land, how long could he go without food, diapers, and a safe place to sleep?
What did Tony accuse me of? He called it altruism at someone else’s expense. Hamid was that someone. Altruism at the expense of a drowned baby?
Hamid’s large hazel eyes—which according to pediatricians’ maturation benchmarks would later turn brown—followed my hands as I lifted his solid little body while instructing Dima, “Remember, he spits out condensed milk. Hates the stuff.”
She looked at me, then at Hamid.
“And if you can get your hands on some crackers, three are okay before bed. Any more he throws up.”
It took Dima a minute before she rushed forward with outstretched arms.
“He won’t sleep without his penguin,” I added knowing full well she wasn’t listening as she pressed Hamid close, crooned and swayed back and forth. Mohammad turned from her to me, back to her again and motioned to the stairs. She walked him to the steel door, returned and stood near Hamid’s box.
“Of course, you can take it,” I said and loaded his cup, blankets, and diapers. Finished, I carried it to her mattress.
Hamid whimpered and rubbed his eyes with his fists.
Was his life beginning? Or was it over?
“Don’t worry,” I said as if answering the question I hoped he’d never ask.
24
Mohammad came for me in the middle of the night. No blindfold nor guy manhandling me this time. I followed him along the corridor past closed doors, a sort of recreation room where the picture was on, but the sound on the TV off, and past an enormous kitchen where the countertop appliances were covered like birdcages for the night. The smell of dinner was trapped in the air. Halal pork? Farther along, the hallway opened onto the deck, and I walked into foamy white fog. As I got my bearings, there was a sudden break in the cloud cover, and I saw anchor lines dripping seaweed. I had come aboard on a gangplank. Apparently, a tugboat towed us offshore. On the horizon, the cement wharf was bordered with the giant grasshopper legs of overhead cranes—the cranes I’d seen from the SUV on our way here. On the low hill beyond, the port a tiara of city lights crowned the Bay of Algeciras.
The ferry seemed larger than it had when I was in the hold. Another opening in the mist gave me a clear view of the deck. The loading ramp for vehicles was raised full height, forming a metal wall across the stern. Dead center of the parking area an enclosed staircase led to a flying bridge. A lantern slung over an overhead rope swung back and forth; one minute, the rickety planks cast in yellow light; the next minute, in gray. The humid air reeked of Sulphur fumes from the refineries. A figure emerging through the mist became Dima carrying Hamid. A flash of yellow light showed Hamid wrapped in a satin blanket embroidered in gold calligraphy. “We say goodbye,” she said. I wondered if she had special privileges, or if this were the first time she’d been allowed above board.
Mohammad’s voice came from the darkness. “Everyone is asleep, so we get ready.”
Amazing, how quickly my entire body shifted from despair to exhilaration.
True, I wa
sn’t free yet. But I felt filled with strength, hope, and a word I’d coined for my patients—copeability.
Through the swirling fog I made out Mohammad, and another guy huddled around a shadowy mound. I went closer with Dima and Hamid behind me. What looked to be about eight feet of inflatable boat was tightly rolled and fastened with bungee straps. Mohammad hunkered down and read the label aloud—most likely directions—while the other man, his helper, a tall slender guy in a striped djellaba studied the bundle as he would a monster from the deep. In the yellow glow of the lantern, as I watched them move around the deck, I fought an eerie feeling of depersonalization. I was a captive. But was still almost taken in by Mohammad’s courtly manners, his soft voice, and soft brown eyes. The eyes of Osama Bin Laden, I reminded myself. If Mohammad and his colleagues were as gentle as they appeared, why was Fatima bleeding to death in the hold? And why were four women locked in the belly of a ship?
Mohammad unsnapped the hooks and an expanse of acrid-smelling vinyl, or rubber, or whatever the material was, sprung loose and uncurled itself. He vanished and returned wheeling a compressor tank. Groping around the vinyl, he unscrewed what looked like a car’s gas cap and thrust the wand into the porthole. He flipped the switch, and the ear-splitting roar of the motor shook every plank and winch.
I tugged his sleeve. “Cut it off before the rest of crew’s all over us.”
“Don’t worry,” he shouted.
Slowly the vinyl swelled big, bigger until the form took on boat-ness. Finally, Mohammad turned off the compressor, fastened the cap, and ran his hand over it as if checking for leakage. He unscrewed the cap, frowned, and screwed it back on. Meanwhile, his helper came up with a plastic board that turned out to be a bench that he adroitly fastened onto brackets. The board was too long; it stretched the vinyl, creating a bulge on each outer side. The helper ran his fingers through his thinning dark hair, looked over at me and slowly shook his head. In sympathy? Or was I reading feeling into him that wasn’t there.
“They make a whole ship,” Dima said as if amazed.
Long metal rods were clamped along the gunwales. Oarlocks, I supposed. Sure enough, Mohammad lay a pair across the bench.
Examining their work from all angles, the two men ran their hands over the hull, tested the fittings, and the vinyl’s tensile strength. Then they carried it to the edge of the deck, rested, then in one heave rolled it over the rail and into the brink. Quickly the helper tied the line from the bow of the lifeboat to a cleat on the ferry. I looked down at the toy boat bobbing atop churning waves.
The men and Dima stood around me, awkward, as if not knowing what to do next. Dima broke the mood by giving me a quick one-handed hug and telling Hamid, “Wish the lady bye-bye.”
I grit my teeth. Please God. Facing the deck with my hands behind me, I drew myself up and perched on the rail, gathering the courage to face the sea. I swing around. My feet dangled over the edge of what seemed like the Golden Gate Bridge. In reality, the drop was about ten feet. Below me, the lifeboat crested a wave, then plunged into a foaming ravine.
I could not do this. I swung back to face the deck. “The lifeboat has to stay put,” I told Mohammad. The ferry rocked, and a cleat that should have been mounted on the lifeboat’s stern slid across the deck. “You need a line on the back end, too,” I said, knowing it was a waste of breath.
Mohammad handed me a clothesline of a rope. “I keep this end. You have the other one for safety.”
“I need more than that.”
As if inspired Mohammad crossed the deck and opened a storage bin built into the hull and produced a tangle of leather straps and metal buckles, a complicated harness of some sort. After a short consultation, Mohammad approached holding the apparatus the way a rider would hold a bridle as he approached a horse. “You wear this and go down. We hold it on top.”
Window washers and linemen wore harnesses like this. I looked it over for rotten leather or splits. “Works for me,” I returned it to Mohammad. “I’ll need help to fasten the back.”
Holding it aloft, he was about to drop it over my head, then stopped and turned to speak to the helper who nodded in agreement and said, “Haram.”
“Oh, go ahead and touch me,” I said. “Gender isn’t contagious.”
Mohammad called to Dima who handed Hamid over to Mohammad who took him in his arms with practiced care. The guy’s too young to have kids of his own, I thought. Dima took the complex mélange of Velcro, buckles, and loops within loops that went over my head and formed a ‘T’ in front. A tricky pair of straps meant to go around the thighs would force me to raise the burka hip-high. Forget modesty. This was life or death. I started to lift the skirt—Dima yanked it down. I thought of Fatima bleeding to death in the hold and let the straps dangle loose.
Mohammad showed me the lines that would lower me to the lifeboat. Dima, carrying Hamid, walked me to the rail. Wrapped in his blanket, Hamid squirmed beneath the red satin embellished in gold Arabic words. Something was wrong. On impulse, I reached out.
Dima smiled as I took him from her. “To hug bye-bye,” she said.
I loosened the ‘T’ of the harness.
“What are you doing?” she asked, and when she caught on shouted, “no, no” and lunged. Grabbing the leather band around my waist, she tried to loosen the T-strap while I tightened my grip on Hamid and struggled to get free. “You promised,” she shouted. I pried her fingers off the Velcro just in time.
I shouted what she would understand, “It’s God’s will.” Shouted it louder just as one of the crewmen clattered down the spiral metal steps of the bridge. As if still half-asleep, he stumbled to the center of the deck and stopped short to get the picture. Bearded and in a tee-shirt and jeans, he leaned and fumbled under his pant-leg for the pistol strapped to his ankle. Mohammad called out in Arabic. Dima screamed. Hamid shrieked at the top of his lungs. The crewman shoved the helper aside and aimed the gun directly at Dima. Mohammad gripped the guy’s arm. The assailant spun and kicked him in the groin. Gasping, Mohammad dropped to the deck and curled into a fetal position.
For some crazy reason, I flipped a corner of the red blanket over Hamid’s eyes. The assailant glanced my way, and in that split second, Dima took off for the dark corridor. A shot rang out, and she crumpled on the planks. I started toward her. Another shot grazed my arm. Stunned, I stopped to watch my burka darken with blood. Hardly a tear in the fabric, the bullet just grazed the flesh. Driven half by fear and half by panic, I made my way to the railing. Hamid kicked and struggled against my chest. The assailant blocked my path. I dodged around him as a sudden blow from the helper caught him off guard. The helper then forced the rope in my hand and gave me a boost onto the edge of the hull. I swung my legs overboard.
The helper lowered me to the lifeboat where I threw myself across the bench, pulled myself up, set Hamid free of the harness, and lay him beside me. Over my shoulder, I saw Mohammad grab the assailant, then both men slide below my line of sight. I grabbed the oars and pulled. Nothing, until the helper untied the bowline of the lifeboat from the cleat on the ferry. “Thank you,” I called into the wind. One hefty pull and we slid ahead.
Dawn was beginning to rise, but the dark shoreline ahead could have been on Mars. Hamid writhed and thrashed and I fought to keep him in place while I kept on course. At this rate, it would take all night. The bottom of the boat was dry, so I settled him near my leg.
Shouts came from the ferry behind me. “Tawaqquf. Waqfa.”
Men swarmed the deck. Bullets skimmed the waves, arcs of water kicking up on all sides. I ducked and rowed. The searing pain in my upper arm engulfed my entire body. A bullet whizzed past. A good thing Hamid was safe at my feet. Breathing hard, I rowed with every ounce of strength I had. A sudden gust blew me farther out of range, and the b
ullets fell short.
Just as Dima described, channel-marker lights blinked red and green. Beyond it, I made out the halogen lights of the concrete wharf. Between each back-breaking pull, I paused and applied direct pressure to the wound until the bleeding let up. Meanwhile the sneakers Marie loaned me began to feel strangely cool—they were sopping wet. I scooped up a damp Hamid and balanced him on my lap. With each stroke, he slid sideways, and I had to wrestle him back. All at once, I noticed the blinking lights seemed to be in a different position. No, it was me. I was lower in the water. Wrinkles puckered the vinyl of the gunwales. I checked the gas-cap and felt a trickle of air. We were sinking.
Something—tape, plastic, cloth to tighten the seal. I lay Hamid on the bench and unwound my headscarf, then rested the oars across my lap, leaned over them and unscrewed the cap using my foot to block the stream of air. A corner of the scarf fit nicely around the thread. I screwed the cap back on. The set up might or might not work. Meanwhile, Hamid had slipped off the bench, and I fished him out of the bilge water. It was impossible to wring his blanket dry.
The wharf slowly emerged from the shoreline. Objects on the horizon morphed from shadows into cranes, loading docks and the Japanese freighter I’d seen on my way here. My arm throbbed. The pain of the wound merged with the pain of my aching muscles. I stopped to catch my breath. The soggy burka clung to my skin. Although his blanket was soaked in saltwater and God-knows-what body fluids, Hamid’s screams settled into a whimper. The impact of what I was doing—what I had done—struck. Never mind my arm, Hamid could have been the one hit, and it might as well have me who aimed the gun. Proof of what I already knew; recklessness brings wreckage. The starboard gunwale caught my eye. Once more, the vinyl had puckered and gone soft. We were going down.
A high wall bordered the port’s container-vessel zone. Greasy water sloshed against the concrete. Even if I stood in the lifeboat, I would need to climb about nine feet to reach the wharf. I scanned the shore. A quarter of a mile away scrubby pines marked a strip of beach.
The Loss of What We Never Had Page 20