A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

by Melissa Fleming

  Finally, after two hours, a sailor looking out of the window of the lifeboat cried, “I see her!” Suddenly, the spotlight swiveled toward Doaa. A futuristic red capsule the size of a small bus floated before her, like something out of a movie. At first she thought she was imagining it; it looked nothing like any other boat she’d ever seen. Men on the boat gazed down at her in astonishment, shocked to see such a slight young woman afloat on an ordinary inflatable beach ring, her bottom half submerged underwater.

  A side door swung open and something that looked like an entry to a cage emerged from it. A man at its entrance called to Doaa and extended a pole to her. Doaa grabbed it and held on tight as they pulled her and the girls in. As she neared the boat, Doaa spoke to the men at the other end of the pole, her voice weak but her tone urgent, but she soon realized they didn’t understand a word she was saying.

  When Doaa finally reached the boat, the men grabbed her arms and legs to try to hoist her inside with them, but she resisted. With the last of her voice, Doaa pleaded in Arabic to her rescuers that they had to save Malak and Masa. Frantically she pointed at her chest and lifted her thin jacket to reveal the two small children lying on her chest, her weak arm clasped around them. The men were astonished. Not only had this fragile-looking young woman survived when so many others had died, but she had somehow kept two young children alive as well. One of the officers of the ship, Dmytro Zbitnyev, pulled the first child out of Doaa’s arms, then the second, and carefully handed them to his fellow crew members, who wrapped them in thermal blankets and clutched them in their arms, their tiny lives so precious amid so much death. Finally, Dmytro reached down to pull Doaa into the boat. But again she resisted.

  I love these girls so deeply. Please let them be all right, she thought as she pictured Malak’s sweet two-toothed smile. At least they are safe now and I don’t have to fight for them anymore. Now I can join Bassem. On her own for the first time in days and filled with a sense of relief that she had fulfilled her duty, Doaa drew her knees up to push away from the boat. I want to go back to Bassem and die with him. Doaa wasn’t sure if she had said it out loud or not.

  At that moment, one of the crew members reached for her leg, drawing Doaa in closer so that they could pull her up into the boat and into the warm cabin. She was delirious with thirst and exhaustion and had begun to lose track of what was real and what was just her imagination. I can’t stand living without him, she thought to herself. But even as she resigned herself to perishing in the sea with Bassem, she was too weak to resist the men who were trying to save her. Even heavy with complete exhaustion, Doaa still didn’t weigh much, and Dmytro easily lifted her up into the boat and carefully laid her on the floor. Doaa was immediately wrapped in a blanket and someone placed a wet sponge to her lips so she could draw moisture from it. Tasting the freshwater, she felt thirstier than she had ever been in all those days she was afloat in the sea. She signaled for more and tried to reach her hand to the water bottle, but she couldn’t move it. A man brought a straw to her cracked lips so she could fill her mouth with the clear liquid and draw it all into her parched body. The water tasted heavenly, but Doaa gulped it so quickly that she vomited.

  Meanwhile, Masa and Malak were not moving. “We have to do everything we can to keep them alive!” Dmytro ordered his colleagues before radioing the chief officer on the ship to alert the coast guard and request a rescue helicopter. Dmytro looked around him in astonishment and would later ask, “Is this a miracle? Or destiny? For merchant seamen like us who aren’t trained in search and rescue to find a person in such conditions at sea is like finding a needle in a haystack. And with the bad weather, there is no way they would have survived another hour on that little ring.”

  Doaa lay limp in the lifeboat, weak, emaciated, and unable to move a muscle as they made their way back to the Japan. She could feel the waves pushing the lifeboat against the big ship as it took several attempts before it could be lifted and secured back on the ship. When they finally boarded the Japan, the men carried her out and carefully laid her on a stretcher. She lost sight of Masa and Malak but instead saw curious, worried, and kind eyes all around her. No one spoke Arabic, but they understood when she told them she was not Masa’s or Malak’s mother.

  Doaa lay on the stretcher shivering in her wet clothes. A man held out a crisply ironed orange coverall, just like the one that all the crew members were wearing. She somehow managed to communicate that she wanted to dress herself and in private. They seemed to understand and formed a circle around her with blankets, with their backs to Doaa, so she could discreetly peel off her wet clothes as she sat on the deck and pulled on the coverall. It took all her remaining strength to get it on her body. As she brushed her hand over her pounding head, her fingers grazed over the white scrunchie that tied her hair back. She remembered the smile on Bassem’s face when he had given it to her, the thought of which made her cry. Overcome with emotion and suddenly feeling exposed, Doaa longed for a scarf to cover her hair. She had never before been in front of men outside her family with her head uncovered. Seeking comfort, Doaa felt around her neck for another gift that had meant so much when Bassem had first given it to her. The charms that dangled from her beloved necklace were of a Syrian opposition flag and a spent bullet that Bassem had collected in Daraa before he’d fled.

  Pulling herself together, Doaa examined the pile of clothes and the documents she had so carefully wrapped in plastic that lay around her. These were her only remaining belongings, and she was relieved that they were still intact. One by one, with all the trust she had left, she handed them to one of the men who had pulled her from the water: Bassem’s and her passports, their engagement contract, the five hundred euros in rolled-up bills, her mobile phone, and her precious Quran. Then she collapsed back onto the deck, the last of her strength gone. The crew members helped her back onto the stretcher and carried her belowdecks into a small room. Carefully, they lifted her onto a cot and laid a soft pillow under her head, then covered her with a warm blanket.

  The nearest coast guard station was in Greece on the island of Rhodes, too far away for a rescue helicopter to reach the tanker’s present location. The crew instead received instructions to head toward the Greek island of Crete so that the helicopter could meet them on the southwestern shore. It would take at least four hours to get to that meeting point and to the medical help that Doaa and the girls desperately needed. The captain looked out to sea, then put the engines at full speed.

  Meanwhile, belowdecks, members of the crew were taking care of Masa, Malak, and Doaa with all the first-aid knowledge they had. A man peeled the wrapper off a chocolate bar and offered it to Doaa. She let it melt on her tongue. It tasted wonderful, but the sugar suddenly caught in her throat and she started to cough uncontrollably and her breath became short. Someone placed an oxygen mask over her face and she soon relaxed. She felt as if she were still bobbing in the sea, and when she opened her eyes, she could hardly believe that she was on a ship, safe and alive.

  Doaa drifted in and out of sleep that night. At one point she awoke to find that the crew were taking photos and selfies with her. But she didn’t mind. She knew they were good people and felt safe with them around her. God had delivered her to them, she thought, as she dozed off again. Doaa was beset with dreams of drowning and choking and at least once she woke up gagging. In her dream she was trapped underwater, trying to reach the surface for air. She awoke with a start and was surprised to find one of the men in her room setting down her clothes beside her bed. They were washed, meticulously ironed, folded, and smelled like fresh soap. The man then carefully placed her documents, money, and her Quran on top of her T-shirt and slipped everything into a plastic bag. This small gesture of kindness comforted Doaa, and she lay back on her cot and closed her eyes again.

  As Doaa fought off nightmares, the crew were desperately trying to save the little girls. One crew member spoke on the radio to a doctor from the Maltese coast guard who was giving him guidance. Since t
here was no medic on board, the crew had resorted to their minimal first-aid training. The crew member told the doctor that both children looked bad—they remained unconscious, their breathing was shallow, and their body temperatures were dangerously low. Doaa was also in bad shape; she was weak and could only speak slowly and unintelligibly. But the little girls seemed on the brink of death. The doctor advised the crewman to offer only small sips of warm water and to wrap the babies in blankets with hot-water bottles inside. The girls were probably suffering from hypothermia, and their bodies needed to warm up slowly. A watchman was assigned to monitor their breathing and to keep taking their temperature.

  Five hours after she was pulled from the water, Doaa could hear the noise of a helicopter overhead. Stirring from sleep, she found crew members rushing into her room, gesturing to her that it was time to leave. She attempted to stand, but her legs buckled under her weight and she dropped back down on the bed. Six men surrounded the cot and lifted it up with her in it, carrying Doaa to the top deck. There the helicopter hovered above, dangling a collapsible rescue basket that slowly dropped to the deck. The bottom of the basket was a square metal-and-rope frame attached to a cable by a web of thick ropes with rubber buffers. When pulled taut, the ropes formed a strong, pyramid-like cage. The wind whipped through Doaa’s hair and she felt a chill as a man wearing a vest and a helmet picked her up and folded her into the basket. She was so weak, she couldn’t sit up. The man knelt next to her at the opening, holding on to the ropes and smiling at her reassuringly as they rose to the hovering helicopter. Feeling safe cocooned in the basket, she looked down at the black, choppy water. She thought, I can never hate the sea again because Bassem is a part of it now. She recalled some of his last words: “If I die, all I want is for you to be happy.”

  A pair of strong arms reached down from the belly of the helicopter to pull her into the cabin. Doaa was surprised to discover that other survivors were already inside. The first one she saw was Mohammad—the man who had swum toward the first rescue boat with the African man trailing him earlier that day, promising to return for her but never coming back. That boat hadn’t been an illusion after all. “You’re here,” he said without emotion when he saw her. Doaa averted her eyes. She had nothing to say to the person who had not come back to save her. Then she noticed Shoukri, the devastated Palestinian who’d lost his wife and two small children just after the boat had sunk. He was sitting in silence and staring through the window out to the sea. She recognized two other men but couldn’t recall their names. And nestled in the arms of one of the helicopter crew was little Masa, wrapped tightly in a white fleece blanket. Her tiny bare feet were sticking out at the end, flopping to the side. She wasn’t moving at all. Please, please, let her be alive, Doaa prayed. She frantically scanned the benches for Malak but couldn’t find her. Maybe she was about to be pulled up next from the ship, Doaa thought. But then the door closed and the helicopter lurched forward. No other survivors were brought on board. Doaa caught the attention of one of the helicopter’s crew. “Malak?!” she cried desperately. “The baby?!”

  But it was too loud in the helicopter and she couldn’t quite make out the man’s response, and even if she could, he was speaking English. She asked again, and this time one of the other survivors translated for her. Little Malak had died, he relayed to Doaa. The crew did everything they could to resuscitate her, but she was gone. Doaa’s breath caught in her throat as she heard this news and she began to sob. She felt as if her heart were being torn out of the exact spot on her chest where Malak had nestled her head. Doaa couldn’t stand the unfairness of it. Malak had survived four days in the water only to die after being rescued. Doaa would rather she had died and Malak had lived. Racked with grief, Doaa wondered whether the baby would have survived if only Doaa had insisted on keeping her safe in her arms as Doaa sang songs and recited verses from the Quran, just as she had done in the water. A doctor approached Doaa looking concerned and feeling for her pulse. Then he turned abruptly away and quickly made his way over to Masa, laying her flat on her back and starting CPR, the heel of his hand pressing down on her chest. Doaa held her breath. She couldn’t bear to lose Masa, too. After a few tense moments, the doctor stopped the chest compressions and sat back with a relieved smile. Masa was breathing again, and a faint hope flickered in Doaa’s heart.

  After an hour, the helicopter landed at a military base near the port city of Chania in western Crete. Two ambulances were waiting outside. As the sun began to rise on the horizon, Doaa was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.

  When she awoke, Doaa was in a hospital bed and a policeman was at her bedside speaking in a language she’d never before heard. Next to him was a man about her father’s age who spoke to her in Arabic with an Egyptian accent. He asked for her name and where she was from, explaining that she was safe in a Greek hospital. He began translating the policeman’s questions: Where did the boat leave from? Who was on it? How many? Where were they going? Who were the smugglers? How did it sink? The questions made Doaa dizzy and she wanted to go back to sleep. She told them as quickly as she could manage that a gang of evil men intentionally sank the boat and that almost all of the five hundred passengers had drowned. The policeman asked Doaa if the girls she was rescued with were her daughters. When she shook her head, he asked, “How come they’re not yours?” She thought that was a strange question, but explained that the baby that was still alive was Masa and that she was from Syria like Doaa, and that the other girl, Malak, was from Gaza and was the only survivor of her family of twenty-seven who had also been on the boat, but that she had died. Through a stream of tears, Doaa told them that the girls had been entrusted to her by their families and she’d tried to keep them alive. Overcome again with sadness as she thought of Malak’s passing, Doaa sobbed and sobbed before falling back into a long sleep.

  The next time she woke up, Doaa saw that she was now in a large hospital room with other patients. She peeled off her blankets, looked down at her arms and legs, and saw that they were covered in ugly purple-and-black bruises. Doaa tried to stand to go to the toilet, but she fell over. As she attempted to pull herself up from the floor, a sharp pain ripped through her legs, and she wondered if she had lost the ability to walk. Besides the pain in her legs, the muscles in Doaa’s arms ached from having held Masa and Malak for so long in the same position. A nurse hurried over to Doaa and carefully eased her into a wheelchair and pushed her to the bathroom. Doaa signaled for privacy, and the nurse closed the door. Once alone, Doaa lifted herself with both hands and leaned heavily on the sink, peering at her reflection in the mirror. She almost didn’t recognize her own face. It was sunburned and peeling, and her eyes looked as if they belonged to a stranger who was staring back at her with a forlorn expression. She raked her fingers through her disheveled hair and large clumps came out in her hand. Doaa must have screamed because the nurse threw open the door and entered with a worried look. She helped Doaa back into the wheelchair and brought her back to her bed. Doaa was relieved to get away from the haunting reflection of herself in that mirror.

  Back in bed, Doaa thought of calling her mother, but had no idea what she would say. How could she tell her what had happened? Besides, she felt too dizzy and disoriented and wasn’t able to remember any phone numbers. Doaa reached for her mobile phone and tried to turn it on, but it was dead. She stared at it and thought, I feel like I’m dead, too, even though I am alive.

  * * *

  Little Masa had been taken to another clinic, Crete’s University Hospital in Heraklion, where she was in the pediatric unit’s intensive care station. Dr. Diana Fitrolaki, who oversaw Masa’s treatment, said that Masa was on the verge of death when she arrived. She was suffering from acute kidney failure, hypothermia, and severe dehydration. She was lethargic and semiconscious. The doctor worried that if she did survive, she would have brain damage. The hospital had never seen a case like Masa’s before, and the staff worked around the clock to do everything they could to save her
. She was put on mechanical ventilation and an IV to restore her glucose and liquid levels. The staff named her Nadia and would often take her into their arms and sing songs to her, never leaving her alone.

  Soon the press arrived, and Masa’s fight for life became a top news story in Greece. A photo of her in her hospital bed, looking into the camera with wide, sorrowful eyes, was printed in the papers and appeared online. On the fourth day after the rescue, hospital director Nikos Haritakis spoke to the media: “The child battled the waves for days and nights. When she came here, she was completely dehydrated, burnt by the sun, and suffering a multitude of biochemical imbalances. Yet she was taken off mechanical support in just four days. Today she has excellent awareness of her environment, is eating and drinking normally, and is in very good shape. A child as young as her could have suffered irreversible brain damage from the dehydration.”

  As soon as the news broke that the miracle baby had survived the shipwreck as well as four days in the water, the hospital switchboard was abuzz with calls from Greek families wanting to adopt her. Director Haritakis estimates there were as many as five hundred offers. No one could resist the tiny child who had survived against such incredible odds.

  Meanwhile, after four days of treatment, Doaa was slowly recovering, physically at least. She was transferred to a home for the elderly to recuperate further. The media was calling Doaa a heroine for saving baby Nadia and for surviving so long in the Mediterranean. The Egyptian man who had translated for her when she first awoke in Greece came to see her often, bringing his wife with him. They brought her clothes and offered to take her into their home. They had four daughters, one of whom was also Doaa’s age. She would be welcome and no trouble, the couple assured her, and besides, she was alone in a new country and would need protection. As an alternative, the Greek authorities offered to provide her with a small apartment, a stipend, and the chance to seek asylum.