What Strange Paradise

by Omar El Akkad

  “Where’s it going?” Amir asked.

  “It’s a sightseeing trip, the kind the tourists pay a lot of money for,” the old man said. “You know what? Now that I think about it, maybe I’ll just sell your spot to one of them.”

  “No, no,” Amir said, watching his uncle board the ferry. “I want to go.”

  “Will you do exactly what I tell you?” the old man asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right, fine, I’ll let you go,” the old man said. He ushered Amir past most of the waiting crowd, tucking him between two people in line, just a few feet from the end of the dock.

  “When you get to the ramp, you just look down and keep walking,” he said. “Don’t say anything.”

  Amir could see that the two guards were now looking in his direction, and could not possibly have missed him. But he did as the old man said and kept his head down as the line neared the ramp. He walked onto the boat unquestioned. Cautiously he stepped into the inner cabin, worried he would be spotted by his uncle, but inside he found a dense mass of bodies, against whose knees and legs he collided. Within the crowd, he became invisible.

  * * *

  —

  A row of cheap plastic seats lined the far corner of the cabin, and on the ground nearby Amir found a small square of floor on which to sit. To his right, a heavily pregnant woman, veiled in a black niqab, spoke to no one in particular.

  “They said how many hours?” the woman asked.

  “Just two or three,” another woman nearby replied. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

  “It doesn’t look anything like what they had in the picture.”

  “The man said it’s better to go on a small one like this. It doesn’t attract attention like the cruise ship in the picture, and it’s made of something strong—carbon fiber, fiberglass, I don’t know.”

  The pregnant woman knocked on the side of the inner wall. “God sustains,” she said. “God sustains.”

  She unfolded a piece of paper in her hand, on which were written English words spelled phonetically in Arabic letters. She began to practice, speaking a language she could not speak.

  “Hello. I am pregnant. I will have baby on April twenty-eight. I need hospital and doctor to have safe baby. Please help.”

  * * *

  —

  For another hour the passengers continued boarding. Soon the compartments were so full that there was no room to sit and little left to stand, the bodies compressed against one another. Then, with a shudder and groan, the ferry eased from the dock.

  Amir saw Alexandria shrink to nothingness in the background, folding into the water. His mother told him there used to be a lighthouse here, in its time one of the greatest structures ever built, until earthquakes and sabotage brought it down. He imagined it now, somewhere beneath him. He imagined it still at work, the seabed alive with circling light.

  The ferry shook against the parting and unparting waves but no one seemed to mind. After a few minutes, Amir saw the two young men who’d earlier guarded the dock. They entered the lower cabin along with a few others. They carried armfuls of bright-orange life jackets. One of them also carried a manifest, and slowly they moved around the cabin, handing out the jackets to some of the passengers.

  A middle-aged man dressed in a suit and tie stood and confronted them. From his accent Amir could tell he was Syrian.

  “Why are you only giving them out to some of these people?” he demanded. “Why don’t you have enough for all of us?”

  One of the men told him to sit back down. He refused.

  “Who are you giving them to?” he asked. “Who are these people, your friends? Your family? This is unfair.”

  “We’re giving them to the ones who paid for them,” the man said. He was slim, young, with a wispy mustache and a day’s stubble. He wore jeans and a T-shirt marked with a small green crocodile, and though others were dressed in more formal clothing or more carefully groomed, he appeared the most arresting presence in the room, the one on whom all eyes fixed.

  “We paid for passage, didn’t we?” the Syrian protested. “Passage should come with life jackets. You don’t sell a man a pair of shoes and withhold the laces.”

  “I didn’t sell you a pair of shoes,” the man with the manifest replied. “Sit down and shut up.”

  The conversation was interrupted by a slowing of the ferry. Soon it bobbed in place up and over the waves, all forward momentum gone.

  “Are we here already?” the pregnant woman asked her seatmates. “Was it really that near, the whole time?”

  Suddenly a blinding silver light flooded the cabin from somewhere in the darkness outside. The passengers covered their faces and tried to make out its source.

  “It must be the coast guard, the police,” the woman said. “I can’t go back. I don’t care, throw me in the ocean, I can’t go back.”

  “Lady, what’s your name?” asked one of the men who’d been passing out the life jackets.

  “Umm Ibrahim,” the woman replied.

  “Calm down, Umm Ibrahim. It’s not the coast guard, it’s not the police.”

  The man turned and spoke to the cabin, his voice louder now.

  “Everyone is going to do this exactly the way we tell you. You rush, you fight, you argue, and you can go ahead and swim.”

  No one responded.

  “Good,” he continued. “Now, all of you, sit and wait your turn.”

  Amir watched as the men swung open the cabin doors. On the outside deck, they seemed to shout commands into the nothingness. It was only when the spotlights swung away for a moment that Amir was able to make out the vessel at which they had been barking orders.

  A decrepit fishing boat, perhaps a hundred feet in length, moved alongside the ferry, the red paint on its hull faded and flaking, the mainsail in tatters. Written in English on the side of the hull was the name of the vessel, calypso.

  A couple of men on the fishing boat stood portside, leaning over the gunwale. They lowered half a dozen bumpers down its side, level with the nearing ferry. Then they tossed a pair of thick, braided ropes to their partners, who grabbed them and pulled the two ships closer.

  “What’s going on?” the Syrian asked. “What is that piece of shit? We want to stay on this one.”

  The man with the manifest chuckled. “You think we’re going to risk the Westerners impounding the expensive ship? Stop acting like a child. It’ll make the trip just fine, and once their coast guard spots you, they’ll tow you in; you won’t even need an engine.”

  The smugglers lowered a rickety metal ramp between both vessels. Amir watched as a procession of passengers, almost without exception dark-skinned, were led across first, shivering from standing outside on the ferry’s upper deck. All were ushered down to the fishing boat’s lower cabin, save for two scrawny young men who were made to wait near the bulkhead.

  The man with the manifest returned to the ferry’s lower cabin. “Now, we’ll take the ones who paid for the top deck. Don’t try to be clever—we know exactly who paid for what.”

  The ferry began to empty, the remaining passengers exiting and crossing the ramp. It was as the last few trickled out that Amir felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Quiet Uncle.

  “What did you do?” he said, his voice a notch above a whisper. “How did you get on this ship?”

  Amir tried to break free from his uncle’s grasp. “What, I did the same thing you did,” he protested. “Why do you get to take a ride and we don’t?”

  Something snapped in his uncle then; a viciousness took him and he grabbed Amir by the throat. It was only for a second and for the first eternity of that second it wasn’t the pain of choking that shocked Amir but the fact that his uncle had such violence in him.

  Then he released his grip. He dropped to his knees.

  T
he man with the manifest, noticing the conversation, left his place at the ramp and approached the two.

  “Do you know this kid?” he asked.

  “What do you mean do I know him?” Quiet Uncle replied. “He’s my nephew. Why did you allow him to board? He’s a child all alone, for God’s sake. Why would you ever let him board?”

  “It’s none of your business what we do,” the man replied. “If he’s yours, you have to pay for his ticket.” The man looked at his manifest. “Younis Utu, right? You paid twenty-five hundred dollars for a place on the top deck. You have another twenty-five hundred for this kid?”

  Quiet Uncle rubbed his temple. “Let me think a minute.”

  “Brother, there’s nothing to think about,” the man replied. “You do or you don’t.”

  “Just send him back on this ferry,” Quiet Uncle pleaded. “What difference does it make to you? He got on by accident.”

  “Nobody got on by accident,” the man said. “We’re happy to pay his fare if you can’t, but then he’s not yours anymore. He’s ours, and we have a right to recoup our costs.”

  “Wait, wait,” Quiet Uncle said. He lifted his shirt, revealing a small stack of euros and dollars taped to his stomach.

  “I have another fifteen hundred,” he said. “Take it.”

  The man shrugged. “Not enough.”

  “No,” Quiet Uncle said. “I saw you talking to the others, I know the bottom deck costs fifteen hundred. You put me there, you put him up top.”

  The man furrowed his brows. “You want to go down to the bottom deck?” he asked. “Down with the Africans?”

  “Brother, there are Africans on both decks,” Quiet Uncle said.

  The smuggler waved his hand dismissively. “You know what I mean.”

  Quiet Uncle nodded. “Yes, I want to go down with the Africans.”

  The smuggler shrugged. “It’s your choice. Let’s go—you’ll make us late.”

  Quiet Uncle knelt back down to Amir. From around his neck, he removed a bell-shaped gold locket. He placed it around Amir’s neck.

  “Listen very carefully,” he said. “We’re just going on a short trip.”

  “I know,” Amir replied. “The old man told me.”

  “Just listen. This trip might be a little difficult. But you just sit with everyone else and you keep quiet and it’ll be over before you know it.”

  Quiet Uncle took his life jacket and unzipped it and helped Amir’s arms through the holes. The jacket was made for an adult, and Amir struggled to keep it from riding up over his face.

  “Don’t be…” Quiet Uncle started. “Don’t be difficult. Just sit. We’ll be all right.”

  They followed the man with the manifest onto the fishing boat. By the time they boarded, every inch of the topmost deck was taken up by standing and sitting bodies.

  “Push back against the railing,” the man with the manifest shouted. “Make room, make room.”

  All around him, the other men running the operation began to strip the vessel of its electronic and illuminating tools—they dismantled the radio antennae from atop the bulkhead, unscrewed the receiver and tore down the overhead spotlights. But for the small blue glow of the passengers’ cell phones, the ship went dark.

  Upon seeing Amir walk onto the deck, a thin young man who sat silently among the passengers near the rear of the boat motioned with his hands to the smuggler with the manifest. He pointed at Amir and turned his hand in a questioning motion. The smuggler shook his head.

  “He’s paid up,” he yelled across the deck. “He’s not for the market.”

  The other man shrugged.

  The smuggler flicked on a flashlight. He pointed its beam at the two men who’d been made to wait by the bulkhead.

  “Eritrean?” he asked.

  The men nodded.

  “You speak English, Arabic, Tigre?”

  The men nodded.

  In a mash of all three languages, the smuggler continued.

  “You know how to steer this?” he asked.

  “No,” the shorter of the two Eritreans replied.

  “It’s easy; look.” The smuggler pointed the flashlight’s beam to the throttle and the wheel, then to a small dashboard compass. “You see that little arrow? You make sure it stays on N. That’s it, that’s all it takes. If the arrow moves, you turn the wheel like you’re driving a car, until it comes back to N. Come storms, come police, come military, come God Himself, I don’t care. You stay in the direction of N. Your whole future is N.”

  He pointed the flashlight’s beam back toward the ferry, and then into the darkness to the south of the boat, where somewhere in the oblivion of both distance and time lay the city from which they’d embarked, swallowed now by sea.

  “And if you decide to turn around, we’ll know. And then we’ll come find you and we’ll sink this thing and everyone on it. Do you understand?”

  The men nodded.

  “Good.”

  The smuggler ordered all the others who’d been stripping the boat to return to the ferry. As he came to follow them, the middle-aged Syrian who’d accosted him earlier stood up from the pile of old netting on which he’d been sitting.

  “Is that it?” he asked. “You’re getting these two who’ve never been off dry land before to take us? No lights, no maps, no nothing? What kind of man are you? We’ll die out here.”

  The smuggler crossed back onto the ferry and unclasped the ramp behind him. “Brother, you’ll die everywhere,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  After

  Amir climbs the wooden staircase to the hayloft. The thin plywood floor smells of sawdust. Through the hayloft’s open window he can see more of the island. To one side, in the far distance, there are mountains, snowcapped and sheer, to the other are the forest and the sea, and ahead are waves of rolling, desolate hills, scattered brush.

  Below in the yard the girl walks quickly by. He watches her head up the road toward the trees.

  He has never seen a girl like her before—perhaps on television, on the American shows, but not in the flesh. He felt when he first saw her that she looked familiar, but it is only now he understands why. She looks like the illustrated girl on the canister of powdered milk his mother buys for his baby brother. They could never afford the good kind of anything, but his mother always made sure to buy the expensive powdered milk. He quickly learned you could tell the quality of a product by how Western the people on the packaging looked. White skin, blue eyes, blond hair—these things spoke of luxury, betterment, possibility.

  The girl disappears down a side road, and Amir begins to suspect she might not come back. He thought she had understood him earlier, when he explained how hungry he was, but now he wonders if she didn’t at all.

  Amir puts his hand to his chest. The bell-shaped locket Quiet Uncle gave him is still there. But for a thin scratch along its exterior it has not been damaged, and the tiny portraits of his mother and brother inside are untouched.

  He had been there when both pictures were taken in a small photographer’s studio near their home, not long before they were forced to flee. Each family member in turn was positioned before a sheet of purple imitation velvet. The photographer worked quickly and without much interest in his subjects. The whole family had their portraits taken in less than five minutes.

  There seemed then to Amir an air of futility to it all. Elsewhere their neighbors were packing suitcases, hoarding supplies, securing and, if need be, forging travel documents. And yet for some reason Amir’s mother had been adamant on going to the makeshift photography studio down the street and getting these portraits taken. Amir saw no use in it, and would not respond to the photographer’s request to look his way and smile.

  Now, observing his mother’s face inside the locket—a face that projected a kind of contentment with life a
s it was, a calmness—he feels that when he gets home he should apologize for having been difficult that day.

  Amir closes the locket. In the afternoon heat he feels a warmth come over him. His clothes, though starched almost crisp with the residual salt of the sea, have nonetheless dried and no longer hold fast to his skin. Earlier, after he ate a few clumps of that strange sweet stuff in the nearby pot, he felt almost fully rejuvenated. But now his stomach aches and soon he falls into a stupor. He lies down and closes his eyes. But only moments later he hears the sound of a hushed conversation, spoken in his own language from somewhere outside. He stays flat on his stomach and inches toward the window to get a better look.

  A couple, in their late teens, perhaps, walk cautiously toward the fallow harborberry grove to the west. The man carries a gym bag gutted open at the zipper line, its contents exposed—a few pieces of clothing, two apples and a soda can. The woman holds her phone to the sky, waving it here and there like a divining rod. They look emaciated, journey-worn. They move with slow, deliberate steps, monitoring their periphery as they go.

  They appear fearful and out of place, but Amir silently rejoices at the sight and sound of them. They speak his language; maybe they know the way home.

  As he considers whether to show himself and yell down to them, Amir is startled by another sound from the vicinity of the nearby house. He peers out the window to find a woman standing at the edge of the home’s stone courtyard, an old hunting rifle in her hand. She points it at the teenagers and issues a command in a language Amir can’t decipher. Reflexively, they drop their luggage and raise their hands in the air.

  The woman looks to Amir exactly like the blond girl who earlier offered him sanctuary—taller and older, but clearly her kin. He watches as the teenagers plead with the woman to put down the gun, each sentence a mash of languages. But she doesn’t respond except to slightly tip the barrel of the gun toward the ground a couple of times. The couple get down on their knees.

  A small hatchback pulls into the driveway, coming to a stop a few feet from where the woman stands. She ignores its existence entirely, focused only on the young couple. A short, slight man gets out of the car and, taking in the scene, begins speaking in urgent tones.