I Just Wanted to Save My Family

by Stéphan Pélissier

  Just before leaving, we made the rounds among close family to say goodbye: my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My aunt asked us to take her son Samer with us. He’s the same age as me and we get along really well, but more importantly his mother knew that, like me, he had no future and no guarantee of safety in Syria. So Samer would be coming with us.

  * * *

  —

  We took the bare minimum: a few clothes, our ID papers, and phones. We left everything else behind.

  * * *

  —

  And we left.

  * * *

  —

  In early August we buy flights from Beirut to Turkey from a travel agent. As Syrians, we don’t need visas for this trip. On the morning of August 6, 2015, we climb into a bus to Lebanon and have no trouble crossing the border: My father has managed to obtain a pass for five people because our local mayor is a long-standing friend of his.

  But once we get to the airport, huge disappointment: The flight we have tickets for just doesn’t exist anymore! My father calls the travel agent and is told pertly that there may have been a mistake and we should come back to the airport at the same time tomorrow. Standing next to us in front of the departures board is another Syrian family in the same situation.

  “What did they tell you?”

  “To come back tomorrow, the flight’s bound to go tomorrow.”

  “The liars, they’re crooks! That’s not how air travel works. Basically, we’ve been scammed.”

  “And if we come back tomorrow we’re bound to be arrested.”

  “We can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous. We need to get to Turkey by sea.”

  We all set off to northern Lebanon to catch a bus heading for Tripoli. We spend the night there and catch a boat to Mersin, in Turkey, the next day. After sailing all night, we arrive at dawn. I haven’t slept a wink, furious about the way we’ve been treated on the journey: the ground staff, the crew, they’ve all been so rude to us and to all the other Syrians on the boat. They’ve insulted us and pushed us around; they even shoved my mother to make her get onto the boat faster. And after they checked our passports, they threw them on the ground several paces away from us and sniggered when we ran to pick them up. So it’s on this overnight crossing that I have my first taste of what we’ve become: subhuman, rootless, desperate creatures at the mercy of those we meet along the way. When I realize that we’ll be subjected to this sort of treatment on a daily basis, my fury brings tears to my eyes. I’m all the angrier because I might have been expecting a chilly reception in Europe, in countries with a very different culture from my own, but not in Lebanon! Yes, they say some Lebanese have hated the Syrians since the 1980s when Syrian forces first occupied Lebanon. But the Lebanese are our neighbors, our brothers! How can they treat us like this?

  In Mersin, we go through simple formalities at the border to register that we are on Turkish soil, and then we’re free to move about as we please. But we have no firm plans for the next step. We want to get into Greece, in the European Union, so now we have to tip onto the wrong side of the law. I’ve always known my parents to refuse even the most minor deceit, the mundane corruptions that are a part of everyday life in Syria, so it stresses me when I realize that we’ll be breaking the law. Even to save my life, our lives. I so wish there was another way of doing this, without using illegal channels…We now spend hours every day on social media trawling for that rare gem: a reliable people smuggler who’ll get us to Greece. Names, contact details, and prices are all there if you know where to look; you just need someone to sponsor you to join a secret Facebook group. In Syria, there’s always a friend, neighbor, or cousin who’s dealt with a people smuggler and can get you in. After that, it’s like following a series of trails, switching from a group on Facebook to one on WhatsApp and so on. But there are lots of disappointments: false names; phone numbers that no one answers, perhaps because they’ve been arrested; and prices always much higher over the phone than advertised online. We naturally try to distinguish the good dealers from the bad by reading the personal accounts of refugees who succeeded in getting across.

  We travel between the cities of Bodrum and İzmir a number of times, because these seem to be the two possible starting points. We meet several smugglers in both places, in a constant seesaw of hope and disappointment. This is my introduction to the world of crime and its brutality. Before we grasp the fact that there’s no hope of leaving from Bodrum—it is a tourist hot spot and is too closely scrutinized by the authorities—we meet a local smuggler who says, Yes and it’ll cost x and now we need to meet another guy, my associate who has the team who do the actual crossing. It turns out our contact doesn’t really know the other man. When he takes us to the meeting, we find ourselves surrounded by a gang of beefy thugs. Armed with knives, they threaten to kill us if my father doesn’t give them all the money we have. We hesitate for a split second and then run as fast as we can. Luckily not one of them sets off in pursuit—they may be criminals but they’re lazy!

  The days are trickling by and we’re spending a lot of money on living expenses and scams. Our every conversation revolves around the longing to get out of Turkey as soon as possible, it’s become an obsession for the five of us. We have to save every dollar and every euro so we have just two meals a day and we stay in crummy, dirty hotels in seedy neighborhoods where we constantly fear for our safety—especially when we often spend long hours after nightfall trying to find a hotel that will take us. Very often, even when Zena has booked something online, the manager throws us out, claiming that the place is full. Zena gets so mad when we tell her over the phone what’s happened. Sometimes we try five or six hotels in one evening before we can settle in for the night. One time, we don’t find anywhere till three in the morning. Another time, we give up in the end: We find a late-night restaurant and stay there until it closes, then wait on a bench till the first early-bird café opens.

  In İzmir we finally meet what seems to be the right man, the people smuggler who will get us across the border to Greece. We come to an agreement with him: It will cost one thousand euros per person, and he tells us he’ll take us right away, tonight, once it’s completely dark. He warns us that he won’t provide life jackets, we need to supply those ourselves. Not having them would be out of the question, obviously, and my parents buy one for each of us. This isn’t difficult in İzmir, seemingly every shop sells them for about twenty euros each: The constant stream of refugees through town is a gold mine for them.

  That evening about sixty of us gather at the agreed meeting place. The smuggler reassures us, saying we’ll be divided into two groups in two very comfortable boats. And he explains that we won’t be leaving from İzmir itself but from a more discreet spot on the opposite coast, in the southwest. This means we have to make our way through more than thirty kilometers of dense and very hilly forest with no light, to avoid being spotted. I try to tread carefully but the smuggling team keeps urging us to go quickly so I can’t help stumbling. And I’m not the only one. I hear my mother stifle a cry nearby, and I help her up as best I can. Then I twist my ankle on something and fall heavily on my back. It leaves a deep wound, and the pain is unbearable. But we just have to keep going, whatever happens, so we keep going. When we finally get to the beach, it takes me a moment to realize what’s going on…then I’m filled with horror.

  There’s only one boat. Just one. It’s eight meters long. There are sixty of us: men, women, and children, including several babies, plus our bags.

  My father turns to us, ashen.

  “We may die tonight, but we’ll all die together. And if we survive, we’ll all survive together.”

  My mother, my sister, and Samer are crying. I have no tears, I’m just suddenly very cold and tell myself over and over: There’s no other solution, there’s no going back. Syria means death. Here we have a chance. Anyway, the smuggler’s henchmen have positioned themselves bet
ween us and the forest, and they’re threatening us with guns. So no one protests and no one refuses to board the boat. There’s a resignation in the face of risks that no one would normally choose to take, and I see it so often during the course of our journey, on the faces of people fleeing for the same reasons we are. While we are waiting in line to climb into the boat, another passenger, also Syrian, approaches my father.

  “I think I should warn you, my brother, the life jackets you have…they’re fakes. They won’t inflate, look.”

  He turns over the jacket my father is wearing and shows him that it’s made of foam that will soak up water. It doesn’t change much at this stage, we keep them on our backs regardless. I will learn later that many Syrians die at sea because of these fake life jackets that drag them underwater.

  As we’re boarding we realize that my father has lost his briefcase along the way. In it were our ID cards, passports, and other official documents we thought would be useful to have with us. Luckily, not our money: That is in a belt around his waist, under his clothes. I don’t really react to the loss of our documents. In comparison to what lies ahead, what does it matter?

  Once on the boat, we stand tightly packed, partly treading on our bags. For an absurd moment, I think we must look like pickles in a jar. I look at my mother’s face, which is distorted with pain. Her arm has been hurting terribly since her fall and there’s nothing I can do for her, which fills me with anger. The boat puts to sea before daybreak, and we all start praying we’ll survive.

  Most of the passengers are Muslim, and we join them in reciting verses from the Koran. There are a few Christians praying too. Our voices blend together, collectively turned toward heaven. The monotony of it soothes even the babies, not one of them cries. The Turkish coastguards in the distance have spotted us and set out in pursuit but can’t catch us in time: We cross the boundary of territorial waters and, to our enormous relief, they turn back.

  Some time later there is a sudden, dull crack under our feet: The bottom of the boat has broken open under our weight. We’re starting to sink. There are screams of terror, voices shouting, “Throw out your bags!” I throw mine overboard, it only had a few clothes in it. Just before the boat sinks completely we hear an engine, and we’re momentarily blinded by searchlights. Two boats are drawing alongside us, and some people instantly panic, thinking they’re pirates who will take what little we have left. I’m almost the only English speaker on board and can reassure everyone.

  “Stay calm!” I say. “It says ‘coast guard’ and they’re flying the Greek flag. It’s the Greek coast guard, we’re saved!”

  The Greeks are kind enough to keep families together as they divide us between their two boats, and once I’m safely on board with my parents, Mimo, and Samer, I take a moment to pray—silently this time. I know that God saved our lives tonight. Without Him, that precarious boat would never have carried us all the way to Greece. Without Him, no one would have reached us in time to save us.

  The coastguards bring us ashore at dawn. They tell us we’re on the island of Samos and we need to report to the local authorities so that our identities can be registered and we can be given travel passes to reach a refugee camp in Athens. We listen to their instructions, slightly dazed; we’re exhausted, happy to be alive but in a terrible state of shock. My mother is cradling her arm. We examine it in daylight and find it’s swollen and has gone completely blue—it’s fractured. She grits her teeth to stop herself crying in front of us. As soon as we’re alone we find the first café that’s open where we can sit down and rest, charge our phones, and call Zena and Manal.

  4.

  We can’t leave them to die!

  Zena is pale. Her long slender hand clutching the phone to her ear shakes in spasms. This woman who is usually so talkative when she’s on the phone to her parents hardly opens her mouth. Her eyes are closed and a tear rolls, very slowly, down her cheek. I put a hand on her arm, as much to offer what little comfort I can as to attract her attention. She opens her eyes and looks at me without seeing me.

  “Tell me, Zena,” I whisper, “what’s going on?”

  We’ve had no news of her parents since yesterday, for almost twelve hours. Twelve hours during which Zena hasn’t slept or eaten, convinced that there could be only two explanations for this silence: They’re dead or in prison. When the phone rang at seven o’clock this morning we were prepared for the worst.

  I squeeze her arm gently and she seems to rally and see me at last. She says, “Wait” in Arabic—I’ve learned a few words as time’s gone by—and puts down the phone.

  “Zena, tell me what’s happened to them.”

  “The people smuggler they found in Turkey…He piled I don’t know how many of them into an inflatable boat so of course it didn’t hold out and the boat went down!”

  “Oh shit, no, I can’t believe it…Are they all okay?”

  Zena gives me a brief summary of their terrifying ordeal.

  “And where are they now?”

  “On Samos, in a café. But that’s not what’s upsetting me. I talked to my mother and she said my father can’t take any more, he just wants to get here to us as soon as possible. So he’s already been looking for people smugglers to get across to Ancona, in Italy, and it’ll be on the same sort of boat they were just on.”

  “But that’s way too dangerous. They need to go around through the Balkans. Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes, I asked my mother to hand him the phone…but he just doesn’t want to listen to any talk about the Balkans. Apparently, Hungary is terrible for migrants. He claims it would be too risky.”

  “But they already nearly drowned…This will be even worse, the crossing to Italy is three times as far. Doesn’t he realize that?”

  “He tells me it won’t be the first time they’ve been in danger since they set out and he puts his trust in God to protect them. And anyway, this just has to end. He even said he can’t stop thinking about giving up and going back to Syria…”

  * * *

  —

  There’s no way to get my father to see sense, to make him realize they’re heading for certain death. He just talks about praying and trusting in God. I’m a believer. But I don’t set God wild challenges. The way I see it, my father might as well jump from the roof of a thirty-story building, crying, “I trust in you, Allah, save me!”

  When I tell Stéphan what they’re planning to do, he gets more and more agitated. And then he says these words, words that will seal our fates:

  “I’ll go get them”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’ll go get them. We’ll make the crossing to Italy together but we’ll take a proper boat, a ferry. They’ll be able to do it if they’re with me. I’m not staying here and leaving them to drown. All my papers are in order, I speak Greek, it’ll work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Stéphan’s suggestion has split me in two. The wife in me doesn’t want him to go and take a risk that’s so difficult to quantify, but the daughter and sister wishes he was already on his way so that my family don’t risk their lives again.

  “Absolutely sure. Go ahead and tell them, please. Don’t let them move. I’m on my way.”

  I think quickly. If I tell my father that Stéphan’s coming to get them, he’ll refuse the help and be in even more of a hurry to find a people smuggler before anyone stops him. But my mother told me they should be going to Athens once they have their travel passes. My father’s hesitating between finding a smuggler in Samos or waiting to do it in Athens. If he opts for Athens, that will hold them on Samos for two days: Anas has done some research, there are no boats to the capital before then. I explain my idea to Stéphan and call them back.

  “If you really want to attempt a crossing, Dad, you at least have to find a good, reliable smuggler with a suitable boat. Go get registered in Athens, there’s bound to be more cho
ice and more smugglers there than on that little island!”

  * * *

  —

  I leave Zena on the phone in the bedroom and go to the kitchen to make two coffees. I didn’t really think before telling Zena that I’d set off to Athens to fetch her family. Now, I think it through for a moment. Is it really a good idea? I don’t know, but it’s the only one I have.

  What I do know is that Zena’s been wasting away for eighteen months as the situation has gradually worsened in Syria, even in Damascus, which until recently was relatively unscathed. She’s stopped making progress on her dissertation. Only our little Julia can occasionally revive her smile. I have to face the facts: My wife is descending slowly but surely into depression.

  What I do know is that Julia is still asleep in the bedroom right next to ours. She just turned two. For a few weeks now I’ve been wondering whether she knows what’s going on. If I don’t do something my daughter may never see her grandparents, aunt, and uncle again. I can’t just stay on my sofa, liking and sharing photos and videos on social media, without doing anything. This is my family. If something happened to them, what would I tell my daughter when she grows up? “I didn’t try to do anything, it was too dangerous for me.” I would never be able to look her in the eyes.