I lay there, looked at the sky, the stars and couldn’t hold back my tears. I got up again, with difficulty, and tried to return to the hotel. My body ached. I dragged myself through the masses of rubbish left behind by the street sellers. Outside the hotel was a man with my bag. He threw it at my feet and vanished behind the door. I took the bag and went back to the beach, laid it on the ground like a pillow and fell asleep.
Nightmares — never-ending — tormented me. Suddenly I saw Miriam’s face. It wasn’t a dream. The sun was shining, and Miriam took my hand. We got into a car. The driver didn’t look like an Arab. She didn’t say a word to me, Miriam. Instead, she kissed me the whole time. The driver was Turkish, I learnt later. He dropped us outside a flat in the town centre. Miriam took my passport and gave it to him. He promised to come back as quickly as possible. Miriam fetched a damp cloth and began cleaning my wounds. When she was done, she took her L&M cigarettes from her bag and put the packet on the table in front of me. She then went into the kitchen to make some tea. Tea in hand, she told me that the Turkish driver was arranging a visa for Turkey for me.
‘How? It’s impossible! My passport expires soon, and the Turks won’t give an Iraqi a visa just like that!’
‘You don’t need to know the details. But you’re off to Turkey today.’
‘What about you? Won’t you come with me?’
‘I can’t. It’s my fate to stay here.’
‘But if you can arrange a visa for me, you must be able to get one for yourself too.’
‘You’re like a child. You don’t understand the world out there.’
I had some tea and smoked a cigarette, then we lay down and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I could hear Miriam. ‘So tell me—’
‘I have the visa and the ticket,’ the Turk said. ‘The ship sails at four this afternoon.’
Miriam looked at the clock on the wall. ‘We have two hours.’
I boarded the ship. Miriam stood on the harbour. Waved goodbye with one hand, wiped her tears with the other.
I’ve not heard from Miriam since. I sent her six letters in the space of a year. Posted to the hotel address. But there was no reply.
I swear on Miriam’s life — sometimes, I can hardly believe what I’m writing. The things that happened next don’t happen even in fairy tales. In Istanbul, for instance. I was sitting with twenty Kurds in a top-floor, two-room apartment. Thirty square metres, barely. With us was Ahmed, a Turk from Iraq. He was very handsome and dreamt of going to Germany and becoming a great painter there. The flat belonged to our people-smuggler, who was to get us to Greece soon. The smuggler had run into me on Taksim Square. He came straight up to me and asked, ‘Greece?’
‘What?’
‘Iraqi, Iranian, Pakistani or Afghan? — Greece?’
‘Iraqi.’
‘Me too but I’m a Kurd.’
‘Great!’
‘Car or foot?’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Foot, twenty days and five hundred dollars. Car, two days and fifteen hundred dollars.’
‘On foot, please.’
‘Come.’
People-smugglers know their clientele very well. A refugee doesn’t behave like a normal person when he’s out and about. He thinks everyone is a policeman. He’s suspicious of everyone. He’s not interested in shop windows or posters or women. He watches only people’s faces, his eyes wander restlessly. Like a clock that has gone mad. He keeps looking over his shoulder, fear written on his face. In my case, the symptoms were probably very evident. I later learnt that many people-smugglers have this ability — it’s known as their seventh sense.
None of my flatmates had a passport. All of them had left Iraq and entered Turkey illegally. My passport had now also expired and was useless. That meant all of us always had to stay indoors to avoid getting caught by the Turkish police. There was a clear agreement — the door was only to be opened after three knocks. One afternoon, though, someone hammered it five or six times. We all stood there, paralysed. Fear had completely demoralized me. Being deported to Iraq and landing in the hands of the Iraqi police again — that’s all I could think of. Suddenly, the door was kicked in and three policemen rushed in. Shouting wildly, they forced us against the wall. A fat policeman with a mole on his nose kicked a Kurd in the stomach. The man fell to the floor and began to vomit. During which time I suddenly spotted the open window that led from our small room onto the terrace of the next building. The other two policemen were trying to get the Kurd back on his feet. The one with the mole was watching. Propelling myself off the wall, I raced to the window and jumped out. I could hear shouting behind me. Someone following. The buildings were high, about ten floors. I ran and ran. And heard women, down on the street and on the terraces across the way, shouting ‘Hırsız, hırsız, hırsız!’—Thief, thief, thief!
I reached the fifth building. There was now a side street between me and the next set of houses. I had no chance! I stopped and turned round. Behind me was Ahmed. And behind him, one of the policemen watching us through the window. The terrace of the final building had no door. I looked down. Three floors below there was another. I looked to the left and to the right. Pipes, only. And several windowsills. I jumped and landed with one foot on the gutter. Then hopped onto a windowsill. Ahmed was right behind me. The windowsill gave way beneath our weight. We plummeted onto the terrace. By the time I picked myself up, Ahmed was already at the door to the building. It was locked — damn! We looked at each other, helplessly.
‘Fucking shit.’
Suddenly, we heard a voice, an old man. ‘Gelmek!’—Come! He was leaning out of a window. He waved us over, signalled that we should climb in through the window. Ahmed climbed in first. The man offered us a seat and began to question us. Ahmed spoke good Turkish, like all Iraqi Turkmens. He translated for me. Once we’d made it clear we weren’t thieves but Iraqis trying to get to Greece, the man asked, ‘Are you Shi’ites?’
‘I’m not,’ said Ahmed, ‘but my friend Rasul is.’
The old man smiled. ‘My name’s Ali and I’m an Alevi. We Alevis are very like the Shi’ites. The Turkish government makes our life hell too.’
He got up, offered me his hand, then hugged and kissed me, calling me ‘Brother Rasul’.
He gave us food and drink and talked to Ahmed about Iraq. From time to time, Ahmed would ask me something or translate a certain bit for me. About two hours later, Ali said he’d go down to the street and see if the police were still there. A few minutes later, he was back again. ‘The air is clear, not a policeman to be seen.’ The old man said we could spend the night there but we decided to leave. We thanked him warmly and took our leave. I never saw Ali again.
Ahmed knew other people-smugglers. He found a Kurd for me, a Turkmen for himself. I ran into him again, later, on Omonia Square in Athens. He didn’t recognize me. He was standing next to a smuggler, one with several thuggish bodyguards. I greeted Ahmed. He looked at me. But his blue eyes seemed lost, failed to focus. Each had a huge black circle at the centre. He wasn’t as handsome as he had been in Turkey. Looked semi-derelict. Some refugees told me he’d become this smuggler’s sex slave. ‘Your man’s got Ahmed hooked on drugs. Ahmed has to accompany him everywhere — as his “wife”.’
I swear on Ali and all the Alevis — I didn’t want to have to count on any more miracles. Of course not — what kind of fate would that be? But I had no choice. The next miracle hit me completely unexpectedly too. This time, I was with a smuggler and twenty-three refugees and already on the Greek side of the Ebrus. We’d been walking for almost three weeks, from the Turkish border near Edirne, past Komotini, to Xanthi, our final stop. During the day, we slept in the forest or in the mountains. From six in the evening until five in the morning, we walked, or ran. Along hidden paths through Greece. From Xanthi, it was impossible to walk any further. As the smuggler explained, there were only impassable mountains or the sea. We had to wait for a lorry to take us to Thessaloniki or Athens. We camped for a week behind a hill, near an old, deserted factory. Round us were small fields and dusty earth. The lorry didn’t come. The bandits did instead. Late afternoon, just before sunset. We heard nothing but the shots. The smuggler jumped up. Six of us fled with him. Ran as fast as we could, without stopping to look. But we heard the bullets whistle past, on either side. I fell several times but picked myself up and ran on. We headed straight for the factory, hid inside. No one followed us.