No Place of Refuge Read online

‘You haven’t seen the Italian ports. They’re sweeping through our cities, sleeping in our parks, chasing the tourists away. Families can’t go out in safety anymore. Wherever they go, they leave their garbage behind.’

  Illario rebuked him. ‘No one asked for your opinion.’

  Vincenzo scowled. ‘Free country,’ he muttered.

  Illario turned back to Rachel. ‘It is true that this year more refugees are reaching Italy than Greece.’

  There was a heavy sterling cross at his neck that he raised and kissed. ‘When you’ve pulled as many people from the water as we have, you’re in a constant battle with death. I can’t say we’re winning it.’

  This time when he raised his binoculars, he let out a shout. He extended his arm out to the sea, pointing. ‘There! Vincenzo, move!’

  He passed his binoculars to a volunteer, striding out into the water, Vincenzo at his side, the water sloshing up against their boots.

  At first, Rachel couldn’t see the boat. It was half-submerged and darker than the water. The first sign she had that the boat was headed to shore was the sight of orange life jackets dipping against the waves. However the dinghy was powered, it wasn’t moving forward now, just buffeted by the waves. Vincenzo and Illario lost their footing a few times before they regained their feet. Vincenzo swam out ahead to meet the boat.

  In the glare of the volunteers’ flashlights, Rachel had her first look at a boat arriving from Turkey. It was a small rubber craft designed for twenty people, but double that number were crammed aboard, sitting on each other’s laps, children packed into the middle, silent and numb with cold. A few of the older boys who could swim were clinging to the sides of the boat, treading water to prevent the boat from sinking under the weight of such a load. Families were squeezed together – the elderly, the middle-aged, the young – small children and babies gripped in their mothers’ arms.

  The faces of the travelers were white in the glare of the lights, filled with dread and panic. Illario reached the boat. His strong arms began to pull it in, Vincenzo swimming around to push the dinghy from the back.

  Farther up the beach where the land met the road, Rachel heard the honking of horns. Two or three white vans were driving down the road close to the edge of the beach. One of the volunteers had gotten a fire going on the beach, the smoke rising to meet the waves.

  It was a scene of chaos and noise, and Rachel couldn’t stand by and watch. She ran into the water, her steps slowing as they met the drag of the waves. She took the opposite side of the dinghy, using her upper-body strength to help Illario pull it in. The young men who’d been treading water did the rest. How they found the strength, Rachel didn’t know. Even this limited attempt was wearing at her muscles. At the rear of the dinghy, Vincenzo shoved the boat ashore. The minute it was out of the water, its occupants began to clamber out.

  They were met by volunteers with blankets and urged toward the fire. Some did as they were told, others looked blankly back at the dinghy, searching the faces of those who hadn’t stirred. A young woman whose lips were blue unclutched her freezing hands from the baby in her lap. The man beside her – a husband, a brother? – reached down and passed the baby to Rachel. She unzipped her jacket and pressed the child to her chest, struggling back to the shore. The baby’s skin was cold, its eyes closed. She passed it to a volunteer, and stumbled back to the boat to help the mother.

  So the next half hour passed – hands meeting hands, life jackets being unzipped and abandoned on the rocks, paramedics attempting a makeshift triage. A hastily contrived stretcher was brought from one of the vans to assist an elderly woman whose long black abaya was soaked. A little boy translated anxiously for his silent, stoic parents.

  The last of the men treading water next to the boat now staggered ashore and fell to his knees, kissing the rocky ground. He raised one finger high above his head, his body racked with sobs. He was praying, Rachel saw.

  Others were crying as well – the absence of a reply to names that were called out, fathers diving back into the boat to search for children they couldn’t find. When Rachel spun around next, the woman who’d passed Rachel her child was sitting alone near the fire, her face empty as she stared into the flames. The baby was beside her on the ground, its small body covered with a blanket. The paramedics had moved on to those who were still alive.

  Rachel caught a glimpse of Illario crouched down next to two little boys who appeared to be alone. He stood and craned his neck, playing his flashlight over the crowd. He was making a count of how many had arrived on this particular boat.

  Rachel was wet and cold, but she couldn’t have faced herself if she didn’t pass off her coat to the little boys who were shivering together by themselves. She draped the coat around their shoulders and zipped it up over their bodies.

  ‘Here,’ she called to a volunteer. ‘Help them. They need to get dry right away.’

  She was surprised when Vincenzo shouldered her aside and scooped them into his arms.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ he said. He lumbered up the beach to the waiting vans. Rachel lost track of him as another arrival tugged her hand.

  The night seemed endless. The rescuers as much as the new arrivals were cold, tired, and hungry – helping, processing, calming, and reassuring. Finally the beach was empty. The living had been driven up the road to the camp; the dead would have to wait for the van’s return.

  Exhausted, they huddled beside the fire, listening to twin sounds: the waves slapping the shore, and the paltry spitting of the fire. Rachel had never felt so wretched, or so grateful to have a man’s shoulder at her side. This had been one night out of her life.

  What of those who made the crossing? What of the longer journey they’d risked in the name of sanctuary?

  Her lips and her fingertips were numb. She wanted to cry but didn’t. How could she? She was remembering that Audrey Clare had been on this island for months, seeking to make things better. Trying to improve conditions. Trying to make sure her NGO could do its part to meet the overwhelming need.

  She said as much to Illario, who nodded, telling her stories of how deeply Audrey had been engaged, of the survivors she’d interviewed, of the police officers, Coast Guard, asylum lawyers, and officials she’d spoken with in order to create a comprehensive picture of the crisis.

  ‘She came to Italy several times in the beginning. After that I didn’t see her. I heard she’d joined up with the Hellenic Rescue Team.’ He smiled down at Rachel, whom he’d sheltered inside the warmth of his jacket, his shoulder strong and steady against hers. ‘By the way, you can’t give everything you own away. The NGOs have supplies, especially for the kids. I go up there to check on them regularly. Members of the Guardia Costiera are always sending things across with me. You have to stay well, Rachel, so you can help others.’

  Beginning to warm up again, Rachel saw the wisdom of this, though she couldn’t square it with her conscience. It was one thing to read about a crisis whose scale you couldn’t fathom; it was another to take a child from its mother and find it dead on a pile of life jackets.

  ‘I don’t know how you do this,’ she said. She was looking at the wet pile of life vests, a spark of recollection striking. She puzzled it through. When refugees landed on the shores of Lesvos, they left what they no longer needed behind. They expected their next step to be the chance to catch the ferry from the Mytilene port to Athens – a well-equipped and safe means of transportation. So then why –?

  ‘Illario, what do the islanders do with these life jackets? Do they have any further use?’

  She remembered now that volunteers had used discarded life jackets to make art: on a hill on Lesvos was a giant rendering of a peace sign formed by the orange vests.

  Illario wasn’t listening. He’d let go of Rachel and now had his binoculars raised to his eyes again.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to the group. ‘I see another boat.’

/>   22

  Aegean Sea crossing

  Lesvos to Chios

  ‘Come on, Aya.’

  Ali lifted her onto the boat. Audrey had purchased it from a fisherman who’d done the deal in cash. Ali was always finding problems with the boat, not least the fact that Audrey no longer piloted it.

  She’d steered it with the competence born of a lifetime’s experience, her gun stowed in the hold in case they ran into trouble on their way to Izmir. They’d discovered things in Izmir, bad things done to innocent people, refugees burned like matchsticks on first use.

  He wouldn’t accept that as his fate. He was going to fight for Israa, the way he knew Audrey would fight.

  Aya was with him, because Shukri claimed to be too busy to keep her eye on her. After what had happened with Audrey, he couldn’t risk leaving Aya on her own. She was all that was left to him now, the only thing in his life not stained like the blood of a poem. He wondered if Nizar Qabbani had envisioned this future for Syria when he’d written, ‘O my sad homeland, how in a moment you changed me.’

  He shook off the thought. It was daylight and they were safe. He’d be able to steer them to Chios. He was following the detective who’d tousled his hair with a smile that reached his eyes, and a look of pain about his mouth that said he understood him.

  The man’s name was Esa.

  It was a Muslim name, an Arab name, a name to live up to, the way Ali had tried to live up to the example set by his brothers. They’d disappeared inside Sednaya, where he prayed they had met their fate at once. These were terrible prayers to make – the only ones he could summon from the knowledge of what he’d fled. He loved his brothers like pieces of his heart; he prayed for their release from the evil of the torturers, the kind of evil that lurked in hell, banished for eternity, except that the torturers, like Assad himself, still reveled in their earthly pleasures. On the day that Aleppo was pounded into submission, the nightclubs in Damascus were packed.

  The material journey was a brief one. In the eternal life of the Akhirah, his brothers would reunite at the foot of the Prophet’s throne, and Esa, the son of Maryam, would call them home as companions.

  He was following a less saintly Esa to Chios. If this one proved reliable, he would tell him what he knew about Audrey’s journey to Hatay, and her subsequent visit to Holland. He would also confess about Audrey and the van.

  23

  Souda refugee camp, Chios

  The Souda camp on Chios occupied the rough trough of the moat of a ruined castle, close to the central plaza of the main town, Chios, locally known as Chora. The castle was a heritage site that had housed previous generations of refugees. Recent arrivals were confined to its outskirts, a camp designed for a thousand people overflowing with thousands more; the attendant health and sanitation problems had become unmanageable.

  A row of UNHCR shelters ran along the trough, service tents on the opposite side. Electricity was minimal, most of the tents were unheated; men and women often had to share makeshift public showers and toilets. The first thing Esa noticed as he looked down the length of the trough was a concrete barrier painted over with slogans that read like cries of despair: no borders, no borders, no borders, the prayer of the stateless.

  The Greek islands were bearing the brunt of the crossing: some sixty thousand people were trapped, with no assistance from the European Union to boost the islanders’ best efforts. An appalling lack of asylum services coupled with a refusal to assist in relocation had resulted in growing tension between the local population and the refugees who were detained there. The pace of asylum proceedings was too slow to accommodate the flow of arrivals from Turkey.

  A generation was losing its childhood: six thousand children were trapped on Chios without access to education or adequate health care. All around the camp were groups of people, young and old, with no occupation, no chance of earning a livelihood, unable to return, unable to move on. The camps were not a permanent solution, yet no other solution had been proffered. They were so far below humanitarian standards, the camp on Chios the most crowded on the islands, yet the demands to improve could scarcely be met by Greece, one of the EU’s poorest members.

  No wonder tensions were rising. Despite the best efforts of those who understood the extent of the humanitarian crisis, the current situation was unsustainable. Islanders had been pushed to the limit of their goodwill and resources; refugees were facing mental and physical health crises from enforced isolation.

  Khattak could read the danger signs from a distance. A group of Greek men were gathered around a fish restaurant’s patio, smoking, talking, and studying the refugees encamped in a nearby lot with expressions of judgment.

  Khattak had hired a taxi to take him to Souda, parting from Eleni Latsoudi with thanks. She’d gone on to meet with her volunteers, he was making for the Woman to Woman service tent at Souda.

  The tent was occupied by an Australian exchange student named Peter Conroy, who offered Khattak a hearty handshake and a seat on a plastic chair. The tent was open to the alley that ran between the service tents and the UNHCR pre-fab shelters. People passed in front of it in groups; Khattak’s conversation with Conroy was frequently interrupted by people asking Conroy for his help with myriad problems.

  Despite the urgency of his search for Audrey, Khattak let the interruptions flow. Now that he was here, it was better to see for himself the nature of W2W operations. Peter Conroy handed out maps, he occasionally translated English terms into Arabic, he pointed applicants in various directions, and with cheerful warmth, he offered children sweets from a stack he kept on his desk, which was no more than a plastic table with two sets of plastic drawers. He had a habit of leaning back in his chair, catching himself just before the chair up-ended. Khattak suspected that a good deal of the time, Peter Conroy was bored.

  ‘Woman to Woman doesn’t usually recruit male volunteers,’ he said. ‘It’s a little at odds with their mandate.’

  Peter Conroy smiled a broad, gummy smile. ‘Oh, I don’t work for Audrey Clare. I’m actually here with an Australian NGO, but they’re overstaffed at the moment and Shukri asked me if I’d keep an eye on things. Just the basics, mind you. I don’t know a heck of a lot about operations.’

  Khattak looked around the service tent, searching for signs of the package Eleni had mentioned. There was a pile of boxes at the back, half-hidden by a large canvas roll.

  ‘How long have you been filling in?’

  ‘Since last December, I would say.’

  Khattak asked how well Conroy had known Audrey and when he’d last seen her, but he learned nothing new or of value. Apart from Shukri Danner, everyone either he or Rachel had spoken to about Audrey had the greatest admiration for her work. Conroy knew none of the details of Audrey’s travel, though he confirmed that several of the names on Ali’s list were known to him, friends to the islanders – people who regularly assisted with intake work, despite the fact that it fell outside their purview.

  ‘We all have to be a little improvisational here, you know? There’s a different need at every hour of every day. If we could just get more translators – I honestly think we need them more than medics, though OB-GYNs and dentists are really in demand. Most of these kids haven’t had dental care in years.’ He let his chair tip forward, speaking with the great earnestness of the young. ‘I mean, this is a tragedy compounded by fresh tragedies every day. And people get so upset, I don’t get it.’

  ‘The islanders, you mean?’

  Conroy took a moment to answer this. ‘To be fair, there’s no way as many refugees would have transited through as they have without the assistance of the islanders. For the most part, the people here have been incredible. But every other day or so, I get wind of a new complaint. Like, why is this five-year-old kid getting dental treatment when no one cares about me?’

  Khattak had heard similar sentiments in Canada, particularly throu
gh social media, when Canadian dentists had offered free dental care to new arrivals. One of his friends had taken the challenge head on by inviting anyone in need of treatment to make an appointment at her office.

  It came back to a hierarchy of need, and a balance of competing interests.

  He didn’t believe it was a case of people not wanting to help, or of not having empathy for what refugees were enduring. The marginalized existed among every group of people. If their voices cried out in need, he couldn’t blame them, and he didn’t. He tried to understand, he tried to extend solidarity where it was needed, regardless of personal affiliation.

  He thought of the graffiti on the concrete wall: no borders.

  There were no boundaries to human need; there should be none to his compassion. This was how his faith governed him, and he thought perhaps his despair could be eased by turning back to prayer – he’d heard there were mosques on the islands, but he didn’t know if they were in operation. Or if they were, how wise it would be for him to join the congregants, in light of present tensions.

  He could see the Greek people couldn’t solve the crisis on their own. They needed and deserved help. More than that, they deserved gratitude from an often irresolute world, unwilling to contend with what Assad had done in his deadly desire for power. The question remained: What other losses would Assad inflict?

  The ripple effects of the war in Syria had spiraled out.

  But here to this island? To the death of an Interpol agent who’d kept company with a refugee; to the kidnapping of a foreign citizen?

  Had Audrey been kidnapped? Or was she following a trail of her own?

  ‘Did Audrey receive a package a few weeks ago? Something on the bulky side? Perhaps she stowed it behind that canvas. I’m also looking for a group of boxes – maybe the size of shoeboxes – at least twenty of those. Would Audrey have stored them here?’

  Good-natured and obliging, Conroy got up to look. Khattak joined him. He wanted to see what else was behind the canvas.