“I—uh… I was wondering about—” I stutter and chastise myself. I should have thought of what to say.
“You want a boat, Salama?” he says, cutting to the chase, and my face becomes hot.
I clutch at my ruined lab coat, wrinkling the rough fabric. He thinks I’m a coward. Of all the people to ask him for a way out, it’s me. The last and only pharmacist in three neighborhoods.
“Do you?” he repeats, raising his eyebrows.
Hamza’s anxious expression flashes in my mind. “Yes.”
He turns to the side, checking if anyone is within earshot before saying, “All right. Meet me in the main hallway in ten minutes.”
I can spare a few minutes before Dr. Ziad or Nour come looking for me. Dr. Ziad always insists I take a break. But still my palms break out in a sweat. A whole lot can happen in ten minutes. A sudden respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, another patient vomiting blood and bile.Anything. But I promised Hamza. Layla is my sister, my only family. She’s pregnant with my brother’s child. One he didn’t know of and will never meet. And I need toat leastknow if we can afford it. I don’t want to test Khawf’s limits either. If he makes good on his threat, today could be my last day working at the hospital.
“Daylilies,” I whisper as I walk to the main hall, training my eyes on the muddied floors. “Relax muscle spasms and cramps. Can cure arsenic poison. Daylilies.Daylilies…”
The main hall is filled with patients, and I understand why Am chose this place. It’s free publicity to anyone within earshot. They’d know who Am is, what he does, and what he’s promising them: a chance to live.
Am comes around to the hospital every day to look for people who might take him up on his offer. Payment in the form of a lifetime’s savings to sail away on a boat to another continent that many of us have only read about in books. Everyone at the hospital knows Am, even Dr. Ziad, who strongly believes more people should stay in Syria. Though he’d never stop anyone who chose to leave, seeing as he sent his own family away. As long as Am doesn’t get in the way of saving patients’ lives, he’s free to spread his agenda. And Am does just that. He stays away from all the doctors, focusing on the patients. He makes sure everyone knows about the successful passages by showing people pictures of those who finally reached European shores. No one would be willing to risk drowning without the assurance that thishasworked. At some point. But then, perhaps, even without evidence a sliver of a chance at survival is better than living at the mercy of genocide.
No one takes to a rickety boat on the sea if there is another choice.
Among the tired faces Khawf’s sticks out, with his gleaming eyes and a knowing smirk.
Maybe the reason he’s willing to break me in order to get me on a boat can be explained in a scientific manner: He’s a defense mechanism my brain has provided, trying to ensure my survival by any means necessary. But still my stomach gnaws with apprehension at what horrors await me at his hands.
Within ten minutes, Am finds me in the main hallway. He wades his way through the sea of bodies until he reaches me by a half-broken window that’s covered with a flimsy sheet.
My nervous system is going haywire, zapping electric impulses all through my body that I can’t seem to calm down, no matter what methods I use. My paranoia over Dr. Ziad making an unexpected appearance is high, and I dig my hands into my pockets to hide their trembling. I don’t think I’d be able to go on with this conversation if he were to see me. I’m turning my back on my people.
“So, how many are you?” Am asks, and I snap back toward him.
“Two,” I say. My voice sounds distant.
He studies me for a second. “That’s your whole family?”
Chips crack from my heart, falling through my rib cage. “Yes.”
He nods, but his expression is impassive. It’s not out of the ordinary now to be a family of one.
“I’ll drive you to Tartus,” he says as if he’s discussing the weather. “The boat usually sails from there. About a day and a half through the Mediterranean Sea and you reach Italy. A bus will be waiting for you there to take you to Germany. The most important thing is to get to Italy.”
My heart flutters with every word he says. And despite his dry tone, I can see the journey unfold in front of me. The boat rocking gently over the blue sea, the water lapping against shores that promise safety. Layla, turning to me, an honest laugh escaping her lips that:We’re safe. Yearning rips through my stomach.
A baby cries, shattering my daydream, and the patients’ moans of pain are suddenly deafening against my ears. No.No. How can I think of my safety when I vowed to heal the sick?
But Layla’s pregnant, and IpromisedHamza. Layla would never leave without me, and I can’t have her stranded alone in Europe when she barely speaks English, let alone German or Italian. Being a pregnant girl and all alone would make her easy prey. Monsters aren’t confined to Syria.
Indecision is a poison germinating in my blood vessels.
I clear my throat. “How much does it cost?”
He thinks this over. “Four thousand dollars. And there’s a line.”
I blink. “What?”
“I deal in dollars. Liras are weak. Four thousand dollars. Two thousand each.”
Blood drains from my face and my mouth is dry. That’s more than we have. Baba was able to withdraw six thousand dollars in the beginning, but most of the money has gone as the price of food has increased. We barely have three thousand left.
