But he continued to bring up the subject every chance he got, trying to find a way to convince her. Doaa couldn’t understand why he kept insisting when he knew how scared she was of water. Every time they went to the beach together with her family, he saw her keep far from the shore, watching everyone else splash around in the waves. Bassem was a good swimmer, for a reason. He’d told Doaa that back in Daraa when he was about thirteen, he visited a lake with two of his friends. None of them knew how to swim, but they waded in anyway, playfully splashing one another. Then one of his friends moved into deeper water and began gasping for air and flailing his arms. Bassem and his other friend thought their friend was joking, but when they finally reached him, his face was submerged and his body was still. He had drowned. After that day, Bassem had vowed that he would teach himself to swim. “I promised myself that I would never stand by helplessly again while someone I care about drowns,” he had told Doaa.
He also told her another story. A few years later he was at a lake with some friends sitting on the rocky shore. By that time, he was a confident swimmer. In the distance, he witnessed a rowboat capsize and a teenage girl fall into the water, obviously in distress. He ran toward the boat and jumped in the water. When he reached the girl, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her to the shore, possibly saving her life.
However, these stories didn’t reassure Doaa. Every time she imagined being submerged in water with no shore in sight, she thought she would be sick. “Bassem, I don’t want gold or expensive furniture and a life abroad in Europe,” she told him one night when he was trying, yet again, to convince her. They were alone on the balcony of Doaa’s apartment watching the sky darken while the rest of the family was inside listening to the radio. She couldn’t imagine a life without them nearby. “I want to stay close to our family. What if we went to Saudi Arabia instead? You used to work there.” In Saudi Arabia, they could have a new start and still be close enough to her family, and she wouldn’t have to get in a boat to get there.
“You wouldn’t like it,” he countered. “It’s too conservative. You would have to wear a burka. You’d be covered in black from head to toe with only a mesh slit in the material to look through. You won’t even be able to go out unless you’re with me.” Exasperated, he said, “Half of my friends have gone to Europe! I get messages from them on Facebook from Sweden and Germany all the time. They have good jobs and they’re going to school. They say we’d be welcome there—not like here.” Bassem waited for Doaa to ponder this information, then added, “The other messages I get all the time are from friends back in Syria telling me who has died. Have you forgotten what it was like to see people die every day?”
“Have you forgotten all the horror stories about those boats?” Doaa shot back. “And the stories about refugees like us drowning?” Angered, she stood up quickly and went inside to be with her family, leaving Bassem alone on the balcony. She turned her back on him so that he couldn’t see the tears of sadness and frustration spilling down her cheeks.
This went on for two months. Bassem brought it up every chance he had, trying different ways to convince her. “Doaa, you look tired! You’re not thriving here! In Europe, your health would improve.” Doaa’s health was, indeed, worsening every week. Anytime Bassem saw her waver, he reminded her of Europe. “In Europe, you can study. We can open a salon together and you will earn money and finally be able to afford new clothes. You can even have a nice house there. We’ll be respected instead of despised and our kids can have a nice life.” He showed her pictures that he’d received of his friends smiling in front of historical monuments and blooming parks. One friend was pictured in Amsterdam, standing on a bridge over a canal with the pretty cityscape in the background. Seeing these photos, Doaa couldn’t help but listen and dream. Europe seemed like a place of order and hope, a fantasyland of possibility.
The life the photos depicted was so different from the poverty, struggle, and danger she had come to accept as normal. Egypt had nothing for her and her family other than hostility and grueling work at low wages that could never quite provide what the family needed. They barely had enough for food and rent, and anytime they needed anything extra, such as medicine or a pair of shoes for Hamudi when he outgrew his, they had to borrow money that they couldn’t repay or sell one of their few remaining treasures. Doaa had no way to finish high school in Egypt, and she had all but given up on her dream of going to university. Like thousands of other Syrian refugees, she felt stuck in a life of limbo in a country where its own citizens were facing a sinking economy, high inflation, and rising food prices. In Egypt, Syrian refugees were tolerated, but with few possibilities to find real work and fully integrate into society.