Doaa began to wonder what it might be like to walk out the door without the fear of being abducted, and for her siblings to go to school without the fear of being harassed, beaten up, or worse. She remembered what it was like when her mother wasn’t always sick and her father wasn’t always exhausted, and when Hamudi was a cheerful little boy with a chance at a normal childhood. None of that was possible now in Egypt.
And in Syria, things were only getting worse. Hundreds of people died in a chemical weapons attack in Damascus that the Assad government was accused by the international community of carrying out. Extremist jihadists now came under the umbrella of rebel groups and they began fighting each other, weakening what moderate FSA opposition there was. In particular, a rising and violent organization called the Islamic State was gaining territory and imposing its fundamentalist doctrine and severe interpretation of sharia, Islamic law, on Syria. At least one-third of the population was now uprooted, with 3 million of them struggling as refugees in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Egypt.
Doaa slowly began to consider the possibility of leaving. However, Bassem began wavering in his decision to move on. He loved Doaa too much to force her to do something that terrified her and began to have second thoughts. He decided that he should go to Europe on his own and then, once he was settled, send for Doaa and her family. He had heard of programs in Europe that reunited refugees with family members who had stayed behind. All you had to do, his friends had told him, was get there and ask for asylum, then apply to bring your family into the country as well. They would then be issued visas and plane tickets.
“You could join me in no time,” he told Doaa when he relayed his revised plan to her. They were sitting side by side at a small table in their favorite café, sipping tea and smoking a shisha pipe while Bassem took a break from work.
Doaa, stunned, set down her cup. “I won’t let you go alone,” she said without hesitation. “I can’t be separated from you!”
“You’re just jealous,” Bassem teased her. “You think that if I go to Europe ahead of you, I’ll find a beautiful European woman to replace you.”
Doaa punched him in the shoulder. “Fine,” she shot back, “you go find one, and I’ll find an Egyptian husband.” While they joked about this, deep down Doaa was hurt that Bassem would consider going to Europe without her, and maybe she was a little afraid that he might actually find a glamorous woman in Europe that he liked better than her.
“I’m just kidding, Dodo. I would never look for anyone else. You are the only one for me. Finding someone else would be like trying to replace the moon with the stars.”
Still unsettled, Doaa rested her head on his shoulder. “You can’t ever go anywhere without me.” She felt her head rise and fall with his breath. But she could tell that Bassem was set on going, with or without her. She was tired of seeing him struggle in Egypt and knew she had no good case to convince him to stay. She felt that if she refused to let him go, she would be standing in the way of his future, yet she couldn’t stand the idea of staying behind if he left. Her life was with him, one way or another, and neither of them had a life in Egypt. She began to think that perhaps she could brave the water if it meant having a shot at a decent life with the man she loved. She told herself that she would also be helping her family—sending money to them and eventually bringing them to a better place.
What she didn’t know was that Bassem had already begun discussing his idea with her mother. “It’s up to you,” Hanaa told the young man she loved like a son, “but I think you should break up with Doaa before leaving.”
“Never!” he exclaimed, stung by the idea of it. “I’m going because I want to give Doaa everything she wants.” He continued to plead his case, and Hanaa finally gave in and told him that if he was dead set on going, it was fine with her, but she felt that he should travel ahead, find a place for the family, and then apply for Doaa to join him later as his wife. “I do not want her traveling with those smugglers,” Hanaa said. “Anyway, there’s no way she’ll ever set foot in the water.”