Five minibuses were waiting outside the apartment complex in Alexandria, already packed with fellow Syrian and Palestinian refugees, who looked up as the doors opened but said nothing. Doaa and Bassem climbed inside and found a single seat in the back for them to share, wedging their bag and their two life jackets between them and the window. People were packed in so tightly that Doaa could barely breathe, and a hushed tension filled the bus as it moved toward the highway as part of a convoy with the other buses. Doaa pulled her jacket up around her face, as if it could shield her from any security forces that might be watching. Just when she felt like she was about to faint from the stifling air inside the bus, they veered off into a truck stop and pulled up alongside a big run-down bus. They were ordered to get off and join other passengers in the bigger bus. People on this second bus were already sitting on each other’s laps or standing crammed together. “Get in, dogs!” they heard from inside the bus. “Men on one side, women on the other!” There were more women and children than men, so this rule quickly broke down. Another smuggler rasped, in an uglier tone, “If anyone opens his mouth, we’ll throw you out the window!” Of all the smugglers that Doaa and Bassem had dealt with in their previous attempts to leave, these were the roughest and most cruel.
Bassem usually assumed the role of reassuring Doaa, but was instead thinking about a way to get them off the bus. He didn’t trust the men in charge at all. He was unsettled by Doaa’s words as they sat down: “I feel like we are being taken to our deaths.” Just days before, she had also said to him as they were having coffee on the balcony that, as much as she tried, she couldn’t picture them in Italy or Sweden or anywhere in Europe. Everything after they boarded a boat was blank to her, as if the door to a house had opened and nothing was inside but emptiness. “The boat is going to sink,” she told Bassem flatly. Bassem had brushed off her remark, joking that her fear of the water was getting the best of her, but now he wondered.
As he was about to raise his doubts to Doaa, the bus turned into a rest stop. For a moment, as they left their seats and were allowed to enter the shop to buy refreshments and to use the toilet, they felt giddy, grateful for the brief respite, even if it was just to buy a snack. But when the signal came for them to board the bus again, with no information about where they were headed or how long it would take, and no trust in their guides, the gamble they were taking with their lives returned to sharp focus. Bassem wanted to stay at the rest stop, but Doaa was afraid that the smugglers, who were hitting and shoving people who were moving too slowly as they reboarded, would hurt them if they tried. So they returned to the bus, their destiny no longer in their own hands.
It was past 9:00 p.m. when the bus set off again. It took them through back roads past abandoned or half-constructed buildings. The smugglers walked the aisles carrying sticks and waving them menacingly, and occasionally smacking anyone whose children cried too loudly or who dared to ask where they were going. Doaa looked out the window and recognized a sign for Khamastashar Mayo—a section of Damietta’s beach. “We are close to home!” she said to Bassem. “We came to this beach with our family!” The smugglers had obviously chosen a different departure point from the one near Alexandria and had driven them down the coast toward Doaa’s place in Gamasa, which was now just a few kilometers away. Her phone’s battery was dead so she asked a man seated close to her if she could use his mobile to call her mother. “We are leaving now! Pray for us. We will call you when we arrive.”
“Look after yourself, hayati, be careful,” Hanaa replied. “May God protect you.”
At 11:00 p.m. they came to a halt about half a kilometer from a barren, sandy beach. “Get out and run to the shore!” the smugglers shouted. The passengers filed out and noticed other buses already parked there, and hundreds of people ahead of and behind them. Those ahead of them were wading through the shallow waves. Bassem kicked off his flip-flops, took Doaa’s hand, and they sprinted toward the water. He thought they would be safer somehow if they got ahead of the crowd. He led her to the edge of the sea, passing families with children that were slower than them. As they reached the shore, Doaa pleaded with him to wait before stepping into the swell. “I need to gain my courage,” she said.
“Trust in God’s will, Doaa, and be brave, this is our only chance,” he replied, gripping her hand as he charged into the shallow water. Doaa felt the waves swallow her calves, then her knees. It was soon up to her waist, and she feared she would be swept away. She felt as if she were moving through her worst nightmare.