But Doaa couldn’t help feeling that she had failed the little boy. With renewed determination, she thought about how she wouldn’t fail Malak and Masa. Now, nothing mattered more to her than keeping them alive.
When the girls started to stir and become agitated, she would sing to them her favorite nursery rhyme: “Come on sleep, sleep, let’s sleep together, I will bring you the wings of a dove.” She also invented games with her fingers to distract them. She discovered that Malak was ticklish under her chin and would laugh when she played a game in which she would use her fingers to pretend a mouse was running up Malak’s chest and onto her neck. When the girls fell asleep, Doaa would rub their bodies to keep them warm, and when she thought that they might be losing consciousness, she would snap her fingers near their eyes and speak firmly, “Malak, Masa, wake up, sweethearts, wake up!”
The only word Masa said back to her was “Mama.”
Doaa felt such a deep connection to these children that she began to feel as if she were their mother now. Their survival meant more to her than her own life.
In the moments when Doaa wasn’t comforting the girls, she would recite the Quran, and many of the remaining survivors would gather around her to listen and pray. Some of them also knew the words of the Ayat Al Kursi, a prayer she used to recite before bed and knew by heart.
Their voices soothed the babies, and their words comforted Momen and the other survivors around her. Reciting the verses gave Doaa a sense of strength that she felt came directly from God. She clung to hope that someone would come to rescue them all soon.
On Friday, their fourth morning in the ocean, Doaa noticed that Malak and Masa were sleeping almost all the time and were barely moving. She constantly checked their pulses to make sure they were alive.
Momen became a kind of bodyguard for Doaa and the girls; protecting them gave him a sense of purpose. No other women were left among the living. The other men seeking comfort from Doaa formed a circle around them, some trying to lean on her ring for a rest. Momen would try to shoo them away, warning them, “She’s carrying these kids! She could lose her balance.” But Doaa would let them stay: “Lean gently, please, for the sake of the children.” Momen didn’t have a life jacket, but he was a good swimmer. Still, Doaa saw by late afternoon that he was beginning to lose strength.
“Don’t you leave me, too!” Doaa cried, thinking he was the only adult she had left that she felt close to and trusted since Bassem had died. She didn’t know what she would do without his help and comfort. Momen was floating on his back with his eyes closed when suddenly his body went still, then flipped forward, his face submerging in the sea. Doaa now felt she was completely alone except for the two children whose lives depended on her.
She was going in and out of consciousness as she lay in the ring with Malak and Masa resting on her chest. When she opened her eyes, everything looked blurry. She splashed her face with water to keep herself awake and checked to make sure that the girls were still breathing. She laid her head back again and looked up at the sky, seeing nothing but foggy shapes; then all of a sudden she thought she spotted a gleaming white plane above her head. I must be hallucinating, she thought, dismissing the idea. Then she thought of Bassem’s words: “I pray that God would take my soul and put it in Doaa’s so that she will live.” She began searching the water for the spot where Bassem had died, but it all looked the same: just still water and floating corpses surrounded her. She tried to banish the thought of her beloved’s body sinking below the water and getting eaten by sharks with no proper burial.
In anguish, she looked up at the sky again for any sign of a plane, but instead she only saw a small gray-and-black bird. It flew toward her and circled over her head, then glided away. The bird came back three times, and each time it seemed to look straight at her. Could this mean land is near? she wondered. She hadn’t seen a single bird in four days, not even a seagull. This bird must be a sign from God, she thought. Maybe someone will save us.
Not long after the bird departed, she heard the sound of an engine and spotted the same white plane overhead. This time she knew she couldn’t be imagining it. “Dear God!” she shouted. “Did anyone see that?” The few remaining survivors had drifted away and she was floating alone with only Malak and Masa. Two men swam toward her—Mohammad, a Palestinian she recognized, and an African man she hadn’t seen before. Mohammad had a life jacket, and the African man was clutching a large plastic water canister. Doaa watched the sky and saw what looked like diamonds falling down like fireworks. Again the plane was circling above her.
“There really is a plane!” Doaa exclaimed, hopeful. “Come closer, so they see us!” she told the men.