was a simple thing.
When I wake up it is dark, and the darkness pulsates. I’ve had a dream about something vague, not of murder this time; in my mind there is a glimpse of corridors and staircases and footpaths that make a grid, somewhere far away from here, and a picture of the sky in the morning and a red
flickered on the beach at dawn. Like driftwood washed ashore, we were left on the tiny military island of Farmakonisi. We were wet and shivering and the sun had just begun to rise. Mohammed’s face was white and blue, he still had the women’s headscarves wrapped around his body and for some reason he was now holding Afra’s hand. They did not speak to each other though; not a word passed between them. They just stood there on the shore with the sea behind them and the sun rising up to greet them. One of the men had collected the life jackets and made a huge fire with them. The flames warmed us and we gathered around.
‘I fell into the water,’ Mohammed said, holding onto my hand now.
‘I know.’
‘I died a little bit.’
‘It was close.’
‘But I died a little bit.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw my mum. She was holding my hand in the water and pulling me and pulling me, and she was telling me not to go to sleep, because if I fell asleep I would sleep forever and I wouldn’t be able to wake up again and play. So I think I died a little bit but she told me not to.’
I wondered what had happened to his mother, but I didn’t want to ask. Apparently another NGO vessel would be coming to pick us up, to take us to another island; in the meantime we had to wait here on the shore. There was a large shipping container, but this was already full of people; the story going around was that they’d arrived earlier that night from another part of Turkey, further along the coast. They were meant to go to another island but the engine had stopped working and their boat had drifted towards Farmakonisi. The coastguard had found them, and brought them back here. Some of the men and children came outside to talk to us and to warm themselves by the fire.
‘Uncle Nuri!’ Mohammed said, a huge smile revealing a missing tooth. ‘This place is called Biscuit Island! The girl from the container told me!’
It was a cold morning and gulls and pelicans dipped down to the sea. On the safety of this land and in the warmth of the fire and the sun, people began to fall asleep. Mohammed was lying flat on his back. He was not asleep; he was looking up at the vast blue sky, squinting his eyes against the brightening light. In his hand he held his tiny marble, rolling it around in his fingers. Afra was sitting on the other side of me. She had her head on my shoulder and her hand grasping my arm as if I might slip away. She was holding on to me so tight that even when she fell asleep her grip didn’t loosen, and I remembered Sami when he was a baby, the way he used to fall asleep with Afra’s nipple in his mouth, his little hand still clutching the material of her scarf. It’s amazing, the way we love people from the day we are born, the way we hold on, as if we are holding on to life itself.
‘Uncle Nuri?’ Mohammed said.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me a story so that I can fall asleep? My mum used to tell me a story when I couldn’t sleep.’
I remembered a tale my own mother used to tell me when I was a little boy in the room with the blue tiles. I remembered her with her head in the book, a red fan flickering in her right hand; eating kol w Shkor, her beloved Aleppo sweet.
‘Come on, Uncle Nuri!’ Mohammed said. ‘Come on, or I will fall asleep by myself and not hear a story!’
I was suddenly irritated with the boy. I wanted to stay in my own mind, with my mother’s voice, with the fan flickering in the lamplight.
‘If you can fall asleep, why do you want a story?’
‘So that I can fall asleep better.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘The story goes like this: a wise caliph sends his servants – I can’t remember exactly how many there were – on a quest