2 Evie

2

Cyrus says I'm too young to have regrets, which makes it sound as though heartache and crushing disappointment are things that people grow into or develop a taste for, like red wine or black coffee or dark chocolate. He also says that life is about fixing broken connections.

Why do they break in the first place? I asked. He said, accidents, carelessness, negligence and loss. Sometimes the connection is broken at birth; sometimes it happens later. For Cyrus, it broke when he was thirteen years old and he came home from football practice to discover that his family was dead. That's why he became a psychologist – to understand what happened – but delving into other people's minds hasn't healed Cyrus or let him sleep peacefully at night or stopped him lifting weights until his veins bulge. Instead, I see someone who is more damaged than I am, only he hasn't realised it yet.

I don't know when my connection broke. Maybe when Agnesa was raped or when Papa was killed, or when we left home without saying goodbye to anyone. Perhaps the connection was stretched thinner and thinner the further we travelled, until it finally snapped.

It was four days on buses and trains before we stopped moving and I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Grey, choppy and cold, it didn't look any different from the sea that I'd seen in Tirana. We had reached an old city full of churches and squares and palaces, but also empty shops and abandoned factories and cheap hotels.

I didn't know much about Spain. I once asked Papa about a book he was reading called Don Quixote. He said it was set in Spain and was about a man who lost his mind and went on a quest to become a knight and defeat imaginary enemies like windmills and flocks of sheep. Papa said the story was about challenging life and how madness can be a healthy reaction to a mad world. I didn't understand it then. I do now.

Mama rented a room in a boarding house, and I slept on the floor because the roll-away cot collapsed on the first night and the landlady threatened to make us pay. During the day, we walked around the city, and ate oranges and flaky pastries and I tasted avocado for the first time.

I practised my English with a Spanish girl, who worked in a café downstairs. I couldn't understand some of what she said because her accent was so strong and she mixed up her tenses, but she taught me swear words that I had never heard before.

On the ninth day, we were woken in the middle of the night and told to pack our things. A covered truck was waiting downstairs. We loaded our suitcases and an extra bag of food into the truck, which took us to the port and into a warehouse where other migrants were waiting. We were told to line up. A man walked down the row, choosing people. Mama brushed my hair and told me to stand up straight.

The man stopped next to Agnesa. She didn't lift her head. He gripped her face in his hand and raised her chin.

‘This one,' he said.

‘No, we are family,' said Mama.

He ignored her and one of his men tried to pull Agnesa from the line. Mama held on to one of her hands and I held the other, pulling her back.

‘We all go,' said Mama.

A man slapped her across the face. I reacted without thinking, kicked him in the shins. He hopped on one leg and took a swing at me, but I ducked and kicked him again, which made the other men laugh.

Mama pushed Agnesa behind her. The man pointed a gun at her head. Mama didn't flinch. I saw the black hole at the end of the barrel and I wanted to put my finger inside to make the gun explode like it did in those cartoons when Elmer Fudd was hunting Bugs Bunny.

The man lowered the gun and grunted an order. We were pulled from the line, Mama, Agnesa and me. Others were chosen, mainly young men, a few women, and another family with two children, a girl Agnesa's age and a younger boy. The rest of the migrants were told that another boat would come for them. Some complained and jostled, but the gun kept them quiet.

The man in charge looked at our three suitcases. ‘Too much.'

‘This is all we have,' said Mama.

He picked up two of the cases, undid the latches and tipped them upside down, spilling our belongings onto the filthy floor.

‘One bag,' he said. ‘Repack.'

Choices had to be made. We each took a warm coat, underwear, socks and a pair of good shoes. Much was left behind. It was almost dawn when they took us to a small boat with an outboard motor, which ferried us six at a time to a fishing trawler moored in the harbour amid a forest of masts with blinking lights and rattling cables.

The crew threw a ladder over the side. They wore black masks with holes for their eyes. We climbed up and then down again into the hold, which stank of fish and diesel fumes. Mama complained there were too many of us. She was ignored.

The engines started and the boat trembled and the hatches were locked down. In the darkness, I could hear people murmuring in languages that I couldn't understand. Praying. We all were, even Mama, who didn't believe in God. I was sitting between her legs, with her arms around my waist. Agnesa was next to her. Her job was to guard the suitcase, which had the last of our money.

Years later, at Langford Hall, I remember being told a Bible story about a man called Jonah who was saved from drowning by being swallowed by a big fish. It wasn't a whale, like most people think. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. He prayed to God and the fish vomited him out.

When I heard that story, I thought about being back in the hull of that trawler, with its metal ribs and its smell of fish and sweat and fuel and faeces, with an engine that throbbed like the heart of a whale.