In the Sea There Are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari - Couverture rigide

 
I met Enaiatollah Akbari at a book presentation where I was speaking about my first novel, the story of a Romanian boy’s life as an immigrant in Italy. Enaiatollah came up to me and said he’d had a similar experience. We got talking. And we didn’t stop. I never tired of listening to his experiences, and he didn’t tire of dredging them from his memory. After we’d known each other for a while, he asked me if I would write his story down, so that people who had suffered similar things could know they were not alone, and so that others might understand them better.
This book is therefore based on a true story. But, of course, Enaiatollah didn’t remember it all perfectly. Together we painstakingly reconstructed his journey, looking at maps, consulting Google, trying to create a chronology for his fragmented memories. I have tried to be as true to his voice as possible, retelling the story exactly as he told it. But for all that, this book must be considered fiction, since it is the recreation of Enaiatollah’s experience – a recreation that has allowed him to take possession of his own story.
                                                                   Fabio Geda, Turin 2010
 
Afghanistan

The thing is, I really wasn’t expecting her to go. Because when you’re ten years old and getting ready for bed, on a night that’s just like any other night, no darker or starrier or more silent or more full of smells than usual, with the familiar sound of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer from the tops of the minarets just like anywhere else . . . no, when you’re ten years old--I say ten, although I’m not entirely sure when I was born, because there’s no registry office or anything like that in Ghazni province--like I said, when you’re ten years old, and your mother, before putting you to bed, takes your head and holds it against her breast for a long time, longer than usual, and says, There are three things you must never do in life, Enaiat jan, for any reason . . . The first is use drugs. Some of them taste good and smell good and they whisper in your ear that they’ll make you feel better than you could ever feel without them. Don’t believe them. Promise me you won’t do it.

I promise.

The second is use weapons. Even if someone hurts your feelings or damages your memories, or insults God, the earth or men, promise me you’ll never pick up a gun, or a knife, or a stone, or even the wooden ladle we use for making qhorma palaw, if that ladle can be used to hurt someone. Promise.

I promise.

The third is cheat or steal. What’s yours belongs to you, what isn’t doesn’t. You can earn the money you need by working, even if the work is hard. You must never cheat anyone, Enaiat jan, all right? You must be hospitable and tolerant to everyone. Promise me you’ll do that.

I promise.

Anyway, even when your mother says things like that and then, still stroking your neck, looks up at the window and starts talking about dreams, dreams like the moon, which at night is so bright you can see to eat by it, and about wishes--how you must always have a wish in front of your eyes, like a donkey with a carrot, and how it’s in trying to satisfy our wishes that we find the strength to pick ourselves up, and if you hold a wish up high, any wish, just in front of your forehead, then life will always be worth living--well, even when your mother, as she helps you get to sleep, says all these things in a strange, low voice as warming as embers, and fills the silence with words, this woman who’s always been so sharp, so quick-witted in dealing with life . . . even at a time like that, it doesn’t occur to you that what she’s really saying is, Khoda negahdar, goodbye.
Just like that.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, I had a good stretch to wake myself up, then reached over to my right, feeling for the comforting presence of my mother’s body. The reassuring smell of her skin always said to me, Wake up, get out of bed, come on . . . But my hand felt nothing, only the white cotton cover between my fingers. I pulled it toward me. I turned over, with my eyes wide open. I propped myself on my elbows and tried calling out, Mother. But she didn’t reply and no one replied in her place. She wasn’t on the mattress, she wasn’t in the room where we had slept, which was still warm with bodies tossing and turning in the half-light, she wasn’t in the doorway, she wasn’t at the window looking out at the street filled with cars and carts and bikes, she wasn’t next to the water jars or in the smokers’ corner talking to someone, as she had often been during those three days.

From outside came the din of Quetta, which is much, much noisier than my little village in Ghazni, that strip of land, houses and streams that I come from, the most beautiful place in the world (and I’m not just boasting, it’s true).

Little or big.

It didn’t occur to me that the reason for all that din might be because we were in a big city. I thought it was just one of the normal differences between countries, like different ways of seasoning meat. I thought the sound of Pakistan was simply different from the sound of Afghanistan, and that every country had its own sound, which depended on a whole lot of things, like what people ate and how they moved around.

Mother, I called.

No answer. So I got out from under the covers, put my shoes on, rubbed my eyes and went to find the owner of the place to ask if he’d seen her, because three days earlier, as soon as we arrived, he’d told us that no one went in or out without him noticing, which seemed odd to me, since I assumed that even he needed to sleep from time to time.

The sun cut the entrance of the samavat Qgazi in two. Samavat means “hotel.” In that part of the world, they actually call those places hotels, but they’re nothing like what you think of as a hotel, Fabio. The samavat Qgazi wasn’t so much a hotel as a warehouse for bodies and souls, a kind of left-luggage office you cram into and then wait to be packed up and sent off to Iran or Afghanistan or wherever, a place to make contact with people traffickers.

We had been in the samavat for three days, never going out, me playing among the cushions, Mother talking to groups of women with children, some with whole families, people she seemed to trust.

I remember that, all the time we were in Quetta, my mother kept her face and body bundled up inside a burqa. In our house in Nava, with my aunt or with her friends, she never wore a burqa. I didn’t even know she had one. The first time I saw her put it on, at the border, I asked her why and she said with a smile, It’s a game, Enaiat, come inside. She lifted a flap of the garment, and I slipped between her legs and under the blue fabric. It was like diving into a swimming pool, and I held my breath, even though I wasn’t swimming.

Covering my eyes with my hand because of the light, I walked up to the owner, kaka Rahim, and apologized for bothering him. I asked about my mother, if by any chance he’d seen her go out, because nobody went in or out without him noticing, right?

Kaka Rahim was smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper written in English, some of it in red, some in black, without pictures. He had long lashes and his cheeks were covered with a fine down like those furry peaches you sometimes get, and next to the newspaper, on the table at the entrance, was a plate containing a pile of apricot stones, along with three succulent-looking, orange-colored fruits, still uneaten, and a handful of mulberries.

There’s a lot of fruit in Quetta, Mother had told me. She had said it to entice me, because I love fruit. In Pashtun, Quetta means “fortified trading center” or something like that, a place where goods are exchanged: objects, lives. Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan: the fruit garden of Pakistan.

Without turning around, kaka Rahim blew smoke into the sun. Yes, he replied, I saw her.

I smiled. Where did she go, kaka Rahim? Can you tell me?

Away.

Away where?

Away.

When will she be back?

She’s not coming back.

She’s not coming back?

No.

What do you mean? Kaka Rahim, what do you mean, she’s not coming back?

She’s not coming back.

At that point I ran out of questions. There must have been others I could have asked, but I didn’t know what they were. I stood there in silence looking at the down on kaka Rahim’s cheeks, but without really seeing it.

It was kaka Rahim who spoke next. She told me to tell you something, he said.

What?

Khoda negahdar.

Is that all?

No, there was something else.

What, kaka Rahim?

She said not to do the three things she told you not to do.

"Inspiring"
--O Magazine

" This gripping, strangely sweet tale....captures the young man’s open-hearted tone just right.....Reading of Akbari’s efforts to find a better life — alone and at an age when children in our country can’t even drive yet — will leave you shaken, but his resilient joy leavens the story even when he’s toiling for 90 hours a week at dangerous work in a locked warehouse, crossing the snow-covered mountains from Iran to Turkey on foot, or hiding in the false bottom of a truck “like grains of rice squeezed in someone’s hand.” The lovely rapport between Akbari and Geda comes across now and then when the journalist interrupts to prod him for more detail, gently reminding him just how extraordinary his experience is."
--The Washington Post    

"Reminds us that Afghanistan’s current woes did not begin with the American invasion of 2001....And so it goes on, almost unimaginable horrors related with a lack of sentiment and bombast....[a] remarkable story"--
The Financial Times

"Geda does a wonderful job of creating a voice for Enaiatollah that matures subtly, becoming sharper with every mishap but never losing the ability to make the best of a situation....for all the hardship, In The Sea is full of wit and the book is really about determination...moving"
--The Guardian

"An intriguing story.....[and] understated sense of humor, even when he recalls horrible scenes....quite dramatic"
--Boston Globe


"In Geda's hands Enaiatollah's story is a riveting and fast read, one that dips into emotional and physical violence but surfaces in a splash of redemption and humanity and hope. Adult readers will be gripped by the tale, as will young adult readers."
--Denver Post

"Remarkable....exquisitely rendered and completely free from pride or self-pity. This book will break your heart at the same time that it is lifting your spirit and opening your understanding to a very different kind of life in our very same world."
--Daily Herald

"More than stand up as a page-turner that makes you care about its hero from the outset and willingly accompany him on his often perilous journey from Afghanistan to Italy. That it is based on reality makes it more than just a compelling adventure story. For here is a frank, revealing and clear-eyed testament of the experiences faced by a young asylum-seeker in the contemporary world.....Salutary and humane, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, as its international bestseller status indicates, deserves to be read widely by young and older readers alike."
--The Guardian

"As the reader, you have to wonder what you were doing circa 2005, while Enaiat was traversing the mountains of Turkey. Geda's frank, unembellished prose captures the voice of a brave boy who never loses hope - and who is lucky to be alive to tell his story."
--The National

"Fabio Geda has done a fine job bringing Enaiat alive without resorting to novelists' tricks.....Fast read. It presents a contemporary look at a world that Americans have become increasingly a part of and from the point of view of persons who usually have no voice. That world is presented so convincingly"
--The Washington Independent

"Chilling....beautiful....heart-warming"
--The Times UK

"‘Geda’s voice combines the plucky survivor’s determination of his charge with moments of pathos – soaked poignancy and others of joyful laughter...It’s sobering and heart lifting to see the stoical determination and achievement of someone who makes our world look like paradise. This little gem, beautifully and unobtrusively translated, will raise tears of sorrow and joy."
--The Independent

"Beautifully told....will inform and inspire"
--The Guardian

"A small book wiht a big story to tell....compelling narrative that maintains the youthful voice of this remarkable boy.....undeniably eye-opening....What makes In the Sea There Are Crocodiles so persuasive is the boy's voice, beautifully captured by Geda."
--Book Page

"A compelling and intimate story....truly incredible....Fabio Geda retells Enaiatollah's story with warmth and compassion, interacting with him in a gentle and intimate manner which brings depth to the story. Although written as a fictional piece the story is recreated from Enaiatollah's memory.  With its simplistic style, the reader is drawn into the world of the child: his thought processes and his perceptions. The story spans five years, Enaiatollah is only fifteen when he arrives in Italy and realizes that this is the place he wants to call home."
--Read Plus 


"A remarkable, heart-warming story of courage and endurance in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles... truly inspirational"
--The Irish Examiner

The core of the story is Enaiat's indomitable will to succeed....revealing....hair-raising....unforgettable....In the Sea There Are Crocodiles is an eye-opening account of human endurance, of overcoming the most difficult obstacles—all for freedom and a better life."
--The Counter Punch

"[A]n authentic, open and marvelous voice of youthful exuberance."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Lyric...the book reads like a conversation...both affecting and unaffected, powerfully delivers one child's story of survival while bringing us close to the horrors....Another Kite Runner? It's certainly a lovely read."
--Library Journal

"[T]here's no shortage of heart-breaking trials to be faced....Enaiat's daring adventure is ideally suited for young adults, but older readers will find in it a deeper layer of investigation of the humanity of strangers and the power of family. If Enaiat's memory eventually seems muddled and fragmented, so that the book must be called fiction, the truth of his experience remains."
--Booklist

"Fabio, the writer to whome he [Enaiatollah Akbari] tells his narrative, has a poetic turn of phrase, but lets events speak for themselves. The result is a moving and eye-opening chronicle of hardships no child should have to endure, mitigated by intermittent kindnesses."
--The Sunday Times (UK)

"The prose is straightforward, engaging, and at times almost conversational. Teens will marvel at Akbari’s courage and resilience"--School Library Journal

"Every so often a book comes along that is an absolute gift to the world. This is one such book."
 –Laura Fitzgerald, author of Dreaming in English and Veil of Roses

 "The personal stories of refugees and their life-or-death battles are usually lost in between the lines of news reports. In direct and undecorated prose, Fabio Geda beautifully delivers the human experience of Enaiatollah, a ten-year-old Afghani boy, whose will for survival is more than remarkable. In the Sea there Are Crocodiles will make you laugh and cry, and it will also make you a better person. Everyone should read this book."
--Marina Nemat, winner of the inaugural Human Dignity Award and author of Prisoner of Tehran