Wahda was a small village, very small. Closer, in fact, to a hamlet. When one of Wahda’s prodigal sons returned from a lengthy sojourn in Italy—Hagg Ashraf’s son, Salem, carried home on the waves, having swallowed half the Mediterranean and sickened on its burning salt—it wasn’t long before he was dazzling any friends and neighbors he could find with his tales of far-off lands: countries where there is no oppression, no hunger, no bribery, no officers to humiliate you or smack the back of your neck or lock you up on a whim. All that they’d heard before, of course, in similar tales from overseas. What truly dazzled them, what got them dreaming, was that Salem was now an organizer of the fabled trans-oceanic trips. At last, the village had its own accredited representative to charm them out of the genie’s lamp of woe and starvation in which they lay slumped; a key to free them from their timeless poverty. Now, they could send their children abroad—could even join them there, if they wanted. In fact, parents were shouldering their own offspring aside in their haste to get to Salem, bargaining and swearing oaths of kinship and friendship in pursuit of a discount. Then they began to compete, brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, calling in loans and arguing over who would travel this trip and who the next. Then Salem came to them with an extraordinary offer.

He told them that he could offer a significant discount on his rate, putting the trip within reach of anyone who wished to go, but on the condition they provide him with four hundred committed travelers, all to be conveyed in a single boat (whose owners he described as “new to the trade”). He wouldn’t be forced to rent any more boats from the big-time smugglers, and a reduced rate could be had.

Did Salem mean what happened to happen from the outset, or was he simply trying to get as many on board as he could? Hard to say, but there were hasty, whispered consultations, an exchange of knowing glances, one last check with a young man’s legal guardian, and Wahda came to its decision: They’d all go together; the whole village.

Parents and children, grandfathers and grandmothers, men and women and suckling babes; all of them would leave. “In a little place like Wahda…” they said, “In a tiny little place like Wahda, just forty-two households all told, which is to say…” (everyone fell silent, computing hard) “…four hundred and sixteen souls, we can’t leave some behind while the rest sail away. We’ll travel as one.”