They arrived after midnight, the sky blue-black, air salty and suspicious. Theirs wasn't the only skiff pulling up against the rocks of the Málaga harbor. It was 80 kilometers from Ceuta to that southernmost tip of Spain, each meter tracing Kofi backward in time. He remembered his mother's market stall, passing hands through her bright cloth, running the sun up with his brother Mustafa.

 

When Mustafa lost his university scholarship, the only way out of their village was a trip ‘al norte' to an unknown land. A foot on Spanish soil meant entrance to Europe and the world beyond. 

 

They bumped across the white-capped passage to Málaga. Just getting the skiff was a victory—escaping La Policía Local in Ceuta, climbing treacherous border walls, sleeping under benches by day so they could brave the sea at night.

 

When at last he spotted the green-white lights of the Málaga harbor, Kofi did not feel relief, but an itchy, uncomfortable anxiety. The transparent heat made fog impossible. The blinking fires of chiringuitos, upturned boats converted into barbecues, reflected off the water. Though only 18 months older, Mustafa loved to act as the man of the family. The July night made him a shadow, the baby fat of his cheeks disappearing into hollows on either side of that patrician nose.

 

Their pilot, a Greek who transferred travelers between ports, was Mustafa's age, 26, though sun and salt had aged his skin 20 years. Nikolai had raised an eyebrow when Kofi mentioned family expecting them ashore.

 

"Moros no hay," he said, though Kofi and Mustafa were Ghanaian, not Moroccan. Besides, a community of North and West Africans awaited them in Spain.

But money was money. When Nikolai spotted Mustafa's wad of Euros, he said, "¿Cuándo?"

 

Kofi knew how to swim; he'd been on his uncle's fishing boat in Accra. But that was the frothy red Atlantic, nothing like this churning channel. He wasn't prepared for seasickness, the slap of waves drenching him within an hour.

 

The sky felt so unbelievably far, the promise of galaxies no less attainable than a European passport. Kofi's stomach sensed the disconnect before the boat bumped to shore. The air was thick with the sour smell of rotting fish or raw earth, only dirtier, seedier, more macabre. They felt it before they saw it. With a sickening smack, the skiff thudded against the cold flesh of something or someone no longer alive.

 

There was a cracking, not of ribs, not of bones, but of wood. Before he could stop the peristaltic shiver, Kofi heaved what little food they'd had overboard—saltines, dried meat, a package of dates. 

 

"¡Muévete!" Nikolai plunged an oar into the stinking depth. Something lay belly up. Kofi imagined a fellow traveler escaping the desert. When Nikolai turned the body over, the waterlogged carcass of a dead monk seal swayed in the waves, flippers splayed haphazardly, mermaid-like tail limp and lifeless.

 

"¿Qué coño haces?" Nikolai shoved the brothers and the boat to shore. "Estamos aquí."

 

Was the seal an omen? Was the beauty of the coast a veneer for the cruelty that lay beneath?

 

Mustafa readied the boat as they disembarked. "We're here, brother," he said. "We're in Europe."