Living Under the Roses

Chapter 7

The sky is starting to turn orange and night is drawing in. They know how to swim, but there is no coastline on the horizon. Giovanni is exhausted after holding the sailboat. He says to Adèle: Adèle, I don't have the strength any more... Adèle sees him, takes his arm, puts it on her shoulder and says: "You've done a lot, my Gio, don't worry, I'm here ! Giovanni replies: 'Thank you, Adèle, you're the best" He kisses her on the cheek. Adèle turns red and smiles nervously. Suddenly, he sees a ship getting closer and closer. They shout: "Help! Help!" One of the ship's sailors notices them and tells the admiral to lower a lifeboat. Giovanni and Adèle were relieved; they swam towards the lifeboat and climbed aboard. The boat rises slowly. With the help of a young woman, they finally leave the lifeboat and reach the ship. On the ship, he observes what he thinks are migrants, some sitting on the ground, looking at the ground, others standing and looking at the horizon, hoping.Giovanni sits down suddenly exhausted. He notices his hair smelling of sea water. He's not happy about it, but he reminds himself that it's not that important, given the situation. The young woman begins a discussion with Adèle.

Young woman: Hey, are you speaking English?

Giovanni: Yes

Young Woman: Okay, so what happened, who are you ?

Adèle: Im Adèle Ghazali and he is Giovanni Lagreca, we are Italian, we were persecuted by the italian government, we found an issue by the sea, on a sailboat we took illegally, but a squall capsized it.

Young woman: I understand this has been a difficult experience for you both. You're safe here now. I forgot to mention you, you are in a humanitarian boat, my name is Tanya, I work here, we are the SAF3, a non governmental organization located in Germany for helping migrants to come to Europe. Tell me more details about the persecution.

Adèle: Nice to meet you Tanya, thanks for saving us ! About our story : We were secondary school teachers, and we were fired from a school for propaganda, even though we hadn't done any propaganda. The government gave us a second chance, and we were integrated into another lycée. We thought it was totally unfair to be in a school where we were not allowed to go. We were deeply against Imparato's regime, I took part in demonstrations against the new surveillance laws and Giovanni put in his place students who made racist comments. Shortly afterwards, government officers arrested us and tried to shoot us. We managed to escape the shooting, but we were caught in a vice at the port of Rome. Giovanni had the idea of taking a sailing boat so that we could get away by sea.

Tanya: Okay, so you took the boat to survive, there was no other way...

Adèle : Exactly

Tanya: Given the information you've given us, you'll normally be eligible for political refugee status. You need to go to a European country to start the procedure. At the moment we're heading for Germany, but if you want you can start the procedure there, but there are other countries too...

Adèle: OK, thank you for letting us know.

Tanya: No problem, it's my job. If you have any questions, I'm here !

The young woman with the brown hair smiles tenderly at Adèle. Giovanni raises his head, thinking about their future. She says to Giovanni: "Where are you going, Gio ?" Giovanni replies: "Where you're going, I mean, uh, what I'm saying, I'm sorry, I meant to say". Adèle blushes and nervously says "What do you mean, where I'm going ?" Giovanni: "Yeah, that was very badly said on my part, in fact I wanted to, er" Giovanni gets stressed and loses his words. Adèle blushes more and more. The man with the long black hair takes a deep breath and calms down. He said softly, "I know this isn't the sexiest place in the world to say this, but... I love you! I want to live with you if you want me to, of course" Adèle is moved and takes him in her arms. She says softly to Giovanni, "Of course I want to live with you! The two embrace tenderly

3 hours later, Giovanni knows how to fall asleep on a mattress. As for Adèle, she was given access to a telephone to contact her family.