Hope And Other Dangerous Pursuits

“Fourteen kilometers. Murad has pondered that number hundreds of times in the last year, trying to decide if the risk was worth it. Some days he told himself that the distance was nothing, a brief inconvenience, that the crossing would take as little as thirty minutes if the weather was good. He spent hours thinking about what he would do once he was on the other side, imagining the job, the car, the house. Other days he could only think about the coast guards, the ice-cold water, the money he’d have to borrow, and he wondered how fourteen kilometers could separate not just two countries but two universes.”

Although Murad and the rest of the characters only live 14 kilometers (less than 9 miles) from Spain, the distance seems insurmountable. Indeed, it is almost as though these characters live in a world completely separate from their fantasies of Spain. This demonstrates the real-life implications that national borders have on individuals, who are made to feel as though opportunity itself is unattainable. This opportunity is conflated with the distance as well as money, demonstrating just how hopeless these characters’ situations seem. Murad also repeats the distance, almost as though he is praying or at the very least obsessing about it. It seems so small—something that would take merely 30 minutes to cross—and yet presents such great risks, including death.

“He’ll work the fields like everyone else, but he’ll look for something better. He isn’t like the others—he has a plan. He doesn’t want to break his back for the spagnol, spend the rest of his life picking their oranges and tomatoes. He’ll find a real job, where he can use his training. He has a degree in English, and, in addition, he speaks Spanish fluently, unlike some of the harraga.”

Even though Murad is in a similar situation to the other characters, he feels as though he is different. This individualism is at odds with the situation at hand, namely the reality in which he is perceived by the Spanish Guardia Civil as interchangeable with the other immigrants. This creates dissonance between his self-perception and other people’s perception of him in which he can see things that others cannot, for example, his education. To the Guardia Civil, he is just another unemployed immigrant who they are tasked with returning to Morocco, but Murad knows that he has something to offer: his education and ability to speak multiple languages.