The Passion To Survive

Part 22

"You guys can come."Ethan smiles. "It's a group of loud French tourists. Loud but harmless."

Jonathan tightens his hand around mine. "This is so great Eva," he says with a huge smile.

Ethan takes Lily from Jonathan and we walk silently hand in hand behind him. The closer we get, the stronger the light from the campfire becomes.

Ethan stops and we stop right behind him. I look over, curious. A group of young men and women are standing around the campfire, dressed in short, summer clothes.

We don't move and they, too, stand guarded. They look us up and down in silence until one gorgeous blond breaks the stillness. "Bonsoir," she says loudly and walks over to us. "It's so exciting to see you." She hugs me and Jonathan, kissing us both on each cheek.

"He appears out of nowhere, almost giving us heart attacks. He looked at us and, said in English, that he will be right back," she says in a thick French accent, pointing to Ethan. "It's a good thing that we speak English," she laughs. "We were waiting nervously for a few minutes, then suddenly you appear like angels. Where are you from? What happened to you? What are you doing here?"

She is asking so many questions, it is making me feel exhausted. All the excitement and tension are making me dizzy.

"Claudine, let them rest a little and then you can attack them with all of your questions," says one of the guys who joins her, scrutinizing us.

"Yes," says Ethan. "We're going to build a little campfire a little further away from the noise so that Lily can sleep and then we'll join you."

Gradually they all gather around us. There are a total of three guys and four girls, all in their twenties. They are all smiles and so vibrant that they make me feel old. Jonathan and I still haven't said a word, as they continue to gape at us.

"Let's go settle over there," Ethan says. He points towards a spot that is a few yards away. We walk over there and the group keeps staring at us. Ethan and Jonathan gather some firewood, using one of the burning logs from their campfire to light ours. I spread out the blanket; I place Lily on top of it and lie down beside her.

"Eva, you waited so desperately for this, why aren't you going to sit with them for a little while?" Ethan asks surprisingly.

"I'm too drained. All I want to do is go to sleep." I inch closer to Lily and feel him covering us with the blanket. Jonathan and Ethan join the other campfire and the loud voices slowly start to sound muffled, and I fall asleep.

***

"So where are you from? What happened to you?" Claudine asks inquisitively.

"You'll have to forgive her. She doesn't know when to stop."

"Oh, stop it Jean. You are just as curious as I am."

"Sure, curious, but let them breathe first."

"Okay, did you breathe enough? Can I ask you some questions?"

Jonathan is silent and looks over at Ethan. Ethan sums up their experience in a few sentences. "We were in Tenerife when a big tsunami wiped out almost everyone on the island. Since we were scuba diving when it happened, we survived. After we saw the pamphlets, we decided to make our way to London and so here we are."

Claudine opens her eyes widely. "A tsunami? Oh merde. Such terrible luck you had. A few of us from Marseille organized a trip to Morocco. We were staying at a gorgeous hotel on the beach of Agadir. We went for an afternoon swim and all of a sudden, we saw the earth swallow up all the hotels, all the beach huts and all the people that were on the beach. It was unbelievable. The ocean was vibrating and we were screaming. We started swimming deeper into the ocean because we were afraid that it would reach us. After an hour, it suddenly became quiet. We came out of the water and it took us several hours to recover and compose ourselves." Claudine pauses sadly and Jean adds, "We lost some very good friends on that beach." Everyone is silent now.