A man and a woman, renting a sailboat to enjoy the Mediterranean Sea, that's nothing uncommon around here. I've rented one many times… or at least made the world believe that I was here to enjoy the beautiful coast.
It's even less suspicious, if you do it as a couple.
Still, I focus on all the details that could give us away: we barely have any luggage, we look suspiciously sick and slim, we just bought clothes and supplies at the shops at the marina…
Stop it. This doesn't lead anywhere. A cover can always be better, there's nothing we have to fear. It's usual that people buy supplies at the marina for their trip. There are all kinds of people round here, students, Russians, Europeans, even Asian people. We're not the weirdest ones. The wide skirt of the dress Audrey is wearing conceals the worst part – how slim she still is.

Mehmet at the 'boat rental service' eyed her suspiciously when I came to him. She was standing out on the pier with our bags, her sunglasses and a big straw hat. It didn't take me long to convince him that my cover would even be better when we're travelling as a couple.

So many couples rent boats here. Just like us.

We're sailing now. I think Audrey likes it. She's been awfully quiet ever since we left the hotel room, but now she's sitting at the bow of our boat, leaning onto the railing, her feet dangling down on both sides. They don't touch the water, the boat is much too big for that.

Mehmet gave me a Bavaria 42 this time, it's a great boat. We're gonna have enough space here. The hull is way bigger than the rooms that we've had at the convent in Almaty. Above all, we're going to be in absolute loneliness and freedom in the coming weeks, travelling from here to Venice.

The dark blue spinnaker is flying high above us. The shade under it really makes life bearable. Some other boats are out here, too, but quite far away. I can see them at the horizon, as well as the coastline. For now I want to stay a few miles away from the land. It's too straining to be always on the lookout for shoals and there are many, in this area. Out here we can go just as fast as the wind carries us.

It's good that we're out here in the deep, where the GPS shows that no shoals and islands are in our way. How many times have I ended up, just staring at Audrey's back, her hair and that straw hat? If I was steering a car instead of a boat, we'd surely have crashed by now.

After over an hour, she finally gets up, stretches her body and walks towards me, along the railing.

My eyes catch hers. Is it a smile on her face? I guess so. I hope.

She slowly balances towards me.

Yes, it definitely is a smile.

Hey. I don't know what to say because it's still so hard to talk to her. There are so many things that I want to tell her, but each and everyone of them will just make one of us freak.

Hey… you should get the spinnaker in. The crosswind's gonna make it collapse.

That was the least thing I expected. Really?

Yeah. It started fluttering a few minutes ago. She points at the top and of course she's right. I wouldn't have cared too much about it but now as she points it out…

I'm still surprised though I shouldn't be. She told me hours and hours how much she liked sailing when she was young. Heller had a sailing yacht near Washington DC.

I'll take it in… Sir.

It draws an even bigger smile off her face.

It's got a snuffer. Will you drop the line and I go take it down?

Yes, sailor, she jokes back and suddenly she's on controls, while I climb to the front of the boat and get the endless square feet of fabric down. Even though they're in a bag, it's quite a task to handle that large sail.

She's handling this as if she would have never done anything else. Within moments she calls out if I'm ready to jibe and the boom already flies to one side. Yes, it's an easy boat to handle. Still it took me a few weeks to learn how to handle it. Audrey's got it in her DNA, it seems. Well, she started doing this when she was 8, not 51. That makes a difference.

Now she's so concentrated on sailing that she doesn't even notice me staring.

I love to see this. It's the first time in weeks that she's enjoying something that she does.

Since she's not going to jibe any time soon, I climb back to the stern.

Do you wanna take the helm?, she asks.

No, I answer, smiling. It's been a long, long, long time since I've last seen her so happy.

There's a bench just a few feet behind the helm. It's time to sit down and relax. Let her do this and enjoy.

Is this the moment that I've been waiting for, for so long? The one moment that I hoped to be able to get, once we leave everything behind that we've gone through? It's just days away but it feels like it was years in the past.

Behind us, there's nothing but blue waves. Of course, somewhere this direction, there's that town in Armenia, where I got my last bruises. There's the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan, where we've spent weeks trying to recover from the worst. Everything beneath is past.

I turn back front but looking back was a mistake. Turning your head around doesn't make the memories go away.

Stop it. Your're no longer there. You got out.

Bullshit. We're on a boat that's owned by the Serbian mafia. Four hundred kilos of cocaine are here as well. The coast guard is out there. Other gangs may be out there. We're relying on Mehmet and his men. If one of them blabbed, we're an easy prey.

Still in her joyful mood, Audrey turns around asking, Will you finally tell me where we're actually headed?

I try to hide my last thoughts and put on a smile for her again. Venice. Yes, I can tell her. Why not? She deserves to know – and for once, our destination doesn't sound depressing. Almaty. Baku. Armenia. Kurdistan.
Venice really sounds like a pleasant change.

I love Venice, she smiles and turns the knob on the GPS to zoom out. Finally, she starts laughing. That's gonna take us a while, Jack.

Surprised?

She shrugs. Maybe. At least I know where we're going to spend the next two weeks.

She didn't mean to, but her words blew a sudden realization into my brain: she never knew where I was going to take her. I brought her from one mean place to another and she just had to tag along.
Even telling her wouldn't have made things better. Who'd like to be told that they were going to be taken from one dirty place to the next civil war and the next one?

All that time, she still trusted me. Without complaining. I must go easy on her and not ever blame her that she sometimes acted strange. Who wouldn't have.

Even though there's nobody in the front of the boat, she still calls out ready to jibe. Probably like I'm reading the checklist of an airplane out loud to myself, no matter if I'm the only pilot on board. It's been a while, since I last flew.

Audrey's enthusiasm is so big that it spills out and is ready to take along everyone near her.

I'll let her have her fun, even if she doesn't know that we're not yet out of the danger zone.

Would you mind if try to catch some sleep?

Go ahead, I got this.

I sigh and get up. Part of it is true, I really didn't sleep that much in the past days, there's a lot to catch up. The other part it that thinking back to where we just came from …. thinking who this boat belongs to …

The boat's better off with you, anyway, I tell her, reassuringly, as I walk past her. 15 knots … that's just crazy. Yes, I know to fake a smile, even one where she can't tell.

Go to sleep, I'll teach you tomorrow, she laughs back at me and then her full attention is already back at the upcoming jibe.

It's hot and humid inside the cabin. The 15 knots that we're going at make the boat bounce hard onto every other wave. Every few minutes the boat banks to the other side.

I can't sleep, even though I want to rest.
I don't want to fall asleep, knowing which thoughts will haunt me when I close my eyes.

It's not even the past that troubles me most. The future is not much better. I'm hooked on Audrey's joyful mood that I'm not going to destroy by telling her the dangers that we're facing right now.
Damn it.