I have a question- do I want to go with him? When I was thinking about making the film I realised that if I could make the trip with someone, if I could film from the boat crossing the Straits with Moroccans on board waiting to get to Europe, I would have something precious. I would have something exciting and revealing. People told me this would really make the film original. But I still wonder if I could make the crossing with him, do I want to know what it's like to hide in a ship waiting to escape at Spain? The ship could sink. We could suffocate. I know I would have to decide now if I really wanted to do it. I would have to contact Hakim and tell him I'll pay the money, I'll be another customer to cross with the others.

I can think of many excuses not to do it: "I don't have the money," but I know I do. "I don't have the time," but the truth is I have all the time I need. "It's too dangerous," now this one I can't argue with. This is drilling its way into me. I'm constantly imagining what it would be like, both for me and for the film. Abdullah tries to talk casually to me, but I've disappeared and I'm on the ship looking around in the dark, filming the other passengers, trying to relate the tension and anticipation with images. I wonder how far I need to go to tell this story. At this point, I still don't know the gravity of it, I may be making naive choices all along.

I'm disappointing myself already, and I haven't even made up my mind yet. I've been told Abdullah might board the ship around the second week of February. But I don't have that time to decide. If I want to cross with them, I need to tell Hakim now, I need to reserve my place.

I know this already: I won't go. There are reasons other than my own fear, but my fear may easily have just invented the other reasons. I think the idea to cross with the Moroccans is a fantastic one, but I think it might endanger them. I know, no matter what happens, I can walk away from the project. If I change my mind in the end. If I feel it's too dangerous. If we get caught, I have my defence, and my British Passport. No one else has that choice.

If I disappear before we board the boat, if I change my mind early, everyone else is left helpless. Hakim won't take the risk unless the boat is full, unless everyone's paid. Then there's a question of what I take with me. There's no point crossing with Abdullah if I can't film it. That whole process risks uncovering the operation, in which case, once again, I could eventually walk away leaving them in prison. This is unthinkable to me, the idea of using nine other people far more desperate than I for the purpose of the film.

Or it might just be my own fear holding me back.

Then a more serious question comes up. I'm not surprised when I hear it. Abdullah wants me to pay him something, to help him raise the money. I could. I've told him this already. I have some money, but I'm worried about what this would mean for the film. I can't explain this to him, not after our conversation about "what's more important, that film or me?" The answer is still "his life," but the idea of paying him some of the money might seriously jeapordizes the integrity of the film. Objectivity? I don't think it's been objective for a few days now. I know my sympathy is with Abdullah and people in his situation. This colours the film, and I can't change that; I don't want to change that. But it still has the shell of journalism. And for me to pay Abdullah would mean I was no longer simply recording his life, I was making something happen, and I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable every time he asks me for my opinion, he asks me what he should do. I've been very careful not to influence him at all, to remain so insipid that he's commented many times "You don't know anything! You can't make any decisions!" I've been staunchly vague, and I've told him that I can't answer these questions specifically because I don't want to change any of his experiences.

Times like these make me want to leave. I think it would be so easy for me to leave it all behind and go back to drinking beer and watching television in my hotel room in Casablanca, occupying my mind with simple choices. I want to leave because it's getting difficult. This disappoints me. It's all a mystery, and having so little control over my experiences is difficult for me. I can't explain myself, I can't defend myself, I can't tell Abdullah what I really think or disagree when I think he's making a bad decision. I want to be invisible but keep filming. I want him to forget about me, and I tell him this, but he says it's impossible. We're brothers now, remember? We're in this together.

He wants too much from me. Yes, I care about his life and his safety more than the film, but I don't know him. He says he feels we're far apart. "We are," I tell him, "we hardly know each other. We've only just met." We can't be brothers, because this film is also my work. He wants to tell me about religion- not to discuss it, but to ask once again how I can live without it. I'm not afraid of God, I tell him, and he laughs condescendingly at this. I tell him if God exists, he would want me to love him, not fear him. But Abdullah can't understand a life without pervasive Islam, so he asks me how I know what to do with my life, where to stop, how I can know what choices to make, how I can be a good person. Without Islam, he says, we would live our lives doing evil, vapid things with nothing to stop us. He doesn't accept the idea of secular morality. I don't have Islam, I tell him, but I live my life by the morals I choose, by the values I think will make me a good person.

"We are free to choose," but he doesn't like that idea.

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