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  When we finally got to the safety of my uncle’s apartment, it took a long time for me to stop shaking. Aunt Ateka called Mother to let her know I was there safely and nudged a bowl of my favourite green Jell-O in my direction. I could barely swallow it down. We spent the rest of the evening glued to the TV set, trying to learn what had happened. No one had been killed in the attack and there were only minor injuries. Still, the violence against Zawiya mosque solidified the resistance that had been bubbling in Homs. Many people swore they saw Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers firing on the mosque full of people praying, a sacred space where faces, hands, feet, and souls were cleaned before being presented to Allah. The boldness of the attack angered many people and the previously quiet grumbles grew into the Arab Spring’s rallying cry: “We want change!”

  It took me weeks to step back into a mosque. My family tried to reassure me. They started going to a different mosque, Bilal al Habchi, and would return after Friday services saying, “See? No problem, Bakr!” But I was still rattled. If I had followed my instincts to run, it could have been me lying crumpled up in the street. What could I trust if not my instincts?

  Father sat me down many times and told me that I couldn’t let fear rule my life. “Life must always go on, Bakr. Death doesn’t matter. Money doesn’t matter. Even life itself doesn’t matter, son. What matters is living your life with your family, with the people you love. We love each other, hard, and hold on tight. What we face, we face together. Together, we move forward and every little happiness we can have, we enjoy. We cannot let hatred and fear stop us from living.”

  I couldn’t see Father’s logic. Why wouldn’t death matter? I didn’t want to die. I was only ten years old. I didn’t want anyone in my family to die. Death was terrifying in how random it could be. Once, a man came into our bakery and bought some bread. He went across the street to eat it in the park and was killed by a stray bullet. Finished. Death followed us into our everyday spaces, our safe spaces, and our sacred spaces. I didn’t want to miss mosque, but still, I couldn’t bring myself to go. In the end, Father let me take my own time.

  But the shooting at the mosque had other consequences for my family. Father came back from a visit to the consulate office one evening with crushing news. Although we were now officially assigned a case number with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, all applications were suspended temporarily. In the weeks that followed, there were reports of more attacks all over Syria, and the evening news was flooded with reports that country after country was issuing voluntary evacuations of its citizens and embassy personnel in Damascus. My dreams of living in Madrid and watching Ronaldo play faded.

  5

  APRIL TO JUNE 2011

  Strange Lullaby

  After what happened at Zawiya mosque, everyone in my family was tentative. More and more often, Mother, Alush, and even my sisters prayed at home. Father constantly had his ear attuned to snippets of gossip and news. As the violence seeped throughout Homs, we watched the news intently, searching for names of familiar places or people, holding our breath whenever we recognized a neighbourhood or street on the TV. Military checkpoints and concrete roadblocks cluttered our main streets, and Father forbade us to leave home without identification documents. He even imposed a curfew: we all had to be home by maghrib, the prayer after the sun went down.

  My mind quickly filled with the side streets and shortcuts of our neighbourhood, like the mini tactical maps in the corner of the screen in Counter-Strike. I knew the quickest ways and the quietest ways past the men with the guns to and from school, the bakery, my cousins’ houses, the parks, the arcade, and the grocery store. You didn’t have just one alternate route, you had many. My older cousins taught me to stash my beaten-up, black backpack so I could run away unimpeded by the bulkiness. Once the coast was clear, I would go back for it.

  There were many whispers of neighbours and friends being interrogated by the police. People would disappear for days, only to turn up in a jail somewhere bloodied and bruised. You had to be so careful of what you said. We were afraid of saying anything in public that could be interpreted as anti-government so we started talking in code. Rather than bombs, we called them flowers. Did you see the flower in the old office building down the street? Did you hear all the flowers last night?

  In even lower voices, we spoke of the shabiha — “ghosts” or “shadows” — a truly terrifying presence that haunted us. They weren’t really ghosts, of course, just what everyone on the streets called Assad’s gangs of tattooed pit bulls, pumped up on steroids and power. They weren’t part of any official army but they carried big guns that were just as intimidating. Our Facebook feeds were filled with pictures of these preening thugs with their crew cuts, thick beards, and flexed biceps. If you saw one of them, it was best to silently duck into a store or alley, to become invisible.

  Of course, Syrians started to push back. There were peaceful protests, mostly university students calling for national unity and true democracy. Because Syriatel — the main phone and internet company — was owned by one of Assad’s rich cousins, texting out locations of rallies or using social media was out of the question. Despite that, word of planned gatherings spread rapidly. Once, in the hilly streets of Damascus, a group of anti-government protesters released thousands of ping-pong balls with the word “freedom” written on them. Assad’s soldiers spent days chasing after those little bouncing balls.

  The armed rebels came later. And not just one group, but many factions vying to defeat one another. Each group had its own agenda, whether political or religious. Some were progressive, secular, and democratic. Others were conservative, religious, or worse, extremist. Everyone was against the blatant cronyism and corruption of Assad’s dictatorship. Regardless of who they were or what they wanted, Assad cracked down on them all without restraint.

  Once, I watched a news report on a rally at Homs University. The university was in our neighbourhood and most of its students went to the mosques in our area, so I was curious to see if I recognized any of the protestors. One young woman with angry tears in her eyes kept asking, “What kind of Arabs are they? We are all Muslim brothers and sisters, so why the violence? What kind of Arabs are they?” That question echoed in my brain for a long time.

  After a whole month of teasing from my family about being afraid to go to mosque, I gave in. I realized that Father was right, that while any gathering place held potential danger, we had to continue living. But when I told him I was returning, Father changed his mind. After all his efforts to convince me to return to mosque, now he was asking me to keep away for a few more weeks. Assad’s police had recently been to Bilal mosque looking for a suspected rebel.

  I had every intent of obeying, but when Friday arrived, Ali, Yousef, and Aziz showed up to take me to service. Father was not there to say no, and I hated being left out. So I tagged along.

  When we got to the mosque and removed our shoes, I relaxed. I held peace and safety in my heart, setting my intentions for worship. Together, my cousins and I performed wudu, the ritual cleansing in preparation for prayer. I relished the feel of the cool water as I carefully washed my hands, mouth, nostrils, face, head, and feet. Most people were quiet as they entered the sparse, carpeted sanctuary, but here and there were low murmurs of greetings and gossip. My cousins and I joined the rows of men that were forming and soon we all basked in our familiar rituals of prayer and worship. Out of nowhere, the imam’s sermon was interrupted by gunshots. Panic rose in my mouth. The entire congregation rose to its feet and chaos broke out. Frightened cries, shouted instructions, and a frenzied stampede for the stairs and doors. Somewhere outside, hidden from view, someone was firing at our mosque.

  My mind blurred and I followed the mass of people stumbling towards the stairs. “My shoes! Where, where are my shoes?” I didn’t think about my cousins at all. I thought only about my shoes and myself.

  At the top of the stairs a big, bloated man pushed past me. He stomped down
hard on my right foot and I pitched forward in pain. People surged around me and I grasped the handrail, gathering into the smallest ball possible and pressing myself against the wall. Feet thundered by, carrying a furious swirl of white tunics, flowing black skirts, and hitched-up trousers. I squeezed my eyes shut and longed for home. Why didn’t I listen to Father? I held my breath and waited, my foot throbbing and refusing to run. Fear made my throat dry up. I had no idea what would happen to me.

  Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted. A complete stranger cradled me tight as he carried me down the stairs but not once did he look down at me. I only remember his short-sleeved shirt with little buttons where I pressed my face against his chest. His shirt was grey-blue, like a calm, deep lake. He headed straight for the front entrance, which came bobbing into our view. Never mind shoes, we were both outside the mosque, and we joined the congregation huddling under the trees in the tiny park across the street. He finally looked at me as he carefully deposited me on the ground. His kind eyes crinkled with a quick “Are you okay?” but he didn’t wait for an answer before he ran off, probably in search of his family.

  Unsure of what to do, I shifted uncomfortably in my bare feet on the gravel as the congregants gathered in the park. People muttered indignantly. Some squinted at the buildings opposite the mosque, straining to see any signs of the shooter. Furious Allah akbars rang out. At Zawiya mosque, everyone had been so calm and insistent on holding the sanctity of our prayers. Now, after only a month of pockets of violence, we had dissolved into panicked masses. It had been possible after Zawiya to think it was a random, one-off incident, but now we felt targeted. The minutes crawled by but no more shots were fired, so the crowd slowly dispersed. Families found each other and scurried home. As the knot of fear eased, my right foot cried out for attention. But even the sharp pain couldn’t distract me from my search for Ali, Yousef, and Aziz. I limped, barefoot, through the groups of people, then heard jubilant shouts of my name and saw them galloping towards me.

  My cousins circled me and Aziz ruffled my hair. “Hey! What did you do, trip?” He slapped my shoulder with my dusty sandals.

  “Did not!” I sniffed as I slipped into my sandals and told them what had happened.

  We ambled in the direction of Uncle Mohammed’s apartment and Aziz’s phone rang. It was Uncle Mohammed, telling us to pick up some fruit and drinks. Yousef and Aziz looked at each other, then down at my foot.

  “Bakr, are you going to be okay walking back to our place?” My older cousins scanned me carefully. I could tell they didn’t really want to leave me.

  “Sure, sure. No problem.” I nodded, maybe a little hesitantly.

  “I’ll stay with him,” Ali chimed in.

  “Aiwa, go. We’ll be fine.” This time I was much more certain. Yousef hopped onto his green bike, while Aziz balanced on the back chain stay. They disappeared down the lane.

  Ali and I continued down the sidewalk when he suddenly gave an excited little yelp and knelt down.

  “Look, Bakr!” He scrunched up in a little ball over his knees, peering intently into the gutter. “It’s beautiful!” He picked something up and cradled it in his palm. “Cool! I’ve never seen one in real life before!”

  I hobbled over and in his hand was a small bullet casing. It was brass and had a dull gleam to it. The bottom was bright, cherry red. “Whoa!” I breathed. It was beautiful. “Let me see!” I reached for it and Ali twisted away, running down the street.

  “It’s mine! Find your own!” Ali was only a few months older and we were always fighting over things.

  “I’m not going to take it, you idiot!” I chased after him, everything forgotten. He stopped abruptly and knelt down again.

  “Look! More!” he shouted. I caught up to him and he was right, three more casings. We looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching: people bustled by but no one seemed to notice us. Would we get in trouble for taking these? We grabbed at them anyway and I managed to get one before Ali scooped them all up. It was cold and hard. I pocketed the casing and looked at Ali excitedly.

  “I bet we can find lots more! You know where we could go?”

  “Back to Bilal?” His eyebrows jumped with mischief.

  “Yeah!”

  We scrambled back down the street towards the mosque, our eyes glued to the ground.

  “Oh! Found one!” I cried triumphantly. As we wove between people, they looked at us curiously, kids picking up bullet casings. By the time we got back to the park in front of Bilal mosque, I had a small handful. Ali rustled around in some bushes.

  “There won’t be any in there, stupid!” I yelled as I reached to cuff him on the back of the head. “What are you doing?”

  He dodged me. “Hiding them, stupid!” he retorted as he emptied his pocket. A little pile of about ten casings nestled behind a bush. I opened my left palm to show Ali my collection then slowly shook them onto our little stash. Together we crouched down to examine our treasure. Ali jumped up. “Let’s go!” The game was on.

  We raced in opposite directions around the park and the mosque, scrambled down the streets, competing to see who would find more. I didn’t have pockets in my shorts, so I pulled up the bottom of my T-shirt to hold them all. The casings jingled as I ran back to our hiding place and dropped them on our little pile. Ali ran up behind me and did the same. “How many? How many did you get?”

  “Thirteen,” I declared proudly.

  “Oh. Well, I found the first four, w’Allah. So I win. Sixteen!”

  “Inchibb! Shut up! Those ones don’t count!” My phone pinged. A text from Uncle Mohammed: “Where are you? Are you OK???”

  Whoops. Ali covered up our stash with some discarded newspapers and we jogged all the way to Uncle Mohammed’s apartment. We were breathless as we bounded up the last steps. Uncle was waiting for us, unimpressed.

  “What took you so long? I was worried! I was just about to send Aziz after you two,” Uncle scolded. His forehead was all angry furrows.

  Ali stuttered guiltily, “Bakr’s foot, Uncle…he hurt it at the mosque so we were being slow. Sorry, Uncle.” I nodded vigorously and stuck out my foot, which I had forgotten about until that moment, and started telling him how I hurt it.

  Inside, while Uncle Mohammed wrapped up my bruised foot, my eyes found Ali’s over the top of Uncle’s head. We tried not to smile at the thought of our secret cache but Ali had to swallow a giggle.

  Our game lasted about three weeks. Every time I was out in the street, my eyes were trained on the ground. I collected the casings in my pockets or backpack and whenever I was by Bilal, I checked on our growing stash. Once, Ali even found not just a casing, but an actual bullet. I kept one of the casings in my pocket for a long time. Whenever I was bored or waiting for my sisters, I liked to turn it over in my fingers, the cold metal warming up in my hands. There was nothing inside but it still had the faint smell of gunpowder and metal. One day, during a lull at the bakery, Father caught me playing with it. “Bakr, what is that?”

  I hid it behind my back. “Father?”

  “What is in your hand, son?”

  There was no point in hiding it so I opened my palm and looked down at my shoes.

  Father was calm and quiet. “Bakr. Do you know what that is?” I nodded, eyes still fixed on my runners. “Why do you have this, then?”

  I stuttered, “Ali and I were collecting them. For fun. It’s not dangerous, Father.”

  He sighed. “No, son, this one is not dangerous, but do you know what this casing means? It means someone shot a gun. They shot at another person. That bullet might have hurt someone, or killed someone.”

  My eyes met his and I could tell he was upset, despite his calm tone. I had never thought of it that way.

  “Bakr, I don’t want you playing with this anymore. I don’t want any of these in our home, in the bakery. This is not who we are.”

  I nodded and dropped the casing into his open palm. I hadn’t meant to upset Father: it was only a collecti
on. I didn’t think it was fair that I was getting in trouble over garbage.

  “Bakr, I just want you to think about what those bullet casings mean.” Father was insistent and I could tell it was serious to him.

  “Okay, Father, aiwa.”

  That was the only time we talked about it. I didn’t go back to our secret stash, not so much because Father forbade it, but because it had lost its magic. There were casings all over the place — nothing new or special to them anymore — and I slowly realized what that meant. They were everywhere because we heard those guns all the time now.

  As the weeks slipped by, we heard more and more gunshots. Worse yet, there were different sounds rumbling through the nights. I remember the first night it happened. We were already in bed, around ten. I shared a room with Naser and he was snoring steadily. At first, I thought I heard the whistle of Naser’s snoring. It sounded not far and not near but just loud enough to hear it. Suddenly, there was a crash and a shudder, and I sat straight up in bed. Naser jolted awake too. He jumped out of bed, “You hear that?” his eyes wide and unbelieving. Muffled, I heard Alush crying across the hall in my parents’ room where he slept. I could hear my sisters’ panicked voices as we all snapped on the lights. Father came rushing out, pulling on his robe, only one slipper on his feet. “No! Lights off!” he barked as he rushed towards the windows facing the street.

  Naser pounced on the light switch as I sat in bed dumbly watching him. “Shh!” he hissed into all the bedrooms as he joined Father. I leaned over to see if I could look into my parents’ room where I could hear Alush whimpering softly, but it was too dark. My sisters’ bedroom door was closed.