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  Uncle eased the wooden shutters of the window shut while I closed the other set. He rushed to alert the rest of the family. “Shh…quiet, quiet, everyone…”

  Inside Yousef and Aziz’s room, I fumbled around for my cellphone. When I flipped it open, it was blank. No service. Instinctively I patted my pockets for my documents. Ya Allah. My ID. Where?

  “Yo, Bakr, what’s wrong?” Yousef peered at me, his black hair pointing in all directions.

  “My documents. Did you see them? Did you?” Father would be furious. Had I forgotten them at home? Were they in this room somewhere? Did I lose them? Without answering, Yousef started rifling through the room while Aziz went to search the apartment. I slumped onto the bed and squeezed my head between my hands.

  “Oh my God, Bakr…” Yousef breathed. This was bad. If I was stopped by a soldier and didn’t have my identification papers on me, they could assume anything about who I was or where I was from. They could hold me for as long as they wanted and my family might not even know I was taken.

  Aziz returned, head shaking. He flopped down beside me and punched me in the arm. “Stupid!”

  Yousef chortled, “Ziz, look how pale he is.” Snorts of laughter and more punches.

  “Inchibb! Shut up, shut up! I know! How do I fix this?” I pleaded.

  My cousins both shook their heads dumbly at me. Best-case scenario, the papers were at home. Worst-case scenario, I lost them on the street somewhere. I looked down at my useless phone again. The sounds of the fighting and commotion out on the street were unbearable. In raids like these, it wasn’t unusual for the army to go from home to home, looking for suspected rebels. This last week ten rebels — maybe more — had been publicly executed by the police. Beaten to death as their neighbours watched. Beaten with hammers. This was not the time to be anywhere without identification. My stomach seized with cramps.

  We snuck out into the living room to try calling on the landline. Beep, beep, beep. Busy tone. Nothing to do but wait. The day crawled by while we hung out in the back bedrooms. No matter how many times we picked up the phone, all the landlines were jammed and busy. No cell service. A quiet, cold lunch of day-old bread, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, and milk. Everyone listened for the sound of army boots on the apartment steps, but thank Allah, they never came. Finally, around seven that night, Uncle Mohammed got through to Father on the landline. Everyone was safe. Uncle called me to the phone and Father’s voice rumbled through the line.

  “Hey Bakr. Where are your documents?”

  I swallowed hard. “Father?”

  A chuckle. “Relax, my son. They’re here. Oh my God, how stupid you are! Don’t do that again.”

  “Aiwa, Father, I’m sorry.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment and relief.

  “I know,” came his reassuring voice. “Listen, there’s still a lot of shooting around here. Something must be going down in Al Shammas again. Stay at Uncle’s tonight. Play your silly video games, okay? I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  A click. My uncle smiled at me and nodded his head towards my cousins’ room. On the TV was the familiar green field and the little players sprinting back and forth. Aziz and Yousef were glued to the screen, mouths hanging a little open, elbows up and jousting each other every few moves. Ibrahim bounced on the bed, clutching a pillow and shouting commentary, instructions, and insults. I plopped happily on the bed and shoved him gently. This spurred an attack of giggles and punches, which was the best way to block out the intermittent gunshots that popped through the night.

  When most people hear massacre, they picture body bags and blood. But this was what massacres felt like for me: the tense, stale air of a bedroom with too many breathing bodies in it. Finding quiet ways to pass the frightful hours, trying your best to block the sounds from flooding your brain. I’ve seen the YouTube videos of massacres that happened while I hid in those bedrooms. The picture, grainy from someone’s camera phone, so bouncy and uneven that it almost gives you motion sickness watching it. Here a foot, there a head, blood splatter everywhere, the sounds of wailing women. Or a room where bodies were stacked, two, three high, like sacks of flour. An arm or foot sticks out. A woman’s torn hijab. Always shoeless feet. Where do all the shoes go? Images like these were beamed out into the world, the people pleading, “See? See what they’re doing?” The various rebel groups and government accusing the other of more senseless violence, completely missing the point that all this violence was senseless. The rest of us were caught helplessly between two, three, ten fighting sides.

  Massacres, to me, were the terrifying, muffled sounds outside those closed bedroom doors. But this second massacre was different. The following morning, I met my uncle in front of the shuttered living room window.

  “Uncle…I want to see.”

  He looked at me for a long time. Does he keep his eleven-year-old nephew from witnessing or does he allow him to know the truth? “Bakr…okay. But if I tell you to step back from that window, you do it right away. Promise?”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  Uncle Mohammed motioned me to peep through the side cracks rather than opening the shutters. Together, we looked out at the corpses lying in the street when suddenly, Uncle gave a start. With shocking speed for such a big guy, he threw open the front door and thundered down the apartment stairs. “Stay there!” he called back over his shoulder, all quiet and caution abandoned. I peered back through the shutters to see him in the street, kneeling next to a man with a beard and stained taqiyah cap clinging to his head. Several other men already out in the street cleaning joined my uncle by the still body. One of them flagged down a passing car and the three strained to get the man into the car. I watched Uncle shut the car door. The way his right hand clutched his mouth as his shoulders quivered. That was not my first time seeing a corpse, but it was the first time I recognized one: Hassan, a man I had often seen at the mosque laughing with my uncles and Father.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, on my way to the bakery, I was alarmed to see so much new destruction on our street. As I walked down the middle of the carless street, I noticed the top corner of Sayid’s barber shop, where I got my hair cut, had been blown off. Was he okay? The city was disintegrating before us. A dented, yellow dumpster full of busted-up concrete sat beside the sidewalk, in front of our bakery. “Bakr! Get out of the street! Use the sidewalk!” My father stood outside, flour all down the front of his shirt, gesturing wildly with a dishtowel.

  Before I could move, I heard the pop of a gun and loud metallic bangs as bullets hit the dumpster in front of me. I lunged for cover and scrambled behind a parked car. Father ducked behind a sign and his eyes bore into mine. I could tell he wanted to call out to me but he knew better. I looked down at myself frantically and patted my chest, sides, legs. I shook my head at him because I knew his question. We froze and listened. Nothing. Father slowly stood up, looking cautiously over the top of the sign while I peeked down the street in the direction where the bullets had come from. Nothing other than a few other bewildered people, crouched behind whatever cover they could find. Father dashed towards me, hunching his tall frame, and he was beside me in a few steps. He grabbed me by the shoulders and scanned me with a sharp eye. “Are you sure you weren’t hit, Bakr?”

  “What was that?”

  He didn’t bother answering but whisked me into the bakery and slammed the rolling metal shutters. It took a week before we decided to tell Mother. We knew she wouldn’t handle it well, even though I wasn’t hurt.

  A few weeks later, I went back to that yellow dumpster. My fingers traced the bullet holes in the side of it. There was even part of a slug partially wedged into the metal. It seemed so strange to think that one of those bullets could have found its way into me. What had I done? Why did someone shoot at me? I was only a kid. What if it had been Alush and he didn’t know to duck behind something? He would have just crouched down into a little ball in the street. What if it was one of my cousins, earphones in, too absorbed in music to hear the shots?

 
; I stalked down the street, kicking at rocks and rubble, when something caught my eye. A bullet, a big one. A round from an AK-47. This wasn’t just a casing, but an actual bullet. I picked it up: icy cold. A bullet as long as my palm with a fierce tip. I imagined it tearing into my flesh and a shiver ran through me. I remembered Father’s words. These things weren’t us. My cheeks burned in shame at the thought of how Ali and I had actually collected them a year ago. Suddenly, I hated this thing in my hand. It was the reason I couldn’t play soccer in the street anytime I wanted. It was the reason I couldn’t go to my friend’s house because there was shooting in his neighbourhood. As much as Father wanted us to believe we could keep living our lives, it wasn’t true. He was wrong. We couldn’t pretend this war wasn’t happening. There were rules to follow, dangers to avoid. I hated that bullet so much in that moment, the seething anger blurred my eyes.

  I couldn’t stand the feel of this terrible thing in my hand but I also didn’t want to just drop it back in the street. What if another child found it and kept it? Or what if someone else found it? The army had begun offering five lira for every intact bullet that was turned in. There was no way it was going to the army. I shoved the bullet in my hoodie pocket and walked back towards the dumpster, made sure no one was looking, then pitched it in. There was a satisfying clang as it rattled to the bottom of the bin. No one would find it now. It couldn’t hurt anyone. It would just be buried at the dump along with smelly diapers and rotten fish heads.

  8

  SEPTEMBER 2012 TO APRIL 2013

  Damascus

  For once, I was excited for the start of the school year because I was going into Grade Six and I couldn’t wait to finish elementary. Next year, I would go to the junior high school across the field where Aiesha and Asmaa went.

  That September morning began like it usually did: I was waiting for my sisters so we could walk to school together. Father telephoned from the bakery. “Bakr, I want you to be extra careful at school today. Be alert, son. Last night, a policeman was killed by a car bomb a block from your school. One of the customers that came in this morning said that the army has been firing rounds in the air to scare people. Watch your sisters carefully, okay? Make sure you all have your documents. No daydreaming. No hanging around. Take your sisters straight to school and go straight home after, okay?”

  “Of course.” I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

  Aiesha and Asmaa strolled and gossiped. I followed them on my bike, my mind full of soccer team tryouts. Would I make the team? I needed to work on my deking. As we approached the school, I shushed them and tried to focus on my surroundings. We were across the street from the school, and I was trying to pick my friends out of the clumps of kids in the sea of blue uniforms, when an explosion shattered the peace of the morning. My sisters and I ducked down behind a parked car to avoid the rolling cloud of dust. When it passed us, I looked for the blast site. Two, maybe three blocks down the street from our school, smoke and fire billowed out of a shell of a car. Terrified screams and parents running around crying in anguish. My sisters looked at me and I breathed, “GO!”

  I hopped off my bike so they could keep up with me. I led, they followed, their hands gripped tight and backpacks bouncing wildly. No main streets. We ducked and dodged through alleys, courtyards, and side streets. The object was to avoid the army: after a bombing like this, they would arrest anyone, even children. In Darra, the government arrested and publicly beat a few kids for anti-government graffiti, so, no — not even children were safe from the army.

  Ten breathless minutes later, we were home, gasping for air but safe. Mother swept us into the apartment, muttering, “Alhamdulillah, thank God,” under her breath.

  A few days later, fighter jets dropped bombs close to our school. “To flush out violent rebels,” the news reports said. Thankfully the two schools were closed so no one was hurt, but my elementary school was destroyed. The elementary kids had to go to the junior high school and in that twisted way, I got my wish of going to junior high.

  For weeks after, Mother clenched her hands in constant worry. The circles under her eyes deepened, and her eyes were always puffy from tears she hid from us. Sometimes, while we did our homework in the living room, we’d hear snippets of whispered conversations behind my parents’ closed door, Mother begging for a break from the bombs. In the early days, Father had tried to calm her with some mention of the UN, but after nearly two years, even he was giving up on that dream. For two years, he had been calling the consulate office every month and now even the visa officer hinted that there was very little hope. It was strange to see Father so dejected. It was even more surprising to see Naser take the phone number from him. “Okay, no problem, Father. Bismillah.”

  From then on, Naser called religiously. Every Tuesday during his morning break at the bakery, Naser would phone and explain our situation. Of course, because you never knew if your calls were being monitored, Naser would speak in vague terms. He couldn’t say, “We are in danger and need to leave,” because that might sound like anti-regime talk. Instead, “You know how it is in Homs, things are difficult. Our file number is…” His friends teased him because Naser repeated the exact same thing every week, to the point where it sounded like a script or a prayer. Abdil Karim, one of our most trusted employees, joked that the office staff must know Naser’s voice by now.

  But as time passed and the violence in Homs seemed only to get worse, Father, Uncle Najim, and Uncle Mohammed came to a decision: we were all moving to Damascus, the capital of Syria. It was a bigger city than Homs, and Assad’s sights weren’t trained on it the same way they were on Homs. At least Damascus hadn’t been in the news as much and Naser had been back and forth for business and visits with friends without incident. Hasty preparations were made. We had no idea how long we would be gone, or if we were coming back to Homs at all. Out, Mother just wanted out.

  The plan was made. Uncle Najim and Father would go ahead to Damascus with all of us in tow, and Uncle Mohammed and his family would follow a few weeks later, once all loose ends were tied up.

  SIX IN THE MORNING. The Levant winds were blowing, the October air crisp and sharp, and we had a minibus to load. Our collection of suitcases, duffle bags, and red-white-blue nylon canvas bags was piled in the courtyard, nestled against the empty chicken coop and birdcages. The minibus driver chain-smoked cigarettes, nervously rubbing his hands against the cold and craning his neck around every few seconds. He had parked down the block, as far as he could from a nearby military checkpoint. Of course, he was right to be paranoid because you never knew what kind of attention a move like ours would attract. Father, Naser, and I silently loaded up the bus as quickly as possible.

  As Naser grabbed the last few bags, he froze in place and made a low whistle. He pointed down the cross street with his eyes. Father and I peered around the corner and saw two tanks with their main guns pointed at a sharp angle up into the sky, a common tactic of the army to intimidate people. The tanks were slowly rumbling down the street in our direction, so the only thing we could do was flee. We ran home and hid until the rumble of caterpillar tracks on pavement subsided.

  Once the tanks were gone, we loaded the last of the bags. There was a flurry of hijabs and abayas as my sisters scurried into the minibus. Father gave the driver instructions to drive to Najim’s apartment so we could load them up and head out, but was met with furious head-shaking. The tanks had rattled the driver and he now refused to drive to Najim’s because doing so would take him past several checkpoints. A sigh, a phone call on Father’s cell, and a new plan: the family, and all their bags, would have to come to us.

  It would look too suspicious for the whole family to travel as a pack with their bags. With some quiet organization, the men began ferrying Najim’s bags to the van, and my cousins came over a few at a time to board the waiting vehicle.

  We were nearly in the clear when a pair of army officers came to sniff out what was going on. We had passed them one too
many times. But Father was good with officers. He was calm, assertive, and deferential enough not to rouse any hostility. He produced his documents and explained in an even voice that the whole family was moving to Damascus.

  One of the men waved Father’s documents away. “Sure! A fine day for a move! Pull your van up. We’ll help.” A toothy smile.

  Father pressed his lips into a smile and nodded his head ever so slightly. “That is kind. Thank you.”

  “We’ll meet you up at that checkpoint.” The shorter officer pointed with his gun that was slung over his shoulder and resting in front of him.

  We were still frozen where we had been standing when the soldiers first approached. We all exchanged hesitant glances; it felt like a trap. “In,” Father gestured. Gently, Abeer and my cousin Haneen helped Grandmother into the van and we piled in around her, the soft musky smell of her perfume making that cramped van slightly less horrifying.

  Abdullah and Naser hastily jammed the last bags into the bus and piled in along with everyone else. The driver, white-knuckled, pulled the bus up. My sisters broke into an uneasy chatter, trying to sound nonchalant. Finding it oddly quiet in the back, I turned to check on Raiyan, Islam, Maram, Abrar, and Alush huddled together in the last row of seats, wide-eyed and silent. I nodded at them reassuringly. The bus slowly crept towards the knot of uniforms. No other vehicles were there. We waited in tense silence. All talk of the weather had gone stale.

  While the stockier officer slowly circled us, the tall one with the toothy smile approached the passenger side where Father was seated, his hands gripping all of our IDS. “Okay, just give us a moment. Damascus, right?”

  Father nodded. Before Father could even hand over our documents, the officer strolled back into the checkpoint booth where there was a lot of talking and nodding at a phone. I finally gathered the nerve to look up from my shoelaces and my gaze accidentally met the soldier’s. His stalkinganimal eyes bore into mine as he smiled his dead smile. The warmth drained from my body and my eyes darted back to my shoes. I willed myself to look back up. It seemed safer, somehow, to keep an eye on him. That officer stared us down the whole time, shuffling his feet and kicking the dust as he walked the length of the bus. The entire time he circled us, he kept his AK-47 cradled in front of him, the rifle sling over his left shoulder, his left hand on the wooden fore-grip, his right hand on the pistol grip. Deliberately, his right forefinger toyed with the fire selector lever. Up, safety on. Centre, fully automatic. Down, semi-automatic. Centre, up, centre, down, centre, up, centre, down. That smile. Click, click, click, click. I could not tear my eyes away from the selector lever. Click, click, click, click. My breathing was shallow and I heard my father and my uncle in my head: “Wait, wait.” That sickening smile again. Fifteen torturous minutes clicked by.