Homes Page 7

  The streets were strung up with glowing crescent moons, twinkling lights, and colourful lanterns, and since everyone stayed up all night, the streets felt like a huge block party. We would all sleep from four in the morning until three in the afternoon. There would be prayers in the early evening until the sun went down and when night arrived, we would break the fast together with iftar, which always began with three sticky dates, a sweet yogurt drink, and hearty lentil soup. When we returned home after mosque, we would enjoy a lively meal of lamb, kebabs, vegetables, and rice, and always sweet black tea. After that, we would just hang out, snacking, playing games, and watching TV and movies. There were often Ramadan TV specials. Even though Grandmother used to nag us for watching too much TV throughout the year, she would join us to watch movies during Ramadan. For that month, life took on a different rhythm.

  However, the Ramadan before I began Grade Seven turned my life upside down in a different way. On the twenty-third day of Ramadan, August 1, 2013, a part of me emptied out in a way I’ll never fully be able to fill again. The twenty-third night is known as one of the nights of power. That day, I witnessed an unholy, terrifying power.

  It was mid-afternoon when we were woken by the explosions. Aunt Ateka, Aziz, and his sister Dilal had stayed the night. Aziz, Alush, and I were snoring in my bedroom and we all jolted up at once. By this time, we were mostly used to the sounds of bomb blasts, but these ones shook the house — they must have been nearby. The whistle and shudder of mortars. Bottom lip jutting out, Alush quietly slipped under Aziz’s blanket and nuzzled into him as we listened intently. Silence, then shuffles in the other rooms. I tiptoed slowly down the hall to see Father at the front windows already. He stared hard outside, neck straining. Another explosion, a little further off. When I joined him, he hesitated then quietly said, “Son, get everyone up and ready to go, okay?”

  I knocked on my sisters’ and Mother’s doors. “Let’s go! Come on! Up, up!” I called in an even voice.

  There was a rush of activity and running water. Mother, Aunt Ateka, and Maryam began pulling out the drinks and dates for iftar but Father called to them, “No time for that!” Although the explosions didn’t sound any closer, the intensity of the bombing continued. That familiar itch in my feet returned and my stomach was all in knots, not from the hunger but from the sight of Father, tensely on watch at the window. Father shook his head and then turned to us.

  “Bismillah, our documents. Let’s go!”

  Some of us weren’t even dressed yet. Alush stood half-asleep in his blue Ninja Turtles pyjamas while the women hastily tossed on their hijab head coverings. I scooped up Alush and he gripped me tightly, burying his face in my neck. We barrelled out of the apartment with Father in the lead and Mother a step behind him. Aunt Ateka and Abeer had a death-grip on each other as we ran down the street. Where were we running? Where do you go when you don’t even know where the danger is coming from?

  Heavy traffic on Sham Avenue finally stopped our panicked flight. We were only a few blocks from our building. Father started counting us. “Abrar? Abrar!”

  “Hey! Heeyyyyyyy!” We all turned at the sound of Abrar’s bewildered voice and saw her stomping towards us in her pink Barbie pyjamas. She clumsily dragged Aunt Ateka’s overstuffed bag behind her, famous Abrar scowl on her face, furious at being left behind. We huddled around her, apologizing profusely under the trees of the busy boulevard while we waited for the streetlights to change. We were all panting. Father bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. Aziz frantically texted Uncle Mohammed. Aunt Ateka and my sisters giggled at how Auntie had run out wearing a pair of men’s flip-flops while clutching her own shoes in the other hand.

  As I set Alush on his feet gently, I smiled at him. “It’s okay, Alush. I’ll race you, okay?” I ruffled his hair and he looked up at me, uncertainly. He put his small hand in mine.

  Suddenly, the deadly crackle and thunder of Grad rockets, and a vicious shaking. I tugged Alush behind me, and my jaw dropped. Maybe a few hundred metres away, a monstrous fireball swallowed the sky. The sound of shattering windows echoed all around as a brutal wave of heat blew past us. Pitch-black smoke and hellfire mushroomed hundreds of metres into the sky, and in that moment I was certain we would all die. It wasn’t a shaky, hiccupping fear. It was simply a chilling certainty that settled into my bones and drained me of all feeling.

  “Ya Allah,” Aziz gasped beside me, “Oh my God.”

  For a brief moment, even the army was stunned silent. Then all around us people screamed in terror and shouted, “Allah akbar.” God must be greater than this evil. Behind us, Abeer let out an animal shriek. My whole family turned and looked at her, in shock at the primal sound that came from the quietest of us.

  I stood there, frozen. Father tapped my shoulder.

  “Let’s go, Bakr! Uncle Najim’s!”

  It took my brain a few beats to process what was going on, but we were running again. Since the rest of his family was visiting relatives in Iraq, Uncle Najim was home alone and Naser had gone to stay overnight with him. We were only a few blocks away and soon, we were huffing up the stairs of Uncle Najim’s building. Inside, we found Naser sleeping, of all things! “How could you sleep through that?” I kicked him awake. I didn’t know anyone who could sleep as deeply as my brother. In the living room, Mother silently cried because Uncle Najim wasn’t there. He must have been at mosque for prayers already and we knew his mosque was close to where that fireball had roared to life. No one knew what to do and we all looked at my father. “Mohammed’s. Let’s go.” With that, we were all up on our feet again.

  Back out on the street, Father started shouting and waving his arms wildly. A white Suzuki open-back micro van screeched to a stop; Father knew the driver well. He hopped into the tiny front cab and we piled into the back, all thirteen of us. We squeezed onto each other’s laps with Alush lying down across our knees but none of this really registered. I only saw the fury of smoke and fire in the sky. The sight of that fireball left me cold, and I shivered despite the searing heat of August and the bodies I was pressed against.

  Ten cramped minutes later, we raced up the flights of steps to Uncle Mohammed’s apartment. For the rest of the evening, no one could speak of anything else. Prayers and meals came and went but I was numb to it all. The evening news described it as a rocket attack on a weapons depot but I still couldn’t process anything other than the sound of all those windows shattering at once. Everyone teased Abeer about her scream. Keeping with Ramadan traditions, all the women wore black hijabs and abayas, so my sisters laughed about how they must’ve looked like a propaganda ad for ISIS in the back of that moving van. Only thing missing was the donkey. There my family was, out on the balcony, joking amongst the potted geraniums and eating dessert like nothing had happened. But it did happen. Sometimes, to convince myself, I watch and rewatch a video of that explosion on YouTube. And the crazy thing is, that night, even though it was one of the holiest nights of Ramadan, all the mosques were silent and dark. No one dared venture out. The streets were abandoned. No joyous iftar banquets. No muezzins climbing their minarets to sing their stirring calls to prayer.

  Around eight that evening, Father, Naser, and Mother rose off the couch. Father waved me over to the front door. As I approached them, his eyes met mine squarely and he pressed a bundle into my hands. He nodded firmly and cupped my right cheek.

  “I’m going to go check on the house and Naser will check on the bakery. You stay with the family, OK?”

  In my hands were all our documents and a bundle of cash. The door closed softly as I realized what this package meant. I stared at the closed door. I felt my mother’s warm hand on my elbow, turning me back towards the loud living room.

  “Come, Bakr.”

  For the rest of the evening, my cousins chatted and laughed above me but I was sinking into my fear. I wished Father was in the apartment with us. I wished Naser was here, my naggy-take-charge-I’m-the-boss big brother. No matter the situa
tion or what he said, his voice sounded like there was laughter in it. I wanted that bundle to be in his hands, instead of mine. I wished none of this had ever happened to us. I tried to lose myself in the noise but I couldn’t stand the chatter and cajoling so I just pretended to watch TV. Thankfully, morning approached and everything quieted down. Prayers, a quick meal, then everyone retired to the bedrooms. I was wide awake on the floor of Aziz, Yousef, and Ibrahim’s bedroom, with that bundle of cash and documents as my pillow. Alush was curled into me, snoring softly, like a puppy.

  Since coming to Syria, I had experienced two shootings at my mosque, witnessed two massacres, and my school had been destroyed. Still, at no point in those three years did I ever once think I would die. Until that day, at the sight of that fireball. Why would Allah will it? Why would a loving God ever allow this kind of violence to happen to anyone? Was it God’s plan for children to suffer? For people to die in the streets, murdered? I loved my God, my religion. But, sometimes, deep in that place where my fear hides, I couldn’t understand why I had to live like this. How could the God of my gentle father be the same God of those crazy fanatics who killed in the name of Islam? I hated those people the most. How could they take something so loving and peaceful and twist it to justify violence and murder? Those people cannot really be Muslim because my God was about love, peace, charity.

  That whole night, I prayed for answers. I prayed for Father and Naser. I prayed for my family. I prayed for peace, not from the war, but peace in my heart.

  At last, it was six in the morning and the phone rang. I sat straight up and bolted out into the hallway. Uncle Mohammed opened his bedroom door, on the phone already. He nodded and grinned at me, relief plain as day on his face. It was Father. I murmured a deep prayer of gratitude, stumbled back to the bedroom, and collapsed onto my blanket. I fell asleep instantly.

  Later that morning, we walked home together and Alush excitedly pointed out some newly bombed-out buildings. The crumbling buildings depressed me the most. This beautiful city, with its wide, tree-lined boulevards, tall white buildings, and bustling streets had turned into a bombed-out scene from Counter-Strike. Instead of balconies lined with colourful carpets being aired out or bright lines of laundry drying in the sun, buildings were cracked and hollowed out. Where there were once billboards of movie stars and neon signs for barbers, restaurants, and computer stores, there were now bullet-ridden, caved-in walls. Gone were the little parks where you could lie on the grass, basking in the sun. In their place, massive piles of broken concrete and twisted rebar gashed the ground. My sisters clucked on about some movie. Father had already bumped into us on the street earlier, his arms full with grocery bags. My cell vibrated in my pocket and I fished it out. A text from Amro: “Soccer? Akrama school field.” Why not?

  11

  FEBRUARY 2014

  Winter

  Four months after the terror of that explosion at the weapons depot, a very odd thing happened: a vicious winter storm swept through most of Syria and the Middle East. One December morning, I woke up to see our birdcages and chicken coops covered in inches of snow. Of course, snow during the winter months in Syria was not totally unheard of, but it normally melted within hours of falling. This year, the snow just kept falling. I ran outside to bring my birds in and I was surprised at how quiet the world was. The bombed-out shells of buildings were blanketed by snow, the buzz of Homs muffled and silent. It was almost beautiful.

  After the snow finally melted, the last winter months remained bitterly cold. On the morning of February 9, Grandmother phoned me in a panic. Soldiers were raiding their apartment building, looking for weapons or suspected rebels. The sounds of boots kicking open doors and muffled shouts drifted up to the top floor. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Please, Abu Bakr, come get me.”

  When I arrived, I waited around the corner to make sure the army had moved on to the next building. No sounds. No shabiha. I sprinted up the stairs and had barely tapped at the door when it swung open and there she was, trembling, eyes glazed. Her clammy hand gripped mine. “Alhamdulillah, Abu Bakr, praise God you’re here…”

  I took her by her shoulders as gently as I could but I was shocked by how tiny she felt next to me; my grandmother had never felt small before. She was pale and kept stumbling and I couldn’t wrap my mind around how changed she was. Just last week, she had been kicking our feet off the couch and nagging us to help her start cleaning up the garden in preparation for spring. Now as we shuffled home together, we had to stop for little breaks every block so that she could catch her breath, even though she never seemed to be able to.

  When we finally got to our apartment, Abeer and Mother rushed out to greet her. Mother’s eyes widened with worry, just for a flash. Those short moments of the army raid left my grandmother a hollow shell of who she used to be.

  I settled Grandmother onto the couch with a blanket while Abeer brought her a bowl of lentil soup. Blankly, Grandmother stared at it for a long time before she finally waved it away. Abrar bounced in with an orange and a paring knife; she loved to watch the way Grandmother could peel the entire orange in one long, winding strip. “No, little one, I’m not hungry. My stomach hurts,” Grandmother whispered. She barely spoke a word after that, other than mumbled prayers.

  That’s what terror does to you. It weakens you. It deflates you, as it did my grandmother. We hovered around her for the rest of the day and it was decided that she would stay at our place until she recovered her strength.

  Later that night, Grandmother Maryam died quietly in her sleep, nestled amongst my sleeping sisters.

  TWO MONTHS AFTER my grandmother passed, that car bomb went off outside our apartment and I buried a man’s jawbone. The crinkling sound of the white plastic bag and the dirt and gravel hitting it lingered. Not knowing what else to do, I buried myself in work, just like Grandmother used to. As soon as school was finished for the day, I would grab a quick lunch on my way to the bakery. I had convinced Father and Abdil Karim to teach me how to start the dough for the bakers to form, but while I was kneading it, folding it over and over, images of the stones over Grandmother’s shrouded body rose in my mind. Friends dropped by, pockets jingling with coins for the arcade, but I just waved them away. Amro showed up juggling a soccer ball on his foot, challenging me to a game, but I just disappeared to the back with a mumbled excuse.

  When the spring sun finally started to take the chill off that brutal winter, Father got the idea to plant rose bushes in the bakery’s courtyard because they reminded him of his grandfather’s farm back in Iraq. He said we needed to make things beautiful again. Standing in the peaceful space with the new rose bushes, it dawned on me to start selling drinks so that our customers could sit and enjoy them. Business was bustling at the Baserah Bakery, its cheerful awning a beacon for our customers. Our chewy flatbread was different from the typical thin, hollow Syrian pita that people got from the government bakeries. Father even had to hire three more employees, and they were all like uncles to me.

  My drink stand enterprise started with a foam cooler box filled with ice and bottles of pop and juice. Father allowed me to sell the cold drinks in our courtyard, where we had set up a few café tables and chairs. I was in charge of all the cash flow and stock; Father allowed me to keep the earnings. I even convinced him to buy a small fridge. We shook hands over a deal for my drinks to be sold even when I wasn’t working in the bakery.

  I loved it all. I felt like I was a business partner with my father and longed to be at the bakery instead of at school. The only thing I enjoyed about school was gym class. Our classes were getting more and more crowded because so many schools had been destroyed. Many teachers had fled, or been killed. Worse yet, school meant I was away from my family. Ever since the car bomb exploded steps from home, whenever I heard explosions or fighter jets, my feet itched to take me home. I had terrible visions of finding the jawbone, not of a stranger, but of my family. When this happened, it felt like the world went into fast-forward mode. Everyt
hing sped up — my thoughts, my fears — and I’d mindlessly rush through whatever assignment I happened to be working on, hand it in to the teacher, race to the office, and ask for permission to go home. The principal was a kind woman. She saw that my fear was genuine and always allowed me to go. I’d race home and as soon as I was there, my heart would settle. My sisters and cousins were relentless in their taunts, pointing out that even Alush, now in Grade Two, was brave enough to stay at school, but I couldn’t help it. At first, Father tried to understand, but after a while, even he prodded me to stay at school. Only Mother was sympathetic, but then again, I think she would have preferred to keep us all closer to her. Her worry made her age before our eyes. Near the beginning of the civil war, during one particularly bad night of shelling, Father had said we would live together and die together, and I guess that’s why I wanted to always be near someone in my family. I didn’t want to die away from them.

  All the events that had happened since we arrived in Syria had changed me in many ways, but after that jawbone, I wanted to choose to change myself. I wanted to be harder, tougher, like those cold, unsmiling people in Damascus. I had assumed that they were just unfriendly, but now I wondered if they closed themselves off to protect themselves. Maybe if you didn’t care, you couldn’t be hurt.

  The sad truth was, you could not live in Syria and have a clean heart. How could you, when you live in a place where you’re randomly shot at and car bombs explode outside your home? I wanted my heart to be pure, but already I hated people and I hated parts of my life. Sometimes, I even hated my family. I questioned my faith and my religion. I questioned my father. Sometimes, I was so angry that I just wanted to hit someone, anyone. No, my heart was not clean. So, if it wasn’t clean, why shouldn’t I be cold and tough? I wanted to stop being Abu Bakr: happy, big cheeks, smiling Abu Bakr. I wanted to be tough, so tough that no one could ever hurt me.