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  Truthfully, I tried. I tried to be hard and uncaring by ignoring my friends or shutting my family out. But as soon as I was with Father or my uncles, my old self took over. I couldn’t help it: it was just the way Father teased me, or joked with my sisters. The way his eyes would search for mine in a crowded street when we were out buying supplies for the bakery. He always pulled me back to myself somehow. I watched Father a lot. He was neither hard nor soft. He was both, silently strong. He loved people, but he also protected us fiercely. I wanted, so much, to be just like my father. In the end, my tough veneer faded away.

  And then, out of nowhere, we got some relief. At the end of April, Naser delivered the good news: our refugee application was back in progress and the five adults would have to go to Damascus for their second security-screening interview with our newly assigned visa officer.

  12

  MAY 2014

  Thirteen

  The relief was short-lived. One night in May, my phone trilled at 11:30 p.m. Calls that late made my stomach drop and I lunged at my phone at the first ring. It was my cousin Haneen, and all she said, in a panicked hiss, was, “Come.” I jumped up off the couch and ran outside to find Naser, sneaking a cigarette in the garden.

  “Naser! Uncle Najim! I don’t know what’s happened but Haneen just called and hung up.”

  He stomped out his cigarette. “Get Father. Let’s go.”

  I ran inside to find Father and tried to knock without waking my sisters in the next room. I think, by then, we were always alert, even in our sleep, because I barely finished knocking when Father yanked open the door. “What happened?”

  As I told him, I could see the colour drain from my mother’s lips. “Go,” she gasped.

  I don’t remember much of the mad dash to Uncle Najim’s apartment. I could hear my father’s uneven breath as we ran. Naser kept trying to call his friends for help, struggling to keep up with us. I hadn’t been out in the streets that late in years, thanks to Father’s curfew, so I was actually scared at how empty and dark the streets were. There were no sounds except our footsteps echoing dangerously. My teeth chattered so loudly that I thought it would bring the shabiha running.

  “Wait,” Father waved us to slow down, “wait, quiet, listen first.” We were just around the corner from Najim’s building and we all stopped to listen, our hearts pounding in our throats. No sounds, no shabiha. Naser peered round the corner and waved us on. Inside, we found my aunt clutching onto Haneen, Ali staring blankly out the window, and three little girls sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Ya Allah, what happened?” Father asked quietly.

  “They hit him, Uncle! Oh my God! They punched him until he fell to the ground! Then Abdullah! They kicked him so hard! Oh my God, oh my God!” Raiyan, her gigantic eyes swimming in tears, could barely speak in between her sobs. Naser ran out to the hallway dialing more numbers while Haneen told us what had happened before we arrived.

  Only half an hour earlier, Uncle Najim and Haneen were roused from sleep by the sound of voices in the street below. Peering through the window together, they saw Abdullah arguing with a friend in front of a parked car. Suddenly, a sharp whistle pierced the night and Abdullah bolted into the apartment building while his friend dashed off down the street. Uncle Najim bounded for the bedroom while Haneen ran to yank open the front door for her older brother. Abdullah charged up the steps and slammed the door behind him. With wild eyes and fumbling hands, he pulled the battery off his cellphone and thrust the whole thing at his sister: “Hide this. They’re coming.” He ducked into the bathroom. Haneen heard the snap of a plastic SIM card and the flush of a toilet and then they all heard the thundering of combat boots.

  Uncle Najim, document papers in hand, came out just as the officers burst into the apartment. Haneen slipped into her bedroom and got under the covers next to Raiyan, whose whole body was stiff with horror. “Shh, pretend you’re sleeping. Shh,” Haneen breathed. She groped for her own cellphone, hastily dialled a number and panted, “Come,” then quietly snapped her phone shut and drew the blankets around herself and her little sisters.

  All four girls huddled closer together and pretended to squeeze their eyes shut while Ali, blissfully unaware, continued to snore in his own corner of the room. Their bedroom door was open just wide enough for Raiyan to peak and see everything happening in the living room from where she lay.

  “Father told the police,” Raiyan sobbed. “He said ‘He’s a good son! I don’t know his friends, but my Abdullah, he’s a good son! Take me! Whatever it is, blame me, take me!’ But they didn’t listen, Uncle! They dragged Abdullah out of the bathroom. Father tried to show them his ID papers and they just laughed at him. Ya Allah! And Mother! She…she was so smart! She saw one of the soldiers hide Father’s papers in his pocket! Mother, she said, ‘I saw you hide my husband’s papers! Just look, sir! Please!’ And then they hit Father so hard, Uncle! Oh my god!”

  “It was Abdullah’s friend’s fault. You know, The Sheikh.” Haneen took Raiyan by her shoulders and rubbed her back. I didn’t know The Sheikh, but I had heard about him through whispers amongst my friends. The rumour was, Abdullah’s old friend was now heavily involved with Thuwar, an anti-government and anti-ISIS group.

  “They took them, Uncle. They took Father and Abdullah!” Raiyan broke down.

  That night was a blur. Father, Naser, and I tried to call everyone we could think of who could help. Most people didn’t answer their phones. Others hung up as soon as we mentioned that Uncle and Abdullah had been taken. Sometime early in the morning, Father sent me to bed with my cousins and ordered us to get some sleep.

  When I woke up after a few fitful hours, Naser had gone out to track down a friend who worked in the government. Through him, we found out that Uncle Najim, Abdullah, and The Sheikh had been arrested that night. The adults huddled in the kitchen to talk and I heard bribe muttered many times. Abdullah’s friends kept dropping by throughout the day, heads bowed and murmuring apologies to my aunt Muna.

  I sat at the edge of those conversations, trying to understand. But also, I sat watching Raiyan, Maram, and Islam cry quietly over their colouring books and uneaten lunches. I didn’t know if I was angry, determined, or sad, but I was glad Grandmother wasn’t with us anymore. Witnessing that scene would have broken her heart, for sure.

  It was two days before Uncle Najim and Abdullah returned. It wasn’t the bruises, the perfectly round cigarette burns, or the split lips that shocked me. It was Uncle Najim’s hair. His jet-black hair was suddenly streaked with grey.

  Weeks later, when I got up the courage to ask him if it hurt to be beaten up, he sat thinking for a long time. Finally, he looked me square in the eyes and he said, “No, little one, it didn’t hurt, Alhamdulillah. When those men hit you, your mind goes somewhere else. You only think of your family and you don’t feel the pain. You just see those beautiful faces.”

  AFTER LOSING GRANDMOTHER and nearly losing Abdullah and Uncle Najim, I lost interest in everything for a while, even the bakery and my drink stand. School was even more unbearable than usual. The bright spring skies beckoned to me, and I didn’t want to sleep through another English class.

  One particularly warm morning, I was steps from the school when I was assaulted from behind by a barrage of slaps and shoves. Ali and Amro tried to tackle me to the ground and we tussled in the sunlight, laughing and shouting insults at each other until the bell pierced through our laughter.

  Amro heaved a great sigh and bent over to scoop up his cap and books. Another morning of drudgery in the classroom. The three of us hustled to join our class line-up in the school’s courtyard for the daily singing of the Syrian national anthem. We stood, stone-faced, through the music. As the students trudged towards first period, I grabbed Amro by the elbow and yanked him around a corner.

  “Dude! You’re going to make me late! Let go, Bakr!”

  “Ah! Screw it! Let’s go, aiwa!” Mischief, absolute mischief.

  We snickered quietly in agree
ment: we would skip. We hid in the hall until all sound had died down then we made a run for it. Freedom! We spent a glorious morning in the park, a few blocks from school. While sharing a few bottles of soda, we hung out and played soccer. The next morning, another escape, but this time Ali also joined us, in the arcade playing foosball. Skipping soon became a habit. We didn’t get caught at first because it wasn’t unusual for students not to show up for a few days. There was a civil war happening, after all, and we were smart enough not to do it every day. Other kids caught onto our game much sooner than the teachers did, so there were packs of teenagers hanging out in the park most mornings.

  For the next few weeks, we continued our game uninterrupted until a few teachers showed up at the park. Shouts rang out and a bunch of kids started running out of the park, laughing and screeching their heads off. The whole herd turned, spotted the danger, and scattered like antelope. The teachers gave chase, madly waving their arms, yelling out commands. Ali, Amro, and I managed to escape capture and once we were safely hidden in the alley, we doubled over in laughter. The crack-up turned to snorts and shrieks, to wheezing and tears. It felt unimaginably good to be belly-laughing like that with Ali and Amro. We staggered to school, giggles erupting every few steps.

  Even though I hadn’t been physically caught by my teachers that day, Father and my principal both sat me down for some sobering discussions. I knew it was wrong to skip school but it was fun to do something so childish. After everything that happened, it felt so good just to play. But, Father reminded me I was thirteen now; it was time for me to become a man. When he said that, I realized that I had been trying to find something I’d lost after the first shooting at Zawiya mosque. There was no need for me to put my childhood away — it had already disappeared into the ruins of Homs.

  So, gritting my teeth, I set out to find my lost schoolbooks. My teachers constantly lectured me because my black scribblers had been abandoned in their classrooms or tucked under some bench or another. When I turned up in her classroom in search of my workbook, my English teacher rolled her eyes at me and threatened me with a fail in her class if I didn’t start doing my homework. Casting my eyes down, I apologized. “Sure, sure, Miss. I will try harder, Miss. Inshallah, if Allah allows it.”

  She laughed and playfully tossed my book in my direction. “Abu Bakr al Rabeeah! Leave Allah out of your homework! That is up to you! Now get to work, young man, and leave God to bigger problems!”

  And that’s what I did. Remembering how Grandmother used chores to keep her mind busy, I made school my goal in those last few weeks of Grade Seven. Besides, Naser had only completed Grade Six, and I was determined to beat him, if only by one more year. Because of my appendectomy the previous year, I had skipped the Grade Six final exams, but I wasn’t twice lucky. This time around, I sweated bullets that whole time and I don’t recall ever studying that much, but finally, summer holiday arrived.

  On the last day of school, report cards were distributed and I couldn’t bring myself to go and see, so I didn’t. Every day, Father would ask if I had gone to get my report card yet and every day, I told him the school was closed. That wasn’t a complete lie — I just didn’t tell him that I only ever left to go to the school five minutes before it closed. A full week went by until Father turned to me one morning and said, “Ok, Bakr. No more messing around. Go get your report card this morning.”

  That afternoon, I slunk into the main office. My principal stood there, waiting. Mine was the only report card that remained on the front desk. “Abu Bakr al Rabeeah. Finally, hello.” She rolled up a piece of paper and playfully smacked me on the top of my head. I finally brought my eyes up to hers and she laughed. She handed me the rolled up piece of paper: my report card. I gulped hard and unfurled it. Seventy-one percent! I passed the year by one percent!

  “Whooo-eeee!” I laughed and jumped in the air.

  Shouting my thanks, I raced to the bakery with my report card hidden under my T-shirt. I snuck up behind Father and shouted, “Hi!” scaring my father and triumphantly waving my seventy-one percent in his face and dancing around the hot bakery. He guffawed. He hadn’t thought I’d pass either. That was the last ever report card I got in Syria.

  13

  FALL 2014

  The Apprentice

  Through the bombs and raids and doubts of our four years in Syria, I wasn’t the only one in my family who made it a point to change. My older sister Aiesha did too. Months after my Uncle Najim was arrested, the shabiha showed up at our house out of the blue. It was right before lunchtime so only Mother, Maryam, Abeer, and Aiesha were at home. Abeer was outside in the garden beating the dust out of one of the rugs when she spotted a group of shabiha entering the apartment building through the front entrance. She scrambled inside to warn everyone but before she could say a word, the pounding of rifle butts on the door interrupted her. Maryam raced to the front door, cellphone in hand. “Come home, Father,” was all she managed before she hung up and grabbed the door handle. Mother was at the entrance as Maryam eased the door open gently, all the while flattening herself into the triangle between the open door and the wall. She wasn’t wearing a hijab so she didn’t want to be seen by strangers. Her heart pounded so loudly, she was sure the seven men who strolled into the apartment could hear her hiding behind the door.

  A bearded man took a slow pull from his cigarette and greeted my mother casually. “Marhabaan, madam.”

  Eyes lowered, Mother stammered, “As-salaam ‘alaykum.”

  “Where is your husband? Where are your documents?” he snapped, suddenly not so friendly. Mother thrust her papers at him, quivering. She had heard rumours of kidnapped girls and was desperately afraid that they would take my sisters. She prayed they would stay out of sight as another shabiha scanned the living room coolly.

  “Iraqi? Why are you in Syria? Why not go back to Iraq? Where is your husband? Do you have any sons? Are you Sunni or Shi’a?” The smoking man peppered my mother with questions and she was practically choking on her words when Aiesha burst into the room, hurriedly pulling her hijab on to cover her head.

  “Sir! I will answer your questions!” At the sound of her own clear voice, Aiesha looked as surprised as the shabiha were. She pulled herself a little bit taller. “My father is on his way home for lunch and will be here any minute.”

  The smoking man looked down at the documents in his hand and then back at Mother and Aiesha. He jeered, “Why are you so afraid? There is nothing to fear here, we won’t hurt you. We protect people.”

  “Sir, I’m not scared, I’m just out of breath from running to get my hijab on. What are your questions? How can I help?” Aiesha was steady.

  The men stayed only fifteen minutes while my sister answered their questions with ease. Mother was silent, Maryam was pressed behind the front door, and Abeer held her breath in the kitchen. Mother said it was like Aiesha had changed herself in those fifteen minutes. She changed from a young, shrinking girl to a calm, assertive woman right before her eyes. Aiesha glowed quietly with pride, waving the compliment away. “I only wanted to help Mother.”

  Like Aiesha, we all gained skills that we could not have imagined. Knowledge that we never really wanted to know filtered into our lives. Our ears could pick out the differences between mortars, Grad rockets, and car bombs. We could tell the high notes of the metallic smell of fresh blood on the streets from the low reek of a corpse waiting for days to be found in the rubble. When we milled about the crowded souks, our eyes narrowed at the sight of a nervous-looking man or woman. We would wonder and then try to push down that suspicion. We became sensitive gazelles, always stopping to scan and listen. It wasn’t a conscious choice — it simply became a part of our way of walking and being.

  News reports brought words like barrel bombs and gas attacks into our lives. Barrel bombs were homemade destruction. A container full of motor oil and explosives dropped from the sky, pouring down liquid fire. Gas: chlorine, mustard, sarin. Images of people foaming at the mouth.
We watched news reports of these things happen all over Syria, and prayed we would never live through these ourselves. I would half listen and then not. Some weeks, I would do nothing but constantly check my phone for news updates. Other weeks, I would pretend none of it was real.

  At the end of the summer, Father pulled me aside and said, “Tell me, son, how do you feel about not returning to school in September?”

  I was confused. Some of my friends had stopped going to school because their parents were too afraid to send their kids to school. “Not returning to school? Why? For all of us?”

  “No, just you, son. Your sisters and Alush will continue. They are doing well and they enjoy their studies.” He paused. “But you…maybe it’s better if you take this year off and learn the business with me. You can try school again later, but maybe that isn’t the best path for you right now.”

  Through all the skipping, I had never thought about actually quitting school. I did love being in the business with Father.

  “Sure, sure, Father.”

  September came and my older sisters excitedly returned to school. I tried not to think too much about missing out on classes with my friends. Besides, I was proud to be my father’s apprentice. At seven in the morning, Father would go to open the bakery and fire up the ovens. Abdil Karim would start the dough and I would arrive around eight to help him press, slap, and toss the little springy dough balls into floury, flat discs. In the beginning, my hands were clumsy, and Abdil Karim would squawk instructions at me. He’d laugh menacingly but then gently show me, again, how to flip the dough just right. He was tough but also so much fun to be around. After a few months, my hands memorized the dance of the bread. We’d joke throughout the morning while I watched him deftly slip the formed dough and bread in and out of the oven. Around nine, Naser would come in and Father would go home for his breakfast. The rest of the morning and early afternoon passed easily with Naser barking orders and the lively hub of customers exchanging neighbourhood gossip or news about attacks and arrests.