Before Ramadan could decide if he should run or cry out, he felt the relentless beam sweep away from his face. Temporarily blinded, all he could see was a residual ruddiness, blackened by the sudden, relative darkness of night—the color of blood.
Instinctively, he raised his hands to protect himself, almost flailing, bracing for an impending impact with this swiftly approaching stranger. He sighed with panic as the unseen, unknown heavy breather (he could now hear grunting) continued to sprint toward him.
Then—now—a likely but unverifiable whisper: “Don’t be afraid . . .”
The man’s voice—one whose tone (if a muffled murmur could be said to have a tone) Ramadan accepted as familiar to him from the phone call—delivered this message so close to him that he could feel Mustafa’s lips strum the ridges and loops of his ear. Even if the words were not really audible, Ramadan somehow read for meaning the movement of the lips as they skimmed his skin, in a sort of interactive form of braille. Indeed, it was hard to be sure if anything had actually been spoken at all, or if in fact what had been pressed into his ear, planted upon Ramadan, was not an utterance, but rather the gesture that speaks volumes—a kiss.
“I’ve got you!” he heard now—this time for certain—as Mustafa placed one arm around the small of his back and the other in the crook of his knees and swept Ramadan up into his arms. Swirling around, Mustafa began running back in the direction from which he had come. Ramadan wrapped his arms around Mustafa’s torso and shoulder, but the rest of his body went limp. His legs dangled and his head drooped until his face smooshed into the sheltering nook of Mustafa’s neck. Once nestled there, being physically transported, Ramadan was emotionally transported as well. Whereas years ago, he’d had to leap to another species in his quest for this very comfort, swaddled in his father’s arms for the first time, he was now being whisked away, backwards and deeper, into the distant but apparently accessible impulses of his true origins. Ageless but decidedly infantile, he couldn’t stop his lips from puckering, couldn’t avoid the awkward exhibition of a primordial, mammalian thirst. Finding no nipple, but instead a thick tendon, his mouth, of its own volition, squeezed and kneaded at this tough, stubbly strip of Mustafa’s muscularity. If Mustafa noticed this preternatural pecking at all, it only inspired him to hold his son tighter (which Ramadan felt him do) and to run faster, as if the boy, with his touch, were capable of controlling the movements of the man. Just as the woody smell of the tree trunk had quelled Ramadan’s anxiety earlier, Mustafa’s scent—the pungent cologne of manliness commingled with his minty breath—sedated Ramadan into a dreamlike state of surrender. When, without stopping his run through the darkness toward whatever zone of safety they were presumably headed, Mustafa uttered “Bae-bae,” Ramadan’s submersion in the waters of parental bliss, the pool of an alternate childhood—the one he’d missed—was complete. Embarrassed by his vulnerability to Mustafa’s strength and feeling smothered by his submission, he summoned just enough access to the particulars of his journey to poke his head out of all this liquidity and take a deep breath. He felt the fortitude of his personality rising—the gumption that had carried him all the way here, the chutzpah pumping in and out of his heart, which was thumping madly through his Magic jersey, tapping against his father’s chest. Oh, it was a prideful, valiant attempt to reassert his independence and regain some sense of composure. But a second later, when he released the breath, it vacated his body as a prolonged sigh of fatigue fusing with shudder after shudder of relief, exhaustion meeting elation, a warm draft colliding with the coolest thing he’d ever felt, precipitating a hail of tears.
* * *
MUSTAFA’S RUN FELT timeless to Ramadan, who, with every stride, bounced up and down in his father’s arms. So then, after either a minute or an eternity, they entered the bunker and Ramadan lifted his head and sniffled himself into wide-eyed vigilance. At first, the darkness was even starker than outside. Mustafa’s pace slowed, and he wound them through a couple of sharp left turns. After he veered once more, this time to the right, Ramadan saw a speck of light in the distance. They continued straight ahead, down this narrow, foyer-like chute, and the brightness began to widen and sharpen. Soon Mustafa was carrying him into what seemed the main den of this cave. Ramadan couldn’t tell where the light was coming from, but the entire cavernous space was awash in a dusty, golden luminescence. He was able to make out six or seven huddles of men—all clad in some form of warrior gear, more ragtag than uniform, and all with weapons. Two rifle-toting, fatigue-wearing soldiers rushed over and offered to help Mustafa carry him. One was shirtless but draped in a camouflage, multi-pocketed vest accessorized with a red, white, and green bandana tied around his neck; the other was wearing a bright red T-shirt, sporting a khaki bucket hat, the underside of its brim haloing his head. Mustafa shooed them away, but both men smiled greetings to Ramadan as they parted to clear the path. Their welcoming faces made Ramadan realize he had yet to see Mustafa’s. Angling his eyes upward, he traced the tanned, bony jawline as it disappeared into a long, black goatee that pointed out, divining the way forward. Following its direction, Ramadan saw a worn but luxurious sofa at the back wall of the cave, looking bizarrely out-of-place. Its curvaceous, baroquely carved wood frame held cushions covered with a tattered gilt brocade woven into a rich, velvety brown fabric, and it reminded him of furniture that, in its more hopeful days, could have been in the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Rushing toward it, Mustafa yelled something in Arabic, and the two young soldiers reclining there jumped out of their leisurely poses. The slower and clumsier of the two, who was smoking a cigarette, had to go back to retrieve his rifle, and when he turned to them, like the other men, he smiled at Ramadan. His face stiffened, though, when he looked up at Mustafa, to whom he made an obsequious-sounding remark, offering a quick, apologetic bow, before scampering away.
“Here,” Mustafa said, lowering Ramadan onto the sofa’s still-dimpled middle cushion. Agitated or preoccupied, he added, “I come right back.”
Mustafa swerved away in gallant strides, leaving before Ramadan had seen his face in full. The untucked tail of his long dark green shirt flapped behind him, brushing against the wrinkly folds of his camouflage pants. Ramadan watched his father take a few steps into relative darkness, his black military boots imprinting the dusty floor with their geometrically designed soles. Mustafa called out to a group of soldiers on the opposite side of the lair. One of them dashed off, out of sight, having been plainly ordered to do so, returning within seconds, running over to Mustafa with a canvas tote bag and a leather satchel. He handed these to Mustafa, who was clearly the commander of this regiment, then started to duck away, waving to Ramadan as he departed in a backward shuffle. Ramadan was waving back as his father’s shadowy form pivoted first in his direction and then whipped around to face the retreating soldier, who darted out of sight. Mustafa wielded power here with nothing more than a look, and his hypervigilance and casual superiority sent a shiver of caution through Ramadan. Sensing he was breaking some kind of protocol by fraternizing with this man of lesser rank, he put his hand down and swallowed hard. Then he sat up straight and prepared to meet his father.
Gliding toward him, Mustafa’s silhouette grew incrementally larger. This spooky embodiment of Ramadan’s most ardent dreams crept into the softly lit sofa nook, casting a shadow upon the floor. Nervous and shy, Ramadan focused on the projection, not the man, and his father’s outline moved toward him like a benevolent fog. Soon the forehead met and enveloped the toe of his right foot, the whole head swallowing his sneaker, lace by lace, past his ankle. As the shadow climbed up his shin, knee, and thigh, it broadened and was soon coloring the entire width of his body with its shade, pressing its way up his stomach and over his chest. That character-defining sensation—who would he be, after all, without having felt it—of diving into Mama Joon, came back to him with an uncanny clarity, and it released him from its grasp. All he had ever wanted was this, to be in this presence. And then his father’s shad
ow went invisible. Its head reached Ramadan’s, encasing his entire face in the manner of a veil, “forehead” to forehead, “ear” to ear, “nose” to nose, “mouth” to mouth. Ramadan closed his sightless eyes and made a promise—if he ever had a child, he would be more to him than a ghost.
“Are you hungry?”
Mustafa stepped into the light and, as the other men had done, gave Ramadan a smile, only brighter. If his shadow had become a mask, Ramadan now felt he was staring into a mirror, being beheld by his own eyes. Zahirah had been right—the resemblance was unmistakable. If his hopelessly smooth chin could sprout a beard like Mustafa’s—which he suddenly wanted to happen more than anything else—and if they were the same age, they could be the Romeo and Julius of Aleppo. Mustafa walked over to the sofa, extending the tote bag. Sitting next to Ramadan, he put the bag on the ground and placed the satchel on the sofa. He stared at his son, mouth agape, as if in search of something he’d lost, or in wonder at something he’d just found.
“What?” Ramadan asked, assuming his father was appreciating their similarities.
“Is like,” Mustafa said, his eyes moistening, “is like for the first time in many years . . . I see your mother.”
Ramadan saw himself blurrily reflecting on the watery surfaces of his father’s eyes. It was only when a tear rolled down his cheek that Mustafa looked away. Reaching for the bag, he cleared his throat and said, “Come, let’s eat. We must hurry. I want you to be safe. You must go soon, before the battle begins.”
“But—”
“No.” Mustafa cut him off. His voice was not gruff, just authoritative, emphatic.
“Now take this.”
Mustafa lifted the lid from a plastic bowl he had removed from the bag, revealing a mouthwatering mound of dates. Ramadan’s hunger erupted but, distracted by wanting to protest Mustafa’s insistence that he leave, all he did was sigh.
“Take!” Mustafa said, plucking a date out of the bowl. He brought it to Ramadan’s lips and pressed it into his mouth, onto his tongue.
The sweet pulp, chased by the salinity of his father’s finger, had the potency of something distilled, brewed, aged. Dizzy with satisfaction, he chewed and moaned.
“Ah! I knew you was hungry. Eat, boy! You skinny, just like I was. Skinny Israel.”
Ramadan scrunched his face with confusion. Too hungry to ask what his father meant, he accepted the bowl, grabbed a fistful of dates, and ate as Mustafa had directed.
Mustafa pulled out a colorful bag and ripped it open. “You like potato chips?”
“Mmm hmm,” Ramadan hummed, his mouth full of dates.
“They are my favorite.” Mustafa took out a single chip and crunched it loudly. “The best!”
For a couple of minutes, father and son sat eating together without speaking, each reaching into the other’s supply of munchies at will, blending the salty and the sweet, alternately crunching and smacking. Then Mustafa paused and, massaging his beard, said, “You know, Ramadan, I was only in America for five or six months. Very small time. But it was a very big time. For me. The best days of my life. You understand?”
Ramadan said, “Today is the best day of my life.”
Smiling, Mustafa quipped, “Okay, then you stay here—and I go back to America!”
He tousled Ramadan’s hair, and they laughed together for the first time. After a moment, Ramadan, basking in the naturalness of their intimacy, asked, “Why did you carry me?”
“Huh?”
“Outside, under the tree . . . why did you pick me up and carry me?”
“Oh—because I see you look tired.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Very, very tired. And . . . because I wish I can carry you your whole life.”
The reverse of this desire—wanting to be carried by Mustafa—surged through Ramadan and, uncontrollably, he leaned into his father’s body, spilling the dates on the floor, crushing the chips between them, burying his face in Mustafa’s chest.
“I don’t want to go! I want to stay with you!”
“Ramadan . . . my boy.” Mustafa patted Ramadan’s back with one hand and held his head with the other. “Is okay. I make you promise. And this time I make it true.”
Ramadan sniffled. “What?”
“One day, when all this is over, this crazy war, my crazy life in this place, under the ground, I will come to you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No? You do not believe your father?”
Flushed with guilt, Ramadan hedged his doubt. “But how?”
“The same way you come to me. That is how. How? I ask myself when my mother call and tell me you are there. How is this possible? I keep thinking this while I wait for you to come here to me. How this boy, my son, come all the way from America? How? How? How? Then, when I see you stand there under the tree, that is when I know.”
“How?” Ramadan asked.
“Allahu akbar, Ramadan. Allahu akbar.”
And for the first time, Ramadan marveled at his achievement. All along he had told himself it had been easy. But had it? Or was that just what he had had to tell himself in order to accomplish something so seemingly impossible, something so hard? And he wasn’t even done yet, because he’d already lost this fight with his father—no contest. What would happen next? He tried to channel Miss Bea, who could somehow see what others could not. He tried to think like Ahmet, who in his way could, too. So he would ride with Ahmet back to Istanbul. Say his goodbyes to the Adems. Then, okay, return to America, to New Orleans, where he would have to negotiate some kind of a truce, make peace in his own civil war with his aunt Clarissa and his cousins. But how? How? How? he asked, sounding to himself like Mustafa. And he, too, heard only: Allahu Akbar!
And, yes, he would wait, and wait, and wait for Mustafa.
“Allahu Akbar!” Mustafa repeated.
He had barely finished professing his faith, when the ominous sound of fighter planes whistled aboveground, several passing in quick succession, inciting a mood of general agitation throughout the bunker. Like a chorus, the voices of the soldiers, which had been just ambient sound before, reverberated throughout the chamber: “Allahu Akbar . . . Allahu Akbar . . . Allahu Akbar!” Mustafa looked around, and Ramadan watched his face as he observed the activity the jets had caused: rifles clanking; feet shuffling; voices grumbling and mingling, oddly, with yawns. Someone aimed a shout into their cozy corner, and Mustafa stood up and yelled something back.
Then he turned to Ramadan with a half-smile and said, “Okay. Is time for you to go meet your friend. Tariq over there will take you back outside, and he will show your friend the safe way to the border. Everything will be okay. You believe me.”
Mustafa spoke this as a command.
“Yes,” Ramadan said. “I believe you.”
Mustafa kneeled on the floor at the edge of the sofa and reached for the satchel. “Before you go, I have something for you.”
“You do?”
As he unfastened the crackly brown leather strap, he winked at Ramadan, who was filled with the anticipation of a much younger kid on Christmas morning. Mustafa lifted the top flap and as he reached inside the satchel, said, “My mother gave me this before I go to America. She was so worry about me . . . the same way I worry about you right now. She told me it will keep me safe. But it did much more than that. It gave me your mother—and it gave us you.”
Ramadan’s eyes widened as Mustafa pulled out an object encased in a golden silk cloth cover. “Open your hands,” he said, which Ramadan did.
“The Quran.” Mustafa placed the book in his son’s hands. “It belonged to my father.” He slowly unzipped the case and added, “My mother make this cover. Is beautiful, no?”
“Yes.”
“She likes beautiful things.” Then Mustafa flipped the pages, which looked almost new to Ramadan, who stared at the Arabic script as his father thumbed the book.
“No worry,” Mustafa said, side-eyeing Ramadan. “It is okay if you cannot read it
now. Keep it with you. It will make you strong, like the light of the sun. Like a good thing you remember. Like today.”
He zipped the case, handed the Quran back to Ramadan, and patted his shoulder.
“Thank you.” Ramadan furrowed his brow.
“What?” Mustafa asked. “You don’t like?”
“I love it. But I . . . I don’t have—” He was trying to say he didn’t have anything for his father in return, when the soldier who had waved to him earlier reappeared, cleared his throat, and pointed to his watchless wrist. Mustafa acknowledged him by pointing one finger in the air, after which the man departed.
“That is Tariq. He is ready to take you away from me—I hate Tariq!”
Then Mustafa, still kneeling, reached out and pulled Ramadan to him in a move so sudden and crushing that it forced the breath out of Ramadan, smashing and squeezing his relatively slight frame into his father’s solid chest. As he was trying to wiggle himself into a position of comfort worthy of this last embrace, he felt something press into his sternum, a thing that had come between them, perhaps a metal button on Mustafa’s vest or a spare bullet in one of his breast pockets. But a second passed, and Ramadan knew.
“Daddy,” he whispered.
Mustafa released him, and as they separated they were both panting.
“I have something for you, too,” Ramadan said through his heavy breathing. He raised his right hand to his neck and clasped both lines of silver hanging there. Then he dug down the front inside of his jersey. The force of his father’s hug had stuck it to his sweaty chest, so he had to peel it away from his skin. In one quick motion, he looped the chain from around his neck and ducked his head through its lasso.
“What is it?” Mustafa asked.
“Open your hands,” Ramadan said, clinching the surprise in his fist, and this time his father obeyed him.
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