The Pianist from Syria

by Aeham Ahmad

  Tahani and I looked each other in the eye for several seconds to say good-bye. That was it. Now they would draft me.

  But the soldier simply closed the booklet again. He said, “You’ve just come from the court, right?” Tahani nodded, and hastily showed him our release notice.

  He waved us through. Once again, God had held his hand over us. Once again.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX —

  As soon as Tahani and I were alone in a room, we lunged for the bag. We nervously unpacked, and to our immense relief, we saw that the money was still there. Incredibly, the soldiers hadn’t discovered the bills. We were lucky. The journey could continue.

  We stayed with Mohammad for almost two weeks. I slowly got my strength back, and one thing became clear to me: Tahani and the children had to get back to Yarmouk for the time being. If we were caught a second time, we wouldn’t get off so lightly. I didn’t want my kids to have to go through all that again. And I couldn’t risk their lives at sea.

  It was heartbreaking, but my decision was made: I couldn’t take my wife and kids on such a hellish journey. If I made it to Europe in one piece, I’d do everything in my power to have them join me. But if something happened to me—well, at least my family would live.

  But how should I break the news to Tahani? I simply decided not to tell her. I knew how stubborn she could be. But this was a question of life and death. I wouldn’t discuss it with her.

  Of course, Mohammad, my host, knew a local people smuggler. He introduced us. The man had already brought quite a few people over to Turkey. He explained the route to me: I would travel with a tomato merchant from Homs to Hama, then I’d continue on with some Bedouins, then on to Idlib in the rebel-held area. And from there, I’d simply take a minibus to the Turkish border. The rebel-held areas were only eighty miles from here. The journey would cost me thirteen hundred dollars. Time and time again, I asked if the route was safe. In the end, I paid him and simply hoped for the best.

  At the same time, I organized the journey back to Damascus for Tahani and the children. A few hours before we were scheduled to leave, I told them of my plan. I simply presented the facts. It was terrible. Tahani collapsed.

  “Please, Aeham, let’s do this together!” she cried. I didn’t respond.

  “If something were to happen to you, my life would be over! I’d rather die with you than live alone.”

  But I shook my head.

  “God will look after us—if we stay together!”

  “No, Tahani.” It broke my heart to tell her this. It cost me all my strength to not give in. “God already helped us once. We may not be so lucky a second time.”

  It felt wrong to say good-bye. Then a minibus drove up. Mohammad had ordered it for Tahani. With a heavy heart, she got in.

  I kissed the kids. And I promised them, “In less than a year, we’ll all be together.”

  September 4, 2015

  Five o’clock in the morning. I go down to the street. After a while, a station wagon full of tomato crates pulls up. Shortly before we reach the first checkpoint, I climb into the back, wedging myself in between the boxes. We make it through, unharmed. I take my seat again. Homs is already behind us. We’re driving across a rocky dirt road, olive groves all around.

  At noon, I get into a taxi. Before we reach Hama, I curl up in the trunk. It feels like I’m suffocating in the heat. We reach the city. The car stops. I hear a soldier’s voice as he speaks to the driver: “Do you have anything for us? How about some tea, and a box of cigarettes?” And I’m thinking: Thank God Tahani and the kids aren’t here!

  Later, alone in a room, I turn on the TV. On Al Jazeera, I see lines of exhausted refugees crossing through fields in Hungary. “Images of an exodus,” the narrator says. Then they show the Munich central station: The locals hand out flowers to the emaciated refugees. There’s applause. My thoughts are tormenting me. Ghatfan’s words echo in my head: It’s incredibly hard to bring your family over. Maybe it would have been better to bring them along with me, while it was still possible?

  On the TV, a refugee talks about getting robbed during the journey. I hide my money again: I put fifteen hundred dollars into the back part of my backpack. I slip another five hundred dollars under the insert in my shoe. I tape seven hundred dollars to my upper arm.

  September 5, 2015

  We continue at noon with the same driver. This time, there are four of us. After a few hours, the driver drops us off at a rest stop, a grill restaurant. I spend the night in an empty shop across the street.

  September 6, 2015

  In the morning, a black SUV with tinted windows drives up. There’s the driver, and a man sitting next to him. Both with big beards and black sunglasses. I’m confused: Are these henchmen of Assad? Or are they rebels? Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

  I look into the car window and give them the code phrase: “Mahmoud sent me.”

  “I’m your brother Ahmad from the Islamic State,” the driver says.

  I beg your pardon? He’s with ISIS? But we’re still in a regime-controlled area! Is this some kind of sick joke? The driver demonstratively puts a Kalashnikov on his lap. The other bearded guy slips a pistol under the sun visor. Is that supposed to calm me down? I get in. We take off.

  Then comes the inevitable question: “Tell me, do you pray?”

  “Of course, sir!”

  “Don’t call me ‘sir,’ I’m your brother.”

  Someone once told me that if you’re in an ISIS area, you have to roll your pants up, just above your ankles; that’s what it says in the sunnah of the Prophet. When they question you about Islam, just keep talking about prayer and ritual cleansings.

  To placate my drivers, I say, stupidly, “God preserve you, my dear brother. Let’s recite the Sura al-Fatiha together, so that God may protect us on our journey.” He goes along with it, clearly satisfied. So we pray.

  After a little while, we leave the main road. We turn onto a small dirt path, presumably known only to locals. It works. We’re able to circumvent the checkpoint.

  At around noon, they drop me off at a Bedouin tent in the middle of the steppe. “Wait here,” the driver says. “Tomorrow our brothers will come and pick you up.” And with that, they’re gone.

  Inside the tent is an old shepherd with deeply tanned skin. He looks like a man who spent his whole life in the sun. His teeth are rotten—all I see are a few brown stumps. The tent, however, is remarkably new. Later on, I realize that all this—the Bedouin lifestyle—is just a front. I’m at a secret way station for refugees headed to Europe.

  The old man gives me water—and fresh goat milk. Dear God! It’s been ages since I’ve had any milk! The last time was before the siege. The man has a peaceful demeanor. He seems good-natured, as desert nomads tend to be. “Would you like to pray?” he asks me. Yes, I would. I really would, this time. With all my heart.

  It feels so good to be in his company; it feels safe out here in the steppe. So I open up my heart to him. Tumbling through time, I tell him about my poor father. About my brother, the prison, the siege.

  “Oh, oh, that’s too much for you, my poor boy,” says the old man. “That’s too much, that’s too much.”

  September 7, 2015

  I only have a thousand Syrian pounds left, but before I continue my journey, I decide to give it to the old man. “Thank you for all you’ve done, my friend,” I tell him. “Please pray for me.”

  “Of course,” he says. “God be with you.”

  A car appears. It’s the same car as yesterday, but this time, there’s a different driver—and another accomplice with a long beard. He wears a short kaftan, like the Taliban in Afghanistan, and speaks Standard Arabic. He introduces himself: “I’m your brother from the al-Nusra Front.”

  ISIS, al-Nusra, PLO—they all claim to be my brother. I don’t care either way. These days, any fool can say they belong to a militia. It doesn’t matter: I’m grateful to anyone willing to help me, whoever it may be. So I say, �
��Please take me with you, my brother. My name is Aeham.”

  The bearded man climbs into the passenger seat, and I get in the back. The driver steps on the gas. The air is yellow; you can’t see anything past twenty yards. A sandstorm is coming.

  We turn onto a dirt road—and pass a checkpoint. Did the sandstorm hide us from the soldiers? Or did they recognize the license plate and know to look the other way?

  Onward toward Idlib. Suddenly, a cloud of dust comes toward us. It’s a pickup truck full of muscular, bearded men who look like they’re military, wearing camouflage vests and cartridge belts across their chest. These are the Tiger Forces, Assad’s elite unit, his most feared soldiers.

  The car is still moving, but suddenly, the passenger opens the door and jumps out. He rolls down a sandbank on the right-hand side. It’s like something out of the movies. He leaves his two Kalashnikovs in the car. It’s over, Aeham! I think to myself, and not for the first time.

  “Go on, hide!” the driver hisses. “Get in the back!”

  I climb into the back and press myself against the trunk lid.

  I’m in a station wagon with tinted windows. The back seat is folded down. If the soldiers open the hatchback, and they usually do, there’ll be nothing to hide me.

  “Stop!” the Tigers call out.

  The driver starts slowing down. Two men approach our car. They’re carrying assault rifles.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  “I’ve got to get to the checkpoint,” the driver says. “My shift’s about to start.” A brazen lie.

  Suddenly, a mortar shell explodes nearby. The soldiers throw themselves to the ground. The car is pelted with sand and stones. I hear shots. The men in the pickup return fire, spraying the entire area with bullets, emptying out their magazines. But there’s no one there. The men start chanting, “We are the Tigers! God, Syria, Bashar, and nothing else!” The driver steps on the gas, seizing the opportunity, and the Tigers let us pass.

  We race through the semidesert for at least twenty minutes. Finally, the driver stops. “Over there,” he says, pointing to an isolated shack, about a half mile away. “That’s the Ahrar al-Sham militia checkpoint. That’s where you have to go. I have to turn back now. Good luck.”

  I make my way toward the shack, approaching slowly with my arms raised. There’s not much to see here. A couple of sandbags, a barricade, some men.

  “Who are you?” one of them yells.

  “I come in peace! I’m unarmed!”

  “Take off your shirt!”

  I continue on, bare-chested, my right hand clutching my backpack and my left arm raised. As far as I can tell, there are seven men. Each of them has his finger on the trigger. Once I’m in the shade of the barracks, I can’t keep it together any longer, and burst into loud sobs. One of the bearded men asks me what’s going on.

  “I just can’t take it anymore!” I say, sobbing. “I can’t go on anymore.” I tell them everything. That I was in jail, that I had to send my own family away, that I barely escaped with my life today. “Please, in God’s name, help me!” I say. “I just want to leave! I just want to get out of Syria!”

  The militiaman tries to comfort me. “Calm down. Be patient. Abu Qutaiba is going to be here soon—he’s our leader. He’ll help you, he’ll know what to do. Sit down. Have some food.”

  They invite me into their barracks, a small structure consisting of just one room. Outside are empty gas cans and a big machine gun. On a gas burner, one of the men is making scrambled eggs with tomatoes, a traditional Arabic breakfast. In Iraq, they call it makhlama; in Syria, we call it jazz-mazz. The militiamen offer me some, and I can’t stop eating. The others sit a little farther away from me. They look at me with pity in their eyes, and talk about me. They know about the siege of Yarmouk. They realize how hungry I must be.

  Three hours later, Abu Kutaiba drives up, a tall, fat man. He calls me “my son,” and I explain my situation. He says I can ride with him, in the back of his pickup truck. We take off. Our journey takes us through the no-man’s-land between the ISIS- and rebel-held areas. Along the way, he picks up two young men who are walking by the side of the road.

  Soon, we see black pipes sticking out of the scorched earth beside the road like rotting teeth. They emit a foul-smelling gas, and the two guys explain to me that these are rebel refineries. They’re burning crude oil to get diesel and gasoline. And they buy the crude from ISIS.

  They know their way around, those two guys! Little by little, I find out that they used to live close to the border. Now they earn their money as human traffickers, smuggling refugees across. We exchange numbers.

  In the evening, in a village, I’m standing in a small mobile phone store when someone suddenly taps me on the shoulder. “Ayhoum?”—a nickname for Aeham. I turn around and see the friendly faces of the two Yarmouk guys I had driven to Homs with. We hug each other and even though I hardly know them, it feels like I’m meeting two old friends. We tell each other how we ended up here. Again, I can barely hold back tears. My nerves are frayed.

  “By the way, Abu Jolan, our driver, is doing fine,” one of them says. “They picked him up from jail in a Mercedes.”

  Suddenly, a bearded man approaches us. He’s dressed in a black djellaba, and has a mark on his forehead, a blotchy area from prostrating himself countless times during prayer.

  “You seem like a good man,” he says to me, completely out of the blue. “Let me help you out. Have you had anything to eat?”

  I don’t quite trust this man. But, on the other hand, I’m starving. “We’d love to eat with you, the three of us,” I say, pointing to the two guys from Yarmouk. He agrees, and we follow him.

  His house isn’t far from here. I see a flag fluttering in the evening breeze. It’s the flag of the al-Aqsa Brigades. Aren’t they allied with ISIS? Great! Just my luck! It seems like I’ve run into every militia there is, that I’ll have to endure yet another indignity.

  When we enter the living room, my throat feels suddenly dry: The room is full of weapons. I see a pile of Kalashnikovs in the corner, and two grenade launchers leaning against the wall. This isn’t a home, it’s a military barracks!

  But then the bearded man serves us dinner. It’s unlike anything I’ve eaten in years. There’s cheese and butter and cottage cheese and olives. We dig into our meals. Meanwhile, our host asks us about the siege of Yarmouk. I tell him how we had been starved. But I don’t mention the piano.

  Would we like to take a shower? Of course! My clothes are stiff with sweat and dust. The bearded man shows me the bathroom, then he hands me a jogging suit. Adidas, in its original packaging, probably from Turkey. And almost exactly my size. Again and again, he says, “You seem like a good man.” So far, there’s not been any indication that he expects anything in return. As Muslims, our religion demands that we help others. But I’m skeptical. Can he really be that selfless?

  That night, about twenty young men arrive. They’re carrying Kalashnikovs, with the cartridge belts slung around their chests. I get it: Our host is their leader. He gives a short, solemn speech. “Your attacks were a miracle! And if God wills it, we’ll liberate Palestine.”

  Oh, so that’s it! Maybe now would be a good time to leave. Except that we can’t really go anywhere. At this time of day, three strangers, in a village in the rebel-held area? We’d have no chance. The militia leader shows us a room where we can spend the night.

  Later that night he wakes us up, asking if we would like to join him and his men for prayer. What choice do we have? We stumble into the living room, drowsy with fatigue. The fighters are all gathered here. They start praying, throwing themselves to the ground with gusto. After fifteen prostrations, they’re still not finished.

  Then comes the obligatory reading from the Quran. I finally understand why they’re spending half the night in prayer: One of their men is about to blow himself up with an explosive belt. Himself and probably many innocent people as well. The others in the room are rhapsodiz
ing about the virgins in paradise. What a cliché! They strap the explosives belt onto him and wire it to a battery. The man looks calm and at peace with himself. Obviously, he’s been completely brainwashed.

  He gets into a car and drives off. He is about to blow himself up in front of a former hospital where a group of Tiger Forces are holed up.

  Later, I try to fall asleep. I keep waiting for the explosion, but I hear nothing. The entire time I ask myself: Why did the bearded man show us all this? He was acting so selfless, and meanwhile, he’s organizing suicide bombings. Once again, I’m at my wit’s end.

  September 8, 2015

  The next morning, we take the minibus to Khirbet al-Joz, a border village in the mountains. I call the two guys that we picked up in the steppe. They lead us to a shed in the woods. A roof, some mattresses, a water tank. And Turkish internet!

  I was offline for three weeks. Now I can call my family. When I log on to Facebook, I see some three hundred messages from anxious friends and relatives. “Aeham, where are you?”—“Aeham, is everything all right? We’re worried!” It feels like the time when our first video got forty thousand clicks. I’ve got some time to kill, so I briefly respond to each message. “I’m fine! I’m on my way to Turkey!” And to anyone who wrote to me in English, I respond, “No English.” It’s not safe.

  I post a photo on Facebook. Three hundred and fifty people share it. “Aeham is doing fine!” they write. “The pianist from Yarmouk is safe!”

  All these worries, all this joy. What’s going to become of me?

  It doesn’t take long before some journalists from the major networks are calling me. CNN and NBC, BBC and Al Jazeera. And soon, the Huffington Post, France 24, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the coming weeks, as soon as I have Wi-Fi access again, I’ll post pictures of my escape on Facebook. An exodus in the internet age.

  September 9, 2015

  We leave at eight o’clock in the evening. We’re five young men. We’re somewhere in the forest between the border crossings Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salameh. We walk uphill for several hours, then we reach a brightly lit road. Behind it is a deep ditch. We hide in the undergrowth. We’re a few hundred yards from the border post. The plan is to wait until the guards change their shifts, then we’re supposed to run across the street. Until then, we have to wait. Two hours. We can’t make any sound. Every now and then, a patrol vehicle drives past us.