Other students look at me now. My face burns. I stand
up. Step away from the table. Safaa doesn’t move, but
her black eyes follow me. I can’t read her expression.
“I thought she was my friend,” I say to Moham-
mad. “Now I can’t even look at her.”
I stride outside.
Mohammad jogs alongside me. He looks back.
“Who?”
“Safaa.” Anger flashes through my words. “It’s
her fault. She’s why I’m here. I was looking for her
when everything happened. I thought she wanted to
be with my family, but she left us.”
My words trip over themselves and drown in
my tears.
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“Breathe easy,” Mohammad says, just like Baba.
“Take your time.”
I dash away my tears as we walk. I tell Moham-
mad everything: about Safaa shooting at us and Amin
being sick and Baba helping. About arriving at the
border, and Safaa’s carpet bag, and the guards shoot-
ing at me. About sprinting alone across the border.
I even tell him about the brothers, Musab and Ali,
who wanted me to go to Ankara. Somewhere along
the way, my tears stop. I gulp for air. At last I run
out of things to say. We’re quiet for a while, except I
hiccup every so often.
“Everyone who arrives here has been through
hell,” Mohammad says. “Kids on their own have been
through more than most. They don’t have parents or
aunts or uncles to keep them safe and make decisions
with them. Some kids have seen their families killed
by airstrikes, or get sick and die. We don’t know
what they’ve gone through. Safaa and Amin have
only been here for a few days.”
He stops walking. I wait to hear what he’s going
to say. “They haven’t spoken at all since they arrived.”
“Nothing?”
“I didn’t even know their names until you told
me just now,” Mohammad says. “I don’t know where
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they came from. I don’t know what language they speak.”
“They speak Armenian, I think,” I say. “But
Arabic too.”
Safaa and Amin didn’t speak much with my
family, but they did speak. Safaa especially was
beginning to open up a little more. One part of me
wants to help, but I’m still so angry.
“You need to talk to her,” Mohammad says.
“I can’t.”
“It will help both of you.”
“I don’t need help.”
“It would be good to have a friend in the camp.”
“She’s no friend of mine.”
“She did no harm other than leaving without
telling you,” Mohammad says.
“She shot at us.” I sound like Alan when he
squabbles with his little friends.
“That’s not why you’re angry.”
Mohammad is right.
“I’ll help you,” he says. “You must talk to Safaa,
or this will eat you up from inside.”
I can’t go back to the children’s center when Safaa
is there. I can’t leave this camp.
“I don’t know what to say.”
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“Words will come,” Mohammad says. “Just promise to try.”
“I’ll try.”
Mohammad claps me on the back. “Great.
Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To talk to Safaa.”
“Now?” I’m not ready yet. “What about
tomorrow?”
“Now,” Mohammad says. “Or you’ll spend your
time afraid you’ll bump into her.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say. “I’m angry.”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
The other kids are back in school, so Mohammad
collects Safaa from class.
“Let’s walk,” Mohammad says to the two of us.
Safaa’s beaded keffiyeh is pulled across her face so
I can’t see her expression. She looks ready to bolt at
any moment and keeps looking behind us, as though
checking how far we’ve come from the school. How
far she is from Amin. She probably wishes now that
she’d kept her gun and bullets.
Mohammad walks between us, but gradually he
pulls back. He tries to be subtle but it’s really obvi-
ous. I flash him a look; he ignores me.
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“How is Amin?” I say at last. It’s a beginning.
Safaa says nothing. We won’t get far if I’m the
only one to do the talking. We walk a little more.
“He’s well,” she says at last. Her voice is so soft,
I doubt Mohammad hears her—I’m right beside her
and I hardly hear her. “He wants to see you.”
“You told him I’m here?”
“Yes.”
“He looks strong.”
She doesn’t reply, but the wildness she wore isn’t
so wild now. She isn’t so twitchy.
“I looked for you at the border,” I say.
I want to say more. I want to shout at her. To tell
her I was worried and confused when they vanished.
And angry. But maybe it’s not time for that yet. I’m
working hard to keep my anger from boiling over,
but maybe Safaa is working hard too. Words are
difficult for her. I listen with every part of me.
“We couldn’t sleep,” she says. “The smells. The
noise. The cold.”
“You took your bag.”
“I wouldn’t leave it for you to carry.”
“But not your carpet bag.” I don’t add that this
was the bag that almost got me shot to pieces.
“It was under your mother’s head. She was asleep.”
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I never thought of that. We stop walking.
“We left quietly,” she says.
“Why cross without us?”
She shrugs. “Nothing was planned. It happened.”
How can you cross a border between coun-
tries and not plan it? How? Anger rises in me again like black water, but I stop suddenly. I realize that’s
exactly what happened to me. I never planned to
cross the border, yet here I am in Turkey.
“They opened the border for trucks and buses,”
Safaa says. “A man shouted to us from a bus. We
ran fast. He pulled us on—hid us under seats. The
guards counted passengers but didn’t search. We got
off in Reyhanli. We walked here.”
I stare at Safaa. Mohammad stares at Safaa. Safaa
stops talking. She looks bewildered from saying
so much.
Her leaving wasn’t planned. It wasn’t meant to
be this way. My anger is gone. In its place is under-
standing and a lingering sadness.
“Can I see Amin?” I say.
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15
A week later, the nurse removes the bandages from
my feet. I come straight back to the children’s center
and put on my new white trainers. I pull the laces
tight and stand up. They feel weird. My feet are shut
in. My plastic sandals let my toes wriggle, but there’s
no space for toe-wriggling in these. I walk outside
to show Safaa and Amin. I’m springy. Taller. In pain.
“They look too tight,”
Safaa says.
“They’re perfect,” I say. Mohammad might take
them back if they don’t fit.
My toes are cramped, stiff, but these are new
trainers. New. Trainers. I’ll get used to them. I’ll wear them even if they cut the feet off me. I look down at
my European feet.
The next day, I start at camp school. I walk light
and bouncy, mostly so dust doesn’t settle on my
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shoes, but also because it’s the least painful way to walk. When I get there, I see other boys in their
trainers, with the laces loose and the tongues folded
down. I do the same. It’s much more comfortable
when my feet aren’t strangled.
School here isn’t like real school. Students wan-
der in and out all day. Some come for a few days,
then stop. Then return. Others, like Safaa and Amin
and me, are there every day because Mohammad and
Fatima make sure every child in the children’s cen-
ter attends school. Kids from different backgrounds
and parts of Syria all cram into the tent. We speak
different dialects and have learned different subjects.
Everyone has missed some schooling. We mostly
write stories about our experiences and memo-
ries. The little ones paint pictures and sing songs.
Alan would love it, but Bushra would be frustrated
because there’s so little learning.
I was at the top of my class in Kobani, with plans
to study pharmacy in university. Now I can’t even
concentrate. The teacher is kind and patient. He tells
me to write down how I feel and what I’m thinking,
but I’m afraid to start. I have so many feelings I’m
afraid I won’t be able to stop writing. I don’t want
to put my thoughts down on paper. I don’t want
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to show them to anyone. It’s safer to hide them—
then they don’t seem so real. I think of my family
instead. I look at every boy Alan’s age and think of
my brother. I even look at every girl Bushra’s age and
think of my sister. I miss everything about Syria: my
house, my friends, my aunts and uncles, my cousins.
I even miss the streets and the markets. I miss the
shops and the bunch of little kids who played on our
street, lining up stones and pebbles. But most of all,
I miss my family. I don’t sleep at night. I lie on my
mattress and think of Dayah and Baba and Dapir. I
wonder how Hamza is doing back in Kobani. I wish
I was still with him.
Once school is finished, there’s little to do. I
don’t talk much with the other boys. I’m the Kurdish
outsider. Safaa, Amin and I walk around the camp,
sometimes talking, mostly just walking. Several
times, we see the family I crossed the border with. I
nod at them but we don’t talk.
The boys in my container tease me about walk-
ing with Safaa.
“You’re too old to walk together,” they say.
“Have you found your wife?” they say.
“She should have a male relative with her,”
they say.
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“Amin is her brother,” I say. “He fulfills the role.”
One afternoon, we cross the wooden planks laid
over the stinking green ooze. At the barber’s tent,
I trade my razor for a haircut. Safaa waits outside.
Amin stands next to me to watch at close range. The
barber holds up the long strands of hair curling down
the nape of my neck.
“Short?” he says.
“Short.”
When I come out, Safaa covers her mouth and
turns away so I don’t see her laughter. Her shoulders
shake. I finger the short stubble on my scalp.
“Is it that bad?”
“It has to last,” she says. “You don’t have another
razor.”
We walk back to the children’s center. The wind
is cool on my scalp. I put my hand up to feel the
shape of my skull beneath the fuzz.
“It’ll grow,” Safaa says.
Back at the children’s center, Fatima laughs.
“What have you done to yourself?”
“Haircut,” I say.
“What will they think?” she says.
“Who?”
“The family waiting for you at reception.”
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I stop. I stare at her. I hardly dare to say the words. “My family?”
Fatima laughs again. “They arrived this after-
noon. Go quick now.”
I walk out of the children’s center. It’s like step-
ping into a different world. A rarer world. A bigger
world. The sky tilts and stretches above me. Ground
shadows yawn wide and dark and thrilling. The
hairs on my shorn scalp tingle like electricity runs
through them. Amin stares at me, but I don’t stop.
Safaa calls my name, but I can’t talk. Every part of
me urges me on, aching with hunger. Driving me
toward reception. I pick up my pace, jogging over
the dusty ground. My toes feel every dip and yield on
the path, even through the soles of my trainers. Little
puffs of dirt rise in whispers and hushes beneath my
feet. Bright air slides over my cheeks, hot and dry. As
I sprint faster, the layers I’ve built to protect myself since I crossed the border flake off, like scorched
leaves on the trees along Kobani’s Aleppo Way.
They drift to the bare earth like a thousand feathers,
memories of my terror and aloneness and cold dark
nights, until I’m left bare. Raw. Exposed. None of
me is hidden anymore. My feelings are on show for
all to see. They shine wet on my face. They tremble
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in my bones, my muscles, my gleaming blood.
Reception is in front of me. Dayah stands next to
it. My Dayah. Darkness lifts from my blood and my
heart sings. I see her before she sees me. She watches
every child passing by, her face pale and haunted. A
twist of guilt tightens my belly. I’ve caused so much
pain by leaving my family and crossing into Tur-
key alone. And I’ll be in trouble for nearly getting
shot dead by border guards. I stop running. I hold
still for a heartbeat. I want to keep the sweetness of
this moment captured in my memory for ever. Until
now, I didn’t know how frightened I was.
Dayah sees me. She freezes, eyes locked on mine.
“Ghalib! My Ghalib.”
Her voice is a whisper, but a whisper with a burn-
ing edge to it. Everything releases inside me. I run
into her outstretched arms and she snatches me to
her. She runs her hands over me, feeling the shape of
my skull with her fingertips, my arms and legs. The
curve of my spine. The wings of my shoulders. I’m
too old for her to do this, but I don’t care. I. Don’t.
Care. Her consuming love is like flowers blossoming
over my fears. Building up layers of protection again.
We cry. We laugh.
Only when she’s certain I’m uninjured does
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Dayah hug me tightly to her, gripping me like she’ll never let me go. She presses her face to the top of
<
br /> my head. I hear her breath above me, her heartbeat
against mine. She pushes me back to look at me fully.
“Oh, Ghalib!” she says. “What happened?” Her
fingers explore the fresh stubble on my scalp. “Lice
or fleas?”
“I traded my razor.”
“You asked for this?” Her eyes fill with wonder.
“Economy cut.”
“But you have nothing left, Ghalib. Let’s hope it
grows fast.” She draws her fingertip down my cheek.
“But my first son is alive and well.” Her search-
ing fingers pluck the shoulder of my new tracksuit.
“New clothes?”
“Is everyone well?” I say.
She traces the seam of my T-shirt, straightening
it across my shoulders. “How are your poor burned
feet?”
“When did you cross the border?”
So many questions hang in the air. So many lost
answers. Her eyes look at my laced trainers, still
clean-looking. Still new. I’ve taken good care of
them. Her gaze slides up to my face.
“Where are the others?” I say. “Alan? Baba?”
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Her face changes.
“What?” My heart tightens like a claw grips it.
Now is the time for truths to be told.
“They’re in the clinic,” she says.
My world shrivels again. The tilting sky plum-
mets. Shadows lose their immense and wondrous
shapes. The urge is still in me, stronger now, burn-
ing me up.
“I know where the clinic is.”
“Wait,” Dayah says.
I grab her hand. Drag her toward the clinic.
We hurry past shelters, the wooden toilet hut. The
kitchens. The food centers. Dayah pulls back a little.
Slows me down.
“The foreign doctor will help,” I say.
“Slow down,” Dayah says.
We pass diggers and tractors tearing up the earth,
expanding the camp.
“He speaks good Arabic. He smells nice. We’re
almost there,” I say.
The clinic is crowded with patients and familiar
smells and medics I recognize. My eyes search for
Baba. Bushra. Dapir. Most of all for Alan.
There they are! There they are! I breathe again.
I’m complete.
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Baba is talking with the doctor, Bushra next to him. She looks different somehow. Newer. I’ve
never felt such happiness to see my sister. My sister!
But she isn’t the one I’m looking for. Bushra startles
when she sees me. I pass her. Sense her reach for me,
hear my name on her lips.
“Ghalib—” Baba says.
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