Without Refuge
Page 16
bank, Little Syria spelled out in red paint. I remember standing here weeks ago with Musab and Ali,
with the man and his family. I remember making
the hardest decision in my life. I know now I made
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a strong decision. A brave decision. I made a better decision than I think Hamza might have made. I’m
learning to keep my head about me.
We walk through the dawn, passing crops and
meadows of wildflowers. Fields of wheat and cot-
ton and grazing animals. They remind me of Syria
before the war, when I went to the markets with
Dayah and Dapir to buy lemons, eggplant, tomatoes.
We cross a rushing river. Alan calls out to a startled
herd of goats grazing along its banks. They skip and
scamper, scattering for shelter among thick shrubs
and hedgerows. Everything is green and fresh and
growing. The sky has brightened by the time we
arrive at the first buildings on the outskirts of Rey-
hanli: blocks of apartments and houses, mosques and
schools and traffic. Alan’s leg is stiff. This is the first time in weeks he has walked any distance. He clambers on my back. We walk alongside the busy roads
until we reach the town center. It’s waking up as
we arrive in its morning-washed streets. A barber
sweeps out his shop, stacks clean towels. The sign
outside his door is in Arabic and Turkish. A baker
washes down the path, sluicing water into the gut-
ter. His trays are full of fresh baked goods: flatbreads, stuffed rolls, Syrian pastries. The aroma reminds me
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of home. I pause to read a café menu: traditional Syrian dishes among Turkish foods. I smell garlic, figs,
sweet honey.
I don’t understand the feelings gathering in my
chest. “Why is it like this?” I say.
Baba looks at me. “What do you mean?”
I don’t know how to explain the strangeness.
Something is wrong about walking the streets of a
busy market town so close to a refugee camp. We’re
so close to the Syrian border, which boils with
guards and tear gas and people clamoring to cross.
So close to hills where smugglers cut border fences
to let people through. So close to where Dapir is
buried in Syrian soil.
“It’s so normal here.” I don’t know how to describe my feelings. “How is it possible? Our war is so close.
People are dying just over those hills.”
I watch children run past us on their way to
school, backpacks heavy on their shoulders, clothes
fresh, faces clean. Alan stares at them.
“Turkey doesn’t have a war,” Baba says. “The
war is inside Syria.”
I know this: Baba doesn’t need to explain the
politics of our war. But I also know he doesn’t under-
stand. My world tilts. The ground beneath me no
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longer feels the solid ground I walked on all my life.
I look at a world I no longer understand. I’m grate-
ful Alan is on my back to weigh me down or else I
might float away.
“I know what you mean, Ghalib,” Bushra says.
“Do you?” I search her face to see if she under-
stands me.
She looks at the clean intact buildings. The well-
dressed people. “Reyhanli is too clean for us. Too
fresh. It’s like we’ve stepped into a parallel universe.”
Bushra does understand.
I think of what it’s like in the refugee camp. I
think of lining up for hours in the gathering dark to
use burners in a makeshift kitchen, to fill water con-
tainers before night seeps through the path, before the
camp sinks to a dangerous nothing until morning.
We put our bags down in a small square. Baba
leaves to exchange gold jewelry for Turkish money
and to find out information. Alan slides off my back.
I stare around me. The strange feelings haven’t eased.
“This is Kobani from five years ago,” I say.
“Before ISIS, before the bombs. Before the war.”
“Lots of Syrians live here,” Dayah says. “That’s
why it feels like home.”
Dayah is like Baba. She doesn’t see either.
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“It’s not that,” I say.
“Why are the buildings standing up?” Alan says.
Even he gets it.
We laugh. “Buildings are supposed to stand up,”
I say.
Dayah ruffles his hair. “You’re too young to
remember Kobani before the city was blown apart.
You were born after the war started.”
“I got born with the bombs,” Alan says.
“You arrived at a dangerous time,” Dayah says.
The memory saddens her words.
“You couldn’t get to hospital,” Alan says. “There
were too many explosions.”
We all remember Alan’s story. We all lived
through it. The panic. The terror. We know how it
ends. Alan doesn’t remember, so telling it is his way
of sharing his history with us.
“I was sick when I got born,” he says. “I stopped
breathing.”
“You were very sick,” Dayah says. “But Baba
saved you.”
“Except he couldn’t fix my arm or leg.”
“He tried so hard.” Dayah says. Her voice is a
whisper now. “And Bushra searched everywhere for
a doctor.”
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Alan kicks out his bad leg, holds up his gimpy arm. “I got broken because of the war.”
“That war has a lot to answer for, Alan,” I say.
“Why can’t we stay here?” Bushra says. “It would
be easy to get home to Kobani from here.”
She’s right. Reyhanli certainly seems like a nice
place. I look at the straight electricity poles with
cables between them. Phone masts. Street lights.
It’s been so long since I’ve been anywhere with live
electricity, with light and power after dark, I hardly
remember what it’s like to turn on a light switch.
“Too close to Syria,” says Dayah. Her voice is
soft. I think she’s still remembering Alan’s birth,
which was also very nearly Alan’s death.
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We sit quietly until Baba returns, happy that he’s
managed to exchange gold jewelry for a thick wad
of Turkish money.
“The bus terminal is on the north side of town,”
he says. “They call a bus an otobus, and the terminal is the otogar. We can get from there to Adana.”
He hands us bottles of water and Syrian pastries,
crunchy with pistachios and dripping with honey.
We enjoy the rare treat in the little square in the
middle of Reyhanli. Even though this place feels
strange, I like how peaceful it is.
The otogar is a collection of little huts and low buildings on the side of two wide sets of train tracks.
With crowds of people, heavy traffic, uniformed
officials shouting and directing, it reminds me sharply
of the Syrian border. My belly clenches involuntarily,
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but once we get close, I see it’s entirely different. As soon as we’re within shouting distance, three or four
bus hawkers immedi
ately surround Baba, negotiat-
ing the best price to Adana. Baba speaks no Turkish
but it doesn’t matter—the hawkers switch instantly
to Arabic. They try to talk each other down.
“Anywhere in Turkey! Anywhere in Turkey!”
“Today you leave, today you arrive!”
“No delay. Fast delivery of your family.”
“Cheaper price with our otobus.”
After a few minutes’ confusion, Baba agrees a price
and an otobus. Money and tickets exchange hands.
“We leave for Adana in half an hour,” Baba says.
Half an hour in Turkey means the same as half
an hour in Syria: the otobus doesn’t leave until it’s
full. There are no assigned seats—everyone crams
in wherever they find space. Alan and I are first
onboard.
“Down the back, Ghalib,” he says.
We jam ourselves in a little corner to watch the
activity. Dayah and Baba sit up front. Bushra is in a
little single seat. Once the bus is full, the bus atten-
dant slams the sliding door and stands in the stepwell
as we speed out of the otogar. Other passengers talk
above the Turkish music blasting from the speakers.
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I hear their conversations but understand nothing.
Alan’s head quickly gets heavy against my shoulder.
Turkish countryside skims past, but I see little of it. I soon doze off, waking with a lurch when the driver
beeps his horn.
We’re pulling into a large modern otogar. The
otobus is half empty. The bus attendant now sits up
beside the driver.
“Where are we?” I say.
“Adana,” Dayah says.
I nudge Alan awake, lean forward and poke
Bushra. We clamber out, half stupid with sleep, and
dump our bags on the ground.
Baba is all smiles. “Adana was closer than I
thought. Who’s hungry?”
“Me!” Alan says.
“What time is it?” I say.
“Time to eat,” Baba says. He winks at me. I
haven’t seen him so lighthearted in months.
We take our bags and follow him through the
doors of the massive otogar. It smells hot and for-
eign. There are shops and cafés, stalls selling mobile
phones and shiny electronics. We pass a busy ticket
hall full of vendors and rows of glass hatches, lines
of seats and signposts. Hundreds of people mill
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around, running, trailing children and baggage, waiting in lines. All the signs are in Turkish—no
Arabic here. We’ve left Syria far behind. Saying
good-bye to Safaa and Amin in the refugee camp
feels like it happened in another life. I struggle to
remember Hamza’s face.
“Stay together and don’t get lost,” Baba says.
I turn to take Alan’s hand, but he’s not beside me.
With a rush of panic, I look back. He hops on his
good leg across the shiny floor tiles.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“You can only walk on the black squares, Ghalib.
You’re not allowed on white squares.”
He balances on a dark tile and hops to the next.
I take his hand and we run to catch up with Baba,
who waits for us at the door of a café. Dayah and
Bushra are already inside. We load our bags against
the wall and are about to sit down when someone
shouts. A man rushes from behind the counter. He’s
wearing a greasy apron, waves a tea towel. He speaks
in Turkish to Baba.
“I don’t understand,” Baba says to him.
The man raises his voice. He turns to me. I smell
cigarette smoke from him. I don’t know what we’ve
done wrong but this man is not happy about it.
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Other people in the café turn to look. They stare at us. Our bags. Dayah stands up and the man shouts
at her too. Points at our bags. When we don’t do
what he wants, he leans down and grabs two of our
bags. He points toward the door.
“Maybe we aren’t allowed to bring our luggage
inside,” Bushra says.
“We can leave them outside,” Dayah says.
Another man comes over, a customer in the café.
He’s young, with a beard, carrying a book and a
backpack. “He says no Syrians allowed,” the young
man says to Baba in Arabic. “Are you Syrian?”
My blood freezes. I look at the young man. Baba
looks at him, then nods. He says nothing. Nobody
says anything, except the shouting man. The whole
café has fallen silent. The whole café waits to see
what will happen next.
Behind me, I hear Bushra mutter. Her voice
skims above her breath. I’m the only one to hear.
“Think this is bad? Wait till we get to Europe.”
I want to punch her in the nose. I do nothing. I
say nothing. I’m paralyzed.
The young man talks to the shouting man in Turkish.
The man shakes his head. Crosses his arms.
Stands firm.
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“He says Syrians are not welcome in Turkey,” the young man says to Baba. “He says to leave his café.
To go back to where you come from.”
“Bushra, Ghalib, the bags,” Dayah says.
We snap out of our stupor and grab the bags.
Alan clings to me.
“Come on, Alan,” I say.
He starts to cry. He’s frightened. I don’t look at
anyone. My face is hot with shame. I drag the bags and
Alan out the door. He stumbles over his feet because
I hurry him. That makes him cry harder. Bushra is
behind me. Her face is flaming. Her eyes are down-
cast. Then Dayah and Baba, with the young man.
“He says he put a sign on the door,” the young
man says. We look. A cardboard sign in Turkish and
Arabic is stuck inside the door: No Syrians. The Arabic is not written properly but the message is clear.
The young man looks embarrassed. “This is not
typical of Turkey,” he says. “Not characteristic of my
people. Syrians are welcome here. I’m sorry, but he
wouldn’t change his mind. He’s angry about a lot of
things.”
His eyes are sad. He says more comforting things
but I want him gone. I want to be a thousand miles
away from this café. From this otogar. From Adana.
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I want to be back in Reyhanli. Back in the refugee camp. Anywhere but standing outside this stupid
café with its staring customers and badly written
cardboard sign.
Alan is sobbing now. I pick him up. He nuzzles
against my neck.
Baba nods at the young man. Thanks him for
his help. “We’ll find somewhere we’re welcome,”
Baba says.
And finally we move away from the front of the
café. We leave the young man staring after us.
Now that we’ve seen a No Syrians sign, we find
them all over the place. On the phone stall. Outside
the coffee shop.
“There’s one,” Alan says.
“There’s another,” Bushra says.
My insides curl up. I think of that man shout-
ing. I blink hard to keep my tears back. People stare.
/> They talk and whisper. I think it’s because we’re Syr-
ian. Someone shouts and my heart skips a beat, but it
turns out to have nothing to do with us. I keep close
to Dayah and Baba.
“Let’s get out of here,” Baba says.
We leave the otogar. To cheer us up, Dayah buys
slices of hot Turkish pizza and sweet sticky dough
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at a street stall. The seller teaches us Turkish as he hands over the food, wrapped in greaseproof paper.
“Lah-ma-cun,” he says, pointing at the pizza.
“Lahmacun.”
He leans over so Alan can reach the hot sweet
dough with his good hand.
“Sim-it,” the man says. “Simit.”
We sit and eat on a little patch of sunburned
grass outside the station, well away from Turkish
people. Baba has said little since we were thrown
out of the café. His face has lost the happy look
he wore when we first arrived. His words shrank
to nothing in the face of the shouting man and he
hasn’t found them since.
After we’ve eaten and rested, though, we make
a plan. “We need to get a bus to Izmir,” Baba says.
“Where the boats are.”
“We’re going on a boat?” I say.
“Across the sea?” Alan says.
Baba nods. “From Izmir to Europe.”
I’ve never been on a boat. I’ve never seen the sea.
“Where in Europe?” says Bushra.
“Who cares?” I say. “It’s not Adana.”
“Greece,” Baba says. “We’ll get a boat from Izmir
to the Greek islands. Greece accepts Syrians.”
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“Do they bomb on the Greek islands?” Alan says.
“No bombs.”
“Do they shell on the Greek islands?” I say.
“No shells.”
“Will they let us land on the Greek islands?”
Bushra says.
---
The bus to Izmir is much bigger than the little otobus
from Reyhanli. It has cloth seats and air conditioning
and a separate place to store luggage. Dayah doesn’t
want to leave our luggage in the hold. “We can’t see
it. Somebody might take it.”
“The driver locks the door,” Baba says.
Dayah is not convinced. She puts the bedrolls
and blankets in the hold; everything else comes onto
the bus.
“Thirteen hours to Izmir,” Baba says.
“How long is thirteen hours?” Alan says.
“More than one sleep,” I say.
“On one bus?” He looks at me wide-eyed.
“Won’t we fall off the country?”
“Big country,” I say.