by Dan Mayland
“Who is this?”
“Adam.”
“Adam—” Hannah was about to ask, Adam who? But she realized she recognized the boy’s voice. “Is this Adam Hasan?” she asked, emphasizing his last name.
“Uh-huh.”
“Adam Hasan the great paper-airplane maker? The great ribat-builder of Aleppo? That Adam Hasan?”
“Uh-huh.”
Hannah bit her lip and considered that, although she’d continued to replenish the prepaid minutes on her old phone, she hadn’t heard from Adam since she’d given it to him. She’d texted him once, to make sure he had her number, but he’d never responded. Which was perfectly normal, she’d thought. A boy his age had better things to do than text some strange woman he’d only met once.
What wasn’t perfectly normal was that he was calling her now, at one thirty in the morning.
“Well, hello, Adam,” she said. “This is Hannah. Do you remember me?”
“Yes. Can you come here?”
Assuming he meant his house in Aleppo, but confused as to why he would ask, she said, “That would be very difficult. You see, I am in—”
“I want to go back to Beit Qarah.”
Hannah lifted herself off the suitcase and placed a hand on her forehead.
“You are not at Beit Qarah now?”
“No.”
“Then where are you?” When Adam didn’t answer, she asked, “Is your father or mother there?”
“No.”
“Who is with you?”
“Noora. But she is on the ground.”
Hannah rubbed her temple and began to pace. “If Noora is on the ground, where are you?”
“On the roof. I climbed for the phone. So it would work.”
Bit by bit, Hannah pulled out the pieces of the story. Adam’s mother had died. He and Noora had been sent away to live in the country where an old sheik at the local mosque had made him get up before dawn for prayers and memorize parts of the Quran. The sheik had mocked Adam for his poor pronunciation and had smacked him in the face when he had neglected to speak the introductory Bismillah—In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Then yesterday, Selim’s grandmother, Sitto, had stolen the Hand of Fatima necklace Hannah had given him, so he had stolen it back, and he and Noora had snuck into a van bound for Aleppo. They had snuck back out when he thought they had arrived, but now he was not so sure they were in Aleppo, and his father would not answer his phone, so could she please come help him?
“Listen, Adam,” said Hannah, “I need you to do something very important. I need you to climb back down off the roof and find an adult who can tell you what city or town you are in. Can you do that?”
“I think everybody is asleep.”
“Look for the best house on the street. Go to that one with Noora and knock on the door until someone answers. Tell them you are lost, that you need them to tell you what town you are in. Do not hang up the phone while you are doing this. Try to keep talking to me. But if we get disconnected, call me right back. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Hannah had barely been able to hear Adam to start with, and the cell phone signal gave out completely when he left the roof. She tried calling back but got his voicemail. She left a message and sent a text, then returned to packing as though nothing had happened. After finally getting her suitcase closed, she went online and checked if her plane was still scheduled to depart on time. It was.
This wasn’t her business, she told herself. Adam probably wouldn’t even call back. He’d call his father, and his father would come for him.
Adam called her back.
“We are near Andzara,” he said.
“Hold on,” said Hannah. She rushed to unzip her purse and grab a pen and a twenty-lira Turkish banknote because she didn’t have a piece of scrap paper.
“How is that spelled?”
Adam, sounding as though he might be near tears, said he didn’t know.
“Are you with an adult now?”
“Yes.”
“May I speak to that person?”
Hannah tried calling Sami one more time. After getting dumped into his voicemail again, she locked her bags in a storage bin in the basement of her apartment complex, then paid forty euros to postpone her flight. When the taxi came for her at six in the morning, she had the driver bring her to the Bab al Hawa border crossing instead of the airport.
The olive groves north of Antakya were bare, the sky was gunmetal gray.
At the crossing, she waited five hours before reaching the border control point. The whole time, she worried she’d be turned away. They didn’t let private citizens cross at will anymore.
The Turks asked whether she was going to Raqqa, to marry an ISIS fighter.
She showed them her Bonne Foi identification, which she’d pulled from the garbage bin, and said she was on a charity mission to reunite two missing children with their father.
The guards said she was foolish to cross, but if she wanted to be a fool, then they wouldn’t stop her.
Outside the Kah refugee camp on the Syrian side of the border, she found a group of Free Syrian Army soldiers on their way to Aleppo who drove her the better part of the way to the village of Andzara for free.
Adam and Noora were kicking a soccer ball outside of the two-story stone farmhouse when she got there. The house bordered a dormant cotton field and was on the outskirts of the village.
Adam wore a woman’s shawl around his shoulders as though it were a cape. He was a constant, lanky flurry of motion, kicking the ball, racing after it, throwing it in the air, keeping it suspended with kicks from his knees. Noora was standing nearby, looking ridiculously vulnerable in her pink boots and pink pajamas and puffy winter coat, kicking the ball back whenever Adam sent it her way.
A rickety water tower stood on the roof of the house. Parked to the right of the front door, next to a three-wheeled car and a rusty irrigation tank, was a bright red tractor that had weeds growing around its tires.
Adam noticed Hannah first. He waved and ran toward her.
Hannah waved back as she kept walking.
When Adam skidded to a stop in front of her, he was all smiles. “Salaam,” he said.
Hannah noticed he was still wearing the Hand of Fatima necklace she’d given him.
“Salaam,” she said back.
“You took a long time to get here,” he noted.
“Yes, it did take a long time,” she said. “You must have been worried.”
“Did you bring a car?”
She explained that she didn’t have a car.
“Then how will we get to Beit Qarah?”
“I guess we will have to figure it out.”
chapter 48
Rebel-held Aleppo
When Sami opened the first of his two doors and heard the faint sound of voices, he thought squatters must have broken in.
The fact that he could also hear the plaintive voice of the Lebanese diva Fairuz singing I Loved You in the Summer drifting down from the second floor and that he recognized the crackle of his mother’s 1980s-era speakers told him the squatters had invaded not just Beit Qarah, but his mother’s room.
Although exhausted, having slept at the hospital the four nights prior and having worked all but six hours of the last forty-eight, he found that he was not too tired to be enraged by the violation. If it had been his room, that would have been one thing, but for strangers to be soiling his late mother’s things . . .
He did not care whether they were heavily armed ISIS thugs or just homeless waifs. Whoever they were, they could have found perfectly adequate shelter in any other part of the house. Furious, he inserted his key into the second of his two doors and yanked it open.
In three and a half years of war, he had never neglected to remove his street shoes when entering t
he house, but he did so now. As he ascended the steps to the second floor in the dark, taking two at a time, he noted that the generator in the courtyard was running—on his supply of diesel, no doubt. He wondered whether there would even be any food left in the kitchen.
The extension cord that ran from the generator to his mother’s room had prevented the intruders from shutting the door all the way. So when he yanked the door open, the squatters did not notice. They were facing away from him, huddled together on his mother’s Aubusson rug, looking at his mother’s collection of albums that were spread out on the floor. Edith Piaf stared up at him. A single dim light blazed in the corner.
“Get—”
He was about to shout, “Out!” when he realized he was staring at his own children. And the American woman.
Adam and Noora sprang up as one and ran to their father.
Sami stepped back, confused, his mind and body still primed for an outburst of anger. His children grabbed him and pulled at his waist. It felt as though they were trying to climb up him, as they might a tree. He wobbled a bit, off balance and speechless. The Fairuz record skipped.
“Baba, where were you?” asked Adam.
Sami looked down at his son and Noora.
“At the hospital,” he said, still incredulous. “Why are you here?”
As he observed the smile on Adam’s face falter, he realized that those were the wrong words, that he should be hugging both his children back, expressing concern for them and telling them how good it was to see them. But he had been so tired and angry a moment ago, and so confused now.
“We wanted to come home,” announced Adam, still sounding cheerful, but also a little defensive.
“I thought the boy Selim, he was your friend? What happened to the arrangements?”
Adam shrugged.
Sami eyed Hannah. Her long, black hair was uncovered. Her abaya had been casually thrown into a corner of the room revealing a form-fitting blue fleece athletic top. “And you?” he asked.
“When they could not reach you, they called me,” she said, giving Noora’s shoulder a squeeze.
Sami had planned to be back at the M2 by seven the next morning and to sleep at the hospital tomorrow night. There was nowhere near enough food in the house to feed everyone. The idea was that the children would be cared for in the country, and now—
“Adam and Noora,” said Hannah brightly. “I imagine your father is surprised to see me and has many questions about how we got here. So, perhaps he and I could talk while you two arrange your beds?” As they trudged out, she added, “Leave the door open.”
Sami held his tongue as Hannah explained what had happened. He already felt oafish and unrefined in her presence—he was at least a head taller than her and had not shaved in a week—and was hesitant to make himself appear to be more brutish by expressing anger. So when he finally spoke, it was only to explain that the battery on his phone had died, which is why he had not answered any calls. And to express concern that, after the kidnapping attempt, she had dared to come back to Aleppo.
“The checkpoints are watched,” he said. “You know this.”
“Are you working tomorrow?” she asked.
He opened his palms. “Of course.”
“And you are determined to stay in Aleppo?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. I will find someone else to watch Adam and Noora. Someone who can come to the house. They are attached to Beit Qarah. I see now it was a mistake to have moved them.”
“I can stay a few days, if that helps.”
If she could, Sami said, and if she promised to stay inside and not risk going through any more checkpoints, then yes, he would be grateful.
The next day, Sami called Ibrahim.
There was no easy way to tell him that Noora and Adam had run away, or that Sami had no intention of forcing them to go back. The insult, even delivered diplomatically, was evident.
“Of course, your children are used to finer accommodations,” said Ibrahim. “It must have been difficult for them living in such conditions.”
“It was not the conditions, I assure you. My children, they simply—”
“Having a home such as Beit Qarah to oneself during wartime is important, to be sure,” said Ibrahim. “I must tell you,” he added, “my mother informed me that, because your children have been raised with little discipline, they lack proper respect. I speak candidly because I know you are too busy to see this.”
“I am indeed,” said Sami, “and I am ashamed at the trouble I and my children have given your family. Please tell your mother I will forever be grateful for the assistance she offered me in my time of need.”
Ibrahim paused then said, “Inshallah, I will tell her. And as for you, what will you do now?”
“What I have always done.”
“So, the M2. You will not be leaving it?”
“Of course not.”
“And who will watch your children?”
“I am in the process of making arrangements.”
“I will send men tomorrow. So that whatever arrangements you make, your children will be protected.”
“That will not be necessary.”
“What is necessary,” said Ibrahim, his voice hardening, “is for you to focus on your work, and you will not be able to do that if you fear for the safety of your children, Doctor. I speak from experience. If you recall, earlier in the war when you feared for your children, my cousin died.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“My cousin Abdul Antar, God grant him rest, brother of my cousin Colonel Umar Antar, God grant him rest. You treated Abdul at the beginning of the war. He had a liver injury. But you left in the middle of the operation to retrieve your children—from Jarabulus I was told. Three weeks later my cousin had pains, then he died.”
Sami vaguely recalled having operated on a man’s liver around the time he had rescued his family from ISIS in Jarabulus, but he had performed so many similar operations that he could not remember the particulars of this one.
“If he had pains, why did he not come to see me?”
“A soldier does not have that luxury, Doctor.”
“Three weeks after the operation, he was back to fighting?”
“After two weeks.”
“Then that is why he died! Because he did not follow my instructions.”
“I do not blame you, of course.”
“And yet, you do.”
“It was God’s will to take Abdul and then Umar, not yours. But now God and Syria need all of you, Doctor. The tyrant must be defeated. For the good of your children and all the children of Syria. Please keep that in mind.”
The next day at dawn, three soldiers from Ibrahim’s Islamist Ahrar al-Sham militia group showed up at Beit Qarah unannounced. They bore bread and cheese and dried apricots.
One of the soldiers said he had been instructed to accompany Sami back and forth from the hospital and that from then on, Sami would always be provided with protection. In fact, at least one soldier would perpetually stand guard outside the entrance to Beit Qarah, and another would be posted on the roof.
It was a courtesy, they said, given the important role Sami was playing in sustaining the rebellion.
“I do not want any soldiers near the hospital,” said Sami.
“They will be dressed in civilian clothes,” said Ibrahim. “And we will bring no weapons inside the hospital. The regime will bomb anyway, of course, but we will respect the will of the medical council.”
It occurred to Sami that the soldiers could just as easily be used to prevent him from leaving Aleppo as they could be used to protect him. But he did genuinely worry about Adam and Noora’s safety, and planned to stay in Aleppo anyway, so he decided that ignoring the soldiers and going about his business as though they were not there would be the path of least resistance.<
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chapter 49
A week after Adam and Noora returned to Beit Qarah, a cease-fire was declared. Badly needed supplies suddenly flowed into the city. Hannah agreed to stay a bit longer. Her mother was beside herself, her sister was furious at her, and what friends she’d had in high school and college no longer expected to hear from her. The pull of the children was simply too strong.
She bought tomatoes, cauliflower, potatoes, green beans, and cabbage. Chicken, lamb, and eggs. Cumin and tahini. Fresh oranges, pomegranate, and grapefruit juice. Rosemary syrup and even jelly beans. When leaving the house, she veiled herself and avoided checkpoints, but she didn’t try to avoid contact with all people. Indeed, upon returning home from shopping one afternoon and observing an elderly neighbor outside of her apartment, willowy and blinking in the bright sun as though emerging from hibernation, she invited the woman into the courtyard where they ate lunch and drank tea.
Spring was nearly upon them. The light lingered longer in the early evening sky, and the air grew warm.
Old men sat outside playing backgammon and smoking apple-scented tobacco from nargile water pipes. Adam and Noora wore T-shirts. There was talk of reviving the rooftop garden and maybe trying to fix the leak in the roof.
Hannah grew accustomed to the routine of the house. Waking up at dawn. Making breakfast while Adam ran the generator. Teaching school lessons to the children, fixing the leaky sink in the bathroom—all it had needed was a few twists with a wrench—washing clothes in the bathtub, cleaning the courtyard, helping Adam build a mousetrap—he swore there were mice in the cellar, although she’d never seen evidence of them.
At night she told the children stories about the two precocious chickens having adventures in the Paramus Park Souk.
With the cease-fire, the incidents of trauma wounds at the M2 plummeted, then two foreign doctors arrived on a mercy mission, so Sami had more time to himself. He wasted most of it pacing around the courtyard, ostensibly paying attention to his children but looking more like a caged beast who didn’t know what to do with all his time and energy.