One night they came to a flat field where many people had stopped for the night.
“It’s good to be among so many,” Mama said, and they rolled themselves in the quilt and went to sleep.
Samira was wakened by the sound of a voice. It was a small voice and it wavered, but she could hear what it was saying. “Mama, Mama.”
Samira sat up and looked around. Half a moon was shining, and all around her she could see people lying as if they had dropped from exhaustion. No one else seemed to hear the faint voice, but Samira kept searching with her eyes until she saw a little figure wandering unsteadily among the sleeping people.
It was a little girl, she was sure. A little girl who had lost her mother in this nameless place.
She was just thinking that she should tell Mama when her mother opened her eyes.
“Maryam?” she said. “Maryam, is that you?”
Samira couldn’t breathe. What could she say? But then her mother was sitting up.
“That child is lost,” she said and stood up. She made her way between the sleepers until she came to the little girl. Then she knelt and said, “I’ll help you find your mama.”
She took the little girl by the hand and they walked together. Samira could see her mother bending to talk to the child and knew she was asking, “Is that your mother there? Or there?”
Samira found herself praying without thinking about it.
“Let her be alive,” she prayed. “Let her mother be alive.”
It seemed that she had been praying for a long time but maybe it was only a few minutes when one of the sleeping people suddenly stood up as if she had been pulled from the ground. She reached out her arms and the little girl ran into them.
Samira’s mother watched for just a moment. Then she came back to Samira and put her arms around her.
“She is with her mother now,” she said. And then she lay down and went to sleep. Samira slept, too,
In the morning Samira and Mama smiled at each other remembering the little girl, but as the days went on Mama grew weak and feverish. Each night Samira tried to find a sheltered place for them to sleep, and as they walked she let her mother lean on her. She didn’t know what else to do.
She was wondering how much longer her own strength would last when a woman came by in a small wagon pulled by a mule. She stopped when she saw Mama stumbling and came over to her. Samira saw that she was not Assyrian, but she spoke Syriac to Samira.
“Your mother is very ill,” she said to Samira. “I’ll take you to the next camping place. There may be a doctor there. I’m from the American mission in Urmieh. We hoped we could help on this terrible journey and sometimes we can do a little. Come. We’ll make your mother as comfortable as we can.”
In the wagon Samira could do nothing but sit beside Mama and hold her hand. All day they jolted over a rocky road, and Samira tried to talk to Mama, to tell her that the journey would end soon. But her mother didn’t answer, and as the last rays of the sun slanted across the rough land, Samira saw that her mother had died.
She crawled up to the front of the wagon and spoke to the kind woman.
“My mother is gone,” she said.
The woman stopped the mule and went to Samira’s mother.
“Yes, she is gone,” she said quietly. “Oh, my poor child.” She put her arm around Samira for a moment. Then she said, “We’ll find a place to lay her to rest.” She took off the shawl she was wearing and wrapped it around Mama.
Samira got back into the wagon and sat by her mother as the woman drove a short way until they reached a place where a river must flow after a rain. Now there was just a narrow stream between steep rocky banks.
The woman said, “We must leave your mother here above the river. Maybe some day we can come back and bury her as we should. Perhaps you can remember the name of the village nearby. It is called Sain Kala.”
Two men came with a shovel and made a grave. When Mama was buried, the woman went with Samira to gather rocks to put on the grave so that animals couldn’t dig it up.
She stood beside Samira and bowed her head and said a small prayer. Then she said, “Amen.”
“Amen,” said Samira. After that she did not speak.
It was dark now and the kind woman found her another wagon to ride in the next day, explaining that she must go back along the road to find others who needed help. Later other people took her into wagons or walked with her, but Samira didn’t know who they were or where she was on the journey.
At every river she looked for Papa and Benyamin, but they were never there.
Samira did not count the days, but afterwards she heard that the long, terrible journey took twenty-eight days. Or thirty. No one knew for sure, but at last the people who were walking came to a place where there were soldiers and tents. Samira could hear voices around her saying “Hamadan” and “British army.” She stopped walking and stood still.
A man in a uniform came up to her. Samira thought he must be a British soldier. He gave her a piece of strange hard bread and a tin cup of water. When she had drunk the water he took the cup and gave her a handful of raisins.
Then he said, “Syriac?”
Samira nodded. Yes, she spoke Syriac.
The man took her by her shoulders and said two words. They meant, “Your people.” Then he pointed her toward a large group of people under some chinar trees. They seemed very far away, but the soldier gave her a little push and turned to someone else with his bread and raisins.
As Samira walked toward the group she saw many women and children and only a few men sitting in little groups, just waiting. They were so dusty that they almost seemed to be part of the earth. A few stood and watched the soldiers send one person after another toward them.
As someone new approached, one of these people would call out a question.
Soon Samira could hear the words. “What village?”
She stopped, confused. A woman came toward her. She looked very old and her clothes were so dirty that Samira could not see the color of the fabric. But her eyes were bright and she spoke kindly.
“Dear child,” she said. “You are alone. Can you tell me what village you come from? Perhaps there is someone else from that village with us here.”
Samira thought of her family. None of them were here. But she could say the name of the village.
She whispered, “Ayna.”
“Ayna,” said the woman. “There was someone saying that name.” Suddenly she shouted, “Ayna! Ayna!” making Samira jump.
Immediately the crowd of people began to ripple and murmur. “Ayna, Ayna, where is that boy? A boy. You know, a boy who said Ayna.”
The words flowed around Samira like water, and then she saw a boy coming out of the crowd. She was startled at how tall he was and how thin but she knew he was Benyamin. He came to her and, for the first time she could remember, he put his arms around her.
“Samira, Samira,” he said. “You are here. But, Mama. Where is Mama?”
“She couldn’t walk anymore and she died, Benyamin. She died.” She didn’t want to ask but she had to. “Papa?”
“I don’t know.” Benyamin stopped hugging her and stood looking at the ground. “The soldiers came. We hid in a gully but I was smaller and Papa said I could fit in the narrow
place at the end so I squeezed in. I heard the soldiers shouting and clanking their weapons but I couldn’t see anything and when it was quiet I came out. No one was there.”
Samira looked at him and saw tears in the dust on his face. She had no tears.
“He must be dead,” she said.
“Yes,” said Benyamin. There was no more to say.
But suddenly Samira knew there was something else to say.
“I’m glad you didn’t die, Benyamin,” she said. “There are two of us here.”
Then she did cry.
TWO
The Orphan Section
Baqubah Refugee Camp
September 1918
MAYBE A HAMADAN WAS A city, but all Samira could see were brown tents and brown late-summer fields. The British army was camped far outside the city walls. She stayed under the chinar trees with hundreds of other ragged people and ate stew and bread brought by British soldiers. She was given a quilt to wrap around her at night.
It was peaceful there beside the British army. But after two days the journey began again. This time the people rode in big wagons for a week until they came to a place where there were more tents — big white ones.
This was the Baqubah Refugee Camp near Baghdad, where they would stay until the war was over and they could go home.
Before they could enter the camp, all the refugees had to go through water that would kill lice and other things that might cause sickness. The water was in a big tank. It was cool and so deep that it came up to Samira’s chin. She washed herself from her hair to her feet with strong yellow soap.
When she came out a woman handed her a towel and checked her hair to be sure no lice were left.
“My clothes?” asked Samira, clutching the towel around her.
“Oh, they’re gone,” said the woman. “Burned. Go into the next tent and you’ll get new ones.”
Samira was given a long skirt, a loose blouse that hung over it and a shawl. The skirt and blouse were too big and the fabric was rough, but Samira liked the color, a blue that reminded her of Mama’s favorite scarf. And everything was clean.
The girls and women were sent to tents on one side of the camp and the men and boys to the other side. Samira looked anxiously for Benyamin but she couldn’t see him anywhere.
“Will I be able to see my brother?” she asked a man in a uniform. He was trying to hurry everyone along and barely glanced at her.
“We have to try to find your parents,” he said briskly. “For now you are assigned to this tent.” He gave her a little push toward one of the tents and turned away.
The tent was crowded with women and children. There were women alone and others with their daughters and small sons. There were some girls who were alone, too, but Samira didn’t want to talk to any of them. They were all strangers and they looked at her with questions in their eyes. She found that if she sat very still no one noticed her most of the time.
There was a stove in a shelter outside the tent. Every day the soldiers brought food to be warmed. Sacks of bread and kettles of soup made of beans or lentils. As Samira ate monotonous soup from her tin cup she tried not to remember her mother’s stews, seasoned with herbs and vegetables picked from the garden.
After a meal each person took her cup to a washing-up place. One day as Samira was swishing her cup through the basin of soapy water, she caught sight of Benyamin walking past. She dropped the cup and called to him.
“Benyamin, I’m here!”
“Little sister,” he said, coming to her quickly. “I’m glad you saw me. No one could tell me which tent you were in. Now I’ve heard that they’ll be moving everyone to different parts of the camp. We must tell them that we want to be in the same section. Will you remember?”
Samira was indignant. “Of course I’ll remember. We have to be together. There are so many tents here and more people than in Ayna. Maybe more than in the city! We have to be together or we will never see each other!”
“Good. I think they’ll listen to us.” Benyamin touched her hand and was gone.
The next day a man with a large flat book and a pen came into the tent. He went from one person to another, asking questions and writing words in the book. When Samira’s turn came she told him about her parents and Maryam.
“They died on the journey,” she said. “But my brother is here. Benyamin. He’s in one of the tents for the men. I know there are tents for families. Send us to one of those so that we can be together. Please.”
The man smiled. “There are so many kinds of people in this camp,” he said. “Armenians, Assyrians from the mountains and Assyrians like you from the plains near Urmieh. Some are parents with their children and others are men or women or children who are here without their families. Each group will have a section of the camp. You and your brother will be in a section for Assyrian orphans. You will be able to see your brother, I promise. Now I must go and talk with someone else.”
Samira knew the word orphan. There was a boy in the village whose parents had died of an illness. He was an orphan, people said, but he went to live with his uncle’s family. He didn’t go to a special place.
She wondered about this place. A place for children with no parents.
The next day a woman came to Samira’s tent. She called together all the girls who were there without a mother.
“Today everyone is moving to the part of the camp where they will live. You are going to the Assyrian Orphan Section. Hold hands and follow me. You big girls, watch out that you don’t let go of the small ones. I don’t want anyone to get lost.”
She led them out of the tent. They made a long line, like a snake. The snake of girls wound its way through crowds of people who were talking and calling to each other as they moved along. They went down a long row of big white tents, around a corner and down another row.
The girl behind Samira squeezed her hand and spoke in her ear.
“So many tents,” she said. “So many people! Do you think there are any people left in Persia?”
Samira shrugged.
The girl squeezed her hand again.
“I’m Anna,” she said. “I know what’s going to happen. They are going to give me some little children to look after. That’s all right but I want to do it with someone like you. I think you have good sense.”
Samira almost laughed. “Good sense?”
“You’re quiet. You don’t fuss. Shall we stick together?”
Samira turned to look at the girl behind her. Anna had noticed her as she sat on her sleeping mat, but she hadn’t noticed Anna at all. Now she saw a girl with a round face and big eyes smiling at her.
Samira smiled back. It felt strange, as if her mouth had forgotten how to turn up at the corners.
“Yes,” said Samira. “We’ll stick together.”
At last the snake of children came to a wire fence with a gate in it. The woman opened the gate and the line followed her through. Then they all dropped hands and looked at a big open space with tents on either side.
The woman said, “You girls and the littlest boys will be in the tents over there. The boys’ tents are on the other side.”
“Good,” said Samira to herself. Benyamin would not be far away.
“There’s an eating tent down at the end,” th
e woman went on, “and a school tent. Right here we’ll build a playground where you can swing and climb.”
Samira understood everything but the playground. Why would anyone need a special place to play? But the school tent sounded promising. Maybe at last she could go to school.
The woman was busy sorting the girls into tents.
“I want a few of you older girls in each tent. You’ll help look after the little ones.” She looked at Anna. “I’m sure you’ll be good at that.” Then she noticed Samira. “And you can help, too, dear,” she added kindly.
Samira almost laughed again.
“How did you know that would happen?” she asked Anna.
“It always happens,” said Anna. “I’m only ten but I guess I’m tall for my age. Maybe she can see that I’ve looked after my little sisters.” She stopped and looked away, as if she wished she hadn’t spoken about her sisters.
“I looked after my sister, Maryam,” said Samira quickly. “She loved songs. But she’s not with me because — ”
“You’ll tell me about her when we have time. Right now we have to find our spot in this tent.”
Anna went over to the piles of sleeping mats and quilts that had been left at the door.
Samira stood still, feeling puzzled. It seemed that Anna didn’t want to hear about Maryam. Or maybe she didn’t want to talk about her own sisters.
She took a deep breath and went to help Anna choose a spot at the far end of the tent where they wouldn’t be crowded on both sides. They laid out their mats and put the quilts and their small bundles of clothes neatly against the canvas wall.
When time came for the midday meal, Samira was pleased to find that the boys and girls ate at the same time. Every day she could speak with her brother.
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