But as another winter began, Elias settled into a routine, just like everyone else in the Orphan Section. He even learned to let Samira and Anna do their lessons in the school tent and the chilly days went by, one very much like the others.
ONE MORNING SAMIRA opened her eyes and noticed that the light was brighter and the air had a warm feel to it.
“I think it’s spring,” she said to Anna.
Still, she was surprised when the woman who came to check the height and weight of all the children in the Orphan Section said, “You’ll be turning twelve one of these days. When you came here in summer of 1918 you had turned nine in the spring. Now it’s the spring of 1921. Do you know exactly when your birthday is?”
“I don’t know the day but it’s at the time when the storks come back to their nests in the tower of the church,” said Samira. She suddenly remembered the big long-necked birds sitting on their untidy nests waiting for their eggs to hatch, and Mama laughing at how funny they looked.
“The storks,” said Samira. “I want to see them again.”
But the woman had gone on to measure another girl and didn’t hear her. Samira caught up with her as she was leaving the tent.
“If I’m twelve that means I have been here for three years,” she said. “Will I be here forever?”
“Of course not,” said the woman. “The camp won’t be here forever. It will close one of these days.”
“But if the camp isn’t here where will we go?” Samira thought of the storks again. “Home. We should go home.”
“I know,” said the woman. She looked sad. “It is not always easy to go home after a war. Things have changed. I’m sorry. I don’t know what will happen.”
Samira began to listen carefully to the talk around her. But she only heard questions. “When…?” “Where…?” “How long…?”
Rumors spread through the camp. Benyamin and his friend Ashur reported a new one every day when they came in from delivering laundry. Samira began to get a picture of what was going to happen.
The camp would soon be closed but the people in the camp would not be allowed to return to the villages they had left behind in Persia. Instead they would be sent to villages up north, in country that had been part of Turkey before the war. And boys just a little older than Benyamin would go into an army to defend those villages.
No one knew what would happen to the orphans.
“What can we say if they just send us somewhere?” asked Samira.
“Well, I won’t go without you and Elias,” said Anna.
Elias came and stood between the two girls. He had been with them nearly a year and now he wanted to talk as much as he had wanted to run when they first knew him.
He looked up and said, “Where? Going where?”
“We don’t know where we’ll go but we’ll all go together,” Samira said, picking him up. He was heavy now but she could still give him a squeeze before she put him down.
The very next day a man came into the tent before breakfast. They had never seen him before. He waited until all the children noticed him and became quiet. Then he spoke.
“This camp will be closing soon, and everyone in it will have to go and live somewhere else. The Assyrian men and women who are in the camp have been offered the chance to settle in villages not far from here. They have refused this offer because they want to return to the villages they came from. They will have to find their own way back. It will be hard but they have chosen. You are children and you can’t find your own way so you’ll be sent to another orphanage. You don’t have to worry. You will be looked after.”
Samira stared at the man. How could he tell her not to worry?
The man must have felt the questions in the eyes of all the children because he said, “That’s all I can tell you now. I’m sorry.” He turned and left the tent.
Samira turned to Anna. “First our villages are gone. Now the camp will be gone. We have been here for almost three years of our lives. Where will we go next?”
Life in the camp changed quickly. One after another the big tents outside the Orphan Section were taken down. The teacher stopped coming to the school tent. Garbage piled up as group after group of men, women and families were sent away.
“They have to walk all the way to Mosul,” said Benyamin. “There they have to sign a paper saying that they are leaving the camp because they want to. Then they’ll camp somewhere along the Tigris River until they can cross over and walk to Persia and, maybe, back to their villages.”
There was nothing for the orphans to do but wait. The girls still swept the tent every day, but the laundry was closed so the children’s clothes got dirtier and dirtier. Benyamin’s shirt was torn and there was no thread to mend it. Bean soup and bread arrived every day but the bread was not fresh. The bakers had gone.
When at last news came that the orphans should prepare to leave for Baghdad, Samira was relieved. The Baqubah refugee camp was not a place to be anymore.
She made a bundle of her extra blouse and skirt and the books she had stitched together. Elias’s clothes made a smaller bundle. Anna unraveled some thread from a worn-out blanket and sewed a special pocket into her skirt for the paper about Elias. Then she bundled her things. They were ready to go.
Everyone stood in the hot sun while the soldiers took the big tents down. Six tents where one hundred and fifty children had lived. The older boys were put to work loading the cooking pots and other equipment into big canvas bags.
When everything was packed, the soldiers led them through the orphans’ gate, past the dusty squares where hundreds of tents had stood, and out of the camp.
Outside the gates were two big wagons and oxen to pull them. The soldiers and the older boys loaded the tents and the canvas bags into the wagons. Samira could see that the wagons were getting filled up.
“There’s no room for us,” she said to Anna.
“You’ll have to walk,” said one of the soldiers. “We’ve been ordered to take all this equipment, and it certainly can’t walk.”
Benyamin came over. “If the small children have to walk it will be a very slow trip and hard for them, too.”
The soldier looked at the crowd of children.
“They only gave us these two wagons,” he said.
“I have an idea,” said Samira. “The boys can make a place on top of the tents where the little ones can ride. The rest of us can walk.”
“Go ahead,” said the soldier, and he watched while Benyamin and Ashur and other big boys climbed to the top of the wagons. They jumped and punched to make nests in the canvas. Then they lifted the small children up into the nests and said, “Now you must sit still or you’ll fall out and have to walk.”
Samira could see the children peering down. Elias waved to her.
“We’ll be right behind you,” she called.
It was hard for the children who were walking to keep up with the wagons. The road was hot under their bare feet, and the sun beat down. Sometimes the wagons stopped and they rested for a few minutes. The soldiers gave them water and dried fruit, but they were soon back on the road.
The journey took two days. At night they slept beside the road on bedrolls. The soldiers kept watch, and Samira wondered what they were watching for.
In
the middle of the night she woke up, looking for someone. Mama. Where was Mama?
Samira stared at the darkness. No. This was a different walk. Three years had passed. Mama was gone.
She put her hand on the lump that was Elias under his blanket and waited until the soldier came by, dark against the stars. Then she could sleep again.
The second day they started out before the sun had risen.
“It’s going to be a hot day,” one of the soldiers explained. “We want to get to Baghdad before the sun is high.”
Before noon they came to an army encampment near the river on the edge of the city.
“This is as far as we go,” said the soldiers. They lifted the small children down from the wagons. “Someone from the orphanage will come to get you. They’ll take you into the city by truck. Wait here under these trees.” And they went away.
The trees offered only scattered shade, and Samira was worrying that the sun might burn them to cinders when several army trucks arrived and a big woman with brown hair that curled all over her head climbed out of one of them. Her blue eyes reminded Samira of the teacher in the Baqubah camp.
“I’m Mrs. McDowell,” she said. “I’ve come to take you to the orphanage in Baghdad but I hope you won’t be staying long.” She smiled. “We want to get you back to Persia soon.”
Persia. The word rippled through the crowd of children and then the word “home” and the word “villages.”
Mrs. McDowell shook her head.
“My dears,” she said. “We can only go one step at a time. That step is Baghdad. The next step is Persia. After that, we can only hope and pray. Now come. Get yourselves into the trucks.”
As she struggled to keep her balance in the bouncing truck, Samira thought of those words. Baghdad was the next step. Maybe the first step on the journey home.
Later, Samira could only remember three things about Baghdad. One was the heat. It was so hot that it was impossible to walk out of the orphanage building in bare feet. The very earth felt as hot as an iron pot over a fire.
Another was clothes. Mrs. McDowell was horrified at the shabby clothes the children were wearing. She brought some refugee women to teach the oldest girls to make shirts and trousers for the boys and dresses for the girls.
The dresses were all made of green cloth with little yellow flowers. Samira looked at Anna and thought, “That is what I look like. How strange.”
Mrs. McDowell seemed to read her mind. “I wish we had more colors, but we’re lucky to get enough cloth to cover you all.”
Samira was glad to have a dress that was bright and the right size, but she was even happier with her new shoes. They had thick rubber soles and soft tops that tied around her ankles. In those shoes she could walk on burning hot tile or stony roads. She could go anywhere.
But the orphans were not going anywhere.
They were waiting. That was the third thing Samira remembered about Baghdad. Everyone was waiting. She saw crowds of people by the river, camped out and waiting to be allowed to cross over and walk to Persia. She saw men and women waiting in long lines to get passage to India or America. She heard people talking about where they could go if they had permission, if they had money, if they could make contact with their relatives.
Mrs. McDowell said, “It’s the war. So many people had to leave their homes. Now they need to find somewhere in this world where they can be safe and happy.”
Then, suddenly, the orphans weren’t waiting anymore. Mrs. McDowell came to the schoolroom right in the middle of a lesson, waving a paper.
“Children,” she said. “This says that the Assyrian orphans, all of you, can cross the border. You won’t be going to your own villages but you will be in Persia, near the city of Kermanshah. Oh, my dear children. It’s the next step.”
They went by train. It was exciting and frightening, climbing up the high iron steps into a narrow space with rows of seats covered with scratchy cloth. The strangeness made some of the little ones cry. Elias didn’t cry but his eyes were wide with wonder and fear. Comforting him made Samira and Anna brave. They didn’t really notice the jerk and rattle of the train as it moved out of the station. They were busy talking to Elias.
“Look,” said Samira. “Look at all those people waving goodbye. They think we are very lucky to be on this train. Only us. Only the orphans can go now. Everyone else has to wait.”
Mrs. McDowell sat down in the seat facing the children. She was fanning herself with her handkerchief.
“It’s been such a rush,” she said. “When we heard that we could take you to Kermanshah we had to move quickly. You never know when the permit might be revoked.”
“Revoked?” said Samira. “What does that mean?”
“It would mean they changed their minds,” said Mrs. McDowell. “These government officials seem to do nothing but change their minds. They let some of the Assyrians across the border weeks ago and then made them come back.”
“What about us? Will they make us come back?”
“No,” said Mrs. McDowell. “They know you orphans will stay where they put you. But they also know that some of the Assyrians will do almost anything to try to get back to their villages. The only way to stop them is to keep them on this side of the border.”
“Why do they want to stop them?” said Anna. “All of us should go back to the places we came from, to our homes.”
“There is still fighting going on.” Mrs. McDowell shook her head. “And travel is very dangerous. For the moment you children will be in the camp we’re making at Kermanshah.” She looked out the window at the dusty land and added, “At least I can promise you that Kermanshah will be cooler than Baghdad.”
It was true. When they arrived in Kermanshah the air was clear and cool. The children stood on the train platform, breathing in fresh air and staring up at high mountains.
“It feels a little bit like home,” said Samira. “What mountains are those?”
“The Zagros Mountains,” said Mrs. McDowell. “Your village is beyond those mountains. A long distance beyond. Impossible to reach right now.”
“But Kermanshah is another step,” said Samira.
“Yes, it is,” said Mrs. McDowell. “Where I come from we would say it’s a step in the right direction.”
SAMIRA AND ANNA STOOD at the door of their tent and looked around. The Kermanshah camp stood on the edge of a lake in beautiful open fields with the mountains beyond. The tents were exactly like the ones at Baqubah. There were seven of them — six for sleeping and a big one for eating.
“I think this is the same tent we were in before,” said Samira. “I recognize that place where it’s mended.”
Later she said to Benyamin, “If I sleep in a tent for three years, is that tent my home?”
“Of course not. We live in these tents because we have to. Some day we’ll get home. Home to Ayna.”
“How can we?” asked Samira. “They tell us over and over that it’s impossible.”
“We have to find a way,” said Benyamin. “I’m afraid they’ll put me and the other boys in the army when we’re sixteen. I won’t go into any army, so I have to get back to Ayna.”
“You won’t be sixteen very soon, will you?” asked Samira, wondering how it could be that she wasn’t sure
how old her own brother was.
“I turned fifteen in Baghdad,” said Benyamin. “So I have another year to be an orphan.”
“I’m twelve,” said Samira. “I can be an orphan for a few more years.”
She looked past Benyamin and saw seven tents and an empty field — places to sleep and eat and play. Nothing that was hers.
“I have to get back to Ayna, too,” she said in a low voice. Then, louder, “When I’m too old to be an orphan I have nowhere to go, not even the army.”
“You could get married. Lots of girls get married when they’re fifteen or sixteen.”
“You think I could get married here? In one of these tents? Without a village to live in? No!”
Samira suddenly realized that she was shouting at Benyamin as if he could change something.
Just then they heard the sharp sound of a mallet hitting a board three times. It was the signal that the orphans should gather in the big open area beside the cluster of tents.
Benyamin gave Samira a half smile.
“Good news?” he said. But he shook his head and they walked together to join the others.
A tall man with a beard stood in front of one hundred and fifty children.
“I have some things to tell you,” he said, “and I hope you can understand me. I’ve only been studying Syriac for a short time and I know I make mistakes. As you know Mrs. McDowell has returned to Baghdad. My name is Mr. Edwards. I’m with the Near East Relief in the city of Hamadan, and we run this orphanage. You’ll be living here for several months until we can move you into proper buildings in Hamadan.”
Samira could feel the children around her sigh and slump, but Mr. Edwards was going on.
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