“We have to have Benyamin, too. And he’ll want Ashur,” said Samira. “We’ll just tell Miss Shedd.”
“Will she listen?”
“I think she will. She wants it to work as much as we do and she knows we belong together. She’s just doing what she always does, telling us enough to get us thinking.”
“She expects so much.”
“I know. She reminds me of my Aunt Sahra. She was always rushing to get things done and hurrying my cousins and me. My mother would take time to listen to anything I wanted to tell her but Aunt Sahra could only stop for important things. Miss Shedd is like that.”
Several days later Miss Shedd asked Samira and Anna to come to her office after dinner. When they arrived, Benyamin and Ashur were already there.
“Sit down, children,” she said. “I want to tell you who will be in your caravan family. The oldest ones will be the four of you. The middle ones will be Maryam, Avram, Shula and Malik.”
Anna interrupted. “That Malik. He’s always going off by himself. He never talks to anyone. How will he fit into any family?”
“Our families are going to be like other families,” said Miss Shedd, looking at each one of them. “That means some members won’t be easy to understand or get along with. I hope that by the time we set out on our journey, Malik will feel that he belongs with you.”
She picked up a piece of paper with a list of names on it. “Of course Elias will be in your family and you’ll have three more of the younger children. Monna, Sheran and David. If you don’t know them now, you soon will. I know that you four work well together so I’m asking you to be the leaders of your family, the big sisters and big brothers. Are you willing to do this?”
They nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Now I’ll give you your first job. Each family must have a name. It will make it easier to talk about the families. I want you to choose a name that reminds you of home, like the Mountain Family or the Vineyard Family. You can stay here and decide on your name. I have to go and speak with some of the other children.”
When she was gone they were all quiet. A name for this new family. What could it be?
At last Benyamin said, “We could be the Rooftop Family. We slept on the roofs with our families and we played on the roofs. And we watched from the roofs.”
After a minute they all agreed. They would be the Rooftop Family. They would walk to Tabriz together.
THE FAMILIES WERE FORMED. But they didn’t really feel like families.
As Anna said to Samira, “There are people in this family I barely know. What kind of family is that?”
“I think it’s a new kind of family,” said Samira. “I hope it will work.”
Miss Shedd did not just hope. She had a plan.
“Families eat together and work together,” she said.
The meal schedule was rearranged so that each new family gathered together for their evening meal every day. The twelve members of the Rooftop Family sat around a big bowl of stew or rice and vegetables and each person scooped a serving into their own small bowl. They had to be careful to divide the meat fairly, if there was meat, and Anna made sure that the smaller children got their proper share.
At first there were long pauses in the conversation, but Samira and Anna, as big sisters, decided to ask questions about favorite games and stories or the worst job each person had ever had to do. In just a few days talk began as soon as the family sat down.
Samira began to feel that she was getting to know this family of hers. It was different from knowing them as friends. Maryam, for instance, never tried to get a bit more than her share and often waited to serve herself last. The ravenous boys would scoop as much as they could from the bowl, so Anna began watching out for Maryam as well as for the young ones. Small Monna was so thin and ate so slowly that she worried Samira. How could she walk to Tabriz?
Elias, on the other hand, was the youngest in the family but he ate as much as he could fit in his bowl. He also took part in every discussion. He often argued with Avram, who liked to talk about all the important jobs he would do on the journey.
“I’ll run ahead and help the cook get the fire going every day,” Avram said one day.
“But I can run faster,” said Elias. “I’ll be first to get to the camp.”
“The others will find you sleeping beside the road. They’ll have to pick you up and carry you.” And the argument went on, getting sillier and sillier.
Malik was the only member of the family who never expressed an opinion about anything.
“I know he listens to what we say,” Samira said to Anna. “I can see him almost smile when Avram boasts, and he shakes his head when we go on and on about how hard the journey will be. Maybe no one has ever listened to him and he just learned to keep quiet. If we keep eating together long enough maybe he’ll talk one day.”
“I think that pretty soon Miss Shedd will give us more to do than just eat together,” said Anna. “I’ve seen her going from one dormitory to another with her lists.”
Then one dark February evening, just as Elias had fallen asleep, Miss Shedd came into Samira and Anna’s room with a list in her hand.
“I’ve come to let you know that the three of you will be moving into Dormitory Four,” she said in a low voice. “All of your family will be there. The boys’ rooms will be at one end of the building and the girls’ at the other. Elias will move in with Benyamin and one of the other boys. Monna will be sharing your room.”
“Why do we have to move?” Samira asked.
“Because I want all of the members of each family to be living in one building. Of course there will be two other families in Dormitory Four.” She held the piece of paper near the lantern. “It will be the Grapevine and the River families. Living in the same building with your whole family will give you a chance to get used to working things out together. And you’ll have your own workroom in the dormitory. We’ll be talking about that soon.”
Samira looked at the bright cloth she had saved from the sewing room and hung on the wall, and at the bookshelf Anna had made from scraps of lumber.
“But we’ve made this room our own,” she said.
“You can take everything with you,” said Miss Shedd. “Be ready to carry your things to Dormitory Four tomorrow after school.”
“Elias has been with us since he was practically a baby,” said Anna when Miss Shedd had gone on to the next room. “Do you think he’ll be upset about leaving us?”
“He loves Benyamin so I think he’ll get used to it pretty fast. And we’ll be right down the hall.” Samira sat down beside the sleeping boy and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “It’s a big change for us, too.”
The next afternoon they packed up their things for the short move to Dormitory Four. Samira was surprised at the big pile her belongings made. It took two trips to carry it all. She had thick clothing for the winter now and quilts and a small basket filled with a notebook and pencils and some reading books from school. The little measure from the umbar and the books she and Anna had made in Baqubah were carefully stowed in the bottom of the basket.
“Remember when everything we had would fit in that skinny cardboard box?” she said to Anna.
The new room was exactly like the one they had left. As Sam
ira pushed tacks through the bright piece of cloth and into the mud walls, she wondered why she had made any fuss at all. The big difference was that Elias was missing.
Benyamin had come to the old room as they were packing up.
“We need you to come and live with us big boys,” he said to Elias.
“Can Samira and Anna come, too?”
“They can come,” said Benyamin, “but they have to live in a room down the hall. We can visit them, though.” And he whisked Elias away.
Anna came in with the sleeping mats.
“We’re all settled,” she said. “Let’s go and get Monna and her things.”
As they walked along the hall, the sound of boys talking and laughing made Samira remember that she had once lived in one room with her whole family. Now the Rooftop Family was under one roof.
“It’s good,” she decided.
By dinnertime everyone in Dormitory Four was settled. Maryam, Shula and Sheran were in the next room and the six boys in the Rooftop Family were in two rooms down at the boys’ end of the hall. Malik was with Benyamin and Elias.
“Malik likes Elias. He even laughs with him sometimes,” Benyamin told Samira. “Miss Shedd told me that before he had to leave home, Malik lived with his grandmother. He never went to school and he’s managed to be by himself in the camps. He’s just not used to being with boys his age. Elias is easier for him.”
Samira hoped that Elias would remember all the times he had laughed with her. She missed him. But now she and Elias and Malik were all part of this big new family. She decided to invite both of them to a game of shooting pebbles.
One day Miss Shedd called all the big brothers and sisters together.
“I want each family to think of something to make that will be useful to us as we travel. It could be something you make especially for the journey, or maybe you can improve something we already have. When you have a plan we’ll talk about whether it will work and what supplies you will need.”
The Rooftop Family met in their workroom. As they talked about the journey, Samira began to have a picture in her mind of everyone in the orphanage walking across the land.
“We’ll have to be properly dressed,” she thought, “and we’ll have to carry what we need. But how will we carry it?”
She suddenly realized that Shula was looking at her.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Shula said. “I just said that even though the mules will be carrying most of our clothes and supplies, we’ll need some things with us every day. Like our lunch and a cup.”
“That’s it,” said Samira. “We need a bag. A flat bag with a shoulder strap.”
Benyamin nodded enthusiastically. “It’s a good idea. The bags can be different sizes, smaller for the smaller children. But what will they be made out of?”
“Canvas,” said Samira. “They made our shoe tops out of canvas. We can sew it on a sewing machine.”
They began to make a list of the supplies they would need: canvas, thread, at least one sewing machine, scissors, buttons to close the bags.
When they showed their plan to Miss Shedd, she approved it at once.
“I have to see about the canvas and other sewing supplies, but I know we can get two sewing machines again and some heavy-duty scissors from the Near East Relief office. I’ll give you a piece of lighter cloth so that you can make one by hand to be a pattern for the canvas ones. You have needles and thread to do that, don’t you, girls?”
They did, since it was one of their jobs to sew on buttons and mend rips in the clothes of the whole Rooftop Family.
Working out a pattern for the bags took a long time because everyone had different ideas about the best way to do it, but in the end Samira and Anna sewed a flat bag with a flap and a button to close it. The strap was wide and would go over one shoulder and across the wearer’s chest.
“Do you realize that we have to make two hundred and seventy bags?” Samira said in one of the family meetings. “Luckily the littlest children won’t need them but two hundred and seventy is a lot. We have to divide up the work.”
They decided that the boys would cut the canvas, the younger children would fold and pin the cloth carefully so that it would be ready to sew, and the bigger girls would do most of the sewing, though Avram and Ashur wanted to do some of that, too.
“I’ll teach you how to do it without sewing your fingers,” Samira promised.
Other families were painting names on tin cups or reinforcing the soles of shoes. The work got the children thinking about the journey and the list of jobs Avram had made.
Anna said to Samira, “As usual we will look after the younger children.”
“Yes,” said Samira, “but it will take more than the two of us to look after our Rooftop little ones. Imagine trying to keep four Eliases in sight when we are walking along a road in open country. Anyway, we’ll have other things to do, too.”
In the end the division of responsibility turned out to be mostly common sense. The older boys would set up camp every night and pack up in the morning. Malik surprised everyone by saying that he would load and unload the mules. The older girls would look after the younger children when they were in camp. When they were walking each younger boy or girl would be the responsibility of one of the older ones. Everyone would take a turn at helping the cook.
The young ones wanted jobs, too.
“You will help with setting up camp every day,” promised Samira. “We need you to unroll the sleeping mats and roll them up in the morning. But the most important thing you will do is stay with us. With all the big girls and boys. Do you promise?”
Monna, Sheran, David and Elias all nodded solemnly.
“I wonder how many times we’ll say that in thirty days of walking,” Anna muttered.
The Rooftop Family was falling into patterns. The girls often invited the younger boys into their rooms to play games or hear stories. The older boys checked each evening to be sure everyone was safely in their rooms before it was time to sleep. Samira could imagine them taking a walk around the camping place of the Rooftop Family, making sure everyone was there and settled for the night.
Before the younger children went to bed, she and Anna told them stories about setting out for a long walk with all of their friends, eating lunch along the road, getting tired but singing songs to keep going and arriving at a good camping place at the end of the day to rest and eat. The story had adventures, too, but never soldiers, never people who disappeared or were hungry or sick.
Most nights Samira lay under her quilt with the journey filling her head. She tried to put herself to sleep by remembering the careful plans for food and water and rest and by thinking about how the people in the Rooftop Family would look out for each other and how Miss Shedd would watch over everything.
But sometimes as she fell asleep her mind filled with the rhythm of walking, walking with no rest. She would wake suddenly, sure that someone was missing.
Was it Mama? No, Mama didn’t belong in this dim room. Small Monna was beside her. And Anna. Elias? He was down the hall with Benyamin.
They were all there. In Hamadan. Waiting to go home.
WINTER PASSED. Spring passed. Even summer passed. The umbar was crammed with supplies for the journey. Samira and Anna looked at the Rooft
op Family’s clothes and went to see Miss Shedd.
“It looks as if we might have to travel in cold weather, but we don’t all have warm jackets that fit us,” Samira told her.
“And some of us can’t squeeze our feet into our extra-strong shoes anymore,” said Anna. “Our feet have grown.”
“We’ll make more jackets and shoes,” said Miss Shedd. “If only we could make the letters of permission we’re waiting for.”
September passed and the letters did not come.
“Do you think a person can die of having to wait and wait and wait?” asked Anna,
“I don’t think so,” said Samira. “We’ve been waiting to go home for years already.”
Then, on an ordinary October morning, Miss Shedd came into the eating room in the middle of breakfast. All chatter stopped.
“Children,” she said. “I have good news. The letters of permission are on their way. We should be able to set out on our journey in three days. There will be no more school after tomorrow because you’ll be busy with preparations.”
On the last day of school Samira looked at the big map of Persia that hung on the wall. It was easy to find Hamadan, midway between Baghdad and Tehran. Up in the left-hand corner, near the top of the map, was Lake Urmieh with the city of Tabriz just above it. She found the city of Urmieh, too, but Ayna and the other villages she could remember were not named.
She studied the space on the map between Hamadan and Tabriz. She saw many wavy lines that meant mountains, and empty spaces with few towns marked.
So much to get across.
Miss Shuman came and looked at the map with her.
“I know that you children can make this journey. You just have to keep going and take care of each other. You may even have a good time.” She turned around and spoke to all the girls. “I know I’ll hear news of you when you get to Tabriz. I wish you safe traveling.”
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