The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War

by Sumia Sukkar

  I hear an unfamiliar voice and then a girl walks in with her suitcase and stands by the door. She looks so much like Baba but I don’t know who she is. Baba jumps up and hugs her as she cries on his shoulder. I don’t think I have ever met her before so I get closer to see her better. Her perfume is strong and she has a lot of make-up on like she is not from around here. Baba sits her down on the floor while Khalid and Tariq put the furniture back in place. I listen to their conversation as Yasmine slowly gets up and greets the girl as well. She asks about what happened to the house but as Baba starts explaining, she tells Baba her husband died. Baba stops mid-sentence. So many things have been happening lately, I don’t know what he is thinking now. I just hope he doesn’t fall to the ground. She goes on to explain that her husband went out one night and was shot by the army.

  ‘I have been out on that open road and I need a home after he left me.’

  She introduces herself to me as Amira and her lips pout out like the opening of a rose. She is beautiful. Amira means princess in Arabic and even though I have never met a princess before, I don’t believe she’s far from being one. She takes her headscarf off and her hair flows down to her shoulders and falls perfectly in place. I stare at her intently until Yasmine gently ruffles my hair and laughs a little. She is still in shock. Amira laughs a little too but her tears are still falling. I want to paint her.

  Amira is going to stay with us for a while and sleep in Yasmine’s room.

  *

  Amira sits by the window with her make-up bag in front of her, fixing her face. She has an opaque look to her eyes, a cloudiness you can’t erase. For the rest of the afternoon, we clean the house and Yasmine makes dinner. By the time the night falls Amira moves from the window and goes to the bathroom for far longer than normal. I wait 20 minutes in desperation to go to the toilet.

  Now that Amira lives with us we have less food. I like her, but I am always hungry now so I feel tired most of the day. Ever since she moved in and school closed down I haven’t been able to do much other than paint and read. Baba says I can play games on the computer to relax when the electricity works. I haven’t showered in four days because there has been no water. I stink and I can smell myself but everything is changing so quickly and I can’t catch up. I looked in the mirror yesterday and my face had a shabby look to it which I refuse to embrace, so I won’t look into the mirror again until I shower. Everybody at home looks tired and seems to be dragging themselves around the house. We hear gunshots and shelling every other night now. It has become a normal part of our lives.

  *

  Tariq comes back home a few days later with a huge grin on his face. We haven’t had any happiness for some time.

  ‘I have a surprise for you Adam!’

  ‘Surprise! Show meee.’

  ‘Close your eyes and come outside.’

  ‘But I can’t see where I’m going…’

  ‘Come, I’ll cover your eyes with my hand and lead you.’

  Tariq’s hands are big and overlap when covering both my eyes. His fingers are cold and long, they feel unwelcoming. I put my hands in front of me as a precaution. We walk 11 steps and stand without saying a word. I touch his hands trying to find the knot between his fingers. He lets go and for a few seconds I can only see shooting stars coming towards me.

  ‘Surprise!’

  I can’t focus on what Tariq is pointing at because my town is crumbling to pieces behind it. There are huge rocks and dust in front of a line of shops opposite our house and in the far distance there’s grey smoke covering most of our sky. I look down and see the bike that Tariq is pointing to.

  ‘For me Tariq?’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘Yes… Yes… Yes!’

  ‘Do you want to learn how to ride it now?’

  ‘Yes!’ I jump on the bike and fall on the other side. Tariq laughs at me and picks me up and puts me on the seat steadily. He arches his body over me and holds onto the handles telling me to peddle my feet. I do it and move slowly. I thought bikes were faster. We go around the block with Tariq still teaching me and I soon go a little faster and then faster still. I can fly if I go faster and peddle harder. I love this feeling like I can let go of everything and fly with my bike like in E.T. I never knew it could be this much fun.

  ‘Where did you get this bike from Tariq?’

  ‘I found it broken on the side of a road and fixed it.’

  ‘Did you fix it at your university?’

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘I wish I was at university!’

  ‘Haha it’s a pain! Have fun being young and free.’

  ‘But I feel old.’

  ‘ADAMMMM!’ Baba calls out for me and I look back at Tariq’s face once more and run inside. I don’t know why he answered me in a scary way. I just want to be older so I can do things myself too.

  Baba pushes me inside as soon as I walk in and he calls out for Tariq to run. He closes the door after us and tells us to follow him. We go into his room and he opens up another door I always thought was a cupboard. We go down a few stairs into a room painted white, with the paintings I gave mama hung up.

  ‘Those are my paintings Baba.’

  ‘Boys, if anything happens and you have nowhere to go or if the army comes in to attack, sneak into this room and lock the door. It looks like a cupboard; they’re never going to guess you’re here.’

  There is a record player in the corner of the room with a pile of vinyls stacked up.

  ‘Are you going to come in with us Baba?’

  ‘Whoever gets in here shouldn’t worry about who is outside; everyone is their own man. You’re a man now okay Adam? You have to stand on your own feet, we might not find each other in the end.’

  ‘Does Yasmine know this?’

  ‘I told everyone, you’re the last to know.’

  ‘Baba, I don’t want us to be separated.’

  ‘Adam you’re a man. Men aren’t afraid. You should only be afraid of the sound of your crying.’

  Chapter Eight

  RED

  WE HAVEN’T HAD ELECTRICITY for the past week; we live in a different world now. Everyone is dark and depressed apart from Amira who still sits by the window with her colourful make-up. She still cries though. I haven’t been able to sleep well lately. I can’t stop thinking about mama and who is going to visit her first. I have been thinking of going back to the room Baba showed us so I can sit and play records but there’s no electricity. I want to know what vinyls he has. I walk out of my room and look down both sides of the corridor before tiptoeing to Baba’s room. I put my ear on the door to figure out whether Baba is in there or not. I don’t hear anything and so I slowly open the door. Before I get to walk in Yasmine calls me from the kitchen. Why is everyone always calling me!

  ‘Take some food to the neighbours Habibi.’

  ‘Why Yasmine?’

  ‘Don’t be greedy Adam, we have to look out for our neighbours, it’s good manners.’

  ‘What are we having for lunch Yasmine?’

  ‘Rice.’

  ‘Rice with what?’

  ‘Just rice.’

  I want to shout and tell her to keep the food at home for us because we have no food but I just listen to her in case she gets upset. Yasmine used to always change colours depending on her mood but now she is a constant grey. I don’t know if it’s because I have no energy to pay attention or because she really is very dull now. I think it’s because she can’t see the man she loves. I wish I knew the truth rather than always trying to understand everything like it’s a mystery. I love mystery but I am tired of being Sherlock Holmes.

  I smell the plate Yasmine gives me. I am so tempted to move the foil and take some food. I look back and no one is looking so I open the foil but as soon as I see the rice I close it again and ask God for forgiveness. Maybe the neighbours need it more than me. I knock on the door three times and wait then knock another three times and call out for the mother.

  ‘Auntie I’m her
e with food.’

  There’s no reply.

  ‘Mohammed? Uncle Jamal?’

  I push the door a little and find it open. The house smells like nails scratching on metal. The graphic image pierces my mind and I have to close my eyes and cover my ears from the impact. The thought is sickening. I walk into the sitting room with my plate of rice and out of pure silence I hear the movement of what sounds like a mouse. The sitting room has a bend that doesn’t allow me to see the end of the room so I turn to the right, the smell gets stronger. I don’t hear my heartbeat any more and I drop the plate of rice on the ground. I see the whole family curled towards the wall with dry blood on them and a pool around their bodies. They are all dressed well and the women have headscarves on their heads. That means that they were getting ready to go somewhere. The smell reaches deeper into my mind and I can almost smell their fear before all of this happened. I walk a little towards them to see their faces and they all have their eyes closed apart from the mother whose eyes are still open. I run out. Her eyes poured the colour pink. I pass by the spilled rice and for a split second see a shadow come from the other room. I freeze. What if someone is waiting to kill me too? I don’t want to die. I scream so loud but my legs aren’t carrying me away. I always wake up in tears when I can’t move in my dreams. But now this is reality and tears won’t do anything. I breathe in and out silently and tiptoe out of the house. As soon as I see the daylight from the door I run through it and without realising I look down to a shirt full of vomit.

  ‘Adam.’I hear a whisper behind me. I run to Yasmine in the kitchen.

  ‘What’s wrong Adam, what’s wrong?’ Yasmine shakes me. I can’t catch my breath or find the words. I can’t even move.

  I vomit again.

  *

  I wake up to the neighbours’ youngest son’s face. Everything comes back to me and I don’t understand how he is here. Maybe I imagined everything. I really hope I did.

  ‘You passed out again.’

  I get up and look at Yasmine in the corner of the sofa, her face so pale.

  ‘Yasmine, what happened?’

  Yasmine looks over at Ali, our neighbour.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ she says. Yasmine used to call me Habibi and always explain things to me simply, but now she doesn’t even look at me when she has something to say.

  ‘What happened to them?’

  Ali starts telling me everything like it didn’t even happen to his family. Ali is two years older than me, which means he is 16.

  Apparently the army came into the house and started swearing at them and calling them names and they lined them all up and shot them. Ali was hiding under the bed. Even though he is 16, he looks ten and he can fit under anything. This happened yesterday and Ali did not move or run out till I went into the house. It was him that I heard move and whose shadow I saw. After I passed out, Tariq and Yasmine went to the neighbours’ house and saw everything. They found him and brought him back here.

  ‘Is he going to live with us as well Yasmine?’

  ‘Adam! Don’t be rude!’

  ‘I’m asking, I’m not being rude.’

  ‘Yes he is.’

  Everyone is moving in with us. Our family is falling apart. I didn’t know how disgusting a war could be till now.

  ‘Are we going to bury them?’ I ask Yasmine. I won’t be able to sleep knowing there are dead bodies in the next house.

  ‘We can’t move them out, we don’t have enough money for four coffins.’

  ‘Are you going to leave them there?’

  ‘Yes for now.’

  I don’t want to have dead people as neighbours.

  ‘We want freedom, we want the regime down! We want freedom, we want the regime down!’

  Yasmine gets up and slaps Khalid on the face as soon as he walks in and starts chanting.

  ‘What the hell?’

  I run behind Yasmine.

  ‘If you want to chant you do that outside, don’t bring your opinions into this house, understood? I don’t want a revolution here as well. It’s bad enough as it is. We are all losing our minds and people are dying for no reason and you’re asking for more!’

  I have never seen Yasmine speak that much or get that angry.

  Khalid storms out and Yasmine swears after him.

  ‘Calm down Yasmine, you can’t control everything that happens in this house,’ Baba tells her.

  ‘WELL THEN LET ME LIVE MY OWN LIFE INSTEAD OF LIVING YOURS!’ Yasmine shouts and runs to her room. Both of our guests look away as if they can’t hear what’s going on. I can’t take my eyes off Yasmine’s door.

  *

  ‘Let’s go get some food Adam.’ Baba gently shoves me to wake me up.

  ‘We are buying food?’

  ‘Yes, let’s go, just you and I.’ I jump up and before I count to 50 I am ready in front of Baba. I’ve been hungry for days. I’ve been craving stuffed vegetables and rice and apple pie. I think I even dreamed of it.

  Baba and I walk out into a dead town. There isn’t a single person around. There are spiderwebs on the neighbours’ door. Baba tells me stories about the Prophet Muhammad as we walk down the street. These stories always inspire me to be the best I can be. When we get to the market we only find two stalls open in a whole street.

  There are two men sitting behind each stall praising God with their prayer beads. One of them is cleaning his teeth with a brown stick called the Miswak, which the Prophet PBUH used to use. Baba used to have one and I tried it but it has a funny smell that I can’t get used to. It looks cool to watch people do it though. The stalls aren’t as colourful as usual but everything looks tasty to me right now. There are mostly dates on the side.

  ‘Why are there so many dates Baba and nothing else?’

  The man hears me asking Baba and pats me on the head.

  ‘Young man, a house without dates is a starving house said the Prophet PBUH. Three dates every time you feel the pangs of hunger and you’ll forget your hunger.’

  I smile and look at Baba.

  ‘That’s true Adam, come on, let’s pick the dates you want.’

  I like my dates quite soft and shiny brown. They’re the sweetest kind. Baba buys a huge bag of dates and a few bananas and gives me one.

  ‘Thank you Baba.’

  ‘Do you want to know something interesting?’

  ‘Yes Baba…’

  ‘I once read in a book that many fruits and vegetables resemble certain body parts and are in fact good for those body parts. Like walnuts, they look like a brain and are proven to be good for the brain. Grapes hang in a cluster that looks like the shape of the heart and are good for the heart. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘Are you sure that’s true Baba? It sounds like a story.’

  Baba laughs and assures me it’s true. I love hearing Baba tell me facts and stories. He knows everything. One day I want to know everything like him. But I don’t want to be a teacher like him though because I’m not good with people. We walk home holding the two bags full of dates and bananas. I can see my school building from here. The lights are off and it looks like no one has entered it for a long time. I hear heavy footsteps behind me. I look back and see four men walking two by two behind each other. They walk fast and start walking in front of us. From here I notice the two at the back holding guns pointed at the front two.

  ‘Baba, they have guns!’

  Baba puts his hand on my mouth and pulls me back to the corner of a house.

  ‘Adam, don’t say anything, we could get killed.’

  I freeze in my spot. How can everybody talk about death so easily now? We never used to talk about dying at all before. I hold onto Baba’s shirt and stand behind him. He doesn’t say anything. I can hear the voice of somebody shouting from afar.

  ‘Have faith in God, never lose faith in God!’

  ‘Shut up you…’ I am guessing the guys with the guns replied to them. I can’t repeat the word they said but it was very bad. Baba covered my ea
rs. But I had already heard it. Baba says it’s okay to walk out and we walk slowly behind them. They are 14 feet in front of us I count quickly. Baba puts a finger on his lips and I just follow him slowly. I don’t take my eyes off the men. I can hear the men with the guns talking loudly but I can’t understand what they’re saying. It sounds like Arabic but it’s a very weird dialect that doesn’t belong to any Arab region. They sound like foreigners speaking Arabic. I didn’t know foreigners could join the army. I need to ask Baba about that. Before I can finish the sentence in my head, the two men at the front duck down and run faster than I have ever seen. They chant ‘God is the greatest’ as they make an escape. One of them falls to the ground and the soldier behind him grabs him and shoots him. I have never heard a gun shot that close or seen anyone being shot. I can’t describe it. The world stopped for a second when the bang came out. The man on the floor jumped up when the bullet hit him and I could see blood jumping out. Then he lay still. The second soldier catches up with the other guy and as I am expecting a bullet and cover my ears, he twists his neck and spits at him. I can still hear the bones cracking now. Baba pushes me behind another building and looks at me. He mimes the word ‘sorry’ and lets me hold his shirt till we can’t hear footsteps any more. I cry because I don’t like war. I feel my body shaking but I can’t control it. Baba is blurry. His voice is clear though; he is reading a prayer over me. I close my eyes really tight and think of how upset mama would be if I wasn’t strong enough. I open my eyes and tell Baba I am ready to go. We walk past the two bodies on the ground. The first guy shot looks like he is dreaming and is only asleep. I wish he was. But the second guy has dark blood on his neck, but it’s internal. His face looks horrified. It reminds me of a horror movie I once watched with Khalid. I couldn’t sleep all night. The other man doesn’t have much hair but this one has long hair down to his shoulders. His hair is the only thing that looks alive about him. I follow Baba quickly into our house three doors down and keep in mind the idea I got for a painting.