The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War

by Sumia Sukkar

  ‘Really Yasmine?’

  ‘Really Adam.’

  ‘I want to eat a lot of food there.’

  ‘I will make sure you do Habibi, now I have to go nurse the injured people.’

  She runs out and I lie down opposite Ali and take the ear out. It is now clean, I think the blood rubbed off in my pocket. There is still dry blood where the ear was cut off but it isn’t a lot. I pull it up to my mouth and start whispering about what I dream of doing in Damascus.

  *

  We leave the city by evening; the sun is starting to set. Everybody looks like they are going to drop on the ground. They are walking like the zombies I saw this morning. I can’t wait to get out of this city. I didn’t like it the moment I saw the man chasing after the cat. I am glad I have Liquorice with me so nobody can eat her. I have slept all day so I don’t want to sleep yet. I am just hungry and thirsty. I start painting in my mind while walking so I don’t have to see the war around me. I think of the Nutella-eyed girl and wonder if she is still alive. I hope she is, I want to see her again one day. I paint her eyes in my mind but I can’t continue because mama’s eyes keep coming into my mind too. Why do mama’s eyes always come up when I think of the Nutella-eyed girl?

  I have so much to ask and say but Yasmine is holding my hand so tight that it scares me. I don’t know where we are going, but I know it’s not good. When Yasmine is with me I can smile even when I’m scared. I smile even though I don’t have a reason to. Smiling is charity, so I keep smiling till I can’t keep hold of my questions.

  ‘Where… are we going Yasmine?’

  I look up at Yasmine but can only see the sun shining in my face. I cough and try to get rid of the dirt in my throat. I see Yasmine’s eyes look down at me through the sun. It looks like the sun has eyes. It’s looking down at us.

  ‘Far away from here Habibi.’

  We pass by a river and find boats tied to a dock. I have always wanted to ride a boat.

  ‘Wait here,’ Khalid says and runs towards the boats. Tariq runs after him. I wonder what they’re thinking.

  ‘Are you okay Yasmine?’

  ‘I can’t wait to sleep!’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep yet.’

  ‘You haven’t been working all day.’

  ‘I know I haven’t Yasmine.’

  She doesn’t say anything and turns back around. I don’t know why she is upset. I didn’t do anything.

  Tariq and Khalid come back with huge smiles on their faces and tell us to follow them.

  ‘Where are we going Khalid?’

  ‘Just follow…’

  We go to the biggest boat on the dock and they tell us to get on. Yasmine laughs and asks if we are actually doing this. She is happy again. She is happy and sad and angry at the same time.

  Tariq pushes the door open with his back and it opens quickly and we all go in. The boat has beds in it and a kitchen and a bathroom. I can’t believe what I am seeing. My heart is filled with rainbows. I jump up and down and clap my hands and look at Yasmine and give her a huge smile. I am so happy.

  ‘Thank you Tariq!’

  ‘No Habibi, thank God!’

  ‘Thank you God!’

  I jump on a bed and roll around on it.

  ‘We have beds!’

  ‘I’m sleeping here!’ Tariq says pointing at one quickly.

  ‘I am sleeping here!’ Khalid points at the other one and laughs.

  ‘I already rolled on this bed, it’s mine!’ I jump in.

  Everybody laughs and I get up and run to the bathroom. I actually have a bathroom to go to! I don’t need bushes and leaves, I don’t need to hide and be scared of insects! Thank you God. ‘There’s a shower!’ I say loudly and everybody turns and has the same colour pink.

  After everybody showers we sit in the middle with the lights on and play I spy. There is actual light. I am so happy. I don’t want to leave this place.

  ‘Are we going to leave tomorrow or are we going to stay Yasmine?’

  ‘We will leave.’

  ‘Why? It’s perfect!’ Tariq jumps in.

  ‘Damascus is safer, we are in the middle of nowhere and this isn’t our boat.’

  Nobody says anything to Yasmine. We all have to listen to her.

  ‘We are close to Damascus right?’

  ‘Yes, very…’

  ‘Where’s the map Yasmine?’

  ‘In my box, I’m tired, I’m going to sleep.’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘Yes I do Habibi, I’ll see you in the morning.’

  I look at Amira lying down on the ground and notice something wrong with her. Her face looks scrunched up like a piece of paper. Is she in pain?

  ‘What’s wrong Amira?’

  She looks at me and her eyes look yellow.

  ‘Nothing.’

  She is holding her stomach really tight. Does she still think she is pregnant?

  I notice dry blood on her fingers.

  I walk towards her and sit by her. She doesn’t look my way.

  ‘Amira, you’re bleeding!’

  She looks at me and lifts one of her hands up and pushes me away.

  Everybody looks at us now and Ali jumps up and comes to us.

  ‘Amira, did you get hurt?’ Ali asks.

  ‘My baby is begging me to take him out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I need to take my baby out!’

  ‘Amira you don’t have a baby!’ I shout. I don’t know what else to say. I can see more blood coming out of her stomach. I think she stabbed herself.

  ‘Did you stab yourself?’

  ‘I wanted to take my baby out!’ she shouts and tries to get up. She pushes herself up but her body won’t let her move.

  ‘Stay down Amira!’ I run to the bathroom to get some tissues and notice scissors on the sink with blood on them. Everything makes sense now. I run to Amira and put the tissue on her stomach and see it soak up in seconds. I think it’s very deep. I can’t see under her shirt but the bleeding is a lot. There is a door in the middle of the boat and Yasmine is on the other side sleeping. I open the door quickly and wake Yasmine up. Her eyes are half closed and she looks upset.

  ‘Amira is bleeding!’

  ‘Not again!’

  ‘She stabbed herself.’

  ‘What?’ Now she jumps up.

  Yasmine never gets to rest, I feel sorry for her but none of us know what to do. Khalid and Tariq are sitting outside the boat. I don’t know what they’re doing.

  ‘Amira what did you do?’

  Amira looks up at Yasmine and doesn’t say anything. Her face is green and purple. The colours together make me feel like snakes are slithering inside of me. I shiver from how disgusting it is.

  ‘Boys get me water and tissues.’

  We get up and get them and Amira starts screaming. What is Yasmine doing to her? Is Amira going to be okay?

  ‘Here you go Yasmine.’

  Yasmine now starts cleaning the wound under Amira’s shirt and I can see how deep it is. Why doesn’t Amira understand that she’s not pregnant?

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know! I have no equipment!’

  ‘Who are you talking to Yasmine?’ I ask.

  ‘Myself! Myself! All of you drive me crazy! Problem after problem!’

  I didn’t do anything to upset Yasmine, why am I everyone?

  ‘She’s bleeding a lot,’ Ali says. Khalid and Tariq walk in and ask what’s wrong. Nobody answers so I tell them what happened.

  ‘Oh Lord!’

  ‘Is Amira going to be okay?’

  ‘I don’t know Adam, what she did isn’t simple.’

  ‘But she is going to be okay right?’

  ‘Adam, you’re always asking the same questions!’ Khalid gets annoyed and I start spitting on the floor.

  ‘No Adam!’

  I continue spitting because I don’t like people shouting.

  ‘Adam, calm down Habibi.’ Khalid leans down to me.

  I don�
��t want him to shout at me so I spit to show him I am angry.

  ‘Adam we discussed spitting a long time ago and you stopped, don’t get back into it.’

  ‘I want to go home!’

  ‘Shut up both of you! The girl is dying. What do I do?’

  ‘I can’t deal with blood,’ Khalid and Tariq both say at the same time. Yasmine gives them a dirty look like she wants to swallow them with her eyes.

  Amira shouts God’s name and starts crying.

  ‘Take my baby out, I don’t mind dying,’ she sobs.

  ‘Habibi, I am doing my best, you are bleeding too much and I have nothing and we are in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Can you save my baby?’

  ‘I will, you just rest!’

  Amira closes her eyes and she is smiling. I know that Yasmine is lying to her but I don’t know why. My head starts hurting me like someone is knocking inside. I close my eyes and bite on my tongue so hard it hurts. I go to the bathroom and take out the ear in my pocket and speak to it about Amira. Is she going away from us too? I find soap on the sink and pick it up and smear it on the wall and play around with it. It smells nice, like flowers are growing inside. I hum a song that Baba used to sing in the morning over breakfast. I still think about him leaving us all the time. I wonder if he is still with us or went to mama? I don’t know who he loves more. He has been calling out mama’s name a lot lately so it scares me that he wants to go to her. I smear the soap harder on the walls.

  ‘Adam get out of there, I need to use the bathroom!’ Tariq knocks on the door.

  ‘One second.’

  I put the ear back in my pocket and get out of the bathroom. Tariq goes in and as I walk away he comes out again and shouts my name. Pigeons come out of his mouth. I don’t like pigeons, which means I won’t like what he is going to say.

  ‘Did you do this Adam?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Put the soap on the wall!’

  I did it because it was fun. I don’t want to get into trouble for it. I put my head down and don’t say anything.

  ‘Go in and clean it up.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You figure it out!’

  I start banging my feet on the floor and shouting.

  ‘Adam stop! Don’t try that with me!’

  I don’t say anything and continue to bang my feet. I don’t like this.

  ‘STOP IT!’ Yasmine shouts and I freeze in place. My heart stops. I am scared of Yasmine.

  ‘She’s dying and you’re crying! How many things can I deal with at once?’

  ‘I’m dying?’ Amira whispers.

  ‘Close your eyes Habibi, you’re not feeling well.’

  ‘I feel like my baby is slowly coming out! I am having cramps.’

  Yasmine’s face looks hopeless. If Yasmine loses hope we won’t stand together. She is our glue.

  ‘Shall I push harder?’ Amira breathes heavily. This is all confusing. The colour in her face is fading away like a shaved lemon.

  ‘Just relax, your baby will come out on its own.’

  I get up and walk off of the boat. Everyone is shouting, upset and angry with me. I want to jump into the water. I just showered and smell nice and I think the water is dirty but I want to feel free. I want to feel free. I jump into the water with my clothes on and feel my body shrink from the cold. I laugh and jump up and down in the water. The boat moves up and down slowly because there is movement inside. I lie on my back in the water and watch the boat go up and down. I wish I could live here. After the war I want to come back and live here. I flap my hands up and down in the water and start putting it in my mouth and spitting it out. I love being in the water.

  ‘Adam come back in! It’s dark,’ Ali calls out for me.

  ‘I don’t want to!’

  ‘Yasmine told me to tell you!’

  I quickly climb the ladder, get dressed and follow Ali.

  ‘Are you still going to Damascus?’ Ali asks me.

  ‘Of course, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know, I like it here.’

  We walk in and see Amira breathing really hard and sweating. Her face is see-through. You can see her veins and the blood pumping under her skin.

  ‘Pray Amira, pray, don’t give up!’ Yasmine is holding her hand. Khalid is blowing onto her face.

  ‘Adam please get me water from the sink,’ Yasmine asks. I am soaking wet but she doesn’t say anything. Did she not notice or does she not care any more? I fill a cup with water and give it to her. She puts her hand inside and sprinkles the water on Amira’s forehead. She looks up at me and tells me to take my shirt off.

  ‘Why do you want my shirt Yasmine?’

  ‘For Amira.’

  I take my shirt off and Yasmine squeezes it and puts it on Amira’s forehead. Amira is still bleeding. I don’t know how long it’s been but that’s a huge loss of blood.

  ‘Can I go to sleep Yasmine?’

  Yasmine doesn’t look at me so I just go to the other side of the boat, take my trousers off and hang them to dry. I hide and wear a towel around my waist and go under the covers. This feels so good. I can hear a lot of noises so I cover my ears with the pillow and think of running around in a park. I want to run until I can’t breathe any more. I run in my thoughts until I fall asleep.

  *

  I wake up to no noise from outside or from inside. No one is awake. I open the door into the other room and see everyone sleeping on the floor. Why are they sleeping all together? I lean down over each of them to make sure they’re breathing. I start with Yasmine first. Amira is in the middle of them with her hands on her stomach and a bloody cloth on her stomach. Is she feeling better now? I try to notice her breathing patterns but I see her chest move up and down once and that’s all. As I was about to touch her to try to wake her up Ali’s eyes open and he jumps up.

  ‘You scared me!’

  ‘Sorry, I wanted to see if everyone is alive.’

  ‘We all are!’

  ‘I can’t see Amira breathing…’

  Ali looks down at Amira and puts his hand on her heart.

  ‘I can feel something but I don’t know if it’s good.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Amira… Amira…’ Ali whispers into her ears. I slowly poke her three times and feel my fingers start to twitch so move away from her. I can’t see her breathing at all.

  ‘Do you think she is dead Ali?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His face looks sad.

  ‘I don’t understand how she is here but she is not at the same time.’

  ‘Death is weird…’

  ‘Maybe if we shake her we can wake her up?’

  Ali and I both start shaking her and calling her name. Her hands slide to the side and there’s a darker circle of blood on the cloth where her hands were. It doesn’t look nice. I can imagine maggots coming out of her stomach and eating away at the blood. I close my eyes and shake my head.

  ‘What is it Adam?’

  I don’t reply and keep shaking my head till the thought leaves my mind. I bite down really hard and grind my teeth together. The sound annoys Ali but I can’t stop. Everyone else starts getting up and I move back to sit in the corner. I don’t want anyone to touch me.

  ‘Adam?’ Yasmine’s voice sounds like she swallowed a frog.

  I slightly smile at her then close my eyes and rock myself. Mama used to put a lot of scents and candles around me so I could relax. I wish I could do that again. It helped me forget the bullies at school. I think it would also help me forget how many people have died in front of me. I want to delete every memory from the war. I want to start again. I don’t even know what day or year we are in. How long has it been? Years? Months? Days? I don’t even know any more. My mind thinks of all these things really fast and then everything stops midway and there’s a beautiful image in my mind of Amira’s face when she first came to visit us. She looked like a princess. I want to paint her. I start in my mind because I have no paper. Or maybe I can paint
on one of the rocks outside in the harbour. I get up and run outside. I can hear them shouting my name but I don’t reply. I collect some rocks and come back. Everyone is sitting around a white cloth and praying. Apart from Amira… Is that Amira? Khalid is praying loudly and everybody else’s lips are moving but I hear no sound from them. I feel my body start shaking and I start screaming Isa’s name and cry. My body starts collapsing on me and my screams gets louder. I can’t see or hear anyone any more. I am alone in a white box because I don’t want to see any more. I want to be blind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CARMINE

  I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING and I don’t know where I am. I try to open my eyes but can only see the strong sun shining. I feel like I am riding on a camel’s hump. I can’t see what is happening. I move my hand around and feel hair. I move my hand quickly and try to move away. I don’t know what I am doing.

  ‘Yasmine!’

  ‘Shh calm down!’ I don’t recognise the voice. Am I kidnapped? No God, please!

  ‘Yasmine! Help me!’ I shout.

  ‘I’m here Adam, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t see Yasmine, I can’t see, where am I?’

  I feel someone put me down on the ground, put their hands around my head and pull something off and I can see again. I look around and feel good again. I’m alive! I haven’t been kidnapped!

  ‘Did you not recognise my voice Adam?’ Khalid laughs.

  I look at him. Now I recognise his voice but before I couldn’t. I don’t know why.

  ‘Where was I?

  ‘We are walking, Khalid was carrying you on his back.’

  I didn’t know Khalid could carry me, I thought he couldn’t do anything without his hands. Tariq usually carries me.

  ‘Where’s Tariq?’ I look around and only see Ali, Yasmine and Khalid.

  ‘Where’s Tariq?’ I ask again.

  ‘He’s coming, we just went ahead of him, he met some friends.’

  I look back and don’t see anyone, we are on an empty street.

  ‘He’s not behind us,’ I say.

  ‘I just told you he’s coming, we are near Damascus,’ Yasmine says. I listen to her and don’t say anything. I look back once more and hope to see Tariq walking up to us, but he isn’t.

  ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

  I have a good feeling bubbling inside me. We are near Damascus and we are going to be safe again. I might even see mama again because Aunt Suha is mama’s twin and everybody says she looks like mama but I don’t think so but maybe now she does. The skin on my feet is hard and cracked. It looks like mama’s before she left. I asked mama why her feet were like that and she said it was because she worked hard. I prayed that her feet would get better, I can’t remember if they did because I didn’t take notice before she left us. She was too sick and her feet were covered with blankets. Mama left all of a sudden one day, I was at school and I came back and Yasmine told me she left. I didn’t believe her and started breaking and kicking things because I was angry and I had a black hole in my chest. I wanted to break my ribcage and fill the black hole. It hurt a lot and I didn’t know what to do with it. Why can’t I see mama again? But now I’ve buried the black hole and I don’t let it come back. I didn’t know how close the cities were in Syria until we walked all this way. I can tell people I had an adventure and had to walk all the way from Aleppo to Damascus. I don’t think they would believe me but it’s true. We enter a city that says ‘Welcome’ and I smile at the sign. It is a kind sign.