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Mahmoud stood in a wet parking lot with his family, a light drizzle making everything slick and damp. Down past a pebbly brown beach, the Mediterranean Sea churned like a washing machine. A huge black-and-red cargo ship slid by on the horizon.
“No. No boat today,” the Syrian man who was working for the Turkish smugglers told them. “Tomorrow.”
“But I was told it would be today,” Mahmoud’s father said. “We hurried to get here today.”
The smuggler raised a hand and shook his head. “No, no. You have money, yes? Tomorrow. You will get a text tomorrow.”
“But where are we supposed to go?” Mahmoud’s mother asked the smuggler.
Mahmoud couldn’t believe it. They had spent two long days in cars and buses, trying to get here on time for the boat Dad had hired to take them across the sea to Greece. And now there was no boat.
“There’s a hotel on the next block,” the smuggler said. “They take Syrians.”
“We’re trying to save money. We’re going all the way to Germany,” Dad told him.
“There’s a park nearby,” the smuggler said.
“A park? You mean sleep outside? But I have a baby … ” Mom said, gesturing to Hana in her arms.
The smuggler shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him. His phone rang and he turned away to take it. “Tomorrow,” he told Mahmoud’s parents over his shoulder. “You will get a text tomorrow. Be ready.”
Mahmoud’s father huffed but immediately turned to his family and put on a smile. “Well, we always talked about taking a Mediterranean vacation,” he said. “We’ve got an extra night in Izmir. Who wants to go out dancing?”
“I just want to find someplace dry where I can sleep,” said Mom.
Dad led them in the direction of the hotel. All the shops were closing as they walked back through town, but Mahmoud marveled at how clean everything looked here in Turkey. There was no rubble, no twisted metal. The cobblestone streets were in perfect condition, and flowers grew in front of perfect little houses and shops. Shining cars and vans drove past on the road, and lights glowed in the windows of buildings.
“Do you remember when it used to be like this in Syria?” Mahmoud asked his little brother.
Waleed was gawking just as much as Mahmoud, but he didn’t say anything. Mahmoud took a deep, frustrated breath. He and Waleed had had their fights—they were brothers, after all—but ever since Mahmoud could remember, Waleed had been more like his best friend and constant companion. They played together, prayed together, shared a bedroom together. Waleed had been the hyper one, bouncing off walls and hopping on furniture and kicking soccer balls in the hall. As annoying as his brother
had been sometimes, Mahmoud wished he would show a little of the old crazy again. Not even the Ninja Turtle that Mahmoud had bought for him in Kilis had cheered Waleed up.
Later, in the hotel lobby, Mahmoud was still thinking about how he could get his brother back when he heard the desk clerk say they had no rooms left.
“Maybe someone will share with us,” Mahmoud’s father suggested to the clerk.
“You will forgive me,” said the desk clerk, “but the rooms already have three families apiece.”
Mahmoud’s heart sank. Three families in each room! And the hotel was full. What were the chances they would find a room anywhere else?
Dad searched on his phone and tried calling around, but it was the same story everywhere.
“But how can they be so full?” Mahmoud’s mother said. “They can’t all be leaving tomorrow!”
With nowhere else to go, they found the park the smuggler had told them about. But there was no room for them there, either. All the other refugees who had been turned away from the hotels were there, some sleeping on benches in the rain, others lucky enough to have tents—tents that looked like they had been there for more than a day or two. Mahmoud slumped in the rain. He was so wet. So tired. He just wanted somewhere warm and dry to sleep.
“We should have stayed at the refugee camp!” Mom said.
“No,” said his father. “No—we move forward. Always forward. And we don’t stop until we get to Germany. We don’t want to end up stuck in this place. Let’s just see if we can find a dry spot for the night.”
Mahmoud spied a thin Syrian boy about his age approaching each of the families in the park, offering them something. Mahmoud wandered closer to have a look. The boy saw his interest and came over to him.
“Want to buy some tissues?” the boy asked. He offered Mahmoud a small unopened plastic pack of tissues. “Just ten Syrian pounds or ten Turkish kuruş.”
“No, thank you,” Mahmoud said.
“Do you need water? Life vests? A phone charger? I can get it for you, for a price.”
“We need a place to stay,” Mahmoud said.
The boy looked Mahmoud and his family over.
“I know a place,” the boy said. “I will show you for two thousand Syrian pounds or twenty-five Turkish lira.”
Two thousand Syrian pounds was almost ten American dollars—a lot of money when you had a whole continent to cross. But the rain was getting stronger, and there was no place dry left in the park. When Mahmoud told his father the boy’s offer, Dad was willing to pay.
The boy led them away from the coast, to a neighborhood where weeds grew up through the cobblestones, and the houses had metal grates on the windows instead of flower boxes. One of the street lamps flickered, giving the street an ominous energy.
The boy lifted a broken chain-link fence that led to a parking lot. “Here,” he said.
Mahmoud’s father gave the rest of his family a dubious look and led them under the fence. They followed the boy to a large square building with boarded-up windows and graffiti-covered walls. One of the boards blocking the door from trespassers had been ripped off, and they pushed their way inside.
It was a mall. Or it had been once. A large open courtyard with an empty fountain in the middle was ringed with storefronts that went up for four levels. A few of the shops were lit up with lamps connected to extension cords, and others burned kerosene lamps and candles. But most of the shops weren’t shops anymore—they were little apartments where people lived. Squatters in an abandoned shopping mall.
The boy led them to an empty yogurt shop on the third floor, next to a former music store that was home to a Syrian family of six. They looked like they had been there a while. They had a tattered old couch and a hot plate, and sheets hung from ropes to quarter the space into little rooms.
The yogurt shop had no furniture and a broken linoleum floor.
Something skittered away in the darkness when they went inside. “It’s just for the night,” Mahmoud’s father said.
“You leave tomorrow?” the boy said. “On a boat? Then you need life vests. Most definitely. Or else you drown when your boat flips.”
Mahmoud’s eyes went wide, and he shivered in his soaking-wet clothes.
He didn’t like any part of this plan.
His father raised his hands to his family. “The boat isn’t going to flip,” he told them.
“Or run out of gas. Or wreck on the rocks,” the boy said. “Then you drown.”
Dad sighed. “All right. All right. Where do we buy life vests?”
