 |
He howled louder than a fighter jet, and his parents didn’t even tell him to hush. Lights came on in houses nearby, and curtains ruffled as people looked out at the noise. Mahmoud’s mother broke down in tears, and his father let the life jackets he carried drop to the ground.
The smuggler had just told them their boat wasn’t leaving tonight. Again.
“No boat today. Tomorrow. Tomorrow,” he’d told Mahmoud’s father.
It was exactly the same thing he’d told Mahmoud’s father the day before. And the day before that. And every day for the last week. A text would come, telling them to hurry—hurry!—out to the beach, and every time they would pack up what few things they owned, grab the life jackets, and rush through the streets of Izmir to this parking lot, and every time there would be no boat waiting for them.
First it was the weather, the smuggler said. Then another family that was supposed to go with them hadn’t arrived yet. Then it was the Turkish Coast
Guard patrols. Or the boat wasn’t ready. There was always some reason they couldn’t leave. It was like some cruel school-yard game of keep away.
Mahmoud and his family were at their wits’ end. This off-and-on-again business was tearing them apart. All except for Waleed. Lifeless Waleed, who didn’t flinch when bombs exploded.
“I want to go back to Syria! I don’t care if we die,” Mahmoud said after he’d let out his scream. “I just want to get out of here!” Even as he said it, he heard the whine in his voice, the pathetic, toddler-like frustration. Part of him was embarrassed—he was older than that, more mature. He was almost a man. But another part of him just wanted to stomp his feet and pitch a fit, and that part of him was getting harder and harder to keep quiet.
Little Hana started crying too, and Mahmoud’s mother tried to calm them both by pulling Mahmoud into a hug.
“Look at it this way,” Dad said, “now we have more time to practice our Turkish.”
No one laughed.
“Let’s get back to the mall before someone takes our place,” Mom said wearily.
Mahmoud carried the life jackets so his father could carry Waleed, who quickly fell asleep on his father’s shoulder. His mother carried Hana. Even though Mahmoud hated the desperate feeling of defeat in going back to the mall, at least it meant not sleeping outside in the park.
But this time, someone was waiting for them at the mall entrance.
There were two of them, both Turkish men, in matching blue tracksuits. One of them was muscular, with curly black hair, a thin beard, and a thick gold chain necklace. The other was overweight and wore mirrored sunglasses, even though it was night.
He was the one with the pistol stuck in the waist of his pants.
“You want inside, you gotta pay rent,” the burly man told them. “Since when?” Mahmoud’s father said.
“Since now,” the man said. “We own this building, and we’re tired of you Syrians freeloading.”
More bullies, thought Mahmoud. Just like in Syria. Mahmoud’s legs went numb, and he thought he might fall over. He couldn’t bear the thought of walking any farther. Looking for a place to live again.
“How much?” Mahmoud’s father asked wearily.
“Five thousand pounds a night,” the muscular man said.
Dad sighed and started to put Waleed down so he could pay the man. “Each,” the man said.
“Each? Per night?” Dad said. Mahmoud knew his dad was doing the math in his head. There were five of them, and they’d already been here a week. How long could they afford to pay twenty-five thousand pounds a day and still have enough for the boat, and whatever came afterward?
“No,” Mahmoud’s father said. Mom started to protest, but he shook his head. “No—we already have all our things. We’ll find someplace else to stay. It’s only until tomorrow.”
The big man chuckled. “Right. Tomorrow.”
Mahmoud staggered along behind his parents as they roamed the streets of Izmir, looking for someplace to sleep. His parents carried Waleed and Hana, but not him. He was too old to be carried anymore, and for the first time he wished he wasn’t.
They finally found the doorway of a travel agency set back from the street, and no one else was sleeping there. They were just settling in when a Turkish police car came down the street. Mahmoud shrank back into the corner, trying to be invisible, but the police car’s lights came on and it beeped its electronic siren at them—blurp-blurp. “You can’t sleep there,” a
police officer told them through a loudspeaker. And so they had to get up and walk again.
Mahmoud was so tired he started to cry, but he did it softly, so his parents wouldn’t hear. He hadn’t cried like this since that first night when the bombs had started to fall on Aleppo.
Another car came down the road, and at first Mahmoud worried it was another police car. But it was a BMW sedan. On a whim, Mahmoud darted out into the car’s headlights and waved the life jackets on his arms.
“Mahmoud! No!” his mother cried.
The BMW slowed, its lights bright in his face. The driver honked at him, and Mahmoud hurried around to the driver’s-side window.
“Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud begged. “My baby sister—”
But the car was already shooting away. Another car followed it, and it drove right past Mahmoud.
“Mahmoud! Get out of the street!” his father called. “You’ll get yourself killed!”
Mahmoud didn’t care anymore. There had to be someone who would help them. He waved the life jackets at the next car, and miraculously it stopped. It was an old brown Skoda, and the driver rolled the window down by hand. He was an elderly, wrinkled man with a short white beard, and he wore a black-and-white keffiyeh headscarf.
“Please, can you help us?” Mahmoud asked. “My family and I have nowhere to go, and my sister is only a baby.”
Dad jogged up and tried to pull Mahmoud away.
“We’re very sorry,” Mahmoud’s father told the man. “We didn’t mean to bother you. We’ll be on our way.”
Mahmoud was annoyed. He’d finally gotten somebody to stop, and now his father was trying to send him away!
“My house is too small for all of you,” the man said, “but I have a little car dealership, and you can stay in the office.” Arabic! Mahmoud was thrilled—the man spoke fluent Arabic.
“No, no, we couldn’t possibly—” Mahmoud’s father started to say, but Mahmoud cut him off.
“Yes! Thank you!” Mahmoud cried. He waved his mother over. “He speaks Arabic, and he says he will help us!”
Dad tried to apologize again and refuse the offer of help, but Mahmoud was already climbing in the backseat with the load of life jackets. Mom got in beside him with Hana, and Mahmoud’s father shifted Waleed in his arms so he could reluctantly sit in the front passenger seat.
“Mahmoud … ” his father said, unhappy. But Mahmoud didn’t care. They were off their feet, and they were on their way to someplace they could sleep.
The little Skoda’s gears ground as the man got them underway.
“My name is Samih Nasseer,” the man told them, and Mahmoud’s father introduced them all.
“You are Syrian, yes? Refugees?” the man asked. “I know what it’s like.
I am a refugee too, from Palestine.”
Mahmoud frowned. This man was a refugee, and he owned his own car and his own business? “How long have you lived in Turkey?” Mahmoud asked Mr. Nasseer.
“Sixty-seven years now!” Mr. Nasseer said, smiling at Mahmoud in the rearview mirror. “I was forced to leave my home in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war. They are still fighting there, but someday, when my homeland is restored, I will go home again!”
Dad’s phone chimed, surprising them all and making Waleed stir. His father read the glowing screen.
“It’s the smuggler. He says the boat is ready now.”
Mahmoud had learned not to get excited about these texts, but even so, he still felt a little flutter of hope in his chest.
“You take a boat to Greece? Tonight?” Mr. Nasseer asked. “Maybe,” Mahmoud’s father said. “If it’s there.”
“I will take you to it,” Mr. Nasseer said, “and if it is not there, you can come back and stay with me.”
“You’re very kind,” Mom said. Mahmoud didn’t know why, but his mother pulled Mahmoud close and gave him a hug.
It took very little time for the car to take them back to the beach, and when they pulled to a stop, they were all quiet as they stared.
This time, finally, a boat was there.
