Escape from Aleppo Read online

  “Was she hit?” shouted one of her aunts.

  “She . . . she’s under the rubble!” shouted Malik.

  “Is she alive?” someone shouted.

  “I don’t know,” cried Malik.

  “The helicopter, it’s still circling back!” screamed Khala Fatima.

  I’m here, thought Nadia, lying at the bottom of the last step, stuck between the curb and the side of the Jeep. But as she tried to rise, she saw a metal canister fall from the sky and hit their neighbor’s apartment complex as if in slow motion. She watched it explode, engulfing the top floor in flames. Fiery debris rained out into their carport, accompanied by horrified screams. A hot scrap of metal landed on Nadia’s arm, forcing her from her stupor. Move! screamed a voice in her head. Smoke and ash surrounded her. Instinctively, she crawled under the Jeep, escaping the growing heat from the flames.

  “They’re pushing out another bomb,” cried Khala Lina. “We have to go.”

  “She can’t be dead!” came her mother’s anguished wail.

  “We can’t leave her,” sobbed Razan.

  “If we stay, we’re all going to die!” shouted Khala Lina.

  Nana’s strong voice rose above the rest. “I don’t believe it—she is alive. . . . Find her!”

  No, don’t leave me! thought Nadia, her head throbbing as she drifted in and out of consciousness, staring at the flickering flames. . . .

  Chapter Three

  December 17, 2010

  Light blazed from a dozen white candles atop a towering chocolate cake. Adorned with pink sugar roses, the cake was from Nadia’s favorite bakery, Palmyra Boulangerie. Her mother set it on the dining table, and Nadia imagined layers of vanilla cake, and raspberry jam beneath the swirls of chocolate buttercream. Even though she was stuffed from the feast that Nana and her mother had prepared, including her favorite, kabob karaz, grilled lamb meatballs prepared with cherries and pine nuts, she’d saved room for a slice, maybe even two.

  This is definitely one of the best days of my life, she thought happily. Her family and friends from school, along with her parents’ friends and neighbors, gathered in her grandparents’ elegant dining room. Nadia stood at the center of attention, fiddling with the sash of the satin aquamarine dress. The moment she’d seen it at the store, she’d pleaded with her father to buy it for her; and he had, claiming that the color of the dress matched her eyes so perfectly, it was meant for her. She had painted her nails a similar shade of blue as well. Knife in hand, she moved closer to the table, basking in the compliment her best friend, Rima, had given her when she’d arrived.

  Wow, you look just like Carmen!

  Later, when Nadia had caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror, she’d agreed; her upswept dark hair was in a style identical to the one worn by the gorgeous semifinalist from Arab Idol, Carmen Suleiman. And now that her mother had finally relented, she’d gotten the birthday present she had been dying for, singing lessons from Ms. Hussain, who lived down the street.

  She spotted Ms. Darwish hovering in the corner like a crow, a guest of her mother’s, laughing with her aunt. Nadia had overheard that her mother and Nana were going to introduce her teacher to an eligible bachelor they’d invited as well, but he hadn’t shown up yet. They were ready to sing “Happy Birthday,” when Ammo Zayn, Razan’s father, called from the living room. “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.”

  Nadia frowned, wondering what in the world was so important that it had to interrupt this critical part of her special day. The candles sputtered, threatening to ruin the cake with melted wax. With a huff, she allowed her friends to sing so she could blow them out. While her mother cut slices and her friends admired her stack of presents, she slipped into the living room. She found the men and Khala Lina riveted to the television.

  Nadia’s irritated gaze settled on the well-known anchorwoman from Syria One News, Sara Aloush, with her bright red lipstick and sharp bob. The shot cut to a young reporter in an ill-fitting suit standing near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. A crowd milled in front of a white building, windows framed by turquoise shutters.

  “I’m standing in front of the provincial headquarters of a small town called Sidi Bouzid, in Tunisia, in North Africa,” said the reporter. “At this site, a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, poured gasoline over his body and set himself on fire.”

  Nadia frowned. Why would he do that? she thought, intrigued by the gruesome story, momentarily forgetting her irritation.

  “It’s being reported that he did this to protest years of harassment and humiliation at the hands of corrupt government officials, who recently confiscated his vegetable cart.”

  The reporter stopped a portly mustached man and asked, “Did you know Bouazizi?”

  Eyes earnest, the man looked into the camera. “No, not personally, but he was like thousands of other young men across Tunisia, struggling with limited job prospects.”

  “Back to you, Sara,” said the reporter. The camera cut back to the news desk.

  “We have been able to locate the Bouazizi family,” said Sara, leaning forward at her desk so that her bobbed hair fell across her cheeks.

  The screen shifted to a tiny woman, her round face framed by a pink scarf, tears running down her cheeks. She stood in a cramped one-room apartment, surrounded by half a dozen people. “My nephew’s dream was to save enough money to buy a truck to help with his work,” she said. “He was so tired when he came home after pushing his vegetable cart all day. That cart was his livelihood. He was the breadwinner for our family. Now he’s dead at only twenty-six.”

  Ammo Zayn shared a worried look with Nadia’s father. “This will have consequences,” he murmured.

  Khala Lina leapt from the sofa and shuttered the windows, her lips pressed together. Words had a way of drifting into the wrong ears, Nadia knew. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ms. Darwish standing at the door, a worried look on her face.

  “No, no,” said Jiddo, her grandfather, shaking his grizzled white head. “It’s just a local issue of unemployment.”

  She glanced at Jiddo’s stern expression. He firmly believed that if you stayed out of trouble and worked hard, as he had done, you would lead a successful, peaceful life. At least once a month, he lectured her and her cousins on how his family had lived in a two-room flat in the Old City and didn’t have enough money for him to finish high school. And how, at fourteen, he’d gone to work at one of the phosphate mines that dotted the northeastern part of Syria. With hard work and the grace of Allah, he’d built a successful chemical fertilizer business. He’d puff out his chest and tell them that his sons had all gone on to college, including Nadia’s father, a chemical engineer, who now helped run the business.

  “Zayn may be right, Baba,” said Nadia’s father, a frown creasing his forehead. “Yes, it’s about unemployment, but this young man’s death may have opened an old wound that has been festering for a long time.”

  “But he shouldn’t have killed himself, it solves nothing,” said Jiddo, eyes troubled. “To take one’s life is a great sin.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ammo Zayn, “but it looks like he snapped from the frustration and humiliation . . . and people are taking notice.”

  Nadia slunk back to her party and stood by the window, the story of the young man still on her mind.

  Ms. Darwish found her and slipped a small box into her hand. “Open it,” she said. Inside lay a heavy silver pin, shaped liked a sideways 8.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Nadia, surprised by the gift and the warmth in her teacher’s usually stern face.

  “In algebra it’s called the lemniscate, the symbol for infinity. It’s a never-ending loop that conveys unlimited possibilities. I have high expectations for you, Nadia, my dear, that you can accomplish great things if you put your mind to it.”

  “Thank you,” murmured Nadia, suddenly weighed down by Ms. Darwish’s words. As her teacher disappeared into the living room, Nadia took the large slice of cake she’d been looki
ng forward to and stood with her friends, who were having an animated discussion about their plans for the approaching holidays. But as she sucked on a pink sugar rose, she thought of the young man who’d killed himself, and the sweetness turned bitter.

  • • •

  As her father had predicted, others did take notice of Bouazizi’s fiery end. His death brought to boil the long-simmering anger burning within Tunisians. They took to the streets in what became known as the Jasmine Revolution. Furious about the level of corruption within the government, they demanded jobs, food, and better living conditions, while pushing for freedom and political reforms. Dozens died in clashes with government forces. But for Nadia, thoughts of the vegetable vendor and a small town in Tunisia soon evaporated. She had too many important things going on in her life: Arab Idol finals were coming up and her friends were betting on whether their favorite singers would win. Plus, her cousin Razan needed help planning her wedding, which was scheduled for April, at one of the swankiest hotels in town. Exams were also on the horizon and her mother was hounding her to study, which was a total pain. She’d do fine in literature, history, and drama, but in her gut, she knew she was going to do terribly in algebra, no matter what Ms. Darwish said.

  Chapter Four

  October 9, 2013 4:08 p.m.

  Pain. Deep throbbing pain rippled from Nadia’s toes to her head, where a pounding headache raged, radiating from a lump on her forehead. Her eyelids, caked with dust, ached as they flickered open. For a moment, she thought she was back in her room, cocooned beneath her bed. Then the memories flooded back: exiting the apartment . . . the helicopter . . . barmeela falling from the sky . . . the explosions and fire . . . Her vision sharpened and she took in the metal guts of her uncle’s old Jeep. It had saved her life. Panic blossomed in her heart and she froze, her ears probing for sounds. But there was no whir of helicopter blades, no thud of bombs. No voices. Only silence.

  Cautiously, she rolled out from beneath the car, squinting against the light. The sun hung low in the sky, partially obscured by a cover of dark clouds. With shaky legs, she leaned against the Jeep, amazed that she’d survived another bomb attack. But all relief evaporated as she stared at what remained of her home. By some miracle, the left side of the building still stood, but the right, along with their neighbor’s apartment building, had been reduced to rubble, then charred by fire. She peered inside Khala Lina’s apartment, cut in half, her embroidered silk curtains still hanging from the window, fluttering like a maroon flag. A leather sofa hung from the ledge, its matching love seat lying on what remained of Khala Fatima’s kitchen below, her stove flat as an atayaf, a sweet cheese-stuffed pancake. Nana’s beautiful cream-and-gold china lay scattered across the ground like snowflakes, broken in a million pieces. Tears slipped down Nadia’s cheeks. It’s all gone. Anguish morphed into rage. And my family is gone. How could they? An unforgiving hardness settled like a jagged stone near her heart.

  Get a hold of yourself, said a voice inside her head. This is no time to fall apart. You must find the others.

  She thought back to the moment the bomb struck, sending her tumbling down the steps. Malik had been looking for her, but she’d crawled under the car. They thought I was hit . . . that I was dead. Her fury deflated like a punctured balloon. She took a ragged breath, trying to sort her jumbled thoughts. Think. What do I do? She didn’t have a phone. Even if she did, it would be useless since the government had disrupted telecommunications networks and access to the Internet.

  Anxiety pooled in her chest, but she shoved it away, trying to remember the route to Dr. Asbahi’s dental clinic. She’d visited last year, to get a cavity filled. Her mother had driven north, past the soccer stadium, then she’d cut east, past Bilal Mosque. The clinic was a few blocks from there, but that part was a bit fuzzy. I’ll find it. Then I’m going to give Malik a piece of my mind for making everyone think I was dead under the rubble.

  She glanced down at her watch as a siren wailed in the distance. Four o’clock. They were supposed to meet the men at noon! She buttoned her coat and turned toward the back gate. Old fears came rushing back. No . . . no . . . I can’t go out there.

  You can and you will, came a voice from deep inside, now sounding remarkably like Ms. Darwish.

  Okay, I can do this, she repeated over and over again in her head, running her fingers along the silver pin. Then something else sparked her memory. Missing . . . something’s missing. She bent down and peered under the car. It wasn’t her backpack she was interested in, but the burlap sack. It lay on the cracked steps, suspiciously flat. Empty.

  “Mishmish!” croaked Nadia, searching for a flash of orange and white. “Where are you, you dumb cat?” Desperately, she scrambled through the wreckage, but there was no flash of marmalade fur. The cat that never used to leave her side, and could always sniff her out, had disappeared. He’d probably been scared out of his wits and run away, she realized, shoulders sinking. “He’s just a stupid cat. Who needs him anyway?” she growled, eyes hot with unshed tears. She reluctantly turned to the back gate. Cold wind swirled past, leaving her exposed beneath the slate-gray sky. She realized that if she kept her eyes down and didn’t look around too much, she could keep the fear at bay. Don’t think. Just move. She secured her bags over her shoulder and staggered toward the back gate.

  Nadia’s neighborhood, Salaheddine, sat in southwestern Aleppo on the front lines of the battle. It was caught in a tug-of-war between the government and rebel forces. And despite the fact that months of conflict had reduced much of the district to rubble, to Nadia it was still as familiar as the back of her hand. Her brothers, her cousins, and neighborhood kids had spent countless hours prowling the back streets, playing and causing mischief. Shoving aside memories of happier times, she focused on the clinic, which had been a ten-minute drive away. Well, it used to be. She recalled from her aunt’s whispers over the past week. We need to go slow, be careful and stay out of sight from both rebels and government forces. It might take two hours to reach the clinic. Khala Lina’s words rang in her ears.

  Nadia was struck by the eerie silence as she made her way through the streets, which were beginning to fill with people rushing to finish errands before taking cover. Aleppo had been a big, bustling city, but ever since the conflict began, those who could afford to had left. And in the last few weeks, news had come of President Bashar al-Assad’s desire to crush the strengthening opposition in the city. The number of barmeela had doubled, even tripled, as the Syrian army reinforced its position. As a result, the city was split, with the government in control of the northwest while rebels maintained positions in the southeast.

  Rebels, snorted Nadia. An image of her father, brothers, uncles, and cousins flashed in her mind. Peaceful, hardworking men. Not so-called rebels . . . enemies of the state. The ever-simmering pool of anger bubbled up again, spurring her past houses where shells had punched great holes and others that had collapsed completely, blocking the surrounding alleys with rubble. On the corner, her music teacher’s house looked fine except for a hole in the roof, which had spurred her and her family to flee months before. A face peered down at her from the top floor. Squatters, families looking for a safe place to hide out. Behind her, a wailing ambulance approached, emblazoned with a red crescent, and seconds later came a dusty truck, filled with men and women in white helmets. Nadia had heard about these volunteers who rushed to bomb sites to help victims. Both vehicles pulled up beside a smoldering structure a few blocks ahead. Nadia faltered as she heard cries of anguish. She approached the ruins of what had been a large apartment complex, now a stack of concrete pancakes with jagged metal rods protruding from all angles.

  Survivors huddled near the road, coated in dust, consoling the injured while paramedics bandaged a boy’s leg. An old man knelt beside the rubble, weeping, his bent figure shielding something. Nadia got a glimpse of golden bangles and a frail arm. With a gulp, she jerked her gaze away, spotting a group of women clawing through the wreckage, shoving aside
broken furniture.

  “Sisters, gently,” cried a woman in a white helmet as she and the others in the truck assembled their equipment. “You don’t want to bring more of the building down.”

  “My baby is in there!” cried a young woman, her eyes wild.

  Stretcher held high, the volunteers ran to an overhanging stretch of concrete and motioned everyone to be quiet. And as an eerie silence fell over the area, Nadia heard it, a plaintive wail to the left of where the woman stood. With quick movements, one of the men dug into the rubble, just above the source of the crying. He handed back a broken television and lay down so he could reach into the narrow hole. Nadia held her breath as he stretched into the crevice while another volunteer held on to his legs.

  “Alhamdulillah, praise be to God!” he cried, rearing up, a bundle in his hands. The baby’s magnificent wail filled the silence as he handed the child to her mother.

  Nadia exhaled in a rush, relieved at the happy ending. She glanced back toward home, hoping to see a familiar feline form. Disappointed, she kept her eyes on the ground and hurried on, stepping over a pair of shattered eyeglasses.

  • • •

  Once past Al-Hamadaniah Stadium, home to Al-Hurriya, her brother’s favorite soccer team, Nadia paused behind a broken-down truck to catch her breath and orient herself. Again she looked behind her, hoping to see a cat running up the street, tail held high. Nothing. She veered across a wide street, making herself as small as possible, limping past huddled groups of people. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and no one paid much attention to a lone girl flitting past them like a shadow.

  Through a network of quieter alleys, reeking with uncollected trash, she continued north, halting at an intersection leading to a small square. A torn banner hung from a lamppost. GOD, SYRIA, AND BASHAR ALONE! it read. Another one lay near her feet, proclaiming, WITH OUR BLOOD AND OUR SOULS WE SHALL SACRIFICE OURSELVES FOR YOU, O BASHAR!