Escape from Aleppo Read online

The women pulled down their masks.

  “Thank you for your assistance, and may Allah protect you,” said Ammo Mazen. The women slipped into an alley and disappeared. Nadia stared after them, already missing their protection. “Come, we must hurry. I do not like this mention of trouble brewing, and we need to find shelter for the day,” said Ammo Mazen.

  Nadia hurried, her eyes on the sign for Asbahi’s dental clinic at the end of the street.

  Chapter Eleven

  October 10, 2013 9:37 a.m.

  Nadia grabbed the metal handle and pulled. Please. Please be here. She dropped her packs on the dusty waiting room floor, sending Mishmish tumbling to the ground. Annoyed, he sat, tail swishing from side to side, watching Nadia run from one side of the room to the other, past overturned waiting room chairs, calling out, “Mama, are you here?” She paused to glance anxiously at Ammo Mazen as he entered.

  “Nana? Khala Lina?” she added, then hurried toward the door behind the receptionist’s black lacquered desk, where the examining rooms were located. A memory came back from her visit, when she’d had to have a baby tooth pulled. The pain she’d felt then was nothing compared to the agony flooding through her as she encountered one empty room after another. She ran back into the waiting room, hoping to find stairs leading to second-floor offices. Maybe they were there.

  “Stop, my child,” Ammo Mazen said, his voice forceful.

  She froze, watching him point toward a message scrawled across the white walls with slashes of dark blue ink, the letters distinctly from her mother’s elegant hand.

  Nadia, my love, we pray that you are safe and find this message. We sent Malik back to the house to find you, as we hoped that you’d survived the bombing. When he returned with news that there was no trace of you, we knew that you had survived. We waited for a day, hoping you would find your way to us. But with news of another battle approaching, we had no choice but to leave. Nadia, read this carefully: Make your way along the same route we journeyed on our way to Kharab Shams, our old picnic spot. The Turkish border is not far from there. Your father will wait for you at Oncupinar border crossing, which faces Bab al-Salama on the Syrian side. Darling, may Allah protect you and keep you safe.

  Nadia stood staring at the letters for what seemed like an hour, wondering if she and Malik had crossed paths, before Ammo Mazen’s gentle voice broke her from her stupor. “Child, they are gone.”

  “They left me!” she howled, her body triggered into action. Ammo Mazen stood back, allowing her space. “How could they do that. Again?” She paced, glaring at the message. She lunged at a wooden chair and threw it against the wall, where it shattered with a satisfactory crack. And as quickly as it had blazed, her anger receded, replaced by a shuddering, overwhelming sense of loss. “How could they?” she whispered.

  Ammo Mazen shook his head sadly. “I’m certain they waited as long as they could.”

  “I know that!” Nadia growled, cheeks hot, her anger unmerciful. “I hate them . . . and I hate Assad . . . and this war . . . everything. . . .”

  Eyes soft, Ammo Mazen nodded. “I understand your anger, but have mercy on them, my child. It must have torn their hearts in half to leave. In these trying times it is easy to be poisoned by anger.”

  Nadia lowered her gaze, shame bubbling through her. She’d yelled at a poor old man, and all he’d been trying to do was help. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, staring out the long line of glass windows. Jamila, she noticed, stood outside, complacently chomping on bits of green foliage budding on nearby bushes.

  “We must leave,” said Ammo Mazen, staring at the windows with a frown. “It is not safe with so much glass surrounding us.” With a firm hand, he guided Nadia from the building and helped her into the back of the cart. “Come, Jamila, we must be swift of foot and find shelter for the day.”

  Nadia sat on the edge of the cart, her legs dangling from the back, staring dumbly as the dental clinic grew smaller and smaller behind them. She pulled down the visor Ammo Mazen had given her, blocking out the world, and closed her eyes. A dull thud sounded toward the western edge of the Salaheddine district, followed by another. The skin on the back of Nadia’s neck prickled with alarm as a wind whipped up, bringing with it a whiff of scorched metal and gunpowder. She shivered and pulled her coat in tighter. Without the cover of clouds, the temperature had fallen, making it a truly cold, wintery day. Nadia stared down at her lap, clutching the burlap bag, perhaps a bit too tightly. Mishmish growled from inside, sinking his claws into her thigh. “Ouch,” she muttered, opening the mouth of the sack. A flash of orange snaked out and positioned itself at the front of the cart, right behind the donkey. Head angled toward the breeze, the cat twitched his nose.

  Minutes later they slowed and Nadia looked up. She recognized a line of dress shops she had often visited with her mother and aunts. They were boarded up and empty now. How could Allah have let all this happen? she thought. Does he not love us? She had voiced this thought in front of her mother, who had told her not to use God’s name in vain. But it was Nana who’d later come to her and explained that it was okay to be angry. Allah loved his people, but sent them hardships to test their faith. Nadia had listened, but deep in her heart she could not reconcile how such cruelty could be love. She sighed, the bruise in her heart a festering wound.

  Ammo Mazen turned in to a narrow lane filled with car part dealers and mechanics and stopped at a sturdy concrete building on the left. A thick metal shutter concealed the entrance. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a leather loop, filled with a dozen metal keys. They’re skeleton keys, Nadia realized in wonder. She’d seen tools like that in the movies, used by thieves to pick locks. Why does he have a set? She stared at him, once again wondering, Who is this man? Combining a few together, he fit them into a large metal lock. She didn’t have much time to ponder further because after a few jiggles the lock sprang open with a sharp click. Lifting up the shutter, Ammo Mazen swatted Jamila’s rump, sending her inside. Just as quickly, Ammo Mazen locked the gate shut behind them.

  Pale light filtered through small windows lining the top of the wall, illuminating the wide, rectangular, mechanics shop. As Jamila came to a stop, Nadia eased off the cart and set Mishmish down. The cat darted between two cars, suspended on raised platforms, the ground beneath stained with years of engine oil. Nadia walked toward the first, a dusty old Toyota, its hood open, innards from its engine lying in a pile. Careful not to trip over the scattered tools, she inspected the second car, its tires gone, driver-side door dented. A door at the back of the shop probably led to an office. Piled high everywhere were car parts, leather seats, carburetors, vinyl cushions, steering wheels, stereos, and dozens of other odds and ends.

  Ammo Mazen took off Jamila’s harness and gently rubbed her down with a towel. “ ‘Where is the beauty in a donkey?’ ” he sang softly. “ ‘The stumpy body, long ears? It’s the heroic heart, stubbornness, and intellect behind the long-lashed eyes.’ ”

  Nadia eyed the hairy beast with a wrinkled nose. Beautiful and smart? Really? Next he removed a burlap sack from beneath the cart, hidden behind one of the wheels, and fixed it over the tired donkey’s head. With a happy snort she began chewing.

  “What’s that?” asked Nadia.

  “Barley,” replied Ammo Mazen. “Sadly, moth-eaten, moldy barley, but the finest we can find in the city right now.”

  While Jamila munched, Ammo Mazen handed Nadia an armful of wood from the cart. “Here, put that in the metal grate,” he instructed, pointing to a spot opposite the cars. Next, he extracted a leather rucksack from beneath the cart and hung it from a hook.

  For once, she dutifully did as asked, noticing that the wood was from the chair she’d smashed at the dentist’s office. After she’d laid it in the bin, Ammo Mazen added bits of kindling and soon had a blaze going.

  “Come,” he said, tossing a few vinyl cushions beside the brazier. “Grab some bedding from the cart and get warm.”

  Without having to be t
old twice, Nadia set up a cozy sleeping pallet and collapsed onto a cushion, her thigh sore from all the walking. Meanwhile, Ammo Mazen puttered around the shop, scavenging through the tools and stowing a few in the cart. Wearily Nadia took off her mittens and stared down at the soft skin of her palms. She raised them toward the fire, feeling the heat soak through, the flames reflecting against the shining shade of Dusty Rose. Her breath caught in her throat. The polish on her thumbnail was chipped. Horrified, she opened her pack and pulled out her precious pink case. She unzipped it and took out a bottle of polish remover, a cotton swab, and a nail file. With mechanical precision, she removed the offending chipped polish and filed the round edge. After applying two coats of Dusty Rose, she waved her hand carefully to let it dry, a sense of relief flooding through her.

  As she put her supplies away, she caught sight of an old, cracked bottle of Tangerine Dreams and the reality of what was happening came flooding back: My old life is gone. . . . My family is gone. . . . She hugged herself and began to rock, a soothing motion she’d often seen her mother do while holding Yusuf when the tremors from the war became too much. She stared into the fire, the glowing embers bringing a whirlwind of memories.

  Chapter Twelve

  March 30, 2011

  Nadia sat on the couch in her aunt and uncle’s quiet apartment, a box of her favorite cinnamon meringue cookies in her lap. Razan was in her room studying for a zoology exam, while the rest of the kids played outside. The grown-ups huddled over tea at her grandparents’, having one of their important discussions again. Eyes glued to the television, Nadia watched as the last scene of her favorite musalselat (soap opera) came to a dramatic conclusion. Set in a Damascus slum, Birth from the Loins followed the lives of its residents as they dealt with poverty and corruption. It was the most talked-about show in the country and Nadia couldn’t wait to dissect the juicy plot with her friends at school the next day.

  Having fibbed that she needed her cousin’s help with her algebra homework, she’d come here, since her mother didn’t approve of her watching “mindless junk” at home. As she reached for the remote control to flip off the television, familiar patriotic music blared, accompanied by messages of breaking news on the screen. President Assad was about to speak. Usually uninterested, she hesitated. A familiar phrase bubbled up in the back of her mind, an Internet search she’d erased months ago. Authoritarian regime. Without realizing it, she sat up, brushing cookie crumbs from her dress, as a familiar chinless face above a tailored English suit appeared on screen.

  Tall, with the grace of a scarecrow, President Assad leaned across the podium, toothbrush mustache quivering as he stared into the camera. “Enemies of Syria have infiltrated the country and are spreading lies and promoting violence,” he said. Nadia swallowed, the cookie in her mouth tasting like sawdust. “These foreign agents are conspiring to undermine our beloved country’s stability, and our national unity.” Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him blame terrorists for recent clashes in the south, while promising to crack down with “an iron fist.” “God willing, we will be victorious,” he declared.

  He’s lying, thought Nadia, her dress clenched in her fist. Foreign agents hadn’t brought unrest to Syria. It had begun with a group of boys from Deraa, a city in the southwest of the country, afflicted by drought and economic hardship. A few weeks ago the rambunctious boys had decided to sneak into their school. They’d spray-painted antigovernment graffiti all over the walls. A few were arrested by security forces, beaten, and tortured. In response, courageous people from all walks of life—doctors, students, workers, taxi drivers, cooks, and farmers—united across religious and ethnic lines, took to the streets, and demanded the return of the children. Nadia had seen the videos on Facebook of peaceful demonstrators marching in the dusty streets, chanting, “God, Syria, freedom” and “One, one, one; the Syrian people are one.” They carried white flags and banners stating DERAA IS BLEEDING and WHO KILLS HIS PEOPLE IS A TRAITOR. In response, Assad’s troops had fired into the crowd, wounding and killing indiscriminately.

  Nadia had heard snippets of hushed conversations among her aunts and uncles and knew that discontent in Syria had been simmering for decades, but any disobedience to the regime invited disaster. After her brother had shown the videos to Jiddo, her grandfather had recalled the events of 1982, when Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, massacred thousands of Sunni Muslims in the city of Hama. He’d then quelled unrest among the Kurds and the Shiite Druze, who had risen up against him, by killing them, too. When Hafez was buried in his predominantly Alawite village of Qardaha in the northwest mountains, Syrians hoped for reforms from his son, but they did not come. Unlike the massacres of the eighties, which were easily covered up, the killings in Deraa were visible to the world, across hundreds of televisions, websites, and telephone screens. And so, with the words Alshaab yurid isqat alnizam, “The people want to bring down the regime,” scrawled across a schoolyard in Deraa, the Arab Spring flared to life in Syria.

  Chapter Thirteen

  October 10, 2013 12:41 p.m.

  Nadia took a deep, ragged breath and straightened her sore back, staring into the flames as she stroked her father’s green cap in her lap.

  “Are you okay, my dear?” asked Ammo Mazen. While she’d been lost in painful memories, he’d been busy—a steaming kettle sat on the brazier, whistling softly.

  Nadia blinked away tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she choked out.

  “Now, now, things aren’t as bad as we think they are,” he said, pouring liquid from the kettle into two chipped, tulip-patterned mugs. “Drink this. I find that it calms the nerves.”

  Gratefully, Nadia took it and inhaled the delicate, flowery scent, the mug warming her cold fingers through the mittens. She recognized it at once. It was zhourat tea, made with marshmallow flowers, lemon balm, rose petals, chamomile, and other herbs. Nana made it often, and the thought nearly brought more tears. But she pushed them back and drank the soothing brew. Feeling a bit better, she watched Ammo Mazen remove a plastic bag from the leather rucksack that had been hidden beneath the cart. He took out stiff pieces of bread and held them over the fire with a metal skewer. Once they were toasted, he produced a tin of cheese and opened it with a rusty can opener. Nadia’s stomach grumbled.

  “Here you go,” said Ammo Mazen, handing her a tin plate with a warm piece of bread slathered with soft white cheese.

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to mind her manners, at least a little, as she fell on the food like a lion tearing into a gazelle. She hadn’t eaten cheese in months. It had become a luxury, like fruit, only affordable for the rich. Staples like vegetables and meat were hard to find, and bread. Bread . . . She unconsciously rubbed her thigh. The price of bread had skyrocketed, and it was because of this that she had this souvenir in her thigh, and the scars on her face. But with her stomach full, she felt a little better, her mind clearer. She leaned back and tried to make sense of what to do next. Staring down at her mittened hands, she recalled the message her family had left for her. Your father will wait for you at Oncupinar border crossing, which faces Bab al-Salama on the Syrian side. She had taken that route many times when her family had gone into the countryside for summer picnics, or on the rare occasion she’d accompanied her father and brothers to inspect a phosphate mine.

  She sat up straight. “I have to find my father!” she murmured to herself.

  “I know,” said Ammo Mazen, between delicate, slow chews. “He is waiting for you at the border.”

  Nadia nodded. “You take the main road north out of the city and go past the ruins of Kharab Shams, right? Do you know how to go from there?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” he said, then paused, a frown marring his brow. He blinked, appearing a bit befuddled as if he were putting together a particularly difficult puzzle. A fleeting look of calculation crossed his features, then he smiled. “I do.”

  “Will you tell me how?” she asked with growing excitement.

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p; “I can do better than that,” he said with a smile.

  “How?” she asked.

  “I will take you there,” he replied.

  “You will?” she whispered, her heart pounding. “But why?” she added, suddenly suspicious.

  Ammo Mazen looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “I agreed to help you, so now I am committed to my promise. Plus, my errand is taking me north, and the border is not so far that I cannot take a detour.”

  It sounds logical, thought Nadia, weighing his words. And since she had no idea how to get there alone, she couldn’t afford to pass up on his offer of help. “Thank you, Ammo,” she said simply.

  “But if we are to travel together,” said Ammo Mazen, “you must pretend to be my granddaughter, and follow my instructions.”

  Nadia nodded, eyeing the cars with renewed hope, wondering if they could get one to work. The border was barely thirty miles away, a scenic drive that once took less than an hour to complete. Now, of course, it could take much, much longer. “What are we waiting for?” she cried, jumping up. “Let’s go.”

  “Hold on, my dear,” said Ammo Mazen. “It is not as simple as that. We must plan carefully.”

  “I know, I know,” said Nadia, pacing. “But I’m sure we can find a car, or a truck.”

  Ammo Mazen sighed. “No automobiles. It is far too dangerous.”

  “But a car will be fastest,” argued Nadia, folding her arms.

  “There are hundreds of checkpoints throughout the city, and getting through them, especially in a car, is dangerous,” said Ammo Mazen. “They can question you for hours, and if they don’t like your answers they can hold you up even longer. Plus, I cannot leave Jamila and my things.”

  Nadia mutinously stared at the smelly donkey, snoring away with Mishmish curled up under her neck. All he has is a bunch of junk, she fumed. Why is that so important? She opened her mouth to tell him just that, then clamped it shut as she eyed the old man in his frayed clothes, weariness etched on his face.