The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War (7 page)

Baba goes to the shops around the place and brings us two roasted chickens ready to eat. After I have eaten I change into my swimsuit and run to the beach. The sand under my feet makes me shiver. It is hot but the sinking feeling makes a shiver run down my spine. I jump into the water and start clapping and singing a nursery rhyme mama used to always sing when we used to go swimming. The boys come running to me and all jump into the water at the same time. It's like a waterfall of their perfume and water. The three of them come up from underwater with their hair soaked and stand around me. I feel like I'm drowning in a rainbow of perfume. All of them have different perfumes on and I can smell them all so distinctly. But when I'm not paying too much attention the smell attacks me as one perfume monster tries to drown me, fighting to push me down underwater.

We start playing a game of ball and whoever drops the ball has to go underwater for ten seconds and the seconds keep rising the more the ball is dropped. I don't mind going underwater because I know if I don't have a house, I can live underwater like the prince. I don't know if the story the teacher told us is real or not, but I know I can live underwater and even try to pretend I'm a fish. I wonder how fish think though. Will they know I'm human pretending to be a fish or will they think I'm a fish? We have one Spanish girl in our class who has been brought up in Syria and she thinks she's Syrian but everybody else knows she isn't. Is that how I am going to be underwater?

After playing the game for long enough for all of us to get tired and our fingers wrinkly from the water, I sit on the sand and start to build a sandcastle.

‘Yasmine look, do you like my sandcastle?'

Yasmine is sitting on a lounge chair with Baba under a parasol, she doesn't like getting red, I love it though.

‘Keep going Adam.'

I get up quickly to drink some water and suddenly a pain that I have never experienced flies through my body and I scream and fall to the ground. I close my eyes and everything turns purple. Did I press a purple button in my body by accident? Yasmine says I twisted my ankle.

I spend the rest of the day sitting on the sand by Yasmine with ice on my ankle. There are many people around that are speaking a different language to us and look very different. A woman wearing her underwear in the water has purple hair. I didn't know people could be born with purple hair. I guess she's from somewhere far like America. Isa comes and sits by us after swimming. He puts some music on his phone and we all sing along.

I see two kids speaking a fast weird language running up the beach and laughing and I get upset that I pressed a purple button in my body and now I can't run around.

W
E HAVE SPENT
three days away from home and the sun only went away today. The moment we get back into Aleppo a dark square rests on my heart, pushing it down. I don't know if it's because of the dark skies or because these three days have really changed our town, but everything looks like the shadow of a black angel. One of the buildings with a car parked outside resembles an angel with his head down. Maybe bad angels haunt our town, or maybe this is the bad angel's town.

I hold Yasmine's hand for the first time. I whisper the prayer that Baba taught me under my breath. I feel a spider weave his web around the linings of my heart. I repeat the prayer under my breath waiting for a release of good thoughts. Our taxi isn't far from our house. I can feel Yasmine's eyes on me for holding her hand, but I don't look at her. I am afraid I might notice something around me I don't like. My feelings are usually right; I am hoping this feeling is nothing close to a bad premonition this time. Baba opens the window and lights a cigarette. I look at his hand reaching for the window and I don't recognise the lines on it.

I start to feel a little better after repeating my prayers. We arrive outside our house and as soon as the car stops I run. My ankle feels better. I speed down the small alley leading to our door on the right and to my surprise the door is open a little. I shout out to Yasmine to ask if someone forgot to lock the door before we left. Isa comes running, swearing he locked the door and checked twice before we left. He pushes the door slowly and walks inside, I follow him and run back out. I see a black angel running towards me, I run to Yasmine and tell her to come in and see. Yasmine follows me as I run. She walks inside slowly and sees Isa picking up our furniture from the floor. Yasmine screams and falls to the floor. I try to pick Yasmine up and Isa comes and helps me. We lie her down on the floor inside because all the furniture is either broken or thrown across the room. Isa looks up and says a prayer, asking God for forgiveness and for God to help us. Baba and the other two boys come in with the bags and drop them in shock. They all have the same reaction; they go around the room and say the same prayer. Isa has brought Yasmine water and is blowing in her face. I walk over to the chairs and start picking them up.

Tariq sits beside me and asks me if I'm okay. I don't answer but look down at the floor. He moves me back slowly and puts his finger on his mouth telling me not to say anything. I stand back where he put me and wait for something to happen. I don't know if I'm expecting the worst or hoping for the best. Either way, I am frozen in place waiting to be told what to do with my body. As for my mind, it is pounding like a drum with the song in the background muffled by my fear. Why is everything upside down and the door open? What happened? There was a war outside, and now a war started inside our house.

Tariq tells me to go to the kitchen and get some fruit for Baba because his sugar level went down. I am watching my family fall one by one. I never thought this day would come. I thought that I would be the one who would always need help but now I am on the other side of the table and I don't know how to deal with things. If mama were here she would know what to do. Mama was our wings; now we are hopeless without wings.

I walk into the kitchen and to my surprise it looks like it hasn't been touched. Everything is in place and I open the fridge and take out an apple and cut it in four and put it on a plate. Baba is sitting with his hand on his forehead and Yasmine is lying down with sprinkles of water dripping down her face. I have a painting in my room that resembles this very moment. I hold the plate tighter in my hand and feel sick from this realisation. Tariq calls my name and I run with the plate to Baba and put it on his lap. His face looks as white as a ghost. I have never seen a ghost but I have heard this simile many times so I am going to assume that a ghost is white. I sit on the floor by Yasmine and Baba and think about how we got to this place. Our lives had a perfect routine that I was so comfortable living in, and now, I don't know who we are any more or what is happening. The war holds so much uncertainty above my head like a grey cloud waiting to pour and thunder down. I don't want it to thunder on me.

The doorbell rings and Khalid, who was fixing the furniture, goes to open it. If I don't think about it, I can erase the memory and it will be like there was just a light earthquake. I have always wished a board and rubber would appear in our minds when we close our eyes so we could rewrite our memories or simply erase them. When I grow up I want to study the brain so I can come up with an invention like this.

I hear an unfamiliar voice and then a girl walks in with her suitcase and stands by the door. She looks so much like Baba but I don't know who she is. Baba jumps up and hugs her as she cries on his shoulder. I don't think I have ever met her before so I get closer to see her better. Her perfume is strong and she has a lot of make-up on like she is not from around here. Baba sits her down on the floor while Khalid and Tariq put the furniture back in place. I listen to their conversation as Yasmine slowly gets up and greets the girl as well. She asks about what happened to the house but as Baba starts explaining, she tells Baba her husband died. Baba stops mid-sentence. So many things have been happening lately, I don't know what he is thinking now. I just hope he doesn't fall to the ground. She goes on to explain that her husband went out one night and was shot by the army.

‘I have been out on that open road and I need a home after he left me.'

She introduces herself to me as Amira and her lips pout out like the opening of a rose. She is beautiful. Amira means princess in Arabic and even though I have never met a princess before, I don't believe she's far from being one. She takes her headscarf off and her hair flows down to her shoulders and falls perfectly in place. I stare at her intently until Yasmine gently ruffles my hair and laughs a little. She is still in shock. Amira laughs a little too but her tears are still falling. I want to paint her.

Amira is going to stay with us for a while and sleep in Yasmine's room.

*

Amira sits by the window with her make-up bag in front of her, fixing her face. She has an opaque look to her eyes, a cloudiness you can't erase. For the rest of the afternoon, we clean the house and Yasmine makes dinner. By the time the night falls Amira moves from the window and goes to the bathroom for far longer than normal. I wait 20 minutes in desperation to go to the toilet.

Now that Amira lives with us we have less food. I like her, but I am always hungry now so I feel tired most of the day. Ever since she moved in and school closed down I haven't been able to do much other than paint and read. Baba says I can play games on the computer to relax when the electricity works. I haven't showered in four days because there has been no water. I stink and I can smell myself but everything is changing so quickly and I can't catch up. I looked in the mirror yesterday and my face had a shabby look to it which I refuse to embrace, so I won't look into the mirror again until I shower. Everybody at home looks tired and seems to be dragging themselves around the house. We hear gunshots and shelling every other night now. It has become a normal part of our lives.

*

Tariq comes back home a few days later with a huge grin on his face. We haven't had any happiness for some time.

‘I have a surprise for you Adam!'

‘Surprise! Show meee.'

‘Close your eyes and come outside.'

‘But I can't see where I'm going…'

‘Come, I'll cover your eyes with my hand and lead you.'

Tariq's hands are big and overlap when covering both my eyes. His fingers are cold and long, they feel unwelcoming. I put my hands in front of me as a precaution. We walk 11 steps and stand without saying a word. I touch his hands trying to find the knot between his fingers. He lets go and for a few seconds I can only see shooting stars coming towards me.

‘Surprise!'

I can't focus on what Tariq is pointing at because my town is crumbling to pieces behind it. There are huge rocks and dust in front of a line of shops opposite our house and in the far distance there's grey smoke covering most of our sky. I look down and see the bike that Tariq is pointing to.

‘For me Tariq?'

‘You like it?'

‘Yes… Yes… Yes!'

‘Do you want to learn how to ride it now?'

‘Yes!' I jump on the bike and fall on the other side. Tariq laughs at me and picks me up and puts me on the seat steadily. He arches his body over me and holds onto the handles telling me to peddle my feet. I do it and move slowly. I thought bikes were faster. We go around the block with Tariq still teaching me and I soon go a little faster and then faster still. I can fly if I go faster and peddle harder. I love this feeling like I can let go of everything and fly with my bike like in
E.T
. I never knew it could be this much fun.

‘Where did you get this bike from Tariq?'

‘I found it broken on the side of a road and fixed it.'

‘Did you fix it at your university?'

‘Yes I did.'

‘I wish I was at university!'

‘Haha it's a pain! Have fun being young and free.'

‘But I feel old.'

‘ADAMMMM!' Baba calls out for me and I look back at Tariq's face once more and run inside. I don't know why he answered me in a scary way. I just want to be older so I can do things myself too.

Baba pushes me inside as soon as I walk in and he calls out for Tariq to run. He closes the door after us and tells us to follow him. We go into his room and he opens up another door I always thought was a cupboard. We go down a few stairs into a room painted white, with the paintings I gave mama hung up.

‘Those are my paintings Baba.'

‘Boys, if anything happens and you have nowhere to go or if the army comes in to attack, sneak into this room and lock the door. It looks like a cupboard; they're never going to guess you're here.'

There is a record player in the corner of the room with a pile of vinyls stacked up.

‘Are you going to come in with us Baba?'

‘Whoever gets in here shouldn't worry about who is outside; everyone is their own man. You're a man now okay Adam? You have to stand on your own feet, we might not find each other in the end.'

‘Does Yasmine know this?'

‘I told everyone, you're the last to know.'

‘Baba, I don't want us to be separated.'

‘Adam you're a man. Men aren't afraid. You should only be afraid of the sound of your crying.'

W
E HAVEN'T HAD ELECTRICITY
for the past week; we live in a different world now. Everyone is dark and depressed apart from Amira who still sits by the window with her colourful make-up. She still cries though. I haven't been able to sleep well lately. I can't stop thinking about mama and who is going to visit her first. I have been thinking of going back to the room Baba showed us so I can sit and play records but there's no electricity. I want to know what vinyls he has. I walk out of my room and look down both sides of the corridor before tiptoeing to Baba's room. I put my ear on the door to figure out whether Baba is in there or not. I don't hear anything and so I slowly open the door. Before I get to walk in Yasmine calls me from the kitchen. Why is everyone always calling me!