Home Is Beyond the Mountains (15 page)

“But I can run faster,” said
Elias. “I'll be first to get to the camp.”

“The others will find you
sleeping beside the road. They'll have to pick you up and carry you.” And
the argument went on, getting sillier and sillier.

Malik was the only member of
the family who never expressed an opinion about anything.

“I know he listens to what
we say,” Samira said to Anna. “I can see him almost smile when Avram boasts,
and he shakes his head when we go on and on about how hard the journey will
be. Maybe no one has ever listened to him and he just learned to keep quiet.
If we keep eating together long enough maybe he'll talk one day.”

“I think that pretty soon
Miss Shedd will give us more to do than just eat together,” said Anna. “I've
seen her going from one dormitory to another with her lists.”

Then one dark February
evening, just as Elias had fallen asleep, Miss Shedd came into Samira and
Anna's room with a list in her hand.

“I've come to let you know
that the three of you will be moving into Dormitory Four,” she said in a low
voice. “All of your family will be there. The boys' rooms will be at one end
of the building and the girls' at the other. Elias will move in with
Benyamin and one of the other boys. Monna will be sharing your
room.”

“Why do we have to move?”
Samira asked.

“Because I want all of the
members of each family to be living in one building. Of course there will be
two other families in Dormitory Four.” She held the piece of paper near the
lantern. “It will be the Grapevine and the River families. Living in the
same building with your whole family will give you a chance to get used to
working things out together. And you'll have your own workroom in the
dormitory. We'll be talking about that soon.”

Samira looked at the bright
cloth she had saved from the sewing room and hung on the wall, and at the
bookshelf Anna had made from scraps of lumber.

“But we've made this room
our own,” she said.

“You can take everything
with you,” said Miss Shedd. “Be ready to carry your things to Dormitory Four
tomorrow after school.”

“Elias has been with us
since he was practically a baby,” said Anna when Miss Shedd had gone on to
the next room. “Do you think he'll be upset about leaving us?”

“He loves Benyamin so I
think he'll get used to it pretty fast. And we'll be right down the hall.”
Samira sat down beside the sleeping boy and smoothed his hair back from his
forehead. “It's a big change for us, too.”

The next afternoon they
packed up their things for the short move to Dormitory Four. Samira was
surprised at the big pile her belongings made. It took two trips to carry it
all. She had thick clothing for the winter now and quilts and a small basket
filled with a notebook and pencils and some reading books from school. The
little measure from the umbar and the books she and Anna had made in Baqubah
were carefully stowed in the bottom of the basket.

“Remember when everything we
had would fit in that skinny cardboard box?” she said to Anna.

The new room was exactly
like the one they had left. As Samira pushed tacks through the bright piece
of cloth and into the mud walls, she wondered why she had made any fuss at
all. The big difference was that Elias was missing.

Benyamin had come to the old
room as they were packing up.

“We need you to come and
live with us big boys,” he said to Elias.

“Can Samira and Anna come,
too?”

“They can come,” said
Benyamin, “but they have to live in a room down the hall. We can visit them,
though.” And he whisked Elias away.

Anna came in with the
sleeping mats.

“We're all settled,” she
said. “Let's go and get Monna and her things.”

As they walked along the
hall, the sound of boys talking and laughing made Samira remember that she
had once lived in one room with her whole family. Now the Rooftop Family was
under one roof.

“It's good,” she
decided.

By dinnertime everyone in
Dormitory Four was settled. Maryam, Shula and Sheran were in the next room
and the six boys in the Rooftop Family were in two rooms down at the boys'
end of the hall. Malik was with Benyamin and Elias.

“Malik likes Elias. He even
laughs with him sometimes,” Benyamin told Samira. “Miss Shedd told me that
before he had to leave home, Malik lived with his grandmother. He never went
to school and he's managed to be by himself in the camps. He's just not used
to being with boys his age. Elias is easier for him.”

Samira hoped that Elias
would remember all the times he had laughed with her. She missed him. But
now she and Elias and Malik were all part of this big new family. She
decided to invite both of them to a game of shooting pebbles.

One day Miss Shedd called
all the big brothers and sisters together.

“I want each family to think
of something to make that will be useful to us as we travel. It could be
something you make especially for the journey, or maybe you can improve
something we already have. When you have a plan we'll talk about whether it
will work and what supplies you will need.”

The Rooftop Family met in
their workroom. As they talked about the journey, Samira began to have a
picture in her mind of everyone in the orphanage walking across the land.

“We'll have to be properly
dressed,” she thought, “and we'll have to carry what we need. But how will
we carry it?”

She suddenly realized that
Shula was looking at her.

“Aren't you listening to
me?” Shula said. “I just said that even though the mules will be carrying
most of our clothes and supplies, we'll need some things with us every day.
Like our lunch and a cup.”

“That's it,” said Samira.
“We need a bag. A flat bag with a shoulder strap.”

Benyamin nodded
enthusiastically. “It's a good idea. The bags can be different sizes,
smaller for the smaller children. But what will they be made out
of?”

“Canvas,” said Samira. “They
made our shoe tops out of canvas. We can sew it on a sewing
machine.”

They began to make a list of
the supplies they would need: canvas, thread, at least one sewing machine,
scissors, buttons to close the bags.

When they showed their plan
to Miss Shedd, she approved it at once.

“I have to see about the
canvas and other sewing supplies, but I know we can get two sewing machines
again and some heavy-duty scissors from the Near East Relief office. I'll
give you a piece of lighter cloth so that you can make one by hand to be a
pattern for the canvas ones. You have needles and thread to do that, don't
you, girls?”

They did, since it was one
of their jobs to sew on buttons and mend rips in the clothes of the whole
Rooftop Family.

Working out a pattern for
the bags took a long time because everyone had different ideas about the
best way to do it, but in the end Samira and Anna sewed a flat bag with a flap
and a button to close it. The strap was wide and would go over one shoulder
and across the wearer's chest.

“Do you realize that we have
to make two hundred and seventy bags?” Samira said in one of the family
meetings. “Luckily the littlest children won't need them but two hundred and
seventy is a lot. We have to divide up the work.”

They decided that the boys
would cut the canvas, the younger children would fold and pin the cloth
carefully so that it would be ready to sew, and the bigger girls would do
most of the sewing, though Avram and Ashur wanted to do some of that,
too.

“I'll teach you how to do it
without sewing your fingers,” Samira promised.

Other families were painting
names on tin cups or reinforcing the soles of shoes. The work got the
children thinking about the journey and the list of jobs Avram had made.

Anna said to Samira, “As
usual we will look after the younger children.”

“Yes,” said Samira, “but it
will take more than the two of us to look after our Rooftop little ones.
Imagine trying to keep four Eliases in sight when we are walking along a
road in open country. Anyway, we'll have other things to do,
too.”

In the end the division of
responsibility turned out to be mostly common sense. The older boys would
set up camp every night and pack up in the morning. Malik surprised everyone
by saying that he would load and unload the mules. The older girls would
look after the younger children when they were in camp. When they were
walking each younger boy or girl would be the responsibility of one of the
older ones. Everyone would take a turn at helping the cook.

The young ones wanted jobs,
too.

“You will help with setting
up camp every day,” promised Samira. “We need you to unroll the sleeping
mats and roll them up in the morning. But the most important thing you will
do is stay with us. With all the big girls and boys. Do you
promise?”

Monna, Sheran, David and
Elias all nodded solemnly.

“I wonder how many times
we'll say that in thirty days of walking,” Anna muttered.

The Rooftop Family was
falling into patterns. The girls often invited the younger boys into their
rooms to play games or hear stories. The older boys checked each evening to
be sure everyone was safely in their rooms before it was time to sleep.
Samira could imagine them taking a walk around the camping place of the
Rooftop Family, making sure everyone was there and settled for the
night.

Before the younger children
went to bed, she and Anna told them stories about setting out for a long
walk with all of their friends, eating lunch along the road, getting tired
but singing songs to keep going and arriving at a good camping place at the
end of the day to rest and eat. The story had adventures, too, but never
soldiers, never people who disappeared or were hungry or sick.

Most nights Samira lay under
her quilt with the journey filling her head. She tried to put herself to
sleep by remembering the careful plans for food and water and rest and by
thinking about how the people in the Rooftop Family would look out for each
other and how Miss Shedd would watch over everything.

But sometimes as she fell
asleep her mind filled with the rhythm of walking, walking with no rest. She
would wake suddenly, sure that someone was missing.

Was it Mama? No, Mama didn't
belong in this dim room. Small Monna was beside her. And Anna. Elias? He was
down the hall with Benyamin.

They were all there. In
Hamadan. Waiting to go home.

WINTER PASSED
. Spring
passed. Even summer passed. The umbar was crammed with supplies for the
journey. Samira and Anna looked at the Rooftop Family's clothes and went to
see Miss Shedd.

“It looks as if we might
have to travel in cold weather, but we don't all have warm jackets that fit
us,” Samira told her.

“And some of us can't
squeeze our feet into our extra-strong shoes anymore,” said Anna. “Our feet
have grown.”

“We'll make more jackets and
shoes,” said Miss Shedd. “If only we could make the letters of permission
we're waiting for.”

September passed and the
letters did not come.

“Do you think a person can
die of having to wait and wait and wait?” asked Anna,

“I don't think so,” said
Samira. “We've been waiting to go home for years already.”

Then, on an ordinary October
morning, Miss Shedd came into the eating room in the middle of breakfast.
All chatter stopped.

“Children,” she said. “I
have good news. The letters of permission are on their way. We should be
able to set out on our journey in three days. There will be no more school
after tomorrow because you'll be busy with preparations.”

On the last day of school
Samira looked at the big map of Persia that hung on the wall. It was easy to
find Hamadan, midway between Baghdad and Tehran. Up in the left-hand corner,
near the top of the map, was Lake Urmieh with the city of Tabriz just above
it. She found the city of Urmieh, too, but Ayna and the other villages she
could remember were not named.

She studied the space on the
map between Hamadan and Tabriz. She saw many wavy lines that meant
mountains, and empty spaces with few towns marked.

So much to get across.

Miss Shuman came and looked
at the map with her.

“I know that you children
can make this journey. You just have to keep going and take care of each
other. You may even have a good time.” She turned around and spoke to all
the girls. “I know I'll hear news of you when you get to Tabriz. I wish you
safe traveling.”

That was one day. Now
another day had passed. Piles of bedding, a bundle of clothing for each
child, baskets of spoons and bowls were lined up in the yard ready to be
loaded onto mules or into wagons. The umbar had been emptied of dried fruits
and vegetables, rice and flour. Miss Shedd was walking among the piles one
last time, checking lists, making sure that nothing was forgotten.