Home Is Beyond the Mountains (18 page)

A few days later she said to
Anna, “Every day I can walk a little faster and I think we go a little
farther. Sometimes I even worry that Benyamin and the other boys will never
catch us. We've been gone for ten days and we don't know if they've even
left Hamadan.”

“They'll catch up with us,”
said Anna.

The country they were
walking through was changing. The road was rising slowly, up and up. One day
Samira found herself thinking that she didn't care about getting to Tabriz.
She just wanted to stop walking. Going up this road was harder than it
should have been, but she didn't know why.

That night they stopped in a
caravanserai. It had been built in the days when camel caravans had traveled
this road and needed places to stop for the night. There was a big walled
yard and stables for animals. On one side of the yard were low buildings
with small rooms where travelers used to sleep. Now their roofs were falling
in.

The Rooftop Family found a
corner where the walls offered shelter from the wind. They quickly arranged
their sleeping mats on the ground. They ate lentil stew and had just crawled
under their quilts when Miss Shedd came by to see that everyone was settled
for the night.

She looked around at the old
walls.

“Thousands of people have
slept here over the years. Before the war these buildings would have
sheltered people traveling between Turkey and Hamadan and farther east.”

Turkey.

“Miss Shedd,” Samira called.
“Are we on the road to Turkey now?”

“Yes. If we kept on over the
mountains we would get to the city of Urmieh. But in a few days we'll turn
north and take the road to Tabriz.”

“I knew I remembered,”
Samira said, almost to herself. “We took this road when we came down from
Ayna. I have been here before.”

She wondered why she hadn't
seen this caravanserai when she came past on that other journey. It seemed
so big now. But then she was not seeing the things around her. Only the
road. Only the other frightened people.

“Will we go to Sain Kala?”
she asked.

“You remember Sain Kala?
It's just a village. But, yes, we'll be near Sain Kala. We'll stop at the
river and you children can go swimming. I want to spend a little time there
myself. After Sain Kala we'll turn toward Tabriz. That will be in two or
three days. Now, go to sleep.”

She stood there for a few
minutes. Samira could see her dark shape, tall against the starry sky. She
closed her eyes so that she wouldn't see Miss Shedd move away.

The next day word spread
among the older children that they were walking on the same road most of
them had taken when they fled from the war. How it spread Samira wasn't sure,
because no one talked much. They were very quiet that day, each person
remembering or trying not to remember.

In the middle of the morning
Malik hurried up to her and said, “Shula is sitting in the road back there.
She's crying.”

Samira found Shula crouched
with her hands over her face, wailing, “My mother. My mother.”

The younger children
gathered around her, their eyes wide and worried. Anna appeared and said
quickly, “See if you can calm her, Samira. I'll take these children and go
on. Malik, Avram must have gone on ahead. Find him.”

Samira knelt down beside
Shula. “Come. Move out of the road. We must let the others pass.”

Shula rose with tears
streaming down her face and let Samira lead her to a patch of grass. There
she sank down and sobbed, “My mother died along this road. Leave me so I
will die here, too. The journey is too hard. I can't go on.”

Samira didn't know what to
say. What Shula said was true. Her mother had died and the journey was hard.

She sat down and put her arm
around Shula's shoulders.

“We could sit here thinking
of our mothers and cry together,” she thought. “But if I cry, how will I
stop? I don't want to stay here crying.”

“Shula. Why have you stopped
walking?” It was Miss Shedd's voice, not unkind but wanting an
answer.

Samira stood up. Avram was
standing nearby looking helpless.

“Shula is remembering her
mother who died on this road. She wants to give up. This journey is too hard
for her, she says.”

Miss Shedd sat down on the
ground. She took Shula's hands away from her face and looked at her for a
long time.

“Shula,” she said. “This
journey is not easy but it is not dangerous, not at all like that other
journey. When you think of your mother remember how glad she would be to
know you are going home. You may be sad but you must think of the other
children. They need you to be with them.”

She lifted Shula to her feet
and guided her back to the road.

“Go and walk with your
family,” she said. “Sitting by the road wailing will do you no good.” She
looked at Samira. “I'll come back soon and see how you're doing.”

She strode off and Samira
saw that her horse was waiting for her.

Shula was still sniffling but
she didn't sit down and wail again. She looked at Samira and said, “She
didn't even say I was right to cry for my mother. She doesn't know how we
suffered.”

“No,” said Samira. “She
doesn't. But she knows that if we don't go home we might always be sad.
That's why she is taking us on this journey. She's trying to take us
home.”

When the travelers finally
stopped for the night it was raining, but the outriders had found dry
stables for everyone to sleep in. The women of the village had swept the
stable floors and brought enough fuel to make a fire where the children could
take turns warming themselves.

The fire and the smell of the
stew in big iron pots seemed to reach out to the ones who had been
remembering the last time they had walked this road. They sat down together
without talking. The little children who remembered nothing of that journey
ran up and down the long stables shouting until it was time to
eat.

Mr. Edwards came and stood
beside the fire.

“Children,” he said.
“Friends. I have to say goodbye. Tomorrow very early I will begin riding
back to Hamadan. In a day or two Mr. Shields from Tabriz will join you and
take my place for the rest of the journey. You are on a great adventure and
I'm glad I could come with you part of the way. I wish you well as you
travel home.”

The children crowded around
him to say goodbye.

When Samira had her turn she
said, “I wish you were coming all the way, Mr. Edwards. We have known you so
long.”

“Since the fields of
Kermanshah,” said Mr. Edwards. “Happy traveling, Samira.”

When the girls were going to
bed, Anna said to Samira, “You know why Mr. Edwards came on this trip
instead of Miss Shulman, don't you?”

“Why?” said
Samira.

“Because he's a man. Miss
Shedd takes care of everything but there has to be a man to talk to some
people.”

Samira thought of the
chavadar who treated her as if she was invisible. He would only talk to
Malik.

“Yes,” she said. “You're
right.”

THE NEXT MORNING
Samira
went with Malik as she always did to help him carry the bedding to the
chavadar. They were just coming into the area where the mules were stabled
when they heard a loud and angry voice. The chavadar who looked after the
Rooftop Family's mules was shouting at Miss Shedd and shaking his fist.

Miss Shedd was listening.
Sumbul stood beside her. He was listening, too, and his ears twitched
nervously.

The man was shouting in
Persian so Samira couldn't understand what he was saying. She knew that Miss
Shedd didn't speak very much Persian, but she was standing as if she was
planted in that spot and would not move until the man was quiet.

The chavadar shouted louder.
He held out his hand and rubbed his thumb against his fingers. Then he said
some words in Syriac.

“He wants her to pay him
more money,” Samira whispered to Malik.

Malik nodded. His eyes were
fixed on the chavadar, and Samira knew that skinny and young as he was, he
was ready to leap on the man. She put her hand on his shoulder.

Miss Shedd was shaking her
head vigorously. She said no in Syriac in a low, firm voice.

The man leaned toward her
and gestured to the mules and shook his head. If she didn't give him more
money his mules weren't going anywhere.

Miss Shedd just stared at
him. He took a small step toward her and put his hand on the dagger that was
stuck in his belt.

Suddenly, without turning,
Miss Shedd reached over to Sumbul and pulled her little whip out of its loop
in the harness. She said no again, a little louder, and lifted the whip. Its
lash whipped through the air but the man jumped back and it did not touch
him.

He looked at Miss Shedd for
a moment, then turned, spat on the ground and walked away.

Miss Shedd watched him go.
Then she put the whip back in its loop and patted Sumbul's neck.

“Thank you for standing by
me, old friend,” she said. She turned to Samira and Malik. “And thank you
for keeping still. I know you wanted to help but I had to deal with that
man. He's been paid. They've all been paid the whole amount we agreed on.
But he thought he could get more while I was on my own with no man to back
me up. We have no money to spare, of course. We have to buy food and fuel
from the village people with what little we have. And anyway, I would not
let him push me around just because he thought he could.”

She looked beyond Samira and
Malik toward the road.

“I won't be stopped from
getting you children home. You can believe that.” She went over to Sumbul
and put her foot in the stirrup. With one motion she was on the horse,
looking down at them.

“Well, that was an
invigorating start to the day, wasn't it?” she said. “Now it's time for us
to be on our way.” She clicked her tongue and Sumbul walked briskly out of
the camp as if he, too, wanted to leave this place.

Later as they tramped along
the road, Samira told Anna what had happened. Their feet kicked up dust, and
the gusty wind lifted it and then let go and dumped it on their heads.

Anna said, “Well, if anyone
can get us there it will be Miss Shedd. But sometimes it looks pretty well
impossible. Look.”

Samira looked ahead. The
road had been climbing uphill steadily for the past day or two and now in
the distance she could see nothing but mountains.

“Where does the road go? I
can't see it at all,” she said.

“See that faint brown line?
We'll be up there before long, if we make it.”

“Of course we'll make it,”
said Samira crossly. “We can't turn back now. Look how far we've come.”

She flung her arm out and
turned to point back along the road, then stopped as if her arm had turned
to stone.

“What is it?” said
Anna.

“It's men on horses. Many
horses. Coming fast!”

She shaded her eyes to see
better, but the horses were raising so much dust that the riders could not
be seen clearly. Up and down the line boys and girls were stopping and
turning. Now they could hear voices rising out of the whirl of dust.

Some of the children dropped
to the ground and covered their heads. Samira could hear a thin, screeching
voice cry out, “It's the Kurds! Tell them the war's over. It's the
Kurds.”

But as she listened to the
shouts from inside the cloud of dust, Samira knew that it wasn't Kurds. It
wasn't soldiers.

Suddenly she cried out,
“It's the boys! It's our boys. They have found us.”

Within moments the horsemen
were so close that everyone could see that it was their own boys. Children
were calling out, “There's Maruse. There's Matthew.”

Then Samira saw Benyamin. He
was standing up in the stirrups looking over the crowd of children. She
waved madly and he saw her. He got off the horse so quickly that he nearly
stumbled, but he caught himself and ran over to Samira.

“You're all right!” he said
and gave her a hug.

“So are you,” said Samira.
She looked at him. “Did you think something might happen to us?”

“Of course,” he said. “We
weren't here to help. But you're all fine!”

“Are you disappointed?”
asked Anna, but she smiled. Samira knew that she was glad to see Benyamin,
too.

“Where's Ashur?” Samira
asked.

“I'm right here,” said
Ashur. “We all made it. Now I'm checking to see that no one in the Rooftop
Family got lost along the way. Everyone's here but Malik, I see. I guess he
hasn't changed.”