The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War (5 page)

Yasmine comes into my room and I run to her.

‘Yasmine I'm scared.'

‘Adam, don't worry darling, I'm here for you.'

‘But Yasmine, what if you leave me again?'

‘I won't leave you. I promise.'

‘Why did you have a gun?'

‘Mmm let's talk about it later.'

‘Please tell me Yasmine, I don't want you to kill yourself with the gun.'

‘No, no! Don't say that darling.' Yasmine leans down and holds my hand for a few seconds before she lets go.

‘I found it at the demonstration and picked it up without thinking. I thought about it when I got home. It's not safe and if anything happens I might need a gun.'

‘Don't kill anyone Yasmine.'

‘I promise I won't.'

B
ABA WALKS UP TO ME
and leans down and whispers in my ear, ‘I'll show you a trick when the lights go out next. Go get me one orange and olive oil.'

I jump up and run to the kitchen. Yasmine is sitting at the table writing in her diary. She closes it as soon as she sees me.

‘What are you writing Yasmine?'

Yasmine doesn't answer me. What is wrong with everyone today? Khalid walks in without saying ‘hi' and goes into the fridge and takes three bananas out. He goes to the gym every day and eats bananas every time he gets back. He always tells me he'll take me to the gym but he never does. I look for the oranges in the fruit basket and find one at the very bottom.

‘The oranges are finished Yasmine.'

‘What do you want me to do about it?'

I don't like it when Yasmine shouts at me but I don't want to cry because I will look like a baby. I quickly take the olive oil from the cupboard and run out. I can hear Khalid speaking to Yasmine but it sounds like a code language that I can't understand. I give Baba what he asked for and he pats the seat next to him on the sofa for me to sit. I sit and wait for him to explain.

‘When you're afraid of the dark, just remember that you're not alone. God is always with you and he will help you find eternal light. This trick will help you find temporary light.'

Baba starts cutting the orange in the centre and giving me some slices to eat and then putting the rest in a bowl. He carves out all the juices and leaves the stem in the middle. It looks like a candle. He blows on the skin until the juices dry up completely. He then puts two spoons of olive oil in the centre and rolls it around the sides. He takes a lighter out of his pocket and lights the stem. The room starts to glow. It is the strongest candle I have ever seen.

‘Do you like it Adam?'

‘I love it Baba.'

Baba smiles and he looks better now.

‘Do you want to play a game?'

Baba hasn't played a game with me for a long time so I grin in response. I am so excited.

‘First show me the painting you have over there.'

I go and get the painting and hold it up for him. He doesn't say anything for a long time and my hands start aching. I can't see his face because the painting is covering it so I decide to put it down and look at him. Baba looks red like he has been crying. He smiles at me and I look into his eyes. I see my painting in them. I can't explain how weird this is but it's like my painting got imprinted into his eyes. Even his eye colour has changed.

‘It's beautiful Adam I love it. I never knew you could do this.'

‘Thank you Baba, what game are we going to play?'

‘Let's play I spy with my little eye.'

‘Can I start?'

‘Of course.'

‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with O.'

Baba keeps guessing all the Os in the room but missing the one O on my mind.

‘I give up.'

‘Are you sure Baba?'

‘Yes Habibi.'

‘Oxygen Baba!'

Baba starts laughing and messes my hair.

‘You can't see oxygen Adam,' he says and he continues laughing.

‘I can.'

‘How can you?'

‘If I look closely I can see oxygen in the air…'

Baba continues to laugh then picks a word with the letter L.

We continue playing and laughing and then Yasmine and all the boys join us and we have tea and start to play a card game. It's been a very long time since we all got together. I feel comfortable around them all. I feel happy and almost forget about the bombing. While everyone is sharing a shisha and I drink my favourite mango juice, Yasmine asks me about my friend Nabil.

‘I haven't seen him since the last day I went to school Yasmine and he wasn't in the class this morning.'

‘Do you want me to take you to visit him?'

‘Yes I do, I like playing video games with him and talking about books.'

The rest of the night we laugh and Baba tells us stories from his childhood. My favourite story is when his two older brothers got into a fight and one of them was about to throw his slipper at the other one and Baba was walking past and the slipper hit him in the face instead. Yasmine always laughs a lot at that story and that makes me laugh. Baba tells us another story that makes me cry out of laughter. His younger brother was once desperate at night to go to the toilet and was too tired to run there so he peed in the flowerpot in the corridor and their mum was sitting on the sofa there and he didn't see her in the dark. Baba always has these funny stories that make me imagine him when he was young. Khalid then tells Isa to read us one of the latest poems he has written and we all sit closer to each other and listen to Isa recite his poem:

A river of cryptic ink flows through the city.

Little is heard but the whispers of the peasants

and their weeping.

The streets spell out the names of their late

companions with their remaining cement

and the trees howl for their favourite shepherds.

In silence we turn a deaf ear to nature.

On the right corner of the street the nostalgic

drink Aristotle's theories from a silver-plated cup

as others bathe in the remnants of Romanticism.

Their bodies rot in art's finest clothes.

Walking into the house I see my mother sitting

there, stitching me a sweater from the alphabets

of her heart, as father recites to himself Khalil Gibran's

poem ‘The Lake of Fire'. He recites until dawn.

Where does literature end and love begin when

words dance ceremoniously to wed my country to

the title of ‘the blessed' yet we are stripped of pen and paper?

When he finishes reciting his poem ‘Anthem' Baba starts clapping so I do too. As Isa read I felt like I was being spun into a cocoon of literature. The silk strangled me but when Isa let out the last word I was able to breathe again. I have never had this feeling before so I don't know what it means.

Baba gets up and goes to bed and we all stay seated and talk. Eventually, I start fidgeting. Yasmine smiles at me and tells me to go to bed. I fall asleep the moment I put my head on my pillow. I didn't twist and turn this time and I didn't even think of mama.

*

I wake up to an unsettling sound in my mind: something like the sound of a dolphin's cry. I put my hand on my heart and feel its fast beating. As my heart settles down, my dream starts coming back to me. It's all a mess in my head but I remember sitting in the school playground with the girl with Nutella eyes and eating rose petals with her. I can still remember how soft they felt in my mouth and the way they melted as soon as I put one on my tongue. I didn't care about eating petals because I was in the girl's eyes eating chocolate too. Suddenly she screamed like a dolphin and that's when my dream ended. I wish she hadn't screamed. I feel relaxed after seeing the girl's eyes again. I don't know her name so I'm going to call her ‘Chocolate'.

I skip to the bathroom and close my eyes to the smell of coffee. I then go the kitchen but Yasmine is not here. Her diary is on the table though. It's turquoise with a picture of a candle on the front cover. I sit down at the table and open her diary to the first page:

I gave him my last letter today. I can't do this any more. I love him and the pain is unbearable but I have no choice but to ignore it. My family is more important. Everyone has been going through a hard time ever since mama left. Even though it's been a few years I still have to pretend I'm okay in order to patch things up. I only feel happiness with him. At home I'm just a pillow for tears, but with him I'm a woman with feelings. If it wasn't for Adam I would run away with him, but Adam needs me. I just have to live like a shadow. I miss him.

I put the diary down and slowly slide onto the floor. I don't understand what is going on. Is Yasmine joking? Is she always feeling black oil in her heart? I don't want her to feel that way because I know the feeling from after mama left. I should run away so Yasmine doesn't have to feel that way. I love Yasmine and I don't want her taking pills any more or looking yellow. I want Yasmine the ruby. I run to my room and take my school bag and run out of the house. I want to go to Nabil's house. Yasmine said I should go and visit him. I feel a grey cloud on my shoulder, like it's going to rain on me. I walk to school without looking around in case I see something scary. It's too early to go to school and I have never been out at this time. The streets have shadows that look like crooked superheroes. I can see the one-legged Batman following me from the corner of my eye. I don't know if he is my enemy or friend. I keep a look out for him just in case. I stand outside school and try to trace the route Nabil takes to his house in my mind. I see a fork-like shape in my mind with three colours sprouting out: brown, purple and orange. I don't know which one to take. The orange has a more calming feeling to it so I take a right from the school gates and walk up the street. The roads don't look familiar. I am not sure this is the right route. I keep walking and my heart gradually starts to tighten. I am losing my breath. 7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7. I start twitching and repeating his seat number in class in my mind. The route will come to me if I keep repeating his number. 7,7, 7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7,7. My hands keep twitching and his seat number takes over my mind. I can't stop repeating it. There is a man coming towards me in the tight alley. I don't recognise the houses. I wonder how far away from home I am. I suddenly feel dizzy. The thought of being far from home makes me wheezy. The man is getting closer and my neck starts to twitch. The alley is so tight there isn't enough room for my pounding heart. I can smell home-made bread and I calm down at the familiar smell.

The man is now speaking to me but I can't concentrate on what he is saying. His words are scattered in my mind and it sounds like the heavy buzzing of a bee. His voice is giving me a headache and I close my eyes and put my hands on my ears. I feel his touch on my shoulder and I run away with my hands still on my ears. At the end of the alley I reach a wider road with cars and motorcycles. I have never seen this road before and I don't know where I am. I start coughing in pain. I am scared. I don't know what to do or where I am and I can't speak to strangers. I miss my house. I wish Yasmine was with me.

I turn around and see the man right behind me reaching out for my shoulders again. A weird sound escapes my mouth. He gives me a green look with his eyebrows drooping down at each side and I try to listen closely to what he says. I hear him say God's name so I follow him. Maybe he knows where to take me. I walk down two blocks with him and can see his mouth moving but I am too scared to listen. He points at a building and goes in. I don't know if I am meant to be going into a building with a stranger. Mama would shout at me if she knew this. I quickly turn around and start to run out so I don't upset Yasmine and don't get into trouble, but as I try to leave he holds me back by my arm. I turn around and look at him and see a different person, this time in a police uniform. Why is a policeman holding me? Did the man bring me to a police station? I don't want to go to jail. I didn't do anything wrong. I repeat the number seven to the policeman in case he knows where my friend's house is but he just tells me to sit down and gives me water. I don't want to drink water; I just want to go to Nabil. The officer starts asking me questions and other policemen walk in and look at me. I haven't said a word since I sat down and now the officer asks to look through my bag. I don't want him to see my drawings. I need to tell them I want to go home but my words aren't coming out and I hold my bag tighter so they don't search it. I look outside the glass doors and see three men with green army uniforms on. I suddenly want to go home and tell Yasmine I don't want to die. I write down my address for the police officer and hear him speak to someone about collecting me. I hope Yasmine or Isa come. The others will shout at me for going away. I don't even know why I did it. I just know I don't want to see Yasmine upset. Maybe I can write her a letter before leaving next time.

I sit down looking away from the officer and right up at the clock. My mind is ticking with the clock's hands. Does the clock feel as grey as me with every tick? I look around at the certificates on the wall to zone out the monotone sound. There are so many frames around the walls; it looks like a university rather than a police station. There's a picture of the president on top of the desk. I wonder if it fits with the rest of the frames. His face is grey. I don't know if it should be, he should be happy and proud to be ruling a country, but there is something in this picture that I can have a conversation with. Something about his forehead, he is trying to cover the frown lines and it doesn't look like he has any. But I can still see them and it doesn't look very nice. I forget what I was trying to reach through these thoughts. I try to trace my thoughts back to the beginning with my fingers, drawing out a map of my mind in the air. I see shapes in my head and then a loud sound I cannot describe. It's like King Kong just put his foot down. The policemen start moving around and I look outside the window, all I can see is fog. I think it is smoke because it's moving past quickly. Grey smoke. Everything is grey today. I don't like it. I put my hands on my ears. Everyone is being so loud and someone's laugh is ringing on a higher frequency than everyone else's. Why is someone laughing when there is smoke outside?