Aleppo

“Freedom just smells different, don’t you think?”

“Ouch!”

Whenever I say something silly or pathetic, Ukhti throws stones at me. Right now, she is throwing stones at me. Thinking about it, I realize that she has been throwing a lot of stones lately. Another one hits me on my left shoulder. Dammit! How the heck does she do it? She must have a store of stones in her pockets. I turn around and give her a wolf-grin, flashing my teeth. She aims another stone right at my head. I duck and it flies by, almost touching my hair.

“What the hell, Ukhti!”

I hurl myself at her and wrestle her down. We roll over each other a couple of times. After a minute or so, we both lie on our backs and look into a bluish sky. It is crossed by long white clouds that somehow seem fragile to me. Fragile! I suddenly realize what I have done. The panic makes me sit up. I turn to Ukhti and lay my hand gently on her stomach. “Sorry,” I say, but the word comes out rather lame.

“I keep forgetting that it’s not only the two of us anymore.”

She just smiles and says: “Don’t worry, I’m fine. We’re fine.”

I don’t even say the words “Are you sure?”

Being my sister she instantly knows whenever I am worried, and simply says: “Millions of years of evolution, of fleeing and fighting … of resisting men! You really think a bit of wrestling can do us any harm? Come on: Get a grip!” She laughs out loud and pokes me in the stomach. I let myself fall back onto the grass, next to her. The grass seems softer than before. She turns her head to me.

“You are silly. You know that?”

I just say “I know,” and we both start laughing.

“How much longer till we get picked up?”

“An hour, maybe two,” she says.

“I really can’t walk much more. My feet hurt like hell.”

“Yeah,” Ukhti says, “mine too.”

Then she jumps up and starts running towards the horizon, as if demonstrating how much energy she has left, despite the long walk, despite her pregnancy, despite all the despair we have seen over the last few years. I watch her in amazement. How does she do it?
How can she handle all of it? However she does it, it seems to work. There’s just no way that I can lie here in the almost comfortable green grass while she is running towards our freedom, alone.

“Wait,” I scream as I get up and start chasing after her.

“Why the rush? Germany isn’t going to disappear!”

We hike through a barren landscape that brings the word “post-apocalyptic” to mind. The trees around here look even more pitiful and forlorn as my traveling companions do. The dirt track we walk along leads us over something that once must have been a grass slope, now more ashen than green. On the side of the trail is a small barn that looks ghostly, like something out of a Stephen King novel. Next to the haunted mini-house is a small pond, covered with ice. I tiptoe along its edge, putting one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker. I wonder what would happen if I fell over and landed on the ice? Would the surface carry me? Suddenly our whole journey reminds me of an uncertain walk over a frozen pond and it strikes me as a wonder how we made it this far. Any moment the surface could crack, any moment we could be swallowed by the dark, cold waters below. Who would take notice? Who would care? I stop and take a long, deep breath. When I exhale clouds of warm air dance lightly through the air.

Somebody is tucking at my sleeve.

"What's wrong?" says Ukti, giving me a critical look. "Geez," she says, "you look like you've seen a ghost!"

“Yeah?” I smile at her and shrug. “Something like that.”

She shakes her head like she always does when she doesn’t know what's going on inside my head. Then her eyes light up and she beams a broad smile at me.

“It’s late,” she says and points at the ghosthouse. “Maybe we should take shelter in that barn?”

This is one of those moments when I am not sure whether she is being serious or not.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Of course!” she happily says and sticks her tongue out at me.

“Come now” she urges me as she starts walking. “We’ll get left behind...”

As we walk up the ashen slope, past the barn and up into the grey horizon, I wonder whether all of this is really happening or not. Maybe I am just a ghost, stuck in a barn next to a frozen pond, dreaming a dream that is not meant to last?

“Did you hear: They have wolves again in Germany!”

“Get out of here!”

“No, I mean it. That’s what I’ve heard.”

“So?”

“There are freaking wolves… I mean, what do we do if we run into a pack of them? Try to outrun them?”

“Come on! What are the chances that we’ll run into wolves? We would have to trek through woods to see them.”

“And what’s this?” I say, pointing around us, “are we not in woods?”

“Yeah,” Ukhti says and shrugs “but we’re not in Germany yet. So relax: No wolves!”

That does not convince me. “I am not too sure whether those wolves worry about borders …”

“Stop it! Besides: They’re probably more scared of us than we are of them. They’ll keep away from us anyway.”

Ukhti’s tone is very matter of fact. She’s getting angry, so I’d better stop. If I don’t, she might fall into an even fouler mood for the rest of the day. And Ukhti’s foul moods are no fun! I shut up and we carry on walking in silence for a while. There are people ahead of us and behind us. They’re walking in small groups of anything from three to ten people. Human wolf packs. I think about the image and cannot help but chuckle. We, the wolves.

“What’s funny?” Ukhti says in an annoyed tone. “Nothing …” I say. “I just had this image in my mind.”

“I miss Rafiq,” Ukhti says and stops. I walk up to her and take her in my arms.

“I miss him too.”

“Why did you have to bring up the wolves?” Ukhti says. “It made me think of him.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up!”

“You shouldn’t have … I miss taking him out along the Queiq.”

“Me too.”

“He was a good dog.”

“He was.”

The man who calls himself The Ferryman does not look like I had imagined him. He does not look like a gangster, who smuggles people for money. He looks more like an accountant. But that’s what real gangsters look like, I guess. “Remember what I told you,” he says “when they question you at the border, answer right away and say what I told you to say.” It does not matter what I tell them, I think, as long as I stick to the truth. “And forget about the truth or justice or anybody giving a rat’s shit about you or your sister! Just think about your truth. Think about what you need to do to survive! Think about your future! Everything else is secondary.” I listen to his words and despise the man. I despise him for doing what he does. I despise him because I need him. I despise him for being right. Suddenly I am transported back in time, to my childhood. I run through the narrow lanes of Jdayde. I chase after Rafiq, only a puppy then—or rather, he chases after me. I was careless then and free; a careless kid in a careless time. I see it all through the eyes of that child. Then I blink and find myself sitting on Al-Hatab Square. I can taste the bitter sweetness of the chai. I can feel the hot cup in my fingers. I see her. I look into the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Then the missiles fall from the sky. She took her exam that day. She dreamt of rebuilding Aleppo one day. She would have been a great architect. She … “You’re lucky!” The Ferryman says. I look at him and see a sinister smile forming on his face. “You’re lucky for being who you are and knowing who you know. Most people can’t afford me. Most people don’t have your luck.” What do you know about luck? I want to scream in his face. If we were lucky our home would still be standing, my country would not be in ruins, my family would be together, you money-grabbing bastard! I want to seize him by the shoulders, shake him, and scream every word in his face. I don’t say a thing. I just look past him into the grey horizon and wonder what future will await us there.

We are next in line. The grim-looking immigration officer I was expecting isn’t so grim-looking after all. Just tired. And he is a she. “Passport?” she says as she looks up. I shake my head. The officer looks me straight in the eyes. Mine must look tired, I am sure, but she has enormous dark circles around her own eyes, which remind me of moon craters. Her hair looks tousled and in need of a proper wash. Yet there is beauty beyond the mask of tiredness. “Where are you from?” She asks without the strong German accent that I was expecting. Then she repeats: “Where are you from?”

I hesitate only for a moment and Ukhti says:

“Aleppo.”

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This is a modified version of a story that was originally written by me and published by the office community "LABOR RS79" to celebrate Heidelberg's inclusion in the UNESCO Creative Cities network as a "City of Literature".

You can find the original story at https://2wege.ausdemlabor.de/