Ramadan Ramsey

by Louis Edwards

“Because I didn’t know you, didn’t have you, because I . . . I wanted you! Ever since then, I’ve never stopped thinking about you, never stopped trying to find you.”

  “So your mama—she never talk about me?”

  And Ramadan realized—Mustafa did not know about Alicia. How could he? “Well, she . . . I—”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing . . .”

  “I see. I understand. I don’t blame her. The way I leave her. I try to forget. Try to make myself forget. Maybe I was her dream. She must try to forget, too. Is okay.”

  After a few seconds of silence, Mustafa said, “So the day after Uncle Adad tell me about you, I write to you and your mama. But the storm stop the mail, I think. Like it stop everything. Like it stop Uncle Adad. And then the letter come back to me.”

  “What did it say?”

  “The letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “That one day . . . I will come to you. My American boy. My American girl! So I keep my English good. I keep think how freedom is good. I make myself ready for you to love me when I come to you.” Mustafa sighed. “Aye . . . but so much happen so fast . . . the storm, death, time pass . . . now the war. And I never do what I say in the letter, Ramadan. I never do. I am sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Ramadan said. “But now I’ve come to you!”

  “Yes—but how? I no understand? Who is with you? Your mama? No, she no come.”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you come here all the way from America? How did you do this?”

  He heard the incredulity in his father’s voice. How had he done this? He closed his eyes, and his actions played out in his mind: the leap from Mama Joon’s front porch, just days ago; the getaway at dawn in Miss Bea’s station wagon; the flights; the cab ride from Atatürk Airport, Popeyes on his breath, with Mr. Emir, hungry and in a huff; the streettrain on Istiklal Caddesi with Mehmet; the boat ride on the Bosphorus; his journey through Turkey on the Ahmet Express; the detour on Refugee Road and the descent into Aleppo; and, albeit out of sequence, that other leap off Mama Joon’s porch, seven years earlier—scampering through the night, hopping over the shadow of St. Augustine’s cross, breaking into Adad’s store, grabbing the laptop (only there, he knew now, because Jamil had forgotten it!) and snatching Zahirah’s letter—a random bit of thievery, but also a reclamation on behalf of his family, leading him to where he sat now, talking, however remotely, to his father.

  How did you do this?

  It had taken all that and much more, but it all came down to—

  “I jumped,” he answered. “I jumped off the porch—and here I am!”

  “Amazing. There you are.”

  Another muffled but explosive thud, followed by general clamor, interrupted their conversation. “Where are you?” Ramadan asked again, over Mustafa’s heavy breathing.

  “A big fight is come soon. Very, very big. We will face the enemy here for the first time. Near the great fortress.”

  “The Citadel?”

  “Yes. You know? On the other side of Halep from where you are.”

  “I know where the Citadel is!”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “With the war, is like this place is a different country from where you are.”

  “I will come to you!”

  “No. You cannot! Is too dangerous!”

  “Then you come here.”

  “I wish—but it is not possible. I cannot leave my men. It is our first battle. This is the most important time.”

  “Then I am coming to you!”

  “No. It is crazy.”

  “I can do it! I can make it to you. It’s easy!”

  “But this town will soon be more dangerous than any place you ever know. If you go down the wrong street, you can be killed.”

  Ramadan felt the heat of metal tearing into him. “You can get killed on any street!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “Ramadan, go home! Go back to America! Go back to your mama!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why? Why?”

  “Because . . . my mama is dead!”

  “What?”

  “She . . . she died.”

  “What . . .”

  “A long time ago, when I was still a baby.” Everyone in the room had gasped at his revelation, and he heard his father cursing in Arabic with such ferocious clarity he felt he understood the pointed vulgarity of every word. Then he had to hold the phone away from his ear to withstand the clamorous rat-a-tat-tatting of an automatic weapon firing an incalculable number of rounds.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” Though he didn’t think Mustafa could hear him over the racket he was apparently making with his own gun, Ramadan screamed, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

  When he stopped, the shooting ended, too. Pressing the phone back to his ear, he heard a sound more penetrating than gunfire, his father’s whimpering. “Daddy, it’s okay. I’m sorry.”

  “Ramadan . . . Ramadan . . .”

  His father weeping his name saturated him with emotion as well—but he didn’t cry. “Yes?”

  “If I let you come to me, will you go back to America, where you will be safe?”

  Ramadan was slow to answer. Mustafa hadn’t so much asked him a question as presented him with a riddle. If he went back to America, the place where he was almost killed, how could he really be safe?

  “Promise me!”

  Still brooding, he stalled. “Promise you what? That I will be safe?”

  “Promise me you will go back home.”

  Ramadan sighed. To be united with his father, he had to agree to be separated from him again. Then there was the sordid complication of the condition that he return home. He didn’t dare tell Mustafa what he’d escaped. Somehow, it was too personal a matter—his own battle to fight, one that could only be resolved on the turf of the Ramseys. It didn’t concern the Totahs at all. These two factions, it seemed, had nothing in common except him.

  “Promise me,” Mustafa pleaded.

  Ramadan weighed the worst thing that could happen if he agreed to Mustafa’s demand, against his not meeting his father at all. He could make this pact with Mustafa—and be granted the privilege of seeing him. Then yes, of course, he would have to keep his vow to return to New Orleans—where the worst might happen. But at least he would have met Mustafa. If the price of meeting and obeying his father was death, he would pay it. Besides—yes, this was possible, the optimist in him said—once Mustafa saw him, maybe he would change his mind. He might not want him to leave!

  So he was smiling as he accepted his latest challenge. “Okay. If you let me come to you . . . I will go home. I promise.”

  * * *

  “TAKE THE GUN.”

  Rana was sneaking Malik’s pistol to Ramadan as he settled onto the back of the motorcycle. The silvery butt of the gun flashed up at him. Malik and Ahmet were distracted upfront, reviewing the directions Mustafa had given them to a secluded spot near the Citadel. Bits of their conversation drifted back to Ramadan . . . Mehamed Avenue . . . Omar Bin Abdel Aziz . . . then Hawl Al Qalaa Street . . .

  A missile flared across the night sky, attracting everyone’s gaze. After it passed, Ahmet and Malik went back to their planning, and Rana gave Ramadan a grandmother-knows-best stare.

  “Take it!” she said again, lifting his jersey and shoving the pistol inside the waistline of his jeans, where the cool metal tickled his skin. His giggle elicited a smile from her, and she hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks. “Beautiful,” she whispered. And he blushed—no one, not even Mama Joon, had ever called him that.

  Zahirah came running out of the house with a bag, yelling, “Food, food!” Ramadan thanked her and put the bag in Ahmet’s backpack. He was hungry, but he knew he couldn’t eat anything. Not until he had made it to Mustafa.

  He put his helmet on, and amid a flurry of farewells—Wadaa’an, Goodbye, Ma’a salama—A
hmet revved the motorcycle and set them on their way. Ramadan turned and waved to the Totah clan.

  “Say goodbye to your family,” Ahmet said. “Goodbye to your aunt, your cousin—and your grandmother who almost killed you!”

  18

  Almighty Father

  Mustafa had directed Ahmet to a series of palm trees near the bridge to the Citadel.

  “Seven palm trees, your father say!” Ahmet shouted after they’d been riding for about fifteen minutes. “A mosque on the right—and then seven palm trees.”

  “Okay,” Ramadan said. “I’m looking out! And then what?”

  “You stand by the middle tree and wait.”

  “What about you?”

  “No me. Just you.” Ahmet laughed. “You know, he scream at me for bring you here. ‘Too much danger!’ he say. ‘Why you bring my son into the war?’ I want to make a joke and tell him, ‘Booster Keaton made me do it!’ But I do not think I can make this man laugh.”

  “What happens after I stand by the middle tree?”

  “A light will flash, three times, from the place where he is hide.”

  “And then do I go to him or will he come to me?”

  “Uh . . . well, I do not know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “He did not say. Maybe you must go to him, like you have come so far. Just look for the light.”

  “Okay.”

  As they cruised along, Ramadan noticed that the intermittent shelling had subsided. Mustafa had warned him about a coming battle, but the quiet, starry midnight sky was the picture of peace. His eyes drifted back down to the sparsely populated streets and the dimly lit vistas of apartment buildings and shuttered storefronts. With each passing mosque, he sharpened his vision, scanning the landscape for a septet of palms. “One, two, three . . . ,” he’d counted several times without reaching that luckiest of numbers. He had just been teased by a conspicuous quintet, when he saw it rising up in the distance, lighting the horizon and proving to him its existence—the ancient fortress.

  He had first seen it on Adad’s laptop and subsequently, after countless internet searches, in hundreds of other digital images that had stoked his dreams. With its lore thousands of years in the making, he knew the Citadel was supposed to be real, not merely two-dimensional and virtual. And for the most part, he had believed in it, though he had also remained slightly suspicious. Wasn’t there a chance it might not be real? Couldn’t it be just a communal mirage? Something everyone agreed to say they’d all seen—because wouldn’t it be a supreme comfort if it really did exist? Wouldn’t it make everyone feel much safer? How reassuring it would be to know there was a vast zone up on high from which a great force could oversee the proceedings, and make sure everything was all right. Part of him had questioned it as one questions heaven—which for him in a way it was, inseparably tied to a father who, in his absence and invisibility, also had the characteristics of an illusion.

  But there was no denying it now. The Citadel was real—and it was just over there. “Ahmet!”

  “Yes, I see it!” Ahmet said.

  The landmark was getting closer and closer. Ramadan’s mind was toggling back and forth between the screensaver vision of it and the real thing in front of him. Surging forward, he saw all around him, however peripherally, the rest of Aleppo streaking by. Up ahead on its hill, its crests surrounded by golden lights, the Citadel looked like a crown—a gem-encrusted piece in a larger-than-life game of checkers—kinging the entire city. His eyes made a slow-motion, lazy-lidded blink, and when he stared out again, he was confronted with a larger and more intimate view. Coming to it after all these years of fantasizing, he saw more than a majestic monument to Aleppo, it essence, and its stature as a special place that knew it needed protecting. The Citadel also had the thrust of personal fulfillment. He saw his memories and aspirations, in essence, himself.

  Looking at the fortress—he almost didn’t see them. The palms came slicing through his focus, their fronds swiping at the radiant Citadel beyond them like the feathers of dusters. The motorcycle had just passed the sixth tree when Ramadan spotted the last one up ahead, and the inner abacus that had been tallying palms slid one more bead into place.

  “Ahmet! Seven palms! Seven palms!”

  “Yes?” Ahmet said, slowing down. Then he looked at the road behind them. “Yes! And back there—we pass the mosque, too.”

  “This is it!” Ramadan said.

  Ahmet performed a shaky U-turn and drove back toward their destination. Coasting, he steered the motorcycle to the opposite side of the road from the trees, idling for a moment before turning the engine off. On their side, set back about twenty feet, was an apartment complex, which looked recently abandoned. A few stray pieces of clothing hung from lines between upper windows, laundry either forgotten in the rush to depart or intentionally left behind as territorial markings. A long-sleeved denim shirt pinned at one cuff caught a breeze; it looked to Ramadan like the torso of a ghost trying to flee because he had discovered its presence. He saw a toppled tricycle in the courtyard and thought of the children back on Refugee Road. He saw the girl’s face again, frightful but defiant, and he was glad she was gone.

  Ahmet elbowed him out of his daze and said, “Yes, this is it.”

  Ramadan turned around, gladly putting behind him a place that looked as abandoned as, until now, his heart had felt.

  “Take off your helmet, and leave your backpack,” Ahmet said, as if directing the scene. “Go to him with nothing but you.”

  Ramadan hopped off the bike, peeled off his backpack, and tossed it to the ground beside the front wheel, raising a puff of dust. He coughed as he removed his helmet and handed it to Ahmet. Then he stared across the deserted street. The Citadel was to the left, beyond the darkness on the other side of the palms. He surveyed the hidden terrain and wondered if it was as dusty and desolate as this side of the street. Was it another row of abandoned apartments? Acres of dunes? A desert? What was over there?

  “Don’t be afraid,” Ahmet said, though his own voice sounded apprehensive. He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out his camera.

  “I’m not afraid,” Ramadan asserted. He lifted his jersey and pulled out the gun Rana had given him. Gripping it by the barrel for maximum leverage, he turned and threw the pistol at the apartments. It disappeared into the night, and several seconds later the sound of shattering glass chimed their way. Ahmet nodded his approval, and Ramadan started to walk away. When he reached the middle of the road, he stopped. What if he somehow convinced his father to let him stay? What if this was goodbye?

  He turned around and said, “Thank you, Ahmet.”

  Ahmet lowered his camera, which had been pointing at Ramadan. “No,” he said. “Thank you, Ramadan. You make me believe I can tell any story—and make it true.”

  A noisy helicopter streaked the sky with orange and red, and they followed its flight for a moment.

  “I must hurry,” Ahmet said. “While you are with your father, I ride to the Citadel and get the film I need. I will be here when you return.”

  Ramadan turned to finish crossing the street, wondering if Ahmet was filming him again. But then behind him he heard the motorcycle engine start and the sound of Ahmet revving it up.

  * * *

  HIS FIRST STEP onto the other side was into a shallow swale. His right foot dipped into the sloping, sandy ground, and he stumbled forward, bracing himself against the trunk of the middle palm tree. Regaining his balance, he held on to the tall, sturdy column, his hands gripping knobby bits of bark. As he caught his breath and circled around to the dark side of the palm, he drew in the fresh earthiness of the plant, which soothed him. He heard the growls of the motorcycle dissipating, Ahmet riding off on his own mission, and it occurred to him, standing here, his back against this tree, that other than the night at the hotel, this was the only time since leaving home that he’d been alone.

  As Mustafa had instructed, he waited under the palm, whose trunk had a diameter
greater than the width of his frame. He would be shielded from the view of anyone spying in this direction from the opposite side of the street on this desolate strip of Aleppo. A breeze rustled the fronds above, and when he looked up at the umbrella of foliage the anxiety of his isolation faded. Maybe, he thought, Mustafa had directed him here because he knew the tree would give him this sense of serenity, the feeling that he was covered.

  You’d think the solace of safety would induce a more enduring patience but—and, really, it was this simple fact, as much as anything else, that had brought Ramadan here—a boy is a curiously restless being. Only seconds passed before his comfort incited boredom. A fit of the fidgets. A nose scratch. A tug of the ear. An arch of his neck to the left, then the right. Useless squinting, trying to see through the impenetrable darkness. In his immediate vicinity, there was just enough starry luminescence and ambient urban luster for him to notice, when he idly looked down, that his sneakers were covered with sand. He lifted his right foot and wiggled away most of the beigey grit, revealing the shoe’s white rubbery toe. And it was then, bending to rub away a stubborn splotch of grime, that, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the flashes of light.

  About fifty feet away, three laser-like rays of red had striped and strobed the blackness, in the meandering motion of searchlights, but also with the beckoning pulsations of airport landing lights, at once exploratory and invitational. The source of the redness was looking for him as much as he was looking for it. Then the light appeared again, blinking three times, more pointedly in his direction now, the last flash not a flash at all, sustained, a ray hitting the trunk of the palm just inches above his head. Stricken with surprise, a rigid Ramadan, standing fully upright, felt the glow begin to warm his forehead and glide down farther, gradually flooding and blushing his entire face. His eyes were open, but all he could see was the red. It was pale to start, as diffuse as a sunset, but then it began to change, growing richer with each second. As the device aimed at him came closer, the watercolor hue intensified into a rosiness. And now, accompanying the increasing saturation of color, he began to hear footsteps, slow and faint at first, but quickening to the patter of a jog, trembling the ground with the rhythmic force of thuds. Ahmet had guessed he would need to go to the light, but no—it was coming to him.