The Pianist from Syria

by Aeham Ahmad

  Suddenly, we see a group of maybe twenty people dashing out of the woods and breaking into a sprint. Four men are carrying an old woman on a stretcher. The soldiers notice them and start yelling at them to stop. But they keep running—until they get stuck in the ditch. It’s impossible to keep going, not with the old lady. The soldiers open fire. Two men are shot in the leg. We start running as well. And in all the turmoil, we manage to get across the border.

  By morning, we reach a Turkish village. The locals seem to make a meager living by helping the refugees. They give us water. We offer them money to bring us to Antakya.

  When we arrive in Antakya, I run into my uncle Jalal, one of my mother’s siblings. We fall into each other’s arms. “Thank you,” I keep saying. “Thank you, Uncle, for waiting for me. We’re together now! We’ll make it—together!” My escape was the first time that I was without any family. Being with Jalal makes me feel more at ease. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

  I’ve known Jalal for as long as I can remember. There are baby pictures of me where he’s holding me in his arms. For a few years, he worked in Saudi Arabia, then he became a minibus driver in Damascus. Both his marriages ended in divorce. Just recently, at age forty-five, he received his draft order. Imagine being drafted at forty-five! So he packed his things and escaped.

  And someone else is waiting for me: a BBC camera crew. That evening, they bring me down to the seaside promenade to take footage of me walking along the shore. I talk about my two sons, and right in front of the camera I burst into tears. Later, when Jalal and I get on the night bus to Izmir, some six hundred miles from here, the cameras are still rolling.

  September 12, 2015

  We’re in Izmir. The sea is too choppy to attempt a crossing. So we wait. We’re twelve people, crammed into a single room that the smuggler rented for us. There’s a bathroom and a kitchenette. We have to sleep on mats. A man from Syria, working for the human traffickers here in Turkey, collects the money from us. Twelve hundred dollars each.

  I notice an abandoned bag in the corner of the room. And a nice gray turtleneck. It reminds me of a sweater my brother used to have. Whose bag is this? Whose sweater? I start asking questions. But I don’t get any answers.

  “Do you know who this belongs to?” I ask one of the guys.

  “Does it matter?” he replies. “It’s not your problem, is it?”

  There’s no stopping me now. “Tell me! I want to ask the owner if I can have the sweater.”

  “All right,” he says, launching into a lengthy explanation. “When I got here, I asked the same question. You’re only allowed to take fifteen pounds onto the boat. So people only take what they need; they put their phones and papers and whatnot into a waterproof bag, and they carry it around their neck. Most people also wrap their phones in plastic, just to be sure.”

  “Yes, I know all that! What about the bag?”

  “You really want to know?” he says. “He’s dead, all right? Drowned! You happy now? We’re going to be on a raft. You really want to wear the sweater of some dead guy? It’s bad luck, you know.”

  He’s right. No one in Syria would wear a dead person’s clothes. It’s an ill omen. But I simply shrug—and I take the sweater. I’ll wear it later, when we’re on the boat. I’m not that superstitious.

  September 13, 2015

  A truck takes us to the coast. Seventy people are penned into the back. We hide in the hills near the sea, and can see the Turkish coast guard patrolling the beach. The silhouette of the Greek island of Lesbos is visible, a chunk of land in the blue sea, less than ten miles away. I have a waterproof camera in my luggage: the BBC reporter has asked me to record the crossing. He also gave me a tracking device. I find it soothing to have it on me.

  That night, we climb into a large raft and take off. The boat is hopelessly overcrowded. Women and children are perched in the middle. Some of the people are moaning; others are praying. My uncle and I are silent. We have our arms around each other. The sea is choppy, and the man at the tiller looks nervous as he steers the boat through the waves. We’re going fast, way too fast. We ride all the way up to the crest of each wave, then we come crashing down the other side. Water splashes into the boat.

  Ten minutes later, we reach the open sea. Out here, the waves are even higher, the swells are enormous. Splash! More water enters the boat and sloshes around the bottom. The boat sinks deeper. No, this won’t work. Suddenly, the engine stops. Panic breaks out. I can hear people screaming, crying. “Jalal!” I yell at my uncle. “Get ready!” The boat is sinking. People are struggling to get out. Everyone is squirming and screaming and thrashing around. The sea is totally black.

  In the Arab world, most people can’t swim, not unless they grew up on the coast. In Syria, we don’t have swimming classes at school. But I’m lucky. My father, once again, left nothing to chance. After second grade, during the summer break, we took a bus every day to attend a swimming course. Whenever I was in the pool, I could see him on the edge, tense with worry, listening intently, in case there were any cries for help.

  Later, we would drive to Latakia for short vacations by the sea. I enjoyed swimming. My parents had never learned it, so they only went chest-deep into the water. One day, when I was fourteen, I heard my mother screaming in fear. I turned to look. My father was gone. I swam to her as fast as I could—and saw my father struggling in the water, senseless with panic. He had lost his footing and was kicking around wildly.

  I dove toward him, then I waited for the right moment. When it came, I kicked him as hard as I could, with both feet, pushing him toward the shallow water. It worked. A few seconds later, he could feel the ground beneath his feet. He stood up straight and coughed up water. Our vacation was over. We left the same day.

  For many years, he told everyone that I had saved his life, swelling with pride.

  Well, on this night, he saves mine.

  I swim away from the boat as quickly as possible. I can’t risk another person grabbing me, dragging me down. My heart is beating calmly. I’m wearing a life jacket, I’m a good swimmer. The coast is less than five hundred yards away. I know I’ll make it.

  Back in Izmir, you could buy two kinds of life jackets. The expensive ones cost 160 Turkish lira, about forty dollars. The other kind cost only half as much, eighty lira, roughly twenty dollars. But they were deadly. They weren’t made of Styrofoam. Instead, they were made of some cheap stuff that soaks up water and pulls you down. On the raft, I saw a Syrian couple wearing the cheap version. Only their four-year-old daughter was wearing the expensive kind. Now I hear the girl crying.

  I swim toward her, and we call for her parents. I swim around looking for them, I ask the others—nothing. Did the sea swallow them? With my left hand, I’m holding the girl by her life jacket. I’m swimming with my right hand only, dragging her along with me. She’s crying the whole time. I never asked for her name. At dawn, we’re back at the Turkish shore. I know I can’t look after the girl, so I hand her over to the first family I meet. Then I start looking for my uncle. At last, I find him. Once more, we fall into each other’s arms.

  September 14, 2015

  The Syrian man who works for the human trafficker is unmoved by the tragedy. He writes down the names of all those who want to try again. He never mentions the disaster of the previous night. About seventy people signed up for the first crossing. Now there are only forty names left on his list. What happened to the others?

  That night, they bring in a new raft, along with five air pumps. We have to inflate the boat ourselves, then we carefully lower it into the water. The Syrian instructs the tillerman—a refugee like us, without any nautical knowledge—to head toward four red flashing lights. I’m sitting on the bulge on the left side toward the back. The boat starts chugging.

  Tonight, the sea is much calmer. People are praying: “Bismillah, Bismillah, in the name of God.” Others mutter Quran suras to themselves. At the first light of dawn, people calm down a bit. Next to me is
a man from Iraq whose face is white with fear.

  “I can’t swim,” he says hoarsely.

  “But I can,” I say. “I won’t let you drown.” I put my arm around his shoulder. My uncle, who is filming everything, turns the camera on me.

  The beach of Lesbos is closer now. And then we reach it. People jump into the water, wading ashore, weeping with joy. Piles of bright orange life jackets are strewn all around. My uncle and I hug and smile at each other. And all this time, I have only one thought: How could I leave my wife and children behind in Syria?

  The BBC reporter has been expecting me and has stationed his crew on three different beaches. One of the guys sees me and calls the others on his cell phone. Half an hour later, the reporter arrives.

  “How are you feeling now? Now that you’re standing on the soil of freedom?”

  “The soil of freedom is in Yarmouk,” I answer, but I’m beaming with relief.

  And then I say, “Now I don’t have to worry about drowning anymore. Hopefully, I can find a place where I’m safe and where my family can join me, Ahmad and Kinan and Tahani. The most beautiful place in the world is wherever my family is.” I dig out a picture of little Ahmad and hold it up to the camera. Then the BBC crew accompanies us to the ferry to Athens.

  It’s the morning of September 15, 2015.

  On to Macedonia. Then to Serbia. To Croatia. To Hungary. To Austria.

  A Macedonian priest hands out water and cheese sandwiches. “Welcome!” he shouts. We hitch a ride with a Serbian cabdriver; he’s racing down the highway at 105 miles per hour. There are six of us squeezed into the back seat. At the Croatian border, we have to wait until nightfall, then we begin an endless march through swamps and barren fields. We’re told there might still be land mines here, from the Bosnian War. I have to carry my uncle’s backpack; his hernia is giving him trouble. We reach Hungary. The streets are empty. People are peeking out from behind their curtains, giving us grim looks. Things are different in Austria. Here, we are met with friendly smiles, and there are booths with provisions along the route, like at a marathon.

  Finally, on the morning of September 23, 2015, I arrive in Vienna. I climb aboard a snow-white train. Four hours later, I’m in Munich. A film crew is waiting for me. A friendly policeman gives me directions, waving his hands around. He’s trying, as best he can, to explain where I can get food and shelter, and where I have to register as a refugee.

  I’m in Germany!

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN —

  Yesterday, on May 7, 2017, I gave a performance in Olpe, a small town in Germany’s Sauerland region. The director of a local music school picked me up at the Siegburg train station, an hour’s drive away. I had met him once before, in Cologne, and he had invited me to perform with him. “Of course!” I’d said, handing him a score by Riad al-Sunbati that I happened to have with me.

  And now we were driving down the winding country roads on a Sunday morning, chatting about my German classes, about my two little sons, about Assad’s poison gas attacks and Trump’s retaliation strike, and about this book. I had been working on it for months.

  The town hall in Olpe was filled to the last seat. Three hundred people showed up for the concert “by and for Aeham Ahmad.” A local journalist had come to my rehearsal and published a long article and interview with me. That’s probably why so many people were there. The concert began with chamber music, performed by the teachers of the local music school. Then I played some of my songs from Yarmouk. We concluded with music by Riad Al-Sunbati, the Beethoven of Arabic music. One of the school’s teachers had rearranged the piece. When it was over, the audience leapt to their feet and gave us a standing ovation.

  People rushed up to shake my hand. An elderly lady handed me a rose from her garden; others wanted to take pictures with me, and in between, I autographed CDs. I smiled at everyone, and I kept saying thank you. This concert meant a lot to me. It encapsulated my year and a half in Germany.

  Afterward, I had some time to myself. I went down to the community sports center and ordered a döner kebab at the snack bar across the street. Just a few months ago, that would have been unthinkable. And I thought to myself: I’m a different man now.

  * * *

  After my arrival in Germany, I lived in Olpe for a month, in the exact same sports center where I was now eating my döner kebab. Back then, I had been placed in a gym with 102 other refugees. I shared a bunk bed with my uncle, in a four-bed square enclosed by a chain-link fence and white tarp. At the time, I thought I’d have to live in the gym for years. Some of the refugees were disappointed: the big welcome had given way to months and months of waiting. But I was fine. After all, back in Syria, the refugees from Iraq and Lebanon had also been forced to live in schools and mosques. I heard that on some days, up to ten thousand refugees arrived in Germany.

  We were given three meals per day: at eight in the morning, at noon, and then at five in the afternoon. I didn’t particularly like the food. The bread was gray, the potatoes were bland. Still, after so many years of starvation, I couldn’t get enough of it. At the time, I dreamed of buying a spicy döner kebab at the snack bar across the street. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I only had seventy euros left, about eighty dollars. That was the last of my travel fund, my emergency cash.

  I kept a plastic bag under my bed, with small plastic containers of honey inside. They were part of our daily breakfast rations, but I didn’t eat them. I saved them, in case we ran out of food. I knew, of course, that I was being paranoid, that the thought was nonsensical, but the fear of starvation had seeped deep into my bones, and it would stay with me for a long time.

  I spent half the day on the phone, calling Tahani, calling my parents, calling old acquaintances from Yarmouk who like me had managed to escape to Germany. Luckily, the gym had free Wi-Fi. Tahani told me how hard her life had become. She had to pay someone to fetch water, or to hit the pedals on the electric moped to charge the batteries. There wasn’t a penny left, since all our money had been spent on my escape. She grew increasingly irritated and asked when I would send her money. I was just as impatient. It was painful to sit there and not be allowed to work.

  In the evenings, as I lay in my bunk bed, I watched videos from Yarmouk on my phone. I wondered how the children back home were doing. I felt guilty. “Aeham, are you always going to be there to sing with us?” they had asked. “Of course!” I had answered. “Always.” But then I had run away.

  In those moments, I desperately missed Tahani, Ahmad, and Kinan. I felt lost. My friend Ghatfan’s words echoed inside me: “Once you’re in Germany, it’ll be very difficult to bring your family over.” How could I have left them behind? How could I just be sitting here, doing nothing? My thoughts would keep spinning in circles until, at some point, I’d fall asleep.

  The lights came on at seven in the morning. Shortly after that, the kids began romping around and it was impossible to get any more sleep. I didn’t like living in the gym. We were all crammed tightly together, our futures were uncertain, our thoughts plagued us. I spent hours walking through Olpe. Sometimes I sat at the Biggesee River dam, lost in thought. I liked it here. I liked the mountains, the forest, the lake. But there was nothing for me to do. I didn’t speak the language, I couldn’t read the signs—I was a stranger. Germany felt odd to me. So small and quiet and tidy. I wondered if the whole country was like that.

  On my walks, I had noticed a white mansion with an odd sculpture in front of it—a flute player. At one point, I heard trumpet music coming from the building, and realized it must be a music school. I spent days lurking around there, then finally gathered my courage and went inside. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I wasn’t in Syria anymore.

  The building looked empty. I walked down the corridors and tried to make my presence known, calling out, but nothing. I came across a door with a sign on it. The principal’s office? I knocked and heard a woman’s voice. When I went inside, I saw a blond woman sitting at a desk,
looking at me in complete astonishment. Small wonder: I must have seemed very odd to her. A skinny Arab, with his head shaved, his clothes ragged, and a Palestinian scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “Salaam Aleikum,” I said, as friendly as possible. “Piano?” I said in English.

  She didn’t answer, just continued to stare at me. I repeated my question, two simple words in English: “Piano? Play?”

  Finally, the woman responded. “From where?” she asked me, also in English.

  “Sporthalle,” I said in German, referring to the sports center. That was a word I knew by now, as well as polizei, “police,” apfel, “apple,” and guten Tag, “good day.”

  The woman looked at me in utter confusion. “From where?” she repeated.

  “Sporthalle,” I said again, pointing in the general direction of the refugee center.

  “From where, where?” she asked again, making a gesture that indicated a wide circle.

  “Ah,” I said. “Syria! Syria, Damascus!”

  She got up and motioned me to follow her. We went up to the second floor. She opened a door. Inside the room was—a concert piano! I was thrilled, and kept saying, “Shukran, thank you!” Without sitting down, I played a quick arpeggio, my fingers gliding once across the keyboard. I thought to myself: You are mine!

  In the previous months, I had only been able to play piano twice, once in Vienna and once in Munich. Both times, I had briefly gone into a music shop and played for a few minutes, under the watchful eyes of the salesman. But this was different. I took off my jacket and sat down. Music was like water to me, and I had been dying of thirst. Finally, I was able to drink. I played a few classical pieces, then I closed my eyes and sang “I Forgot My Name,” “The Water’s Always Out,” and “Green Mint.” I felt as if I was back in Yarmouk, together with Marwan, pushing the piano through the empty streets. I saw Zeinab’s blank, dead stare. I heard the kids’ bright voices. I could smell the burning plastic bottles. It all came pouring out. I felt as if I was falling through time and space, my eyes closed . . .