A House Without Walls

by Elizabeth Laird

‘Yes, ma’am. In the dining room, I presume? With the best silver?’

  ‘Of course. And the crystal glasses.’

  Saba was looking delightedly from me to him and back again.

  ‘You’re so lucky,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘Us? Lucky?’ said Tariq. ‘You have to be joking.’

  ‘No, but you are,’ said Saba. ‘You’ve always had each other.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  When I cook something I never know if it’s all right or not until I’ve dished it up and everyone’s started eating. But from the moment the food was on the plates I knew my meal was a triumph.

  I sat back and watched as everyone enjoyed the food. Their faces, sitting in a ring round the bright tablecloth, were softly lit by the solar lamp and the glow of the heater. The reds, oranges and purples of the rugs, cushions and blankets glowed warmly. Malik had shooed Snowball out of the way, and she’d retreated reluctantly to her sleeping place by the flap. No one spoke much. Questions seemed to hang in the air that no one dared to ask.

  ‘That was absolutely delicious, Safiya,’ said Uncle Hassan, putting his plate down at last. ‘Where did you learn to cook?’

  ‘Trial and error,’ Tariq said teasingly. ‘Sometimes more error than trial.’

  Saba sniggered, but Baba gave her a reproving look.

  ‘Aunt Zainab taught me mostly,’ I said. ‘And I just sort of taught myself.’

  ‘Aunt Zainab?’ enquired Uncle Hassan.

  ‘My cousin Yasser’s wife,’ explained Baba, ‘which reminds me that we ought to go over and ask if they can give you both a bed for the night.’

  Saba, sitting beside me, stiffened. She drew in her breath and the childish look settled on her face. Then she seemed to think, and said quietly, ‘Baba!’

  ‘Yes, Saba?’ said Uncle Hassan.

  ‘What is it, habibti?’ Baba said at the same time.

  Everyone laughed nervously.

  ‘I meant Baba Hassan,’ Saba said. ‘Actually, I’ve thought about this and if you don’t mind I’d like to go on calling you Baba. I mean, you’ve always been my Baba and always will be and I don’t want to change that now.’ Uncle Hassan grunted, and I could see that he was trying to hide how pleased he was. ‘But,’ Saba went on, turning to Baba with a charming smile, ‘I thought I’d call you Baba Adnan, if that’s all right.’

  ‘That’s perfect, habibti,’ said Baba with a fond smile.

  I felt a stab of jealousy. Saba was so charming! Was Baba falling under her spell?

  ‘So what did you want to say?’ asked Uncle Hassan.

  ‘It’s only – I just – please may I stay in the tent tonight?’

  Baba looked concerned.

  ‘My dear, you have no idea. It’s really not at all comfortable. The – the bathroom is hardly what you’re used to you.’

  ‘Safiya puts up with it so I’m sure I can,’ Saba said, still keeping her voice low and polite. ‘We can sort of curl up together, that is, if she wouldn’t mind?’

  She looked at me. I recoiled inside. My cold little room with its hard, narrow mattress hardly had room for me and, anyway, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be so close.

  ‘You won’t like it much, honestly,’ I said awkwardly. ‘I wouldn’t mind anything,’ she said, ‘as long as we can be together.’

  Her face as she looked at me was anxious and pleading. I could see she was really trying.

  ‘All right,’ I said unwillingly.

  I got up to clear away the meal. Saba eagerly rushed to help me. Our movements seemed to wake the little bird who began to sing in a high, trilling voice. The sound was so unexpected that everyone laughed.

  ‘Well, that seems to be settled,’ said Uncle Hassan. ‘And in fact, Adnan, there’s no need to bother your cousin. I’m sure I can bed down here. Anyway, there’s a great deal that I wish to discuss with you. There are only three weeks till we leave for Dubai. I’d like to get things settled.’

  Tariq jumped up.

  ‘You can have my mattress and blankets if you like, Uncle Hassan. Aunt Zainab will give me a bed. I’ll take my books and everything and go straight to school in the morning.’

  Saba nudged me.

  ‘What’s Aunt Zainab like?’

  I pulled a face.

  ‘Difficult. She doesn’t like me much. Spoils Tariq all the time, though.’

  ‘She sounds mean,’ Saba said sympathetically.

  ‘She is, and I can’t say I like her exactly, but it’s weird. I just sort of get her, if you see what I mean.’ I paused. ‘Actually,’ I went on slowly, ‘I hadn’t really thought about it, but the truth is that she’s helped me and looked after me when I’ve most needed her. She taught me to cook too.’

  ‘I want you tell me about her, tell me everything,’ Saba said earnestly. ‘That’s why I wanted to stay.’

  In spite of myself, I felt a glow hover near my heart. All I had to do was let it in.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Before I met Saba, I’d imagined that talking to her would be like talking with myself, that we’d instinctively know each other’s thoughts and share each other’s feelings. It wasn’t like that at all.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ Saba had demanded, but how could I, when there were so many things she didn’t understand? What had she ever known about being poor and homeless, and looking after a family of men?

  There was a gulf between us, and the bridge across it was shaky.

  Haltingly, I told her how we’d had to leave Damascus in a hurry, leaving everything and everyone behind.

  ‘I understand just how you felt!’ she said eagerly. ‘When we moved here from New York, I cried for days. Honestly.’

  No, Saba, I thought. You have no idea at all.

  But if I couldn’t touch her with my mind, did I like curling up with her in my cold, narrow bed? I think I did. I wasn’t used to being so close to another person, to feeling their warmth against me, and I lay rigidly at first, even after she’d fallen asleep. But after a while I relaxed, and then, I don’t know why, I began to cry, muffling my breathing in case I woke her up.

  I think I was crying for the girl I might have been. A girl like Saba, with a good life ahead of her, school, piano lessons and braces on her teeth. A girl with nice clothes, a bathroom and a phone. And I was crying for the girl I’d become, lonely, struggling to keep myself clean, my clothes old and worn, anxious every day about making ends meet, not daring to think about the future.

  I just want to be thirteen again, I said to myself, over and over again.

  After a while Saba turned over, dragging the blanket off me. I pulled it back, as gently as I could, but she woke up and said sleepily, ‘Oh, sorry. Are you cold? Are you all right?’

  No, I wanted to say. Nothing’s all right.

  But what I actually said was, ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  Beyond the partition, Baba and Uncle Hassan’s low voices still rose and fell. Uncle Hassan sounded insistent, but Baba seemed to be resisting him. Then I heard Uncle Hassan say clearly, ‘But it would be the best thing for all of us, don’t you see?’

  Saba had woken up properly. She moved her head on the pillow and felt the wetness of my tears.

  ‘Oh, Safiya! You’ve been crying. Was it me? Did I make you sad?’

  ‘No,’ I said gruffly. ‘I’m all right. Just cold, as usual.’

  In the dark she felt for my face and gently stroked my cheek. Tears pricked my eyes again. This time I didn’t try to hold them back.

  ‘You’ve got everything I’ve lost!’ I burst out. ‘I know you don’t want to go to Dubai, but you’ll be able to go to school! Pass exams! One day you’ll go to university and have a career. You’ve got a future!’

  ‘Oh,’ was all she could say. ‘Safiya, I’m sorry. I . . .’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. But look at me! All I am is a refugee! I hate that word. I hate it!’

  Her hand slipped down and grasped my shoulder.

  ‘Come to Dubai wit
h us! Baba will pay. He’ll get you into a good school. You don’t have to stay here and sacrifice yourself like this.’

  For a moment the idea floated gloriously in front of me, an iridescent bubble of hope. Then I shook her hand off.

  ‘How could I leave Baba? He needs me. They all need me. It’s not just the cooking and cleaning and all that.’ I was struggling to find words, not even knowing what I was trying to say.

  ‘I’m – I’m at the heart of this family,’ I went on at last. ‘I make this horrible tent into something like a home. Without me, Baba and Tariq and Malik would just sort of fall apart.’

  Saba gave a shuddering sigh.

  ‘No one needs me. Mama thinks she does, but she doesn’t really. She – she smothers me. She’s never let me do anything, for myself or for anyone else. You make me feel so small. Stupid. Pathetic. Like a – I don’t know – like a baby.’

  Babies. We’d been babies once, lying in our crib. She had cried, and had been picked up and carried away to a different life. I’d gone on sleeping, and become the person I was.

  We heard Baba cough, and Uncle Hassan say irritably, ‘It’s so cold in here, Adnan. Your health alone is a reason for . . .’

  ‘He’s right, it’s freezing,’ whispered Saba. ‘I don’t know how you can bear it.’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ I said, trying not to sound arrogant.

  ‘Well, anyway, you won’t have to stand it much longer,’ she said, yawning.

  I was annoyed by her complacency.

  ‘It’s only January!’ I snapped. ‘It’s ages till spring.’

  ‘No, but you’ll be in Amman by then.’

  I jerked away from her, shocked.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Didn’t Baba Adnan tell you? No, he hasn’t had a chance, has he?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘The plan. My Baba’s plan.’

  And then I suddenly knew what she was going to say. I suppose the idea had been in my mind from the beginning, but I’d forced it away.

  ‘They discussed it all in the hospital,’ she said, pulling me closer. ‘I thought you knew. Baba needs a tenant for our flat in Amman. He wants you to take it. He’ll get a place for you at my school. It’s an international school, so you’ll have to do catch-up classes in English.’

  I could barely follow what she was saying. Her words bounced off me. I couldn’t take them in.

  ‘You could get Auntie Shirin to come and look after you, like she did in Damas—’

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ I wanted to put my hands over my ears to block out her voice. ‘We couldn’t possibly do all that. How could Baba ever afford the school fees in a fancy international school? How could we even manage to eat without Tariq’s job? And Malik – he’s sort of settled here. He can’t move. Not just like that. Don’t you understand anything, Saba? We have nothing! No money at all!’

  She was silent for a moment, then she said humbly, ‘I know, but I can’t take in what it’s like. I keep thinking, if I’d been you and you’d been me, and I’d had to manage like you have, I couldn’t have done it. I’m so proud of you, Safiya. I just – I can’t—’

  And all of a sudden, she was the one who was crying.

  There was a cough from beyond the partition, and Uncle Hassan called out, ‘Are you girls all right in there?’

  ‘Yes, we’re fine!’ we called back at exactly the same time, and Saba’s tears hiccupped into weak laughter.

  ‘He’s totally fallen for you, you know,’ she said. ‘He’s awestruck. He’s going to give me a hard time making me live up to you. Once you’re back at school, he’ll want to know all your grades, and tick me off if mine aren’t as good.’

  I felt a chill settle over me and pulled away from her. The gulf between us had opened up again.

  ‘I can’t go back to school,’ I said bitterly. ‘There’s no point in pretending. I’m a different person now. Anyway, Baba needs me to manage everything at home.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about all that,’ she said dismissively. ‘It’s what they’re talking about now. They’ll sort something out.’ She gave another mighty yawn. ‘I think we’d better try to go to sleep now, don’t you?’

  She curled into me and dropped off almost at once, but I gently pulled away and lay on my back, staring into the darkness. My mind was racing.

  What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I overjoyed at the future that Saba had dangled in front of me? Did I really want to stay in this tent forever, freezing in the winter and frying in the summer? Did I want to spend the rest of my life cooking and washing and cleaning for three men, with crabby Aunt Zainab as my only female support, and dear old Abu Ali my one true friend?

  There’s always Perfumes of Paradise, I told myself.

  I tried to warm myself again in the comfortable feeling of success and confidence that working for Um Khalid had given me. I couldn’t.

  I can’t go back there, anyway, I thought. There’s no real job for me. Um Khalid replaced me as soon as she could. And, anyway, I really want to be a doctor, or a mathematician, or design film sets. I don’t want to work in a beauty salon for the rest of my life.

  I thought I’d buried my old ambitions, but here they were, climbing out of their hiding place. Perhaps, if Uncle Hassan’s plan went ahead, and he paid the fees at the expensive school, and I passed all my exams . . .

  But it would never work! I told myself. All these months I’ve longed to go back to school, but now it feels too late! How can I go back to giggling with other thirteen-year-old kids, being teased because of my teeth, having to put on a Jordanian accent all the time so they won’t suspect that actually I’m a refugee? Anyway, Baba would never accept so much charity. And Auntie Shirin! She’d take over everything. Run the family. Do my work . . .

  In the main tent, I could hear Baba and Uncle Hassan moving about, ready to get into bed. I heard Baba say, ‘What will you do, Malik, when we go to Amman?’ and Malik answered, ‘I’ll stay in Azraq and bring my mother over from Syria. I’ll ask Abu Fares if we can stay here in the tent until I earn enough to rent a proper flat.’

  At last they settled down to sleep.

  There was a deadness to the sounds of the night outside. The snow must have settled thickly. Beside me, Saba snuffled quietly in her sleep.

  Then, just when I needed her, I heard my mother’s voice.

  Go on, she said. Go on.

  I took a deep breath. A door was opening in front of me, beyond which lay an unknown road. Where would it lead? I couldn’t know, but did I have the courage to take it? I would have to try. And, whether I did or not, would Saba and I ever truly find each other, as sisters and friends?

  Perhaps, I thought. Perhaps to everything. Yes.

  I turned over, fitting my back into Saba’s curved body.

  Go on, whispered Mama again. Go on.

  ‘I will,’ I said. ‘I will.’

  And finally I fell asleep.

  A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading A House Without Walls. It’s the story of one girl and her family, but it could be the story of any of the millions of people who have had to escape from Syria in recent years, fleeing from the murderous chaos that’s destroyed their country. People of all ages have made the dangerous journey: grandparents and schoolchildren, fathers, mothers and babies, students, farmers, doctors, labourers, businessmen and every other kind of person you can think of.

  Jordan is a beautiful country. Out in the countryside, olive trees march in lines up the hillsides, and villages made of cream-coloured stone top the crests. There are ancient ruins from Roman times which tourists from all over the world come to visit. But the region in the east where the refugees first find themselves, is harsh desert country. It’s here that Syria and Jordan meet, and it was here where Safiya found herself, after the family’s terrifying night journey from Damascus.

  Last time I was in that part of the country it was September. In Azraq, a small town in wha
t had once been a lush oasis, the intense heat of summer was softening. Wind blew grit and dust from the bare, flat earth into my eyes. In a few months’ time, storms of driving rain would sweep across the desert, to be followed by ice and deep snow.

  Many of those who have escaped from Syria and Iraq have passed through Azraq. Some have moved on into other parts of Jordan, looking for places where they can settle, perhaps hoping to join relatives or friends who might give them a helping hand. One in five find themselves in one of the vast, sprawling refugee camps, where they could be marooned for years until all hope has gone. Some stay in and around Azraq, making new homes from temporary shacks or tents, like Safiya and her family have to do. Others manage to scrape enough money together to rent a small flat or house.

  I was warmly welcomed in Azraq. The teachers in a new community school were happy to show me their classrooms and books. The children threw their arms round me. When classes were over for the day, I went with them on the bus that dropped them off after school and watched them as they ran across the bare, stony ground towards the corrugated iron and thorn fences that surrounded their homes.

  In one such home, I was given tea and cakes. As we sat on the cushions that lined the walls, a young girl showed me the beads she’d been given to thread into bracelets and necklaces. She would be selling them later to help pay for the family’s food and clothes. I thought of her sometimes when I was writing the novel. Her education had been cut short, like Safiya’s was.

  It’s very hard for people who have lost everything to accept what’s happened to them. The struggle to make ends meet is really tough. When the war in Syria began, big aid agencies did a lot to help, but there are new conflicts now in other parts of the world, and budgets have been cut. In any case, they don’t always find the people who need the help most.

  Some small, local charities, working through a network of Jordanian helpers on the ground, are doing what they can. One of them, Helping Refugees in Jordan, gives food boxes every month to the hardest-hit families, as well as blankets and warm clothing in the winter months. This support can literally make the difference between life and death.