The Boy on the Beach

by Tima Kurdi

  When you saw the photograph of that little boy, my dear nephew Alan, dead on a faraway shore, you became a part of our family. You shared our horror, our heartache, our shock, and our outrage. You wanted to save him, but you knew it was too late. In your grief, you reached out, and by doing so, you grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me to you. You joined my family’s chorus of grief. You helped save me from drowning.

  I hope that my words help bring all of us one step closer to each other. I hope that my story, tragic as it is, also plants the seed of hope in your hearts and minds. I hope it inspires you to join me in speaking up for all the people who have no voice. And for all the children who were taken from us before they could speak.

  In Syria and other Arab countries, we call elders “auntie” and “uncle”—strangers, friends, and family alike. If you are older than me, you are my aunties and uncles, and if you are younger than me, I am your auntie. Now our histories and our destinies are entwined. Now we are all one family.

  PART

  ONE

  Chapter 1

  Yāsmīn al-Sham

  The City of Jasmine

  In Damascus, jasmine grows wild everywhere and seems to spring out of every vacant nook and cranny so that the air is permeated with its sweet smell. There is so much jasmine in Damascus that the city is nicknamed , Yāsmīn al-Sham, or the City of Jasmine.

  I have made many attempts to grow yāsmīn in my garden in Vancouver, Canada, but the flowers never give off much of a scent. My father even shipped me a bulb from my birthplace of Damascus, which all the locals simply call Sham. In the spring, I planted that bulb in the garden, and it blossomed that summer, but you had to stick your nose right inside the petals to get a subtle whiff of its hypnotic scent. That bulb survived away from home soil for one winter, but it didn’t survive the next.

  I was safe in Canada, where I’d lived since 1992, when half a world away, my family was forced to leave their homeland after war erupted in Syria in 2011. Like that bulb, they had to grow new roots in foreign soil. And the conditions they had to survive in were far from ideal. It is often said that to understand where you’re going, you have to first understand where you’ve been. Before I give you the details of my siblings’ tumultuous lives since they fled Syria, I want to tell you where we came from and what life was like before.

  My father, , Ghalib, was born in 1942, just before the dawn of a new era for much of the world, including Syria, which had been under the thumb of many different rulers for a few thousand years. My father was born in Hama. Ethnically, he is Kurdish. Like the majority of Syrians, many Kurds are Sunni Muslim, though they are known as the most religiously diverse culture in the world because they practice a mix of religious beliefs, and because their region straddles the many diverse cultures of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Like many Syrians in Hama, Ghalib’s father (my grandfather) worked as a peasant farmer and my grandparents were poor. By the time my baba was born, the family already had two daughters and two sons. When my father was three years old, his mother died. We have a saying in Syria: “When the mother is gone, the family falls apart.” My grandfather tried his best to take care of his children in between long hours working in the fields. But the young boys were often hungry and dirty, and their clothes were threadbare, until the neighbourhood women took those boys under their wings and provided them with food, shoes, clothes, and a place to shower occasionally.

  When my father was six years old, his father moved the family to , Kobani, where my dad’s family owned land. Kobani is a fertile region near the Turkish border, east of the Nahr Al Furat, the mighty Euphrates River. My grandfather had a plot of land on which he grew bulgur wheat, and the family lived in a one-room house of mud and hay. It was a typical agrarian life. While survival was a struggle at first, especially because the boys had no mother to take care of them, my baba and his siblings relied on the kindness of their relatives and neighbours who grew enough food to eat and survive the winter months. When my father accompanied his older brother, Khalid, to graze the family’s sheep, he also sampled the local wild herbs, grasses, and plants. My baba soon became an expert on which plants and herbs would make you ill and which ones could soothe a sick stomach.

  To this day, my baba holds fast to a vivid memory of one such foraging excursion. After roaming the hillsides all day, he returned to the village, his belly rumbling. He discovered some watermelon rinds at the side of the road and he started to eat them. “Kids don’t think about what they’re eating, they just eat it,” Baba said. A neighbour tending her vegetable garden yelled, “Don’t eat that!” She plucked a plump tomato from her vine, came over to my father, and handed it to him. “Eat this instead,” she said. It was dense in my father’s palm and still warm from the summer sunshine. He bit into that tomato, and it was so ripe that its juices exploded in his mouth and ran down his chin. He still talks about that wonderful tomato, closing his eyes to reimagine its vibrant colour and to savour its warmth and taste. My father has eaten thousands of tomatoes since, but never has he enjoyed a tomato as much, because that tomato was flavoured with human kindness. That charitable act became firmly planted in my father’s mind and heart, and he always passed along its lesson to his children. “You don’t have to be rich with money to help others,” he said, when I was growing up. “You just have to have a heart.”

  When my dad was a teenager, he left Kobani and returned to Hama to work. Soon after, he did his mandatory two-year conscription period with the Syrian military. Just as my dad’s military stint was ending, he came down with malaria and had to be rushed to a hospital in Damascus. It was there that he met my mother, , Radiya. My father claims that when my mom walked into that hospital room, it was love at first sight, and I believe it. When my father got out of the hospital, he went to stay with Radiya’s relatives, and while he was there, my starry-eyed, lovestruck parents began their romance. My father got better, and soon the couple were desperate to be married.

  After the wedding, the newlyweds continued to live in my mother’s parents’ house, while they saved to buy their own place. Their first son, my brother , Mohammad, was born in 1968. A first-born son is considered a good fortune in many societies, and that is especially true of Arabic cultures. The eldest son has the greatest privileges as heir apparent, and everyone in the family, including the father, is identified by the first son’s name. For example: my father is called , Abu Mohammad, meaning “the father of Mohammad,” and my mother is , Oum Mohammad, meaning “the mother of Mohammad.” The first son’s name also serves as a home address, so that if I gave you directions to my childhood home, I would tell you how to get to “the house of the father of Mohammad Kurdi.” The eldest son also has the weightiest responsibilities: to respect and take care of his parents (especially when they are elderly) and his siblings, in particular his sisters—whether the sisters like it or not.

  Soon after Mohammad’s birth, both my mother’s parents died. My mother’s two older sisters were already married, but suddenly five of her six brothers, ranging from a four-year-old to teenaged boys, were orphans. My parents immediately took these children under their wing and treated them as their own. My dad saved his money after that and pooled it with money earned by my mom’s teenaged brothers. In 1969, my parents bought a house in Rukn al-Din. Not just any house—it was the highest house on Mount Qasioun. My parents would often banter back and forth about our house’s location. My dad would say, “I got you a top-notch house,” to which my mom would reply, “It’s going to give me a heart attack.” But aside from its mountaintop location, it was a typical Syrian one-storey, with three bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a bathroom, made of concrete brick, with an open courtyard in the front, a little garden in the back, and a flat concrete roof.

  In 1970, I was born. My parents named me , Fatima; in Arabic it’s pronounced “Fatmeh.” The title of eldest daughter, much like eldest son, comes with its benefits and challenges. As the first daughter, I would be responsible for the household chores and fo
r delegating those chores to all the younger sisters.

  I did not have to wait long for helpers. My sister , Maha, was born in 1973. We were very different. Maha was quiet and shy, and a keen student; she loved to study. I preferred to be outside, playing marbles, skipping rope with the neighbourhood kids, and picking jasmine flowers with my friends, flowers which I would stitch together to make necklaces. When I was called inside to do homework, I’d stare out the window at the splendid view of Al Sham, neglecting the contents of my textbooks and pressing my jasmine blossoms between their pages so that they smelled divine.

  From an early age, I wanted to be a coiffereh, a hairdresser. I performed my first haircut on a large, lifelike doll with blue eyes and long blond hair, which Maha and I shared. Very long hair was the fashion among Syrian girls. My own long hair was a nuisance, and maybe I was projecting my own wishful thinking when I cut that doll’s hair very short. I loved its modern look, though Maha didn’t and bawled her head off when she saw what I’d done.

  My relationship with Mohammad was a different story. He and I were the first-born son and daughter, and maybe because of that, we argued a lot—so much that our parents nicknamed us Tom and Jerry, after the cartoon characters popular on TV.

  “Go get me a glass of water,” Mohammad would command, after I had settled in front of the TV to watch my favourite show.

  “You don’t have legs to walk?” I’d bark back at him. “Ana mani khaddameh. I’m not your maid. Go get it yourself.”

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” he’d say, and practice his karate moves on me. When I screamed in agony, Baba would march into the room and yell, “You two are always like a rooster and chicken!” He’d switch off the TV and order us to bed.

  At that time, all three of us kids slept on a mattress on the floor. The minute my dad left the room, Mohammad would start kicking me again, and my poor sister Maha wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

  In 1976, , Abdullah, was born. I was excited to have a baby brother, but I was worried that he’d be like so many other babies—always crying and making a fuss. My worries were unfounded. Abdullah was a sweet and happy baby, always smiling and laughing or sleeping like an angel. From the start, he had a very special bond with my mom. As soon as Abdullah could walk, he doted on her, telling her, “Sit, Mama,” while he tried to scrub the floors for her, or grabbed a stool so that he could reach the sink to help with the dishes. Abdullah was my mom’s reliable errand boy. She’d say, “, sweetheart, I need an onion and some sugar,” and Abdullah would race down the street to knock on a neighbour’s door, or rush after the vendors with their carts of produce. His progress was always slowed by the neighbours, saying, “Sweetheart, have a piece of bubble gum.” Or, “Here’s a new marble for your collection.” The whole neighbourhood loved Abdullah and spoiled him, but all the attention only made him sweeter and more fun-loving. Even with the typical playground conflicts or sibling rivalry, Abdullah would turn the other cheek; he never carried a grudge.

  In 1979, my sister , Shireen, was born, and in 1981, , Hivron, the baby of the family, arrived. Shireen was quiet and shy, but Hivron was born with a strong head and a stubborn attitude. She was addicted to her baby soother long after it was appropriate. Hivron had blond hair, which was highly coveted in Syria. Everyone in the neighbourhood gushed about Hivron’s long blond tresses. But as any active little girl knows, long hair is a big pain in the neck. One morning, she grabbed a pair of scissors, climbed up on the sink, and cut off one of her long braids near the root.

  “What have you done?” my mother screamed when she saw her. “Come here,” she said to my father.

  Baba just shook his head. “We have no choice but to call Uncle Mahmoud ,” he said. Mahmoud was my mother’s brother, and he had his own barbershop in Rukn al-Din. Mahmoud did his best to fix Hivron’s hair, but it was cut very short.

  I might have had some influence upon Hivron’s act of defiance. When I was twelve or thirteen, I cut my own hair short—a sort of shag, just like Princess Diana had at her wedding.

  “You look like a boy,” my dad said.

  I thought it looked fabulous. Since that day, my hair has never been much longer than shoulder-length.

  I have shared this to show you that all during my childhood, we were a regular middle-class family, perhaps not so different from yours. Our bellies were always full, and my parents renovated the house to make room for all of us. From the window in the bedroom that Maha and I shared, we had a bird’s-eye view of our neighbours’ rooftops. A few neighbours kept cages of , known as laughing doves, a type of pigeon very common in Al Sham with beautiful fluffy plumage, like pink champagne. When the doves were released, they danced and swooped in the blue sky. But with a blow of the whistle, the flock would faithfully return to their rooftop home. I think of them now with fondness. I wish we could all have the certainty that no matter where we fly, home will always be there for us.

  As time passed, my dad used his knowledge about medicinal plants and herbs to become an apothecary at Souq Al-Buzuriyah in central Damascus. Mama was a great seamstress with an impeccable sense of fashion, and with her big, sturdy Singer sewing machine, she made us all beautiful clothes, including more than one set of matching outfits. My parents started travelling to other countries, and they brought back stylish clothing from Turkey, Italy, and as far away as Germany.

  Our house on the hill was like a hotel, with people always coming and going: relatives from Kobani, Hama, Aleppo, and Amouda, many family friends from other countries, and periodically, refugees, including Lebanese people displaced in the 1980s during the war with Israel. My father never forgot the early acts of kindness by his neighbours in Hama and Kobani when he’d been a child in need. And as soon as he had a home of his own, he had an open-door policy for anyone in need of a good meal and a place to sleep.

  “But Baba,” Maha and I complained when friends and family were invited into the house, “we are tired of cleaning up after people.” Baba would sit us down and set us straight. “Never close your hearts or your door to people in need. Invite them into your home and give them a seat at your table.”

  Our friends and neighbours were from all over Syria, from Homs, Daraa, Afrin, Bosra. They were Alawite Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Circassians, Westerners; we were taught to respect everyone, whatever their cultural and religious beliefs, and believe that no matter what the heritage of a person, we are all one. Everybody in our neighbourhood was like family, and we took care of each other. One of our close neighbours and my mom’s best friend, Emira, was a Lebanese midwife. She attended many of the births in our neighbourhood, including Hivron’s, and she always worked with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Emira adored us, especially Hivron, but she couldn’t have children of her own. One day, on her way to work at the hospital, she heard the sound of a baby wailing beside a garbage bin near the entrance. It was a tiny baby girl. She took the baby inside, and when nobody came forward to claim her, Emira adopted her, naming her Samar. Samar, like Emira, her immigrant mother, fit right into our neighbourhood quilt of good people.

  Goodwill was a regular way of being. If Mama and I were shopping downtown or visiting another district, and we were thirsty, we’d simply knock on a stranger’s door. The resident would open the door, smile, and invite us inside for a drink. If Maha and I were returning from school on a hot June day, and we came upon a neighbour hosing off the stoop of his doorway, we would say, “Uncle, I’m thirsty,” and he would hand us the hose so that we could drink that cold, fresh water, which fortified us for the remainder of our uphill walk home.

  In such a multicultural place, we were always celebrating one holiday after another, from Kurdish festivals to Christian ones. Sharing a meal is very important to Syrians, so imagine how important it becomes during Ramadan, a month of fasting when you haven’t eaten all day! During that month, we saw our relatives even more than usual. Each night, a different relative would host the iftar, the evening meal t
o break each day’s fast. We would roll out the long plastic tablecloth, put out all the food, and then Baba would say, “, Alhamdulillah. Thank God for all this food. May God never let anyone in the world go hungry.”

  “Amen,” we’d answer in unison.

  Every morning of Ramadan started with a literal bang. Before sunrise, we would be woken up by a drum, beaten by the mesaharati, calling out, “Wake up for the suhūr,” the dawn meal before the day’s fast begins. All the kids loved the mesaharati. We would rush from our beds to the rooftop, and peer out into the darkness, to see if we could spot him coming down the road.

  During Ramadan, we would also prepare for , Eid al-Fitr, a three-day religious holiday that begins after Ramadan. In some ways, Eid al-Fitr is like Christmas because it involves charitable donations to people in need, money exchanges, and the sharing of lots of wonderful food with neighbours, friends, and family. It’s also customary to buy new outfits for the first day of Eid, so Mama would take us to Souq Al-Hamidiyah to buy clothes and then to Souq Al-Buzuriyah to get mouth-watering spices, nuts, and homemade candies. En route, Mama would stop at the Great Mosque to say prayers, while Abdullah and I hung out in the mosque’s huge courtyard, feeding the throngs of colourful laughing doves and imagining all the delicious sweets we would soon eat.

  Before Eid begins, Muslims give money to people in need, a ritual called Zakat al-Fitr. Baba would give money to poor people, including our needy neighbours. On the first morning of Eid, our relatives would start to arrive, each of them giving us money. Uncle Mahmoud was always the most generous, giving us each 500 lira, which is about ten dollars—a lot of money for a child! Later in the day, we’d put on our new outfits and go to the carnivals that would spring up in every neighbourhood just for the children.