No Safe Place

by Deborah Ellis

  “You worked narcotics, Frank,” said Harry, bending down to pick up the packets that fell out of Cheslav’s shirt. “How much do you think this is worth?”

  “On the streets of Detroit? It would sure pad out my pension.”

  “You still have your old contacts?”

  “I could find them. Their lives don’t change.”

  “That’s mine!” yelled Cheslav, taking a swing at Harry.

  Shut up, thought Abdul, as Harry punched Cheslav hard in the stomach. The Russian fell to his knees.

  Abdul tried to get at his knife. He knew what was coming. These men had no reason to keep Cheslav alive. It would be only moments before they discovered the rest of them. He wondered where Rosalia was, and hoped she was well hidden.

  Harry pulled the belt out of the loops of his bathrobe and wound them around Cheslav’s wrists, pulled back tight from his shoulders.

  “Where did you get this?” Frank demanded, speaking inches from Cheslav’s face. “How did you get on my boat? Tell us, and maybe you’ll live to get to a police station.”

  Cheslav took a deep breath and spat right in Frank’s face. Frank cursed, and the two men hit and kicked the boy, Frank using his gun instead of his fist.

  Abdul got ready to jump. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rosalia holding an oar, poised to attack.

  “There’s more!”

  Abdul heard Jonah’s voice, then saw him on the yacht’s deck.

  The men stopped beating Cheslav and turned to Jonah.

  “What is this — nursery school? Where did you come from?” Frank grabbed Jonah and threw him to the deck beside Cheslav.

  “There is more heroin on our boat,” said Jonah, his face flushed from fever and his hair matted with sweat and salt. “Lots more. Go and see for yourselves.”

  Frank stood up and kept his gun aimed at the boys.

  “Go check it out,” he said to Harry.

  Harry, keeping a tight hold on the two packets of heroin he’d found on Cheslav, walked to the other side of the yacht.

  “There’s a beat-up old motorboat down here. It’s empty.”

  “The drugs are hidden,” Jonah said. “I can show you.”

  “Hold it.” Frank used his free hand to pat down Jonah and check him for weapons. “Show us,” he told Jonah. “From up here, and no tricks!”

  Jonah went to the side of the yacht and told Harry where to look.

  “Frank! You’ve got to see this!”

  “Don’t move,” Frank said to Cheslav. He joined Jonah at the side of the boat and leaned over to get a better look.

  Abdul moved fast. He ripped the knife from his clothes, ran to the side and pushed Frank over the railing. He heard a thud and a splash as the large man landed half in the skiff and half in the sea. It took just a second to cut through the rope tying the two boats together.

  At that same moment, he heard the sound of the yacht’s motor starting.

  Frank and Harry scrambled to get back onto their boat.

  “Let’s go!” yelled Cheslav.

  “Haul up the anchor!” yelled Rosalia from the wheelhouse.

  Abdul stayed at the side with his knife, ready to fight the men if they managed to climb up. The yacht slowly started to move, creating a three-foot gap, then a six-foot gap, then a ten-foot gap. The men might have made it if they’d acted immediately, instead of trying to pick up all the heroin first.

  They could still swim, Abdul thought. They’d have to leave the drugs, but they could still make it.

  “Help me!”

  Jonah was struggling to haul up the anchor by hand. Abdul quickly sliced through Cheslav’s bindings. Cheslav, his face bloodied from the beating, stumbled over to help Jonah with the anchor, and Abdul ran back to the side of the boat.

  The extra person on the anchor was helping. The yacht was moving a little faster. Rosalia was having some trouble with the controls. Their getaway wasn’t smooth, but every moment put more distance between them and the men.

  “You damn kids!” Harry yelled. “You damn, worthless, good-for-nothing…kids!!” He spat out the last word as if it was the worst curse ever.

  Frank fired his gun at them but his shots were wide. The yacht picked up speed.

  Within moments, their fortunes had changed.

  Abdul yelled back. “Yes, we are kids. We are unwanted, worthless, useless children. But,” he laughed, “we have your boat!”

  He felt the adrenalin rush through his body. He felt in control of his life for the first time in a long, long time. And he also felt something else, something he hadn’t felt in years.

  It may have been joy.

  EIGHT

  “Open the door!”

  Abdul heard hard banging and the sound of the front door being smashed in.

  His head thick with sleep, he tried to jump to his feet, but the soldiers were already upon him. They swarmed into the front room that was now his bedroom, ripped him off the mat and shone a flashlight in his face, blinding him.

  “Don’t move!”

  “Show us where the weapons are!”

  “Who are you hiding here?”

  “You asked those same questions the last time you broke our door,” Abdul said, in English because he knew the Americans didn’t understand Arabic. He heard the cries of the small children and the screams of the women from deeper inside the house.

  “It’s all women back here!”

  “Where are the men?”

  A soldier pulled Abdul up into a sitting position and got right close to his face.

  “Where are they?”

  “You killed them all,” Abdul said.

  The soldier slapped him so hard he fell over.

  “Bag him.”

  A hood was yanked down over Abdul’s head and his hands were pulled behind him. A soldier kneeled into his back and wrapped plastic handcuffs around his wrists.

  Abdul screamed in pain as he was lifted by his arms and dumped outside. He was made to sit with his head bowed against the front wall of the house. He tried to get to his feet but a heavy hand on his shoulder made it impossible for him to rise.

  “If there’s anything in there, we’ll find it, Ali.”

  “My name is Abdul.”

  “Whatever. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Tell me now where the weapons are and there will be a reward in it for you. What would you like?”

  “We have no weapons.”

  “There’s only women in there,” another voice said.

  “Some kind of brothel?”

  “They’re all widows,” Abdul told them. “And their children. My mother took them in so they’d be safe.”

  “What about your father?”

  “My father is dead. My older brothers are dead.”

  “So you’re the man, then.”

  Abdul didn’t respond. He felt like a small boy. He was in his pajamas, shivering in the cold Baghdad night, and he could do nothing to help his mother or himself.

  He could hear the women, less afraid and more angry now that they were fully awake.

  “Where’s my son?” his mother yelled. “What have you done with Abdul?”

  There was more yelling, then the voices of the women and children became muted. Abdul guessed that they had all been locked in the kitchen. That’s what usually happened during these night raids. He had never been tied up like this, though. He tried to calm himself the way his father had taught his theater students who were nervous before a performance.

  “Curl your toes and breathe deeply,” his father had told them. “Be aware of your surroundings. Try to own the moment.”

  It was hard to breathe deeply with the hood covering his face. The cloth stank. How many others had tried to catch their breath inside it?

  T
he Song of the Hood, he thought. He could write a song about a hood that goes from prisoner to prisoner. Maybe he’d give it a happy ending, and the hood could land on one of the soldiers who was now breaking whatever unbroken furniture was left in his house.

  The exercise was working. Writing songs always made him feel better. A melody started working its way into his head — a melody that began dark and sad but became triumphant at the end when the tormentor became the prisoner.

  Then Abdul heard music coming from a guitar.

  His guitar! The soldiers were going to steal his guitar!

  “That’s mine!” he yelled. “The guitar is mine. Get your hands off it!”

  “What’s an Arab kid want with a guitar? Don’t they play camel bones or something?”

  “This your guitar, kid? Untie his hands.”

  Abdul, his hands freed, was turned around so his back was against the wall. He felt the guitar land in his lap.

  “Play us a song, kid. Brighten up our humdrum lives.”

  Abdul’s left hand curved around the neck of the guitar and his right hand found the strings. He was trembling, too frightened to remember anything he knew. Then he got angry, and he started to play.

  “All we are saying,” he sang through his hood, “is give peace a chance.”

  Over and over. He didn’t bother with the verses, just kept on with the chorus until the guitar was yanked out of his hands.

  “Enough of that hippy stuff. Let’s have some heavy metal!” The soldier, who couldn’t play, plucked the strings so harshly Abdul was afraid they would break. He had no idea how he would get new ones.

  “What’s going on here? Stop that noise!”

  Abdul heard the guitar being snatched from the rough soldier’s hands.

  “Any weapons found? Why is this boy wearing a hood?”

  The hood was lifted off.

  “He was slow to obey orders, Sergeant.”

  “So are you, Private. Go join the others.”

  The sergeant squatted down in front of Abdul and lightly strummed the strings, slipping into a bit of a melodic riff.

  “You a Beatles fan?”

  Abdul didn’t answer.

  “George Harrison was just about the best guitar player there ever was.” The sergeant played the opening to “Here Comes the Sun.” He smiled at Abdul. “It hurt me when he died.” He thumped his chest where his heart was covered by his uniform, his bulletproof vest and his ammo belt.

  Abdul just watched him.

  The sergeant sighed and handed the guitar back. He helped Abdul to his feet.

  “Your mother’s inside, son. Try to get some sleep.”

  Abdul watched as the soldiers moved on to torment the people in the next house. Then he went inside to help his mother calm the children and put their house back together.

  No one got any more sleep that night.

  A few days later, Abdul was driving with his mother in a borrowed car. Fatima sat between them in the front seat. She was now seven years old, and Abdul’s mother couldn’t go anywhere without her. She’d stopped talking after the rocket attack that killed Abdul’s father and brothers, and she was so quiet that Abdul sometimes forgot she was there — until she got more than a few feet from his mother. Then she’d wail like a siren.

  His mother now wore hijab, which she had never done before, because women with their hair uncovered were being threatened.

  “With it or without it, I am still who I am,” she told Abdul when he asked her about it. “With it, I can do my work. What else is there to think about?”

  “You’ve got to watch your mouth,” she said to him now as she slowed down at an army checkpoint. The soldiers peered into the car before waving them along. “You make smart remarks, you’re going to get into trouble.”

  “I get into trouble anyway,” Abdul said.

  “Do you want me to have another thing to worry about?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “You are my child, and I am going to protect you until we are both old and gray.”

  “You’re already old and gray,” Abdul said. His mother laughed and gave him a little swat on the head.

  “My son is a bad boy,” she said to Fatima, who looked up at her with big eyes. “But we have to love him anyway.”

  She eased the car through traffic to the curb in front of a restaurant.

  “Mr. Hassan has a bag of onions for us,” she said.

  Abdul got out of the car. The onions would be chopped up by the widows living in his house, added to other donated food and made into cheap meals for a few of Baghdad’s hungry.

  “We won’t get rich,” his mother often said, “but we’re staying alive. In Iraq today, that is a victory.”

  Abdul got the onions and discreetly checked them to make sure they weren’t rotten. He was effusive in his praise for Mr. Hassan’s generosity.

  “Everyone will give more when they feel appreciated,” his mother often said.

  It worked with Mr. Hassan. He added a bag of hard lemon candies.

  “To make the children happy,” he said.

  Abdul thanked him again and left when he saw that no other treats were being offered. He put the onions into the back of the car and climbed into the front seat.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he said to Fatima. He handed her a candy. She smiled.

  “Mr. Hassan said the candy would make the children happy,” Abdul told his mother.

  “If only that’s all it took,” his mother replied. She checked the road, then drove away from the curb.

  They had not gone very far when they were stopped by a car driving across the road in front of them. Abdul’s mother leaned on the car horn but the car in front didn’t move.

  Another car pulled up close to Abdul’s door, so close that his door could not open. The men inside were staring at him.

  “Mama…”

  His mother tried to turn the car to get them out of there, but she was stopped by a car that pulled up on her side.

  She threw the car into reverse and stepped on the gas, smashing into the car that was now tight in behind them.

  Two men in black ski masks came out of the car by his mother’s side. They each held a machine gun. They pointed their guns at Abdul’s mother.

  “Only whores drive!” one of the men shouted.

  Then they opened fire.

  Abdul flung himself down on the seat, over top of Fatima. He clawed the air, trying to grab his mother to pull her down out of the range of the bullets.

  There was shattered glass everywhere. The guns were loud and seemed to go on and on.

  And then there was silence. The guns stopped shooting. Abdul heard car doors slam, tires squeal and cars drive away.

  “Mama? Mama!”

  His mother’s face was a mass of blood and pulp.

  Little Fatima, leaning against his mother, was silent and still. There was a bullet hole in her head.

  Abdul began to scream. He screamed and screamed and tried to shake his mother back to life.

  His car door opened and hands reached for him. He fought them off but they pulled him out anyway and dragged him onto the sidewalk.

  Abdul was blind with fear and sorrow. He curled up into a ball and cried. He felt himself being lifted gently and held by a stranger whose arms wrapped around him and held him close.

  He cried and cried.

  When he finally stopped crying long enough to look at who was holding him, he realized it was a boy not much older than himself.

  “I’m Kalil,” the boy said. “Cry all you want. My mother is dead, too.”

  NINE

  Abdul walked the deck.

  The sun was up, and the water was calm. He recognized and appreciated the sweetness of the moment. He’d been here before — this brief juncture when immedia
te danger had passed, pressing needs were met, and the work of the next step had not yet begun. It was time to breathe, to feel the sun, to tend to wounds and not think too deeply.

  Soon after their getaway, Jonah had collapsed. He’d just slipped to the floor as though his legs had turned to jelly. He was down below now, piled in bed with blankets. The yacht was well stocked with everything, including medicines. Abdul found some pills he recognized as being for fever. He crushed two of them, mixed them into a spoonful of strawberry jam from the kitchen and gave it to Jonah in small amounts. He made hot tea and held the boy’s head while he drank it.

  The men had also left lots of clothes. They were big men, and the clothes were big, but they were warm and dry and clean. The pockets of the trousers Abdul was wearing were deep. He’d transferred his money, pinned the pocket closed, and found a belt to hold them up. He had on a clean shirt, too, and a sweater that buttoned down the front and had a crest on the pocket.

  The cabin cruiser had a small bathroom with a little shower in it. Rosalia had already used it, washing her long hair and emerging smelling of soap and shampoo. Abdul was waiting for more water to heat up before he took his shower. He’d had enough of cold water for awhile.

  Cheslav was up at the wheel, wearing a sort of captain’s hat he’d found in the cabin. He waved Abdul over.

  “How is the boy?” he asked.

  “He’s sleeping. His fever is down, I think.”

  “He is still a problem.”

  “No more than the rest of us. Less, because he is British. When we land in England someone will take him in.”

  “Someone who will ask questions. ‘Where is your uncle? Why are you alone? Who did you come here with?’”

  “Jonah said he doesn’t want us to go to jail. He’s old enough to know how to keep his word.”

  “Nobody keeps their word.”

  “Well, then, maybe we’ll get a reward,” Abdul suggested, although he didn’t really think they would.

  “If they catch us, they will charge us with murder,” Cheslav said. “They won’t listen to us. Maybe they won’t even listen to the boy. And now we have those Americans to worry about. We stole their boat.”