Homecomings

by Yvette Rocheron

  The British Consulate has confirmed that her family will be on the plane to Heathrow tomorrow, but Virginia craves for more news. Cleaning the practice room every morning is quite a bore usually but today she rubs the taps with febrile energy. She has already transferred her three afternoon patients to younger colleagues keen to help, and Andy will see to the reception so that she can take her mother to the airport.

  Her joy is dampened by the bewildering information filtering through since that first invigorating call three days ago from Nusaybin. She doesn’t yet fully understand what happened in Aleppo: why were the three of them on the run to Turkey? She suspects this is to do with Ian being a journalist, but would that endanger Khalid as well as the Franklins? Khalid has gone underground and fled to Lebanon, so Walter claimed, adding that he “sacrificed himself”, at which she heard Zaida burst into sobs. Why? Initially she resented Khalid spoiling the thrill of Zaida’s return since the girl, distraught by the separation, would exaggerate any threat to her father. Is he still crazy enough to dabble in dissident politics? Never mind. Knowing the child will be safe in her arms tomorrow triggers an immense surge of respect and affection for Khalid – sacrificing himself… for their daughter? What has he done?

  Forget him! The exhausting wait nearly over, she skips a few dance steps around the couch. Elated, her whole body is shuddering with the thought of hugging and kissing her girl. She’ll have to watch out and not spoil the fun with too many questions and reproaches. Zaida will be physically depleted, emotionally drained and her spirit in turmoil. Just sit close in the car; say little for a day or two. Once settled, she will unwind. She has probably acquired a veneer of sophistication after handling another family for a month or so, and this in a tough country. How else would she have changed?

  Throughout the morning, her silver needles once more help her take her mind off her own concerns. Mary Angel is doing quite well, much steadier, although troublesome symptoms will persist for a while. The treatment over, Virginia realises that Walter, back at the helm, will be told soon of her use of the Eight Principles. If the boss doesn’t like it, tough! The two approaches can be complementary; there’s no need to drop the golden rules that the practice has taught over the years. God forbid!

  Lunch time. Andy and Sue put their heads through the door to propose a party with Zaida’s school friends in the next few days. Virginia jumps at the offer. The place will remain a solid family clinic whatever its financial problems. Walter will accept her experimentation as a continuation of his life work. White coat off, ready to join her mother at the reception, she opens the curtains which she earlier drew close to protect patients from today’s blinding light. She looks out at the street, at the young women with pushchairs, the trio smoking on the doorsteps of the library opposite, a Sikh youth scampering along talking to a phone, bright sky above the horse chestnut at the corner. She takes a deep breath, thinking that, like her acupuncture room, the world out there has rules and codes ready to be deciphered. Zaida is flourishing in this mysterious world and doesn’t want her mum to stay a mere spectator. Why not join Khalid in Syria with her one day? When she turns back, the light pours in, illuminating among other things the watercolour he gave her for their first anniversary. The frozen lake glistens. A good omen? She focuses on the picture, sensing his face emerging from the frost, as it was then on the bridge, shimmering for a few seconds. Long enough.

  – 21 –

  Flights

  Four days after reaching Qamishli, the Franklins are flying to Heathrow from Atatûrk airport, where a miraculous call to the Hama house had put them through to Abdul. They were elated to know he was safe and well but he had no news of Khalid yet.

  They sink into their seats too exhausted physically and mentally to talk. Zaida’s jumbled emotions trigger more weeping followed by hysterical joy. She is on cloud nine when thinking about her mum but sick at the absence of recent news from her father. And she is already missing her Grandad. Is he at the souk, being saluted at every stall kayf il’ayli – “how is the family?”, or at the norias with her cousins? That hurts. For all that, she hasn’t seen her mum and gran for ages and ages! She can’t believe it! On her lap, there is a bag filled with a wool cushion cover exploding with bright red and blue flowers. For her mother. That’s what her dad would have bought, she said before embarking, her jaw clenched, rigid, resolute – I won’t weep anymore!

  Amenable, Walter lets Ian check his pulses once more. He shuts his eyes, ready for a rest. Ian needlessly worries about the effect of the four-hour flight on his arteries. The rascal! He has just felt the tinkling feeling of needles being inserted into the source points. He half opens his eyes. They smile at each other with a blend of relief, recognition and mutual respect.

  ‘Welcome to our trade, son.’ With no hint of irony.

  ‘Don’t raise your hopes, Dad.’

  For a while, Ian fiddles with the earphones, zapping from one crappy film to another, exasperated by the Turkish Airlines catalogue. Too overwrought to sink into a police drama, he unplugs the set. Zaida has already fallen asleep, head back, plump mouth half-open, vulnerable. He has enjoyed looking after her. Maybe he could make a good dad. He wraps the flight blanket around her after moving her head gently into a less awkward position, hoping she does not wake up bawling as she did the night after leaving her dad. Other images flood in: the undistinguished silhouettes of their Kurdish hosts enveloped in dusty gowns and headscarves against wind and recognition; the donkey shed where they slept on straw beds and washed from tin buckets; divine dishes of stuffed peppers and eggplant salads brought in by a decrepit sun-baked manservant with the silent courage needed to serve folk on the run. The hideout was only an hour’s walk from the Turkish shacks marking the promised land. Didn’t they cheer at the sight of the first star and crescent, flying by a petrol station with minivans for hire. Too expensive for the Iraqi refugees queuing at the coach stop nearby, but the shell-shocked trio paid without blinking – whatever it cost to resume their privileged lives.

  Other scenes, imagined this time, also flash by. Abdul being shouted at by Omar at Hotel Al-Rais, spreading his hands out to calm the captain down, persuasive – they won’t be answerable for the gay journalist anymore. Nor for Khalid. And for Mustapha Al-Dari, business can be business again. He also sees Abdul back in Hama spending hours in the Grand Mosque negotiating with Allah: ‘Take my own life, not my son’s.’

  Ian wails. He is the criminal who should be punished. He can still see the brash balancing hips, the flaunting hand, the practised elegance designed to ruin families. Is this the destruction Clint foresaw in the birthday book? He pulls out a Kleenex to wipe his blotched face. Keep real! Khalid has to get to Beirut unharmed. Where is he now? Probably half a day south of the border after being driven through the dry side of that mountain marking off Lebanon, overjoyed by the green undulating hills. Parched of news about Zaida’s flight, he is bound to contact Virginia and perhaps Marianne Castagou. Ian blows his nose, swearing to himself that he will do whatever it takes to help his friend rebuild his life yet again. Clint won’t mind in the least. The hotel in Nusaybin was the first place where the two of them talked at length. Zaida, he was emphatic, had never been in any danger until the Franklins, the fools, came to her rescue with an unaccredited journalist in tow. Searched by security officers in Aleppo. Accused of entering the country without a press visa. The whole truth would be better told face to face. What truth? Would he have screwed that rent-boy? Was he flirting with prison and death as well as sex? Impelled to wreck the omnipotent father behind the trip? He has stumbled into the scene so often he doesn’t perceive any compelling truth any more – only volatile impressions. Why bother about what really happened if any credible story is a kind of do-it-yourself job suiting particular moments? Damn it!

  Sensing Ian’s agitation, Walter heaves himself up in the seat, scratches his neck, bitten yet again by the Franklins’ debt to Abdul. Khalid is made of
flesh and blood, not mere money. How will his children live with such a burden? They have different debts: Ian owes his freedom, and Virginia, her child’s release. What about the damage done to Khalid himself? Their visit, Ian says, was ill conceived and badly timed but that’s not the whole story; ironically, the regime did Virginia an immense service by chasing her relatives out. Zaida will never be brought up in Syria. But at what cost?

  The trip has wrecked something in him too. He is disoriented. Anxious. At the end of his tether. He hasn’t cared for the clinic for days. Has his sense of self-respect been drained as well as his Qi? Why not retire? He could go within a year. It’d be a gift for the old girl. Will Virginia be capable of raising money for the clinic? She could borrow, Ian argued, to restructure, modernise, get new therapies – even electronic machines! Enough! It’s all mumbo-jumbo, but if it gets the clinic out of the red for the time being, let it be. He is dog-tired, corrupted, blown apart. There are tremors running down his left side. He should take the statin.

  The talks with Ian have also been too emotional; and seeing him handling the needles, listening to advice but also making it clear he’d never come back – and that decision wasn’t anyone’s fault. Children are golden eagles, Ian concurred: they mate for life away from the parents, fighting the wind to build their nest in their own ways. Ian left Britain feeling alien, he said, full of resentment – but why put an entire ocean in between? The children were close to each other, whatever they both say now; and the house was full of kids running in and out, sleeping over. Gwen went to no end of trouble. Where was that lonely kid? Rubbish! Too wiped out to contest stories of neglect, he attempts to console himself. With youngsters, as with patients, one has to accept their fickle truths at face value, however partial their accounts.

  His thoughts drift back to the idea of retiring. Virginia. He will have to trust her wholeheartedly. And stop being a meddling old fart!

  He shakes his head, muttering. Jesus! It’s too early! In a conscious fantasy he marries his daughter to Khalid and the Leaford throne; the couple will visit the Al-Sayeds’ mausoleum with Zaida and her younger siblings. Hooked together through travel and Skype, the two branches of the family will fuse into one; and the patriarchs will become birds of a feather, both sustained by faith and conciliation. The rosy-tinted story makes his eyes water. He’s becoming such a fool! Will Gwen realise it? How much has he changed? He can even enjoy idle thoughts.

  ‘Tell me,’ he nudges his son, ‘do you think our ladies will understand what we’ve been through?’

  ‘Sure, Dad, but not this evening! There’s no rush to unsettle them, is there?’ Especially his sister! Ian recoils at the scene when she grasps the full blazing tale. Virginia, cock-a-hoop and vindictive. Being laughed at when she’d been right from the start. Overruled by idiots and that treacherous Marianne etc, etc. She’ll blow her top! So smug. Though to her credit, she took no time to size up the situation when he phoned her from Turkey. She had prepared herself, she said, since the decision to let Zaida visit Syria. Her solicitor acted fast and organised a Turkish bilingual solicitor registered with Reunion to take the Franklins to the Canadian and British Consulates in Ankara – a chatty man who first thought Ian was the girl’s father! As he expected, the Brits, less on the ball than the Canadians, took another day to produce a passport for Zaida – eager to hide from the media yet another British daughter held against her will by an uncaring Muslim father. As a journalist, Ian understood that such cases test the best of condescending diplomats by destabilising negotiations skilfully woven over sugary mint teas. Yet, he was not prepared for the outburst when some official congratulated them for getting the girl out swiftly, since abductions to Muslim countries are all long, drawn-out cases. Pricked, Zaida blurted out she wasn’t abducted! ‘That’s stupid!’ She wanted to stay with her father and… she got muddled up, lost for words; blushing as her tale, he thought, was incomplete, too hurtful to tell. The know-it-all spat out memorable British nonsense. ‘The child’s brainwashed! No need to apologise. We understand.’

  Ian bends over to Zaida, who is rubbing her eyes with her fists. ‘Sand in your eyes? Remember the snob at the Consulate? Talking rubbish?’ Ian takes on a posh voice. ‘“I’m proud to say we run excellent workshops on British values and respect for cultural diversity.”’ The clowning over, he says with fondness, ‘You really did us proud.’

  ‘Thanks, Ian!’ She clicks her tongue, staring hard at him for a few seconds, before confiding, ‘There is a Koranic verse Muslims recite to protect people.’

  ‘Your father?’

  She bows her head to hide her face. ‘I prayed with Grandad. But in England it won’t be that easy.’

  ‘You are a child! Enjoy coming back home, sweetheart.’ She sniffs her tears back, looking so much older. What else will her mother notice? Tightening his arm around her shoulder, he chews over the idea of an article about Syria for The Vancouver Sun with his niece as the heroine.

  ‘We are landing in one hour. I can’t wait!’

  Zaida’s eyes are sunk but they shine like polished ebony above rings of fatigue and a tight expression round the mouth. She is fiddling with the lucky charms hanging from the leather bracelet given to her by one of the Kurdish boys who took to her when guiding them to Nusaybin. There was a short climb over a few boulders to a rail track. He held out his hand to pull her up two or three times – ‘Miss, Miss, good here.’ She had fun. Can she tell her mum that?

  Nearly there.

  Walter tells Zaida that when Gwen and Virginia drive down the M1 they will glimpse Lyn Hall, an imposing square building. He grew up on the farm, behind clusters of oaks and elms. ‘You knew my father bred cows? Deep red, almost black. With soft white underbellies and vicious curly horns.’

  ‘Look! We’re flying so low! Are these things your cows?’

  ‘Are you teasing? They’re ponies! Our English longhorns have gone. So has our farm!’

  They were beauties! How can he not be pessimistic when age-old skills disappear? In Syria too. Jute replacing silk; plastic, wood; indoor farms, outdoor grazing; computerised probes, his silver needles!

  He ought to cut out the sour grapes! Like any adolescent, Zaida venerates the Unstoppable March of Progress, however deceptive this is. Hectoring his own children did no good. How can he do better with her? And not be defeated by the brutal business optimism of the age? He can hear Abdul. ‘Time is short. Yet, brother, tell her of your longhorns. Of our mosaics. Of cruel graves. Of healing. Of reconciliation.’

  Old people, Walter realises, gnaw at the same questions like dogs over a bone. Have their lives been expressions of unreliable judgments and erratic actions – at best, haphazardly useful? Will their descendants do better? The reflection triggers yet another fit of loud coughing that disturbs Ian, who squeezes the hand resting on the armrest to prevent it from shaking.

  ‘Please see a doctor! Listen to Abdul!’

  ‘There’s not much wrong with me apart from exhaustion. Andy Gibson will see to it. Don’t fret now. I’m sorry I scoffed at your own projects years ago. Can’t we let go of… whatever… made things difficult? What do you say?’

  Good Lord! The grey withered face, the pleading and the fact that he is leaving for Canada make Ian sputter with a passion that surprises both of them. ‘Our bruises? Our battles? OK, Dad, let’s grow up. It’s a deal. But you see a doctor. And… you put less pressure on Virginia?’

  ‘And Gwen?’

  ‘You old bugger!’

  ‘What’s the joke, you two? They won’t be late, will they? Will they like Grandad’s poem? It came to him on that horrid coach. I never want to act dumb again!’

  ‘No fear, Zaidouna.’

  Clint was wrong. There is no death lurking on the trip. Ian gives his niece a steady look. He sees something of himself in her. She makes up her own stories… about emails, not snails. She is fun with her fierce loyalties and a dogged refu
sal to compromise. The first thing she told the staff at the Consulate was that she was Syrian and British. Fair enough, but when they asked what she was first of all she disconcerted them – 3/4 British and 3/4 Syrian. A witty formula he could borrow one day – 3/4 English and 3/4 Canadian. She is a real hoot, with the generosity that made some goys wear a yellow star; and now, straights wear pink ribbons. He can see her aged 16 demonstrating with a placard saying, “A Palestinian British Syrian Jew. For Human Rights. Not bombs”. Concerns he himself may take up again with renewed conviction, alongside Clint, who is already mobilised against the destruction of pristine Alaskan glaciers. The thought of working together cheers him up.

  ‘Listen, you two.’

  Zaida wants his attention as well as Walter’s. ‘I have Grandad’s poem. Allah is the gardener and the rose is… I’ve forgotten, but I love it.’

  She darts a hesitant smile, scrutinising their faces for signs of derision. Reassured, she recites softly:

  ‘I rushed into the garden and picked a rose,

  Afraid to be seen by the gardener.

  I heard the gardener’s voice speaking to me:

  ‘What is one rose? I shall give you the garden.’

  Getting out of the car with his large bags, Khalid feels an electrifying relief. Since crossing the djebel with the help of another well-paid thug, nameless, hired by Walid, their plan has been flawless. Nonetheless, he is glad to see the man off after the silent drive from Homs. The less they see each other, the better.

  Al-Faour seems an unassuming place in which to start yet another exile, but in this town, at least, he’s safe. Unbelievable! The next step is to register at the Hotel Ahiram, a bland overpriced place, which is, as he has expected, close to the coach station. It takes no time to check in. Key 156. He takes in the tired room at a glance. Peeling white paintwork, stale cigarette smoke. So what! For now it is his chateau. He rubs his chin as if to quash the corrosive bitterness spilling into these first hours of freedom. Why is life so treacherous? Why him? He dries his eyes on his sleeve. Locked out a second time. Why? He curses the broken handle on the bathroom door, manages to get in and, as he feared, there is no hot water. He will miss again the small things – the Zabadani sweet apples, the Halawani grapes, the oranges without skin that Zaida so loved. The street peddlers’ calls. The muezzin’s. All these treasures that nursed a congenial childhood that left him unprepared for this nomadic life. The cold shower helps him recover his spirits. He won’t stay in Lebanon for long. As Omar says, a man’s life on the run is made up of 50% planning and 50% chance. Is that why the precious papers worked at the border? His luck will hold through Rafic Hariri and Heathrow, where, in two days’ time, he will take Zaida in his arms and bear-hug Walter.