As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (102)

I try to see the other shades, but the gray seems lodged in my retinal artery’s cells. I tear my eyes to my family, memorizing their faces.

“Remember how in Ramadan the streets would be lit up with lanterns,” I stutter, and they all look at me. “Don’t think about the cold. Remember how warm the bread used to be. Fresh from the bakery.”

Kenan joins in. “Lama. Yusuf. Remember when we used to go to the country. To Jedo’s farmhouse and pick the apricots. How I’d climb up and toss them to you, Lama. Yusuf, remember when you found that pigeon’s nest?”

Yusuf nods, teeth chattering.

“Each summer Layla and I would either stay at her grandparents’ country house or mine,” I whisper. “We’d swim in the pool. We’d play with the chickens. We even rode horses. Her grandfather took us to a neighbor who raised them.”

I remember it so well. Fifteen years old and I’d just begun wearing my hijab. It fluttered in the wind as the horse galloped around the field with Layla on her own horse beside me. Our whoops of joy ringing over the horses’ hooves.

Kenan continues to encourage his siblings to move and talk, to remember the past and to hope for the future, where new memories wait for them. He turns to me and raises my hand, and water droplets slip back into the sea.

“Salama, we’ll have that knafeh.” His cheeks are wet, and I know it’s not just from the sea. His lips brush over my scarred knuckles. “If not in Germany, then in Heaven.”

I swallow my tears, nodding.

We go back to talking, trying to focus on something that isn’t the cold. We reminisce on our old life. Visualizing our Syria and painting a description of one we’ll never see.

A Syria we’ll never know.

An endless bed of green covers the hills, where the Orontes carries life into the ground, growing daisies along his banks. Trees bear lemons golden as the sun, apples firm and sweet, and plums ripe and glittering like rubies. Their branches are low, coaxing us to pluck the fruit. Birds sing the song of life, their wings fluttering against an azure-blue sky.

The countryside slowly dissolves as pavement replaces grass and the sounds of people bustling around the market drown the occasional bird’s chirps. Merchants are selling satin dresses, rich, amethyst-purple Arabian rugs, and precious crystal vases. Restaurants overflow with families and couples taking advantage of a beautiful sunny day, platters of barbecued meat and bowls of tabbouleh laid in front of them. The athan rings loud from the minarets and people gather for prayer in the spacious, intricately designed mosques that have been standing there for centuries. Children run around our ancient ruins, reading the history of their ancestors woven between the limestone. They learn about the empires that once transformed their country into the beating heart of civilization. They visit the graves of our warriors, reciting Al-Fatiha for their souls and remembering their stories. Keeping them alive in their memories. They take pride in their grandfathers and grandmothers, who laid down their lives so they could grow up in a land where the air is sweet with freedom.

Caught in the haze of hypothermia, I dream of that Syria.

A Syria whose soul isn’t chained in iron, held captive by those who love to hurt her and her children. A Syria Hamza fought and bled for. A Syria Kenan dreams about and illustrates. A Syria Layla wanted to raise her daughter in. A Syria I would have found love and life and adventure in. A Syria where, at the end of a long life, I’d return to the ground that raised me. A Syria that’s my home.

The day passes and I lose track of time. Darkness finally settles and I have no energy left, and my lips stop moving. The cold has invaded every nerve. I don’t know if Kenan has stopped talking as well or if I’ve lost the ability to hear. It takes everything in me to remember where I am and that I need to breathe.

Somewhere in the distance, a glow of light suddenly appears. I blink, its harshness hurting my pupils. I blink again.

Am I dead?





A PALE LILAC BLOOMS ON THE HORIZON AS THE SUN slowly breaks through the darkness. September dawn in Toronto takes on many shades of the spectrum, but nowadays it seems to favor skipping from lilac to a bright blue while the stars quietly disappear.

I’m on the balcony, bathing in the soft glow and gazing at the corner I’ve transformed into a small garden. Daisies. Honeysuckle. Peonies. Lavender. I’ve grown them all myself, tending to their tiny roots and petals with care, murmuring words of love.

“You’re so beautiful,” I coo at a baby daisy shyly splaying out her petals against the scars on my hands. “I’m so proud of you.”

A light breeze coaxes me to pull my blanket more tightly around my shoulders. Even though I’m in wool pajamas, the cold of the Mediterranean hasn’t melted.

Kenan and I have been in Toronto for four months, and I still haven’t gotten used to the chill. It’s so different from Berlin, but both have the same kind of quiet on a Saturday morning: one that’s occasionally broken by the faint rumblings of a plane flying above. It took Kenan and me two years not to go sick with fear at those. And sometimes we still forget, the trauma coming back to us in the form of shaking hands and panic-filled eyes.

“There you are,” Kenan says, shuffling outside with two mugs of steaming zhoorat tea.

I glance at him, smiling.

He’s become more resistant to the cold and is dressed only in simple pajama pants and a white T-shirt. His hair is disheveled from bed and his eyes are still traced with sleep. It took a while and a lot of hard work, but both of us are now a healthy weight. I eye his biceps, feeling my cheeks warm up as he hands me my mug.