As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (27)

A pained shriek reached my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut before opening them to stare at the man who held the fate of my loved ones in his grasp. I hated him.

“I’ve never been to a protest, and I never will. I swear. So please, for me, let them out. They won’t do anything like this again. I promise.” My voice took on a pleading tone, and I began to hate myself too. To grovel to our murderers and torturers. The government had long since promised the consequences if we were to rebel. Everything we had feared for fifty years was coming true.

The man smiled, all yellow teeth, and got up heavily from his seat.

“Little girl.” He stood in front of me, and I dug my nails into my hands, wincing. The wounds were just budding into scars. “You better leave before you join them.”

“I’m sorry,” Kenan whispers, and his voice awakens me from the nightmare replaying in my mind.

“Don’t be sorry for me.” I swallow hard. “You still have your siblings. If you’re staying, then don’t throw your life away.”

His shoulders constrict. And I understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. God, I do. But not like this. Not when I felt Lama’s blood running between my fingers like a spring and heard him tell me about her courageous heart. Not when I know Yusuf can’t talk anymore because of the trauma. They need help that isn’t in Homs. They both need to be allowed to be children.

But it’s clear from the flickering flames in his eyes and the suppressed agony in his words: He knows that a desolate future awaits him if he doesn’t leave. He’s not a fool. But his heart overflows with so much love for his country he’s willing to let it drown him and his loved ones. The thing is, hearing stories about the ocean’s rage is different from being caught in the middle of the angry waves.

“What do you record exactly, Kenan?” I ask, and he looks surprised by the question.

“Uh, the protests, like I told you. The revolution songs.”

“And deaths?”

He grimaces. “When the gunshots go off, I stop and run.”

I consider him for a second before nodding and make to walk past him, an incoherent thought wakening in my brain, but he clears his throat.

“My mom’s Hamwi,” he says in a quiet voice.

I stop.

“She survived the Hama massacre,” he continues, and I turn to look at him. “When the military stormed her city and laid waste for a whole month, she survived. She was seven years old, and she watched her nine-year-old brother get shot in the head. She saw his brain splatter everywhere. She starved with her family. They ate once every three days. I’ve lost family even before I was born, Salama. Injustice is all I’ve ever known.” He pauses, his chest heaves once, and when he looks at me, there’s absolute determination in his eyes. I nearly shiver from the intensity of it. “This is why I protest. Why I record. Why I should stay. All those years before the revolution started. Didn’t you lose family to the dictatorship too, Salama?”

He knows the answer. No Syrian family has evaded the dictatorship’s cruelty. We both lost family in the Hama massacre before we were born, but Kenan’s loss steeled his resolve from when he was a child. It grew with him. Shaped him. Unlike me. I ignored the loss until it became my reality.

A knot forms in my throat and it’s difficult to swallow without bursting into tears, so instead I walk toward my house. After a second, he follows.

We’re getting closer, which makes me more anxious. I need to touch Layla to know she’s alive and well. I need to make sure the baby didn’t decide to throw a wrench in our plans and come early.

We stay silent the rest of the way, lost in our worries and thoughts. When my home comes into view, I let out a small breath of relief. My neighborhood is quiet, and Kenan and I are the only ones on the streets. Everything looks as normal as can be, the faded blue front door still in one piece. I take out my keys, fumble desperately at the lock.

Kenan leans against the wall. “I’ll wait outside.”

“What! Get in before someone shoots you!” I usher him inside and close the door quickly.

The house is quiet. No light filters from the living room’s drawn windows. Shadows dance against the hallway walls and somehow it feels colder inside the house than outside it.

“Stay here,” I mutter. He nods and turns toward the front door in case Layla makes a sudden appearance hijab-less.

I call out loudly, “Layla, I’m home!”

She doesn’t answer. A knot twists in my stomach.

“She might be sleeping?” Kenan suggests, still facing the door.

“Maybe.”

I check the living room where she usually sleeps, but it’s empty and disturbingly cold, no sun rays seeping through the curtains. The rug under the couch is dark, the whorls akin to gray clouds swirling before a storm. The kitchen overlooking it is also muted, like someone watered down the colors. The uneasiness grows like vines, wrapping around my skeletal system.

“Layla,” I repeat and head down the hallway, my sneakers thudding softly against the carpet.

Shadows envelop my footsteps, and my heart is in my throat, fluttering like a baby bird. Her bedroom door is fastened shut, and I trail my fingers along the surface before deciding to check my room first.

When I creak open my door, all the while begging God for her to please be there, I almost fall to the floor with relief.