As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (30)

Am doesn’t say anything, but there’s a different shimmer behind his eyes. He looks as if he’s impressed with me. Finally, he grunts. “If only we could all live on chivalry. Find the money or there’s no boat.”

And with that, he walks away.

When mixed together, disappointment and terror form a bitter pill whose effects are long-lasting. Its taste stays in my mouth the entire day and strengthens when I go home, bone weary, and see Layla’s crestfallen face as I tell her what Am said. She doesn’t ask why I didn’t offer up her gold, and I’m grateful. She just tucks me in bed and brushes back my hair.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “We’ll be okay.”

I stare at the ceiling, feeling a hollowness in my chest. Like my heart doesn’t exist there anymore and I’m surviving on whatever fragments latched to my ribs.

As soon as I allowed myself to think about leaving, seedlings of hope grew in my brain, taking over my imagination. Not a might life, but a real life with Layla and an apartment in Germany. It’s cramped but that’s okay. We heal and fill it with laughter and Baby Salama’s drawings. And one day, I find the will to pen the magical stories I have long buried deep in my mind. She and I, we make a home from what’s left of our family.

Layla stays with me until the dusk turns to night.

“I’ll be right here if you need anything, okay?” she says, and I nod.

When she closes the door behind her, eerie silence claims her wake, and my stupid imagination picks up where it left off. Only this time, Kenan is there in our apartment. And so are his siblings. We’re happy and safe and well fed. And for a minute, the night’s darkness doesn’t seem that bleak.

That is until someone chuckles from the corner. I refuse to look.

“If I could summarize your life in one word, Salama…” I hear the hiss of his lighter. A deep inhale. An exhale. “It would be irony.”

“Screw you,” I croak.

I sense Khawf sitting beside me, but still I don’t turn to him, hoping he’ll go away. My bones are made from steel and I’m busy trying to collect the pieces of my heart to sew them back together for tomorrow’s inevitable hell. I’m painfully aware of the hidden stash of Panadol in the drawer and I have to fight myself to not take one. Or three. Not even Layla takes one when she has a headache. We’re saving them for a rainy day.

I can breathe through this.

“I have to say,” Khawf continues. “I’m pretty proud of your progress. But let’s take it up a notch. You will tell Am tomorrow you’ll give him all your gold. Hell, you’ll also give him this house if he wants it. Not that he’d profit from it. But still.”

I stay quiet and find myself yearning for last night, when Khawf stayed away. Yearning to talk to Kenan again and see that blaze of life burning in his eyes.

“No,” Khawf says curtly. “That boy is nothing but trouble. With your soft heart, his patriotic notions will easily dissuade you from leaving. I have worked too long and too hard for him to change your mind. You’re—”

“Leaving, I know,” I snap, finally looking at him.

His gaze flicks over me with displeasure but I don’t care. “Stay away from Kenan.”

“Don’t worry, my promise to Hamza comes first,” I say. “You better pray that Am accepts the gold.”

Khawf grins, his incisors sharp. “Oh, I trust you’ll do everything you can to convince him.” He flexes his fingers, the cigarette dancing from one digit to the other, and the shadows on the walls and ceiling begin to change form. Gaping mouths and hollow eyes stare at me. Pained shrieks follow soon after, so I clamp my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut.

“You do know what Hamza would say, don’t you?” Khawf’s voice cuts. “How he’d want you to leave. How he’d beg you.”

“Salama,” Hamza’s voice murmurs in my ears. It sounds bruised. “Salama, you promised, remember? You would save Layla. And yourself. You’d make up for letting Mama die. You wouldn’t go back on your word, right?”

The backs of my eyes burn and I roll over to press the pillow over my head. “Please, stop.”

A silence takes over the room, and for a minute I believe he has. But when I open my eyes, Hamza stands in front of my bed.

There’s an open wound on his forehead. His hazel eyes are narrowed with displeasure and there’s a mottle of bruises across his cheeks. He’s wearing the clothes I last saw him in, but they’re ripped, muddied, and bloody.

“No,” I whimper. This is not him. This is Khawf.

But deep down in my heart, I know it is him. Even if what is before me is an apparition, Hamza must be suffering right now. That is, if he’s not dead.

“Salama, if they catch Layla, do you know what they’ll do to her?” he whispers, and a pained sound escapes from my lips. “If they catch you? You and Layla would never be allowed to die. Salama, you have to leave. Think of Baba. Think of me.”

My tears feel like acid on my skin, dripping onto my pillow. “Hamza, please, I said I will.”

He shakes his head. “Then why didn’t you give Am what he wanted? Salama, survival is everything.”

“I will,” I say. “I promise I will.”

When I blink, Hamza has disappeared and Khawf’s voice looms over the quiet once more. “Remember your brother every time Kenan’s words make you doubt your decision.”