As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (4)

Tears sting my eyes. Her words echo from the history books we read at school. Love for our country is in our bone marrow. It’s in our national anthem, which we sang every morning from our first day in school. The words were just words then. But now, after all of this, they have become our reality.

Our spirits are defiant, and our history is glorious.

And our martyrs’ souls are formidable guardians.

I avoid Layla’s gaze. I don’t want a guilt trip. I’ve had enough of that already.

“I’ve lost enough in this war,” I say bitterly.

Her voice is firm. “It’s not a war, Salama. It’s a revolution.”

“Whatever.”

And with that, I walk back to my bedroom, closing the door behind me so I can breathe. All I care about—all I have left in the world—is Layla and the hospital. I’m not a monster. There are people suffering and I can help. It’s the reason I wanted to be a pharmacist. But I refuse to think about why they end up in the hospital. Why all of this is happening. The why took away Mama. I remember her fingers, cold against mine. It took Baba and Hamza to God knows where. I don’t want to dwell on the past. I don’t want to cry about how I’m going to end my teen years with nothing more than lost hope and nightmare-filled sleep. I want to survive.

I want my family. I just want my family back.

Even if what Layla says is the truth.

I change into the only pajamas I have left. A black cotton sweater and pants. Decent enough if I ever need to make an escape into the night. In the bathroom, I ignore my wasted reflection and dry brown hair falling past my shoulders and open the water tap out of habit. Nothing. The neighborhood hasn’t had water or electricity in weeks. It used to come in bursts but has stopped altogether with the siege. Luckily it rained last week, so Layla and I put out buckets to collect the water. I use a small handful for ablution and pray.

The sun’s feeble rays have vanished from my room’s scratched floorboards, and the dark cloak of the night takes over Homs. My teeth chatter for a bit with anticipation before I clamp my lips shut, swallowing thickly. Whatever control I exude during the day falters when the sun sets.

I sit on my bed, close my eyes, and take deep breaths. I need to clear my mind. I need to focus on something other than the fear and pain that have taken root in my soul.

“Sweet alyssum. Sweet as its name,” I murmur, praying for my nerves not to fail me. “White petals. Used for pain relief. Also for colds, abdominal cramps, and coughs. Sweet. Sweet.”

It works. My lungs begin distributing the oxygen evenly to my blood, and I open my eyes and watch the thicket of gray clouds outside my window. The glass is chipped at the sides from when Layla’s home took the impact of a nearby bomb, and the frame is splintered. When I moved in, I had to wash blood from the pane.

Despite the window being locked, a chill sweeps the room, and I shiver, knowing what’s about to happen. The horror I see isn’t just confined to the hospital. My terror has mutated in my mind, bestowed with a life and a voice that never fail to show up each night.

“How long are you going to sit there without talking to me?” The deep voice comes from beside the windowsill, sending gooseflesh all over my neck.

His voice reminds me of the freezing water I splash over myself when I come home drenched in the martyrs’ blood. It’s stones weighing on my chest, sinking me to the earth below. It’s heavy as a humid day and deafening as the bombs the military throws on us. It’s what our hospital is built on, and the wordless sounds we make.

I turn toward him slowly. “What do you want now?”

Khawf looks at me. His suit is crisp and clean. It troubles me, though, the specks of red lining his shoulders. They’ve been there since we met, and I still haven’t gotten used to them. But I don’t like looking at his eyes either—icy blue. With his midnight-black hair, he doesn’t look human, which I suppose is the point. He looks as close to human as he can try to be.

“You know what I want,” his voice ripples, and I shiver.





I LOST EVERYTHING LAST JULY.

All in the span of one week.

Back then I lay on a hospital bed, silent tears stinging the cuts on my face, my left thigh aching from the fall, and my bruised ribs protesting painfully every time I breathed. My hands were wrapped in such heavy gauze, they looked like mittens. Shrapnel had dug holes into my hands; the blood burst out like a fountain. But all of that was manageable.

The only serious injury was at the back of my head. The force of the explosion had me flying back, and concrete met the base of my skull, marking me for life. Dr. Ziad stitched me up. It was the first time I met him. He told me I was lucky to escape with only a scar. I think he was trying to take my mind off the fact that Mama hadn’t been as lucky. That the bomb snatched her away from me and I’d never be able to hug her again.

Later that day, when Khawf appeared and told me his name, it took a bit for me to realize I was the only one seeing him. At first I thought the drugs were giving me visions—that he would disappear when the morphine did. But he stayed by my side, whispering horrible things while I cried for Mama. Even when the pain subsided, and my ribs healed, and my hands scarred, he didn’t leave. And once that conviction settled in, panic followed soon after.

He was a hallucination who had come to stay. One who, every night for the past seven months, has cruelly plucked on my fears, breathing life into them.