Home Is Beyond the Mountains (14 page)

“Exactly,” said Miss Shedd.
“You had no time to get ready. You couldn't rest on the journey. Of course
people died.”

Samira remembered the cart
loaded with food. Her father taking tools and charcoal to boil water for
tea. Taking such care.

“We had our fathers and our
mothers then,” she burst out. “And still everything went wrong. Now we are
just orphans.”

“You aren't just orphans.
Look at all the things you do every day for yourselves and for the younger
children. And you won't be alone on the journey. I'll be with you and others
will help, too.”

She looked into Samira's
face for what seemed a long time. “But you're right. We won't have a lot of
help. Whether we can do it will depend on you and Shula and Avram and
Benyamin and every single child. I believe that you can do what has to be
done. After all, I've sent Shula and Avram out to start the
work.”

“You mean the
lists?”

“Not the lists. I can make
lists. No, they'll talk to their friends. You'll talk, too. All the children
will start thinking about this idea. Then, maybe, they'll be ready to do the
work. Everyone will have to help.” She sighed. “Really, I'm not worried
about getting you children to help. There are other people who may not like
the idea at all.”

“What people?” asked Samira.
“Who wouldn't think we should go home?”

“We want to go from Hamadan
to places beyond Lake Urmieh. We can't do it unless we get permission from
government officials in several places. And every single official likes to
feel he is powerful and important. It will be my job to get all the permits
we must have. It won't be easy.”

“But you think that in the
end they will let us go home?”

“If we give them no rest and
show them we're ready, Samira, I think they will.”

Samira left Miss Shedd's
office with her head full of questions. How long would the journey take? How
could they carry everything they would need? What about the little children
who couldn't walk so far? How would each child get to the right village? Who
would be at home to meet her and Benyamin?

Benyamin. She had to tell
Benyamin.

She found him playing a game
with some other boys, using sticks to hit a ball up and down the yard. When
he saw her he dropped his stick and came over at once.

“Has something happened?” he
asked. “You're all red in the face.”

“It hasn't happened yet,”
she said. “But it will. At least I think it will. Miss Shedd thinks it will
so it will, won't it?”

“What are you talking about?
You're not making any sense.”

“I'm just excited,” said
Samira. “Remember how you told Miss Shedd that we all walked from our
villages to Hamadan? Now she says, why can't we walk back?”

Benyamin frowned. “I
probably could or maybe you.” He looked around the yard. “But not everyone.
You know what happened before.”

“Miss Shedd says it won't be
the same. We'll have time to plan and we'll take everything we need with us.
She says it will be different. She says we'll get home.”

They sat on a bench and
Samira told him about Shula and Avram's argument and Miss Shedd's
astonishing announcement.

“I think she wants us to
talk about it so everyone can get used to the idea. Then when she tells us
more about her plans we'll be able to start getting ready right
away.”

“She doesn't like to waste
time, does she? Well, let's start talking.”

Within a day it seemed that
every child had something to say about walking home.

“A lot of people died when
we ran from our villages. I'm not doing it again. I'd rather stay here.”
That was how Maryam felt.

“We just grabbed what we
could and ran,” said Anna. “This time we'll be organized. Miss Shedd will
see to that. And no one will be after us, trying to kill us. The war is
over.”

“We could still run out of
food,” said Samira. “Or some child might wander off and get lost. Or people
could get sick. But we have to try. We have to.”

Shula and Avram were making
their lists. Shula talked to everyone and made neat lists divided into
categories: dishes, cooking utensils, clothing, bedding, first-aid.

Avram tore a big piece of
paper from a box of school supplies that came from America and wrote a list
of tasks in big letters: Packing Up. Finding Fuel. Washing Dishes. Chopping
Onions.

A week passed. On the eighth
morning Miss Shedd gathered the older children in the eating room.

“I know that you have all
heard about my idea that we can all walk together to get you to your home
villages. I can tell you now just how we will do it. The journey will have
two stages. First we will walk to the city of Tabriz on the east side of
Lake Urmieh. All of you come from villages in the hills and mountains west
of the lake. In Tabriz there is a big orphanage where you will stay while I
send someone to find a relative or friend who will take each one of you into
their families. When those people are found you will make the second stage
of your journey to your own village. Right now we are planning the first
stage of the journey. It will take us about thirty days to walk to Tabriz.
We will need food and supplies and determination.”

She held up Shula's careful
lists and Avram's big piece of paper.

“This is very good work,”
she said. “But now we have to start putting the lists to good use. How shall
we do that?” She waited, but nobody said anything so she went on. “We all
want our journey to be safe and not too difficult. How can each of you help
make it be that way?”

“We can pack what we need
and leave unnecessary things behind,” said one boy at last.

“We can mend our clothes so
they are strong for the walking,” said a girl.

Then Avram said loudly,
“Getting ready is easy but when we are traveling there will be so many jobs
that must be done. We have to prepare food and load wagons and look after
babies and everything. No one can do all those things. I have to know what
my job is.”

Miss Shedd nodded. “You are
absolutely right, Avram. There are about three hundred children in this
orphanage and there won't be many adults with us. I'll be there, of course.
We'll have a doctor to take care of illness or injuries, and a cook who will
have a wagon with all the equipment he needs to prepare our meals. Mr.
Edwards will be with us for half the journey and a man from Tabriz will come
for the other half. Three women will help the cook and the doctor and two
men will ride out every day to find our camping place for the night and buy
fresh food from the villages. But that is all. Maybe eight adults and three
hundred children. Now, in your villages, who looks after the little children
who can run around? Who helps the older children with their lessons and
their tasks?”

“Their mothers.” “Their
aunts.” “Their big brothers and sisters.” “Maybe cousins.” “Fathers.”
“Grandmas and grandpas.”

“Yes,” said Miss Shedd. “And
all those people are members of the family. Some of you have brothers or
sisters or cousins here in the orphanage but most of you do not. So we will
make families who will look after each other on this journey.”

Samira was puzzled. Make
families?

Miss Shedd smiled. “These
families will be different from the families you're thinking of. We'll call
them caravan families because each family will travel in a group and camp
together. You'll look out for the other people in your family. Each family
will have at least twelve children of different ages and, of course, girls
and boys. You won't have children under five in your family because they'll
be riding in carriers on the backs of mules, and the women will look after
them when we camp.”

Miss Shedd looked around the
room once more.

“I know you're wondering who
will be in your caravan family. I'll let you know very soon. And don't
worry. We'll have plenty of time to prepare for the journey. It's November
now and I hope we can make our journey next September. That seems like a
long time, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Back in their room, Samira
sat on her rolled-up sleeping mat and Anna paced, first around the edge of
the rug and then from corner to corner. Finally she stopped in the middle
and said, “I will not be in any family without you and Elias. That's final.
She says that families look after each other. Well, we already
do.”

“We have to have Benyamin,
too. And he'll want Ashur,” said Samira. “We'll just tell Miss
Shedd.”

“Will she
listen?”

“I think she will. She wants
it to work as much as we do and she knows we belong together. She's just
doing what she always does, telling us enough to get us
thinking.”

“She expects so
much.”

“I know. She reminds me of
my Aunt Sahra. She was always rushing to get things done and hurrying my
cousins and me. My mother would take time to listen to anything I wanted to
tell her but Aunt Sahra could only stop for important things. Miss Shedd is
like that.”

Several days later Miss
Shedd asked Samira and Anna to come to her office after dinner. When they
arrived, Benyamin and Ashur were already there.

“Sit down, children,” she
said. “I want to tell you who will be in your caravan family. The oldest
ones will be the four of you. The middle ones will be Maryam, Avram, Shula
and Malik.”

Anna interrupted. “That
Malik. He's always going off by himself. He never talks to anyone. How will
he fit into any family?”

“Our families are going to
be like other families,” said Miss Shedd, looking at each one of them. “That
means some members won't be easy to understand or get along with. I hope
that by the time we set out on our journey, Malik will feel that he belongs
with you.”

She picked up a piece of
paper with a list of names on it. “Of course Elias will be in your family
and you'll have three more of the younger children. Monna, Sheran and David.
If you don't know them now, you soon will. I know that you four work well
together so I'm asking you to be the leaders of your family, the big sisters
and big brothers. Are you willing to do this?”

They nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Now I'll
give you your first job. Each family must have a name. It will make it easier
to talk about the families. I want you to choose a name that reminds you of
home, like the Mountain Family or the Vineyard Family. You can stay here and
decide on your name. I have to go and speak with some of the other
children.”

When she was gone they were
all quiet. A name for this new family. What could it be?

At last Benyamin said, “We
could be the Rooftop Family. We slept on the roofs with our families and we
played on the roofs. And we watched from the roofs.”

After a minute they all
agreed. They would be the Rooftop Family. They would walk to Tabriz
together.

THE FAMILIES WERE FORMED
.
But they didn't really feel like families.

As Anna said to Samira,
“There are people in this family I barely know. What kind of family is
that?”

“I think it's a new kind of
family,” said Samira. “I hope it will work.”

Miss Shedd did not just
hope. She had a plan.

“Families eat together and
work together,” she said.

The meal schedule was
rearranged so that each new family gathered together for their evening meal
every day. The twelve members of the Rooftop Family sat around a big bowl of
stew or rice and vegetables and each person scooped a serving into their own
small bowl. They had to be careful to divide the meat fairly, if there was
meat, and Anna made sure that the smaller children got their proper
share.

At first there were long
pauses in the conversation, but Samira and Anna, as big sisters, decided to
ask questions about favorite games and stories or the worst job each person
had ever had to do. In just a few days talk began as soon as the family sat
down.

Samira began to feel that
she was getting to know this family of hers. It was different from knowing
them as friends. Maryam, for instance, never tried to get a bit more than
her share and often waited to serve herself last. The ravenous boys would
scoop as much as they could from the bowl, so Anna began watching out for
Maryam as well as for the young ones. Small Monna was so thin and ate so
slowly that she worried Samira. How could she walk to Tabriz?

Elias, on the other hand,
was the youngest in the family but he ate as much as he could fit in his
bowl. He also took part in every discussion. He often argued with Avram, who
liked to talk about all the important jobs he would do on the journey.

“I'll run ahead and help the
cook get the fire going every day,” Avram said one day.