Home Is Beyond the Mountains (2 page)

At last Benyamin spoke. “We
didn't have lessons today at school. Instead our teacher told us that we
must remember that we are Assyrians and we have been here in Persia for
centuries. All through history we have had our villages and our orthodox
churches and our own language, Syriac. No matter what happens we must
remember that we belong here.”

Papa said, “Your teacher is
right. But the Turkish army doesn't care that this is our home. They are
fighting in a big war with many countries and they are using the war as an
excuse to cross into Persia to take our land. The British army might want to
protect us but it is far away to the south. Persia is not in the war and it
has no army so there is nothing to stop these soldiers from driving us from
our villages. From what I hear, the soldiers are in the mountains now,
attacking the villages there. We may be safer because we are near the city
of Urmieh. There are people in the city from America and from France who
want to protect us. Maybe they can help. We have to watch and
wait.”

When it grew dark Papa said
it was not safe to sleep on the roof, so the family spent a stuffy night in
the house. They all woke up very early.

As soon as they had eaten,
Mama sent Samira to lay clean cloths on the roof. Together they would spread
the cut vegetables to dry. Later they would store them in the umbar, the
cellar under the terrace, to be used for soups and stews all winter.

When she got to the roof,
Samira took a minute to watch Benyamin and the other village boys run down
the street on their way to school.

She was just turning away
when she heard the sound of galloping horses. She listened.

People in the village did
not have horses. Their donkeys and mules walked slowly, carrying heavy
loads. Galloping horses meant strangers.

In no time at all, the
narrow road outside the village wall was filled with men on horseback. They
wore turbans and had cartridge belts slung across their chests and sabers
stuck in their belts. Samira knew they were Kurds — mountain people who
often came through the village selling rugs and sometimes raiding the
orchards and flocks. People told many stories about the Kurds — how they
would stop travelers and take all their money and belongings or, sometimes,
show them a better way through the mountains.

But where were they going
today, galloping so fast?

The sound sent the boys
dodging back into their houses or diving into small gaps between the
buildings. They were taking no chances. The Kurds might come through the
gate in the village wall.

But the horsemen did not
look left or right. They galloped past Ayna and were gone. Benyamin came
home to tell Mama and Papa that he was all right.

Papa said, “You were right
to hide. Some of the Kurds are helping the Turkish soldiers. They've
probably been told they'll be given some land. It's not a good sign when
Kurds come past without wanting food or money from the village. I think
something is about to happen.”

Papa was right. The next day
someone hammered at the door while the family was eating their evening meal.

Papa went to the door but he
didn't open it.

“Who are you?” he said in a
loud voice.

A voice answered, “Your
cousin Youel.”

Papa opened the door. He
looked for a long moment at the dusty man who stood on the doorstep.

“It is you, Youel,” he said,
and he embraced the man and pulled him inside.

Benyamin stepped forward to
greet Youel. Mama and Samira waited quietly for him to greet them.

When the greetings were over
Papa said, “You have come a long way. Drink some tea and tell us why you are
here. Then you can eat.”

Youel drank his tea in one
long gulp. Then he said, “You must leave Ayna at once. The Turkish army is
moving in this direction, burning the mountain villages as they come. The
Assyrian people are running to save their lives. So are the Armenians.
There's no safe place for us in our land. I'm going to join with other
Assyrian and Armenian men to try to stop the soldiers or slow them down, but
you have a family. You must all go now.”

Samira was surprised when
Mama spoke. Usually when visitors came she sat quietly and listened, but now
she said, “Where can we go? If we can't stay where we have always lived,
where can we go?”

“You must head toward
Hamadan. The British army is there. Those soldiers will protect
you.”

Mama shook her head as if
she couldn't understand what he was saying.

Papa frowned. “I have heard
that a mule caravan takes twenty-five days or more to travel from Urmieh to
Hamadan. And the road through the mountains is very rough, they
say.”

“You have to go,” said
Youel. “That army will come and steal what they can and burn the rest. They
don't care who they kill, either.”

After that Papa and Youel
went to talk on the roof. Samira and Benyamin looked at each other. They
knew that the men didn't want them to hear what they were saying.

Mama tidied away the spoons
and tea glasses, but she kept glancing at the ceiling as if she wanted to
hear the men talking.

Samira was thinking of one
word Youel had said. Hamadan.

Where was Hamadan? She
decided to ask Benyamin. He went to school and she knew that on the wall of
the schoolroom there was a big map of Persia. Hamadan must be on that
map.

“Benyamin,” she said. “This
Hamadan where our cousin says we should go, is it a city?”

“Yes, it's a big city. If we
go south over the mountains and down into the plain, we'll come to Hamadan.
But it will take a long time. When I went to the sheep market in Urmieh with
Papa we went just a tiny distance on the map, less than the width of my
little finger, but it took us all day.”

Samira nodded. She
remembered how tired Benyamin had been when he came back from that journey
to the city.

Benyamin sighed a deep sigh.
“On the map Hamadan is three or four hands away from Ayna.” He shook his
head and said no more.

Youel was gone before
daylight. Papa went with him a little way down the road before he said
goodbye.

He returned to wake the
family. “Youel was right. People running from the danger are already coming
past the village.”

Samira and Benyamin went up
to the roof to look. There they were, people coming from the western
mountains, all going the same direction, toward the south. Some rode horses
laden with bundles, others had big oxcarts that carried the whole family and
their household goods, but most walked beside small carts pulled by donkeys.

Papa went out to the road
with a jug of water and some bread. Samira came down from the roof and stood
beside him. They offered the refreshment to a family walking beside a cart
pulled by a mule. It was overflowing with bags of grain, rolled-up rugs and
baskets of vegetables. An old, old woman rode on top, staring straight
ahead.

Papa spoke to the man of the
family. “How long have you been traveling?” he asked.

“For three days now. Our
village is in the mountains, and the soldiers came and burned the church.
They searched our houses for our young men, but they had gone to hide in
caves. The soldiers were angry so they smashed whatever they could and threw
dirt in the well. Then they went away to find another village. We left the
next day.”

“Where will you
go?”

“The British army is fighting
the Turkish army. We'll walk until we come to the British army. They will
protect us.”

“That will be a long walk,”
said Papa.

“Yes. But here we have no
one to defend us. We have to go.”

Papa filled the water jug the
man carried. He took Samira's hand in his and held it while they watched the
man give his wife and his three children and the old grandmother water to
drink before they traveled on.

In the house Mama was
sitting very still with Maryam in her arms. She pulled Samira down beside
her and held both of her daughters close. Benyamin came in and stood beside
Papa.

Samira could see dark
thoughts cross her father's face.

“We are threatened just as
those people are threatened,” he said at last. “We can't stay
here.”

“I know,” said Mama. “We
must leave. Maybe we should go to the city, to Urmieh, with my
sister.”

“Sahra wants to wait for
Avram,” said Papa. “I pray she will be safe. But they say the city is
already full of refugees. There is sickness and starvation. I think we'll be
safer on the road.”

Mama nodded. She let go of
Samira and set Maryam on her feet.

“All right, children,” she
said. “Find your extra clothes, and I'll need help getting some things from
the umbar.”

Papa said, “I'll bring the
cart. We'll load up today and start out tomorrow.”

The day passed in a swirl of
deciding what to take, packing up, trying not to forget anything, worrying
about what would happen to things left behind.

When Samira finally lay down
to sleep she could feel the house around her. She had never slept anywhere
but in this room or on the roof above it.

Tomorrow she would be
somewhere far away.

THEN IT WAS MORNING
, and
before she had time to be properly awake, Samira was walking beside Mama,
away from Ayna.

She looked back through the
gate in the village wall. There was the house she had lived in all her life.
Already it looked lonely and abandoned. Aunt Sahra and Ester and Negris
stood waving. They had little bundles of clothes beside them, ready for
their journey to the city.

“How can we go without
them?” Samira thought. But she said nothing. Mama was already
crying.

Samira looked around. They
had joined a great procession of frightened people — men, women and children
with their carts and their animals. Families from Ayna were mixed in with
people who had already walked for days. Some were silent. Others talked and
called to their friends.

“I can't understand what
those people ahead of us are saying,” she said to Mama.

Mama wiped her eyes with the
ends of her scarf and listened. “They're speaking Armenian,” she said. “We
Assyrians are not the only people who must run away.”

By nightfall they had
traveled farther than Samira had ever gone before. Maryam was asleep on top
of the bundles in the wagon, and Samira felt as if she would fall asleep
walking if they didn't stop.

“We'll camp here for the
night,” Papa said. They had come to an open field dotted with little groups
of people. Some had built small fires and spread out rugs or quilts to lie
on. Others were preparing to lie on the bare ground.

Mama lifted Maryam down from
the cart, and Samira spread out the one rug they had brought from the house.
It was worn but it looked welcoming. The most beautiful rugs were at home in
Ayna, hidden in the umbar where they might be safe.

Papa built a little fire and
poured water into the kettle from the jug he carried. They had tea with
sugar in it and bread with cheese and some pieces of dried pepper from the
umbar. Samira remembered all the eggplant and squash they had left drying on
the roof.

“I hope the birds eat it all
before thieves get it,” she thought just before she fell asleep.

For a while the days had a
pattern. They woke very early and ate dried fruit before they started out.
Maryam rode in the wagon and Papa and Benyamin walked beside the donkey.
Samira and Mama followed.

The land was dry and hot in
the summer sun. Dust hung thick in the air, stirred up by all the feet and
hooves that were walking, walking. Whenever they came to a river they
scooped up water to carry for themselves and the donkey.

Papa kept track of the days,
and when Sunday came the family took time to stand in a circle and say a
prayer together.

When another Sunday came
Papa said, “We still have food to eat and a little grain for the donkey, so
we can be thankful.”

Looking up the rocky slope
that lay ahead of them, Samira only wished that she could sleep under a roof
and eat something besides dry bread and a few dates. She did not feel very
thankful. Still, she said the prayer.

A few days later a wheel of
the cart broke and there was no way to fix it.

“We have to go on with what
we can carry,” said Papa. “We'll let the donkey go. We have nothing to feed
him and perhaps he'll find food for himself.”

Samira had no love for the
donkey. He was stubborn and would nip her with his teeth if he got a chance,
but she wept to see him wandering away into the hills.

Papa and Benyamin took
everything out of the cart and spread it on the ground.

“Benyamin and I will carry
the food and the tools,” said Papa.