Home Is Beyond the Mountains (3 page)

“I'll wrap some clothes in
the quilt and strap it to my back,” said Samira. “The quilt might keep us
from freezing at night.”

Mama said nothing. She would
carry Maryam, who could only walk a little distance now.

As they went on, Samira saw
more and more piles of household goods that had been left by people whose
carts had broken or whose animals had died. Iron pots and pottery bowls,
rugs and quilts and stacks of clothes. Even sacks of grain. None of that
mattered as much as getting away to safety.

Now there was no pattern to
their days. They struggled up steep mountainsides and down again. Samira's
feet were sore and blistered. When they had to rest they ate some dried
fruit or stale bread. They drank water whenever they crossed a stream and
they slept when it was too dark to see the stones in the road.

Samira stopped noticing
anything but the path in front of her, but sometimes, among all the bundles
and dead animals that lay along the path, she could not help seeing a narrow
pile of earth where someone had been buried, or even a body wrapped in
pieces of cloth and left behind.

She asked Papa why these
people had died and he said, “Some were not strong enough for this journey.
Now they say a fever has broken out.” His eyes went to Maryam who hardly
ever walked now and had grown so thin that Mama had no trouble carrying her
all day. Samira felt a new knot of fear in her chest.

One day they came to a river
too deep to wade across. There was a bridge strung on ropes between the high
banks. It was narrow and made of small sticks that looked as if they might
break under a traveler's weight. It swayed above the rushing water, and even
before she stepped on the bridge Samira felt herself sway, too.

“Look at that big rock on
the other side of the river,” said Benyamin sharply. “Don't look at the
water.” He took hold of the strap that held her pack to her back. “I'll
catch you if you fall. Don't look down.”

“If I fall, you'll fall,
too,” thought Samira, but she didn't say it out loud. She could feel her
brother behind her as she clung to the ropes at the sides of the bridge and
stepped from one stick to the next.

When they both stood on the
hard earth at the other side of the river, she knew that they had crossed
safely because they were together

Mama and Papa caught up with
them, and Samira forgot her relief. Papa was carrying Maryam. When he laid
her gently on the ground she didn't try to get up. Samira could see that her
sister's face was flushed and her eyes were bright with fever.

Papa put his hand on her
forehead.

“She's very hot,” he said,
and his voice was deep with sadness. Mama knelt and took Maryam in her arms
and looked helplessly around her.

Back in their village there
were wise people who knew of herbs that might help a little girl with a
fever. Or a doctor might come from the city to see her. Here there was
nothing.

They stayed by the river all
day and bathed Maryam with cool water. Benyamin made a little tent with the
quilt to shelter her from the glaring sun. People coming by offered them
water and a little food, but no one could give real help.

When night came Samira fell
asleep, exhausted by sorrow.

She woke in the early dawn
and turned to look at her small sister, but Maryam lay perfectly still, and
Mama's shawl covered her face.

At home when someone died,
there was weeping and wailing. The priest came and mourned with the family.
There was a funeral in the church.

Here none of this could
happen, except the weeping. Even that was hard. It was so strange to be here
on this wild mountainside by a dusty road when something so terrible had
happened. Samira couldn't feel what was the right thing to do.

But Papa said, “We will bury
her properly. We will dig a grave for Maryam.”

In his pack he had a knife
with a strong blade. Now he used it to chip a hole in the hard earth.
Benyamin scooped the dirt away with his hands. They labored together until
the grave was dug. Then they laid small Maryam, wrapped in her mother's
shawl, carefully in the ground.

Mama had hardly said
anything this whole time, but now she said a prayer.

“Lord, we give our daughter
and our sister, Maryam, into your hands. Take care of her and love her.
Amen.”

All the time they were
burying Maryam, people were passing by on the road. Some bowed their heads
but no one stopped. So many had died that everyone who passed was carrying
sadness and must still go on. Samira and her family stood around the grave
for only a few minutes. Then they, too, had to walk on.

After a few more days the
straggling line of refugees came out into a wide valley. The walking was
easier and for a short time the people felt relief, but then word began to
spread that Turkish soldiers were coming.

“They're looking for men who
were part of the Assyrian and Armenian forces that protected us as we set
out,” one old man told Papa. “But the war has taken their senses and they
see us all as the enemy.”

There was no place to hide
in that open land and so people just kept going. They could see that there
was a narrow pass leading into the next mountains. If they could reach that
place they might be able to find shelter.

Then a horseman came
galloping. He called out, “Soldiers are coming. They're shooting at the men
and the boys. You must hurry.”

Samira's mother looked at
her son and her husband. “You can go faster without Samira and me. Go ahead.
Hide in the mountains. We will find you when we reach the
mountains.”

There was no time to talk.
Papa touched Mama and Samira on the shoulder.

“We'll wait for you at the
next river,” he said. Then he and Benyamin began to run.

The soldiers came. They came
on horseback, galloping and firing their rifles into the air. When they saw a
man or a tall boy, they shot at him. Some they hit and some they missed.
They rode all the way along the long line of people and then disappeared
into the mountains.

Samira did not look around.
If she did she would see men and boys, hurt and dying. She looked ahead to
the mountains, just as she had looked at the rock when she was crossing the
swaying bridge.

Mama and Samira reached the
mountain pass. They kept going, looking always for Papa and Benyamin, but
they didn't find them. There was nothing to do but walk, stopping to sleep
when tiredness overtook them.

One night they came to a flat
field where many people had stopped for the night.

“It's good to be among so
many,” Mama said, and they rolled themselves in the quilt and went to sleep.

Samira was wakened by the
sound of a voice. It was a small voice and it wavered, but she could hear
what it was saying. “Mama, Mama.”

Samira sat up and looked
around. Half a moon was shining, and all around her she could see people
lying as if they had dropped from exhaustion. No one else seemed to hear the
faint voice, but Samira kept searching with her eyes until she saw a little
figure wandering unsteadily among the sleeping people.

It was a little girl, she
was sure. A little girl who had lost her mother in this nameless place.

She was just thinking that
she should tell Mama when her mother opened her eyes.

“Maryam?” she said. “Maryam,
is that you?”

Samira couldn't breathe.
What could she say? But then her mother was sitting up.

“That child is lost,” she
said and stood up. She made her way between the sleepers until she came to
the little girl. Then she knelt and said, “I'll help you find your
mama.”

She took the little girl by
the hand and they walked together. Samira could see her mother bending to
talk to the child and knew she was asking, “Is that your mother there? Or
there?”

Samira found herself praying
without thinking about it.

“Let her be alive,” she
prayed. “Let her mother be alive.”

It seemed that she had been
praying for a long time but maybe it was only a few minutes when one of the
sleeping people suddenly stood up as if she had been pulled from the ground.
She reached out her arms and the little girl ran into them.

Samira's mother watched for
just a moment. Then she came back to Samira and put her arms around her.

“She is with her mother
now,” she said. And then she lay down and went to sleep. Samira slept, too,

In the morning Samira and
Mama smiled at each other remembering the little girl, but as the days went
on Mama grew weak and feverish. Each night Samira tried to find a sheltered
place for them to sleep, and as they walked she let her mother lean on her.
She didn't know what else to do.

She was wondering how much
longer her own strength would last when a woman came by in a small wagon
pulled by a mule. She stopped when she saw Mama stumbling and came over to
her. Samira saw that she was not Assyrian, but she spoke Syriac to Samira.

“Your mother is very ill,”
she said to Samira. “I'll take you to the next camping place. There may be a
doctor there. I'm from the American mission in Urmieh. We hoped we could
help on this terrible journey and sometimes we can do a little. Come. We'll
make your mother as comfortable as we can.”

In the wagon Samira could do
nothing but sit beside Mama and hold her hand. All day they jolted over a
rocky road, and Samira tried to talk to Mama, to tell her that the journey
would end soon. But her mother didn't answer, and as the last rays of the
sun slanted across the rough land, Samira saw that her mother had died.

She crawled up to the front
of the wagon and spoke to the kind woman.

“My mother is gone,” she
said.

The woman stopped the mule
and went to Samira's mother.

“Yes, she is gone,” she said
quietly. “Oh, my poor child.” She put her arm around Samira for a moment.
Then she said, “We'll find a place to lay her to rest.” She took off the
shawl she was wearing and wrapped it around Mama.

Samira got back into the
wagon and sat by her mother as the woman drove a short way until they
reached a place where a river must flow after a rain. Now there was just a
narrow stream between steep rocky banks.

The woman said, “We must
leave your mother here above the river. Maybe some day we can come back and
bury her as we should. Perhaps you can remember the name of the village
nearby. It is called Sain Kala.”

Two men came with a shovel
and made a grave. When Mama was buried, the woman went with Samira to gather
rocks to put on the grave so that animals couldn't dig it up.

She stood beside Samira and
bowed her head and said a small prayer. Then she said, “Amen.”

“Amen,” said Samira. After
that she did not speak.

It was dark now and the kind
woman found her another wagon to ride in the next day, explaining that she
must go back along the road to find others who needed help. Later other
people took her into wagons or walked with her, but Samira didn't know who
they were or where she was on the journey.

At every river she looked
for Papa and Benyamin, but they were never there.

Samira did not count the
days, but afterwards she heard that the long, terrible journey took
twenty-eight days. Or thirty. No one knew for sure, but at last the people
who were walking came to a place where there were soldiers and tents. Samira
could hear voices around her saying “Hamadan” and “British army.” She
stopped walking and stood still.

A man in a uniform came up
to her. Samira thought he must be a British soldier. He gave her a piece of
strange hard bread and a tin cup of water. When she had drunk the water he
took the cup and gave her a handful of raisins.

Then he said, “Syriac?”

Samira nodded. Yes, she
spoke Syriac.

The man took her by her
shoulders and said two words. They meant, “Your people.” Then he pointed her
toward a large group of people under some chinar trees. They seemed very far
away, but the soldier gave her a little push and turned to someone else with
his bread and raisins.

As Samira walked toward the
group she saw many women and children and only a few men sitting in little
groups, just waiting. They were so dusty that they almost seemed to be part
of the earth. A few stood and watched the soldiers send one person after
another toward them.

As someone new approached,
one of these people would call out a question.

Soon Samira could hear the
words. “What village?”

She stopped, confused. A
woman came toward her. She looked very old and her clothes were so dirty
that Samira could not see the color of the fabric. But her eyes were bright
and she spoke kindly.

“Dear child,” she said. “You
are alone. Can you tell me what village you come from? Perhaps there is
someone else from that village with us here.”