LAMA AND YUSUF PROTESTED AT HAVING TO MOVE again until Kenan promised them all the candy they want when we get to Germany. Now they’re settling in one of the rooms that’s been put aside for the children whose family members are at the hospital recovering.
The children there are already sleeping, a couple of them crying out occasionally and others restlessly kicking their legs. Kenan finds a space in a corner for Lama and Yusuf. Lama falls asleep as soon as Kenan sets her on the blanket. Yusuf lies beside her, his eyes as huge as an owl’s.
He glances at me and I smile. He looks away, and even in the dim light filtering through the opened door I can see his blush.
Kenan makes sure they’re both covered and warm before closing the door behind him.
“Aren’t you sleepy?” I ask, glancing at the hallway clock. It’s nearly ten p.m.
He shakes his head. “I can’t sleep while my wife works.”
There’s that word again. Wife.
He notices my flustered expression and grins. “Wife,” he repeats.
I stop, covering my face with my hands, unable to look at him without bursting into flames. He holds my wrists, dragging them away.
“Look at me,” he whispers.
“If I do, my heart might stop,” I reply, staring at the floor, and then looking over his shoulder and around us. “We can’t do this here. Anyone could walk by.”
He responds by taking my hand and walking us through the hallway. I feel like I’m supposed to feel in a might life. A teen sneaking away with the boy she loves, her heart racing. We reach the stockroom and he closes the door behind us, backing me against it.
He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t raise my chin, but he’s a breath away from me.
“Would you look at me now?” he asks. His voice is low and throaty, dancing over my skin. I look up at him and catch the amusement in his eyes. A peek of who he is when the revolution isn’t forcing him to build a shield and hide pieces of himself. The realization makes me laugh and he raises his eyebrows. “That wasn’t the response I was expecting.”
“You’re a flirt, aren’t you?” I chuckle.
He shakes his head, laughing. “You’re just realizing this now?”
I give him a curious look.
“Salama, I’ve been flirting with you ever since we met,” he says. “I guess it was a bit too subtle.”
“Well, what else do you have up your sleeve?” I ask, feeling emboldened in the privacy of this room. This tiny place exists outside reality. As do all our times together.
A secretive smile plays on his lips, and he lowers his head. I instinctively close my eyes, waiting for his lips to touch mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he lays his forehead against the door right beside my ear and his body is flush against mine.
Somehow this feels more intimate.
It’s too hot under my sweater and I press myself firmly against the door until I’m sure I’m about to fuse with it.
“I’ve thought so much about the time stolen from us,” he whispers, and I nearly sigh. His voice is so close. “If things weren’t like they are, we’d be long married. I would take you all over Syria on a road trip. We’d visit every city and village. See the history that lives in our country. I’d kiss you on the beaches of Latakia, pick flowers for you in Deir ez-Zour, take you to my family home in Hama, have a picnic under the ruins of Palmyra. People would look at us and they’d think how they’ve never seen two people more in love.”
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I hope he never stops talking.
“I wanted so many things,” he says and rests his forehead on my shoulder. Melancholy drips from his tone. “But meeting you, loving you… you made me realize how life can be salvaged. That we deserve to have happiness in this long night.”
Finally, he leans back and gazes at me so tenderly I might actually start
weeping.
“Thank you for being my light,” he whispers.
And this time, I don’t wait for him to kiss me.
I link my arms around his neck, pulling him in. The kiss is sweet, and it fills me with hope for a future where I’ll wake up in his arms, no nightmares dragging us down. Just us in a house we made into a home with a flowering garden and half-filled sketchbooks.
He tilts my chin up, staring deeply into my eyes, and says, “We’ll be
okay.”
“Insh’Allah,” I whisper.
We pass by Dr. Ziad when we go into the atrium holding hands. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles at us and rushes to check on a patient. I guess seeing me leaning on someone for support is putting him at ease.
That night, Kenan becomes an assistant, helping me around the hospital.
He’s a quick learner, and after showing him how to change bandages without wasting gauze, he’s able to do it on his own.
We sneak glances at each other, smiling foolishly before looking back at our work, and it’s the strangest feeling.
When the rhythm at the hospital slows, Kenan and I sit on the floor against one of the walls, exhaustion finally overcoming us. All the beds are taken, so he gestures for me to lay my head on his lap, and I do, too bone- tired to feel flustered. I fall into a state of dissociation from reality, not quite asleep and not awake. Somewhere in between. It’s as if my mind and body aren’t able to fully rest.
Around the early hours of the morning a loud crash not far away jolts us all. Like shrapnel falling. Like a tank’s rifle puncturing a building. I clamber to my feet, heart in my throat, and Kenan wakes with a gasp.
“What’s happening?” he asks wildly.
“I don’t know.”
Another crash. This time closer, and the patients who can move scramble, fleeing to the walls and deeper into the hospital’s hallways.
Children cry and panicked voices echo against the ceiling.
“Kenan, get up,” I say in a hollow voice. Urgency swells in my heart.
“Now! We have to get Lama and Yusuf.”
Whatever is happening outside, it’s coming here, and when it does it’ll leave the hospital in ruins.
