I OPEN THE FRONT DOOR OF KENAN’S APARTMENT and walk in like a possessed body. This doesn’t feel right. I need to be with Layla.
“How’s your sister-in-law?” Kenan asks, coming out from the kitchen.
“She didn’t pick up the phone.” I swallow hard.
“Keep it,” he says, reading my fear. “And try again.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He nods and I stand by the wall, trying to soothe my agitated nerves.
The afternoon’s hazy orange glow begins to dwindle, and it drags the harsh cold breeze inside Kenan’s half-destroyed apartment. I shiver, pressing my lab coat tighter to me. Kenan notices and, with his brother’s help, hangs a gray wool blanket from either side of the hole, trying to minimize the frigid air’s reach.
“Thank you,” I murmur, and he smiles at me, shaking his head.
He goes into one of the rooms, lugs out an old mattress, and hauls it across the floor. His brother casts me shy glances, his cheeks hollow and his wrists bony. He looks a bit like Kenan, though his eyes are a lighter shade of green and his hair a darker shade of brown. Two characteristics he shares with his sister.
“So, we put the mattress beside Lama. I thought you’d feel more comfortable not being alone tonight.” Then Kenan says quickly, as if trying to get the words out as fast as he can: “If you want, you can have any of these rooms. Yusuf and I will be awake the whole night. But if you need anything or just—”
“You’re right,” I interrupt. “She’s still feverish, and I want to make sure she’ll be fine. I won’t be able to sleep either. Your brother should, though. It doesn’t make sense for the whole house to stay awake.”
He doesn’t argue with me and whispers something to Yusuf, brushing
his hair back. Yusuf barely reaches Kenan’s chin, and he looks up at his older brother adoringly before slipping inside his room.
I’m glad someone will be sleeping, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to this far away from Layla. I wander to the mattress and sit beside Lama, checking her temperature. She’s still a bit too warm for my liking, but I’m hoping the antibiotics will bring her back. I wipe her brow with a wet cloth, remembering how Mama used to do it for me when I was sick. Her gentle fingers, her encouraging words when I downed a glass of squeezed lemons.
“Bravo, te’eburenee,” she used to say, her cool palm on my sweat- slicked forehead. “I’m so proud of you. Yalla, drink it all. Kill all those germs.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. No. I’m not going there.
“How is she?” Kenan asks, sitting down on Lama’s other side.
I manage a smile. “Despite the fever, her breathing is better. I’m
optimistic.”
“Alhamdulillah.”
He hands me a halloumi sandwich, and I’m surprised. Bread and cheese don’t come easy. I notice he doesn’t have one.
“You’re our guest,” he says, and I can’t help but wonder what this’ll cost them.
“I can’t take this. Give it to your brother.”
“No, he already has one. If you don’t eat it, I’ll throw it away, and then no one will. So please, don’t fight me on this.”
It would sound like an empty threat coming from anyone else, but he doesn’t look like he’s joking around. His eyes are obstinate, holding no room for negotiation.
I let out a sigh and break it in half, holding out the bigger one. “Take it.”
He shakes his head.
“If you don’t take it, I will throw it away right now, and no one will eat
it.”
He laughs and takes it.
“That wasn’t too hard, was it?”
“I’m pretty sure my parents’ souls are glaring at me from Heaven right now for accepting. But I was outwitted.” He laughs again. His glance falls to my hands, to my scars, just for a second. My stomach goes hollow and I pull my sleeves over them. The action doesn’t go unnoticed, but he doesn’t
say anything.
“One has to be smart in these times,” I say, trying to enforce a casual tone to my voice.
Dusk has turned the sky into a deep pink flecked across the blue. After we finish our food, he calls his brother and we pray together. Kenan begins reciting verses from the Quran in a beautiful melodic tone. I feel hypnotized by each word, drinking in their meaning, feeling them bring peace and serenity to every cell in my body, washing away the sorrows. I can’t remember the last time I was so at peace, nearly empty of worry.
After prayer, I check on Lama. No change.
Kenan brings out a few candles, lights them up, and thanks to the blanket covering the hole in the wall, they don’t go out. I excuse myself to go to the washroom to freshen up and try to call Layla again, with no success.
She’s fine, I repeat to myself as I massage my scalp and splash water on my face to calm down.
When I go back into the living room, Kenan is beside his sister, and I take the opposite side of the mattress. A laptop is on the ground near him with the screen turned off.
“When will we know if she’ll be totally okay?” he asks, dabbing her forehead with a cloth.
“Cephalexin takes about ten to twenty-four hours to reach a steady concentration in the blood. Tomorrow, insh’Allah, she’ll be all right.”
He looks at me. “You sure do know a lot about medications.”
I shrug. “It’s my job.”
“Yeah, but you know the timings and stuff by heart without hesitation.
That’s got to be an advanced level.”
“It is.” I feel myself coloring up and avert my eyes to the window beside us, focusing on the blue morphing to black. It finally dawns on me that I’m spending the night at a boy’s house. Under extraordinary circumstances, yes, but it’s still happening. My hands become clammy, and I try not to imagine Layla’s eyes widening at this juicy piece of information. The most scandalous thing anyone I know has done was when Hamza kissed Layla’s hand after their Al-Fatiha. And they weren’t even formally engaged. It was a pre-engagement party. I teased Hamza about it endlessly until he flicked my nose, red in the face.
And now here I am, sitting on the living room floor with a boy mere feet away from me.
“You still remember all this information even after graduating?” Kenan asks suddenly, and I glance up, registering the tone he’s using. He’s trying to distract himself and, in turn, me, from the awkwardness of this situation.
I clear my throat, and the voices go quiet in my mind.
“I didn’t graduate. I had just begun my second year when—you know.” I don’t tell him I stopped going when protests broke out at our university and the military arrested dozens of my classmates. I don’t know him well enough.
“I finished my second year last year. Bachelor’s in computer science. I had dreams of becoming an animator. Everything was going perfectly,” he muses, nodding his chin toward the laptop. “Ironically, with all that’s happened, I have so many stories to tell. To be animated into movies.”
“You mean like the Hayao Miyazaki ones?”
“Exactly like that,” he says, stunned. “You know him?”
“I’m obsessed with his movies.”
He straightens up, eyes shining with excitement. “Me too! Studio Ghibli is my goal. That place is where ideas and imaginations run wild. They weave stories like magic there.”
His enthusiasm stirs something in my heart. “That sounds beautiful,” I murmur.
He closes his eyes, smiling. “A silver lining.”
There’s an honest joy in his voice, but for the first time tonight, I can see his real face behind the fragments he’s had to glue back together over and over again. He looks broken, and my heart hurts for him. But he also feels so familiar.
I shake my head and ask him bluntly, “Have we ever met?”
His eyes snap open, surprised.
“How do you mean?” he replies slowly.
“It may be nothing.” I play with the hem of my sweater. “But I think I’ve seen you before. Not around the hospital but… somewhere else.”
My voice trails the last words like a question. He bites his lip, and I can’t read the look on his face. The eagerness has dissolved into something else. Confusion? Incredulity? Pity? I don’t know.
Suddenly Khawf appears by the front door and slowly glides closer.
Sweat breaks out at the back of my neck.
“I… um…” Kenan clears his throat, scratching the floor with his hand.
“We’ve never met.”
Huh.
“Must be in my head, I guess,” I say, playing it off as a common mistake and trying not to let Khawf’s presence unnerve me. “You must look like someone I know or treated.”
He nods, but it’s plain as day: There’s something more going on.
“What’s your last name?” I ask loudly, and he jumps from his spot. In a way, everyone knows everyone in Homs by their family names. My grandmother could recite a person’s entire family history if they told her their last name. She’d know who their grandfather was, what their aunt studied at university, which other families they were related to. She’d name it all, dissecting the line like a scientist analyzing a cell under a microscope.
This is a specialty shared by all Syrians.
He smiles. “Aljendi.”
That’s a well-known family name that many share. I rack my brain, trying to remember if Mama ever mentioned an Aljendi, and come up blank.
Khawf narrows his eyes and impatiently brushes down his suit before taking out a cigarette. Khawf doesn’t care where we are. There’s nothing else for me to do except ignore him, focusing on Kenan and Lama and praying he doesn’t torment me. I can’t question my grip on reality with Kenan and his sister right here. I can’t lose myself tonight.
“Your sister was amazing today,” I begin. Khawf raises his eyebrows. “I haven’t met many nine-year-olds who could have gone through that and still been able to smile at their brothers.”
“Yeah, she’s a tough one.” He gently caresses her hair to the side.
“Always has been. I think she hates herself for screaming so much, which
shows you how much pain she was in.”
I feel guilty. “I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t trying to blame you! It must have been hard on you too.”
“Ask him again. Where do you know him from?” Khawf interjects,
blowing out silver smoke.
I continue ignoring him.
“Do it, and I won’t bother you again tonight.”
Please go away, I beg in my mind.
“Are you really satisfied with that stutter of a reply? Any fool would know he’s hiding something. What if it’s bad? What if it’s something that could harm you?”
I shoot him a furious look. He doesn’t seem abashed in the slightest.
“You’re here, all alone, for the whole night. And even if Layla knew where you were, how much help do you think a pregnant girl would be? All you have is your scalpel.” He straightens, eyeing Kenan up and down. “And judging by his physique, even though you’re both starving, he could overpower you in five seconds. Three, if you don’t resist.”
The back of my neck breaks out in sweat. Why does he do this to me?
Wedge every doubt and dread in my brain until all I can think about is what he’s saying.
Kenan Aljendi. His name sounds so familiar. Where have I heard it before?
“He knows you,” Khawf presses on. “He recognized you. That gives him the upper hand. I bet he already knew your name. He didn’t ask you
about your last name.”
Shit, he has a point.
I clear my throat. The rational part of my brain knows Kenan won’t harm me, but the other part is annoyed he’s hiding something.
“Kenan. I’m sorry, but I feel like we really have met.” I leave no room for negotiation in my tone.
The candlelight flickers across his clouded eyes.
“I told you we haven’t,” he insists.
I stare at him, my gaze turning colder by the second. “I’m pretty sure we have.”
He sighs loudly and stands. My body instantly goes into defense mode, but the surgical bag is a bit far away for me to grab a scalpel from. Even if I were to stand, he’d still be much taller than me, and I hate that. I should have listened to my gut and walked home, snipers and all.
Calm down!
“I’m not lying, Salama, when I say we haven’t met.” He turns around to look at me. Khawf enjoys this immensely, glancing from me to Kenan and back to me.
“Then?” I feel vulnerable from my place on the floor.
“We haven’t met because we never got the chance to.”
You know what? I’m going to stand too.
“Can you please stop talking in code?”
He looks at me pointedly. “We were supposed to meet for coffee about a
year ago.”
Coffee.
Friday.
Layla’s blue kaftan.
“Oh my God,” I breathe, putting the pieces from over one year ago
together. “You were—”
“I was, but life changed.”
“You were going to come to my house for that marriage talk thing!” I
finally splutter out.
Khawf gasps and claps his hands.
