“I never wanted to become a refugee. I have always, always wanted to become a writer. There is nothing I love more than writing. To be able to put my feelings on paper is my greatest pleasure. My thoughts are full of memories of my birthplace. I was born in Syria, a country whose name will not be forgotten. And a country whose citizens will never forget how they had to flee their motherland.
Now that I live in New York, many fresh experiences have overtaken the old ones. But the fact is, new memories can only overlap the old ones. They cannot erase them away. And why should they? Wounds get healed. Scars remain. As human beings, we ought to remember the worst we have done to humankind. Then we should ponder on the consequences of it. Is that the world we work so hard to create?”
With those lines, the chapter of the story which I was reading came to an end. I closed the book. I wanted to read further, but my eyes strained, and my wife Sharon called me for dinner.
The next day was Thanksgiving, and my in-laws had invited Sharon and me for dinner.
“You have been reading the book since yesterday and at an insane stretch. Give yourself a break, Yusuf. It is good that we will be going to mom’s place tomorrow,” said Sharon, as we ate dinner.
“I will have completed this book by then, ” I replied, “It can leave me with some hangover though.”
“Why are you so obsessed with this story? You write fiction now, don’t you? Your books are doing great. Do not brood over an old story.”
“It is a brilliant book. I feel overwhelmed by the story. I am glad that I did not write it.”.
That night, I could not sleep well. I saw dreams of flying kites with a teenage boy. He was my son in the dream. The face of the boy was similar to the face I had seen a few years ago, at a place far away, in a refugee camp. The day at the camp remains in my memory more strongly than any dream ever could.
It was all about the boy. It was all about his story…
“I am not a refugee like you. I am an immigrant.” This was my reply to Umaid, a fourteen-year-old boy who I met at the refugee camp in Jordan. He was surprised to know that I too was from Syria but didn’t have to flee my country.
I explained to him the meaning of being an immigrant and told him that I had left my country almost twenty years ago and now lived in New York.
It was the month of May 2017, and I was visiting a children’s refugee camp in Jordan with my wife and a couple of our friends. We were volunteers and spent the day distributing hygiene packs to the refugees. We toured the place, the facilities, and the art centre and talked to all the children.
The ground was full of gravel and dust. The sky was clear and windy, and the camp was full of tarpaulin tents that consumed the land with patches of beige and grey. The colourful kites soaring in the sky were the only thing cutting the monotony of the pale hues spread across the camp. That and the neon green jackets which we had to wear as volunteers.
My reply had created a depth of emotions in Umaid’s eyes and I could see a glint of jealousy in them. We had spoken to many kids that day, but that boy was unique.
While my wife Sharon was more interested in listening to the anecdotes of almost every child, especially girls, I was taken completely by Umaid and his story. After all, I was there primarily to hunt for stories of the Syrian war from the perspective of its child victims and in that measure, this boy had proved to be most opinionated and imaginative.
“So you ‘chose’ to leave the country which I was ‘forced’ to leave,” he contemplated, as we both sat cross-legged, on a mat, outside a tent.
“You can say so. But we both left for the same reason, didn’t we? To have a life we couldn’t have there,” I said.
“Sir, I just wanted to have a life. It is not the same,” he declared.
I had asked him to call me Yusuf but he was more comfortable with the formal expression.
“Well, you are right. But now that you are alive and out of the mess, you must look forward to the future.”
“Is that even possible, Sir?” He implored, “Every year during the holy month of Muharram, Muslims all over the world ‘look back to those days when Imam Hussain and his family suffered and died. Why do they look back? Why don’t they all look forward and move on?”
I was stunned by the remark, and I had no response to it.
Instead, I just told him that I had never observed Muharram in New York.
“But history is not changed by the fact that a few people don’t acknowledge what happened in the past,” he said. “Perhaps you are judging me wrongly. By not observing a festival or custom, I do not mean that I can’t see any truth in it, or that I am not religious, or have forgotten what happened in the past. It only means that I cannot change what has occurred, I can simply pray that nothing like that happens again.”
“Prayer is the last resort of the most helpless person. Are you the most helpless person?” He asked and looked at me with scrutinising eyes.
I was there to interview him, but it felt like we had exchanged roles. I rolled my eyes and confessed to him that I failed to try to be in his good books. I didn’t understand whether he was religious or had given up on religion.
“I only want to know your feelings as it is and not debate them,” I said, “ I don’t hold anything against your opinion, Umaid. I’m here to hear your story.”
“You are not the first volunteer to ask me for my story. For you all, it is like reading a book. You come across a story, you empathise and try to relate to it and as you move on to a new story, you forget all about it.”
“That’s not true. We honestly feel for you. We go back and share these stories, we try to create awareness about refugee camps and how wars lead to the destruction of young lives.” I told him the truth but not the complete one. I didn’t tell him I was writing a book on it. I feared it would make him more hostile towards me.
“Then why harass only me? There are other kids here too. Go talk to them.” He snapped.
“I have heard them. None of them is as smart as you are.”
“I was the brightest student in my class. Sir Nadeem loved me and praised me all the time.”
“I’m sure you are praiseworthy. What happened to Sir Nadeem?” I asked.
“The same thing which happened to my parents. The bombs took him away. It is ironical, almost funny.”
“What is?”
“Sir Nadeem was passionate about science and technology. He would talk highly of scientific research and developments and would sneer at religion and its backwardness. He would always see science and religion as being rivals to each other. He believed that religion created wars. Ironically, he was killed by a bomb. Religion might have created wars but it was science which provided the weapons.”
“Quite true,” I said, impressed by his thoughts, “So do you remember how it felt like when you could hear the bombs going down on the houses around you?”
“I do. We all do. None of us can forget,” he said without giving me any glimpse into his past life any further- who he lived with, what his dreams were and how he was rescued.
He was not reluctant to share his opinions but very meticulous at hiding his emotions and personal experiences related to the war. And that was exactly what I needed to pour into my book.
“Can you be specific about what exactly happened in Syria and how you felt?” I asked.
“Have you read the book ‘The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank?” He suddenly went off topic.
“Yes, I have. It is a famous book,“ I said.
“It is my favourite book. I have felt mostly like Anne described her feelings in the book. She was about my age when she was writing it.”
“I can understand. But surely it cannot be exactly like her. Your lifestyles were different, your circumstances were different.” “But we both had to live in fear. Fear of being killed, fear of losing our family, fear of losing hope in humanity.”
“And have you lost hope in humanity?”
“I have been thinking about it but have not come to any conclusion,” he said and stood up.
I asked him to sit and talk more. He said he needed some air and walked away. I waited for him.
Finding me alone, Sharon left her group of children and came to me. She passed me a packet of the biscuits she was eating, and I pulled out one from it. I informed her that the boy was a hard nut to crack.
“There are so many kids out here. They are sharing their traumatic stories. You should come and listen. If this boy is not interested in sharing his feelings, why compel him?”
“I don’t know. There is something about how he describes stuff. He is an ideal protagonist.”
“They are not just characters of your book. They are real people. I have been so touched by their sorrows but you are just stressing over some content for your book,” she let out, reaching for my hand to pull me up.
“I’m affected too, Sharon. They are from my own country. But the book I’m writing will be significant for the lives of such children and many more.”
I stood up and walked to the other kids. I listened as they conversed with us. They were sharing what they dreamt to become- doctors, teachers, astronauts, they all had ambitions. I had forgotten to ask what Umaid wanted to become. A girl wanted to be a ballet dancer and when she learnt that Sharon knew ballet she was enthralled and started asking all about it. I heard them, I observed them, and their trauma moved me but I still felt restless because no one was as reluctant to speak their heart out as Umaid was.
The day was passing by and the shadows were changing their shapes. The children were to be called soon for lunch. So, I decided that I needed to lay down my cards in front of the boy to achieve what I had gone there for. I found him again and went straight to him to try to persuade him one last time. “Umaid,” I said, ”I’m a writer. I want to write a book on the stories and experiences of young refugees who lost their families in the Syrian wars. Your friends here have shared shocking incidents they had to go through but I’m more interested to know something from you. Your perspective is what I’m after- your story in your own words.”
He heard me and then gazed into the sky for a long time, his face drooped and his eyes welled up with tears. “You came from America to steal from young children, the only thing that they are left with. I, who have lost everything, every single entity that belonged to me have only one treasure to behold, have only one possession to secure- my story. And I’m not giving it to you,” He said and added in a loud voice, “I’m not letting my story become a piece of your story, Sir. My story will remain my story alone .”
As if injured by his audacity, he ran away into his tent. I was shaken and hurt, I had pushed him too far. Guilt-ridden and puzzled, I kept thinking about him back home.
By the end of the year, I published my book and there was no mention of anyone called Umaid in it. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t do so well in the market. Perhaps that’s why another book, published two years later made every other book about children refugees obsolete, and rightly so. And that is the same book I have been reading since yesterday.
Umaid wrote his autobiography as a diary, just like Anne Frank. His story remained his story. It was never meant to be my story. I could never steal it. I could never use it. But I could finally read it. I could finally feel it. And I could find a little piece of me in the story.
When I read the epilogue of the book, my lips twisted into a smile. It was as if the book’s writer spoke to me directly.
“A curious man had once asked me whether I had lost hope in humanity because of my experience. At that time I didn’t have an answer. Today I do. Every country must have a defence mechanism to protect itself from other countries. The day no country will need that security will be the day I will start having hope in humanity. The day a human will have no reason to fear another human, will be the day I will start having hope in humanity. We were born, and none by our own choices. We came to this world and had to adapt to it. And we will be forced to leave it, with no premonition, with no choice. God has sent us all into exile. As humans, no one is an immigrant. We are all refugees. We seek refuge in ‘tomorrow’ because we fail to create and choose a better today.”