Like Sand on the Breeze

At first, I strove to forget. I called it “that place”. The swaying pine trees on the sandy, dry land seemed too distant to be called home. The smiles on the tanned faces now presented themselves as injurious. How could they? How could they have smiled when ho… that place would be shaken by its roots, when the pine trees would burn and fall from the sky like boulders rolling off a cliff? When the frozen faces stared at the sky with eyes that would never see, and the whizzing bombs filled the air like a twisted symphony of destruction?

So I forgot. I stared lifelessly as dozens of broken families clung to imaginary bodies. I nodded at the rare, concerned questions. “Are you okay?” No. “Yes.” I followed the flock of wandering souls, step after step, city after city, in search of one that would greet us with open arms and say, “Welcome home.” But home- home sounded like a word from another language. A set of discordant syllables only there to hurt whoever heard them. So I forgot, and accepted without a flinch the murmurs of rejection (“they don’t belong”, “make them go home”), the whispers of incomprehension (“Mummy, why are they so dirty?”, “Hush, darling, they have no home”), the looks of pity plastered on the same faces that told us no.

“I’m so sorry about the bombings, it could not be helped.”

“Poor, poor refugees. They must feel so lonely.”

I shrugged. For me, that place was now on another planet.

But as I lived on, as I adjusted to life After, the shadow of uncertainty crept around me again. It prowled and brushed its smooth, black fur on the edges of my consciousness. Its padded paws prodded my wakeful hours, and I knew forgetting was going to be more difficult than to simply stop calling it home.

I had to get away. Away from the dry, arid land, away from the pine trees that reminded me too much of that place, away, away, away. So I took the boat, the gigantic travel ship filled with hopes and promises of shelter. I climbed on what they called the Saviour. The route to another land, where the stakes were too high to be bombed, where the oak trees swayed in the wind and the wet grass was scattered with flowers. They called it Dream-land, Safe Haven, Europe. Some even called it their future home. I called it Away.

Crammed in a gymnasium overflowing with tanned faces and broken promises, one has too much time to think. Even after the French lessons and lunch hours, one is too free to forget. Frustration built up in me each time I overheard a conversation about home (that wretched, wretched word), each time someone said Syria, war, bomb. Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t they see that all this never existed, that it was gone forever, blown away like sand on a desert breeze?

They quickly learned to avoid the path of my glare.

           

And yet, it hurt. I realised this the third week of this gymnasium life. It hurt so much. The more I stayed Away, the more pieces I found of my broken memories in the tired smiles lucky mothers gave their children, in the chattering of fellow refugees, even in the way we all sat down for lunch. I desperately wanted this, but I also wanted to forget. I wanted warm comfort, but I wanted numbing cold. I wanted Away, but I also wanted that pl… home.

Glaring was easier than crying.

           

Gradually, I learned to fit in. I learned to speak, to act, to eat. But it took me far longer to learn to hope.

           

The welfare workers told me how gifted I was, how quickly I learned, how fast was my progress. I nodded, and even managed to smile. Contrary to what I expected, it felt good. Smiling with them felt liberating, like fulfilling a long unanswered promise.

           

The first time I was invited to a job interview, my personal welfare assistant –Sandra - laughed aloud and clapped her hands together. Her ringing voice swept off the dust like the opening of a withered old book. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “You’ll be off to work in no time.” Another smile. Pride- pride was better than pity. It suggested a purpose, something to aim for which was not related to that place, and yet brought up the same feeling it used to bring- comfort, familiarity, accomplishment.

           

If Sandra heard the soft laugh coming out of my throat, she did not mention it. It was the first laugh since that place.

//

           

“Are you sure about this?” Sandra asked, steaming teacup in hand. I clutched the piece of folded paper on my lap. The cool afternoon sunlight filtered through the crack of the emerald curtains and brushed my cheek with a tender, almost encouraging caress. The reassuring murmurs of the fridge- my fridge, my house- enveloped the room with placid tranquillity.

           

“You don’t have to do this,” she tried again. A tentative smile attained her lips, while I returned it with a warm gaze. The first few years of my coming to this country had built a connection between us that we both acknowledged implicitly.

           

“I’m ready, Sandra. I’m not the lost refugee on that crowded boat anymore. I need to do this.”

           

Sandra glanced unsteadily at the paper in my hands.

“It’s not that. It’s just- I don’t want to see you broken again. Ever. I’m not sure it’s really worth it.”

           

“Sandra. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to let me go. I need to find- some sort of… of closure. Please.”

           

The silence stretched out. Outside, a bird chirped on the branches of the sturdy oak tree.

           

“Fine. But let me go to Syria with you.”

           

Staring at the destroyed village, I had to repeat to myself, “You wanted this. You knew very well what was here. You needed this.”

           

A hand squeezed my own, and I gave a half-smile, swallowing around the lump in my throat.

           

“I…” The croak that came out was quickly covered. “I missed this. I miss them.”

           

Sandra smiled tiredly, her eyes shimmering. Then she glanced down and the tiniest breath exited her lips. She crouched and plucked a tiny blue flower from a patch of dried up leaves.

           

And we sat there, breaths relaxed and shallow as the sun started to colour the sky with elegant brushstrokes of red and gold. We could almost feel the pine trees and the tanned faces with a smile, the remnants of the past brushing through the dry breeze.

           

“Let’s go home,” Sandra whispered.

           

And I followed.


-©Estelle Wallis, May 2019