Samia Ahmed

Orphans

Everyone said it: Rosaleem had eyes like the moon. When she was born, the midwife looked at her and said that she was the most beautiful child in all of Damascus. When Rosaleem’s mother first saw her daughter’s dewdrop eyes she turned towards her husband and said Rosaleem would become an actress. There were not a lot of ways to become an actress in Damascus. Cinema was under the government’s control. The chance to become an actress was exceedingly rare. But Rosaleem’s mother was hopeful, and she persisted. Rosaleem’s father felt so blessed after her birth that, for a week, he distributed honey and pistachio baklava at the mosque and invited everyone to dinner. So every night, even in her condition, Rosaleem’s mother would cook dinner for fifty people. 

As Rosaleem grew, her mother trained her to walk with her back straight and to sit with her knees together. It was important how she was seen in the world and Rosaleem understood that. She spent all her time with her mother. When guests asked her who her best friend was, she would point at her mother and then run towards her, taking in her smell. Her mother always smelled of roses—Rosaleem’s favorite smell—it filled her with safety and comfort. 

Rosaleem never had any blemishes. When she had a slight discoloration from the sun or the dirt, her mother would whip up a face mask made of turmeric and yoghurt and apply it on Rosaleem’s face till her skin glowed crystal again. Rosaleem was content in the small world her mother had created for her until she started going to school. 

In school, she had a hard time making friends. When she came home and complained about it to her mother, her mother said that was because everybody was jealous of what she had. Rosaleem never understood what she had. When she would voice this confusion to her mother, she would scold her and tell her to ask forgiveness from Allah, because thanklessness is a vice and Rosaleem could not afford to have a vice. 

By the time she turned thirteen, the seed of ambition had been sown deep inside Rosaleem’s mind. She had started dreaming of becoming a movie star. When she was in middle school, she decided to participate in a talent show. She prepared a monologue and learned all the lines by heart. Rosaleem’s mother had agreed to let Rosaleem borrow her makeup for the show and had ordered custom dresses from Dubai. On the day of the competition, Rosaleem’s mother fell sick, leaving Rosaleem on her own. To cheer her up, her Baba brought honey tulips—her favorite flowers—from his garden. Baba always did small things like that to cheer her up, especially if someone was mean to her in school. He would take her where the flowers would grow, where the almond and peach trees were in bloom. He would know just when and what to sow. Rosaleem always wondered how he was so good at it. He would feel the life of the flowers, so golden and opportune. Rosaleem would spend hours in the garden with her father, watching him work with every branch and leaf, handling it with care. 

Rosaleem gave the best performance of her life that day. She could see some audience members tearing up after her performance. After the show when they were waiting for the results to be announced, Roslaeem knew deep in her heart that she was going to win. Everyone else knew it too. Including Farid, one of Rosaleem’s classmates and the naughtiest boy in class. Rosaleem and Farid never got along and would always compete with each other. They would often get into fights and Farid would pull Rosaleem’s hair until she cried. A teacher had to step in to separate them. She was his biggest competition that day too. But Rosaleem was better than him that day and Farid did not take it well. So, when he saw her walk by him to get her award, he pushed her in a way that she fell nose-first in front of the whole school.

He said, “You don’t deserve to win anything.” This made Rosaleem tear up.

She wiped her tears before they would ruin her makeup, got up, and charged at Farid, who, when he saw her coming, called out for his friends. She was surrounded. Rosaleem knew that she could not take so many people by herself, so she started walking in the direction of the stage, ready to complain to one of the teacher. Farid blocked her way and said, “Go on, tell the teacher.” He continued, “But when you come back, you’ll have to deal with us.” 

Unlike Rosaleem, Farid had friends who had his back. The pain in Rosaleem’s heart grew. She did not understand the hate. She only wanted love. When she finally got up to get the award, she was in tears and her nose was bleeding.

Rosaleem performed at the local theater until she was sixteen. She was featured in a henna commercial once at seventeen and that was the end of her acting career. The impossibility of her dreams drove Rosaleem’s mother mad. She looked for every opportunity for an audition—a way in. But when the government killed the cinema, Rosaleem’s mother died with it. 

With her mother gone, Rosaleem had to take up the responsibility of the house. She cleaned, cooked, and took care of her Baba who had started spending more time in his garden, growing more detached over time. His only concern was to take care of his garden and for that, he needed more water, which was becoming scarce in Damascus. As summer days grew longer than ever, Baba travelled far to fetch pails of water on his old shoulder. He developed callouses where he rested the pails, but he won’t stop. 

Rosaleem took on a different role each day—daughter, chef, mother, caretaker. She had learned how to get the freshest produce from the market by saying the right things, how to entertain guests so that no one gets left out, how to act when there was a man in the house—shy and coy; don’t look at them straight in the eyes. And how to behave when the room only had women—you can be yourself as long as you aren’t too loud. 

Damascus had started to swell by then. The drought had forced people to travel from small villages into the heart of the town. Rosaleem saw the landscape of her city change. Makeshift homes grew overnight. Public places became more crowded. Every day someone would get into a fight over food or water. More rules were made to control crowds. Water and food became more expensive and life became cheaper. Slowly the city devolved into mayhem. There were flights happening every night, public places became unsafe for unaccompanied women. Then the soldiers came and they took over everything. Now they were everywhere, around every corner of the city, behind every tree and building. 

Then the government decided it was wrong for women to learn so Rosaleem had to drop out. Though she missed learning she did not miss the long walks. Rosaleem had started hearing gunshots at night which scared her further, so when the order came that she had to stay home, she happily complied. In the safety of her home, Rosaleem grew more beautiful each day. As a grown woman, Rosaleem had more restrictions on her, but that also meant she could be anyone. She would wear her black burkha every day and get out of the house. She could be a mean old woman or a young naïve girl behind the veil. No one would know, not even the soldiers. It was like her mother had trained her for this. Her favorite place was the spice market. The sweet smell of cardamom reminded her of her mother’s food. She loved how people would always cough when they crossed the chili shops and she never did because her nose was covered. There were so many colors around that the market had become a welcome distraction from the chaos.

One day at the market when she was trying to buy some onions, a boy cat-called her. Rosaleem knew that it was dangerous to reply because there were soldiers everywhere and if they saw her talking to a man she was not related to, they would take her away to God knows where. But the girl standing next to her did not share her fear. 

She looked at the boy and said, “Leave her alone. Don’t you have better things to do?” 

“It’s like you are everywhere Ruksana,” he replied.

Rosaleem looked between them, she could not see the girl’s face but she recognized her voice. Ruksana with beautiful kohl-lined eyes playfully slapped Farid’s elbow. It took a moment for Rosaleem to recognize Farid, who was also staring at her, looking into her eyes, trying to place them. Farid had continued to bully Rosaleem until she grew up. Then he stopped coming to school altogether, then the schools closed down. She sometimes missed his long brooding face and his unruly curls that bounced in the air. It had been five years since Rosaleem had seen Farid. He looked different to her, half-grown like a fruit plucked before it ripened. Farid had a beard that covered most of his face, hiding his youth behind religion. His beard did not go with his age. He stood awkwardly with one hand behind him and the other in his pocket. His curls were cut closer to his head so that they did not bounce anymore as if they had forgotten to dance in the wind. 

“I see you haven’t changed, Farid,” Rosaleem finally spoke. She had a smirk that Farid could not see but only imagine.

“You have,” he said. His voice was still developing into a man’s. 

“Wait till I complain about this to Abba, Farid,” Ruksana continued, “I am sorry, my brother is an excuse for a man. My name is Ruksana. Mashallah! You have beautiful eyes.” 

“Shukriya. That kohl in your eyes looks expensive, did you have it brought from somewhere?” Rosaleem asked in response.

“Yes,” said Ruksana. “My uncle lives in America and brings all the good stuff from there. Would you like to try some? I love makeup, maybe you can come by tomorrow and I will apply some in your eyes.” Rosaleem did not expect an invitation. But the thought of finally having a friend and the chance to perhaps see Farid every day was too difficult to turn down.

On one exceptionally dry day, the kind of day where the ground prays for rain, Rosaleem’s Baba went out to get some water for his dying tulip bushes and never returned. Rosaleem couldn’t even go out because it was only after sundown did it occur to her to go look for him. If she stepped out after dark should would be arrested. The next day when she did go out, she did not know where to go. Her city had completely changed. There was a clash between the rebels and the government. What started as a peaceful uprising had turned violent overnight. The two sides fought on the street and all Rosaleem could do was wait for it to get over. From her window, Rosaleem saw the revolution blossom and die, the same way her Baba’s garden bloomed and died.

Rosaleem started spending most of her time with Ruksana after that. She’d sit for hours in front of the mirror while Ruksana used product after product, recreating looks of Western celebrities. Sometimes, between sessions, they would go in Ruksana’s bathroom and smoke cigarettes Ruksana had stolen from Farid’s room and the girls would giggle and spill secrets. In a dying city, the little moments kept the girls sane. For Rosaleem, Ruksana was an escape. The emptiness of her house reminded her of the emptiness she felt inside. She missed her Baba most nights, but it was the memory of her sweet mother that made the grief of loneliness almost unbearable. 

Ruksana knew all the gossip around town. Like how Madiha had run away with Mobeen and how the difference in their financial status was an issue for their families. And how Farooq had a small crush on Ruksana even though he was her cousin and was betrothed to someone else. 

“Farooq looks at me funny,” Rukhsana said.

“Funny how?” Rosaleem asked.

“Like he stares at me longer than a person should.” 

Rosaleem wondered if she knew someone who stared at her longer than a person should. Farid did, she thought. Sometimes so intensely that she would have to look away. Her cheeks would burn. Rosaleem visited Ruksana every day and every day Farid would be there. Rosaleem always putting on a show of being a pious, shy girl. But Farid never looked at her like that. It was like, somehow, he could see past all that. He never spoke to her or said hello. Sometimes, he reminded Rosaleem of all the hate she received in school, but mostly Farid was a portal in time, a time when her mother was alive, and Baba was home, and when she was loved. A time when anything was possible. A time she wanted to live over and over again. 

Rosaleem survived on the kindness of friends and whatever she could get from food aid trucks. The violence had stopped in the city but danger persisted. Even when she visited Ruksana she would come back before sundown. One time while returning from Ruksana house Rosaleem saw someone standing in her father’s dead garden. She immediately hid behind an abandoned truck on the street and waited for the man to leave. The man was tall and lanky and wore a loose grey kurta that almost touched his toes. When he turned she saw a tulip on his lapel. His face was covered with a large scarf that he had wrapped around his mouth and head. She could only see his eyes that seemed to search for something.

The sharp contrast of the tulip amidst the chaos of the city attracted Rosaleem. And a strange thought crossed her mind. Is Baba back? Only he could find beauty in desolation, she thought. And of course, he would come back to his garden. Rosaleem felt warmth washing over her, she felt a sense of joy she hadn’t felt in so long that almost immediately she started walking towards the garden. 

“Baba?” she asked. Expecting him to turn around the hug her. 

“Are you looking for someone?” the man said and Rosaleem knew from the voice that it wasn’t her father.

“No,” she said. Rosaleem regretted what she had done. She did not know him. He could abduct her and no one will know. No one will come looking for her. She started going back in the house, if soldiers saw her talking to him they would take her.

“Wait,” he said. “What happened to the garden?” he asked.

Rosaleem stopped walking and turned towards him. “It died during the drought,” she said, still not sure if what she was doing was the right thing or not. 

“Hmmm..” he said. “I see…my name is Khalid. I see you come to the food truck often. I can help you if you want. I am a soldier.” Rosaleem hesitated. There was a strange kind of softness in Khalid. Like he did this often.

“You watch me?” she asked rather boldly.

“It can be hard for a woman,” he continued. “I know. I have a mother and a sister.” 

The fact that Khalid was a soldier could open avenues for her. Maybe he could help her find her Baba. Maybe he had seen her Baba in one of the jails. Rosaleem noded at him and said, “If you want to help, you know where I live.” With that, she went inside before it got dark.

“You were telling me about a dream,” Ruksana said one day during their smoking sessions. Ruksana’s bathroom had a half-broken window and some days when the angle was right, Rosaleem could catch a glimpse of the moon. She’d bath in the moonlight feeling like she was under a spotlight, performing for an audience. In these rare happy moments, Rosaleem missed her Baba the most. Khalid sent food for her sometimes and had promised her he would look for her Baba.

“Last night I had a dream that I was on stage and I was receiving an award for a role in a movie,” Rosaleem said, looking at the moon, whose tragic beauty reminded Rosaleem of her own life.

“How amazing. I never remember dreams,” Ruksana said.

“You know, I wanted to be an actress.” Rosaleem never spoke about the audition she missed because the soldiers had burned the producer’s studio.

“You would be so beautiful on screen,” Ruksana said.

Rosaleem sighed and looked at Ruksana. Damascus was not a place to be born if you wanted to be an actress. 

Rosaleem stopped dreaming when Damascus finally fell to the revolution. The mayhem, which was still under control by the soldiers, had now gone out of hand. Cities started falling. Military-grade trucks were brought into the heart of the city. There were bomb threats everywhere. Homes were destroyed, markets uprooted, and businesses closed. Damascus became a skeleton of a city in just a few weeks. 

One day, while Rosaleem was sleeping after a sleepless night of bomb threats she heard a loud knock on her door. The knocking was urgent so it wasn’t Khalid. He knocked twice, gently, and he knew how to let himself in. This was somebody else. Rosaleem wanted to hide and wait out until whoever was knocking went away. There was a knock again, this time louder. Rosaleem tiptoes to the window and found Farid leaning against her door. She felt a warm flush. She let him in without saying anything. When they were safely inside they were both quiet for sometime, neither making eye contact.

Then Rosaleem said, “You’re hurt.” She had seen the gash on his forehead when he first came in but she did not know what to say. He looked like he had just escaped combat.

Farid spoke in a shaky voice. He told her how he had gone out to find food and when he came back his family was gone. When he went out to look for them he almost stepped on a landmine. He was scared so he ran. It was a field of land mines he was running on and he did not even know. Then when he came to a stop he was outside her house. He did not even know if she would be at home.

“Do you know where they must have gone?” Rosaleem asked. She was still thinking about the land mine field and the image of Farid running through it.

Farid did not know. He did not even know where to look for them. 

Then, a piercing sound tore through the street followed by the clatter of gravel against concrete. Then smoke invaded the room they were in and Rosaleem knew they’d been hit and if they were hit once there was more to come.

“We need to go farther into the house if we want to survive this wave,” she said, and Farid followed her. 

After the missile monsoon was over, Rosaleem crawled out from under the bed to check if everything was alright. It was, except that there was a hole in their kitchen wall and the plastic tulip was on the floor, a layer of concrete dust had settled on it making it look like grey teardrops. 

“We need to get this wall fixed or find a place to sleep tonight,” Rosaleem said to Farid. “Farid we have to leave, we have been hit.”

They stepped out of the house. Their youth a stark contrast to the death around them as the two souls passed through deserted streets—streets that were once full of children and families. In one such alleyway, she saw a bearded man clad in a white kurta. He was looking up at something but in front of him was what used to be a mosque. He had some paper in his hands and from them, he read, “After the First Blast, all created beings shall bear for forty in barzakh. Then shall God quicken Seraphiel, and command him to deliver the Second Blast.” He repeated himself and Rosaleem thought if he was talking about her but when he repeated himself for the third time Rosaleem walked past him.

“We need to find food before sunset,” she said. Trying to walk with him as they made their way around mountains of concrete. Above, two fighter jets flew by, leaving a deafening echo. 

“We can go look for the food aid trucks,” he suggested.

“It’s going to be crowded and you know it’s not safe. These places have started getting attacked.”

Rosaleem sat down on one of the stone mounds while Farid paced in front of her. Farid had Ruksana’s shoulders, Rosaleem thought, as she looked at him pacing in front of her. His long stature complemented his shoulders because it made him seem like a protector. Behind him, Rosaleem saw a green minaret. It was unscathed by the airstrike and it gleamed in the sun. She remembered the minaret. It was the mosque her father took her to for Eid namaz when she was a kid. When women were ordered to stay indoors and not go out for namaz she would often look at the minaret and wonder what it would be like to be a man and do whatever she wanted.

“We should go see my friend Khalid,” she finally said. Khalid was the only one who could help find food and Farid’s family. 

Khalid was a little suspicious of Farid.

“Are you sure he isn’t a spy?” he asked.

Rosaleem laughed. “He is in a bad condition. He needs our help, I think.” 

Khalid found a place for them and brought food. Their room which was not a room, but a long hallway, had a very small window from which Rosaleem saw the sun just before it hid behind the mountains. They would stay here for a few days before they moved on to another place, another safe house, or if they found out a way to fix the wall of Rosaleem’s house. Rosaleem’s father had built it over the course of his lifetime and it took a second for it all to fall apart. How temporary life was, how uncertain. She had food now, but she had no idea where her next meal would come from. If she would even survive the night. 

Farid was pacing again.

“Come and share this bread with me, Farid,” she said, sitting cross-legged on a mat.

“I don’t like Khalid. I can’t bring myself to trust him. He is a soldier how do you trust him?” Farid said. “How do we know if this is safe?”

“Nowhere is safe, Farid. It is only safe as long as we stick together. He is my only friend and he has helped me plenty. After Baba…” Rosaleem looked away.

Farid stopped moving and joined her. Rosaleem could see Farid was trying hard not to look at her while they sat across from each other and shared a meal. The room was darker now. The sun had left them for a better morning somewhere. In a different place, in a different country, at a different time, this moment would have had a different meaning. Rosaleem couldn’t see Farid’s face, but his breathing had slowed down, he was still. She could see the shadow of his arm moving up and down as he broke the bread and took a bite of it. He didn’t say much to her, nothing kind but nothing bad either. He just hovered.

“What are you thinking?” Rosaleem asked.

“Nothing. I am just eating,” he said.

“That’s a lie,” she said.

“You don’t want to know what I am thinking,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“You won’t like it,” he said. 

Rosaleem laughed and a bomb went off in a distance. She ignored it and said, “since when do you care what I like or don’t like?”

“Since you helped Ruksana escape,” he said. Rosaleem had helped Ruksana acquire a passport and leave for America.

“I did it because she was my friend. She left before things went out of hand. I only did it to protect her,” she said.

“Yes. Thank you for doing my job,” he said.

“Fuck you, Farid,” she said. “Nothing is ever good enough for you,” Rosaleem said standing up. Farid turned away from her and walked out of the room.

That night when Rosaleem slept, she said a little prayer for her Baba’s safety and another for Ruksana, wherever she was, and a small one for Farid. Right before she fell asleep, she felt a hand on her palm and knew it was Farid, then she felt lips on her and a faint sorry from the darkness.

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” she said, cupping his face in her hands, his beard soft against her palms.

“I’m not,” he said and rested his head on her chest. 

The next morning Rosaleem woke up to a bunch of honey tulips next to her. She thought about last night. She was home yesterday, living off of what Khalid brought her, with no hope of seeing Baba again. But today, somehow she felt like she had a purpose. Farid had brought hope to her. She felt like she wanted to go out and find Baba. She wanted to discuss all the million ways she thought about escaping Damascus. But more than that for the first time in a long time, Rosaleem felt like she wanted to change her situation. When she walked outside, she saw Farid chatting with Khalid and sharing a laugh over a cigarette and when she walked over to them, the two men parted and made space for her.

Samia is originally from Bhopal, India but now lives in New York where she is enrolled in the PhD creative writing program at Binghamton University. Her work can be found in The Kenyon Review, Coffin Bell Journal, Bluestem, deLuge Literary and Arts Journal, The Chakkar, and Indus Woman Writing. She holds an MFA from Old Dominion University. She believes in breaking stereotypes and continues to practice it while petting pretty black cats and sipping chai.