The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War (14 page)

‘Tariq I don't want the pill, I'm being good.'

‘Shh Adam, just relax.'

‘No, no, no!'

It looks like Khalid and Tariq are speaking to each other but they're not opening their mouths and I can't hear them. None of them are listening to me. Tariq holds my head back and I start to move away and try to fight them off. Both of them hold me down and I can't move away. They open my mouth and put the pill inside. I don't want to swallow it. I don't know what this pill does. I try to spit it out but Khalid covers my mouth and tilts my head backwards so I swallow it straightaway.

I feel the pill go down my throat and Khalid and Tariq both let go of me at once. I really think they're secretly speaking to each other. I don't know what is happening. Were we playing a game? Both of them are smiling. I get up and run to my room. I don't like feeling confused. It's like a train track in my head is disconnecting.

I go to my room and stare at the painting I haven't finished painting because I was so hungry my hand started to shake. I have a pile of drawings on my desk but I have no space to hang them on the wall. The top one is of Isa smiling the way he did when he saw my paintings. The more I concentrate on his face the more blurry it gets. I try to speak to him but he isn't answering me. Why aren't you answering me Isa? Are you coming back? Do you know where Yasmine is? My voice sounds far away in my head and Isa still isn't answering me. He looks so happy in the picture but his face is frozen. Frozen. Frozen. I can't remember what I was saying. I'm still staring at the painting and now Isa is speaking to me but I can't answer. My eyelids and breath are getting heavy. I can imagine a night monster trying to close them for me. I wasn't tired before. Please monster, don't make me go to sleep. I try to say something but my throat is closing up. Come help me Isa. Come back Isa.

A
GROUP OF MEN
dressed in army clothes are outside my window with guns on their shoulders. Why are they here? I hide back under my covers before they see me. I don't want them to take me. I lie flat on my stomach and make a little hole I can peak through. There are now more men and they're not wearing uniforms. They have their eyes covered in a white cloth. What are they going to do to them? They make them sit down on the pavement and I can see a man's mouth moving but I don't know what he's saying. I keep staring and then notice someone who looks like Khalid walk up. I squint my eyes so I can see better but I can't tell if it's Khalid or not. I look at his clothes and he's wearing the same shirt Khalid has been wearing for a week. What is Khalid doing there? He is speaking to one of the men in the uniform. I don't know who the bad guys are. Is Khalid with the bad guys? I don't like politics or war. Everybody says different things about them, even when you see something, people say different things.

The man hits Khalid on the shoulder and my heart sinks down to my feet. Please don't take Khalid too. Khalid starts laughing and walks into the house. What's going on? Is this a dream? I rub my eyes hard and open them again. I see grey and yellow spots covering my eyesight. I don't know what pill the boys gave me yesterday, maybe I'm imagining all this. I once read about waking dreams where you are awake in your mind and can see and do things but your body can't move. Is this a waking dream? Am I really moving? My sight starts to clear up and I see the exact same faces outside but Khalid isn't there. I try to slither down my bed like the snake I saw on the National Geographic channel and reach for the curtains so I can close them. I start to close them slowly then suddenly I hear a bang on the window and I try to run back. There is another bang and before I can get up and run my window cracks and a gun comes through. What is going on? Why is my room being attacked? I pick myself up to run away and step on a big piece of glass. I feel it go through my foot like electricity and I look down and see the glass through my foot and blood around it. I scream so loud I feel my lungs shake. I never knew I was able to scream this loud. I hear footsteps from the sitting room and repeat God's name in my mind so I take my mind off the pain. Khalid bashes the door and comes in.

‘What the hell happened!'

He looks at the window and starts swearing under his breath. He leans down over me and tells me to close my eyes. I don't want to close my eyes but I do because my brain hurts and everything is slowly turning blue. I can hear cracking sounds in my mind and see blue glass crash over and over again in my mind. The glass starts spinning and I try to follow it.

‘Stop shaking Adam!'

I can't feel myself shaking but I can hear Khalid's voice clearly so I open my eyes and nothing is blue any more. Everything has its own colour. Khalid pulls out the shard of glass from my foot quickly and I don't feel it until the end when it leaves my skin. I look down and see a slit as big as one of my fingers.

‘It's fine Adam, it's fine.'

‘Kh…'

‘Speak Adam, don't worry, it's just a scratch. Let's go put something on it.'

‘The window…'

‘Don't worry, it was an accident, they're outside, just come with me.'

‘What are they doing Khalid? Why are they outside my window?'

‘Let's just go Adam, it's not safe here.' Khalid helps me to the bathroom and is speaking to me but I'm not concentrating. I want the people outside my window to leave. I don't want the war to be outside my window. I can hear Baba call mama's name.

‘Not again!' Khalid whispers. His mouth spits yellow words. He covers my foot with a bandage. I don't think it's going to make a difference. The more he squeezes the bandage on my foot the more it hurts.

‘It hurts.'

‘I know, just bear with it.'

‘It hurts more with the bandage.'

‘Adam, just listen to me, you need the bandage,' he says. I don't say another word. Only Yasmine understood me.

‘Khalid why did you speak with the baddies?'

‘You mean the army?'

‘Yes.'

‘I was tricking them into not attacking our house.'

‘How?'

‘When you grow up you'll learn that manipulation is a man's best friend.'

‘What does manipulation mean?'

‘It means tricking people into believing what you want them to.'

‘You mean lying to someone?'

‘Kind of.'

‘Lying is bad Khalid.'

‘Sometimes you have to do it to protect yourself.'

‘But God said to never lie!'

‘That's right Adam but I had no choice.'

I look into Khalid's eyes and don't see the same aura he usually has. Everyone is turning the same colour. Everyone is turning dark.

We hear swear words coming from outside. They sound like they're in the house. It sounds scary. Khalid tells me to tiptoe. It's not safe now. We peak quietly outside the sitting room window. Amira is sitting in her usual spot, she hasn't even moved. Nothing scares her. She doesn't even ask us what we are doing sneaking around. If I was her I would be curious and ask so many questions. That's what Yasmine said she hates before she left. When she comes back I won't ask her many questions. I just want her to be happy. I like sneaking around with Khalid, it feels like we are playing a game. I would ask Ali to play but he has been sleeping for days. I copy Khalid and stick my head out the way he is. I can see the same men with uniforms swearing and the other men sitting on the ground with their mouths open and the pavement in-between. They even have their eyes covered. I wonder how they feel not being able to see and sitting in the middle of the street? When my eyes are covered I feel suffocated and I keep fidgeting. I can't stop thinking of bad things and it feels like my whole body is shrinking into my brain because I'm scared. They must be very scared. The soldier hits one of the men on the head with his foot. Why is he kicking him? I close my eyes but I can still hear the same sound of his shoe hitting the man's face and the man shouting ‘God is the greatest'. I open my eyes and see a puddle under the man which wasn't there before. I look over to Khalid who is whispering things to himself and I wonder if he too hates violence.

‘What's that puddle Khalid?' I whisper. I know if I talk loud they might see us.

‘The man peed on himself…' Khalid didn't whisper back. He spoke normally. Maybe he forgot we are hiding. I have never heard of a man peeing himself. I look back outside and squint at the floor. I think I can see a hint of yellow in the puddle. I thought only kids peed on themselves. Mama used to tell me that if I peed my bed once more she would lock me in my room for an hour to learn my lesson. I don't like being locked in so I never peed myself after that. Maybe his mother never taught him that.

‘Why did he pee himself?' Khalid doesn't look at me or answer. He continues to whisper to himself. I start thinking about how embarrassed he is. I remember a girl in our class once peed herself and everyone made fun of her. I didn't though; I didn't even speak to her. Thinking about school I remember the Nutella-eyed girl and before I smile because of her eyes I hear shouts and screams and gunshots all at once. They all strike at the same time. I push my head up to see better and the seven men that had their eyes covered and were leaning with their mouths open on the pavement now have blood all over them and broken faces. There is one man left and the soldier steps on his head and in my mind I can see the way his mouth cracks open in slow motion. Blood flies everywhere. I always read in books about violent scenes with blood everywhere but I was never able to imagine how blood can fly everywhere. Now all those scenes come flooding back. Blood does fly everywhere. Khalid pushes me down and tries to cover my eyes but I have seen everything and now I am shaking. How could this happen? Why did they do that to them? I want to see what will happen to the soldiers. I move out of Khalid's arms and look back up.

‘Don't look!'

I don't answer Khalid and watch the soldiers walk away from the men on the ground. There is pee mixed with blood and skin on the ground. It looks like papier mâché, but it's not. I can feel vomit rising from my stomach but I look away and try to breathe in and out the way Yasmine taught me so I don't vomit.

I run to my room and lock the door. My room feels empty and open. I never knew a window was that important. I sit by it and look outside at the men on the side of the pavement. The more I look at it the more it looks like a painting. Something Dali would draw like his painting ‘The Face of War', but with more faces. I feel like I have seen this scene before but I know I haven't. It's this weird feeling I can't explain. It's like I know them. It's like I have been here before. But I know I haven't. I know I haven't.

I climb out of my window and am careful not to step on any glass. The window is low and I don't even have to jump to get out. Now that I am right by the men everything seems more real. I didn't know it could get any more real. It's like a painting that you don't feel until you sketch out every detail of it and piece it together. That's what I do when I like a painting. I once had a dream that George Orwell was speaking to me. It didn't look like him but he said it was him. Mama said it means that I really like the author. I do really like his books. He told me that blood is the substitute for paint. How can blood replace paint? But now with blood in front of me, I have a part of me that is pushing me to take some blood and paint. So I do. I look around carefully and make sure no one is around. I reach through my window and on my windowsill I have a pen holder. I empty the pens and collect blood into it. The blood is really thick but there is so much of it that it looks like water. Some blood touches my hand by accident even though I tried to be careful. It has a weird feeling. It's not like anything else. It feels warm and cold at the same time. It's almost like your feelings disconnect when touching blood. My senses are confused. I pull my hand back right away.

One of the men has long hair that has fallen on his shoulders. I lean down and pick a few hairs and run back inside through the window. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I heard Yasmine say that expression so many times I think she has passed it on to me along with the feeling. The war is making me feel dizzy. I can't even understand myself now.

I sit down and keep on thinking about Yasmine. Is she eating well? Is she far from here? How long will it take her to come back? She's my favourite person in the world. As I think of her I start to think of mama then of her funeral then of Baba and then everything comes crashing down on me like a plane crash and my shoulders feel heavy.

I look down at the pen holder with the blood in it and decide to start painting. I set everything up and pick up my favourite pencil. I start sketching a mouth wide open like the men outside but then it turns out like an eye so I start drawing one eye in the middle of the page with a pupil that has a story inside. I start sketching tall buildings then at the bottom a fire and a collapsed building. I never know what I am drawing or why I am drawing it until I finish my painting. I usually just let my brain do everything. That's why I love painting, it's the only time I don't have to think, I just have to move my hand and see what comes out.

I move back and look at the sketch. I don't know why but I see Yasmine in the picture. Is this her eye? Is this what she is seeing now? My stomach starts rumbling and making noises all of a sudden. I didn't realise how hungry I was. I forget when I ate last. I usually have a very good memory and keep track of everything, but I have been losing track easily nowadays. I don't like it.

I finish sketching and start painting, my stomach is still rumbling. I am scared to go outside, everyone is different. I start with the colour black for the outline. The smell of paint is my favourite. When I smell it I see triangles. I dip the paintbrush in the water. I haven't changed it in ages because we don't have any. I wonder if I can drink this water? But if I do I won't be able to paint. I keep painting and thinking about what I can eat. I can eat paint! I love the smell and the colours so why won't I love the taste? I have stacks and stacks of paint that I sometimes use but mostly use the three on the table that are my favourite. I lean down to the drawer with all my paints and pick one from the back because those are the ones I hardly use. These colours are all mixed up because I used to use them when I was younger and mama was teaching me how to paint. Mama used to paint when she was younger too, she had a gallery at her university before she got married and then got too busy. I won't ever leave painting though. I squeeze the green colour out of its tube and start to eat it. The moment I put it in my mouth my body shivers in reaction. I get the same reaction from honey. I am so hungry I continue to eat some more. I can taste the green colour. It's a weird feeling but it tastes green. I wonder how the other colours taste. I keep squeezing the tube into my mouth. The more I do, the gooier it tastes. I am starting to get sick. I put the paint down and try to swallow the remains in my mouth. I rub my tongue with my fingers to get rid of the paint. My tongue and lips are green in the mirror. I need to rub it before anyone sees. I pull my shirt up and rub the paint out of my mouth and tongue. There is still some left but it doesn't look like I ate paint. My stomach stopped making that funny sound. Maybe eating paint is actually a good idea. I have a lot of it. I won't run out any time soon.