Welcome to Gharib ul watan blog

“You are the universe in a ecstatic motion, what you seek is seeking you”

— Rumi.

The grass was very smooth and very green , I had never seen such beautiful green grass before . I t looked like a sea of emerald stretching far out to the horizon. The pink cherry blossoms were dancing silently to the winds tune. Everything looked peaceful and calm , I took a deep breath and tried to breath in nature’s beauty but ….nothing , could feel nothing as another scene was constantly running in my head . People running barefoot through the streets, the rat tat tat of machine guns , roar of jets overhead and then a horrible vacuum in the air as the bombs fell and the deafening explosions. Ears blocked up from the impact. Mustafa’s distorted shouting in the distance. ‘’ Did you get the boys from the roof  stupid woman?’’ Then silence – a long  long silence. People coming out of hiding places one by one, not speaking a word , after a while the wailing and crying of a woman floating on the wind , a child screaming in pain. Flashing lights and ambulance sirens, scenes of hospitals, strong smells of medicines , people rushing around , people carrying dead people outside ,  the swish swish of a nurse’s shoes taking a medicine tray somewhere  and then silence again. 

The grass in my home town was never so green , it was a dark greyish green and always covered with a fine film of dust  unless it rained then it became a shiny parrot colour and the earth would turn a dark rich red brown ,  then the  earth was happy like a mother caressing a child or a beautiful woman dancing in the rain.

In the distance I could see Amina walking back towards me with the children running around her. I quickly wiped my eyes and left my day dreaming behind.  The children looked flushed and happy from the exercise ‘’Did you have a good time on the swings’’ I asked my boys. ‘’ No I didn’t , he (older brother)didn’t let me go on the hurdles and the exercise bars , he said I was too little’’ That was my youngest always complaining, always competing with the older ones, in a big hurry to grow up quickly. I just smiled and patted his hair which annoyed him even more. 

As I caught up with Amina she seemed a bit preoccupied and worried. ‘’Is everything OK I asked ‘’? ‘’ I don’t know she said , I got several missed calls from my sister but now she isn’t picking up the phone’’ ‘’I’m sure it’s nothing’’ I tried to console her. The phone buzzed, Amina got a text to meet her sister at the police station. We walked to the police station in silence. The police officer at the station was tall and a bit scary , Amina and I felt very small talking to him. ‘’ You can’t bring the children in here’’ the officer said in a hoarse voice ‘’ one of you stay out there’’. The boys had gone  all quiet and huddled next to the wall ,they looked scared and angry. The last rays of the sun shone on their eyes that were not shining  anymore. A dark defensive wall had gone across their faces. We never talked of what we had left behind but I was sure the broken images of explosions and people running  bare feet in the streets were playing in  their minds as well. 

I couldn’t hear what conversation Amina was having with the police officer. There were four or five sad looking people sitting on a wooden bench and a man in a corner on his mobile scraping the carpet with his shoe.  After 20 minutes that seemed like hours Amina came out looking very pale and shaking a little. She seemed on the verge of tears. I held her cold hand , she was struggling with words ‘’ it’s something to do with my nephews and their friends at university’’ she said slowly ‘’  My sister will have to contact a solicitor quickly – they wouldn’t tell me anything else’’ No one spoke as Amina drove back quietly. Out on the street the Saturday crowd was jostling around– looking happy and relaxed, we could hear laughter and chatter as the car slowed in traffic, people around pubs enjoying a drink , some standing on street corners lighting a cigarette, teenagers running across the pavement , dogs jumping happily with their owners. Rich aroma of coffee around café’s. Everything looked so normal and calm and yet for one family all the lights had gone out and ominous dark clouds covered the horizon, making us feel just as helpless and powerless when we were running barefoot in the streets no one making a sound. 

The boys were looking out of the car windows listlessly ,the youngest was drawing patterns on the glass with his finger. Amina had a glazed look in her eyes – her mind frozen in that moment in time when she was told her family had to find a solicitor quickly. A thousand questions going in and out of our minds – the sky was clear and turning a dark blue but it felt like thunder and lightening was flashing across the sky as the separation between us and the world outside the car grew and grew. The feeling of feeling really small standing before  a tall policeman just wouldn’t go away.

I looked at my three boys the oldest almost fifteen. A cold sweat was breaking out in my palms, I never wanted to go towards a future where strange phone calls from the police were all that was left for mothers and fathers of young boys. I wished Mustafa were here to tell me what to do , but Mustafa was not here . The rescue trucks had left him behind ‘’only women and children’’  they had shouted over and over and he was left standing looking lost clutching his children one last time , fighting his tears and telling us ‘’ I will find you, just go. Just go’’ Now he was in another land with another woman , happy at the thought he had sent his sons to the safest and richest part of the world . If only Mustafa knew his son’s had brought the burden of his world with them, they were not safe and not rich ,  if only Mustafa knew. 

Amina’s sister Zainab was on the phone when we got to her house , a lot of relatives had gathered . We sat around the sitting room sipping endless cups of tea waiting for some news. Mehdi , Zainab’s husband was pacing up and down the house aimlessly. Every time the phone rang or the mobile buzzed everyone jumped. 

No one slept that night. One by one the relatives left , Zainab and Fatima sat praying on the Tasbih. My boys were slumped on a bed and the carpet with some other children. I woke them with difficulty and took them home. Days went by and still no news. 

It was  swimming lesson day for the boys , they loved the swimming pool and always  jumped in with screams  of delight. It was so difficult to control them once they saw the water. Amina was waving at me frantically from the car park. As I rushed down the stairs the trees outside looked dark and ominous swaying madly in the wind. Amina looked distraught as I reached her in the car park. 

‘’My nephews are not in Frankfurt ‘’said  Amina with a sigh  ‘’Then where are they , were they brought to  Munich’’ ? I asked since the parents were here. ‘’No’’ she said ‘’some undisclosed location , that we won’t know about until the inquiry is complete’’ But how could this be? ‘’ We are in Europe people have rights’’ I protested ‘’ Not if they are being held on terrorism charges’’.  Every time Amina’s nephews got closer to a dark future related to the T word, a terrible nervousness gnawed at the pit of my stomach. How will I save my boys from a similar future I thought, vague restless thoughts of taking them away somewhere else would drift in and out of my head. Should I send them back to their father? How will the other wife treat them, will Mustafa even be able to manage their education looking after his other family? 

We would all be in Zainab and Mehdi’s home on weekends sitting on the floor sometimes reading the Quran sometimes doing tasbih to pray for a quick release of her two sons  This had now become a familiar scene , the small table in the middle with  the  incense sticks. The endless rounds of tea in the small transparent  tea cups .  The heavy maroon curtains always tied up to let in the light. We all did our best to cheer up Zainab and Mehdi but their home always felt heavy with unspoken sadness. Slowly the people turning up on weekends became less and less until there was only a handful of us left. 

Then suddenly good news, the solicitor had been allowed access to an interrogation video tape showing the boys well and healthy. He decided to share this with the family to reassure them that their sons were OK. We were all gathered in the same front room where we prayed so often, thinking surely Allah has answered the prayers. The solicitor was a short man with shifty eyes. He fiddled with the Video player and finally got it working.  A grainy greyish black image appeared of Bilal sitting on a small chair opposite a big man who was leaning forward and staring straight at Bilal’s eyes. There was a steel table between them where a recording machine and the man’s pen and note pad was visible. 

‘’What is your name? ‘’ The man asked in a robotic tone.

‘’My name is Bilal’’  the young man   said in an undertone , his eyes looked scared and withdrawn , he looked like a shadow of  the young man I had seen at Eid or other odd occasions. 

‘’How old are you ‘’ the man looked up from his note pad?

‘’I am twenty one ‘’ Bilal said with a tired expression, it was obvious he had been asked the same questions many times .

The man picked up a brief case and took some pamphlets out of it, put them on the table in a circle slowly like a Japanese hand fan. ‘’Do you recognise these’’ he went on with his robot voice becoming like steel, lunging forward , his face very close to Bilal. 

Bilal looked visibly shaken and confused ‘’ Sir I have never seen these pamphlets before’’ he seemed to be fumbling his words and trying to move back in his small chair. 

‘’Who gave you this Jihadi literature? What else did they ask you to do? ‘’ 

Bilal was silent ‘’ he was holding the side of the chair so hard, his knuckles had gone white.  

‘’Why were your friends taking pictures of the train station and airport? ‘’ the man was reading questions from his note pad and then moving very close to  Bilal taking away his space, leaving him no option but to say whatever was coming  out of his mouth involuntarily . Making Bilal look guilty and confused as if he was trying to hide something.  

At this point the video came to an abrupt halt and as the empty grey and white lines played on the TV screen the silence in the room was deadly until we noticed Zainab was not moving and had slumped on the sofa’s back and then everyone started screaming and running to get water and someone was shouting and trying to call 999.  

 Hadi and her only daughter held Zainab close in their arms until she recovered. We forced some water and juice down her mouth that she swallowed with some difficulty. She looked very pale as if her spirit had fled to her sons and the husk of the body was still sitting there. Zainab’s eyes were hazel with specks of green. The green would become golden when she was really happy, I had seen this golden glint in her eyes a few days earlier when she had been told about the tape. 

Now I was wondering why the tape had been realised at all perhaps as a scare tactic for other alleged would be young men attracted to the T word. I was glad I didn’t bring the boys with me,I was ashamed of the feeling but I knew I had to cut my ties with Amina’s family. The interrogation video tape had taught me many lessons. Mainly anyone coming in and out of this family’s home will also  get on the police radar. I stared at the pattern on the Persian carpet for a long time to avoid everyone’s eyes. I noticed for the first time , the colour combination on the carpet was very strange turquoise , purple and green but all the colours complimented each other perfectly. I wish life was just as uncomplicated and all different colours and people would blend as easily but sadly life was not a Persian carpet and the colours on life’s carpet at that moment were dark and smeared in blood. 

I cried all the way home, my chest felt heavy. Amina was more like my sister than my friend. Now that I had to give her up, the hole in my soul that she had blocked tore open. I wished I was back where the earth was dark red and  brown , the grass was never green and always covered with a fine film of dust. My old mother and father were still sitting in the veranda of their big cool house laughing and joking with neighbours. Mustafa wasn’t sleeping in another woman’s home but pottering around his own house , tinkering around the courtyard with his own sons. 

There were no refugee trucks here, no explosions no bombs , no one’s sad  wailing voice piercing the wind . I had run and run to keep my sons safe but a bigger danger had also been running with me. 

A strange sense of betrayal was around me like the thick layer of fog in winter .We all  know the fog is just an illusion and the road and trees and everything on the other side are still the same. But perhaps not for us ever again. How would I explain to my sons why we must never see Amina Aunty . They had lost themselves once losing their father and the dark red brown earth under their feet now they would lose themselves again moving away from friends and community and moving into the land of fear just to stay alive. 

I looked at the pictures of my sons riding the roller coaster, rolling with laughter coming down the  water slide, holding  ice cream and Pizza’s cones outside DITSCH. Mustafa has put these pics all over his house walls and shows them to everyone, brags of how his sons are in such a safe place having such a good life. His neighbours nod in agreement and die of envy privately of why they couldn’t find a similar place for their sons. If only Mustafa knew what the bitter truth was. 

 Our road out of fear lay in a frenzy of activity.  My sons went from one after school activity to another to keep busy.  We had several German friends now and rarely ever went to the mosque. Eid Ramadan and back home faded further and further away. We lost touch with most of our own and eventually with each other. Everyone lived in a safe bubble of normal activity which was mainly living behind a mask, trusting no one never letting people get close , saying things people wanted to hear so  no one could point a finger at us. Pretty much an entry into Robot land but that was the only survival option life was offering many of us. Fear has a way of trapping people that does not end with loss of identity and culture. It sucks away at the soul until nothing is left. 

Many summers later I had time to catch up with life stepping away from breakneck speed of working life and trying to enjoy the warm spring breeze again. My grandson was running up ahead of me and telling me to hurry up as some other child would take his place on the slide. The sun was pleasantly warm, the grass was still a beautiful sea of emerald, pink flowers were dancing on the cherry trees. Children were running around on skateboards and roller shoes. Teenagers were kicking a football around , someone was rowing a boat down the shiny green lake, dogs were jumping and running down to fetch sticks.  I enjoyed the feel of the wind across my face. I told my grandson to go on the slide and seesaw  as I was now tired of pushing him on the swing. 

That is when I heard someone call my name. We both turned to look. No one had called me by that name in ages. I was a bit surprised to see a frail old woman and man walk towards me. I didn’t recognise them and went into a bit of a shock when I realised it was Zainab and Hadi from all those years ago. I only recognised them from their voices and because they seemed to remember me perfectly. I felt like I was going through a time tunnel. Only that Zainab had no green or golden flecks in her eyes and her hair was all white and hands were cold and shaky. Hadi also looked like a different man with heavy sad eyes, a bent back and big glasses that made his eyes look enormous. I didn’t know what to say. We walked around the park and made small talk about the children for a while. It was on the tip of my tongue but I was afraid to ask about Bilal and Reza. The state of their health told me things couldn’t have gone too well. This looked like a pair that had gone through many summers of suffering, I felt guilty for abandoning them and wasn’t sure if I had the right to intrude into something that had clearly sucked all life away from them. I was about to take my sheepish exit  when Zainab laughed and said ‘’ Aren’t you going to ask me about my sons?’’  

‘Oh yeah’’ I said fumbling with my phone in embarrassment ‘’Where are they now’’? 

‘’Back home in Mosul, they didn’t want to stay in Germany after their release’’ She flipped through her mobile. ‘’This is Reza’s daughter, he is married.’’ I was relieved and felt much better. ‘’ So it all turned out well after all’’ I tried to sound cheerful. No it didn’t Hadi joined in ‘’The trial went on and on, our solicitor was no good. In the end they got sentenced for ten years ‘’ 

‘’Oh I am so sorry ‘’ I said in a low voice. ‘’ Aren’t we all ‘’ Hadi had a flicker of the old anger in him and I saw a vision of a father whose life had gone past him waiting outside jails and solicitor’s offices. ‘’ The trial was almost thrown out as there wasn’t enough evidence ‘’ Hadi explained ‘’ but sadly our solicitor was too busy , he had several other similar cases at the time and didn’t try very hard’. I tried to make an apologetic noise trying to say ‘’oh well at least they are free now’’  but no sound came. 

The wind was playing with Zainab’s hair and she shivered a little at the memory. ‘’ We slowly started walking towards the exit  My grandson running in front as usual. The gravel was crunching under our feet. The air felt sad with the weight of all this pent up emotion. Hadi was running up ahead attempting to play catch with my grandson. Zainab held my hand ‘’ Don’t be sad for me ‘’ she said ‘’ I am OK now , its all over. We went for retrial in the 5^th year of my sons  prison term , this time we hired a really good German solicitor and paid him a lot of money  , he got them out within a year‘’.  She was still holding my hand tightly’’ In the re trial they found that the case had all been founded on false evidence. My sons had nothing to do with the Jihadi pamphlets, the photographs were taken by a friend and the kitchen knives were for carving meat’’ She sighed heavily. I hugged her for a bit to reassure her. ‘’ all five boys were found innocent but none wanted to stay here anymore’’ she looked at me with tears welling in her eyes. ‘’ We took them out of jail but we couldn’t take jail out of them , the poison in their spirit never left them, it was very difficult to bring them back to normal life ’’  I was staring at a beautiful brown Collie looking at her mistress with shinning eyes as if asking for permission to start running into the park. The woman bent down and removed her collar, the dog jumped gleefully and ran as fast as she could. The sheer motion of the wild delirious running was ecstasy itself. This scene of happiness cheered us up a bit. The sun was going down, the road ahead was glistening golden the wind had picked up and was rushing through the leaves. I got my grandson strapped in his child seat and watched Hadi and Zainab drive away  in their old Volkswagen . 

Their new world had left and gone home again to the sound of bombs and bullets and the old world was left behind torn between the memories and a sad lonely house. Will our two worlds ever come together I wondered as I waved them goodbye.