Page 6 of Never Tear Us Apart
Quiet murmurs emerge in the dark, woven with soft sobs. A piercing infant’s cry cuts sharply through the dark and is swiftly stifled. Feet shuffle; bodies shift and sigh. Somewhere ahead, there are people crammed together. Even after a few minutes, my eyes can’t make out any shapes in the gloom. Still, I know one thing for sure. I’ve been in perhaps a dozen places that sound and feel exactly like this: it’s a place for the terrified and weak to take shelter.
The air fills with a roar of crashing, erupting noise. A direct hit. The world trembles and lurches. Screams crescendo as I’m flung hard against a wall, banging the back of my head. I crumple downwards, lost in fear. Rafts of dust rain down; I taste grit and blood.
Memory pulls me back through time, and I’m in Syria: Ma’arat al-Nu’man. A building collapses; we are entombed. Is this real? Am I there again? In that underground parking garage with a whole building concertinaed overhead. Stuckin those last few seconds before I realise the horror of what is buried beneath me in the rubble.
A wail rises in my throat. I clamp my hands over my mouth, battling it back with determined silence. This isn’t then. This is a flashback of that day, not the first I’ve had.
This is different; this is now.
Understanding that brings little comfort, though. Taking a deep breath of pulverised stone, I listen. The pounding of bombs has receded a fraction, moved on a little. The tunnel shudders and buckles but holds. My trembling legs refuse to let me stand again for several long seconds until I find a gap carved into the wall, a handhold I can use to drag myself up. I must find a way out.
Logic dictates that I should be able to go back the way I came, up those stairs towards the burning oil lamp, out into a morning filled with warmth and song – but nothing is logical here.
Another ear-shattering noise rushes through me with a physical shove. Stumbling along the wall, I find another handhold and then another, guides in the dark to lead me on, though I don’t know where I’m going. There’s a sensation of small spaces crammed with people, shoulder to shoulder. I see the dim glimmer of wide eyes, smell the scent of sweat and urine. Pushing myself off one wall, I grope towards the room opposite and am met by shoulders and backs.
‘L-ebda spazju hawn.’
I don’t need to understand the language to know I’m being told to get out.
Then something low tumbles into me at speed, making me stagger backwards. I brace myself and feel small, narrow shoulders under my hands.
‘Hey,’ I whisper, trying to calm the frantic, small body that is desperate to crawl around me. ‘Hey, it’s OK. You’re OK.’
‘Mama!’ a thin, light voice cries out as the child tries blindly to tear away from me.
‘Are you lost?’ I make myself sound calm. ‘I’m lost, too. How about we stick together until we find out where we are supposed to be? Does that sound good?’
‘English?’ the young voice asks.
I pat the top of a small head, hair cut short. A little boy, I think. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m scared, too. So will you stay with me, kid?’
His slim frame twists under my hands and then stills. ‘I will stay.’
A bony hand wends its way into mine, dry and hot. I hold it tight as much for my sake as for his. At least the worst of the pounding has receded now. The sound of explosions rolls continuously, like thunder growing distant.
There’s footfall in the direction the child came from. I place myself between him and the sound. Then I see the flare of a match, and a moment later, a small lamp is lit. Its light is feeble, but it’s enough to reveal the rough niche it’s placed in and the tall figure that lit it.
‘Out?’ I ask incoherently, pretence of any calm snapped like a taut thread, as I take two steps towards the stranger. ‘How do I get out?’
‘You don’t want to go out there yet, ma’am,’ says a male voice – American. He moves into the glow of the lamp. His shadowy figure is bent almost in half in the tight space. ‘From your accent, I guess you were trying to reach one of the military shelters? Me too – but seems like our friends up there don’t much care where we are when they try to kill us.’
‘This kid is lost; we need to find his mum. Can’t you tell me which way is out?’ I ask again. I can just about tell he’s wearing some kind of uniform, and a cap with a bent peak sits on the back of his head. ‘Point me in the right direction?’
‘Ma’am, please stay calm. The raid will be over soon. We’ve just got to wait it out. You don’t want to alarm the good folks down here, do you?’
Somehow, his good-natured calm only serves to peak my anxiety. The last thing I need is some stranger mansplaining trauma to me. Iknowtrauma.
‘This isn’t right. I need to get out, and you can’t stop me. This boy needs his family. What happened? When did this start?’
I can’t see his expression in the dark, but I see him shake his head and sense his bewilderment. His shoulders square.
‘Look, lady, you’ve got to keep it together.’ He moves a little closer. I get the impression of light eyes and a long, roman nose. ‘You Brits like to lead by example, right? These people are scared. The last thing they need is some delicate English lady losing her you-know-what when they can barely keep it together themselves.’
‘What the—?’
Another rumble, another tremor, and I stumble towards him. His hands catch my elbows, and he tilts me back onto my feet. The boy clasps my arm in a bear hug, and I see the child’s face clearly for the first time in the orange light. Two huge, dark eyes stare up at me, full of fear and sorrow. I know that look, I’ve seen in the eyes of so many children trapped in wars they don’t understand.
‘Get me out of here,’ I tell the American.
