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The Tears of Azul

by Damian Rentoule

The Silence of Azul

A lost child

My family, we all hated immigrants. Well, at least some of them from what I can remember. Everyone needed to be like us. That’s what my dad said. Talk like us. Look like us. But sometimes I got a bit confused. I wondered which ones I should hate and which ones I should like because we all talked a bit different, looked a bit different, were a bit different. Even as a kid, I noticed that. I had friends who were twins but they were a bit different, even though they looked the same, nearly, at first. I asked my mum about who I should hate and she said to stop being stupid. I didn’t think it was stupid. If you had to hate someone, you needed to know who. Maybe not why, but at least who. I asked my teacher and she laughed, but softly and a little sadly. She didn’t swear. She never swore, always proper. She said that I may be asking the wrong question. She said that we all exist in a time and a place and none of it is our fault. She said that all we have is each other and the relationships we share, so be kind. I didn’t know what she meant by all that but I liked the way it sounded when she said it so I asked her to write it down. I read it every night before I went to bed. It made me feel safe. I didn’t know why. I’m older now, half a lifetime has passed and the paper’s long gone, but the words still come to mind each night before I sleep. A kind of routine now. I say it as if I were reading as a child. Every night. I wish she could know that it took me a lifetime to understand her words, but I did, finally. Yet for most of my life, it was a mystery and as a child I wondered about the immigrants. I didn’t want to hate the wrong people. In my child’s logic, that wouldn’t have been fair. I asked my best friend the immigrant question. She told me I was an idiot. I didn’t think I was an idiot. She said that she was an immigrant, that she wasn’t even born here. I told her that was stupid. I hated immigrants, at least some of them, and she was my best friend. She couldn’t be one. She’d been here forever. She didn’t even look like one, or talk like one. She asked me if I’d ever met an immigrant, ever spoken to one. I told her I hadn’t and never wanted to neither. ‘You idiot,’ the girl who liked to sit in the dust told me, but she was smiling in that sad way of hers, counting invisible footsteps in the sand.

 

 

PART 1

Chapter 1: The Dust Queen

 

Sofia

I loved that place. In the centre of the sprawling compound, sitting there like a spider in its web, connected to all the goings-on of camp life as it swirled around me. In the world I had created, I was in fact the Dust Queen and everyone who walked by was merely paying their respects to their beloved ruler. It was true in a sense. There were always smiles from our neighbours. Why wouldn’t there be smiles of respect for a benevolent, albeit youthful leader who had tragically lost her father at so young an age. They took him. I summoned my father back to the camp every single morning. He never came, but he was not lost. Yet. I would not believe it. I would not allow it to be true and I lived in a world where I controlled such things. This world was still a mystery, full of promise and I knew my place in the sand. My family drifted in and out of my view, as did the other citizens of my camp. It was a simple, beautiful, dusty existence. I would have never wanted it to change, if only my father were home. Then, I would accept this as my life and be content. Even benevolent rulers, however, had their personal worries. My little Princess Azul still wouldn’t speak. It had been four years since we fled our home beneath the bombs to this new kingdom. Why wouldn’t she speak to me? I could understand if she didn’t want to speak to other people, but to me, her sister, her Queen?​

Time passed, waiting for my sister’s words, waiting for my father’s figure to appear. Waiting for a miracle while I watched my people from a throne of dust, watched their footprints disappear beneath the sand. My mother once told me that each footstep a person made sank beneath the sand. It did not disappear, but stayed as a record of their passing. And there were people, not many, but some, who could see into the sand and know the secrets of all who had gone before. Sometimes, if they looked and listened very carefully, the secrets of those who were still to come would also glimmer under the surface. I looked and looked at the sand until my eyes burned and every now and then I thought I caught a glimpse of his footsteps outlined in the tiny grains hidden just below, yet there was something else. Yes, he would return but something dark would follow. It was always the same. I could tell no one but Azul. She would nod, silent. I think she saw it, too as she held all our grief inside her little self.

Refugee Camp

Sofia sat in the red dust, invisible, focused, watching the endless bustle of the camp revolving around her, moving past her, flowing through her. She sat in the dust, content with her wealth, for she knew her own story. Not costing a single coin, but possessing great value. Each person’s story, a great treasure. Sofia’s father had taught her this. He had taught her a great many useful things: to read and write, to cook, to climb and how to kill a man, but it was an understanding of the value of her own story that was his greatest gift. Sofia’s story began in the red dust of their cramped camp perched on the edge of a merciless desert, a desert that cared for neither story nor the life that held it; the desert that had swallowed her father and threatened to consume them all.

‘Sofia!’ A shout from her mother, ‘Get out of the dirt and come do your chores! Why do you sit there staring at the fence all day?’

Yet, her mother knew. The family all stared at the fence. Beside the fact that there was nothing inside the fence that interested them, a faint hope lingered that they would see his familiar form walking across the rocky expanse stretching to the horizon. The familiar smile would be on his lips, the familiar kindness in his eyes. Her mother knew very well why Sofia stared at the sea of stone and sand. Her tone softening, ‘Come here, Little Dove, let me wipe away some of that dirt. It’s time for dinner. I’ll need your help with the water.’

Tears were now turning the young girl’s cheeks to mud. The mother’s heart ached for her daughter, but life in the camp was harsh and she could not afford the luxury of tears herself.  Sofia shed tears for them all. It had been two years since Sofia’s father, Jamil, had been forced into the back of a truck at gunpoint. The insurgents needed a medic and his unofficial position of camp doctor had become known to them. It had been only a matter of time. An individual’s wishes were of no importance to people holding guns. This, they all knew.  

Sofia picked herself up off the ground, leaving her favourite spot for a short while and walked slowly towards her family’s tent. Her sister, Azul, gave a conspiratorial nod, as she also had been staring into the desert trying, by sheer force of will, to silently conjure the image of her returning father. Yet, his footsteps remained under the sand.

 

Chapter 2: On a Sea of Sand

 

Sofia

Remembering that day, what I can recall most clearly is the heat of the desert dust on my feet, the sting of it in my eyes. I seldom wore shoes in those days. Associated with the sting of the dust has always been the absence of my father, a hole in my chest. He was there that day, by my side, then he wasn’t. It can’t be that simple, that easy, I thought at the time. For a father to be taken away. For his family, to allow himself to be led away like a lamb to the slaughter. Although, I was the lamb and it was my slaughter. I knew he was saving me, but he was gone and I almost hated him for it. The feeling of watching and being powerless was the worst feeling in the world. I can still almost taste it, even after all these years, it never leaves you. My mother watched me stand before the soldiers. My father watched me as well. Both more concerned at that moment for my safety than that of my father. This was the day I learned that I was not a Queen. These were not my people. My eyes opened to a harsh new world.

Refugee Camp

The camp lay adrift on a swirling sea of sand and rock. Just like on the sea, ownership and control were relatively short-lived concepts. As foolishly as the captain of a boat who stands on her bow and declares that she owns the sea because her ship occupies that little space in its vastness, displacing those few drops of water, many people pretended to own the camp. Pretending to own it, control it, without hoping to understand it. Government soldiers and insurgents were involved in a struggle that neither group really understood. Perhaps somewhere, someone did, but the men who stood all day under the glare of the sun, in the dirt, with their guns pointed at a faceless enemy certainly didn’t. Their world outside the camp had descended into madness but inside a sense of order existed, at least on the surface. It wasn’t justice that they sought, it was order.

Government soldiers guarded the campgrounds, yet with ten thousand refugees crammed into a space meant for half that number and with shifting alliances amongst the various forces that vied for control of this section of the country, the insurgents controlled life in the camp. The government soldiers, poorly trained and poorly paid, were willing to turn a blind eye to the comings and goings of the insurgents for a few coins, as long as the peace was maintained. This was particularly true when nobody knew how the larger conflict would turn out. The insurgents could well be their new bosses in the not-so-distant future. It was safe to keep on their good side, so best to maintain the peace. The kidnapping of the unofficial camp medic would not fit into their definition of a disruption to the peace. The soldiers had access to military doctors, so it mattered little. The Red Cross sent their own doctor as often as they could. People moved in and out of camp all the time. People lived, people died. It mattered little. They were only refugees.

The insurgents had been trying to recruit Sofia’s father, Jamil, for some months and he had been able to politely stall their requests citing the necessity of his work in the camp. There was no immediate need in the insurgent camp, so they didn’t insist, although it was well within their power to do so. Jamil’s routine in the camp was firmly established and he had worked hard so that the structure would not be disrupted when he finally disappeared. Everyone knew that this was inevitable. In the mornings, he administered medical care to serious cases, always with the trainees in attendance. After lunch he ran the training program for others willing to help. He had developed a wide network of trainee medics who would travel through the tents dispensing medicines and vaccinating the growing number of young children. In his former life, he had been a respected surgeon in a national hospital. It was a prestigious position. Now he was just a man who knew medicine. He was no longer a doctor as his identity, in his profession, was tied to the provision of a license to practice by a nation. When his nation fell apart, so did his professional identity. He lost more than his house when the bombs fell. 

The Red Cross had been sending a doctor to the camp three times a week. Until the arrival of Jamil, she had been completely overwhelmed, just like in all the other camps. Now, with routine care administered by Jamil’s medics-in-training and his attention to the serious cases in her absence, she found that she could finally cope with at least the most pressing needs of the camp’s struggling population. Jamil had access to her medicines and she had access to his surgical skills. They worked well together and had formed a solid friendship over their two-year project. When he spoke to her of his fears of the insurgents, she had promised to see if there was a way to push through his paperwork. As a political refugee, he had no country to return to and sought a new home. It would be a sad day for her when Jamil left the camp, however his training program for the camp medics would continue; his parting gift to the people who struggled inside its dusty confines.

The Doctor feared that the insurgents would take Jamil and her fears were growing. The insurgents moved faster than the bureaucracy that handled paperwork. It wasn’t just that she would be lost without Jamil’s help, she feared for her friend and his beautiful family. Even if he survived their service, which was highly doubtful once he was with the insurgents, his name would find its way onto a restricted list reserved for those associated with terrorist organizations. There was no country that would open its arms to Jamil and his family if he were on such a list. Yet, everyone in the camp knew that the day of Jamil’s removal was approaching fast. A medic was a valuable commodity in a war-torn land.

It was a cool October morning when the supply trucks rolled into the camp, driven by a silent man with the blank expression of those who had seen too much of life, or too much of death to be exact. He was on a mission to exchange a few boxes of medicine for an unwilling medic. A fair exchange, he thought. He wanted a medic, and he would get a medic, his definition of fair. The soldiers at the gate recognized the driver – fortunately, an infrequent visitor – and knew that something was up, something that would be well left alone. Soldiers faded into the shadows, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, doing nothing. For the next thirty minutes, they ceased to exist within the walls of the camp. Nothing short of a full-blown gun battle would draw them out while the insurgents were inside the camp and even then, it would be mere curiosity. The insurgents had promised that they would maintain the peace inside the camp and they had always kept their word.

The delivery truck pulled to a halt in front of the hospital. Eight men jumped out and unloaded the four small boxes of medical supplies. Jamil watched from one of the windows as he checked the stitches that closed the skin on what had once-upon-a-time been the lower part of a young boy’s leg. It was not wise to stray too far into the hills surrounding the camp, as this lad had found out. Jamil knew that his time had come, unless these boxes were so valuable that it required battle-hardened soldiers with AK-47s to unload and guard them as if they were expecting an armed raid on a few hundred immunization vials. If the weapon-laden loading crew were not enough to alert Jamil, the presence of Aziz could only mean that Jamil’s days in the camp were finished.

Aziz, today’s driver and leader of the local insurgent unit, approached the hospital slowly, always suspicious, betrayal never far from his mind. The Red Cross doctor opened the door as cautiously as Aziz had approached, treachery never far from hers.

‘Doctor, I need some assistance. One of my men is badly hurt back at our camp and we need the medic to accompany us to treat him,’ Aziz asked politely, surprisingly softly spoken.

The Red Cross doctor, nervous, swallowed once before replying, ‘I’ll accompany you if your friend needs attention. As you know, we are permitted to practice medicine only within the walls of this camp and only for registered residents. However, you and your… Well, your associates have always been friends with us here in the camp and we are grateful for your kindness. We will help your friend. Let me get my things…’

Aziz held up his sun-weathered hand, ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. We misunderstand each other. We need the Medic. It must be him.’ Aziz raised the AK-47 slightly, not as an intentional threat, rather an automatic response to the subtle rise in tension. The gesture was not lost on the Doctor, who was now frozen on the spot. She was well aware that this was neither a polite request nor an amicable negotiation. The people with the guns got what they wanted. This was the way of the world within a war zone. There was a certain level of confidence that she would not be shot by these people, as the killing of a Red Cross doctor would ignite a swift response from the forces both within and beyond their borders, attention that Aziz could do without and further involvement of the international community would not be good for anyone. She knew this. Aziz did too, but although the killing and kidnapping of a Red Cross doctor was out of the question, a beating was probably within acceptable limits. He started to raise his hand when Jamil approached from behind the Doctor.

Jamil had already packed a few of his meagre possessions and now standing in the doorway, placed a hand on her shoulder, ‘Thank you Doctor. I’ll travel with these men to tend their wounded friend. I’ll be back before you know it.’ They both knew he was just trying to ease the tension that would surely end in violence.

The Doctor took his hand, ‘You can’t go. You know what this will mean for you and your family. They’ll never let you come back and even if they did, you’d never be able to get out of here. You’ll be blacklisted if you go with them.’

Jamil gave her a sad smile, ‘Sometimes our decisions are made for us, the big ones at least, but we are often free to make the smaller ones and it is these that make the real difference in life.’

A tear rolled down her cheek, for she knew it was doubtful that her friend would ever be seen again. She also understood Jamil and his unbounded optimism. Even in the face of the incredible adversity that he had faced. Those small decisions were what kept him going, such as his decision to work as the camp medic. He knew the risks. It would have been easy to conceal his identity while in the camp, biding time until the paperwork cleared and he was ushered into a new life, a new home. But standing by, hiding in the shadows while people suffered was not in Jamil’s nature.

The Doctor asked, ‘Your family?’

As if in response to the Doctor’s question, shouting emerged from a scuffle at the edge of the growing crowd. Jamil could see two men dragging Sofia by the hair across the dusty courtyard in front of the makeshift hospital. Sofia had blood on her face and was struggling wildly, calling for her father. He could also see his wife, Anisa, holding back their two other children, Azul and Salam. Salam was screaming for his sister. Azul, as usual, was silent, a witness to the world’s horrors, never being able to unsee what she had glimpsed when they fled their city two years earlier. Her silent tears had become her scream. All eyes were locked on the beaten girl, Sofia, kneeling, yet strong, in the dust before the camp’s place of healing, defiance in her eyes. A larger crowd was gathering, moving in, their rage fed by the girl’s plight, her courage, fuelled by her hopelessness mirrored in their own brittle lives.

The insurgents fanned out to keep the growing crowd back. Aziz was conscious of the need to appear strong and in control, but also recognized people on the verge of violence. Under normal circumstances, he would have just shot the screaming girl, an easy solution to most of the difficulties and inconveniences he encountered in his life. However, he couldn’t risk the conversion of this crowd into an angry mob, particularly when quite a few of them were probably armed. That would end badly for all involved.

Aziz held up a hand to the crowd as Sofia knelt at his feet. The crowd settled down instantly, waiting. Sofia jumped up and ran to her father, clinging to his fragile form. Instinctively, he inspected her face for the source of the blood and was relieved to find that is was from the nose, probably after being hit by the butt of a gun when she tried to run through the perimeter. It looked like it had been a rather light impact, no immediate bruising and no sign of serious swelling - always the doctor. He looked into the crowd and found Anisa’s eyes, giving her a slight nod to let her know that Sofia was fine. In the eyes of his wife and children, fear is all he saw. Now that Sofia had affronted the insurgents in this manner, some form of retribution would normally be expected and the angry quiet of murmurs enveloped the crowd as they waited for the insurgent leader’s next move. The people were both angry and scared - a dangerous combination. It could go either way.

Aziz spoke to Jamil in a voice loud enough for the crowd to hear, ‘You’ve a beautiful daughter, Medic. Perhaps she should accompany us as well. You could both provide a valuable service to my soldiers.’

Aziz moved toward the pair and although Sofia’s face was now hidden in the robes of her father’s chest, Aziz used the barrel of his AK-47 to lift up a tuft of her raven hair torn free from her hijab. There was no mistaking his intent.

Now that the threat had been spoken, the crowd’s mood shifted instantly. Fear overrode their anger. It was in fact, their worst fear, children being taken. It had happened before and they knew it would happen again. A second ago, the crowd’s attention had been on a single daughter, galvanizing their collective strength. In the instant that they focused on their own families under Aziz’s threat, they became just a group of scared individuals. A bully like Aziz knew how to work a crowd. He revelled in the power he felt when the crowd cowered, as it did now.  

Jamil broke the spell, ‘I will come with you, however this girl is just a child and needs her mother’s attentions. I wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate on my work if I had to look after her as well. It is best she stay with her mother.’

Jamil had never killed anyone before. As a surgeon, he had saved many lives and lost quite a few, but he had never taken one. Aziz, however, would be the first if he tried to touch Sofia. A scalpel rested in his hand, now deep in his pocket. Aziz was close enough. Jamil was fast. He knew exactly where to cut. It would be simple. There would be bloodshed as the crowd responded and bullets met flesh and bone. Many would die, but he would do it. Sofia would not be taken. This was one of his small decisions.

Aziz thought for a few moments and responded as Jamil hoped he would. ‘We’ll leave your pretty daughter with the family for now. We know where to find her if we should wish her to visit us.’ Sofia had now officially become a hostage to secure Jamil’s services. In violent times, war or peace, families could be useful like that.

Jamil kissed his twelve-year-old daughter, Sofia, on the cheek, ‘Look out for Azul and Salam. Your mother will need you to be strong until I return.’ He almost believed it himself.

Sofia let go and stood as tall as she could in front of her father for what she thought would be the last time. Hands by her side, tears streaming, un-wiped, down her dusty cheeks, there was nothing that she could say to the kind man that would give his life for his family; the man who had always shared his world with her; his story with his family. Was this the end of his story? Sofia nodded silently as her father vanished right before her eyes, his footsteps sinking slowly beneath the sand.

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