A World Away From Home

Final chapters of our compelling serial set in a refugee camp

Clare was glad that today’s clinic had been calmer, after all the drama of yesterday, with Rafiq’s disappearance and discovery. It had been busy, of course, but there had been no major incidents. She, Hélene and Dr Lehrer had even enjoyed a fifteen-minute break together, which was usually unheard of.

“Did you reply to your boyfriend?” Helene asked Clare. Clare hadn’t revealed the details of Dom’s email, but she had told Helene she was surprised by it.

Boyfriend? Was Dom strictly speaking still her boyfriend?

“What did he say?” Dr Lehrer asked, always so brusque and direct.

Clare felt herself flush at the memory of reading Dom saying he loved her.

“Look, we have a customer.” Clare had never been so pleased to see a woman approach with a screaming toddler in tow. “Onwards and upwards.” She smiled at the doctor and nurse, who looking puzzled by the phrase, pulled latex gloves on and stood to attend to their patients.

Now she was enjoying sweet tea around the fire after dinner. Helene and Dr Lehrer had pursued their questioning over dinner, but Clare had resolutely avoided telling them everything.

Surrounded by the hum of voices speaking in several languages she mulled over her reply to Dom. Maybe she should have revealed all to her friends, asked their advice, but then ultimately it was her decision to make, wasn’t it?

And she couldn’t prevent Khalid pushing his way into her thoughts too. There was no way she was going to tell her friends how often she thought about her Jordanian colleague. He was a complex man. Devoted to his work at the camp; but seemingly hard at times too. Was it the environment and situation in which he lived that made him so? It must be a factor. You couldn’t be surrounded by so many displaced people struggling to make sense of their lives, not knowing if or when they could go home without it affecting you, could you?

Clare SHUDDERED. The air was WARM but she moved CLOSER to the fire

Was the connection she felt to him one-sided? She didn’t think so. At times when she had helped him cook she turned, feeling his gaze on her and he’d swiftly averted his eyes, returning to his task of producing industrial amounts of Mujadara, the delicious dish of rice and lentils she loved.

“The boy is missing again, they are missing,” a man cried, breaking the peace of the campfire.

Clare’s heart sank. It must be Rafiq. But where had he fled to this time?

Men stood, looking weary. There was much less sense of urgency this time. They glanced at one another, shrugged and made their way together as a group away from the camp.

They are missing. That’s what the man had said, Clare thought. Not just Rafiq this time, but at least one other person. Who was with him? A friend? But he was always alone in the camp. Kicking a football about in the dirt, never taking part in the team games. Despite being cheerful with Clare he was clearly an unsettled lad.

Clare shuddered. The air still held some warmth, but she moved a little closer to the fire. There were few people around now. Just a couple of nurses

she didn’t know well chatting quietly.

Clare yawned. She needed her bed, but she knew that if she tried to sleep she would be unable to do so.

She needed to know what was going on. She felt fond of Rafiq. She loved his spirit, his cheek, how he could spin a tale, and she felt saddened that he felt the need to run off.

She hadn’t seen Khalid this evening. She would wait up on the offchance he would appear. She felt she deserved to know exactly what was going on.

Khalid, is that you?” The fire had virtually gone out. Clare must have dozed off for a little while, but not into a deep sleep. The sound of footsteps had awoken her and she saw a tall, familiar robed figure pass by, heading in the direction of the staff tents.

“Clare?” It was Khalid. “You are still awake?” his voice sounded weary. “Was it Rafiq? Is he OK?” Khalid sat next to Clare, pouring them both more tea. It was cool now as the fire that heated the giant kettle was just embers.

“That boy, the one you call Rafiq and we call Jamal. Yes, it was him that took me away from the camp. He has caused much trouble, but he is safe now.”

“Someone said ‘they’. That ‘they’ were missing.”

Khalid smiled at her, the creases deepening around his kohl-rimmed eyes. He was a very attractive man. Butterflies were released in Clare’s stomach. He was seated close to her, but not too close, as tradition demanded. “It is complicated,” he sighed. “Please tell me,” she whispered. It looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It might help him to tell her, and she wanted to understand the mystery surrounding Rafiq.

“It is because of you he has gone. Clare, you have taught me things,” Khalid said following a long pause when he stared into the last of the fire.

“Me?” She hadn’t been expecting that. Did she mean she was to blame in some way? She hoped not.

“Yes, Clare, when we were talking about tradition, remember? The first time? Let me explain. It is what you might call a long story.”

She did remember. She had been taken aback by the old Bedouin saying that seemed to pit people against one another.

“I have time,” she said. “Please tell me.”

“You were right, then, to question me,” he said. “I have been working here, helping. It keeps me busy, sometimes prevents me from thinking.” “It keeps us all busy,” she said smiling. “Yes, you are right. And maybe it is good, sometimes that we are kept busy, our minds stay away from, how would you say, thoughts that challenge us?”

Clare blushed, glad it was dark and that Khalid couldn’t see her face. Had being kept busy been an excuse for her to avoid giving too much thought to going home, to where she and Dom stood? Was she avoiding thinking about what her feelings for Khalid, this infuriating, complex, beautiful man meant? She most certainly was. “But sometimes we must face those thoughts too,” he continued. “We must work things out.”

Very true, Clare thought, wincing slightly.

“Many of us find it hard,” he said. “Life has changed so fast. For you too in the West, but for us here, more so. Our whole way of life has changed, as I told you. Especially for the Bedouin. We are brought up with tradition.

“Our elders talk to us of ways to live; they try to help us lead good, righteous lives, to stay together in our family

groups. We follow Allah’s example, of course. Then there is the modern world. See, here?”

He pulled his mobile phone from deep within his robes.

“How would we survive now without one of these?” They grinned at one another. “Indeed,” Clare said. “The curse of the mobile phone. Of technology. Life is moving and changing so fast. There’s no escape from it.” She thought of Dom’s email. He had reached out to her, here in the desert.

“And they are good. You have troubles, you can Google the answer,” Khalid grinned. “But in other ways we resist change. Maybe we feel there is too much, it’s too swift, that our traditions are valuable, and we are protecting them. We are touched by the ways of people who have not lived nomadic lives, people from cities, people who are not Bedouin, who brings us ways that threaten our, I don’t know how to say this…’ His voice trailed away. “Identity,” Clare said. “I think you mean identity.”

“Yes, that is the word. Identity. We still respect our elders, and we obey them. My father, he was a good man. He had plans for me, for my future, which I must respect. I think it is different for you, in the West. Sometimes these traditions are hard for us to accept, but we do so with an open heart, with faith.”

There was a sadness to his voice, a certain resignation.

Yes, Clare thought, it is different. She understood what Khalid was telling her. How the proud Bedouin way of life deserved protection. But he was telling her something more too, in an indirect way. His life partner, his wife, had been chosen for him by his father.

They were silent for a while. His words suggested that he too had feelings for Clare. That he was acknowledging there was an attraction between them.

She hadn’t arrived in this wonderful, beautiful country and been drawn to the first man she met, swept up in a misguided sense of romanticism. Some feelings, at least, were mutual.

She thought about Dom. The man she had left behind. The man who had declared his love for her. The man she had shared so many happy times with. She and Dom had history. And wasn’t much of this whole, huge scenario all about history. “Jamal – Rafiq – is with Aaliyah.” His words broke into her thoughts. Aaliyah, the woman she’d seen Khalid talking to so many times.

“Aaliyah, was she the other person who was missing? Her children?”

“Her children are with her. They are all with my mother and sisters. In our village. They have been welcomed into our family.

“It is not always brother against brother, or sister against sister. Our family should not have limits, when there are people in need. That is what you taught me Clare. Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” she replied, too overwhelmed by what she was hearing to say much else at the moment.

“I have arranged for them to stay there. I did not wish to announce it to all in the camp as the arrangement is, how do you say, informal for now, but we hope it can be permanent. Aaliyah has skills, she is a craftswoman; she weaves and sews. She will support herself by producing items for us to sell to tourists.”

Tradition meets modernity, Clare thought, glancing down at the beautifully woven rugs that were scattered across around the ground, the intricate patterns that decorated them no doubt having hundreds of years of history behind them.

“The boy you call Rafiq was to be looked after by a Jordanian family, in the city. A family that lost a boy. But he was unhappy. He is not a city boy. He is a Bedouin, so he has, how do you say it, been going…’ “…under the radar?” Clare said. “Yes, that is it. And as the date got closer he disappeared. When I returned yesterday with him I made the decision he would leave with Aaliyah. I saw the men go to search for him, and I told them he was safe. That is all they need to know for now. In time they will know the truth. Like you have discovered the truth of his name.

“I questioned him about that. He tells me that he was afraid that you knew what was to happen to him and that he might be caught and sent away. So he gave you a false name. You must understand, Clare, how hard it is for boys like him to trust people. He tried to stay hidden, remain alone, but he found a friend in you. In many ways.”

Clare’s eyes drooped and a lump formed in her throat. Knowing Rafiq was being cared for and would be happier than he had been in this camp, probably constantly dreading what might happen to him, was a relief, and now she could acknowledge her overwhelming tiredness. “I must sleep, Khalid,” she said. “Me too,” he replied softly, and they parted for the night.

Clare, come, you are excused from duties today.” Clare was startled by Khalid’s voice as she arranged instruments in the clinic the following morning. She had been many miles away. Helene nudged her and winked as she followed Khalid out of the tent. Clare shook her head. “Follow me,” he said, leading her to the entrance to the camp and to his jeep, the jeep she hadn’t seen since he’d driven her here from the airport. That seemed so long ago, now. In another lifetime.

“We are going to visit my family,” Khalid explained. “You have helped so much I wish you to meet them.”

They bumped across the desert; the rugged landscape a thing of great beauty to Clare. Sand and rock met vivid blue sky and the sun shone on them as they made their way across a makeshift track.

Ahead of them some shapes came into view. It was no mirage. There were low

She thought about DOM – the man she had LEFT BEHIND, who LOVED HER

white buildings and tents. As they got closer Clare saw people. A man leading three camels; another herding sheep.

“We are here,” he said, braking fiercely, throwing up a cloud of sand. Clare felt strangely nervous. In the camp you met many Bedouin men, but few Bedouin women. She knew she was privileged.

Quickly she wrapped a scarf she kept in her bag around her head and steeped down from the jeep, following Khalid through a gate and towards a house.

“Salaam alaykum,” he called ahead. Hello.

A woman appeared in the doorway. She was shorter than Khalid, her black abaya skirting the dusty ground, her face partially covered by a heavily beaded scarf, just her eyes visible. The same dark, alert and warm eyes as Khalid. His mother, Clare thought.

“Ahlan wa sahlan,” she said, nodding her head in greeting and indicating that Clare follow her into her home. Welcome. “Shrukran,” Clare replied. Thank you. The house was filled with women and children, the women crowded together on brightly coloured cushions on the floor, the children playing, fighting and staring, clearly unable to supress their curiosity at Clare’s arrival. One small girl approached her, touched her hand, then ran back and hid among the folds of her mother’s abaya.

“My family,” Khalid said, standing apart from Clare, pride in his voice. “My mother and sisters. And here is Aaliyah.”

“Hello, Clare.” Aaliyah entered the room carrying a tray of sweetmeats in one hand, her baby tucked under her other arm. The baby slept. “It is good to see you again.” She placed the tary on a low table then sat amongst the group. “You too, Aaliyah.” The woman looked settled, already at home with this family of women.

“Miss Clare, you are here?” A boy had bowled into the room with two others. “Rafiq! Or should I call you Jamal?” He grinned shyly at her, shrugging his shoulders and shuffling his feet. “I like it here,” he said. “No jinn.” On that cheery note, he and the other boys left the room.

Clare accepted a glass of tea and sat with Khalid’s family for a while, picking up words of Arabic and responding where she could. Khalid was telling them Clare was a nurse and how she had helped Jamal. She felt herself blush and pulled her scarf up to hide her face.

She spotted one young woman who sat at the edge of the group, not speaking but occasionally glancing shyly in Clare’s direction from behind a heavily decorated niqab.

“Come, it is time for us to return,” Khalid said, and they made their goodbyes. He nodded and smiled at the young woman on the edge of the group who nodded back, then glanced away. Khalid’s fiancée, Clare wondered?

As they climbed into the jeep Clare watched Jamal running in the distance, knowing that, now he knew his limits, he wouldn’t keep running. This may not have been the home he had left behind in Syria, but it was home for him now.

The outcome for Jamal had been a good one. She hoped that in time the outcome for all the children in the camp would be equally good. And not just the children. That every refugee would be able to return home, to rebuild their lives. It was what they all deserved.

“Goodbye Jamal,” Clare called, but her words must have got caught up in the wind as he didn’t reply, just continued playing football with the other boys in the family.

“Goal,” she heard him cry excitedly as they drove away.

Even by the standards set by the camp, the last few days had been astonishing. Clare was determined that, if any drama arose, she was going to have an early night and sleep through, but before that she had to reply to Dom.

Now she knew exactly what she was going to say.

She made her way across the camp, the bustling place so familiar to her now. Almost like home. Almost. If she bumped into Khalid tomorrow and they had a chance to talk, she would tell him that it wasn’t just him who had learnt from her. She had learned from Khalid, and his family too. He had reminded her of the importance of family ties, and the ties that remain between you and loved ones, even if you’re separated by many miles.

She smiled at memories of herself and Dom together, bickering over whether to watch a rom-com or an action film, eventually staying up half the night to watch both, enjoying a lie-in the following morning, together. Of the mundane such as food shopping, and the exciting stuff like learning to dive together. That was life, wasn’t it? That was her life. Their life.

Finding a free computer, she opened Dom’s email and clicked Reply.

Dear Dom, it was so good to hear from you. I’ m sorry it’ s taken me a couple of days to get back to you. There’ s been a bit of akerfuffl ego ing on. All sorted now, though, thank goodness.

I’ ve been thinking about you loads too. I love you too, Dom. I love you very much. Looking forward now to coming home to you. C la rexxx

Then she pressed Send and her message was gone.

As she headed back to her tent a mini sandstorm whirled around her feet. She smiled as she thought of Jamal and his jinn. It was as though he were finally saying goodbye.

The BUSTLING camp, so FAMILIAR to her now. ALMOST like home…