No Safe Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

could see several sleeping relatives in each room he passed. He also had to be careful of his mother’s paintings, taken down and stacked against the walls so they wouldn’t be damaged when the house shook.
    Holding his guitar carefully so it wouldn’t knock into something and make noise, Abdul went step by step toward the door. He even held his breath.
    From the back kitchen came the voices of his mother and her two sisters having a discussion about how many meals they could get out of the remaining flour and oil. With every second Abdul expected to be called on to fetch something or clean something.
    But he made it to the door, then through it. He even managed to close the door behind him.
    The small concrete yard was empty in the heat of the day, so Abdul had no problem crossing it and letting himself out through the high metal fence that separated their house from the street.
    He stepped out into a city he didn’t recognize.
    It was as though God had picked up the world, shaken it madly, then let it fall through His fingers and scatter on the ground.
    The men in his family should have prepared him. He should have been allowed to stay in the room when his brothers and older cousins came back with supplies and talked about the world outside. He should not have been sent out with the younger children.
    The houses immediately around Abdul’s house all had pieces missing. One had a huge hole in the roof. Another had a hole in the wall. Another had collapsed altogether. There were big chunks of cement and glass everywhere.
    Abdul headed off in the direction of his teacher’s street. He passed a home that had the whole front wall blasted away. Abdul could look into the open rooms. He saw an old man and woman sitting in the remains of their kitchen, looking at their hands.
    He kept walking, the guitar bumping gently against his legs. The more he walked, the more rubble there was. He saw buildings that were still smoking and cars that were smashed and broken. He almost stepped on the body of a man that was badly burned, the mouth still open in its final scream.
    Some neighborhoods were crowded with people scrambling through the wreckage, calling out to each other when they found food or a body. Others were trying to make crude repairs, shoring up their broken houses to get ready for the bombs to fall again.
    When he got to his teacher’s house, all that was left were hunks of concrete with steel rods sticking out of them like bones out of the remains of a fish. None of it was recognizable as walls or a roof.
    Abdul could see the blue of the curtains — just a scrap — peeking out beneath the remains of a cookstove.
    He called out his teacher’s name.
    â€œBashar!”
    There was no answer.
    He called out the names of his teacher’s family members – his wife, Maryam, his sons, Mohammed and Samir, and his little daughter, Fatima.
    â€œHere I am,” said a tiny voice. Abdul ran toward the sound.
    â€œFatima, is that you? Where are you?”
    â€œI’m here,” she said again. The sound came from above and to the back. He ran that way.
    She was sitting on top of the rubble, clutching an orange and green pillow.
    â€œIt’s your lesson day,” she said when she saw it was Abdul. “Papa’s not here.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    She shrugged, then pointed down.
    â€œInside,” she said. “I think they’re inside. I didn’t like the way the house shook. I brought my pillow to sleep outside. Mama told me no, but I can do that sometimes.” She tried to lift the slab of concrete that jutted into the one she was sitting on.
    â€œIt won’t move,” she said.
    Abdul climbed up onto the rubble — difficult to do with one hand full of guitar. He sat down beside her.
    â€œHas anyone come to help you?”
    She just looked at him, her eyes big and round.
    He tried to remember being five years old, but