As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

by Zoulfa Katouh

I wish we were being broadcast live on every channel and smartphone in the world so everyone could see what they’re allowing to happen to children.

How can a child have so much composure in the face of death?

brushed her fingers along the devil’s ivy leaves cascading from my bookshelf to the floor. Layla had gifted me the plant when I was accepted into pharmacy school, and I named her Urjuwan. The name was ironic, seeing as it meant purple, while my devil’s ivy’s leaves were the darkest shade of green. Still, it is a name I love. The way the U, R, J and W all come together to create a melodic word that sounds the most Arabic. Urjuwan

The sky is now a burst of purple and pink fragmenting through the tangerine orange, the clouds taking on a lavender tinge. ‘You asked me if you could see colours again, Salama. If we deserve to see them,’ Kenan says quietly. ‘I think we do. I think you can. There’s too little of it in death. In pain. But that’s not the only thing in the world. That’s not all that Syria has. Syria was once the centre of the world. Inventions and discoveries were made here; they built the world. Our history is in the Al-Zahrawi Palace, in our mosques, in our earth.’

Oh, ya albi. My heart.

‘Bury me before I bury you,’ he whispers in prayer. ‘Please.’ I clasp his face between my hands, brushing away the teardrops. ‘I—’ ‘I love you,’ he says before I can.

‘Syria lives in our hearts,’ I whisper. ‘She always will.’

I’m Khawf. In English, Fear. In German, Angst. Humans have listened to my whispers, heeded my counsel, and tasted my power. I’m everywhere. In the breaths of a king executed by his people. In the last heartbeats of a soldier bleeding out alone. In the tears of a pregnant girl dying at her doorstep.’

‘Remember how in Ramadan the streets would be lit up with lanterns,’ I stutter, and they all look at me. ‘Don’t think about the cold. Remember how warm the bread used to be. Fresh from the bakery.’ Kenan joins in. ‘Lama. Yusuf. Remember when we used to go to the country. To Jedo’s farmhouse and pick the apricots. How I’d climb up and toss them to you, Lama. Yusuf, remember when you found that pigeon’s nest?’

‘Salama, we’ll have that knafeh.’ His cheeks are wet, and I know it’s not just from the sea. His lips brush over my scarred knuckles. ‘If not in Germany, then in Heaven.’

Sprawled across the dining table are Kenan’s sketchbooks, all filled with drawings of our stories. Next to them is a half-empty knafeh pan. The charcoal portrait he drew of me at the Brandenburg Gate is enclosed in a wooden frame, hanging over the couch in the living room. The walls are a canvas for our imagination, and we’ve splashed the white with different shades of blue. One wall hosts Kenan’s ongoing work of a map of Syria, while I etched a Nizar Qabbani poem along the surface of the other because it turns out my calligraphy is better than his. It’s one I saw at the revolution’s anniversary protest. Every lemon will bring forth a child, and the lemons will never die out.