"Good morning, teacher Petra" - said the children in a
chore as she entered the classroom.
"Good morning children." - she said on the same calm voice she always had. "Is there somebody who has no homework? No? Good. Then lets practice the colors. What is
ahmar in English?"
"Red."
"
Akhdar?"
"Green."
"
Burtukhaali?"
"Orange."
"
Banafsaji?"
"Purple."
"Bunni?"
"Brown."
"Yes. I see all of you learned the lesson. Now as a reward we will go out and continue the lesson there, where we will learn about cities, mountains, seas."
Petra loved her job. It was not easy, but she always managed to make these suffering children smile. And behind this there was a well defined aim. To change something through education. She knew that all the people who lived in the refugee camp loved her, although they all looked strangely at her at the beginning. But now it was all different. She entered in their heart and the parents knew that their children are in good hands with her.
Sometimes she missed her home, her mountain, but it all passed as some children came to her to ask something. She did what she had to do.
Ameen`s dream was to help these people, so it was no question about staying or leaving. Of course she missed
Ameen, she hoped she would meet him by chance, she did not understand why the boy never came to the camp. Maybe because it would have remind him of the times they had together, or maybe he got married and already had children...
But she continued to look up to the sky every night at exactly 10 o`clock, sometimes she felt
Ameen, saw his face, other times she did not. But there was not even one night when she went to sleep without telling him goodnight and that she never stopped loving him. And every night she apologized, and hoped that someday he would be able to forgive her.
Petra never tried to convince anybody to
become a Christian, but she did not converted to Islam either. She used to wear
shal not to make the others feel bad, she knew that she does not have to wear it.
Azra helped her in everything, she was so determined to make the life from the camp better, as Petra was. But after a while she got married and one year later she had a baby. Petra knew that she would have much more work, but there was nothing else in her life, so she was happy for her dear friend and did her job too without
complaining. The relationship between them did not change after
Azra`s marriage, and she was glad for that. Her husband was very kind, he understood that these two women has to talk a lot, and has to be together at least one hour every day.
Every time they were sad because one thing or another that happened in the camp, they said that many years ago Aisha did it all alone, so they can do it also. This gave them
power to go on.
The months passed one after the other on the other side of the planet too, so did the seasons.
Ameen lost the notion of time, he just noticed that the mountain changed its dress from deep green to a colorful, then it became naked before becoming a bride, then it had the green dress again. He looked at the mountain every day, and he hoped that one day he would see Petra there. By chance. But he never did. "Maybe she lives in another city by now, has children..." - he thought.
He worked at the local university and
tough Arabic language. He loved his job, he spent most of time there, helped his students. But there was one question that the students and the other teachers asked, a question he hated so much and wanted to
avoid all the time: "What made you come here?" He invented all kind of reasons, some of them could be believed, others not, but he did not care. Sometimes he was thinking of dating somebody, having a family like most of people have, but when he saw the mountain, it all
disappeared as fast as it came. He could not imagine anybody beside him if that person was not Petra. But he did not even want to vanish those feelings he had for her, he tried to see her face in everybody and everything, and he kept looking at the picture they took in Istanbul, the picture that was full of love. Every time he took it in his hands, he felt like being there again, touching her hand, kissing her lips...
The Big
Eid was coming soon so he decided that after 7 years of being apart from his family, it was time to go home, visit them. He missed his family, he missed everything that was his world, but the feelings he had at the mountain`s feet were even stronger, that was why every time he hesitated, the decision was always to stay. But now that he had enough money, and knowing that his parents wait for him for so long, he thought that it was the time to go home for a while.
His family was waiting for him at the airport in Amman, and as he got out, he heard the call for the pray. "It reminds me five times per day who I really am" - he was thinking. He missed that sound. And he missed the desert wind that caressed his face and entered deep in him, till his bones, and he felt that it was carrying him somewhere far, behind the huge amount of sand, behind the lost city of Petra, behind all the houses with flat roofs, on a place that could easily be the wonderland from the fairy tales, it was carrying him home. His breath was full of all kind of smells he did not felt while he was away, the smell of sweet perfume combined with the smell of Arab food and
baklava, all melted in the endless joy of meeting his family again.
Everybody was there, not just the very close family, but aunts, uncles. They all wanted to see
Ameen, they all wanted to ask him so many things. Some of them came with flowers, and everybody talked in the same time. He did not know where to look, who to hold. Then finally after almost an hour of welcome wishes he was in the car with
Babba,
Ummi and his brothers, on his way home to
Irbid. The 80 kilometers road seemed like eternity to him. He wanted to answer all their questions, but in the same time he wanted to just look out on the window and watch the landscape. That monotone, colorless landscape he hated so much and the one that became wonderful now that he did not see it for so many years. When they were at
Philadelphia University, he remembered his student years, his professors, how he hated the military course, his friends from there, and he remembered
Ghadeer. He smiled and almost saw her face as she was looking deep in his eyes, how she always listened to him while he was talking about Petra. "She has a golden soul" - he thought. "I hope she has a good life now. A husband who takes care of her and gives her all she deserves, the life she wanted beside me, but I could have never give her." Then the road continued through empty mountains and valleys with a few
Bedouin tents. The rocks were as he left them, empty, only with a few green spots on it. His heart
beated fast all the way. After they left
Jarash, the road became short till
Irbid, and he felt it passed in a few minutes. The house had the same smell he knew very well, a specific smell of cinnamon combined with mint and a little curry. It was good to be home.
The first few days passed instantly. Everybody came to see him, all the relatives and friends. It was good meeting them all again, it was like time had stopped in the day he left, and now everything just took its course from where he left it. In the nights he went out in the city, to see all those places he loved, the University Street with that little coffee shop at the corner... Everything was the same, and passing by them, he felt that he was the same too. The years he spent far away
disappeared in a minute, he felt like he was still a student, the boy who lives in
Irbid with
Ummi and
Babba.
One day he went to the refugee camp, to see if anything changed there, or it was all the same. He was thinking of the people who were living there for many times. It was his people, his blood, he could not stay without feeling at least compassion. He hoped he would see that woman again, whose child died, and he hoped that she would give him good news about the other child she had. Good news about a better future. He took some candies with him to give to the kids and went to the camp. As he got there, he noticed that a few houses were renewed, and a school was built too. He was glad to see that. "It is a start..." - he thought. When the kids saw that he gave them candies, all of them surrounded him, talking loud, laughing, jumping.
Ameen asked them to show him the new school. Of course the children were very happy to do that, so he went in surrounded by little boys and girls, all with candies in their mouth. He was welcomed by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck,
Aladin and others from fairy tales, all painted on the big white walls. They entered in one classroom, and in that moment time indeed stopped. There was a girl dressed in jeans and a purple blouse, having a
shal on her head, a
shal that he knew very well. The classroom was full of a smell he thought he forgot, lily of the valley.
Ameen stood there like a piece of stone and could not believe what was there in front of him. When the girl turned to see what that big noise was, she felt that the solid ground she stood on became
unstable, the room started to go round and round, she could not hear the children`s laugh anymore, she did not even see anymore, she just sat on the chair.
"Petra?" - he asked, but nothing else could come out from his mouth, he felt only the salty taste of the tears that did not want to stop. Then she got up and went to him, took his hand and pressed it to her chest.
"Do you feel this? It is your heart beating in my chest, that is why I am here. It belongs here. This is its home."
"I can not believe this
hayaty. I lived beside your mountain for 7 years. That means more than 2500 days when I hoped every second that it was not over, that I would see you, maybe just by chance. And in all this time..."
"Yes...I was here. To fulfill your dream."
Ameen took her in his arms and did not want to let her go. He held the treasure of his life, all the hopes, dreams, wishes became reality, it all had sense again after so many years, when so many things around them changed, when the seasons came one after the other, following their natural course, when the whole world was running and
changing with the speed of light. Of course they changed too in some points. Some grey hair, some wrinkles, but the love they felt for each other, that did not change, that did not become less or did not loose anything from its intensity. They were alive again. It was like a dream, but the loud laugh of the children made them understand that it was real.
"Teacher Petra and the candy man are kissing in the school!" - some of them shouted while running through the camp.
"
Matha? (What?) Allah
answered to my prays" - said
Azra surprised and ran to the school.