Erstellt am: 8. 3. 2016 - 19:05 Uhr

The Death Trip - Part 4

Goodbye in the darkest of nights.

Bode37 ist im Sommer aus Syrien geflohen, wo er als Lehrer gearbeitet hat. Für uns erzählt er von seiner Flucht aus Latakia. Hier der vierte Teil seiner Erinnerungen. Er heißt natürlich nicht wirklich so; aus Sicherheitsgründen bevorzugt er für seine Geschichte ein Pseudonym.

The war in Syria is a disaster that no one in power really wants to end, and the ones trying to stop it, the voices of reason, are silenced. Dark hopelessness clouded my mind that faithful night I had to run from the soldiers. I was waiting for my brother, who lives with his wife in another city next to Latakia. He suggested picking me up by car and bringing me to a friend’s house. Away from my own city I could hide more safely. While waiting for him I tried to soak in the atmosphere of my family home. The tears of my mother mixed with the amazement of my father in the black silence of the night. I knew those were the last minutes in my home, a place that conserves the memories of bygone times in its walls. What can I say about the moment of definite goodbye? I felt my heart torn from my body and I slept the remaining time in my mother’s bosom to feel a little safe. At 3 a.m. my brother arrived and found us drowning in a sea of tears and emotions. I didn´t want to leave my mother´s side but she pushed me away with her heart broken and begged me to leave.

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It had been a silent goodbye under the dark night sky. I was looking at my mother and father, hugging the rest of the walls inside my lost soul until they disappeared behind the cruel mountains, far far away.

I still remember that night very well. We had cold weather in April. I felt the cold of the harsh and sudden separation inside, silence in the empty streets and only the trees were crying about what had happened to this country, how it´s people became so cruel to each other, a cruelty which even makes stones scream.

My brother drove on small farm roads to avoid military check points. They already had my name listed. 25 kilometer was the distance to my first shelter, each kilometer felt like an eternity. It seemed that all life had perished from the roads that night. I was lonely with my brother beside me. He had fallen into complete silence. He was shocked and there was nothing to say. The dead road that night was the first step to the end. After I had been in hiding for two days the soldiers came and searched my house. My mother fell very ill and she had to be taken to hospital after the raid. It was cruel to hear this news in my hiding because there was nothing I could do. I could not go and see her; only 25 kilometers between us but these 25 kilometers became an uncrossable universe. My mother!

I would need more than one lifetime to tell you about her. She is an epic in herself. She gave me everything to go on in this life. She was dreaming about my wedding day but destiny had other plans. My mother, the innocent soul, the source of forgiveness, the warm hands, the mountains of patience, became another victim of war. I was the closest child to her, the child who refused to move out and get married as the Syrian habit is. She did hold me for nine month and protected me to grow up so that I could become the soul I am today.

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She is my crown of lightness, I´m a copy of her. In the moment of seperation she burned herself in the fire of the torment to save me. After my mother recovered my brother organized an illegal trip to Turkey for me. One of his friends knows an organization that can set up that kind of trips. I did not know the organization before. Now I can say about them that they are neither hard boiled criminals nor humanists. They just care about the money. I had no choice but dealing with them. They demanded 1000 USD to take me 70 km from Latakia to the Turkish border.

I had saved some money for my wedding and my mother raised the extra money to pay the trip. So we arranged a deal. They will receive the money as soon as I arrive in Turkey. At the first chance on the Turkish side of the border I will call my brother and then he will hand out the Dollars to the organization.

Before the war we didn’t use US-Dollars in Syria but because of the economic sanctions the Syrian Pound had lost its value, so the organization demanded to be paid in Dollars. Finally they gave me the date for the trip. I was searching my documents and I found my out of date passport. As I was holding the invalid document in my hands, memories of prison flashed my brain.