tracks, perfect for a kids’ game in which all they had to do was take a running jump onto this line in order to whizz all around the spaceship at great speed. Its captain was a crazy camel who entertained the passengers with comical announcements. Father put on a funny voice for this purpose, making the children crack up. In Arabic, amal means hope. Soon everyone in the sports hall was familiar with the planet called Hope. Sometimes when even the grown-ups could no longer hide tears of despair and exhaustion from their children, the little ones could be seen stroking their cheeks, saying “It’s not far to Amal now.”
It wasn’t long before parents began to join the circle around Father, and a few days later, some of the aid workers were also listening in. Soon this story time became a regular fixture, an evening ritual that brought people together. It was the only time when no one spoke but Father. His reassuring voice floated above the listeners’ heads and filled them with a wealth of imagery.
These days, having learned so much more about him, I often wonder how he managed to keep his secret. And I always come to the same conclusion: his ability to escape reality must have helped him.
Hakim’s asylum application was approved before my parents’.
As a single father, with passable German to boot, he and Yasmin could expect to get a permanent residence permit in the near future. My parents hugged and kissed them goodbye and waved them off when they left the sports hall. Their next stop was a little social housing flat on the edge of town. A few months later, Hakim also got a work permit and found a job in a joinery. He had played the lute all his life and had no trouble convincing the master joiner, who had a soft spot for refugees, that the calluses on his fingers were from years and years of working with tools. He enjoyed the work too. Being a lute-maker’s son, he loved the smell of wood. Hakim had spent many childhood years in his father’s workshop before heading to Beirut to become a successful musician.
My parents had to stay on in the hall for another while. When they eventually got the preliminary approval letter, many tears were shed. Mother cried tears of relief. Some of the grown-ups cried because they couldn’t imagine the sports hall without my father. And the children cried because their storyteller was leaving. It was a Tuesday when the man arrived and started looking around the hall. An aid worker who had been leaning against a door pointed him in the right direction, and he made a bee line for my parents.
“Are you Brahim?”
“Yes,” said Father.
“Brahim el-Hourani?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And you are Rana el-Hourani?” he asked my mother.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“A letter for you.” And when he noticed how Mother shrank back a little, the man smiled and said, “Congratulations!”
And so Brahim the storyteller left the sports hall. Nearly everyone wanted to say goodbye. People came to wish my parents good luck, reassuring each other that they’d soon meet again, in town, as ordinary citizens, at the cinema, shops, or restaurants.
Brahim. That was my father’s name. Brahim el-Hourani. Rana was my mother’s first name. The el-Houranis—those were my parents. I didn’t exist yet.
My parents got a flat in the same housing scheme as Hakim and Yasmin. Fate and a few case workers had been kind to them. They ended up living only a few hundred metres apart. And Father, whose German was pretty good by then, also got a work permit within a few months. Mother once told me how he went off to the Foreigners’ Registration Office with a bag of freshly baked baklava and put it on the baffled official’s desk.
“My wife made that for you,” he said.
“Oh,” said the official, “I can’t accept that.”
“It’s for the stamp,” said Father.
“The stamp.”
“On the work permit.”
“Ah. The stamp,” said the official, looking from Father to the plastic bag on his desk and back to Father again.
“We’re very grateful to you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t accept it,” the man repeated, clearly embarrassed.
“Please. I am a guest in your country. Regard it as a gift for the host.”
“I can’t.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“The answer is still no.”
“I saw what’s on the menu in your canteen today,” said Father. “Believe me, you do want this baklava.”
“I’m sure it’s perfectly delicious baklava,” protested the man, “but I’m afraid I can’t accept it.”
“Maybe I should have a word with your boss?”
“No,” cried the official. “No, Mr. …”
“El-Hourani. You can call me Brahim.”
“Mr. el-Hourani, please give my regards to your wife and tell her what a pleasant surprise this was. But my wife is baking a cake this evening, and if I eat your pastries beforehand, I’ll be in trouble at home.”
“In trouble? With your wife? You’re not serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Well, we don’t want that, do we,” said my father.
“No, we don’t.”
“All right, then.” Father took the bag off the desk. “Thank you very much for your help all the same. And if you ever do fancy some baklava, just give us a ring.”
Then Mother recounted how Father came home and declared with a sigh, “In Beirut, if you need something stamped, you take baklava to the guy with the stamp beforehand. Here they won’t even accept the baklava after they’ve given you the stamp.”
The official didn’t forget my father in a hurry. How could he? He saw him on three further occasions, when Father accompanied men he knew from the sports hall. Each time, he asked the official for a stamp. Each time, he got it.
The preliminary decision was soon followed by the final one. My parents were granted asylum and received permanent residence permits as well. Father got a job in a youth centre where many foreign kids spent the afternoons. He helped them with German after school, and they were happy to learn from him as he was such a good role model. He earned a lot of respect among the youngsters. One time he managed to invite a well-known graffiti artist to the centre. Between them they sprayed and decorated the grey exterior, transforming it into a colourful landscape full of Coca-Cola rivers, lollipop trees, and chocolate mountains with ice-cream peaks. A bit like the wonderful planet Amal.
Mother loved sewing. She would buy fabric at knock-down prices at the local flea market and make up dresses on a sewing machine that also came from the flea market. Father set up a corner for her in the living room, and she’d work in the pool of light cast by a desk lamp that wasn’t quite tall enough, threading the needle and guiding the fabric with steady hands as the machine stitched and whirred.
