ran along the street, yelling. Some carried others who had been injured in the explosions. The sound of gunfire echoed through the alley and the men threw themselves to the ground.
She ducked back inside the hole, afraid she’d be hit by the bullets. But then she realized she’d rather be shot than take another beating. Instead of waiting around for her attacker to return, she pulled herself through the gap and dropped to the ground. A shout sounded on the street at the other end of the alley. She didn’t wait to find out if the man was shouting at her; she turned the opposite direction and ran.
At the other end of the alley, a canvas-covered truck stood, the back overflowing with some kind of cut vegetation, dried leaves and stalks. With men shouting and brandishing weapons all around her, she wouldn’t last long out in the open. She dove into the back of the truck and buried herself beneath the stems and leaves.
A metal door opened and slammed shut, the truck’s engine roared to life and the vehicle rolled along the street. With no way to see where they were headed, she resigned herself to going along for the ride. Anywhere had to be better than where she’d been.
As she lay beneath the sticks and leaves, she realized they were drying stalks of marijuana, a lucrative crop for Syrian farmers. Where they were taking their crop, she didn’t know. Hopefully, far enough away from the people who’d held her hostage. She touched her wrist where the skin had been rubbed raw, probably from having been tied with abrasive rope. In the meager light penetrating her hiding place, she noticed a tattoo on the underside of her wrist below the raw skin. She pushed the leaves aside to allow more light to shine in on what she recognized as a three-sided Trinity knot. Below the knot were a series of lines and shapes.
The more she tried to decipher the symbols, the more her head ached, and her eyes blurred. The tattoo wouldn’t rub off. Since it was permanent, she should know what the knot and the symbols stood for. No matter how hard she tried to remember, she couldn’t.
The rumble of the engine and the rocking motion of the truck lulled her into a fitful sleep, broken up by sudden jolts when the truck encountered a particularly deep pothole.
What felt like hours later, the vehicle rolled into what appeared to be the edge of a town.
If she planned on leaving the truck, she needed to do it before they stopped and found her hiding in the marijuana.
She dug her way out of the sticks and leaves, crawled to the tailgate and peered out between slitted, swollen eyelids.
The truck had slowed at an intersection in a dirty, dingy area of the town. With a dark alley to either side, this might be her only chance to get out unnoticed.
As the truck lurched forward, she rolled over the tailgate, dropped to the ground and ducked into a shadowy alley. With her face bruised and bleeding, she wouldn’t get far without attracting attention. But she had to get away from the truck and figure out where to go from there.
Turning left at the end of a stucco tenement building, she crossed a street and ducked back into a residential area. Between apartment buildings, lines were hung with various items of clothing, including a black abaya cloak. Glancing left, then right, she slowed, then walked up to the clothesline, pulled off the black abaya and walked away as if she owned it.
A shout behind her made her take off running. She turned at the end of the building and shot a glance over her shoulder. An older woman stood beneath the space where the abaya had been. She wore another abaya and shook her fist.
“Sorry,” she murmured, but she had to do something. With no money, no identification and a face full of bruises, she couldn’t afford to be seen or stop to ask for help.
The salty scent of sea air and the cry of gulls gave her hope. If she were at a port town, she might find a way to stow away on a ship. But where should she go? She didn’t know who she was, or where she belonged, but one thing she was very certain about, despite the fact she could understand Syrian Arabic and Russian, was that she was American. If she could get back to America, she’d have a better chance of reconstructing her identity, her health and her life.
Dressed in the abaya, she pulled the hood well over her head to shadow her battered face and wandered through neighborhoods and markets. Her stomach rumbled, the incessant gnawing reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the last meal the guards had fed her in her little prison two days ago. Moldy flat bread and some kind of mashed chickpeas. She’d eaten what she could, not knowing when her next meal might come. She needed to keep up her strength in the event she could escape. And she had.
Walking through the thriving markets of a coastal town, everything seemed surreal after having been in a war-damaged village, trapped in a tiny cell with a dirt floor.
As she walked by a fruit stand in a market, she brushed up against the stand and slipped an orange beneath her black robe. No one noticed. She moved on. When she came to a dried-fruit-and-nuts stand, she palmed some nuts. With her meager fare in her hands, she left the market and found a quiet alley, hunkered down and ate her meal.
Her broken lips burned from the orange juice, but it slid down her throat, so refreshing and good, she didn’t care. The nuts would give her the protein she needed for energy.
What she really wanted was a bath.
Drawn to the water, she walked her way through the town to the coastline, learning as she went that she was in Latakia, Syria, a thriving party town on the eastern Mediterranean Sea. People from all over Syria came to this town to escape the war-torn areas, if only for a few days.
The markets were full of fresh produce and meats, unlike some of the villages where fighting had devastated homes and businesses.
Women dressed in a variety of ways from abayas that covered everything but the eyes to miniskirts and bikinis. No one noticed her or stopped her to ask why her face was swollen and bruised. She kept her head lowered and didn’t make eye contact with anyone else. When she finally made it to the coastline, she followed the beach until it ran into the shipyards where cargo was unloaded for sale in Syria and loaded for export to other countries.
By eavesdropping, she was able to ascertain which ship was headed to the US later that night. All she had to do was stow away on board. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to cross the ocean, so she’d need a stash of food to see her through.
Back out to the markets, she stole a cloth bag and slowly filled it, one item at a time, with fruit, nuts and anything else she could hide beneath her abaya.
At one fruit stand, the proprietor must have seen her palm a pomegranate. He yelled at her in Arabic and grabbed her shoulder.
She side-kicked the man, sending him flying back into a display of oranges. The wooden stand collapsed beneath his weight, scattering the fruit into the walkway.
Not knowing how severe punishment was for stealing in Syria, she ran until she was far enough away, and she was certain no one followed.
With a small collection of food in her bag, she made her way back to the ship sailing later that evening to the US. Containers were being loaded by huge cranes. She found one that she was able to get inside and thought better of it. She could get in but couldn’t secure the door. And if someone else secured it, she’d be locked in until the outer door was opened at the destination. Some containers weren’t unloaded until they reached their final destinations...months later.
A container like that wasn’t worth dying in. She’d have to find another way. The gangway onto the ship was her only other choice, and it was out
