Nowhere Boy Chapter 3 - Refugee Story PDF

Ahmed listened to Ibrahim Malaki without looking at him. It was easier that way to conceal how he felt about the latest bad news. He had long since stopped thinking of Ibrahim as the Iraqi. He was his father's friend, even though the friendship had been forged in less than a minute as the men tr...

Ahmed listened to Ibrahim Malaki without looking at him. It was easier that way to conceal how he felt about the latest bad news. He had long since stopped thinking of Ibrahim as the Iraqi. He was his father's friend, even though the friendship had been forged in less than a minute as the men treaded water and traded vows: "If something happens to me, look after my family." But now, after nearly a month of sleeping in a tent in Parc Maximilien in downtown Brussels, Ibrahim explained that the Belgian Office of Foreigners had refused to grant him and his family refugee status. "They are pressing us to return to Iraq," he said. Ahmed looked out at the sea of camping tents that stretched past the one he'd been sharing with Ibrahim and his family. Refugees weren't eligible for housing until they had registered across the street at the Office of Foreigners. But all summer, the lines had been so long that people had to wait days, even weeks, leaving them no choice but to sleep in the Red Cross camp in the park. Ahmed liked the volunteers who ran it and brought everything from clothes and blankets to hot meals and diapers for the babies. They had even set up a little school. Ahmed had attended it once with Ibrahim's four-year-old daughter, Bana, and learned a few French phrases. But the interior ministry had recently announced it would be closing the camp. Summer was ending, but Ahmed knew they were reacting to more than just the weather. The wooden crates repurposed as chairs and tables, the laundry drying on ropes strung between trees, the first-aid tent with its giant red cross, the piles of donated clothes---it all made for an unsettling contrast with the reflective glass office towers that surrounded the park. The authorities could no longer justify a tent city in the center of the European Union's capital. Now, Ibrahim's wife, Zainab, explained that they hoped to stay with relatives living in the nearby neighborhood of Molenbeek while Ibrahim appealed the decision. "As an unaccompanied minor, you must go into state custody while they process your case," she said gently. Ahmed's stomach tightened. Since the Greek coast guard boat had rescued them and brought them ashore in Lesbos, he hadn't spoken more than a few necessary words. But now he found the ones that terrified him most of all. "By myself?" There were thousands of child refugees traveling in Europe alone. He'd met a few along the way, listened to the rumors and information they traded about which smugglers to trust or which routes were safest. Some, like him, were orphans; others had been sent ahead in the hope they could bring their families along later; a few had been separated from their families on the way. Ahmed had assumed he would stay with Ibrahim in Belgium, at least till he could finish high school. He had never considered the possibility that Ibrahim and his family wouldn't be allowed to stay themselves. "You will have a better outcome without us," Ibrahim said. "You are Syrian, not Iraqi. They are taking Syrians---" Ahmed hadn't even wanted to live in Belgium. He barely knew anything about this little country wedged in between France and the Netherlands like a pebble in a shoe. His father had planned to go to England or Canada, where at least they could speak the language. Ahmed had only gone to Belgium because Ibrahim was headed there. "But where will I go?" "There is a reception center just for unaccompanied minors. You will have a roof over your head---" Ahmed winced. He had stayed in other reception centers in Greece and Hungary; they were little more than human pens where refugees were crowded together, given expired food and hollered at by impatient guards. He had sworn he would never end up in one again. He had heard enough about what the centers held for boys like him: the fights and nightmares and overwhelmed adults, the strange food and medical exams and language classes. It would take months for them to figure out what to do with him, months when people he didn't know or trust would be in charge of him. And what were the chances he would find another family? True, there were plenty of kind Belgians who had brought food and clothing to Parc Maximilien. But it was one thing to volunteer a few hours and another to adopt a teenager. He would end up in state custody until he came of age. "Tomorrow, we will go together to the office of unaccompanied minors and get you registered," Ibrahim said. "Don't worry, Ahmed," said Zainab. "We will keep in touch every day. If you have any trouble, we will help." But Ahmed knew there wasn't much help they could give him from Iraq. And once he registered in Belgium, he would become ineligible to apply for asylum in England or anywhere else. That was the way the asylum rules worked. He would be trapped in Belgium forever. An even worse fear gripped him. The only proof he had that he was even Syrian was a forged passport. His father had bought it on the black market in Turkey after they'd fled Syria. Their real passports had been destroyed on that terrible day. What if the authorities didn't believe he was Syrian? He had been traveling with an Iraqi family, after all. He would have been better off arriving alone. And then there was his age. He'd only just turned fourteen, but everyone always thought he was older. The police might see not the face of a boy, but of a sullen young man, a possible terrorist. Wasn't that the fear he'd seen lurking in so many European eyes? He pictured them sending him back to Turkey---all those hard-earned kilometers in reverse, his father's death in vain. Ahmed remembered the life he had imagined with Baba in England: going to school in a language he could at least partially understand, playing on a football club team, eating fish and chips while watching David De Gea's brilliant goalkeeping for Manchester United. Maybe, even though Baba was gone, fate was telling him not to give up on England. From gossip at the camp, he knew that the best chance of getting there was through the city of Calais on the northern coast of France. There was another large camp there called the Jungle, where refugees waited for the chance to travel through a train-and-car tunnel under the sea to England. There were always a few smugglers who hung out around Parc Maximilien, offering to arrange rides down to France. Should he go to Calais and take his chances there, or stay in Belgium and try to enter the system alone? He had less than forty-eight hours to make a choice that would shape the rest of his life. He stroked the face of his watch, wondered what his father would tell him to do. But the Seamaster offered no answers. Then he tickled Bana so her giggles would distract him.