Home Is Beyond the Mountains Read Online Free Page A

air. When they saw a
man or a tall boy, they shot at him. Some they hit and some they missed.
They rode all the way along the long line of people and then disappeared
into the mountains.
    Samira did not look around.
If she did she would see men and boys, hurt and dying. She looked ahead to
the mountains, just as she had looked at the rock when she was crossing the
swaying bridge.
    Mama and Samira reached the
mountain pass. They kept going, looking always for Papa and Benyamin, but
they didn’t find them. There was nothing to do but walk, stopping to sleep
when tiredness overtook them.
    One night they came to a flat
field where many people had stopped for the night.
    â€œIt’s good to be among so
many,” Mama said, and they rolled themselves in the quilt and went to sleep.
    Samira was wakened by the
sound of a voice. It was a small voice and it wavered, but she could hear
what it was saying. “Mama, Mama.”
    Samira sat up and looked
around. Half a moon was shining, and all around her she could see people
lying as if they had dropped from exhaustion. No one else seemed to hear the
faint voice, but Samira kept searching with her eyes until she saw a little
figure wandering unsteadily among the sleeping people.
    It was a little girl, she
was sure. A little girl who had lost her mother in this nameless place.
    She was just thinking that
she should tell Mama when her mother opened her eyes.
    â€œMaryam?” she said. “Maryam,
is that you?”
    Samira couldn’t breathe.
What could she say? But then her mother was sitting up.
    â€œThat child is lost,” she
said and stood up. She made her way between the sleepers until she came to
the little girl. Then she knelt and said, “I’ll help you find your
mama.”
    She took the little girl by
the hand and they walked together. Samira could see her mother bending to
talk to the child and knew she was asking, “Is that your mother there? Or
there?”
    Samira found herself praying
without thinking about it.
    â€œLet her be alive,” she
prayed. “Let her mother be alive.”
    It seemed that she had been
praying for a long time but maybe it was only a few minutes when one of the
sleeping people suddenly stood up as if she had been pulled from the ground.
She reached out her arms and the little girl ran into them.
    Samira’s mother watched for
just a moment. Then she came back to Samira and put her arms around her.
    â€œShe is with her mother
now,” she said. And then she lay down and went to sleep. Samira slept, too,
    In the morning Samira and
Mama smiled at each other remembering the little girl, but as the days went
on Mama grew weak and feverish. Each night Samira tried to find a sheltered
place for them to sleep, and as they walked she let her mother lean on her.
She didn’t know what else to do.
    She was wondering how much
longer her own strength would last when a woman came by in a small wagon
pulled by a mule. She stopped when she saw Mama stumbling and came over to
her. Samira saw that she was not Assyrian, but she spoke Syriac to Samira.
    â€œYour mother is very ill,”
she said to Samira. “I’ll take you to the next camping place. There may be a
doctor there. I’m from the American mission in Urmieh. We hoped we could
help on this terrible journey and sometimes we can do a little. Come. We’ll
make your mother as comfortable as we can.”
    In the wagon Samira could do
nothing but sit beside Mama and hold her hand. All day they jolted over a
rocky road, and Samira tried to talk to Mama, to tell her that the journey
would end soon. But her mother didn’t answer, and as the last rays of the
sun slanted across the rough land, Samira saw that her mother had died.
    She crawled up to the front
of the wagon and spoke to the kind woman.
    â€œMy mother is gone,” she
said.
    The woman stopped the mule
and went to Samira’s mother.
    â€œYes, she is