The Runaway Fate
by Sade Del

I felt very fragile when I heard my son’s words, he told me: “You are not my father, if you were, you would be with us here not with grandma in another country.”

I was on the bed at night, his words were repeating in my ears, my heart was beating fast. My head was about to burst. My tears were overflowing from my eyes. My mum was sitting on the floor in her dark room.

She took her medicine with a glass of water. She had sleeping trouble. She came to my room. She cried and whispered; “I wish I was dead, you are separated from your family because of me”, the same old words, for the last two years. Her guilty feeling was salt on my sores. I covered my head with the blanket and told my mum, “Go sleep.”

I always remember how hard she worked to maintain her children with no one’s help. When we were kids, my father passed away and left my mother with five children. Three brothers and two sisters. I was the second one. During the time, people lived in poverty and it was impossible for a single mum to save her children from hunger. That is why my uncles came to my mother and asked her to divide her children among them. Widows with no children had a better chance of marriage in my community at that time; it was one of the other reasons why my uncles did that –although it was a tradition too. 

She wanted to raise her children herself. She wanted to stand on her own feet that is why she refused. She started working in people’s houses as a maid. Washing, cooking, and cleaning for years and years; her beautiful face got wrinkled and her fingers got ragged. Grey hair and tired, puffy eyes. We got used to hearing her crying at night, praying and asking the god to help her to keep us safe.

After remembering all these things, I cried and the sound went around the house. My mother opened the door and hugged me like a baby who wakes up in the middle of the night to embrace her mother’s love. Now it was her turn to get used to my crying at night again when I am a grown man.

Two years ago, we were in the middle of the mountain between Iran’s border and Turkey, I was with my mother, wife, son and brother-in-law. The wind slapped in my face – my ears froze. There were more than thirteen people – women, children, men and the smugglers. Two donkeys were carrying the stuff. My mum’s feet hurt and limped. Only God knew how far we were supposed to go. It was about four hours that we were on the way, but there was no sign of a village or city but a mountain.

“Run, Run, border guards, border guards” the smugglers were shouting. Three, four gunshots. Two cars were coming toward us. Everybody was running. My mother sat down and told me she can’t walk anymore while breathing hard and fast. The journey was over for me and my mother. My wife, son and brother-in-law got into the Turkey’ lands. A car was waiting for them.

The Iranian border guards arrested us with four other people. We were handcuffed together on the back of the truck. My mother’s tears were moving on his chin, asking me about the others. I did not know what to say. I put my hands on my face, pressed harder and harder. I imagined my wife’s scared face in the last moment. My mum started whispering “I wish I was dead, that was all on me, you could go with them if I was not with you!” She kept crying.

The truck stopped, one of the guards came to us with a pointed gun and shouted, “Get the hell down.” They searched us one by one. They took our stuff and put us in a cold and stinky room. It was night and we must have spent all night there. They gave my mother a blanket. Everybody was shaking and starving. Time was not passing. We were supposed to be moved to a detention center in the morning.

A half loaf and one hardboiled egg was the first food after a 24-hour hunger. We both could not sleep. I wish all it was a nightmare. It was the first day that I was away from my family but it felt like a year. I was imagining them in the worst situations with no help from me. I got a headache – I felt something ate my brain cells. My mum massaged her feet. The door opened and the guard shouted, “Get out, get out.” We were heading to the jail on the truck!

There were more than 30 people – all Hazara people; women, men, and kids. They were all caught in the borders like us. I asked everyone to connect me with someone in Turkey. There was no news of my family.

My bed was the ground and there was no light at night. It was cold. A blanket for each family. They took our money, watches, phones or whatever they liked. After spending one week they told us that the bus will come tomorrow morning and take us to Afghanistan's borders... The silence was scary. That was good-bad news for me.

We lost our hope of trying again to get to Turkey but remained a little happy leaving that disgusting jail.

The mini bus came and we all got in. Women and children on the seats and the men on the floor. A gas smell was spreading. My mother was moaning from a headache. It was snowing. We could see the mountains of Afghanistan after ten hours. Finally, the bus stopped.

“Never come back to my country Afghani” the Iranian guard told us at the Afghanistan border in Herat. “Welcome compatriots to your country” the Afghan border guard told us!

Sade Del is a writer and educator. He volunteers as a teacher at a local refugee run school in Indonesia. His writing focuses on the effects of immigration on refugees' lives and domestic and social problems for children. He writes of his experiences and memories at his school.