Page 34 of A Life Imagined
His appraiser hovered beside him, unmoving.
“Go on, Dumont.”
She started then turned and headed quickly back into the warehouse.Mathias flicked the knife closed and stowed it.Then he dropped the lid back on the crate, concealing its rank contents.
The next time Rayan went to visit Farhan, he brought a bag filled with food, clothing, and small gifts for the children.They’d found themselves irreversibly connected by the events of their meeting, and he felt a growing responsibility for the family’s future.
When he arrived at their tent, Farhan had just made tea on a portable kerosene stove and invited Rayan to join him.Rayan unloaded his bag of treasures onto the mat in the middle of the tent, and the girls gathered around, their shyness forgotten as he distributed sweets and colored markers.
“Is this for me,amo?”Zahra asked, reaching for a package of rainbow hair clips.
Rayan nodded, and she gave him a wide smile.
While the girls used the markers to draw on a flattened cardboard box, Farhan poured tea into two dented metal mugs and handed one to Rayan.The tea was weak but hot, and Rayan appreciated the effort taken to prepare it.Tasks that only required the simple flick of a switch at home—washing clothes, heating water—involved an elaborate undertaking of time and resources at the camp.Rayan had worked with volunteers afraid to eat the food or drink the water here, turning down a resident’s request to share bread or tea, unaware of the slight their refusal amounted to.
Farhan sat across from Rayan on the mat and gestured at the pile of items he’d brought.“This is very kind.”
“If there’s anything else you need, you can come and find me at the service office.”
“Thank you, Rayan.We have plenty.”
For a man whose life had been reduced to so little, it was jarring to hear him refer to what he had as plenty.
“Ayari—it’s not a common last name,” Farhan said after a moment, and he raised his chin curiously.“Back home in Aleppo, I have a friend from Beirut.He speaks in a similar way.Is that where you’re from?”
“Canada, actually.”
Farhan’s face lit up.“Ah, I have a cousin in Canada.Which part?”
“Quebec.”
“I don’t know much about Quebec.But I hear Canada’s a beautiful place.Very cold, though.”
Rayan smiled.“It can get very cold.Do you also have family in the UK?”
“My wife has an uncle there.We weren’t sure that would be enough to qualify for residency, but it was the only hope we had.Of course, now I don’t know if I would’ve made the same choice.”
He stared into his tea, and they fell silent.The girls chattered in the background, a harmony of voices amid the sounds filtering through the thin canvas walls that separated them from the Jungle.
“You’re not Lebanese, then?”Farhan asked.
“My mother was.”
Farhan nodded, and an unspoken understanding passed between them.“When did she die?”
“When I was a child.”
Farhan looked down at his youngest daughter, who had climbed onto his lap and was using a tiny pink comb to brush the hair on a plastic doll.“So, they will be all right?”As he spoke, his voice cracked.He cleared his throat.“They will be all right even without their mother?”
Rayan couldn’t make any promises.All he knew, from his own experience, was that children were resilient.“They’re strong girls.”
“They are,” Farhan agreed.
“What was her name?”a voice piped up behind him.
Rayan glanced over to see that Zahra had stopped her playing and was looking at him as though she’d been listening the whole time.
“Samira.”
