From Max, as well as from the English-language newspapers he took from the recycling bin to wrap the orchids, Ahmed knew all of Europe was on alert. Police and security were everywhere, and the idea of trying to go to Calais or anywhere else seemed preposterous. Ahmed focused on his daily routine in the cellar, and with each day that passed, the outside world seemed to fade. He practiced his English reading, tended the orchids and ate small meals, staring at the picture of the man whose torso was a cage. While Max was at school, Ahmed teased out details he hadn’t noticed before: How the man was carrying a beat-up traveler’s sack laced together. How a red cape, almost like a dress, obscured his face.
Sometimes, when the house was empty, Ahmed hid himself behind the curtains of the storage room that faced the garden so he could look out the window. The days had grown extremely short—Max and his family left for school and work in the dark, and the sun was already starting to set around three thirty in the afternoon, when Ahmed heard Max return home. Ahmed had never lived in a place with such a long night, but in a way he didn’t mind it—he felt safer in the shadows.
One Tuesday afternoon in the middle of December, Ahmed heard the front door open, the sign that Max and Madame Pauline were home. Max had warned Ahmed to stay quiet when Madame Pauline was there, so he was surprised a moment later when Max pounded on his door, shouting his name. Was the police officer back? Had he been discovered?
Ahmed grabbed the bag he always kept packed and ran to the door. But when he wrenched it open, he found Max dressed in his jacket, holding a puffy parka and striped hat.
“What is happen?” Ahmed whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper,” Max said. “Madame Pauline isn’t here today.”
“Where is she?”
“There’s a metro strike, so she called this morning to say she couldn’t come.”
“And your parents?”
Ahmed had noticed that Max’s parents never seemed to leave him home alone, although he was certainly old enough. In Syria, kids far younger than Max cared for smaller children.
“I was the one who answered the phone, and I didn’t tell them. We have two hours till Claire gets back, so we’d better get going.”
Ahmed pulled away, confused. “What? Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“That police officer? What if he see me?”
Max smiled. “He works for the local police, and we’re getting out of his territory. But if we do run into him, I’ll just tell him you’re a friend from school, okay? Just don’t say too much.”
“But—”
“Look, you’ve got to get out of here, just for a few hours. You’ll be safe with me. Here, take my dad’s coat and hat. It’s chilly out there.”
Ahmed’s instincts told him to stay put, but the thought of the outside—of the ordinary world, where people lived beautiful, ordinary lives—beckoned. The lockdown was over, he told himself, and being out with a white American boy would be less suspicious than wandering around the city alone. Besides, he was curious to see what Max wanted to show him. Ahmed slipped on the coat, pulled the cap low over his forehead and followed Max up the stairs.
It felt strange to walk out the front door as if the house was his, and then to stand in front of it so openly as Max unlocked a shiny red mountain bike chained to the neighbor’s gate. The afternoon light was already dim, the roofline of the block in silhouette against sunset-tinged yellow clouds. Ahmed drew in a deep breath of cold air, then breathed it out in a damp cloud.
Max wheeled the bike to the sidewalk, then swung his leg over the crossbar and took hold of the handlebars.
“Sit on the seat and hold on to my shoulders.”
Ahmed did as he was instructed, and Max pushed off the sidewalk. The bike wobbled, nearly toppling them over, before Max brought his foot down on one pedal, then the other. As the bike righted itself and picked up speed, Ahmed remembered the magical rush of watching the streets of Aleppo sail by as he rode sidesaddle on the back rack of Baba’s bike, one hand clutching his father’s shirt.
A bump jostled him out of the past as the bike leapt off the curb and Max steered it down a one-way street. They picked up speed on the downhill, and Max stopped pedaling and coasted. At the bottom of the hill, a park with a dry fountain came into view.
“That’s Parc du Cinquantenaire,” Max said.
As Max steered onto a bike path that ran alongside the park, Ahmed peered through the gates at an enormous arch topped with rearing bronze horses pulling a chariot. They passed a running track, ball court and playground. It was the first time he’d really been able to tour Brussels by day. Just past the playground, he spotted a minaret, the crescent moon resting calmly atop it. Ahmed stared at the circular white building, as out of place as himself.
Max glanced back at him.
“That’s the Great Mosque of Brussels. Do you want to go in?”
Soon it would be time for the Maghrib prayer. But Ahmed shook his head. What if he ran into Ermir, the smuggler, or if the police kept an eye on who went inside?
Max pedaled on across a large avenue lined with office buildings. The street was jammed and Max was silent and focused, his head constantly swiveling to watch the cars and buses that crept up alongside them. Military police, assault rifles slung against their fatigues, stood outside various official-looking buildings flying the European Union flag, with its white stars in a circle against a field of blue. Ahmed noticed each policeman, then tried not to. Max pedaled around a traffic circle and in between an enormous curving building surrounded by flags and cement barricades and another imposing building with a facade of glass windows.
“That’s the European Commission and the European Council,” Max said.
In an island between them were four military vehicles with soldiers sitting inside or stretched out in the back, smoking. For a moment, Ahmed felt as if he was back in Aleppo, at the very beginning of the war. But the soldiers paid him no attention. Ahmed felt almost giddy as Max glided over a bridge, past the English word “MAD” scrawled in giant graffiti letters on the side of a building, past the entrance to Maelbeek metro station. Max rang his bell at pedestrians who’d wandered into the bike lane, and Ahmed felt the thrill of watching them scurry out of the way. After nearly a month inside, he was out in the fresh air and wind, cold as it was. He tilted his head back and looked up at the darkening sky. It felt wrong when his family was dead, but he couldn’t help thinking, I’m alive.
They crossed a large intersection jammed with cars and taxis, their headlights shining. After a few minutes, the street turned from asphalt to cobblestone, and they bumped into a square lit up by old-fashioned streetlamps. One whole side of it was occupied by a grand building with Roman columns, a domed clock tower and a cross.
Max pulled up to the sidewalk across from it and jumped down. “That’s the Royal Palace,” he said.
“Is that where we’re going?” Ahmed asked.
Max spun around and pointed to a square classical building behind them. “No. There. It’s the Magritte Museum. We can find that picture you like.”
Ahmed stared at him. The whole idea of taking such a risk, of venturing out of the safety of the cellar just to go to an art museum, was extravagant, indulgent, as MAD as the graffiti.
“What?” Max asked.
“I love it,” Ahmed said with a grin.
Max locked up the bike and led him into a large foyer where they had to walk through a metal detector. Ahmed’s heart fluttered as he passed, imagining the guard stopping him, but the machine didn’t beep. He had no metal. He followed Max into another hall to the information desk, where Max bought them tickets and asked directions. They were just ordinary tourists looking at art.
“Never been here,” Max explained as they stepped into a room-sized elevator and handed their tickets to the operator. He opened the door on the top floor; through glass windows, Ahmed could see the entire city of Brussels—the fairy-tale towers, Old European squares, modern office buildings and domes—spread out before him. It was strange and wonderful to be so high after months of being so low.
“Ready?” Max asked.
They opened a set of glass doors and strode into an exhibit hall where an illuminated plaque in French, Dutch and English told the story of René Magritte’s life. Ahmed started to read the English: Magritte was born in Hainaut, Belgium, the oldest son of Leopold and Regina. When he was fourteen years old, his mother drowned herself in the River Sambre. Her body was found with her nightgown covering her face. But it was the word “drowned” that struck Ahmed like a blow.
“Do you understand?” Max asked.
Too well, Ahmed wanted to say. But he just nodded and moved on to Magritte’s pictures. The exhibit was like walking through a hall of funhouse mirrors reflecting his dreams and nightmares. There was a jumbled pile of town houses, not unlike the one he was hiding in, some on their sides, some upside down like buildings in Aleppo; there was an empty picture frame on the beach with a gray sea blending into a gray sky behind it; there was a man asleep in a coffin-like wooden box, an enormous boulder balanced above him. As they wandered from hall to hall, from floor to floor, Max told him that the plaques explained that Magritte was a surrealist, an artist interested in the relationship between reality and illusion.
But Ahmed knew that this fancy term concealed something more basic: from all the pictures of women with their faces covered by cloth, Ahmed could tell that Magritte longed for his mother.
They continued down to the final floor, but found only a gift shop.
Max frowned. “Your picture’s not here. Maybe we missed it?”
Ahmed knew they hadn’t, but Max insisted on asking a woman in the gift shop.
After she replied in French, Max turned to Ahmed. “I’m sorry. She said it’s in a private collection.”
He truly looked disappointed. But Ahmed didn’t mind that the picture wasn’t there; what touched him was how Max had wanted the outing to be perfect.
“No sorry, please. I love this.”
Max looked at his watch. “We better get back soon.”
“Wait,” Ahmed said. “One other thing I wish to see.”