Sammia watched the rain cascading down the hillside from the shelter of the cave entrance. Youssef joined her. ‘No work today in this downpour. This is not the life I wanted for you. It makes me ashamed. Perhaps would have been better not to have come here.’ He rested his head on her shoulder.
‘The rain will pass and we’ll find a proper home,’ she replied, touching his hand to reassure him. ‘You’ve worked wonders here to make us comfortable and dry. Look around. We have a firepit and griddle, plastic sheeting on the floor and in the entrance. The rugs are dry. You made a table from wooden boxes, and benches to sit on. We have a tub for Karim to have his baths and plenty of dry wood. It’s not so bad.’ She was trying to lift their spirits.
‘Huh!’ snapped Maryam. ‘It’s not so good, but it will have to do.’ She sulked in the corner.
Amir was worried about his wife. ‘She won’t go out.’
Sammia had noticed that her sister-in-law refused to leave the cave, except to do chores or play with her little son. They didn’t want to reveal where they were living and it was hard to wash – they took turns to strip-wash behind a makeshift curtain. She feared that everything smelt of damp or smoke, but there was a launderette in Santaniki town that they could use when desperate. Sammia was warm in the taverna and was grateful now to bring back leftovers to heat over the fire. Youssef bundled washing on the back of his scooter and Sammia dealt with it during her breaks at work.
They had pooled all their resources to equip their dwelling. They had a curtain on a pole to divide them at night. Karim slept in his buggy. It was not ideal but they had warm blankets and big cushions. Supplies were kept in tins and a dustbin to keep them dry and safe from any insects. They had a container of fresh stream water that they boiled. Everything had been smuggled to the cave under cover of darkness. They had a lantern, an oil lamp and candles.
Word must have got round now that Aristotle had returned to the farm with his family but no one mentioned it at the taverna, and Sammia pretended they had found rooms further out of the town.
There was not much to be proud of in all this, except the dignity implicit in being beholden to no one. The one worry she had at night was that her baby would be born in a cave. The Christians took pride in the humble birth of their Christ, but stable scenes on the icons were one thing. The reality was another.
How could they be reduced to this? She could see the shame on her husband’s face as he returned each night, weary. He had not been born a labourer, and none of them had been used to slumming it until they had fled Syria. Was this the will of Allah, a time of trial to be endured, for the good of their souls? Sammia prayed that the Compassionate One would find them a way forward.