Chapter 19: Don’t Run - My Name Is Samim
By Fidan Meikle
Istanbul, Turkey, spring 2021
When we saw those men marching towards us, we ran. Our hearts thudded in our chests as we raced to the end of the street, but before we got there, they knocked us to the ground.
They clutched our shirts and pressed our backs against the walls. A guy with golden teeth searched our pockets. I had ten dollars in one pocket and the mobile phone in another. The rest of the money was still hidden in plastic bags in our shoes.
The guy looked at the old mobile phone and the ten-dollar bill and growled something Turkish in my face.
Terrified, I closed my eyes and shouted in English, “I don’t understand!”
They laughed at me.
Zayn yelled, “Take the money, but please let us keep the phone!” But Zayn spoke Dari, and no one understood his words.
“Are you Iranians?” the gold-teeth guy asked me.
I shook my head. “Afghans. Please let us keep the phone! Please!”
He waved the phone in front of my face. “You want your stupid phone? Then go and get us some money.”
“But we don’t have any money! We are refugees. We don’t have anything!”
The guy laughed and shook his head. “Oh, I know your sort. You sneaky lot know how to make money. So go and make some. Ashraf, you go with him,” he told one of his friends. “Bring us a hundred dollars if you want your phone back. And a hundred and fifty if you want to see your friend again.”
My knees went weak when I heard him say they’d keep Zayn.
The guy released his grip, and I wobbled away from the wall.
“But where will I get a hundred dollars?”
The big guy called Ashraf walked up to my face, leaned over, and hissed, “You steal.”
I felt like I might throw up. I’d never stolen anything before!
“I can’t.”
“Then your friend loses an ear,” the guy said calmly.
Chills ran over my skin like a herd of tiny spiders, and I gasped. The big guy grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the narrow street.
A wave of panic washed over me, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Zayn! Zayn! Zayn!”
“Let me go! Let me go!” Zayn yelled, struggling with the man who was holding him back, but the distance between us widened with every second.
A loud bark made the guy dragging me stop.
Darya and the five dogs appeared from around the corner. The dogs were barking and pulling on their leads. Among them, a giant German shepherd growled through his fangs.
Darya didn’t come close to us, just spoke from a distance. “Let them go, or I’ll let this dog loose. That will give me just enough time to get help.”
Ashraf turned back to his leader.
The gold-teeth man took a knife out of his pocket and started walking towards us. “You know, I can slice up your dog in one second with this.”
The German shepherd started barking, spit flying off his angry jaws.
The guy with the knife stopped, and Ashraf took a few steps back, dragging me with him.
Darya crouched and consoled the dog by rubbing his chest.
“You may be a street gang, but trust me, you don’t want to mess with the men who smuggle these boys to Europe.”
The men exchanged looks. “And you know these men?”
Darya continued to pet the dog. “I know their leader. I walk his dogs every day. And he’s not someone I’d mess with.”
The guy with gold teeth looked back at his men and snorted, “Oh, really? So who is he, your master?”
Darya’s voice stayed calm. “He’s someone who will lose money if these two don’t board a boat in an hour. And when I tell him it was your fault, my master will hunt you all down.”
The men shared looks again.
Silence hung in the air, and all I could hear was my thudding chest.
The guy with gold teeth gestured to his friends to release Zayn, and Zayn ran to me. Ashraf let me go too, and together, we raced towards Darya.
She stood up. “Smart choice.”
The three of us started walking out of the alley.
“Don’t run,” Darya whispered to us.
Zayn and I peered back every second, terrified the men might chase us. Once out on the street, we bolted towards the French café.
Darya told the chef what had happened, and he kindly gave us some hot chocolate and pastries to help us feel better. We slurped the chocolate and munched on the freshly baked goods, but our hands still trembled with fear. Also, our phone was gone, cutting us off from any hope of reaching Uncle Jalal. A wave of panic hit me: I hadn’t even bothered to memorise his number! Yet there was nothing I could do about it now, so I took another bite of the pastry and drew a deep sigh.
Once our cups and plates were empty, a waiter came to tidy our table.
Zayn wiped his mouth with his sleeve, grinned proudly and said, “Sack you.”
The waiter scowled at Zayn. “Excuse me?”
Both Darya and I dropped our heads, trying not to laugh. Zayn’s face turned tomato-red.
The waiter shook his head and left in a huff.
Zayn threw his hands up. “Why didn’t you help me? I was trying to be polite! What did I say?”
But Darya and I couldn’t answer him as we wobbled with laughter, leaning back on our chairs.
“Sack you” instead of “thank you” was just what the three of us needed to hear to break the awkwardness that had been sitting between us like an unwelcome stranger in the room ever since we discovered Adel was really a girl named Darya. We laughed, tears running down our cheeks, until our chests felt light again.
Then Zayn’s face turned serious.
“You are,” he said to Darya, “the same person who took us on the boat ride across the Bosporus. You are the same person who shared her food and money with us. And now you are also someone who rescued us from that street gang. Boy or girl – you are our friend.”
Darya looked at me, and I smiled in agreement.
Her cheeks dimpled, and her eyes lit up.
When she smiled, she looked nothing like a boy. I don’t know how we didn’t see it before!
* * *
The doorknob creaks, and Miss Brown walks into the room.
“Bedtime, you two,” she says.
Rita takes a deep breath and smiles. “I’m so glad you made friends with Darya again.”
I nod. “Me too.”
“I wish I could meet her,” Rita says, getting off the sofa, and my chest hardens again. She gives me a quick grin and walks out of the room. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Rita. Night, Samim!” Miss Brown says, gesturing me out of the room with her head.
Rita leaves, but I can’t get up. My whole body suddenly deflates like a burst balloon.
Miss Brown walks up to me. “Are you okay?”
Talking about my time back in Turkey has been like opening a treasure chest filled with warm memories. I was lucky to have friends like Zayn and Darya, their laughter echoing through the cobblestone streets of Istanbul. But reliving those moments has also ripped open a wound, a gaping hole in my chest where joy once lived. Now, all I’m left with is one horrible memory: an icy blackness filled with a smell of gasoline, and my best friend sobbing in my arms.