Out of Syria: My mother-in-law says we should have stayed in Syria and died together

It’s like the ring tone is embedded. I hear it in my sleep. On What’s App, it’s duller than calling on the network. In the last few weeks I’ve been rehearsing how I’ll deal with the call when our new child is born. That is in mind when my wife picks up.

“Salam,” I say.

I can hear my daughter, Massa, chattering in the background as my wife tells me how she is.

“The heat’s more difficult now. The days are long but, my darling, our baby is well and it must be a boy as his kick is strong and pretty constant. Like you Mustafa he’s going to be a handful.”

We laugh. She knows I am in turmoil and it’s her way of coping, to lighten things and behave as though I was in work and would be home later. “I had some rice and fruit this evening. I’m feeling strong and there’s no cause for you to be anxious. Please, my darling you must not worry. My mother is here and so many good people around me who will care for me and for our newborn.”

When she was pregnant with Massa, I had taken control of my wife’s diet. I was so proud. We were going to become parents. I became fixated on what she should eat. I wanted everything to be perfect. Every day I would cook eggs and make sure she had plenty of protein. She used to tease me that I was her resident nutritionist. When I talk with her now it is one of the first things she says – like she anticipates my concern that she is eating properly. We speak every day. Sometimes Massa too. That is too hard for me particularly if it is on FaceTime. I want to see her even though it hurts so much. When we are on FaceTime I always move to somewhere with a neutral background. I have no wish for my wife to see how things are in the camp.

Our child is due in a fortnight now, though my wife tells me that the doctor believes it will be late.

Waiting game

“It may mean that you’ll have to be patient, Mustafa, something you are not too good at,” she jokes, and I think if she could see how much better I have become she’d be surprised. “Mother is not so sure and says that the doctor shouldn’t be placing doubt in my mind. You know how she is; firm in her views about everything, even it seems, how a doctor should talk with his patient!”

Actually, my mother in law is amazing. She’s a very good woman but she has a closed mind. I speak with her every few weeks. It’s a good relationship.

When my wife and I decided that I should go ahead to Europe and she would stay in Turkey, her mother was angry. To this day she believes it was wrong. We hardly speak without her finding a way of saying that her daughter needed me by her side rather than attempting to forge a new beginning in Europe. It's not about blame. It's about form, about tradition about the way things were done. In her world, my wife, her daughter, should have had no role in deciding what we would do as a family. In her world, that would have been my job alone. In her world, we would all have stayed in Syria. Last week she renewed that point to me on the phone. When I said we would all be together again soon, she replied "Mustafa, we cannot determine our future, that's not within our control. We'd have been better to stay in Syria, to have died in Syria. At least we would have died together."

My own mother’s less rigid in her thinking. She’s still in Syria. She lives in our apartment which, along with some others, has survived the shelling. It’s been quieter there over recent months. That’s some consolation. My mother is only 49, not 70 as I was reported as saying in an earlier article (she’d kill me if she knew) and was married when she was just 13. While she’s not an educated woman, she’s intelligent and valued always the life experience of living abroad – in Saudi for 10 years – and was desperate for us to find a fresh start. When we talk it’s difficult. Sometimes when I have just said hello, she starts to cry.

"I miss Massa so much," she said to me the other day. "More than your own son?" I asked, teasing her, but when she replied "she is my darling grandchild, Mustafa, of course more than her father", I could feel the tears welling up in my own eyes. It's often emotional when we talk.

My mother and I are like friends. She was 15 when she had me. I admire her so much, her honesty, her humility, her fairness, her goodness.

Men of violence

When we talk now it’s often about how our faith is being destroyed by Islamists. My mother is a proud Muslim. Unlike me she’s orthodox but she’s angry at how Islam has been distorted by the men of violence. She gives me courage to speak out.

Yesterday I spoke with Massa. "Daddy when are you coming home? Will you bring me a present Daddy?" Our conversations are irregular and short. It's the only way to manage them. It is too hard otherwise. For now, this is her life; to live with her mother and one grandmother in Turkey, her father to be "away on business" in Greece, her other grandmother in Syria. This is the life of a generation of young Syrians. Its impact is hard to predict. Mustafa is a pseudonym to protect the the identity of the author, who is in the refugee camp in Piraeus, Greece. He was in conversation with Fintan Drury