Hammoudi thinks he recognizes Mohammed among the divers, and is reminded that it’s not actually a suspension bridge but a cable-stayed bridge; Mohammed explained it to him once. The boy who might be Mohammed raises his arms above his head and lets himself fall. Hammoudi waits for his head to reappear on the water’s surface and then turns around.
He’s back in the waiting room by ten to four. This time he’s called straight into the department head’s office, where the man gives him a stern look and announces, ‘You can have your passport back but you’re not allowed to leave the country.’
‘Pardon?’ Hammoudi responds.
‘The Security Service has some concerns about letting you leave the country again. Please contact the relevant authority.’
‘But the Syrian embassy assured me I could just get my passport renewed. It wasn’t a big deal, they told me.’
‘Where was that?’
‘In Paris.’
‘Then go and see my colleagues in Paris.’
‘But I’d have to leave the country first!’
‘I’m not going to get into a discussion.’ His face devoid of expression, the civil servant flips open the next file.
Amal is walking through the Al-Hamidiyah Souq with her childhood friend Luna. Dusk is falling, though the sky is still bright. The first mosquitoes are gathering in the cones of light beneath the streetlamps. The air smells of jasmine, incense, rose oil, handmade soap and heaps of spices: liquorice, dried coriander, tarragon, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and za’atar, rose petals, lavender, borage. The market is made up of countless small lanes and corridors leading to different sections, including several aisles where only clothes or household items are sold. Everything is piled high with wares, often spread out on carpets and plastic sheets in front of the shops.
Amal’s and Luna’s mothers once brought them here in their prams, strolling side by side. Now the two of them are looking for lingerie that might appeal to Luna’s new lover. Several lanes in the Al-Hamidiyah Souq sell underwear for prospective brides. With their customers consisting mainly of curious Syrian women, Western tourists and mature ladies from the Arab Emirates, the shops put up a virtuous front while in fact they resemble Dutch sex shops. The sales staff are all men in their late sixties.
Amal and Luna stop outside various shop windows, looking at whips and bras; some S&M-like creations, some with flashing lights and some with holes at nipple level. They giggle and exchange whispers like little girls, even though they’re both in their mid-twenties and each lost their virginity aged fifteen and fourteen. When a slight drizzle sets in they finally go inside one of the shops.
A man with a large nose offers them a coffee and asks whether one of them is the bride. Luna nods a bit too eagerly. A teenage boy with braces on his teeth brings a tray of coffee cups and a sugar bowl from the back room.
‘You have the figure of a young girl, it won’t be hard to find the right thing for you, sister,’ the salesman says, blatantly eyeing up Luna. She still looks like a fourteen-year-old – she’s thin with long hair that falls over her face. All her outfits are either slightly too tight or too loose, making her look by turns like a Lolita trying on her mother’s dresses or a child grown out of her clothes.
Five minutes later, he has spread his entire range out for them. The table is spilling over with chocolate thongs, sequinned, string tangas, and tiny lacy items decorated with feathers or whole insects. There are thongs featuring pictures of superheroes and electronic extras; some play a love song, others just ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. The salesman clearly enjoys smugly explaining even the slightest detail. But Luna is a difficult customer, indecisive and tight-fisted.
‘Sister, as I said, you can wear anything with your figure,’ the salesman says, ‘but I’d still recommend a push-up; sometimes men just want that little bit more.’
‘No.’ Luna doesn’t elaborate, but she sips thoughtfully at her coffee and frowns.
‘Look, sister, these are new in.’ The man drapes a series of bra-and-panties sets in front of Luna. The bottom halves are patterned with brightly coloured birds.
‘Ish al-asfour,’ Amal whispers and the man grins – the Arabic term for ‘bird’s nest’ also refers to a woman’s pubic hair.
‘Some like it fuller, especially in Europe, so I’m told,’ the man explains and then suddenly holds up a thong with a rose on it, the Hezbollah symbol. ‘This one, perhaps?’ he asks hopefully.
Luna pulls a face and flaps her hands, angry now. The almost non-existent piece of clothing vanishes back beneath the counter in haste.
‘How about this, sister? When you present yourself to your husband in this, don’t take the bra off yourself, wait until he goes to undo it and then clap your hands, and the bra unfastens automatically and the panties slip down on their own.’
The sales talk is fortunately interrupted when a woman wearing a floor-length abaya comes in and enquires in English after the latest push-up bras. Her husband and teenage son wait outside.
Another woman buys a pair of knickers with a huge chocolate heart attached, and Amal whispers, ‘Pretty clear instructions, for once.’
In the end, Luna does purchase several ensembles for her latest affair. More amused than concerned, Amal asks, ‘Do you think it’s all really necessary?’
‘The man’s been married for seven years, of course it’s necessary,’ Luna hisses.
Over the next few weeks, Hammoudi’s family tries everything to get him permission to leave the country. They contact all the generals, functionaries and secret-service men they know and have been showering with precautionary gifts for years, but no one can say why his exit permit has been revoked. For the time being, he has to stay in Syria. He loses his job in the seventh arrondissement before he can even start work.
He calls Claire regularly. Her voice sounds tired and saccharine and Hammoudi recalls her naked body, longing for her firm thighs, small breasts and magical hands. She got the best results in their university year. Hammoudi always came second.
He hasn’t told her he can’t return to France. Up to now, she’s believed there are merely ‘difficulties with his passport’ and has drawn her own conclusions. He knows she won’t come and join him. She’d never move to a country at war with Israel. Hammoudi senses he’ll soon have to let her go. But at the moment he’s still trying to postpone that decision. Just one more day, he tells himself every morning, full of naïve hope.
They first met at the Pierre and Marie Curie University. Claire stood out from the crowd, being taller than most of the men in their year, with long, black hair and large dark-blue eyes. Hammoudi was convinced she was an Arab but when he spoke to her in Arabic in the cafeteria she merely stared at him in surprise, shook her head and walked away.
Some time later, they met again at a dinner party. He smiled at her first, then they talked, and in the end they danced. But still, for months Claire wouldn’t consider going out with him; she was engaged to an older Jewish consultant who kept kosher and prayed in the synagogue on holy days. When Hammoudi professed his love to Claire she responded merely that there was nothing she could do about it.
But Hammoudi would not be put off and kept asking Claire out, to the cinema, to a restaurant, a concert, the theatre or an exhibition. Then he suggested daytime trips, to the planetarium, the zoo, a swimming pool, and at some point ‘no’ gradually gave way to a ‘yes’. It didn’t take long for Claire to leave the consultant and move into Hammoudi’s miniscule flat near the Gare du Nord. Every morning, Hammoudi reached out for her before fully waking. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d chosen him.
They were together for five years and those were the happiest years of his life. Claire challenged him in every respect, never satisfied and always wanting Hammoudi to make more of an effort, in their relationship and in his work. Hammoudi liked that, and Claire liked his devotion, as she’d tell her girlfriends – only half-joking. When they both came home from the hospital in the evenings they’d go out
to eat together and discuss their cases. Claire questioned his diagnoses and scrutinized his treatment methods, and for the first time in his life Hammoudi had an external perspective of himself and a partner on an equal footing, someone who took him seriously and criticized him.
After their first year together, Claire began gradually integrating Hammoudi into her family. She introduced him to her parents and her four older brothers, all of whom were married with several children. Hammoudi accompanied Claire to the kosher Seder evenings at her parents’ house and to her nieces’ and nephews’ countless birthdays. He felt comfortable around Claire’s relatives. They were a total contrast to his own family – quiet and reserved, distant yet warm – but they gave Hammoudi a chance to recover from his noisy aunts, who meddled in everything and were constantly asking when he was going to get married.
Five months ago, Hammoudi finally decided to propose to Claire. He didn’t really want to get married but he assumed that was exactly what Claire and her family expected of him. He carried the diamond ring around with him for weeks before he finally found the right opportunity. He popped the question in the garden of the Rodin Museum and Claire answered without hesitating. She loved him, she said, but she didn’t want to get married. Hammoudi felt foolish and rejected but he went on exactly as before and never mentioned his failed proposal to anyone. Even now, Hammoudi can’t imagine a life without Claire, let alone one in Syria. He spends his days in the family home or in the city’s many bars, never letting his phone out of his sight. He hasn’t given up hope, but nothing changes.
Hammoudi liked the Parisian charm. He liked the people there, friendly but never intrusive. He couldn’t resist the city’s beauty, the architecture, the tiny overpriced bistros and cafés, the locals’ smug self-satisfaction. On their days off, Hammoudi and Claire would roam the museums. She would point out a picture, explain to Hammoudi what she saw and then put the painting in its historical context, a habit learned from her art-dealer parents. Then she’d add a quiet postscript about when she’d first seen the work and what it meant to her. Hammoudi thought he loved her more after every museum visit.
One night, Hammoudi has a dream. Claire comes home and can’t find him but he hears her calling for him, her voice first far away and then coming closer, fading, coming closer again. When she finally enters the kitchen, Hammoudi screams and kicks. Only now does he realize he has shrunk and been shut inside the fridge. He treads water while his strength ebbs away. Then Claire finally opens the fridge door, the electric light goes on and Hammoudi tries to grab onto a piece of carrot with the last of his energy – for some reason he’s swimming in a pan of soup. He calls out for help, getting cramp in his leg. But when Claire finally sees him and tries to fish him out she ends up suddenly swimming in the liquid alongside him. Drenched in sweat, he wakes at dawn. His lips taste of stock.
Amal only has a very few memories of her mother but strangely enough, one of them is of her mother cooking. The kitchen was a wasted room for Svetlana; if she did deign to enter it, she’d usually make a Russian concoction with the oddly French-sounding name of Olivier salad, a mixture of overcooked vegetables and sausage. The salad’s special ingredients were tinned peas, which were hard to get hold of in both Moscow and Damascus, and tons of greasy mayonnaise, which drowned out any remaining flavour. While she cooked, Svetlana talked on the phone to one of her many girlfriends, the telephone cable wrapped loosely around one hand, a cigarette in the other. It was not uncommon for ash to land in the food.
Back then, Amal’s family lived in a parallel Russian world. They had Russian friends – mostly men with thick moustaches and thicker waistlines who worked as professors at Syrian universities. They spent their holidays at their grandparents’ summer house near St Petersburg, and on New Year’s Eve they had a tree, a bottle of sparkling wine and a bag of mandarins. Their parents spoke Russian to each other, as Bassel had studied in the Soviet Union for five years on a grant and learned the language perfectly. Svetlana spoke Arabic with such a strong Russian accent that strangers could barely understand her.
As a child, Amal idolized her mother, a strikingly beautiful woman who was loving and caring, though not necessarily reliable. In the few faded photos that Amal has left of her, Svetlana looks elegant and very feminine. She is blonde with blue eyes, wears strappy sandals or court shoes; her dresses are cut in classic styles and her skirts always emphasize her svelte legs. Amal’s favourite picture shows Svetlana on a trip to Saudi Arabia, wearing an unusual abaya decorated with fine French lace and wafting gently about her body in the wind, her hair covered casually with a black scarf and large sunglasses lending her the required sophistication.
Svetlana, meaning ‘light’ in Russian, fell in love with a young Syrian, at the box office of the Leningrad Philharmonic Hall. They spent seven hours waiting side by side for cheap tickets for seats in the gods, branded as rats and vultures by the mousy Soviet theatre supervisors and not even going to the toilet in case they lost their places in the queue. When the last remaining tickets were finally sold Svetlana was left empty-handed, but Bassel heroically sacrificed his seat to her. After the performance he was waiting for her in the foyer and suggested walking her home. It wasn’t safe on the streets, he said, and he was right.
Bassel studied engineering in the Soviet Union, and Svetlana fell pregnant shortly before his final exams. They married and Svetlana gave birth to Amal in Damascus, then her brother Ali a few years later. But when Amal was eleven her parents divorced and Svetlana went back to Russia without the children – Syrian law automatically gave the father custody.
Amal and Ali had not had a chance to say goodbye to their mother. Bassel had sent them to distant relatives in Saudi Arabia one summer and by the time they returned, sunburnt and religiously schooled, Svetlana had vanished without a trace. Her belongings were gone, as were most of her photos. Amal only managed to save a few of them, which she happened to find in a drawer a year after Svetlana’s disappearance. Bassel must have overlooked them.
He had explained at the time that their mother had died. No one told them what she died of, all their questions were ignored. There was no grave, no grieving friends or other indications of a death, but Amal never questioned her father and she believed what he said. For years, she wept for her mother. Until one moonless night, shortly before Amal was to lose her virginity, Bassel told her Svetlana had left the family and was now living in Russia. She had betrayed her children, he said. Amal remained silent after Bassel said his piece. Something inside her shattered – it was her childish faith in goodness and fairness, her innocence, that went to the dogs in that moment. She stopped believing in any authority, even if that authority was her own father. She couldn’t forgive either of their betrayals: her father’s cold-blooded lie or her mother’s wordless escape. Over the years, Svetlana became nothing but a blurred memory to her.
After her disappearance, Bassel took over the household regime. No one spoke Russian from then on. Bassel was also a man who took food seriously. For a while he even had his own restaurant employing three chefs: one Syrian, one Persian and one Italian. Unfortunately, Amal’s father was always quick to lose interest and the restaurant only stayed open for two years. After that he converted it into a French patisserie, then into a small cheese-making workshop and in the end into a bookshop. The chefs became pastry cooks, cheese experts, booksellers. The Italian was the first to escape from Bassel’s changing visions – Amal had always loved watching him cook as a child, singing the Internationale with him in Italian. The Syrian chef soon found a new employer too. Only the Persian remained with them, staying part of the family until his death.
Bassel usually came home from work at about seven. Amal had prepared everything by then, the vegetables were peeled and chopped, the herbs washed and the water put on to boil. Amal waited for him in the kitchen in her apron.
Bassel freshened up, watched the news and then started cooking. Amal would help him. Ali stayed in front of the television in the l
iving room, watching films he was too young for. Sometimes he’d come into the kitchen, peek into the pans and beat a hasty retreat. They didn’t talk while they worked, but Amal learned when to hand her father a spoon, how to choose the right herbs and deseed a pomegranate.
She was soon making her own tabbouleh and fattoush. Then she tried out the more complicated recipes like mujadara, lentils with bulgur and onions, and fatteh, a layered dish made up of fried bread topped with rice, chicken and grilled aubergine, followed by toasted pine kernels and parsley. It was Ali’s favourite, so they made it at least once a week.
Lying in bed, Amal smelled spices and onions on her skin and hair, and although the smell didn’t necessarily do much for her popularity at school, it helped her to fall asleep at night.
Two years later, Amal’s father met a new woman and brought her home with him. There was nothing wrong with her in theory; she was an interior designer from a Druze quarter of Damascus, more sweet than beautiful, small in stature with a very straight nose obtained on a trip to a Teheran beauty clinic. But Amal had the feeling Bassel wanted to overwrite the memory of Svetlana with his new love.
He married a second time. The arguments between Bassel and Amal mounted up – he wanted her to come home earlier, wear longer skirts, not be seen with strange men in public and take better care of the household. Amal spent as much time as possible away from home, constantly looking for ways to provoke Bassel.
Amal’s relationship with her father only improved once his second marriage failed.
Hammoudi’s parents, both sober and principled people, start suggesting he looks for work. There’s no major conversation about it, merely a comment here and there that it would be a shame for him to waste his education, even if it’s only until he can leave the country again. Hammoudi feels by turns like the prodigal son and a total loser. He came home to celebrate his future, and now he’s moved back into his childhood bedroom.
City of Jasmine Page 2