After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  By then, Assad was perfecting another image inside of his country, one that was very familiar to the Syrian people—that he, like his father, would respond swiftly and completely to every threat that arose.

  * * *

  —

  On February 16, 2011, a group of little boys stayed out too late and wrote in chalk on a school wall. Hasna’s neighbors told her that they were elementary school students, fourth and fifth graders like Rana, who walked across the street to write on the wall of the al-Banin school where older boys attended. They borrowed one of the incendiary phrases from the Arab Spring, “The people demand that the president be deposed,” and changed it to insult the principal: “The people demand that the principal be deposed.”

  The next morning, the mukhabarat, the secret police, led by Atef Najib, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, were at the school; Bashar had not deviated at all from his father’s tactic of giving key positions to family members and unquestioned loyalists. The boys were arrested immediately. There was no trial. It didn’t matter if it was a prank, that the boys were children.

  They were tortured, their bodies mutilated. Neighbors told Hasna that the secret police cut off some of the boys’ penises. They ripped out their fingernails, hooked them up to electric currents and electrocuted them almost—but not quite—to the point of death. They shot them and then prevented them from dying, allowing them to live only to be tortured more.

  In the city of Daraa, which had around three hundred thousand citizens in 2011, and the larger region of Horan, almost everyone could trace their ancestry back to a few families. They could tell you stories that went back generations of feuds that originated with incidents that became legends. Enmity, too, is passed along from generation to generation, with the tenacity for which the people of Daraa are famous throughout Syria. They did not take insults lightly. An insult to a citizen of Daraa was an insult to his entire family, all of his cousins and aunts and uncles, and their relatives in turn. And since many of the people of Daraa are related in a complex web that is all but indiscernible to an outsider, every citizen of Daraa knew, understood in his or her bones, that what happened to those boys affected all of them.

  Things only got worse. The parents went to the mukhabarat and demanded the release of their sons. They were told—in an insult designed for maximum offense—that they should go home and forget those sons. In fact, they should make new sons. And, if they were not men enough to sire new sons, they should bring their wives to the mukhabarat, who would happily fuck them to make new sons on their behalf.

  * * *

  —

  It was that insult, on top of the capture of the children, that caused thirty of the boys’ relatives and neighbors to plan the first Friday afternoon demonstration that Hasna and Jebreel mistook for a wedding, to yell “ALLAHU AKBAR!” in reply to the sheikh. The men planned their protest to end with Friday prayers at the Omari mosque. They wanted enough time for their demands to be heard before being fired upon by the army or the police.

  At the funeral for the two men shot on the first day, other protests flared up. Other demonstrators died. Their funerals begot more protests. The days of rage were beginning.

  Hasna knew, as any mother of young men did, that the protests that began that Friday were about the al-Banin boys, but that they were also about other issues that had been brewing for a long time. There were too many young men with no opportunities, too much pent-up fury, too many whispered stories of toppled leaders and revolutions in neighboring countries.

  Hasna kept a kettle of hot water simmering on the back of the stove ready for coffee or tea with the neighbors who came by. The walls with ears no longer kept them from speaking out about what was happening as they tried to stay abreast of the news.

  Late in the afternoon, her cousin—who was married to someone who knew the families of the al-Banin boys—told her a rumor that set the hair on Hasna’s arm standing. The families who began the protests on that Friday did more than start the riots in the street—they met with Bashar al-Assad himself and laid out four demands: First, that the boys who were captured and tortured be released immediately if they were alive; if they were dead, that their bodies be given to their families for burial. Second, that the officers who had tortured and killed the boys be hanged in front of everyone. Third, that Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and the head of the secret police in Daraa be publicly executed. And fourth, that Bashar al-Assad himself come to Daraa and apologize to everyone in the town.

  Hasna liked her cousin; they had been close since they were children. She trusted her enough to voice her terror: Were these men naïve, thinking that these demands would sound reasonable to the government officials or to Bashar al-Assad himself? Were they thinking of the most outlandish things they could say as a calculated opportunity to vent their rage—were they spoiling for revenge and hoping to have an excuse to fight with the government forces that had wronged them? Did they really think that Assad would acquiesce? Did they not know that they were waving raw meat at a rabid dog?

  After the cousin left, Hasna closed and locked the gate. She knew now what she had suspected but had not wanted to face: The government would not back down. This would not blow over.

  * * *

  —

  Khassem arrived home late that Sunday night, long after they had all gone to bed. The sound of his motorcycle woke Hasna and Jebreel, Hasna’s heart racing as she put on her housecoat and ran out to meet him. She kept him up and cooked him a late meal. His face was pale, and he ate without paying attention, speaking without fully chewing, telling his story as quickly as possible in a hushed voice. He had been planning to come back for Mother’s Day the following morning, but he decided that he could not wait.

  When Khassem asked, Jebreel confirmed that the families of the boys and their supporters had adopted the Omari as their unofficial headquarters. Families were camped out along the grounds where the protests had ended on Friday. They were waiting to hear the government’s response to the family representatives who had gone to Damascus.

  “That’s what I was worried about.” Khassem swallowed his mouthful of food, drank a large glass of cool water, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Hasna did not point out the napkin folded beside his bowl. Khassem leaned in, his voice as low as it could be so that the neighbors could not hear. He told them why he had ridden through the night on his motorcycle, unable to use the phone, where the government was always listening. What he knew could not wait even a few more hours.

  He had been walking on the street near the barracks when he passed a general getting into a chauffeur-driven car. Khassem heard the general say the word “Daraa,” and he surreptitiously moved closer so that he could hear. The general was repeating the story—like a joke—to one of his officers. They were laughing about it, standing in the street, not worried who heard them, mocking those country bumpkins from Daraa and their outlandish demands on the president.

  Khassem kept his face straight as he turned away from them, turned up his collar, put his hands in his pockets nonchalantly. He could just hear the general say as he got into the car: “Those people in Daraa have no idea what’s about to hit them.”

  Chapter 6

  MU NAW

  AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA, APRIL 2007

  On Monday, Saw Ku’s frantic voice in the bedroom doorway roused Mu Naw. A woman was at the door speaking Burmese. He did not speak Burmese well; even though Burmese was the language of education and communication between the various ethnic groups, Saw Ku’s mind stayed stubbornly loyal to Karen, his mother tongue. Mu Naw rushed through, putting on her skirt and tunic, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she left the room, afraid this Burmese woman would leave and they would be alone again.

  The woman stood in the doorway, her lips pursed slightly. She tucked her hair behind one ear as she walked into the room. She wore a brown tweed blazer with a brown pencil skirt and low brown pumps that cli
cked slightly as she moved toward the table. She was a study in earth tones. Mu Naw was to learn that this woman always spoke emphatically, but that first day all Mu Naw understood was that they must have done something wrong.

  “I am Rita. I am not your caseworker, but I am the only person who speaks Burmese. Do you speak Burmese?” She looked up and pointed with her chin at Mu Naw.

  “I speak Burmese, but my husband only speaks some.”

  “That is fine. It is easier if at least one of you does. Come with me, we’re going to your first-day orientation. I will take you to meet your caseworker.”

  “I’m sorry, this is our third day.”

  “It is Monday. This is your first day with us.”

  “We have been here for two days with no food.” Mu Naw’s voice rose slightly at the end. She instinctively curled her shoulders as Rita raised the edge of one eyebrow.

  “You had something to eat.” Rita held up a chip bag with two fingers. Mu Naw’s brave solo trip to the store suddenly felt commonplace.

  “Yes, we found a store where we bought some things, but we are still hungry. The children have only had chips and cake to eat.”

  “Your caseworker did come by Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “Or Sunday?”

  “No one has been here.”

  Rita’s face softened a fraction. “We will go buy you some food now and I will make sure your caseworker sends someone to you to show you where to go shopping. Did you already have a volunteer come by?” She said “volunteer” in English and Mu Naw shook her head slightly, confused. Rita’s eyes scanned the kitchen, taking in the packages of half-eaten processed foods, the wrappers folded over neatly to save what remained for later.

  “This was all you had to eat? Do you have rice? Vegetables? Meat?”

  “There was a chicken in the refrigerator and three apples.” Rita pursed her lips, but this time Mu Naw suspected Rita was not frustrated with her. Mu Naw caught a glimmer of admiration on Rita’s face and wondered if she had imagined it.

  “There was no bag of rice?”

  “Yes, but there was no rice cooker and look. . . .” She indicated the oven. “This isn’t working. We tried it and we can’t get it to heat up.”

  Rita fiddled with the knobs, looked inside at the cold metal interior, and then closed it. “I’ll call someone to take care of this. It seems to be broken. And before we go to the RST office, we will go buy you a kind of beef meal with bread. It will not be what you are used to, but it is filling and I will make sure you get more today or tomorrow.” She said the letters “RST” quickly, tripping over them lightly in Burmese, so that Mu Naw understood that “aresti” was another English word she did not know, like “volunteer.”

  Mu Naw dressed the children and they followed Rita, carefully locking the door of their apartment. Saw Ku put the keys self-consciously in his woven bag, sliding it across his body and behind his hip as he had every day in Mae La camp. Rita was already on the phone, speaking rapidly in English. Mu Naw and Saw Ku buckled the girls into the car; he sat in the back and left Mu Naw the front seat. As Rita maneuvered out of the parking lot, Mu Naw felt a sense of trepidation—the apartment sheltered them from the onslaught of sights and sounds that now dazed her. She had left only once in three days and Saw Ku had not left at all; with one part of her mind, she noticed how quickly the apartment had come to feel safe to her. She sat up and moved her head around to see the apartments, cars, street signs, people. Then a wave of nausea came on and she leaned her head against the window with her face in the cool stream of air-conditioning, clutched the door handle, and breathed in.

  Rita pulled into a parking lot beside a building that had a large yellow and red sign above it. Their car waited in a line for a few minutes. Rita spoke out her window to a large black box, where a disembodied voice responded to her. The line continued and then Rita pulled in two paper sacks and two red boxes with English writing and pictures all over them. The whole time, Rita remained on the phone, moving it away from her mouth only to thank the woman who took her plastic card and to tell Mu Naw they would wait till getting to the aresti offices before eating. Mu Naw’s stomach rumbled as the exotic aroma from the bags filled the car; she could feel the heat of the food through the bag where it touched her elbow.

  The nausea had just reached the point where Mu Naw was beginning to worry she would vomit on the velvety seats of Rita’s car when they arrived at a low concrete building with tall windows. She instantly felt better when they stopped moving. She and Rita took the bags and the drinks and Saw Ku helped unbuckle the children and they walked into the building. Rita led them past several desks with low walls separating them from each other to a room with a table. There she opened the bags and handed out yellow-wrapped bundles and small red cups with fried strips to Saw Ku and Mu Naw, unhooking the tops of the red cardboard boxes for the girls. She even opened the straws, though Mu Naw had seen straws before, and inserted them in the drinks for them. Mu Naw loved the beef and the starchy saltiness of the fries but did not care for the sauce-soaked bread that stuck in the back of her tongue. She wiped sauce off the meat and ate it alone, sipping gratefully at the Coke, which was at least familiar. The girls ate without stopping. Saw Ku dipped his finger into the corner of the French fry container and brought his finger to his mouth to taste the last of the salt.

  After they ate, Rita took them to the desk of the woman she told them would be their caseworker, a white woman shuffling through papers on a messy desk. She finally found what she was looking for—two pens—and looked up with a toothy grin.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Saw Ku and Mu Naw sat in wooden chairs listening to the caseworker, whose words Rita translated into Burmese, explain each paper in the pile and what it would mean for them. Gradually Mu Naw realized that the things they had built or gathered or received in Mae La camp—bamboo huts, vegetables for dinner, rice from the bimonthly food deliveries—came to them in the United States through these papers. It seemed an odd concept—why did signing a paper ensure that she would have a place to live or that she would be able to go to the doctor? But they formed the English letters of their names diligently, so that the papers could bring what they needed. No one said anything about why they had been left alone for three days other than the fact that the office had been closed. Mu Naw thought that perhaps Rita was angry with the caseworker, but the woman seemed undeterred, so maybe Mu Naw was misreading the situation.

  They received bus passes and Rita told her someone would come by the next day to show them how to use the bus. When she dropped them off back home, Rita came in and taught them how to adjust the thermostat. She did not mention dinner and Mu Naw did not bring it up, so they made do with the last of the cake and chips for dinner. It was surprising how familiar, even welcoming, the apartment felt after being gone. They left every light blazing all evening. They took long showers. Saw Ku squeezed Mu Naw’s hand when she dissolved into tears again after the children were asleep.

  * * *

  —

  Mae La camp was the largest of the nine refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. But large is relative: almost fifty thousand people lived in a camp that measured less than one square mile from end to end. Every household received a ration of rice and cans of fermented fish every two weeks—the comparison of the people in the camp to the packed tin cans of fish felt inevitable.

  Mae La was intended as a temporary existence, but the metropolis built of sticks became permanent as the decades stretched on.

  The camp was divided into three zones. In zones A and B, there were small stores like that of the store owner from whom Mu Naw bought her bags; zone C held the larger marketplace, with over a hundred huts selling food and goods from the outside world. The enterprising refugees knew how to supplement their diet with goods foraged from the forest around them; some figured out businesses where they made food in their homes and sold it t
o their neighbors desperate for anything to break up the monotony. Even without the extra food sold in the market and by their neighbors, there was enough to eat if they rationed it carefully, but the options were limited. Nutrition was always a concern.

  Mae La camp was made up mostly of Karen people because it was the camp closest to the Karen state across the border in Myanmar. Missionaries, tourists, anthropologists, and teachers had adopted the term “hill tribes” in English to describe the various ethnic minorities in the region: Karen, Hmong, Karenni, Chin, Shan, Kachin, and others who lived throughout Southeast Asia and faced various forms of abuse and persecution in many countries, not just the wholesale slaughter in Myanmar. Though lumped together as “hill tribes,” the groups had very little in common in terms of language or culture; it was the same way that Cherokee, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Sioux all became “Indians” to their colonizers, despite being ethnically and culturally diverse.

  Karen people were part of a discrete culture that viewed itself as a nation without a homeland—thus one of the conflicts within the civil war. Mu Naw understood that she was viscerally Karen in body, in language, in clothing, in habits, in worldview. Because of this, she was also permanently without a home. She had papers that said she had fled Myanmar, that she was a refugee in Thailand, but those granted her permission to live on a temporary basis in Thailand. She was not Thai. She was certainly not Burmese. Being Karen, her only state was temporary-permanence, liminality, never-belongingness.