After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  “No more. She is going to Jordan immediately.” He kissed Rana’s face and held her to him. “You are my habibet-albi, the darling of my heart.” Hasna knew his baby girl, born in his old age, was precious to him.

  She packed a small bag for Rana; it was ready when their friend arrived in his van early the next morning. Hasna and Rana wore as much as they could on their bodies; Hasna’s voluminous black coat made it easy to hide layers of clothing without drawing suspicion.

  The journey took hours, but they made it to the apartment in Jordan. Hasna stayed for a few days to set Rana up with her sisters.

  Hasna was struck, walking into the city for the first time with Rana that evening, at the difference between Ramtha and Daraa. Before the war, Jordanians would often cross the border into Daraa because the fruits and vegetables were more plentiful and much cheaper, and it was often faster to go shopping there for those near the border. In the evenings, people from Daraa would stroll across the border into Ramtha to eat dinner and then come home. Jebreel’s sister had lived in Ramtha and they had gone to visit her occasionally. Hasna had been to Ramtha more than most Syrian cities. Now it felt a world away. The peace in Ramtha over a weekend only made her angry: What right had these people to go about their lives, within view of her city, unaffected by the things that were tearing her family apart? She knew it was unreasonable; the Jordanians she met were unspeakably gracious, but Hasna sensed a separation, as if she were infected, the war a disease that Jordanians tutted about sympathetically from a distance.

  In the new apartment, Rana was petulant and weepy; she talked back at every small thing Hasna said and threw fits as she hadn’t since she was small. Hasna responded sharply; she seemed to have no patience.

  When she returned home without Rana, Hasna was bereft. Her neighborhood felt barren; the women and children she had known for years were mostly in Jordan now. There were only a few women who remained. The weeks lingered on, the fighting ebbing and flowing. But still Hasna stayed. She could not leave without Khassem.

  * * *

  —

  Almost three months after he was imprisoned, Khassem appeared at the gate and walked in as if it had been merely a few days. Hasna gasped and dropped a plate and did not clean it up for hours so that she could hold him. He seemed shrunken, his eyes hollow. The bruises on his arms, legs, and torso were yellowing.

  He stayed inside, soaking in their home, as Hasna cooked as many of his favorite meals as she could with limited supplies and unreliable electricity. He always had been mellow with her but this time there was a toxic edge to his mood, as if he could not stop from falling into himself. She worried frantically about him, but she chatted brightly and fed him meal after meal, splurging on overpriced gas canisters so that she could cook as much as she wanted.

  His expression did not change when they told him the story of how his military coat saved them. All he said was, “At least it was good for something.” He wore his regular clothes again around the house. Hasna could hardly bring herself to touch the uniform when she washed it.

  Quietly they plotted his escape, more dangerous than that of his siblings because he was still in the military. His leave was only for a few weeks; he was shocked they had let him out at all. He was guilty of what they accused him of, after all—he was traitorously angry at the government. Even though he said he denied his true feelings in the many interviews, which Hasna took to be a euphemism for torture sessions, they all knew he was a painfully bad liar. Every thought that was in his head was easily detectable on his expressive face; he was always authentically himself, her overgrown boy. Every knock on her gate made them jump; they kept the gate locked at all times now.

  When he entered the service, Khassem had had to relinquish his civilian ID for his military one. He could not use the military one to leave the country; he would be immediately recaptured, if not shot on the spot. Jebreel began making discreet inquiries and found someone who made black market civilian IDs, and within a few days, Khassem’s was ready.

  Hasna went with him, crossing the border into Jordan so that it seemed Khassem was a good son escorting his mother and not a maverick soldier fleeing from the government. Hasna was aware that she herself was a danger point at every checkpoint—if the soldiers checking their papers suspected that Khassem was not a civilian, they would threaten his mother first, and Khassem would never endure it. His forearms were tense and a vein on his jaw flared, but he kept his face carefully neutral, looking off unconcernedly every time they had to stop at the many checkpoints between Daraa and Ramtha.

  Hasna’s knees almost buckled with relief when they finally made it across the border into Jordan. Khassem went to join Yusef in the small apartment he had found in the center of the city and Hasna went to join her daughters in the larger apartment at the bottom of a villa on the outskirts of Ramtha. It was already becoming crowded. She stayed for three days and her children begged her to stay longer. But she refused—now that her children were safely across the border, she could go back to their house and prepare it so that she could be gone for several weeks. In time, she knew that some country or outside force would intervene—surely the government of Syria would not be allowed to attack their people like this with no response from the rest of the world.

  Every day, they lived with expectation that something would change, that this would all be over, that life in Daraa would begin again.

  * * *

  —

  She heard about the video before she saw it, back in Daraa with no access to internet or phones. Electricity came and went sporadically, so that she could not often charge her phone. She could not get on social media as she could in Jordan, but friends could still text things to her. Huddled in the darkest part of Hasna’s bedroom, away from any windows, she watched on the tiny screen as her beloved Fahad al-Homsi defected publicly from the Syrian army. He spoke out in a firm voice against the Syrian government’s acts of cowardice in attacking innocent people. It was spectacular, a glorious blaze of courage. Weeks before, seven defecting officers—highly trained, career military men who did not leave their positions lightly—started a trend among conscience-stricken soldiers when they created a video that announced the creation of a new force: the Free Syria Army.

  The civil war had officially begun. In organizing themselves into an army and declaring that they would no longer side with the government and its unprovoked attacks on civilians, the founders of the Free Syria Army proved themselves to be patriotic sons of Syria. They also painted targets on their backs. They would be killed—all of them—over the next few months, and they knew when they released the videos that they were sealing their death warrants. And yet they did not waver.

  When she saw the video again later, in Jordan on Facebook, Hasna passed her thumb over Fahad al-Homsi’s face. Miles away from his own mother, while her sons were in jail, he had become her son. And she would mourn him for the rest of her life like a mother. When his death was confirmed later, in the obituary pictures that became ubiquitous on her Facebook feed, listing his birth and death dates with a picture of his dead body, she wept and wept.

  The creation of the Free Syria Army cemented the fact that this conflict might not last a few days or weeks. She walked every day down streets that bore the ghosts of the life she had known, of the people who had always been here, of a Syria that already no longer existed. Syria was her beloved home. Syria was her heart.

  * * *

  —

  For almost a year, their neighbor the van driver became the conduit between the two sides of Hasna’s life. He brought news from the children and took back treats from Hasna—well-iced meat from her favorite butcher and fruits and vegetables when she could find them. Sometimes, when she felt that there was a break in the fighting, she would leave with the van driver to go to Jordan for a long weekend. She got Rana established in a local school, helped the girls clean the villa apartment in Ramtha well. Yusef a
nd Khassem had established a bachelor pad in a tiny apartment in downtown Ramtha and she would sometimes clean it for them as well. Samir, Malek, Yusef, and Khassem all worked as much as they could, painting, constructing, teaching—whatever day labor jobs they could find. Samir left for several weeks to work on a construction site in another city. They pooled their money to pay the rent on the two apartments in Ramtha and sent some home with Hasna when they could. Her sons and sons-in-law were strong workers. Hasna stayed for a week when Amal had her second baby girl, Maria. Laila planned to enroll in the local high school and Amal would go find a job if Hasna would come watch the babies for them.

  * * *

  —

  When Hasna finally left, she packed for only a few weeks. The war was escalating. There were rumors of the kinds of weapons the Syrian government was moving into Daraa—missiles that could target houses, bigger bombs, more tanks; the government was planning a longer campaign to root out the rebels now arming themselves as part of the emerging Free Syria Army. She and Jebreel agreed: he would stay and protect their home, doing what work he could, and she would move in with the girls in the villa in Jordan. It would only be for a couple of months, they told themselves. She clung stubbornly to that belief.

  The electricity was back on again and she made full use of it. Jebreel was not like many men, who did not know their way around the kitchen—he did not mind helping out and he could cook for himself. But still, she stocked their freezers. Hasna stuffed both the freezer in the kitchen and the deep freezer in the back of the house. She made kibbeh, she roasted eggplant, sautéed peas, blended hummus, she even froze grape leaves. She bought flour for bread, extra olive oil. She stayed up late canning baby eggplants and olives, the briny smell reminding her of so many days spent with her daughters or neighbors. How many meals had she prepared in this kitchen, rising early or staying up late, making the favorite dishes of the people she loved?

  She prepared a months-long feast for Jebreel, rich foods that were his favorites, delicacies that he could enjoy, everything that he could ever need. She endured hours in store lines, begged for the last sacks of flour, schemed to find the freshest vegetables. Finally, when there was not an inch of space left in the freezer or refrigerator or cupboards, when the meat was seasoned and wrapped well, when the jars were sealed and the kitchen was spotless, she packed up the things she would take: her teacups, the white ones with painted yellow-gold designs around the edges. Her children and grandchildren had sipped from these, her neighbors had wrapped their hands around them for warmth on the cool winter days in Daraa while they lingered over black tea after lunch. She protected them well to survive the van ride into Ramtha.

  She packed up her everyday dresses—why would she need to dress up in Ramtha?—and packed her nicer clothes away so the moths would not get to them while she was gone. She stored their family pictures in the space where her gold had gone and put her ounces of gold in a special purse she would keep very close to her. Some of her jewelry she wore, the rest she wrapped with the gold ounces, her entire life’s savings contained in one precious purse.

  She paused, looking at her expensive Iranian blankets and her antique rugs. They were some of the nicest things she owned. She folded the blankets, piling them in the hiding place on top of the pictures. The rugs she could do nothing about. If the soldiers or looters wanted to roll her rugs up and take them away, she supposed she would have to let them. She left behind her nicest dishes, her best dresses, her books of poetry, her Fairuz records, and the record player that had been her morning companion for years.

  On the last morning before the van came, she walked Jebreel around her garden, giving him instructions about how to water her plants, pulling dead leaves off with her expert hands. She spent the last few minutes as she always had, a cup of coffee in her hand, the jasmine joining the lingering aroma of breakfast in the corners of their courtyard.

  The van driver honked, earlier than she expected, and she scrambled to get her bags. Jebreel carried them to the van, then stood and waited for her beside the gate while she pinned her hijab one last time in her bedroom mirror. Hasna only had time for a quick glance around the house she had lived in for four decades, checking to make sure everything was in place, before giving Jebreel a swift hug and climbing into the van.

  Later, she wished she had walked around the rooms one more time, taken in the breeze on their rooftop terrace, trailed her fingers through the grape leaves, held one of the Persian blankets, packed up the pictures of her children, soaked in the last sight of Jebreel loading the van and walking with both arms held out to her as she stood in the door of the home they had loved, where generations of al-Salam children had grown up and thrived, where she now realized they had been exquisitely, deliciously happy for years and years and years.

  Chapter 14

  MU NAW

  AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA, OCTOBER 2007–APRIL 2008

  One Monday night, when Mu Naw was at the community church collecting a box of nonperishable food, she met a woman named Jane. Jane asked a question Mu Naw did not understand with a hand gesture that indicated pregnancy. It took them a few minutes to get the details straight: that Mu Naw was pregnant, that she was not always able to go to the clinic on the bus, that she would love some help. Mu Naw showed Jane her ID, with her address on it, and hoped she had said everything correctly.

  Jane, who was retired, arrived the next day and took Mu Naw to the next and every other doctor’s visit for the rest of her pregnancy. To sink into the seat of Jane’s air-conditioned sedan was a luxury Mu Naw could never have imagined; it was such a far cry from the bus that her nausea, which had been getting better in her second trimester, only flared up mildly while they drove. It was a source of enormous comfort to have an older woman beside her in each appointment, listening and asking good questions, and then patiently explaining things slowly to Mu Naw. Mu Naw found she could understand Jane better than most people, because of the modulation of her voice and the deliberate way she formed her words. She still only fully got about a quarter of the information, but it was more than nothing. Jane helped her with the last of the Medicaid paperwork and sent it in; Mu Naw prayed for weeks that the paperwork would go through in time so they would not have to pay for the hospital bills. Jane assured her that the church would help and Mu Naw felt relief rise within her. She trusted Jane.

  A new group of people had started an evening English class once a week at the church community center. Mu Naw was grateful to be able to walk there. She took home the worksheets they gave out every week and worked through them assiduously.

  A few weeks after they met, Jane drove both Saw Ku and Mu Naw to a doctor’s appointment. They went into a dark room where a woman in scrubs poured transparent jelly on Mu Naw’s bare belly, and then showed them their baby kicking on the ultrasound screen. They both understood when the sonographer said, in an excited singsong voice, “It’s a boy!” Saw Ku beamed and Mu Naw turned her face to the wall for a moment to hide her tears. The sonographer continued to rub the machine along her belly for a while, talking to Jane, until Jane turned to them and said, “Everything is fine. The baby looks good.” “Good” was another word they both knew.

  * * *

  —

  Pah Poe had been born ten months after they got married. Unlike most of the adults in the camp around them, whose marriages had been arranged by family members, Mu Naw and Saw Ku married for love. They thought that they would wait for a few years, since Saw Ku aspired to go to the mission school, which married students weren’t allowed to attend. It was far more selective than the nonprofit-run camp school, and his only chance at a real education. After the day he told her friends that they were dating, she told her mother and he told his parents and it was understood that they would get married without their ever having an engagement ceremony.

  Mu Naw spent as much time as she could with Saw Ku’s family, hoping to show through her polite language and helpful subs
ervience that she was very different from her mother. While they did not openly disapprove of her, she felt their tacit judgment, especially his sister’s, in their stolen glances—sometimes she felt that they stopped gossiping about her just as she walked into a room. She wanted them not just to approve of but to love her.

  One day Saw Ku got sick and Mu Naw took some nourishing soup to his homey hut near his mother’s. He was good with his hands and had fitted the bamboo together snugly so that it was watertight and kept out the elements. They ate the soup together in the light of the electric bulb. When they were finished, he told her he did not want to spend another day without being married to her.

  Within a few days, the marriage contract was negotiated, and Mu Naw came to live permanently in his tiny hut. His dream of attending the mission school was laid aside, regretfully, by both of them. He was smart and he should have had more opportunities to learn; neither of them ever thought once about whether she should have had more schooling.

  Surprisingly, Mu Naw’s marriage brought her closer to her mother—the first time she heard one of Saw Ku’s sisters-in-law make a disparaging remark about her mother, the stony expression of rage on Mu Naw’s face stopped it instantly. She was stunned to realize that she felt defensive of her mother. Her love for Saw Ku, their simple joy in being together, was such a sharp contrast to the way her mother had been forced into her first marriage. Mu Naw began to suspect that perhaps her mother was not as selfish as the grandmothers had always insinuated, as the rigid camp morality made her out to be. Theirs was still not the kind of relationship Mu Naw wanted to have with her own daughter someday. She would do almost everything better than her mother—love her husband, make a home, be close to her children. But she felt a softening toward her mother that was new.