by Eva Nour
And Nabil made one last attempt to persuade at least one of his sons to grow a moustache. Malik, who had entered puberty, surprised everyone by willingly agreeing, and it started auspiciously with a couple of downy hairs on his top lip.
‘Dryer lint,’ said Hiba.
‘Bum fluff,’ said Ali.
The only person who didn’t mock Malik was their mother, but her words were the ones that hurt the most: ‘You look so youthful with your moustache!’
Sami realized he had missed the family’s breakfast-table discussions. He had moved back into his old room and while contemplating what to do next lived off the small amount of money he had earned during his military service. It no longer seemed as important to work from morning to night. It had partly to do with his father’s stroke, and partly with him looking forward to a freer life.
In the end, it was Nabil who suggested his little brother shave after all.
‘I’ll lend you my razor,’ he offered generously.
22
EVERYDAY LIFE WAS not much different from before, and yet so much was different. Some changes were obvious, like the army’s building more checkpoints in Homs. Heavy armoured vehicles drove into the city, leaving sunken tracks in their wake as though the frosty asphalt were made of chocolate.
Other changes were subtler. Sarah had cut her hair short and there was a new fire in her eyes. If the shooting at demonstrators had scared her at first, it now seemed to have made her more convinced. She talked about the revolution the way she used to talk about novels and poetry. Aside from participating in the protests, she also collected testimonies and published them online. At first they had organized demonstrations at the university, but now the Shabiha or the Mukhabarat patrolled the hallways and almost only Alawite students dared to attend. Instead, they organized smaller protests across Homs on practically every street.
Sarah wanted to introduce him to a friend, who was a role model and leader among the protestors.
‘You have no idea how brave she is,’ Sarah said. ‘One time, she walked right up to a checkpoint and handed one of the soldiers a flyer – just like that. You should have seen the look on his face. I thought he was either going to shoot her or propose.’
They gathered at dusk in a small square. People arrived in small groups, excited and nervous, pulling their scarves closer and rubbing their hands to keep warm. Sami remembered again the intoxication of his first protest and the feeling of an extended siblingship, of being brothers and sisters. Sarah checked her phone repeatedly.
‘She said she was going to be here … Wait, there she is.’
Sami turned around and it was as though the world turned white, illuminated by a bright light. She pushed through the crowd and was stopped several times on the way because people wanted to say hello and pat her on the back. She didn’t seem to make a big deal of it, just pulled up the hood on her baggy top – which only partially concealed the camera underneath – and pressed on towards them.
‘Yasmin, is it really you?’
‘Sami! What a great surprise.’
It was his childhood love, older and without braces and a hijab covering her hair under the hoodie, but unquestionably her.
Yasmin embraced him like when they were little, like before Haydar.
‘You know each other?’ Sarah asked. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘It was a long time ago,’ Yasmin said and smiled. ‘We took English together, didn’t we?’
‘You were top of the class.’
‘Don’t know about that …’
That was all the talking they had time for because the music was turned up and the flags raised. Yasmin handed Sarah and Sami a placard each, while she herself took out her camera from time to time to take pictures. He glanced at her and thought about how keen she’d once been to abide by the rules. How she’d kept reminding him that the walls have ears.
After the demonstration Sarah had to leave, but she suggested that Sami stay with Yasmin to catch up.
‘That’s so cool you know each other,’ she said before she left.
They went to a nearby café and sat outside under the heaters. It was one of those places where men usually gathered to play cards and smoke but Yasmin didn’t mind their looks.
‘I’m so happy to see you again,’ Sami said. ‘What have you been doing all this time?’
‘Studied law, mostly. After my dad died I realized how fragile things are. There’s no time to lose.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know about your father.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry. It was more of a relief, to be honest.’
She started on a new cigarette before the first one was finished – her voice was as hoarse from chain-smoking as it was from shouting – and spoke quietly but earnestly.
‘My dad wasn’t very kind to my mother. That is sort of the reason why I chose law. We were all witnesses to his abuse but didn’t do anything.’
Sami thought of the military map and felt a strike of pain. He too had been a silent witness for far too long.
‘You know, the revolution is the first step towards equality,’ she said. ‘I was a coward before but now I see clearly.’
It sounded simple and obvious when she put it that way. Sami envied her that clear vision. For his part, he felt things around him were growing murkier and murkier. He considered telling her about Haydar, their school friend who had become a prison guard, but decided against it. If he did, he would have to tell her about his time in jail and the army, and maybe she would think of him differently when she realized he hadn’t deserted.
‘Do you want another coffee?’ Sami asked.
‘Why not?’ Yasmin answered and smiled. ‘Two is better than one.’
The world had changed and they had changed with it. Or had he? There were more demonstrations, and Sami watched Yasmin and Sarah standing at the head of the protests, chanting on the barricades. What had he accomplished?
‘Can’t you hear I’m talking to you? What the fuck are you doing here?’
When the voice came closer Sami realized he was the one being addressed. Standing in front of him was an old acquaintance from university, dressed in leather jacket and high winter boots. The name escaped him – he used to be late to lectures and had copied Sami’s notes.
‘I thought we were nothing but shit to you.’
He spat on the ground and stepped in closer, lowering his chin and staring Sami in the face. Sarah backed away and he failed to find the words to defend himself.
‘Come off it, he’s here now, right?’ Yasmin said.
‘How do we know you’re not an informer? That you’re not here to gather information?’
‘Good god, calm down,’ Yasmin said.
‘Shut up, I am calm. And you, you fucking traitor.’
‘Take that back,’ Sarah said and took a step forward.
‘Traitor? Sure I take it back.’
He spread his hands, palms out. Then he leaned forward and Sami could smell the alcohol on his breath; he had never known a face could express so much contempt.
‘Soldier swine fits better.’
It happened in a split second. Sami saw Sarah squeeze her eyes shut and raise her fist. It was like a switch flipped and he instantly knew what he had to do.
‘Ow, let go of me! He was coming at you. Aren’t you going to defend yourself?’ Sarah twisted free of Sami’s grasp and rubbed her wrist. The university acquaintance had already turned his back on them and was staggering off.
‘But he was right, wasn’t he?’ Sami said.
Sarah turned abruptly and walked away. He took a few steps in her direction but a new group of protestors moved in between them.
‘Don’t worry.’ Yasmin shrugged. ‘All choices are political these days, even when you don’t have a choice. I don’t blame you,’ she continued. ‘My brother’s doing his military service, and he says they’ll come after me if he doesn’t.’
He hesitated but in the end asked the question he had
been thinking about.
‘Do you know how to organize a local protest?’
Yasmin lit up. ‘Do I know?’ The revolution council of Homs provided organizers with a megaphone and video camera, and other than that it was simply a matter of handing out flyers with a time and a place. ‘Supply bottles of water. Make sure you have a few people on lookout.’
The Free Syrian Army was ready to intervene if regime soldiers broke through. But they were more of a symbolic protection, since the rebels were loosely organized and would be unable to withstand a coordinated offensive.
It was easier than he had thought. During the first chilly weeks of the year, Sami spent all his waking hours organizing daily local demonstrations, with fifty to a hundred protestors at a time. He spent his days in the house, painting placards and arguing gently with his father. In the evenings they gathered, sang and filmed their meetings. Every gathering was a victory and a risk. The army was not the only danger. The regime covertly supported street gangs who attacked protestors on their behalf.
‘We need to arm ourselves,’ said Sarah one day, restlessly picking at her red nail polish. ‘Look around. We’ve been protesting for almost a year and the graveyards are getting more crowded by the day.’
Yasmin disagreed. ‘We have to be patient.’
Despite her unassuming air, she was one of the strongest voices in the group, precisely because of her thoughtfulness and ability to take a step back.
‘Our strength is that we’re sticking together,’ she continued. ‘The moment we fight violence with violence, they’re going to call us terrorists, spies, traitors – God knows what – and deal with us as such.’
‘Yeah, let’s give it some time,’ Sami agreed.
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
Sarah didn’t say it straight out but Sami knew what she meant. He had only been protesting for a couple of months, hadn’t seen and heard everything. He tried to ignore the accusatory tone in her voice since this was not the time to have a row. Either way, their friends had come to the same conclusion: when demonstrating for peace, peaceful methods were required. The Free Syrian Army was taking care of the armed struggle.
Sami and Sarah didn’t talk about the future because this was their future. Freedom, and the new society they were trying to create. They met at each other’s houses and planned activities, usually in the evenings when the military patrols were less frequent.
But it was dangerous work. One night, in the gentle glow of the streetlamps, Sami witnessed the security police breaking into their neighbour’s house to seize the son, a well-known media activist. When they didn’t find the one they were looking for, they took the father instead.
Sami watched from across the street as the elderly man was forced out in plaid slippers and a blue robe. He blinked in the streetlight and was reaching for something in his pocket when he got a hard push in his back and stumbled on the icy step. Sami saw a pair of glasses fall out of the old man’s hand and land on the asphalt. One of the security officers stepped on them, almost unknowingly, while he lifted the man by his arm and shoved him into the black car.
By the morning someone had swept away the splinters and the broken frames. The glasses had vanished without a trace, just like the old man, who never returned to the house.
23
THE ARMOURED VEHICLES were not there just for show. Shops began to close and people began to hoard tinned goods. Some families sought refuge in the countryside. Yet even so, most remained calm. The regime would never dare, they said. As soon as the first missile is fired, the US, France and the international community will react. They said.
In the early spring of 2012, a year after the birth of the revolution, the first rockets were launched at Homs. Until that day, Sami had thought there was a limit, a red line of decency. Yes, he knew tanks had rolled into Daraa at the very start of the revolution. That demonstrators greeting the soldiers with flowers had been attacked with teargas and bullets. And yet he couldn’t shake a seed of doubt that it was all really happening.
It wasn’t just the situation he was unfamiliar with, it was himself, too – or more accurately, humanity. People were created equal and the same, which meant the light that existed in others, existed in him too. The darkness that existed in others, he could summon too. Inside the armoured vehicles were soldiers Sami had served with, soldiers who were now shooting at their friends’ homes.
Rockets and missiles darkened the sky. Sami started taking pictures of the damaged houses. As evidence, he told Sarah. This kind of rocket was from the previous century and had a target radius of one hundred to two hundred yards; nothing you used if you had an exact military target.
Yasmin agreed that they needed to document things. They needed a media centre to coordinate and disseminate accurate information. They took turns meeting at each other’s homes or finding other premises they could be in. Yasmin came to Sami’s house sometimes, when she needed help editing photos or designing pamphlets.
‘Hello,’ she greeted Malik, who always seemed to show up in the hallway when she arrived. ‘What are you up to, ya albi?’
Malik was too big to be called a sweetheart any more but still smiled and blushed. Yasmin leaned down to take off her shoes and Sami came just in time to see his little brother straighten his back.
‘Oh, you know,’ Malik said. ‘I’m thinking of joining the rebels.’
‘Don’t listen to him, he talks nonsense,’ Sami said.
‘I don’t. I want to do something, too.’
Yasmin nodded and said that the media group always needed volunteers. Maybe he liked to photograph or collect testimonies?
‘I mean something real,’ Malik said. ‘Something that changes something. Between a man with a camera or a man with a gun, who would you listen to?’ Malik twisted his hands when he realized what he had just said. ‘Not that I mean that your work isn’t …’
Yasmin shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal but Sami felt the anger rise.
‘First of all, you’re not a man. You’re thirteen.’
‘Soon fourteen.’
‘Second, go and do your homework.’
‘We’ve got vacation from the school.’
‘OK, brothers,’ Yasmin interrupted and turned to Malik. ‘Just tell us if you change your mind.’
Sami remembered the impression Yasmin had made on him when they were young. The feeling of being in the spotlight when she listened or talked to you, as if every word had meaning. As if you meant something yourself. Of course Malik was now feeling the same.
‘Your little brother is cute,’ Yasmin said and continued to Sami’s room, where Sarah was waiting for them. ‘He reminds me of my brother.’
The media activists printed newspapers and posters, shared images and texts on social media. Over time, structure emerged. Yasmin became the informal leader of the work and the forty or so activists engaged in it. Their work became more serious as circumstances became so. Sami’s inner doubt grew stronger and stronger, but all outward doubt disappeared with the vibrations in the ground. When the missiles hit, he threw himself on the floor and covered his ears. Blood throbbed at his temples. The wall of a building further down the street collapsed, but not where he was. Time lost all meaning, at least in terms of how it had flowed before, divided into hours and minutes. Now he divided time into chaos and impending chaos.
For the first time he saw the bodies of young people, whose faces were covered in dust and whose skin steamed with heat. He had been wrong. Apparently, a body could continue to emit heat for a short while after death. The shock that rushed through his body, however, wasn’t something he could talk about.
In the middle of March, late at night, he had a call from Muhammed. At first he didn’t recognize his friend’s voice. He was speaking in clipped, jerky sentences from the top part of his lungs.
‘Come, you have to come.’
A massacre had taken place in Karm al-Zeitoun, one of the poorer parts of Homs. The army had gone in wit
h armoured vehicles, broken into homes and handed the arrested families over to the Shabiha. The bodies needed to be moved before the army attacked again, and Sami and Muhammed’s job was to make way for them.
Sami hurried to his friend’s house and helped empty the rooms of furniture. Muhammed’s glasses were smudged with grease and one of the lenses was cracked; his T-shirt was dripping with sweat. They moved like sleepwalkers, lifting up furniture as if for a weekly clean, sweeping and hosing off the floors. They let the water cool a little before pouring it down the drain to make sure they didn’t disturb the jinn.
Later that night, a flatbed truck pulled up outside the house. The sight that greeted Sami etched itself permanently on his retinas. The bodies were stacked in the flatbed, legs and arms entangled. The smell was of smoke, burnt flesh and hair, sweet blood. The militia had shot or stabbed the people to death and set some of them on fire. Sami turned away and threw up.
‘Hurry!’
Sami, Muhammed and the two men carried the bodies into the house and lined them up in the rooms. As he carried them he thought: One day, someone is going to carry me. One boy looked like he was resting when seen in profile, his eyelashes sticky with sleep. The other half of his head had been blown away, his brain seeping out. A woman was missing her jaw. They stared wide-eyed. Several of the children had knife wounds. What kind of person walked up to a child and stabbed it in the belly?
After midnight they had another call, another car was on its way. The street was dark and deserted. There wasn’t enough room in the house and they had no choice but to leave the bodies in the street overnight. Sami counted thirty-nine dead, in the house and on the street. Nineteen children, thirteen women and seven men, of which three were old enough to be his grandfather. They were going to bury them at first light.