The Book Collectors

by Delphine Minoui

  And I think back to the secret library. To Omar’s manuscripts. To Abu el-Ezz’s injuries. To the hopeful chant of “Jenna! Jenna!” To the roses and water bottles handed to regime soldiers. To the impassioned gazes. To the pieces of cardboard calling for peace. To destroyed dreams in the making. It’s hard for me to look away from these photos: the war has pinned the eyes of old men into the faces of these young rebels. I rewind the series of events. How did we get here? What monster snuck its way into Assad’s brain? Into the minds of all those tyrants, big and small, namely in Russia and Iran, who insist on blindly supporting him? I can’t imagine what might be said, one day, when they run Daraya’s obituary. A city sacrificed out of thirst for power. A dream of democracy broken by the ravenous ambition of men. A tiny dot of hope wiped from the Syrian map. One more victim on the list of cities destroyed by siege: Madaya, Homs, East Aleppo, etc.

  In my office in Istanbul, I turn in circles like a whirling dervish. I fill the silence by clinging to what connects me to Ahmad and his friends: books. I reread The Alchemist, The Shell, Les Misérables, The 7 Habits. I immerse myself in them one by one. I inhale these works with one long breath, like I’m free diving. Verses from Mahmoud Darwish’s State of Siege run along with my thoughts, a chorus:

  The siege is a waiting game,

  time held suspended on a ladder

  leaning into the eye of a storm.

  Each time, I stumble over the same couplet:

  Writing is a puppy snapping at nothingness,

  composing bloodless wounds.1

  Why write? To what end? If only I could skip pages of this book in progress. Their book, Daraya’s book. If only I could anticipate what happens next, hoping it will be less tragic, and after some happy event place the final period. If they are gone, does this text still have any meaning? Novels have an advantage over nonfiction: they venture onto the paths of imagination, bypassing the highway of reality. You make up a transition, an outcome, new characters. But switching to fiction at this stage strikes me as out of the question. The importance of this work lies precisely in recounting the fragility of the moment. To record it within the vastness of time and memory. To collect the traces—even slight and sometimes intimate—of this present that’s disappearing at the speed of a bomb, too quickly condemned to the past: in personal accounts, in the pages of books read, in the lulls of war, in individual memories, in tears and laughter.

  This book is a little of all that at once: the story, even unfinished, of these invisible heroes. I can’t give up on it.

  Write so as not to forget. So as not to forget them.

  One month goes by, punctuated by worry, full of introspection. One month of trying to dig up new details, however minuscule, of compiling everything I’ve been able to gather up until now. Pictures, snippets of sentences cut short by bombs, fragments of life that have escaped the conflict.

  And then, on July 12, my cell phone comes back to life.

  “Shadi’s been hurt.”

  Alternating between relief and worry, I reread the message Ahmad sent by WhatsApp. Shadi’s-been-hurt. Period. Then silence again. This damn waiting. Waiting on a ladder, leaning …

  When the connection is restored at the end of the day, Shadi himself gives me an update. He’s wearing a large bandage on his left hand and tries to be reassuring: he’s out of danger. But he’s still in shock from an attack that just occurred. The past few weeks have been hell. Regime soldiers are escalating their offensive at the city limits, trying to seize new plots of land. To outrun the danger, the rebels of Daraya have been changing shelters frequently, hunkering down in basements. Hence Shadi’s limited access to his office (and the internet). The attacks stop and start, following a seemingly endless pattern: two days of intense bombing, then a day of respite. But this morning, July 12, looked to be more forgiving. Shadi finally ventured outside, accompanied by Malek, a buddy from the media center. They wanted to check in on some families, make a few videos, and evaluate the extent of the damage. Together, they decided on a neighborhood in the western part of town. A flash, then a rain of rocket fire cut off their path. The two friends were caught off guard, they wanted to turn back. Too late: a new volley landed right next to them. This time, the ground trembled beneath their feet. Impossible to take a step forward or backward. The smoke created a barrier. Dust mixed with cement powder. In shock, Shadi didn’t realize right away that he’d been injured.

  “I couldn’t see anything anymore. I cried out, ‘Malek! Malek!’ I was scared that something had happened to him.”

  Shadi groped his way out. It was only once he found his friend that his left hand began to throb. He looked down—it was red with blood. Pieces of shrapnel had torn off bits of skin and dislocated his index and middle fingers. The pain was immediate. And excruciating. A van serving as an ambulance rushed him to a makeshift hospital, the only one left in town. The nurses there were overwhelmed. When the doctor finally arrived, he operated as quickly as possible.

  “The morphine wasn’t strong enough. I was screaming in pain. The doctor hummed a popular song with ‘Shadi’ in the title to encourage me.”

  Once again, Shadi had had a close brush with death—the rocket had landed less than twenty inches from where he was standing.

  “A few more inches, and that would have been it for me.”

  I inquire about Ahmad, Hussam, and Omar. Were they with him? Are they safe? Shadi tries to reassure me. “We weren’t together. The rest of the group is fine. We all change shelters constantly to avoid the strikes.”

  And his camera? As always, he’d been wearing it over his shoulder, close to his heart. Just out of surgery, he realized that the lens was broken, shattered by missile fragments. It was unusable. As for the body, it was completely scorched. It turns out that it acted as his bulletproof vest.

  “My camera saved my life.”

  Shadi stops talking. A contemplative silence. His indispensable camera worked up until the final “click”—and then it stood between him and death.

  “Later on, I realized that the memory card was still intact, despite the damage to the camera. All the photos that I had taken before the attack were there. A miracle!”

  These archived images are vital. An irrefutable mark of Syria’s war—permanent, painful, and necessary.

  On July 14, a new letter, this time signed by the local council, makes its way out of Daraya. The tone is serious and alarming. Addressed directly to French president François Hollande, it is a final distress call to the world.

  Mr. President,

  We, the residents of Daraya, currently fighting for our freedom, are writing to alert you to the threat hanging over our town. More than eight thousand inhabitants have been living under siege since 2012, right outside Damascus, in extremely difficult conditions. Electricity, water, and communications have been completely cut off. Over the past few weeks, this situation deteriorated dramatically as the regime bombings intensified, in flagrant violation of the cease-fire signed in Vienna in December 2015. The “humanitarian corridor” carved by revolutionary forces between Daraya and the neighboring suburb of Moadamiya has been destroyed, as have the city’s farming fields, depriving the population of its remaining resources. The inhabitants who sought refuge in Daraya have been forced to hide out in the apartment buildings in ruins downtown.

  In four years, more than eight thousand barrels of explosives have been dumped on the city. We fear that the recent advances by Assad’s forces and their allies are merely the prelude to a major assault that will lead to the massacre of Daraya’s remaining inhabitants and the total destruction of the cradle of Syrian pacifism. Daraya, which resisted both the regime and the extremists of Daesh, risks being subjected to a new massacre, like the one in August 2012, where loyalist forces killed more than 640 civilians in only two days. Everything happening now is the result of a strategic offensive, led by Bashar al-Assad and implemented with the logistical support of Moscow. Fighting and bombing stopped for two months after the
cease-fire took effect on February 27, 2016. It should be noted that despite the regime’s repeated violations of the truce, revolutionary forces have respected the agreement. They have always called for a political solution, as have the civilian bodies whose authority they acknowledge. Regime forces, however, completely abandoned the truce in the month of May. Since then, they have been advancing toward the center, where the remaining inhabitants are trapped.

  Mr. President, in order to prevent pacifist Daraya from becoming a Syrian Guernica, the countries who are part of the cease-fire task force must take responsibility. We are calling for an urgent intervention to force the regime to apply Security Council Resolution 2254 and the December 2015 Vienna deal. In addition to a cease-fire, we are calling for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor, the evacuation of victims and their protection, and, finally, the lifting of the blockade. France, which has always stood with the Syrian people, must use its influence to prevent a massacre in Daraya, for which it would bear responsibility, as would all those who sponsored the truce. Despite a tragic civilian and military situation, the city of Daraya will continue to resist and fight for a political, pacifist solution, as it has done for four years. However, today, only an intervention by the international community, by political and revolutionary forces, will prevent the total annihilation of Daraya and its inhabitants.

  Long live revolution, dignity, and freedom.

  Did this July 14 appeal have any chance to be read?

  * * *

  It’s 11:33 p.m. in France. And this evening, François Hollande has other worries on his mind. In Nice, the traditional fireworks have just ended in blood: a truck acted as a battering ram, drove into the crowd, and killed eighty-six people—injuring dozens more. Another act of barbarism, claimed by Daesh.

  I receive both pieces of news on my cell phone in the middle of the night, with an uncustomary delay. The day before, I crossed the Mediterranean, that seemingly peaceful sea whose waves have devoured countless migrants, and landed on a Greek island. The connection here is terrible. I have to sidle up to my neighbor’s wall to get even the weakest of Wi-Fi signals. I take a pillow onto the veranda and lie under the stars. I draft a response to Ahmad. As fatigue adds to my feelings of powerlessness and guilt, words push and shove in my mind. Assad is bombing Syria. The Islamic State is killing in France and elsewhere. The world is on fire and I’m on a Greek rock, isolated, lulled by the singing of crickets. I had promised to bring my daughter, Samarra, here on a long vacation. I keep staring at the blank screen on my computer. I’d like to tell Ahmad that we won’t forget them. Promise him that their letter will wake up consciences. That there will be better days. Grapes on the vines. Olives in the orchards. Bread in their bellies. I’d like to tell them that in the twenty-first century, this kind of tragedy can’t go unpunished. That the French Revolution didn’t happen overnight, that it took time, that the equation “liberty, equality, fraternity” still holds. That one day, the little girl in the blue-and-yellow dress will no longer have to stand on skulls to write the word “hope.” That 2 and 2 does in fact make 4. That 5 will be condemned in the end by the United Nations Security Council. A crime against humanity, just like the bombings, the sarin gas attacks, the prison abuses and rapes, the siege of cities, and the torture by hunger.

  I’d like to tell them all that.

  But what will come tomorrow?

  Will the United Nations deign to take action?

  Will it be able to stop the killing machine?

  Tomorrow, will their distress call be erased by other tragedies? Other threats? Other conflicts?

  Tomorrow, once it’s too late, will the international community finally wake up?

  On July 29, I’m back in Istanbul and Ahmad sends me a message.

  He’s devastated. “Omar’s been killed.”

  Omar. Daraya’s Ibn Khaldun. The booklover. The most enthusiastic of the library’s readers. The latest victim of this murderous siege. I dial Ahmad’s number immediately. I want to convey my condolences. I know how much he cared for Omar—the hope of Daraya, the insatiable learner turned into a soldier by circumstance. The internet connection is choppy. I understand every other word. Using WhatsApp messages and brief Messenger chats, Ahmad walks me through the past few days. The constant barrage of aerial raids. The ground offensive against more neighborhoods. To the west. The south. Everywhere. The shrinking of residential zones. The recapture of the last farming plots. And the assault that had appeared imminent on the remaining food reserves. Omar and the rebels were undermanned and poorly equipped. Their simple Kalashnikovs against the regime’s tanks and planes. Little matter. They had to stop this attack. It would have been fatal for the city’s inhabitants. So they went all in: they risked venturing beyond the usual defense lines to plant explosives on enemy territory. From high on their mountain, the Fourth Division soldiers spotted their maneuver. The cannons opened fire. Omar fell. He never stood back up.

  And that day, for the first time in a long time, Ahmad cried.

  “The news of his death came as a shock. I was paralyzed, my sadness insurmountable. Omar was an icon of this revolution. A fighter under duress who dreamt of peace and a future for Syria.”

  His voice changes, choked by sobs. I can feel his grief, the void created by the absence of his friend. Like a page of Daraya that’s been ripped out. And I think, inevitably, of Omar as a young, atypical warrior, a gun-toting, book-loving poet, whom I met for the first time through an internet window in the fall of 2015. I think back to the PDFs flooding his cell phone. To his thirst to learn. To his stubborn taste for politics. To Machiavelli’s The Prince, which I wanted to give him, and which he will never read. I think back to the front line, where books kept him company—his “mini library,” as he called it. I imagine them scattered on the ground, lost amid dust and cannon powder. Were Ahmad and his friends able to salvage some of them, modest souvenirs in this war that erases everything? Were they able to give him a final farewell at the cemetery? To write his name on a cardboard grave marker? To whisper a few prayers?

  “Sadly, none of that … In fact, it wasn’t even possible for us to get back the bodies of Omar and the three other fighters killed alongside him. Regime soldiers took them away. They took the corpses hostage.”

  The kind of news story you hope never to write. Words that you struggle to put on paper. But you must, so people know the regime didn’t just kill Omar and steal his youth. It humiliated him until the end, depriving him of a grave, of a final resting place among his own people.

  The next day, I contact Ahmad again. I want to see how he’s doing, assure myself that he’s holding up. He hasn’t slept at all. He and his friends, he says, stayed up all night. An evening of remembrance improvised in a modest apartment. For hours on end, they watched videos and remembered the books Omar loved so much. They reread certain passages to ease their sadness.

  “The memory of him that sticks with me is someone who believed in our revolution until the end … He had loads of plans. He could have pursued a career in politics. He dreamt of getting married, of starting a family. He had even planned his engagement to a young woman from Damascus, once the war was over. Not long before he died, he enrolled, like Hussam, at Roshd University, the online school. He rubbed elbows with death every day but had an unshakable faith in life. He really inspired us!”

  Ahmad breaks off, pensive. Memories are jostling in his head. Too many to sort. He’s overwhelmed and apologizes for not being able to get his thoughts together. He gives me one final word, however, before he hangs up.

  “He recently confided something in me. The revolution had interrupted his dream of becoming an engineer. But it opened an unexpected door for him—reading. That door led to writing, too. He wanted to pick up a pen one day and write for later generations. Write, yes, write for better tomorrows. A Syria for all Syrians. A utopia that he believed in.”

  But the door closed. And the pen was stilled before its time. Broken by war.

 
; * * *

  When I hung up that day, I thought of “A Sleeper in the Valley,” the sonnet by Arthur Rimbaud, which I learned in my youth.

  A green hole where a river sings;

  Silver tatters tangling in the grass;

  Sun shining down from a proud mountain:

  A little valley bubbling with light.

  A young soldier sleeps, lips apart, head bare,

  Neck bathing in cool blue watercress,

  Reclined in the grass beneath the clouds,

  Pale in his green bed showered with light.

  He sleeps with his feet in the gladiolas.

  Smiling like a sick child, he naps:

  Nature, cradle him in warmth: he’s cold.

  Sweet scents don’t tickle his nose;

  He sleeps in the sun, a hand on his motionless chest,

  Two red holes on his right side.1

  Poems have a miraculous power to transcend eras. Rimbaud was sixteen when he composed these short verses. It was 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. Another time. Another conflict. Other tragedies. If he had written them in the twenty-first century, I don’t think they would have changed much. These verses speak for Daraya, railing against the death of a young fighter, lulled by the pulsing, calming song of Nature, on the path to the final sleep.

  I read the sonnet to Asmaa, my Syrian friend and interpreter. Together, we translated it into Arabic, making the rhymes ring out even more than they do in French. I sent it to Ahmad, dedicating it to Omar, the sleeper of the Syrian valley.

  Omar’s death marks a radical turning point in the lives of Daraya’s inhabitants. With this loss, they begin to realize that their city’s days are numbered. And yet they’re far from imagining that the worst is yet to come. On Thursday, August 4, regime helicopters surprise the city by sprinkling it with a new poison—napalm. In one day, a dozen incendiary bombs are dropped on apartment buildings, transforming their targets into massive fireballs. The blaze is devastating: it burns everything in its path. Walls. Buildings. Trees. Leaves intended for the daily soup … The landscape in ashes. Pieces of buildings up in smoke. Victims of a no-holds-barred demolition plan. A scorched-earth strategy, calculated and considered, reaches its climax.