He was about to say “Spirit,” when, at the side of the road, he saw something that, indeed, looked spectral. Ahmet had just come around a sharp turn, and he must have seen it, too, because he swerved to the right edge of the road, surely trying to avoid hitting the haunting form on the opposite embankment. Ramadan looked back and saw the silhouette shrinking and swelling, and what might have been an amorphous, horror-movie blob or some large wild animal, gradually humanized. A head stuck up—a man?—seemingly as surprised by them as they were by it—by him. The white underside of the brim of his flat-billed baseball cap flashed, removing the last trace of Ramadan’s fear that they were encountering an apparition. No ghost would wear a snapback, he thought, as the bike skidded to a stop in a shallow ditch.
“What was that?” Ahmet asked, guiding them back onto the road.
“A man,” Ramadan said.
“Another one?”
A faint whimpering or just a gentle dry heaving came their way, emanating from where the man, shrouded in darkness, was crouching. “Listen . . . don’t you hear him?”
“Yes,” Ahmet said. The man was saying something in staccato bursts, and Ramadan thought he might be calling out for his mother. “Ma-un . . . Ma . . .”
“What is he saying? Is he okay?”
“He is asking for water.”
Ahmet looked back at Ramadan and arched an eyebrow into a question mark. Ramadan said, “We have water!”
“But maybe he wants the motorcycle, like the bad men back there.”
“But, Ahmet . . . it’s Ramadan.”
Ahmet sighed. “Is true. You are a bad boy, Ramadan—but a good boy, too.”
Ahmet turned the bike around, and the headlight illuminated the man, his back rising and falling as he gasped for air. Ramadan jumped off the bike while it was still coasting and rushed over to the man. Squatting, he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. Before he offered it, the man snatched it from him, twisted off the top, and started chugging. The thrust of his chin skyward popped his baseball cap off, and it somersaulted down his back to the ground. Ramadan picked it up, a worn navy-blue body with a once-white, but now beige NY embroidered on the front. He looked up as the man took his last gulp.
“Ramadan!” Ahmet called from behind, out on the road.
Removing his helmet, he turned, raising one hand to block the glare of the motorcycle headlight.
“Ramadan!” the man chimed in.
“Hmph?” Ramadan responded—but the man, if he’d heard him at all, ignored him. Instead he began speaking in Arabic and making gestures. His voice sounded eerie but soothing to Ramadan, who understood only his final words, spoken as he pointed to the sky. “Allahu Akbar!” Then he smiled and patted Ramadan on the back.
Ahmet had finished parking the bike and was walking over to join them, laughing. “He said, uh, something like, ‘It is hard to be a refugee during Ramadan—the hunger, the thirst—Allah should make sure there is war only when men can eat and drink like winners!’”
Ramadan said, “But I don’t understand. Is he a refugee . . . or a fighter?”
Ahmet’s face went quizzical. “Good question. I ask.” He looked at the man and spoke so stiffly that Ramadan assumed he must be stuttering in Arabic.
The man paused, then rattled off an answer that made both him and Ahmet laugh.
Ramadan waited for them to regain their composure and translate for him. Ahmet began, “He say—” but the man cut him off.
“I said . . .” He paused to look apologetically at Ahmet. Then in a formal voice, more British than American, “Forgive me . . . ,” extending his open hand, leadingly.
“Ahmet.”
“Forgive me, Ahmet, but my English is better than your Arabic.” Then he put his arm around Ramadan. “I said, ‘Sometimes, my friend, it is possible to be both.’”
“A refugee and a fighter?” Ramadan asked.
“Well, or a fighter and a refugee—it works both ways.”
“I don’t know,” Ramadan said.
“Of course you don’t. You’re too young. I am thirty-three years old. Yesterday I was a fighter. Today I am a refugee.”
“And?”
“I must tell you, in the best of worlds, tomorrow I should like to be neither!”
With that, the man stood up and stretched. Ramadan rose, handed him his cap, and asked, “Where are you going now?”
The man sighed, rubbed the bill of his cap, tracing the NY with his finger, and said, “I am on my way to tomorrow—wherever that is.”
He and Ramadan exchanged smiles. “I am Isa,” he added, putting his cap on.
“Ramadan.”
“Oh! Now I understand—Ahmet was calling out to you. Well, you live up to the season and to your name. Thank you for the water, Mr. Ramadan . . .” Again, Isa did his “tell me more” hand motion, soliciting additional information about Ramadan’s identity.
“Ramsey. Ramadan Ramsey.”
“Ah, Mr. Ramadan Ramsey! Very nice indeed. Ramadan Ramsey. Your parents must have been blessed—blessed with the spirit of poetry. Your mother must have looked down at you when you were born and said to your father, ‘Look, our son, he is a song.’ And your father replied, ‘Yes, we should name him so that when the world calls to him it is liberated from its prison of prose—but also, so that it is commanded to sing the duet of our love.’ Yes! Yes! Every poet is a dictator and a liberator. You know? They force us, whether we want to or not, to submit to the tyranny of their idea of beauty. But, at the same time, they free us to hear the beauty, to sing, if we choose, their melody, their poetry, which is always a form . . . of liberty.”
Ahmet interrupted, “You don’t speak like a fighter or a refugee.”
“I don’t? And how does a fighter speak, Ahmet? Does he only shout the angry words of war, or can a warrior strike out against an ever-present enemy, one as dark as the night surrounding us now—ignorance—with the powerful weapon of wisdom, with the saber of enlightenment? And what is the language of the refugee? Is he doomed only to call out for assistance, to beg in murmurs for water from the side of the road? Or might he repay such generosity as Ramadan’s with an offering of his own, imagination and wit, perhaps his only possessions, substances as modest yet as priceless as water itself—but that, too, can quench a thirst?”
Isa turned to Ramadan, placed both hands over his heart in dramatic fashion, and said, “Ah, Ramadan Ramsey, your poetic parents, they inspire me! They make me cry!”
Ramadan mimicked Isa’s pose and said, “Me, too!”
Isa touched his hand to Ramadan’s cheek. “Well . . .” Then he turned back to Ahmet, who looked stunned and starry-eyed, and said, “Ahmet, Ramadan, it has been a pleasure. Thank you again. Now I disappear back into the night. And you, you go wherever you are going.”
Ahmet cleared his throat and said, “We are going—”
Isa put up his hand in a halting gesture. “I do not need to know. It is not my affair.” He began to walk away.
Ahmet jogged over to Ramadan. “Isa, we are on our way to Halep!”
“Aleppo!” Ramadan said.
Isa walked slowly back to them with a concerned look. “Why are you going to Aleppo?”
Ahmet said, “Well, as a poet—and you are a poet—you will maybe understand. We are going there to find . . . The Sultan of Silence.”
“The Sultan . . . of . . . Silence?” Isa repeated the words, his face registering befuddlement. “Who is this Sultan of Silence?”
“To tell you the truth, we don’t know either!” Ahmet laughed, and he turned to Ramadan, who joined him in a moment of private amusement. Isa folded his arms across his chest and stared at them.
“No, no, no . . . I make a joke,” Ahmet said. “Ramadan, show Isa the letter.”
“Okay.” Ramadan dug into his backpack.
Ahmet continued, “We must deliver this letter—do you know Halep, Isa?”
“All too well.”
“Is it still safe?”
/> Before Isa could answer, Ramadan was shoving Zahirah’s letter into his hands. “We’re taking it to the address on the back.”
Isa turned the envelope over, and his eyes widened.
“You know this place?” Ahmet asked. “I think it is near the university.”
“It is, indeed,” Isa said. “This is in my old neighborhood. I was a professor at the university, until I left to join the fight in Damascus. When I came back—”
“Yes—finally the truth!” Ahmet yelled. “I knew you could not be a real fighter!”
“Well, I certainly was a real fighter. But if you mean to say I was a bad fighter, then you are correct. A very bad fighter, to be sure. That I survive to confess my ineptitude is a miracle. But it would not have made a difference if I were a good one. My country is in a battle against history—and history is too strong. History wants to be made. History is a blitzkrieg. History is undefeated. It always wins. I was hoping to help stop the war from coming to my beloved Aleppo, but now it is clear that is not possible. This is why I am leaving. Like a very bad storm, gentlemen, history approaches.”
Ramadan said, “So you had to evacuate.”
“Yes, Ramadan.”
Ahmet said, “Isa, you say history approaches. You mean, it is not there yet, right? Halep is still okay?”
“Yes, most of Aleppo is still safe. The government has one side of the city, the rebels have the other. Things are relatively calm now—but not for long, my friends.”
“Then we need hurry.”
“You are almost there. But do not stay long—not even one day.”
“We will not.”
“But tell me, what is so special about this letter that you would venture into such uncertainty?”
“Someone left it in America, and Ramadan is bringing it back to them.”
“Hmmm. It is widely accepted that the global postal service is somewhat unreliable, but—why are you bringing this letter back to them?”
“It is a very beautiful story, Isa. Not silly like my joke. You will like it. Tell him, Ramadan. Isa will understand.”
“Uh, well, because . . . the people the letter belongs to—” He paused, wanting to use words worthy of Isa’s hearing them. “They know who I am.”
Isa looked Ramadan up and down, and then their eyes met. “And you do not know who you are?”
Ramadan scratched his right temple, and he heard himself replying, “No. I don’t.” He had never said this before. All this time he’d been telling himself he was searching for someone else.
“Well . . . ,” Isa sighed, “then this is a very important letter indeed.” He handed the envelope back to Ramadan. “You’ve brought it this far. Now return it to its rightful owners, Ramadan, and by all means, retrieve your ransom!”
After they’d said their goodbyes, Isa came rushing back to them. “Take the right turn about one kilometer up ahead. It will lead you into the city from the north.”
“Thank you, Isa!” Ahmet said, revving the motorcycle.
Isa glanced at Ramadan, and his eyes angled down to the crucifix shimmering at his sternum. Ramadan noticed and tucked it inside his jersey. “You know, Ramadan, my ancient homeland has been touched by all faiths. Tortured by them, too. Abraham—beloved father to Jews, Christians, and Muslims—once milked his sheep on the hill of the Citadel in Aleppo. Did you know this?”
“No.”
“Well, it is true. It is a famous story. I suppose, in a way, everything, as they say, has been all downhill from there.”
17
The House of Totah
Before they heard it or felt it, they saw the first explosion. It was almost ten o’clock, and they were riding literally downhill—as opposed to making Isa’s figurative descent—into Aleppo proper. The splotch of bright orange faded in the distance, and the delayed sound was but a muted rumble. Still, Ramadan’s chest quivered. If he’d been unaware of the city’s precarious state, he might have wondered if they were arriving just in time for a firework show celebrating the holy season. After a second eruption in the same area, he braced himself for another round of spooky, man-made thunder.
“Don’t worry—the university is on the other side of town,” Ahmet said, and he made a right turn onto a street leading away from the disturbance.
Ramadan’s anxiety waned as they cruised into the center of the city. At first it was all black, gray, and beige—various shades of nocturnal gloom—but soon a welcoming metropolis emerged, lit by a rainbow of pale accent colors. Greens, golds, and reds dotted the cityscape in asymmetrical rays shining up from ground level or flooding down from balconies. Through the open door of a late-night coffee shop he heard the rhythms and melodic urging of live dance music, the plinking of a stringed instrument, the propulsive beats of a drum. Framed in the large window of another café, blurred in his vision as the motorcycle zipped by, two men were in animated conversation, their heads and shoulders set against a sepia interior. The older man wore a plaid patchwork cap and was smoking a hookah pipe; he was gesturing with both hands, doing most of the talking. The younger man, maybe a son or a nephew, was looking in the direction of the street, beyond the café, beyond the moment.
Staring at them, Ramadan remembered going for a late-night walk in the French Quarter shortly after Mama Joon died. He had just drifted along, block after block, even wandering through Jackson Square past Miss Bea’s vacant spot. His aimless stroll led him by a couple sitting near the open window of a bar at Chartres and Dumaine streets. The woman had a wizened, old-lady look about her, thinning hair and dark, wrinkly skin around her eyes. When she sipped her drink, ash from her cigarette flicked onto the windowsill. She had smiled “hello” as he passed but, preoccupied with his solitude and grief, he looked away, though she had just offered him what he was looking for, a human connection in a moment of despair.
Now he found himself waving at the man in the window, the one looking for something, as the older man spoke. About what? The job the young man should have? The war? The bill? Ahmet made a left turn and Ramadan craned his neck to see if he’d made the young man acknowledge a fellow traveler, therein redeeming himself for ignoring the old woman back home, all because something in her face—her loneliness and his—had repelled him. And just before they swept around the corner, he saw the man’s fingers wiggling out the window.
Affixed to the wall of the building that wiped the flailing hand from view were four vertically stacked signs, rust-colored backgrounds with bold, white bilingual messaging—trilingual, counting the universal icons. Ahmet was driving so fast now that Ramadan had time to read only the bottom sign—ALEPPO CITADEL.
“Ah!” He pointed at the wall, where a directional arrow told him they were heading away from the landmark.
Ahmet said, “I know. We will come back. First we find Zahirah and Adad!”
* * *
THEY TURNED ONTO a bleak-looking street, and Ahmet leaned back and grumbled, “I need to stop and check the address.”
He pulled the bike over to the sidewalk and parked under a streetlamp. Ramadan peeled off his backpack and removed the letter, while staring at a graffiti-sprayed wall to the right. Red and white squiggles artfully surrounded a line of black Arabic writing, all above one big English word written in green paint: FREEDOM.
“What does it say?”
“What you mean? It say ‘freedom.’”
“No. At the top.”
Ahmet looked again. “Oh. ‘Fight today. Cry tomorrow.’”
As he said this, there was a long whistling sound, and a glittering arch of fireballs streaked the sky. A few miles away, somewhere on the outskirts of town, a dull explosion quaked. Ramadan’s arm, extending the envelope to Ahmet, trembled from the jolt.
“You know, Ramadan,” Ahmet said with a little nervous laugh, “I start to think maybe we ride into the middle of the war.”
Accepting the letter, he mumbled some numbers, then, “Fatih Sultan Mehamed Avenue . . . yes, we are near the address.”
&
nbsp; He handed the envelope back to Ramadan and looked around. “This was a nice area last time I come, but something is happen. Something is change. Let’s go.”
They hopped back on the motorcycle and cruised along for a couple of minutes before a group of institutional-looking buildings appeared on their right.
“The university!” Ahmet yelled. “We are close.”
Ramadan saw the main street entering the campus, where there was a light but steady flow of students coming and going on foot, bicycles, and scooters. Flying atop its pole in the grassy median that stretched toward an impressive administrative building was the Syrian flag flapping in a gentle breeze. He had seen this image many times in photographs of protesters marching through the streets; but also in his dreams, mirages that morphed his desire for paternal intimacy into its surrogate, patriotism. The three horizontal stripes of red, white, and black (with two green stars stamped on the middle white panel) struck an emotional chord in him—ethnic or nationalistic, genetic or acquired. Or was it simply the satisfaction of having a crucial matter settled? Marked by a country’s expressed faith, his faith, in the power of symbol, he knew for sure, at last, he was here.
Ahmet turned onto Fatih Sultan Mehamed Avenue, and there was almost no traffic on the wide thoroughfare. They passed a few hotels, a shopping area, and office buildings, but soon the neighborhood began to look more residential. Ahmet slowed the motorcycle, and it jerked and sputtered.
“We should stop over there for gas,” he said, pointing to a small filling station and convenience store up ahead.
“Okay,” Ramadan said. “And we can ask where the address is.” He fanned the envelope in front of Ahmet’s eyes.
“Okay, okay,” Ahmet acquiesced.
They parked the bike next to a pump and went into the store. The dark-haired man behind the checkout counter had his head down reading a magazine. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and he was wearing glasses. He smirked noticeably when the door chimed, as if disappointed he had to engage with customers, and seconds later, his strained smile confirmed that they were interrupting his leisure. At the counter, Ramadan saw that the man wasn’t reading a magazine, but some kind of a comic book. The speech and thought bubbles, which he couldn’t make out from the upside-down perspective, except for a big POW!, were written in English. Ahmet stuttered his way through an Arabic request for directions, and Ramadan watched as the man somewhat grudgingly snapped his glasses from his face. The exchange was brief, consisting mostly of Ahmet’s stilted talk and a couple of grunts from the shopkeeper, after which Ahmet said to Ramadan, “Show him the letter.”
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