Ring of Lies

by Roni Dunevich

She didn’t reply. After a long pause she said, “I’ll get you out. You’ll see.”

  “I’m sorry . . .”

  In the north of the city, the traffic eased a bit, but time was against them.

  “There’s a morphine injector in the bag,” he said.

  “I have to ask the doctor.”

  Dr. Petrus Abu Luka picked up on the fourth ring. Sudden anxiety showed in his voice. He would make preparations for their arrival, and no, she shouldn’t give morphine if there was a lung injury. It could suppress his breathing.

  “It won’t be long,” she said to the dark interior of the car. Gerard’s breathing was becoming more rapid. He slumped sideways on the backseat, twisting into an unnatural position. He could no longer restrain his groans.

  Don’t cry, she urged herself. Keep it together.

  At Al-Sades min Tishreen, the road opened up, but not enough to allow the speedometer to climb past fifty-five. A flashing blue light would mean interrogation rooms, torture, and the gallows.

  A large junction was coming up. She passed through it going straight, following the sign to Homs and Aleppo. Once again, traffic piled up, slowing her down. Maaloula was still far away.

  Too far away.

  DIARY

  14 AUGUST 1944

  I am diminished, my actions are limited, my time is allotted, and my room is cramped. Nothing remains of the objects that once filled my life.

  I bake in someone else’s boulangerie, and the mistress says that my croissants with berry jam are snatched up. Her face is always flushed. Perhaps she is trying to ease my suffering.

  I want to father a child. So someone will remain after I am gone. So people will believe that I was here.

  16 AUGUST 1944

  The Resistance is growing. The buds of freedom are blossoming, and the air carries an intoxicating scent. The Allied forces are making their way to us, to Paris.

  Yesterday, Parisians sunbathed on the sun-drenched banks of the Seine.

  Paris will be liberated. Paris must be liberated.

  24 AUGUST 1944

  My comrades in the Catacombs beneath Le Meurice Hotel on the Rue de Rivoli can hear the Germans packing up. A lookout saw senior SS officers abandoning their headquarters and fleeing for their lives. The fountain pen shakes in my trembling hand. It is coming.

  Paris will be liberated. Paris must be liberated.

  25 AUGUST 1944

  I was sitting alone in Arsène’s café near the Champs-Élysées. On the saucer, next to the small cup, the spoon suddenly began to vibrate.

  Later, I learned that tanks and armored vehicles from General Leclerc’s Second Armored Division had swept through the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées. Crowds cheered, and “La Marseillaise” echoed in the adjacent streets. There was an explosion of joy. Someone thrust a bottle of champagne to my mouth.

  Dead people do not drink.

  If only we had restrained ourselves. If the deputy commandant had waited a bit, Jasmine, Sophie, and Albert would be with me today, the café and the boulangerie would be bustling, and I would not be dead.

  At Nazi headquarters in Le Meurice Hotel, General von Choltitz signed the surrender documents.

  The foul-smelling jackboot has been removed from our faces. Here in Paris, the war has ended and the Germans are fleeing eastward.

  I saw Parisians lynch a Wehrmacht soldier whose hands were raised above his head. He wept and pleaded for his life, and they ripped the flesh from his body. They did not heed his pleas, even as he was being torn to pieces.

  Did the commandant hear the pleas of my loved ones?

  MAALOULA, NORTH OF DAMASCUS | 21:06

  “We’re almost there,” Orchidea said into the rearview mirror, searching for Gerard’s face. His eyes were shut. He was barely conscious.

  The narrow alleys of Maaloula were bewildering.

  Suddenly she saw the gilded icon of the baby Jesus. Up ahead were the green pistachio trees. She sped past them.

  The sight of the white tin sign with the red cross made her blood race. A light shone in the big living-room windows.

  “We’ve arrived!” she cried.

  Gerard responded with a shallow wheezing breath.

  “Listen to me, you’re going to make it!” she said, leaping out. She ran to the door and rang the bell. Her heart was pounding and her face was dripping with sweat, but there was a glimmer of hope in her heart. She held her ear to the door but didn’t hear the doctor’s footsteps approaching.

  “Come on!” she muttered, pressing down on the bell.

  Moving away from the door, she pressed her face to the window.

  A scream escaped her lips.

  Dr. Petrus Abu Luka was hanging in the living room.

  MAALOULA, NORTH OF DAMASCUS | 21:12

  “Get out of there!” Alex ordered her over the phone.

  “Where to?” Orchidea asked.

  “Don’t touch anything. It might be a trap.”

  “Paris is dying!”

  “Get in the car and drive away quietly. Keep your eyes open and make sure you’re not being followed. The first chance you get, ditch the car and head back toward Damascus. Don’t enter the city. Keep going south on the M1. We’ll try to get you out.”

  “I have to save him!” she insisted, struggling to hold back tears.

  She found a rusty iron bar in the yard and stuck its pointed end between the double doors. The heavy doors resisted. On the third try she heard something snap, and the lock gave way. She rushed in, her gun drawn. Ice flowed through her veins. The doctor’s body was swaying gently. There was a dark stain on the front of his white jellabiya. His head was slumped on his chest, his neck broken and his face white.

  She went into Abu Luka’s clinic. In the tin cabinet she found bandages, disinfectant, ampoules, and syringes. She gathered it all up in a small cardboard box.

  A blank white envelope had been placed on the living-room table. She opened it with shaking hands. On a scrap of paper were the words: “They are coming for me. Run.”

  Orchidea’s heart was beating wildly. If they were on to Abu Luka, they were on to her and Gerard, too.

  Gerard was utterly still in the backseat. She called his name, but he didn’t respond. A wave of apprehension surged through her. His condition was bleak. So was hers. She switched on the overhead light and leaned over to him, planting a quick kiss on his cold forehead. She thought she saw his eyelids flutter.

  She drove through the town and sped down the mountain until finally the lights of Maaloula disappeared behind her. Periodically Gerard sank into a fog, but each time he fought his way back up, groaning and muttering. He was still alive.

  She turned onto the dark highway, where traffic was light. Gerard suddenly let out a loud sigh. Her heart seized. She leaned on the gas, passing cars, trucks, and a half-empty rickety bus. Very soon, the treacherous lights of Damascus appeared on the horizon.

  At the entrance to the city, the highway became frustratingly clogged. She honked her horn at the crawling cars in front of her, helpless in the face of the congestion.

  Meanwhile, in the backseat, Gerard’s time was running out.

  She weaved through traffic, forging a path until the houses in the southern sectors of Damascus had disappeared behind them and up ahead was the Yarmouk refugee camp and Kafar Souseh. Silent industrial buildings and dark warehouses flanked the road; beyond was the unbroken landscape of the night.

  “Gerard?”

  No response.

  A pair of uneven headlights was approaching.

  An old truck. It was hauling hundreds of filthy wooden cages. White feathers flew off into the night.

  Hens to the slaughter.

  DIARY

  26 AUGUST 1944

  A young woman with a shaved head was walking along Boulevard Saint-Germain. Some men attacked her, tore her dress and brassiere from her body, and spit in her face. As she sobbed and wailed, her bare breasts shook.

  Word on the street was that she h
ad consorted with Luftwaffe pilots.

  She was Francine, the daughter of Hector from the brasserie.

  General de Gaulle gave a speech at the Hôtel de Ville. How thirstily I drank in his words. Throughout the years of the occupation, he carried the flag of our honor.

  De Gaulle said: Paris! Outraged Paris! Broken Paris! Martyred Paris! But liberated Paris! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with help from the armies of France, with the help and support of the whole of France, of the France that is fighting, of the only France, of the real France, eternal France!

  Hearing his voice, I burst into tears. Now, too, I weep.

  26 SEPTEMBER 1944

  Yom Kippur eve. I shall go to the synagogue and stand before the holy ark and pray, and I hope I will be able to control myself and not burst into tears before the Almighty. For four years, I have been away from my Jewishness. Four years empty of faith.

  I shall fast and suffer and plead, but God will never forgive me for my sins.

  16 NOVEMBER 1949

  In my apartment there is a table, a chair, and a bed. I wear most of the little clothing I have and keep the rest in a bag. I awaken at four o’clock in the morning and ride my bicycle to Pierre Poilâne’s boulangerie on the Rue du Cherche-Midi. I save every franc. Sometimes I work shift after shift until my knees swell and ache. In the afternoon I return to my room, listen to the radio, and read old books that I find in the street.

  One day I will have enough money to ask the bank for a loan.

  DAMASCUS–AMMAN ROAD, SYRIA | 22:11

  Orchidea opened the window. The air brought with it the odor of fresh soil and horses. The night was dark and hopeless. Suddenly she froze. A light had appeared on the horizon. In the opposite lane, flashing red lights were coming toward them.

  Thinking fast, she slowed the car and drove it onto the median strip between the two lanes. The undercarriage of the Nissan banged against the concrete. She switched on the hazard lights and signaled with her high beams as she drove toward the approaching vehicle.

  An ambulance.

  The driver slammed on the brakes and stopped in front of her. Hoarsely, she shouted, “My husband is seriously injured! Help us, please!” She gestured to the driver. He pulled the ambulance onto the shoulder and jumped out, together with two other men: a paramedic in a short white coat and an older gray-haired man.

  “Quickly! He’s in the backseat,” she said, getting out.

  The paramedic was the first to respond, disappearing behind the ambulance and opening the back doors. The older man took out a stethoscope, turned on a Maglite and held it between his teeth, pulled on latex gloves, and scrutinized Gerard.

  “What happened, madam?” he asked in English with a heavy Arabic accent. His cheeks were covered in thick black stubble. His eyes showed compassion.

  “He was shot.”

  The doctor froze. “We must notify the police.”

  Orchidea drew her gun. “No police. Take care of him!”

  The doctor stood stock-still.

  “Move!” she shouted, aiming the gun at his head.

  The paramedic came over, stopped short, and dropped his first-aid kit. She pointed the gun at the driver’s head. “Give me the keys!”

  He obeyed and then raised his hands in the air.

  “There’s no need for that,” she said, gesturing at his arms with the gun.

  The doctor and the paramedic drew Gerard out of the car and sat him down on a rusty gurney. The doctor held the stethoscope to his chest and listened. Then he leaned Gerard forward and passed the flashlight over his back, nodding to himself. He examined the improvised bandage on his chest. “Did you do this?”

  She nodded.

  “You saved your husband’s life.”

  A wave of joy surged through her.

  The doctor knocked with his knuckle on Gerard’s bare chest and then held two fingers to Gerard’s wrist as he stared at his watch. He strapped a blood-pressure cuff around Gerard’s arm and squeezed the bulb to inflate it.

  Finally, he nodded. “Madam, your husband’s condition is critical. His right lung has collapsed. There is fluid in his chest. Blood. His pulse is weak, and his blood pressure is low. It is very serious. It is urgent that we take him to a hospital. Come with us to Damascus.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  The doctor nodded deliberately, and then took a syringe from his bag and filled it with the contents of a glass ampoule. He stuck the needle into Gerard’s shoulder. Next he inserted an IV line into his arm and attached a plump infusion bag to the end. The driver held it in the air over Gerard’s head.

  “You are making a mistake, madam. He is losing blood,” the doctor said. “He is strong, but he will not survive.”

  He issued orders in Arabic to the paramedic, and the driver pointed the flashlight at Gerard’s chest. The doctor painted the skin between his ribs with brown Betadine. He was holding a scalpel, and he made an incision between the ribs and went deeper with a confident hand.

  A weak groan.

  The doctor tore the sterile wrapping off a chest drainage kit and thrust it into the bleeding incision. There was a sharp whistle as air was released through the tube, followed by dark blood. The paramedic ripped open a packet of large gauze squares to soak up the blood. Then the driver moved the flashlight up to the Frenchman’s face.

  She thought his eyelids fluttered.

  Raising Gerard’s eyelids, the doctor shone a small flashlight into Gerard’s dark eyes. He said something to the paramedic, who hurried to the rear of the ambulance and returned with a rusty metal cylinder. The doctor placed an opaque mask over Gerard’s nose and mouth.

  “Oxygen,” the paramedic explained.

  “What I have done will keep your husband stable for a short time, but you must take him to a hospital soon. What do you wish us to do now?” the doctor asked.

  “Put him in the ambulance.”

  “You are making the right decision, madam,” he said with a strained smile.

  The three men loaded Gerard into the back of the ambulance.

  “And now?” the doctor asked, not without apprehension.

  “Thank you, thank you very much . . .” she mumbled.

  With her teeth clenched and tears in her eyes, she shot the doctor, the paramedic, and the driver.

  DIARY

  22 AUGUST 1953

  I have not written a word in four years. I am lonely. Since Jasmine’s death, I have not known a woman.

  I am weeping now.

  6 NOVEMBER 1954

  I am alone. Utterly alone. I no longer weep.

  9 JUNE 1957

  The deputy commandant’s wife gave birth to a son. A reason to rejoice has been born. I have no one to rejoice with.

  3 FEBRUARY 1960

  Finally, the manager of the bank in Saint-Germain has seen fit to give me a loan. The café stands in soot-blackened ruins. Its front is boarded up with rough wooden planks. The remains of my life are imprisoned there. When I enter for the first time and see my loved ones in my mind’s eye, I will certainly collapse.

  DAMASCUS–AMMAN ROAD | 22:49

  She kept seeing the doctor’s face. She would never forget the spark of humanity in his eyes, the kind look on enemy territory. For the rest of her life she would despise herself for killing the ambulance crew. But she didn’t have a choice; it was too dangerous to let them go. She’d dragged the bodies into the field and hidden them, and then covered the bloodstains on the road with dirt.

  The wheel trembled in her hands. The battered ambulance creaked and bumped. The back of her blouse was soaked with perspiration. She found a map between the seats, but it was in Arabic.

  “Gerard?”

  No response.

  Sammy Zengot called. “Where are you?”

  “Syria. Have you ever been here?”

  “Where in Syria?” he persisted in his deep voice.

  “Twenty-three miles south of Damascus.”

  “You have enough gas?”


  She glanced at the fuel gauge. “Almost empty.”

  “Too bad you didn’t check before you left Damascus.”

  “It’s not our car.”

  “You stole a car?”

  “An ambulance.”

  “Where?”

  “They took care of him, bandaged the wound.”

  “Are they with you?”

  “It’s late, Sammy.”

  “In about twenty-five miles you’ll reach a large junction. Get on 109 East toward As-Suwayda.”

  “Can you see us?”

  “Your phone location.”

  “What’s in As-Suwayda?”

  “It’s a Druze town, but you’re not going there. After ten miles on 109, turn right onto a dirt road going south. Leave your phone on.”

  He disconnected.

  “Gerard?”

  Silence.

  “Gerard!”

  Silence.

  “GERARD!”

  He coughed. That was a good sign.

  Black basalt rocks, fractured like prisms, reached the shoulder of the road. A pear orchard, a vineyard. At an altitude of 2,500 feet, the black soil was fertile. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor. A blue sign announced: AS-SUWAYDA. The junction was approaching.

  Just survive. Stay alive. Even as an invalid, but alive.

  She turned on the dim interior light and checked the dark dashboard. The needle on the temperature gauge was pointing sharply to the right, close to the red zone.

  Outside, the night was still and silent, a wind was blowing; but the darkness was endless, and her fear was bottomless.

  It was a little past eleven, but it felt like the middle of the night. The weak engine squealed, and the silence inside the ambulance weighed heavily.

  Suddenly the horizon was flickering blue. Her heart fell. About a quarter of a mile ahead, across the road, she noticed two blue flashers.

  Four hundred yards.

  Orchidea turned on the shrill siren and slowed down. The hair on her nape was standing up.

  Three hundred yards.

  She didn’t speak a word of Arabic.