Doaa gripped the roof wall tightly, feeling the rough concrete bite into her hands. A sense of dread sickened her as she remembered the stories she had heard about the city of Hama and what had happened there three decades earlier. President Hafez al-Assad had crushed the uprising then by ordering his troops to besiege the city. It’s estimated that ten thousand to forty thousand people were killed during the takeover. The Hama massacre served as a cautionary tale in Syria, and emergency law was reinforced to quell dissent.
Watching with dread as tanks entered her city, Doaa couldn’t help but wonder if President Bashar al-Assad would follow in the footsteps of his father and slaughter anyone who dared to challenge his authority.
While Doaa was pressed against the rooftop wall watching the tanks rumble into the city, her father was at work in the barbershop and her mother was out visiting family. Hamudi and the girls were outside playing on the street in front of the house, as Doaa’s oldest sister, Ayat, who was visiting with her two children, looked on. They were all directly in the path of the approaching tanks and armed men.
Doaa sprinted across the rooftop and down the stairs two at a time. She burst out the front door to warn her siblings. “Get inside, for God’s sake,” she screamed. “You’ll all be killed!” She grabbed Hamudi by the arm and pulled him into the house as her sisters followed her inside. Angry and confused, Ayat snatched up her two little boys and charged inside after them.
“Have you gone crazy?” Ayat shouted. “What’s come over you? What’s happening?”
Doaa pulled Ayat to the front window that looked out onto the street. “This is what is happening!” Doaa pointed. “They’re going to wipe us out!”
As the tanks neared the house, they looked even more menacing. Doaa could see the silhouettes of men dressed in black with balaclavas wrapped around their faces hiding their identities, standing aloft in the gunners’ hatches. It seemed as if they were pointing their guns directly at Doaa’s house and family.
Overcome with fear, Doaa ran to the phone to call her mother but got no response. Desperate, she pressed the redial button over and over, but the phone only rang and rang. Her father didn’t own a cell phone, and the barbershop had no phone either. So instead, Doaa continually dialed her mother, staring intently at the phone, as if by doing so she could make her pick up.
As the soldiers marched through the town, panicked thoughts began to flood Doaa’s head as Ayat’s children began to cry. Where are my parents? Are they safe? What if they don’t come home? Doaa wondered in fear. Huddled together inside the back room that was farthest from the street, Doaa and her siblings clung to each other. Doaa hated feeling helpless, but she could do nothing to protect her family from the threat outside the door.
After what seemed like ages, their mother suddenly burst through the door. Though she had been only minutes away, it had taken her over an hour in a taxi to get through the checkpoints and back to the house. She looked exhausted, and worry filled her eyes as they darted from Ayat and the grandchildren to Hamudi, then to Doaa, Saja, and Nawara, assuring herself that everyone was safe. Hamudi ran to her and she knelt and gathered him into her chest as the rest of the girls swarmed around them, throwing their arms around their mother. “It looks like doomsday outside. Where’s Shokri?” Hanaa asked breathlessly, scanning the room and noticing her husband’s absence.
The family dreaded the worst. What if Shokri had been picked up in the ensuing chaos outside and was thrown in jail? For hours the family waited, peering through the front window, trying to see as far down the street as they could. Doaa tried to convince herself that her father was just delayed at checkpoints as her mother had been, but worry nagged at her. Finally, the girls glimpsed him through the window, hunched over and hurriedly pushing his bike toward the house. His usually immaculate clothes were rumpled and his dark hair was damp with sweat. Hanaa rushed to open the door for him. Once inside, he looked around the room just as Hanaa had done, counting everyone inside, relieved to see his entire family safe. The family gathered around him as he told them about the soldiers he had seen around town in key positions, prepared to attack at a moment’s notice. He glanced at Ayat and her children. “It’s too dangerous for you to go home. You’ll have to stay the night.”
As the sky darkened outside, Doaa went to switch on a lamp to brighten the room, but nothing happened. She tried two more lamps before realizing that the electricity had been cut off. Hanaa then went to the kitchen to make some tea, but only a few drops of water dripped from the spout; running water had also been shut off. Confused, she returned to the living room and gathered Hamudi into her lap as Doaa, Saja, and Nawara stared out the windows. They watched apprehensively as the soldiers outside seemed to settle in for a long stay, leaning against the tanks parked right outside the door. The family slowly began to realize that this situation could be more permanent than they had anticipated.
Shokri turned on their battery-operated radio and tuned in the news to learn more.
Daraa is under siege, the broadcaster announced. The army has been sent to root out the terrorists who are trying to destroy the country.
A cloud settled over the family as this news sank in and they began to wonder how this would affect their daily lives.
Later that night as the rest of the family went to sleep, Doaa lay awake, unable to ignore the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. She lay as still as she could and listened to the sounds of Saja and Nawara breathing deeply next to her, as the laughter and shouts of the soldiers echoed outside. Finally, she drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened at 4:30 a.m. by the alarm she had set to wake her for morning prayers. She reached out toward the clock, and just as her fingers pressed down on the button to shut off the alarm, the few lights that had been on when the electricity was cut flickered back on. The electricity must have been turned on again just at that moment when her alarm rang. Disoriented, Doaa sat on her bed for a moment, trying to gather her wits about her, then suddenly she heard screams and the rattle of gunfire in the street. Jolted alert by these disturbing sounds, Doaa dashed to the front window to find people running in the streets and the tanks moving. Ayat joined her at the window, and soon the whole family was gathered around, watching in terror as the security forces began to smash into people’s houses. Men and boys as young as eleven were being rounded up in the street and forced to put their arms behind their backs and to walk with their heads bowed. The soldiers shoved them into cars, shouting at them that they were terrorists.
Shaken by what they saw, Doaa’s family decided to turn to the Quran for comfort. They forced themselves away from the windows and gathered in the living room, trying to read their morning prayers together, as it dawned on them all that the siege would not end soon.
Later that morning, Hanaa began to plan how the family would get by on what she had in the kitchen—some leftover bits of cheese, yogurt, and salad in the refrigerator, along with a few things she kept in the cupboard: jam, pickles, olives, and some canned vegetables. She found a bag of rice, but remembered that there was no water to cook it with. On top of that, Ayat and her children still couldn’t go home, so the little food they did have would have to stretch to feed three more people. After taking stock, Hanaa quickly decided that the family would have to make do with only one small midday meal until they were able to leave the house again to gather more food.
At each meal, Hanaa did her best to portion out what little food they had as they all took tiny sips of water from one glass that they shared among the entire family, drawn from the remaining stock of bottled water that they had in the house. Disconnected from their TV programs during evening power cuts, they sat together by candlelight, taking turns reading the Quran. They often started with the Ayat al Kursi verse, which asked God to protect them through the night.
Once all their candles had been burned, they sat in the darkness, listening in huddled silence to the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and screams outside. Sometimes, they even heard the ri
cocheting pangs of bullets as they hit the walls of their house. Every night they went to bed hungry and wondering how long their confinement would last.
One week passed with their only contact with the outside world being when armed men in uniform and muddy boots banged and kicked at their door, demanding to be let in to search the house. This disturbing and intrusive ritual was performed as often as three times a day. Each time Shokri rose to let them in, he was cooperative and obedient in order to protect the family. Sometimes, the soldiers entered the home and pointed their guns at them, one member at a time. “We’re looking for terrorists,” they would state. That means me, Doaa thought as she realized anyone who’d taken part in a demonstration was now being classified as a terrorist by the state. She was certain that they knew that she and her sisters had been out demonstrating and were trying to scare them into confessing.
One time one soldier looked directly at Doaa and said, “You want freedom, you dogs? We’ll give you freedom.” Then he and his men began sweeping things off the shelves, toppling over books and breaking vases and other trinkets. They then moved into the kitchen and knocked over the last bottle of precious olive oil along with the remaining jars of preserved fruits and vegetables, smashing everything onto the floor. The family was left to clean up the mess and fret over how they would survive with almost all their reserves gone.
Another time during a search, the visiting soldiers took Doaa’s mobile phone and scanned through it for photos or videos that might implicate her in the demonstrations. She had been warned that taking photos of the demonstrations could associate her with them, so she had wisely refrained from documenting her involvement.
One soldier even pointed his gun at Hamudi, who was only six at the time. Trembling in fear, he clung to his mother. Hanaa was terrified that the soldiers might arrest him as they had other young boys. She shielded him in her arms and prayed the soldiers would leave them alone. When they finally left the home, Hanaa was flooded with relief. But every time the family’s house was searched, the fear that someone would be taken away was renewed.
One day, as Doaa was closing the door behind a group of soldiers who were just leaving the house after searching the property, another group suddenly pushed open the door again, demanding entry. One of the soldiers shoved his rifle into her stomach and pushed her to the floor.
“Why are you closing the door in our faces?” he barked at Doaa, keeping the gun pressed against her stomach.
Doaa lay there frozen still. “Your colleagues were already here,” she said, looking up at him. “They just finished conducting a search.”
After a few seconds, he lowered his weapon and turned his attention to Shokri. “Take me up to your roof,” he demanded. He insisted the family go up the stairs ahead of him and the other soldiers so that if rebels were upstairs waiting to ambush, the family would be shot first. Shokri led the way with the rest of the family crowding into the stairway behind him. As she glared over her mother’s shoulder at the soldiers, Doaa felt her rage swell. This was her home, her family. What right did they have to order them around and threaten them? She despised seeing her proud father forced to obey these bullies, and she bit the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from hurling insults at them. The soldiers quickly discovered that there was nothing on the roof, and Doaa breathed a sigh of relief as this second group of soldiers left the house. The family had survived yet another raid.
Each time a search was conducted, Shokri feared that the soldiers might kidnap the girls. So he made Doaa and her sisters sleep in their abayas so that they would be fully covered in case of a raid in the middle of the night, which was starting to become routine. He also gave each of his daughters a knife for protection. “Stab any man who comes too close,” he advised, and instructed them to keep the knives hidden under their abayas during searches.
The night after her father had given them their knives, Doaa gathered her sisters and created a pact. “If any soldier tries to rape us,” she whispered so her parents couldn’t hear, “we must be ready to kill ourselves. We cannot live with that shame. Our honor is all we have left.” Thirteen-year-old Saja and ten-year-old Nawara took her hands and nodded grimly in agreement.
Not long after that, soldiers came to the house to inspect the back room where Doaa and the family were sitting. One of them was in his early twenties with long, unruly black hair. He ogled Doaa in a way that she found inappropriate. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Though Shokri had instructed them all to stay silent during the searches and not to antagonize anyone, this time Doaa couldn’t contain herself. She glared back at him, not bothering to hide the loathing and anger behind her gaze.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” the soldier demanded.
¨I’m a free person,” she replied defiantly, her face livid with anger. “I can do whatever I want.” Doaa knew the word free would set the soldier off.
Annoyed, he charged toward her demanding to see her identification.
“I don’t have one,” she admitted.
“Don’t have one? Why not? How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“So why don’t you have an ID yet?”
“I tried to get one. I applied for an ID at the government registry, but they refused to issue one to me.”
The soldier laughed when he heard this. “Then why don’t you go to a demonstration for that?”
Doaa saw clearly that her participation in the demonstrations was no secret. She felt her heart thump inside her chest as this dawned on her, but she refused to show her fear. “Yes, maybe I will,” she replied flippantly.
The soldier’s eyes flashed with anger as he lifted his gun in warning. “Don’t talk back,” he ordered.
The whole family froze in fear, waiting for the soldier’s anger to explode, but after glaring at Doaa for some time, he finally lowered his gun, turned, and walked toward the door, muttering as he left, “You’d better watch yourself because, don’t forget, we’re watching you.”
When the door slammed behind him, Hanaa was furious. “Never speak to the soldiers like that! You’re putting yourself in danger!”
“You’re putting all of us in danger!” Shokri fumed as he rose to stand over Doaa. “From now on, you remain silent whenever they enter,” he demanded.
Doaa was too shaken and angry to answer. She didn’t even bother to nod in acknowledgment. Instead, she just lowered her head and stared mutinously at the floor. Deep down she was glad she had defied the soldier, but she also knew that she could never admit this to her family. She did feel proud when later that day her sisters whispered to her that they respected her courage, while at the same time expressing their wonder at what had become of their shy sister.
On the morning of May 5, eleven days after the siege began, Hanaa stood in front of the empty cupboard, now desperately worried about how she would feed the family. All of a sudden she heard an amplified voice blaring outside the window. Too afraid to open it since that was against the rules of the siege, the family pressed as close to the window as they could to make out the announcement from the police car driving through the neighborhood: “Today, there is a curfew. From 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. you must remain in your homes. From 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. women have permission to leave their houses to shop for food. All women leaving their homes will be searched. The curfew will resume at 2:00.” The siege had been lifted, if only for a brief moment.
Hanaa breathed a sigh of relief, thinking only of the groceries she would finally be able to bring home to her hungry family. But Shokri was outraged by the announcement. Touching women was considered unacceptable in Islam. He felt that this order to search women was an attempt to provoke the men of Daraa in the government’s desperation to control the population.
“I will never let them lay a hand on you, as long as I live,” Shokri said incredulously, refusing to let Hanaa leave. But she was adamant; the children were growing thinner by the day and Ayat’s young children were constantly crying from hunge
r.
“We have to feed our family. There’s nothing left in the house.” Hanaa pleaded gently, meeting her husband’s eyes. “If I have to suffer the indignity of being searched, I will.”
Shokri looked around at his frail family and reluctantly agreed.
When Hanaa finally stepped outside her home, she found that the neighborhood was completely occupied by soldiers, tanks, and weapons. Just a few hundred meters from the house, she saw a group of more than one hundred officers sitting around long tables laden with food. She realized that while her family and the other citizens of Daraa had starved, the soldiers had been feasting just outside their doors.
Hanaa tentatively began to cross the street toward the bakery. But before she’d taken more than a few steps, she could feel the weight of the soldiers’ eyes watching her. It suddenly seemed as if every soldier on the street were staring at her. Panicked at the idea of being searched, Hanaa couldn’t move forward. Trembling in the street, she quickly decided to return to the safety of her house and hurried back inside.
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea Page 5