A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

by Melissa Fleming

  Bassem was sitting on his balcony at the time, enjoying a cigarette. When he noticed the family, he shouted down to them, asking what was wrong.

  Doaa, crying in fear for her mother, called back up to him, “She’s not well at all, she’s barely conscious! We’re taking her to the hospital!” The concern in Bassem’s eyes warmed Doaa for a brief moment as they stepped into the taxi and sped away.

  The doctor examined Hanaa and told the family that she was mentally and physically exhausted. She needed rest and the family had to care for her. Such a state was not uncommon in refugee patients, he said, after what they went through in Syria and now in Egypt. “She should not be given any bad news,” he warned. “She might not be able to take it.” Doaa felt as if the doctor were staring straight at her when he said this, and that her mother’s illness was somehow linked to her rejection of Bassem and her mother’s worry for her.

  It was dawn by the time they returned home. Hanaa’s phone rang almost immediately upon their arrival, and Doaa noticed Bassem’s name on the caller ID. She picked it up.

  “I am so sorry,” he said, “but I think I know why your mother is sick! It’s because of us.”

  Doaa was surprised that he had arrived at the same conclusion that she had. “Yes,” she replied, her voice catching. She couldn’t bear to be the cause of her mother’s illness. “It is our fault.”

  Before she could say more, he blurted out, “Doaa, I want to tell you something that I have only told your mother. I have decided to return to Syria to fight with the opposition. If I die, at least I know I will have you in heaven since I can’t have you in this life. I’m not leaving yet. I’ll wait for your mother to get better so I can say good-bye, but I am leaving in a few days.”

  Doaa was stunned at this news. She now understood why her mother had been so upset. Hanaa had come to care deeply for Bassem, even to love him as a son. “Now I know for sure we are the reason she got sick!” she told Bassem, feeling suddenly as if she were confiding in a close friend. “It was because she was so upset knowing that you would go back to Syria. That’s why she’s been so angry with me lately.” Doaa stood in the doorway of her mother’s room, watching Hanaa’s chest move up and down as she slept. Doaa leaned against the wall outside her parents’ room and held the phone pressed tightly to her ear. She realized that she didn’t want Bassem to hang up, and that she hated the idea of not being able to talk to him if he left Egypt.

  Bassem’s voice softened. “Doaa, do you think you could change your mind?” he asked hopefully. “Try and think about it more, but do it quickly. I’m going to leave in a few days. On Thursday at the latest. I can’t stand to stay here any longer than that.” Thursday was only three days away. Doaa thought about how much he cared for her and her family. FSA fighters died every day, and if he left, he could die, too.

  “Give me some time and I’ll call you back,” Doaa promised as tears rolled down her face. When they hung up, Doaa wasn’t sure if he had heard her crying.

  Doaa agonized over her decision. Would Bassem really go back? Could he die because of her? Part of her admired him for having the courage to return to Syria to rejoin the struggle. Hadn’t she fantasized about doing the same thing?

  Word spread quickly of Bassem’s imminent departure, and people whispered to each other about how he was leaving because he couldn’t bear the pain of his broken heart.

  Over the next few days Doaa couldn’t stop thinking about him. She didn’t want him to die because of her. Two days after their phone call, Doaa paced nervously around her apartment. She thought about Bassem’s kind brown eyes and how much he had cared for her and her family. All of a sudden, she realized that maybe she didn’t have to do everything alone. Her mother and father supported each other and they were stronger because of it. She admitted to herself that she couldn’t stand the idea of not having Bassem around. Her Gamasa neighborhood would be dull and colorless again without him.

  Doaa picked up her mobile and called Bassem.

  “Nice to hear your voice, Doaa,” he greeted her, before asking anxiously, “Did you think about it more?”

  Without preparation, the words sputtered out of her mouth, “How come you say that you love me and yet you want to leave me and go to Syria?” she challenged.

  Bassem replied just as quickly, “Because I’m burning with love for you, and I can’t stand seeing you and not having you in my life. I’d rather become a martyr in Syria. The pain of not having you is too much to bear.”

  As if her voice belonged to someone else, she heard herself say, “Well, I’ve thought about it a lot, and if you are still interested, you can go and ask my father for my hand.” As soon as she spoke the words, she knew she was speaking from her heart. Her fear of trusting someone was nothing compared to her fear of losing the man who might be the love of her life.

  Bassem was dumbfounded by Doaa’s response. “Are you sure you really mean it?”

  “I mean it.”

  “Okay. Hang up the phone right now!” he screamed with jubilance. “I am going to your father’s salon right now to ask for your hand! After that, I’ll come right over!”

  “No, silly.” Doaa laughed. “You can’t go right now. It’s too late. Go tomorrow!”

  Long after she hung up, she kept the phone in her hand thinking about the possibility of a new life ahead of her.

  SIX

  The Engagement

  The next day, Shokri looked up from sweeping up after a client to see Bassem walking into the barbershop trailed by a group of friends. Bassem was wearing a good suit that was freshly pressed, his hair was carefully combed, and his beard was neatly trimmed.

  Shokri smiled in welcome and offered the young men seats, but they all stayed standing while Bassem shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

  “I came here to let you know that I have proposed to Doaa,” he said at last. “I am here to ask for your support.”

  Shokri was incredulous. “Bassem, I like you very much. But Doaa doesn’t want to get married.” Shaking his head, Shokri went back to sweeping.

  Bassem was baffled and didn’t know how to respond to Shokri’s dismissal. After a few awkward moments, one of his friends spoke up for him. “Bassem is serious, sir! He has been in love with Doaa for three months now!”

  Shokri thought he knew his daughter well enough to know what her answer would be. He looked up from his work and answered with conviction, “Look, this is nothing personal, but I am quite sure that Doaa has no interest in getting engaged.”

  “B-b-but,” Bassem stuttered, “she has agreed! It’s true she didn’t want to for a time, but she’s changed her mind now.”

  Hearing this, Shokri brightened. He couldn’t believe it, and he couldn’t imagine a better match for Doaa than this hardworking, caring young man. Feeling suddenly optimistic and looking forward to something to celebrate, he smiled at Bassem. “Well, if Doaa wants this, I will of course agree to it.”

  Thrilled, Bassem immediately called Doaa to share the news. They set a date for their engagement ceremony for a few days later, August 28, 2013, and planned to throw a party to celebrate on September 1.

  Bassem visited the family every day after work, bringing small gifts and lingering after dinner to sit beside Doaa and whisper to her. During his breaks from work, he called Doaa and sent her text messages with heart emojis and poems by his favorite Syrian poets.

  Doaa and Bassem’s engagement lifted a cloud from over the Al Zamel house. Hanaa’s health improved and the new couple became the talk of the neighborhood. Everyone knew that Romeo Bassem had finally won his Juliet. The engagement was a bright spot in the midst of the everyday struggles of life as a refugee.

  The first step in the engagement was the signing ceremony, a formal event witnessed by a small group of family and friends in the Al Zamels’ home. Doaa, dressed in a black dress with a black-and-red veil, stood with the women on one side of a window, while Bassem and the men stood on the other side on a balcony. A sheikh,
a local religious leader, laid out the contract—called the Katb el-Kitab—an Islamic prenuptial agreement that would sanction their relationship, and asked Doaa through the window three times if she took Bassem for her betrothed. Each time she replied resolutely, “I do.” These responses made them man and wife in the eyes of God, then they signed the Katb el-Kitab. Afterward, Doaa joined Bassem on the balcony, while the family cheered them on, and Hanaa and the girls served tea and cake to all the guests. Later, they would need to visit a courthouse to make their engagement official. But for now they were blessed as a couple with the intention to marry, giving them the freedom to walk in public hand in hand.

  Two days later, Bassem picked up Doaa, her sisters, and Hanaa to go buy Doaa some jewelry in preparation for the engagement celebration party. Traditionally, a man buys a ring, bracelets, earrings, a watch, and a necklace for his betrothed. But Doaa and Hanaa tried to convince Bassem that one piece of jewelry was enough. They knew that his savings were running out and his earnings were small. But he insisted on one of each, asking for the most expensive kind of gold. Doaa chose a necklace, earrings, and double ring and skipped the watch. The label on the ring was Tag Elmalika, or “a queen’s crown.” “That is just how you treat her,” Hanaa said to Bassem, “like your queen.”

  For the engagement party Doaa bought a dress of a shiny sky-blue material with a tight bodice and full skirt. It had taken her days to find it, going from shop to shop with her mother.

  Now that they had taken their vows together, Bassem and Doaa were allowed to go out alone together holding hands. He took her to cafés and out shopping to spoil her. After living so simply for so long, Doaa enjoyed being indulged. “I love how you dress,” Bassem would tell her, joking that all the men were jealous of him to have such an elegant future wife. He also knew that she liked eating chips and sweets, so he would buy her little bags at kiosks for small picnics in the neighborhood garden. Bassem and Doaa would often go on strolls and visit a playground together where they would head for the swing set, like adolescents, giggling and whispering back and forth. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Dodo,” he said, using his new nickname for her. “You can’t know how much you made me suffer.”

  The morning of the party, Hanaa escorted Doaa to a hairdresser. Doaa’s long hair went down to her waist, and the stylist spent well over an hour creating an intricate style that wrapped around her head, while a makeup artist transformed her face. Finally, with full makeup and hair, Doaa no longer looked like a downtrodden refugee or a factory girl. She looked and felt like a woman in love who could now look to a future that might not be so bleak.

  Doaa was happy that she and Bassem had finally sanctioned their relationship and were now man and wife in the eyes of their religion, but in the taxi on the way home, she could not hold back her sadness at the thought that her older sisters could not be with her on her special day. Alaa, Ayat, and Asma were spread throughout the region: Alaa in Abu Dhabi, Ayat in Lebanon, and Asma in Jordan. As refugees, their Syrian passports were useless without visas. So they were stuck in the countries they had fled to and couldn’t come to celebrate Doaa’s engagement. Doaa wept at the unfairness of it, ruining her makeup.

  When she emerged from a taxi at 4:00 p.m., after freshening up at home and fixing her mascara, over one hundred guests, both Syrians and Egyptians, were gathered to cheer for her. Bassem’s friends set off fireworks, and the guests entered Doaa’s aunt’s apartment, where an array of home-cooked dishes, sweets, and bottles of fruit juice covered the tables. Doaa had charged Saja with decorating the space, and she, Nawara, and Doaa’s aunts had built a small podium for the ceremony and bought streamers, balloons, and paper tablecloths. Flowers were everywhere, on tables, the podium, even the curtains, and every foot of the living room was decorated with celebratory color. The girls had cut out the initials D and B and pasted them on the wall for guests to see as they entered.

  Doaa was swept in with the crowd and brought to her aunt’s bedroom, to where the women had retreated. Arabic pop music played from a speaker system they had rented from a local hotel, and everyone talked at once as Doaa was pulled into the center of the room for a traditional dance.

  Soon, an announcement was made that Bassem was about to enter. In accordance with custom, all the women but Doaa covered their heads. Bassem, clean shaven and dressed in an elegant dark suit, moved toward her. It was the first time he had seen her unveiled. “Is that the same Doaa?” He beamed. “You look amazing, though I think you’re even prettier without makeup!” He pulled out a small box from his pocket and took out the gold earrings he had bought for her and clipped them to her ears. The women joined the men in the living room at the buffet and the party began. After eating, the guests danced into the night to a mix of Arabic pop music. It was a rare joyous occasion to remember for everyone there.

  A week after the celebrations, as Doaa was going to bed, she reached under her pillow for her engagement ring. She kept it there for safekeeping and only wore it when she went out. To her horror, she felt nothing. She swept her hands frantically over the sheets and lifted the pillow. Her engagement ring was gone! I don’t have any luck in my life! she thought as she called for her sisters to help her search for it. The family had had guests that evening, friends of the girls’. She couldn’t help but wonder if one of them had stolen it. She called Bassem in tears, worried he would think she was careless. “Don’t worry,” he consoled her. “It’s not important. I’ll buy you a new one.”

  A dark thought flashed through Doaa’s mind as he spoke: What if this means we’re never going to have a real wedding? She tried to push the thought from her mind.

  Bassem now had a standing invitation to the Al Zamel home. Doaa’s sisters adored him, and to Shokri, he was like a son who supported the family and loved his daughter. He always took Bassem’s side when he and Doaa quarreled, scolding Doaa, “You must treat your future husband well!” Meanwhile, Doaa was struck with emotions that she’d never before experienced. Hours before Bassem arrived to visit, she would agonize over what to wear, and when his text messages chimed on her phone, she would feel a flutter in her heart. She began to have visions of him meeting other women and discovered the irrational sensation of jealousy. “Don’t be silly, Dodo, you are the only woman I have ever and will ever love,” he assured her.

  The weight of responsibility that she once felt for keeping the family afloat was now shared with Bassem. She realized what a good feeling it was to be supported and protected.

  To make more money, Bassem started working in a coal factory. He worked long shifts that started at 7:00 a.m. and ended at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. The pay was 500 to 600 LE per month, just a bit more than Doaa’s wage from her sewing and ironing, which she still did from time to time. After a late shift, he would arrive at Doaa’s place exhausted. He was losing weight and coughing from all the dust. Doaa would fix Bassem a plate, and after he was done eating, they would move to the balcony to smoke a shisha pipe together until well after midnight. In the later hours of the evening, their talk would eventually turn to their future. They agreed to delay having children until they could finish their educations and find good jobs.

  At times, Bassem would tell Doaa that he couldn’t see any future for them in Egypt. One evening, while drinking tea, he told her that since Egypt’s military coup he was often taunted by Egyptians. “What are you doing here?” they asked him. “Why don’t you go and fight in Syria?” He mostly said nothing when he heard this, but he was starting to think they were right. Doaa reminded him that he came to Egypt because he had been arrested in Syria: “You told me you were tortured in that jail and left for days without food or water.”

  Every time he received news from Syria, it seemed as if it were always about the death of another one of his friends. Sometimes Doaa was with him when the news came in over the phone. Whenever this happened, Doaa would squeeze his hand in hers and lean her head into the cove of his neck as his tears fell.

  To cheer
him up, they would listen to their favorite songs from Syria. Placing one earphone in his ear and the other in her own, she would lean her head close to his and they would listen together. They both loved a popular song by the Lebanese pop star Carole Samaha called “Wahshani Baladi,” or “I Miss My Country.” When the refrain came, they would sing it out loud together:

  Oh, God, oh, my dear country, how I miss my country …

  I can’t find anything to take the place of what is gone, except a moment in the arms of my beloved …

  Tomorrow I will return, and we will both go back to that place … and the days will be so sweet.

  One weekend, when Bassem took Doaa for a walk on the beach, Doaa knelt down in the sand and with her fingers wrote Bassem, to which Bassem added + Doaa, then Doaa wrote Syria in bigger letters underneath.

  Staring at their work, Bassem said suddenly, “Let’s go back to Syria. I miss my family. Our place is there.”

  “There is no way I am going back,” Doaa replied, even though only months before she’d wanted to do just that. “I’m responsible for my family and I can’t just leave them.” She thought of Bassem’s returning to Syria and being killed in the war and never seeing him again. “If you go, it will be the end of our relationship,” she said, masking her fear for him with anger. “You can take back all the gold that you bought me and go alone,” she said defiantly.