by Mohed Altrad
It was like taking a lightning strike to the head. Not for one second had he imagined that the ministerial reception would have concrete repercussions. He remembered the reply he’d given the minister: agronomy, in Germany. His aspirations hadn’t carried much weight, but it was actually just as well they hadn’t. Although he couldn’t say why, he’d come to love France from school history lessons. And petrochemistry? Why not? It wasn’t teaching. But he’d thought of teaching only because he had no other ideas. He’d passed his baccalauréat, and wanted to go further. Moving to Aleppo would take money, and money was something he didn’t have. But here he was being offered a grant to go abroad!
Seen another way, this meant being exiled. Still, what was there to keep him here? His father? His grandmother? They didn’t even know he’d passed his exams. He’d bumped into one of his half brothers recently and hadn’t even said hello. He’d already left them behind, every one of them. The only person he had now was Fadia, and he didn’t immediately realize the implications of this possible move. All the time he’d contemplated studying in Aleppo or locally, he’d let himself be drawn into this relationship with her, without really thinking what she meant to him. But now that he was about to leave, he understood just how much she mattered and, by contrast, how little everything else did.
Over time he’d admitted to himself that he was in love with her, but he’d never had the courage to tell her. Deep down, he was afraid she thought of him as just a friend and didn’t reciprocate his feelings. Should he risk losing the only person he was close to by suddenly revealing how he felt? And as one procrastination led to the next, as hesitation led to fear, he’d ended up confused about exactly what their relationship was. And yet it was to her and her alone that his thoughts turned now.
Maïouf strolled through the town for the rest of the afternoon, waiting till it was time to see Fadia. He even went as far as the huge ruined ramparts of al-Mansour, stopping for a while in the shade of the open gateway to the road to Baghdad. Legend had it that the great caliph Haroun al-Rachid had walked through this archway when he visited Raqqa. As Maïouf gazed up at the columns and recesses along the wall, he tried to picture the future, France, the West. But before him lay only desert.
When Fadia appeared at the end of her street, he leapt to his feet. He’d already been waiting some time.
“You’ve stopped pretending to bump into me by chance,” she said with a smile. “Are you trying to compromise me?”
Her eyes shone brightly as Maïouf drew her to one side and, without a word, took out the letter and showed it to her with shaking hands. When Fadia had finished reading it, her face dropped instead of lighting up as Maïouf had expected.
“Are you going to accept it?”
Until then Maïouf hadn’t had any doubts about this, but now his heart constricted nervously.
“Yes. Of course … well … Do you understand?” was all he could mumble.
Fadia took a step back and looked him up and down.
“So we won’t see each other anymore?”
What could he tell her? Maïouf made as if to step toward her but she backed away, stopping him in his tracks.
“Of course we will,” he managed eventually. “We’ll see each other. I’ll be home for the holidays …”
Fadia said nothing. The smile was still on her face but it was suddenly empty. Maïouf had thought she might share his excitement or at least understand it, and was baffled.
Seeing how upset she was and acutely conscious that he would soon be leaving, Maïouf knew the time had finally come to admit how he felt. If he didn’t do it now he’d never have another opportunity. He had to, even if he made a fool of himself. But the pain he detected in Fadia’s expression more or less told him he wouldn’t look a fool.
“I’ll come back for another reason,” he said in a choked voice, looking away. “I’ll come back because … I love you.”
Fadia looked up sharply.
“At last,” she said.
Her fixed smile had vanished; her eyes were wide. She looked at Maïouf more intently than ever before and, in a clear, perfectly audible voice, said, “Well, I’ll wait for you then because I love you too.”
As she said these words a strange glow lit up her face, a solemn tender glow Maïouf had never seen before. She handed the letter back to him swiftly and, as on their very first meeting, she disappeared though her front door before he had time to react.
The following day Maïouf and Fadia met on the road to Deir ez-Zor. It was almost nightfall and there was already a coolness in the air. They took a track between two villages, heading out into the desert. The road surface was very uneven, pitted by violent rainstorms, passing herds, and ruts made by the wheels of a cart. The track came to an end on a stony plateau, and in the space of a few minutes it took you from the cultivated banks of the Euphrates to the vastness of desert hills and dunes. Here and there along the way stood crumbling tumuli, their sides eroded with dark holes, but these ancient tombs had been empty a long time. When Maïouf and Fadia reached higher ground, they looked down and saw a spring. They climbed down to watch the water bubble to life at their feet. Fadia told Maïouf that the water in a source has to fight to exist, battling against the sand and stones that drive it back into the ground, away from the sun.
“And yet it’s so clear, it shows no trace of this fight, it reflects the sun’s rays and gives us a clear view of the stones beneath it. But the sun and stones go on attacking it, trying to stop it from living, so it carries on fighting and it wins. Ever since men have been here to see it, this water has been fit to drink.”
Maïouf looked around and noticed strange scattered outcrops of greenery, like tiny velvety tufts of grass. He bent to pick one. It smelled like a peppery version of thyme mixed with sage, bitter but also smooth.
“That’s a rare herb,” said Fadia, noticing what he was holding. “It doesn’t appear very often; you must be lucky. It heals all sorts of pain, stomachaches as well as headaches, and it also helps people sleep when the full moon won’t let them.”
A slender crescent moon suddenly broke through the red marbling in the sky; night had fallen quickly.
On the way back they hardly dared talk, as if the previous day’s confession was too momentous for them. They walked side by side in silence.
26
The bus was meant to be leaving. The driver called impatiently to a young man who was refusing to get in. Of course he was waiting for someone, but everyone’s always waiting for someone, and you have to stick to the timetable.
“Just a minute, please …”
He saw her. She was wearing a pale-colored skirt, and running. When she saw him she slowed, and by the time she reached him she was walking. When they were very close she put her hand into her bag and took out a small parcel.
“I’ve brought the book you lent me. I didn’t think you’d finished it.”
“I … I’ll bring you a present too,” Maïouf stammered, taking the book.
Standing here facing each other, they didn’t know what to say. They looked at each other but neither dared do anything.
“So, have you finished?” the driver shouted suddenly. “You’ll see your girlfriend again.”
Fadia hesitated, then leaned forward quickly and lightly, and kissed Maïouf on the cheek.
Dazzled and happy, he hardly noticed that the driver was grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him onto the bus. It was when he heard the engine and felt the whole vehicle rattling to life that he realized. He raced down to the rear window. The bus was already pulling away and Fadia’s outline melted slowly into the crowd.
27
France is a gray country, Fadia. When I arrived in Paris the sky was low, you could almost touch it. And it was too cold to go out.
In this country the poor are sad too. The poor are sad everywhere. I know that. But it feels like they’re sadder here—sadder than in our country, I mean. As if they’ve lost their dignity. It’s the first thing
I noticed. After I’d been through passport control I practically walked right into a group of homeless people slumped on the floor. Some men and one woman, all mixed up together, sprawled in a stench of pee! Beggars. One of them had a dog, and that dog looked more human than any of them. All the passengers, airport staff, and policemen avoided them and just walked past like they didn’t exist. I looked at them for a long time. In the end they yelled and waved their arms at me, but I didn’t understand what they were saying. Insults probably. Because I was looking at them. I was hoping to see gardens, soft golden light on flowers, and I found this heap of destitute people in that big, empty, shiny, clean, scoured arrivals hall, like ghosts trailing their distress around on the marble floors of a palace.
I didn’t stay in Paris. I just saw it from the plane, it was a gray cloud. Nothing more. Flaubert’s fog. I’ve been sent to a town called Montpellier, not far from the sea. It rains here too. I was told it was definitely a sunny place, but the Raqqa sun must be tired by the time it gets here. The streets are narrow, the houses low and yellow with red-tiled roofs. If it weren’t for the cars absolutely everywhere, I might just about be able to see Raqqa. Just about.
Can you imagine, people here kiss in the street! They’re noisy, they wear outlandish clothes, and they do outrageous things. Girls as well as boys. At first I made an effort not to stare. I remembered those beggars and how they reacted. But no one notices anyone else here. I’ve learned not to be surprised by anything. I’ve told you about Damascus, well, people’s lifestyle has evolved a lot further in France! But they don’t look unhappy. I live in student accommodations, a big beige building like those on the outskirts of Aleppo. But the buildings here are clean.
The government told them I was coming, so there was a room for me. A room all to myself! Can you believe it? And it’s not on the ground floor. This is the first time I’ve lived so high up, Fadia. It’s like being up a minaret or perched on top of a rampart. The windows look onto a park. It’ll be pretty when there’s some sun. Sometimes there’s a smell of resin in my room, from the trees. Other times there’s a smell of salt which apparently comes from the sea, but I haven’t seen the sea yet. And you may not believe this but there’s running water in my room, even a shower. The first few days I turned the tap on just to watch the water running. I’m over that now. But I shower every evening. I’m ashamed. Well, a bit. But not too much. This country has no concept of thirst. There’s water everywhere.
I’ve met some other Syrians among the students. Not Bedouins. But when you’re a long way from home that doesn’t matter at all. We’re all in exile. What does Badawi mean in France? Who’d understand that? I’ve made friends with them and they’re helping me, teaching me the local ways, how the campus works. They give me advice and even sometimes money for food. I’ll get my grant soon, then I’ll be independent and it’ll be my turn to help them.
I’m enrolled at the faculty of physics and chemistry, and it’s much harder than I thought it would be. It’s hard following lectures in French so I have to go to the language lab to improve my French. We didn’t do much chemistry in school so I’m having to start from scratch. But the most awkward thing is that some of my lecturers are women. Oh, I know, I know, you want to be a teacher too. But, well, no woman’s ever told me what to do. The other day one of them ordered me to be quiet. I got up and left. I had to apologize. That’s something else I need to learn.
I’m giving you all these details so you get a sense of how alone I feel. Sometimes when I’m sitting working in the evenings I feel sad. I think of Raqqa and its little streets. I think of the desert. And I think of you. Your yellow dress. The people here don’t like the Syrians. Syrians or Arabs in general are all Bedouins as far as the French are concerned. But I won’t give up. In Raqqa I was proud to be a Bedouin but here I’m not so sure. I’ll see it through to the end, even if I have to work twice as hard as the others. I won’t let myself be beaten, even if I do have to obey a woman. I’ll get my degree. There’s no way I’m wasting all those years.
What Maïouf didn’t describe in his letter was how he changed his name when he enrolled at the university. Instead of Maïouf—”the abandoned one”—he put Qaher: “the victorious.”
28
The end of university came at last. Now that he had his degree, Qaher decided to use this time to go home; he’d been away four years. At first he’d felt homesick but didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket, so he’d worked, doing little summer jobs. Nothing had put him off, whether it was washing dishes in a restaurant in Palavas-les-Flots or breaking his back harvesting grapes farther inland. He’d also been a math tutor like so many other students, and had managed to save enough.
He’d chosen a window seat on the plane so he could look at the scenery. All in miniature, he’d seen the mountain range of the Alps, the tortuous relief of the Balkans, Greece, and the great Anatolian plain with its vast buff-colored expanses that looked so like the desert but were in fact fields of wheat. Then, through the clouds, he caught glimpses of the foothills of Mount Lebanon before the plane was finally over Syria. Then he leaned forward and peered slightly anxiously at the panorama before him. Maybe they’d fly over his region, he thought. But he didn’t spot any river to act as a reference. The desert gave way to an urban landscape and they landed in Damascus.
Now in a bus on its way to Aleppo, Qaher thought back and realized that when he stepped off the plane, the moment he set foot in the airport, he had a very strange feeling. It was as if all the years he’d spent in this country, his country, had been erased by his time in France. It was true he’d grown, and he’d certainly matured, but that wasn’t the only explanation. In France he’d to some extent adopted the way westerners think and behave, and back in his own country, it was these sensibilities that whispered in his ear, telling him he was a foreigner. He thought of all the immigrants he’d met in France, the illusions they’d kept alive, and the dreams. Still, he didn’t know many who wanted to return to their own countries. That was true of him too: he did care for Syria but like a childhood memory, like a connection he couldn’t quite bring himself to break off …
At the airport he’d leapt into a taxi as if trying to run away from something, and gone straight to the bus station. There he’d caught the bus to Aleppo, where Fadia would be waiting for him.
Fadia. In the early days he’d written to her regularly, still gripped by his own passion and the memory of their kiss. Then their letters had become less frequent, and the memory had faded and paled before the new world he was discovering. His last letter must have been at least three months ago and he now didn’t really know what to think. Of course he’d come back for her more than for his family, for the promise he’d once made her. But their love—which still filled Fadia’s letters—now felt to him like a teenage flirtation, and he felt awkward about seeing her again. He thought perhaps he had put down stronger roots elsewhere.
The bus left the main road to cut through the suburbs of Aleppo. Qaher sat up in his seat and looked at the European clothes he was wearing. They were a bit creased from his journey, but certainly distinguished him from the other passengers. Gone were the days of the torn djellaba. And yet, despite these trappings he wore with such pride, the fact that he was coming back a changed person to this country which had so often humiliated and mistreated him made him feel torn between two cultures, the one he was born into and the one he’d adopted. He wished he could keep them both but he couldn’t join them together, and felt as if he was watching himself, as if he came from nowhere, with no valid references. He’d turned back into Maïouf, the abandoned one …
Fadia was waiting for him. As the bus drew into the huge station car park, he saw her motionless figure. She was standing very upright on the sidewalk, surrounded by other people, wearing a veil over her head and a plain robe that looked dark in the harsh light. She hardly seemed to have changed since Raqqa; she was still as pretty. When the bus stopped and opened its doors, he didn’t hurry out but
waited for all the other passengers to leave before walking along the gangway. When Fadia saw him at last, she came toward him with some hesitation. As he put his foot to the ground, he waved a hand to indicate he had to get his bag, and went around to the back of the bus. He was putting on a brave face, trying to find something to do to give him a few more minutes before they were actually reunited.
Fadia made her way through the people thronging around the bus and ended up next to him just as the bus driver handed him his suitcase.
“Hello, Maïouf,” she said quietly.
“Hello,” he said, battling with his bag. “Give me a minute,” he added, not looking at her. “I’ll just sort this out, then I’m all yours.”
Fadia stepped aside.
When he eventually came over to her he was wearing a big smile.
“Fadia, I’m really sorry,” he said quickly. “I thought I’d have more time but I have to go back to France in a few days, and I also have to see my family while I’m here, and well … I have to leave for Raqqa this evening. There. But we have the whole afternoon and, you know, I’d love it if you showed me around the citadel. I’ve never visited it. It’s now or never. And then afterward we could go to the souk, like we used to in Raqqa. I’ll leave this in the baggage lockers, then we can go. Is that OK?”
He’d said this all in one breath, not giving her a chance to interrupt. He was lying of course: if he’d wanted to, he could have spent a couple of days with her in Aleppo. But he dreaded the thought. He hoped that by talking quickly, without stopping or allowing her to stop him, he’d make his story credible and catch Fadia out, forcing her to accept the whole package: visiting the citadel and wandering through the souk as well as his scuttling off that same evening.