Badawi

by Mohed Altrad

  He succeeded. Fadia found she couldn’t think, couldn’t analyze the buzzy behavior of the young man she hadn’t seen for four years, couldn’t read between the lines of his squalling torrent of words, so she had little choice but to agree.

  Qaher and Fadia exchanged news as they walked up toward the fortress, which was on the city’s highest hill and dominated it with its sheer bulk. She talked about her studies, announcing with some pride that she would soon qualify as a primary school teacher; but he did most of the talking, describing the West, France, the university, and his plans.

  The dry heat of July and the steep climb very soon robbed them of all conversation—they had to save their breath. This enforced silence gave Fadia an opportunity to trawl through her memory for an anecdote or a snippet of information about the building they were visiting. Just as they set off on the walkway that led under the towering entrance porch she finally remembered something.

  “Apparently Abraham used to milk a white cow on this hill, and the name of the city actually comes from halaba, the Aramaic word for white.”

  Qaher had been walking ahead of her for some way now, and he turned around to launch into a discussion about religion which drew on a combination of his experiences in Syria and the West. They continued to explore these big general questions as they visited the different parts of the fortress, slipping between groups of tourists but taking a very different kind of interest from theirs. When it was time to leave, though, Fadia said they should see the ramparts, where the views were wonderful. Qaher couldn’t refuse.

  Up on the ramparts she chose a quiet spot to sit down. She’d actually remembered another bit of history and had made a point of not sharing it with Qaher: the fortress’s ramparts were conducive to intimacy and were well-known as a meeting place for lovers. The fact hadn’t escaped Qaher, who joined her with considerable misgivings.

  They sat in silence, side by side, for some time, each waiting for the other to take the initiative. In the end Fadia gave in. Almost whispering, she asked when he thought he’d be back again. Qaher was ready for this question and replied evasively, implying but not actually stating that he might not come back even though he’d finished his studies, but would have to work in France if the opportunity arose. Either Fadia didn’t want to understand, or she didn’t think it possible that Maïouf, the Maïouf she had known, might work abroad, and she avoided contemplating this hypothesis. Under the blazing sun, with no shade to protect them, before that endless plain spread before them, she started talking about their letters, the things they’d said to each other, and promised each other. But her increasingly insistent tone of voice and her choice of words confirmed what Qaher had feared: while his love for her seemed to have slowly dwindled with time and the distance between them, he could tell that hers for him had grown and strengthened. What really struck him was how strange it would feel if he came back to Syria. He realized to his own surprise that it wasn’t Fadia herself who’d faded from his heart, but his whole past and along with it the country that lay before him, and the desert whose fringes he could see in the distance. And while she continued to remember the past and make plans for the future, he felt more and more uncomfortable: he felt oddly like a foreigner in his own country.

  Qaher was suddenly brought back down to earth by what Fadia was saying. She was talking about the child they would have together! Early on in their correspondence, filled with the enthusiasm of love and an acute nostalgia for the earlier days, he’d mentioned wanting to have a child with her. Subsequently, he’d never had the courage to put her right, and she’d carried on talking about it as something that would seal their love. And now here she was talking about it again. Qaher jumped to his feet, unable to bear the misunderstanding any longer.

  “It’s getting late,” he said flatly, not even realizing how boorish he was being. “If we don’t leave now we’ll never get to the souks.”

  Fadia was still sitting and she gazed up at him openmouthed. Qaher grabbed her arm, pulled her to her feet, and dragged her behind him, mumbling a jumble of unconnected nonsense.

  They left the citadel and strode down the hillside with Qaher still talking aimlessly, throwing his arms around, and laughing for no reason while Fadia tried desperately to restrain him, get a word in, and bring him back around to the subject that meant so much to her. This went on all the way to the bottom of the hill, all the way to the old town, all the way to the square which was heaving with people.

  “Are we there?” asked Qaher, pretending not to know. “Is this the souk?”

  “Yes,” Fadia murmured, tilting her head down to hide her disappointment because she realized there was no chance of having a private conversation now.

  And Qaher was on the move again already.

  He rushed off into the labyrinth of little streets overlooked by mosques the color of cool sand, heading down covered walkways, shouting as he cut through the crowds and knocking into people, claiming he’d never have time to see everything. Because he suddenly wanted to explore the whole of the souk, walk through all those courtyards with their refreshing fountains that Fadia knew so well, fountains she’d sat beside these last few years, often dreaming of Qaher. He wanted to see all of the caravanserai along the edge of the souk. And he set off ahead of her, hurrying like a European, wanting to accumulate as many images and impressions as possible before leaving. He even let someone clean his shoes, which had lost their luster on his journey.

  When night fell at last and the stalls started closing, Qaher and Fadia realized they’d run out of time to stop and have tea and a meze as they’d promised they would. They had only enough time to get back to the bus station.

  While the bus was maneuvering to park in its space alongside the others, Qaher felt he couldn’t leave Fadia without giving her some crumb of comfort. She was standing silently beside him, exhausted by their afternoon of walking, and also infinitely saddened—he was in no doubt about that—by his distant behavior and the way he’d avoided answering her questions all afternoon.

  When the bus doors opened he leaned toward her and kissed her forehead.

  “I’ll come back in a few days,” he whispered. “I’m going to see my family, then I’ll come back. I’ll call you.”

  Fadia looked up. A huge smile lit up her beautiful face.

  People were starting to move forward and Qaher went with them, imperceptibly moving away from Fadia, but the smile he’d just glimpsed warmed his heart. As the bus set off he turned to see her still standing among a few other people in the car park, and quite spontaneously blew her a kiss.

  29

  He’d made up his mind. He would be there a couple of days, two at the most; he’d see his family; then he’d go back to Aleppo and talk to Fadia. Sitting there in that bus, he felt what he actually said to her wouldn’t matter. He was a little ashamed of his behavior and could still feel the glow of Fadia’s happy smile when he said he’d come back, a smile that he thought he’d forgotten but that had bowled him over. And he told himself that while he was with his family he could think about what their relationship meant. By the time he saw her again he would have reached a decision.

  Raqqa isn’t very far from Aleppo. The bus was heading farther south to Deir ez-Zor and would take only a few short hours to reach the town where he’d spent his teenage years. Qaher calculated he would be in Raqqa at about eleven in the evening. He briefly pictured himself looking for a hotel room, and it reminded him of the day he’d first arrived, trying to find accommodations for his time at school. The memory made him smile. Still, he decided not to go to a hotel; he’d spend the night in the waiting room at the bus station, among the Bedouin waiting for buses. He felt it would be a good way to reacquaint himself with the realities of a world which for now seemed determined to be out of his reach.

  The bus headlights suddenly lit up a vast expanse of water on the left: Lake Hafez al-Assad, through which the Euphrates flowed. Qaher stopped thinking about himself and opened his eyes wide. The Euphr
ates, his river!

  The bus traveled along the shores of the lake for several kilometers until the river finally appeared, wide and turbulent as it cut across his desert. A medley of images came back to him: “puddles” of sand shimmering in the moonlight he could see if he looked up, his mother, his aunt, the desert, school … he closed his eyes and succumbed.

  Qaher woke feeling stiff and cramped from the night spent on a wooden bench, and didn’t immediately know where he was. It took him a few seconds to remember and he grimaced in spite of himself. He really didn’t want to see his grandmother again, or his father, his stepmother, any of them. But he had to. He couldn’t avoid it.

  Outside, the sun was up, and in that waiting room which was open to the four winds, Qaher was surrounded by people coming and going, calling out to each other or struggling to get to where they were going, one with a goat, another with a hen. He also noticed an old woman sitting facing him two rows of benches away; she was watching him. The world had come back to life and he needed to move.

  He picked up his bag and went out, struck by the heat and light. He shielded his eyes and, not really sure what he’d do with the day, decided to get himself some breakfast. A hawker had already parked his handcart in a corner on the far side of the square. Qaher wasted no time before going over to him and ordering a cup of tea and a few sweet biscuits. He stood there eating them while he thought.

  He could call his father, but there was very little chance he’d send the truck to pick him up. He could go to the market in hopes of seeing him there, but that didn’t seem like a good idea. He had terrible memories of the last time they’d met there. He still had the option of taking the bus as he’d done so often before, but he was feeling too grown-up today, too old to cope with all the indignities of that journey, to retrace the steps of his childhood. In the end he opted for a taxi.

  He knew there was a taxi stand nearby. He’d never taken one but he’d seen others do it. Since childhood he’d been fascinated by this means of transport which felt so inaccessible to him. He walked across the square and some way up the wide avenue on the far side, then turned into a side street and headed for a flattened patch of ground where several cars were waiting. He nodded to himself. They were all big 1950s models the likes of which he’d hardly ever seen in France, except in books of memorabilia. Here they were their owners’ pride and joy.

  When he approached, the drivers, who’d been breakfasting under a corrugated iron lean-to, all stood up at once. They were probably drawn to his European clothes but when he came closer and they recognized him as a Badawi, they were less enthusiastic. All the drivers usually launched themselves at anyone who arrived, trying to attract a customer, but this time they weren’t sure, and this gave Qaher time to choose his car: it would be the black Mercedes at the front of the first row. He walked toward it confidently while he rummaged in his pocket to be sure he had enough money for the fare.

  After he’d negotiated a price with the driver who’d sauntered over to him nonchalantly, he sat down on the rear seat. It was in very cracked, bright red leather with a strong smell of cleaning oil. The Mercedes revved smoothly, drew away from its parking place, and set off down the avenue.

  Qaher lost himself in contemplation of these views which he knew so well but which somehow felt very far away. Raqqa was passing before him in all its glory—and to think he’d thought this was a big town! Of course everything looks huge to a child, but now that he’d seen the Western world, not only did Raqqa look like a tiny provincial backwater but … he tried to find the right expression: it looked like somewhere you’d come to die. Yes, if he had to come back to Raqqa, or even Aleppo, it would feel like dying; he’d languish on his feet.

  Just as this thought came to him, the taxi drove out of Raqqa through the ramparts. Beyond the hood of the car, apart from a few construction sites there was nothing but the straight line of the main road with desert on either side all the way to the horizon. A light wind had lifted and the road was dusted with fine sand.

  Peering through the smoked glass window from his comfortable seat, Qaher looked at the scenery stretching on either side of the road: an inhospitable, stony plain where only scrub managed to grow, a slightly undulating surface dotted here and there with sand holes whose dangers he knew only too well. He expected memories to come flooding back, expected the edge of the desert to mean something to him. But no. Or rather the only thing this desolate landscape reminded him of was his uncle’s trial. Why that memory alone? Why that and not the tents, the houses, the people? He had no idea.

  They passed the bus stop he used as a child, then a few minutes later the taxi left the main road to head off into the desert along a potholed sand track. Qaher craned his neck to the right, trying to make out the path he used to take in the days when he was called Maïouf, the one that cut straight across the plain toward the village in the distance. He tried with all his might to see it, to catch sight of its meanders. But he couldn’t, and eventually gave up. He felt thwarted, though, and had the strange feeling that his past was reacting to his indifference by eluding him.

  All at once he spotted the first houses of his village. The Mercedes was going slowly, its owner keen not to damage it on this track more suited to donkeys than cars. This gave Qaher time to watch the village as it came into view and to think. As the car reached the top of a rise, he tapped the driver’s shoulder and asked him to stop.

  Qaher sat on the ground looking down. Below him was his father’s village with, in the center, that concrete cube of a house he was so proud of. Beyond, on the far side of a barely visible ridge, were his grandmother’s village and his mother’s grave. What was he here to do? Should he visit his father? Or his grandmother? And what for? To be humiliated—again—by these people who didn’t understand anything he was trying to do, or what he was about to achieve, people less welcoming than the desert stretching before him? And yet these people were his family. If he broke all contact with them, he was breaking with his whole past.

  The taxi driver had also gotten out of the car, and he gave a little cough. Qaher looked up; he had to make a decision. He looked one last time at the village, his father’s house, the desert, this godforsaken, barren place, then got to his feet, gestured to the driver, and opened the back door of the car. The driver looked at him questioningly, and he paused for a moment.

  “We’re going back,” he said coolly. Then, on a sudden impulse, he changed his mind: “No, first there is one thing I’d like to do.”

  The taxi stayed on the road down below. Up on the hillside there was no trace of his mother’s grave. Qaher knelt down anyway. He couldn’t seem to cry and yet he wished she were there. She and she alone would have been proud of his success; she and she alone would have been happy to see him. He didn’t stay long.

  He’d made up his mind: he wouldn’t stay in Syria a moment longer.

  The taxi headed back to Raqqa.

  Yes, he was sure now. His life, his future didn’t lie here. He no longer belonged to the desert.

  On the way back he noticed a flock of sheep grazing the rare outcrops of grass, and that was when childhood memories finally came back to him. But what he saw were images of parties and feasting in which he’d never participated. He remembered the pleasure these occasions had given him as a teenager. Everyone ate traditional mutton, and the brain was kept for guests of honor. He felt no trace of nostalgia, and simply thought, “Soon all that will be over and gone. Soon it will all have been wiped out by oil.” He tried to feel remorse for this unkind thought, but didn’t succeed.

  At the bus station he bought a ticket straight to Damascus. As the clerk handed it to him he suddenly remembered Fadia. Oh well, he thought, he’d write to explain. For now he had to leave, to get back out.

  He’d soon be on his way to Abu Dhabi, where he was being taken on as an engineer by an oil company.

  30

  The tarmac was scorching and the black ribbon of the road melted into the sand dunes in the dis
tance. A few meters ahead, beyond the hood of the car, it hovered nebulously, quivering in the heat, so that, if you gave free rein to your imagination, it was like being on a boat skimming silently over the crests of earthly waves. Clouds of dull gray dust swirled up furiously, then fell away as the heavy vehicle passed, accentuating the impression of being on a boat. But if you looked back you saw a dry, arid landscape, an endless whitish expanse filled with impassive threat.

  A charcoal sky stretched across the horizon with oppressive ocher and mauve clouds scudding across it. A sandstorm was brewing deep in the desert. The day suddenly darkened.

  The little man in a dark suit sitting beside Qaher leaned toward the window to look out. For a moment he was lost in the folds of desert landscape, then he shifted back into his seat with a satisfied sigh.

  “It’s been very hot the last few days,” he said in the same coolly polite voice he’d used throughout the trip, not even looking at Qaher. “And when the whirlwinds whipping up the sand come together they can produce storms.”

  He gave the beginning of a humorless smile, nodded his head toward some distant place lost beyond the hills, and resumed his featureless silence. It fell to him, as administrative director for the Company, to initiate new arrivals in the work schedule and the scant perks, which included the desert. He acquitted himself of this chore diligently and with conspicuous indifference even though, deep in his little man psyche, he obviously drew some dubious pleasure from wielding a modicum of power. It had to be said the desert did seem to be a mystery to all these young engineers fresh out of school. He, on the other hand, had been here three years; he knew enough about it to impress them. As for this young boy he’d just collected in Abu Dhabi, this was clearly his first job and he’d probably have to teach him everything.

  The day grew darker still. Qaher, who saw little point in replying, wanted to open the window so he could smell the air, something he used to like doing as a child when darkness stole over the desert. It had been sealed shut. He tried a little more forcefully; with no success. The man beside him misinterpreted the gesture and was quick to reassure him.