by Rafik Schami
“Have you found many other women to support you yet?” asked Farid quickly, trying to avoid this tricky subject.
“There are over a hundred of us in Damascus, meeting in small groups, determined to go all the way to the very end. There’s no alternative if we want to preserve our dignity.”
“And why were you crying on the phone?” he finally asked.
Laila sat still. She put her hands around her knees and stared at a point on the floor. He went to her, sat down on the bed, and took her head in his hands. She smelled as wonderful as ever.
Laila looked at him, and sobbed. “They’ve taken Nada away. They beat her half to death in front of all the neighbours, and no one went to help her.”
“Nada? What Nada?”
“Nada Faris who works in the textiles factory. The secret service picked her up yesterday because they don’t yet know who organized the first big strike in the factory after it was nationalized. It employs only women and pays starvation wages. They’re raped and beaten, and there’s always an army of other poor women standing outside begging for work, which makes the state management even more pitiless.”
“Was the strike successful?” asked Farid, rather confused, since he had heard nothing of it either in the press or at his Party meetings.
“There’s been no work done for a week, but none of the political parties will support the women. The secret service was furious. A strike organized by women, without any political backing? They needed someone as a scapegoat, and poor Nada was ideal for them. She had as much to do with the strike as any other woman worker, no more and no less, but she was popular, and she’s a poverty-stricken unemployed academic keeping herself by working in the factory.”
Laila calmed down a little, took Farid’s handkerchief from his hand and blew her nose loudly.
“Three jeeps surrounded the little house where she lives in the village of Kabun. The soldiers set up their big machine guns. A helicopter was circling above the place. You might have thought they were about to attack Israel. Nada didn’t stand a chance. To spare her family, she went out with her hands up. They beat her until she was unconscious, and then the soldiers dragged her over the ground and threw her into one of the jeeps like a bloodstained rag. Nothing’s been heard of her since.”
Laila was still sobbing. Farid pressed her head to his chest, and she clung to him.
“Stay with me. I’m frightened,” she said.
Just before midnight the leaden silence in the street made its way into the apartment. Laila was the first to notice it. She stood behind the curtains at the window and looked down. “There’s something wrong. The street looks as if it had been swept empty,” she whispered in alarm. “Switch the radio on.”
The radio brought certainty: there was a curfew because of a revolt allegedly planned somewhere abroad. The population were to keep calm, and not go out of doors from ten in the evening until six in the morning without police permission.
A cool breeze heavily laden with the scent of lemon blossom blew over Damascus from Mount Qassiun. Farid picked up the telephone and called home. His mother answered at once.
“Have you heard? There’s a curfew,” he said.
“Where are you?” asked Claire, relieved to hear his voice.
“At Laila’s. I won’t be able to get home now. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Yes, stay the night with her. And give her my love, and tell her not to let you come home in the morning until you’ve had breakfast.” Claire laughed.
“Yes, Mama, anything else?”
“I want a kiss or I’ll come over to you and Laila, curfew or no curfew.”
Farid blew her a kiss down the telephone. “Good night, Mama, and tell your husband good night from me too.”
“He’s been snoring for ages. He has to go out early. His special permission is under his pillow,” she said, and hung up.
He slept on the couch opposite his cousin’s big bed. When he woke up, Laila had already made tea and prepared a modest breakfast.
“Good morning, dear fugitive,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. He was still drowsy. She dragged him after her to the bathroom like a stubborn donkey.
When Farid left the house he felt lighter than a feather. He thought this was the way you would feel in Paradise, if it existed.
“And now back to real life,” he told himself as he saw a military jeep racing past. He did not guess that hell was about to open its gates to him.
BOOK OF HELL I
If we are to respect the freedom of others we must first respect ourselves.
DAMASCUS, GAHAN, SPRING 1960 – AUTUMN 1961
194. Lilo
The bus made its way along Straight Street, which was crowded with carts, men carrying loads, pedestrians, and street sellers. People deep in conversation in the middle of the road refused to take any notice of it, and had to be alerted by loud hooting before they would step back at least far enough for it to squeeze past, but involuntarily brushing their clothes against it. The driver cursed and kept stepping hard on the brakes, because foolhardy pedestrians would insist on filling the gap that the bus had just left, and then crossed the street right in front of its hood.
Amidst this dangerous chaos, the bus driver still found time to satisfy his vanity by looking in the rear-view mirror and smiling at a woman who preened under his glance. He was a rather portly man in his mid-forties, with a safari shirt and a haircut that emphasized a certain similarity to Robert Mitchum, whose film The Night of the Hunter had just been showing for three months in Damascus. In the same way as James Dean had been the idol of young people and adolescents since Rebel Without A Cause, Robert Mitchum was the model for all bachelors who weren’t as young as they used to be. But however much oil they put on their hair, and even with their shirts unbuttoned to reveal their chest hair, they still oozed loneliness from every pore.
The driver leaned out of his small side window several times, cursing the crowd or hailing someone in a loud voice. It was obvious that he had been driving the Number 5 route through the Old Town for a long time.
Farid left the bus at the stop nearest to his street. As he got out he passed the time of day with Lilo, a rather mediocre barber with an astonishingly ready tongue. Even in the Middle East, that tongue was in a class of its own.
Lilo smiled at him and asked, with a wave of his hand, if he had time for a little tea. A samovar with its fragrant contents stood ready in his shop day in, day out, and when he had no customers Lilo would stand at the door inviting his friends and neighbours in for a cup. His motto was: a barber’s shop should always be full, that brings the curious in, and before they know it they’re leaving their hair behind, or at least a story.
Farid thanked him but declined, and was about to turn into his own street when he noticed two figures who looked like extra-terrestrials: a colossus two metres tall, and a man shaped like a cube with sides measuring one metre fifty. They were both standing four-square a few metres in front of him. The colossus swiftly stepped up to Farid and took him by the collar. “Era uoy diraf kathsum?” he asked. Farid didn’t understand a word of it. This evidently displeased the colossus, and he hit him full in the face with his left hand. The features of the attacker’s face suggested Egyptian nationality. “Nos fo a erohw! Uoy tnaw ot worhtrevo eht tnemnrevog? Nos fo a erohw!” Farid heard him roar, as the force of the blow sent him flying backward.
Leaden fear came over him, pressing down on his lungs. When he hit the ground he could scarcely breathe. Now the second, cubic figure came up to him. He approached as slowly as if he had to struggle against the earth’s force of attraction. Then he picked Farid up as if he weighed nothing at all, or had turned into a grasshopper, and dealt him another blow in the face. This one sent its victim flying right against the other nightmare figure. At this moment Farid saw the old tailor Marwan looking out of his shop, white with fear.
Finally Farid heard the sturdy man say to the colossus, “That’ll do for a start. Let’s go.”
&nb
sp; They were speaking Arabic now, but with an Egyptian accent. Egyptians had made their way into the state everywhere since union with Egypt. Nothing humiliated a Syrian more than to be arrested by Egyptian secret service men in his own country.
The colossus took his victim by the collar for the second time and dragged him to a jeep parked nearby. Farid tried to get away, and halfway to the vehicle kicked the colossus in the balls. The kick struck home, and the man let go of him. But the second Egyptian reacted like lightning, slamming his fist into Farid’s stomach. As he fell, Farid saw Lilo standing there frozen with horror, his mouth open and his hands raised.
In his fury the colossus hit Farid in the kidneys, grabbed his prisoner’s right hand and swiftly twisted it behind his back, then did the same with his left hand. Farid felt handcuffs digging into his flesh. Now both men picked him up and went on dragging him towards the jeep. The neighbours were standing at many doors and windows, pale-faced, staring at the scene.
The vehicle raced through the eastern gate and turned left. Only now did screams emerge from the neighbours’ open mouths.
195. Interrogation
From outside, the building to which they drove in the middle of the modern part of Damascus looked like any ordinary office block. The only unusual thing was the strict guard kept on the entrance. The small plate at the entrance bore the words: Interior Ministry.
The jeep drove into an underground garage. The men took Farid one floor down, through a stairwell with neon lighting, and handed him over to two jailers, who opened a large iron door and pushed him through it.
Farid was in darkness, and an acrid stink rose to his nostrils. It reminded him of a hyena that a farmer had once put on show at the fair in a tiny cage, tormenting the animal with a sharp stick until it howled. The cage had been smeared with its excrement.
Very slowly, his eyes adjusted to the lighting conditions. A tiny crack between the door and the wall let a little light from the corridor into this room. Gradually Farid made out faces; there were over twenty children, adults, and old people shut up in here. They lay on the bare concrete floor, which was covered with faeces and urine.
One of the children crawled over to him on all fours and begged for a cigarette. But Farid had none. The stink filled his lungs, and he could hardly breathe. When would Rana hear about his arrest? He thought of Josef and his mother, and was sure they were thinking of him at this moment. Suddenly he felt warmth protecting him.
Someone shouted his name. He woke up. The jailers were standing in the doorway with flashlights, sweeping their beams around in circles. Two men in civilian clothes were already waiting in the brightly lit corridor. They led him through the stairwell again, up to the first floor this time, and then down a long corridor past waiting men and into an office without any windows. At the door they handed him over to a dark-skinned man with an ugly, tattooed face.
In the office itself a young, clean-shaven first lieutenant was sitting behind a desk. The man with the tattooed face led Farid to a chair and pushed him down in it without a word. Then he took the handcuffs off.
“Try anything stupid and you’re dead,” he said with an Egyptian accent before he left the room.
The officer spoke the Damascus dialect, and was courteous but pedantic as he took down personal details. A soldier came in and told Farid to place any valuables as well as his belt and shoelaces in the carton he was holding out to him. The officer watched with indifference.
Farid was in the grip of a strange fear. The officer reached for the telephone and dialled a single digit. “I’m ready. You can collect him now,” he said, unmoved.
Soon two tall soldiers came in, and having handcuffed Farid again they led him back to the cellars below. This time he counted four floors before the soldiers opened a metal door and pushed him into a corridor.
It was dark, and again it stank of urine. Naked light bulbs, spaced far apart, hung from the concrete ceiling on rigid cables. They passed iron cell doors through which Farid heard the sound of blows, and men and women screaming. His heart was racing and his knees felt weak, but the soldiers drove him on. There was no window anywhere. Corridor followed corridor in a labyrinthine system. He felt dizzy. At last the doorway to the staircase reappeared, and the soldiers drove him into the corridor yet again. Then they stopped, as if at an order.
Farid tried to steady his breathing, and listened. He hear raucous laughter and a stifled scream nearby. One of the soldiers took a step back, stopped at the door, pushed a metal flap aside and looked through the peephole. His face was briefly lit. He beckoned to the other soldier, who led Farid over to the peephole.
The room was almost empty, lit by three large neon lights that made the white walls look like ice. A naked man lay on his back on a table in the middle of the room. His feet were tied to ropes descending from the ceiling. In front of the table stood a soldier with his trousers down, forcing his mighty penis into the man. The man was bleeding. He screamed, his eyes wide with pain and horror. But only a whimper could get past the gag in his mouth. A second soldier stood there, smoking, and laughed at every scream.
Farid turned his eyes away. A blow immediately struck him in the face.
“Take a good look, you bastard,” said his guard. Farid felt no pain, he just thought he was going to throw up. After a while the soldiers led him on again and opened another door. The room behind it was almost empty, except for a rusty metal chair and a dirty old table with an ashtray full of cigarette ends on it. Farid had to stand in front of the table. One of the soldiers disappeared, the other stayed with him.
A little later the first soldier came back and stood to attention as he held the door open. A rather stout officer entered the room, with a thick folder under his arm. He was dark-skinned, and wore a sweaty uniform and strong glasses that made his eyes shrink to the size of small marbles.
“So whom have we here?” he asked in an accent that Farid knew from Egyptian films.
“Farid Mushtak, a communist. Head of their youth organization,” replied the soldier.
“Let’s keep this short and sweet,” said the officer in almost paternal tones, while he looked Farid up and down. “You’re a good lad from a distinguished family. You’ve been led astray, lured into this imported foreign communism.” He sat down on the chair, opened the folder, and took a sheet of paper out of it. “Here, sign this and then clear out. Your mother will be worrying about you.”
The officer pushed the sheet of paper over to him. Farid knew what it was from many Party reports: a standard declaration in which you expressed remorse and total submission to the President of the state. By signing it you were saying you condemned the communists and would do anything to serve the Fatherland. The Party’s orders were for no communist to sign in any circumstances. Anyone who did would be expelled from the party and publicly branded a traitor. Neither sickness nor weakness was any excuse. So Communist Party members were in a dilemma: either you died or you were a traitor. Farid decided to die. He shook his head.
“Did you two ever see anything like this?” the officer asked the soldiers. “I speak to him as a friend, and he shakes his head, stubborn as a donkey. What do you think of that?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned back to Farid and pointed to the sheet of paper.
“Sign it and you’re out of here. You can go to the cinema, kiss your girlfriend, sleep soundly at home. The alternative is to die, and no one will trouble about your fate. Think about it. One of these days you’ll tell yourself: oh, if only I’d listened to Captain Muhsin, what a fool I was. Because once you get into here you’ll never get out again. Well, do we want to reconsider?”
“I’m not signing anything,” said Farid firmly. A blow struck the back of his head, knocking him to the ground.
“You son of a dog, you have to begin and end everything you say with ‘sir’,” he heard the soldier standing over him say.
“No, no, Ismail. You mean well, but he’s not one of those primitive fellows. He’s a leading light o
f the movement and a student. So restrain yourself a little and help him get up, please,” said the officer mildly. He turned back to his victim, speaking in a gentle, explanatory tone. “Why do you hate our dear Fatherland so much? Surely there can be no reason.” For the first time bitter rage rose in Farid. Here, of all places, in this torture chamber, the lying serpent before him spoke of the dear Fatherland.
Farid would have liked to reply, “You know something, sir? You’re the biggest asshole on this earth.” But he was badly scared, so he just shook his head.
Then the soldiers waded in. Farid fell to the floor. One of them drew his leg back and kicked him in the kidneys. The last thing he felt was a stabbing pain.
196. The Forecourt of Hell
Loud noise roused him from his uneasy sleep. “Get up! Get up!” shouted a warder, and he was already unlocking the next cell with the same amount of racket. Farid didn’t know what the time was. He had forgotten how many days had passed since his interrogation too. His internal clock had stopped working, and there was nothing to help him measure the rhythm of time. Sometimes the warders left him without any food for ages, then they would bring some horrible soup and a piece of bread in quick succession.
The prisoners had to stand by their cell doors. In the end about fifty men were standing in the corridors. Soon after that they were taken to the level of the garage where a truck with a box-like superstructure was waiting to take them to a camp. All the prisoners were chained together for the journey.
Outside it was light. Some whispered that they were going to the camp at Gahan in the steppes north of Damascus, others that they were to be taken to Tad, the worst camp of all, far away in the desert to the north-east of the capital. The driver steered the truck through the New Town. The prisoners peered through the slits between the boards of the superstructure. Some recognized the streets where they lived, and started crying. When the truck was stuck in a traffic jam a few hundred metres further on, Farid saw a boy of about six sitting in a garden under a maple tree, eating an ice cream. His mother was sitting beside him doing crochet work. Farid thought of Claire, and convulsively bit his lip.