City of Sparrows

by Eva Nour

  ‘There’s no point bothering with politics,’ Nabil said. ‘So long as you have nothing to hide and you keep your nose clean, they leave you alone.’

  Sami used to think that way, too. It was a banal, inconsequential event that made him change his mind.

  What happened was that Sami went to the state bank to cash a cheque and the teller asked him for a bribe. A bribe! Sami knew it had happened to other people but hadn’t thought it would happen to him. Naturally, he wouldn’t pay someone under the table for a service he was entitled to.

  ‘Is it true, did he really ask you for money?’ the bank manager said.

  Sami described the course of events again and explained his surprise. Gave a matter-of-fact account, curbing his anger, to make sure the teller would be reprimanded. The bank manager nodded several times. He was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on the polished teak table, a confidence-inspiring pose that made it seem he was both listening intently and not listening at all. When Sami was done, silence fell and the bank manager took a sip from a dainty porcelain coffee cup. Then he dabbed his lips with a napkin, folded it four times and put it in his breast pocket. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

  ‘Was that all?’

  That was all.

  The bank manager slowly turned to his colleague and opened his mouth and from his throat came a rumbling, almost inhuman sound. He was laughing. The bank manager was laughing and his colleague was laughing with him, and it was so absurd Sami joined in, too. They sat in the bank manager’s office, laughing. Their laughter grew and echoed and bounced between the walls, filling the room until they almost ran out of air. It was a good feeling. How stupid of him to have even worried about drawing attention to the corruption! Sami leaned back in his chair and considered asking for a cup of coffee.

  The laughter died down and the bank manager straightened a stack of papers. He said not to worry about the bribe. Sami was welcome to pay it to him directly.

  Sami paid and left. He decided to file the event away with others of the same kind. Gather them in a pile, in case one day he needed to draw energy from past injustices. If you could even call it an injustice. The bribe was a pawn that fitted very nicely into the rules of their society’s game. It would, in fact, have been an injustice if the bank manager hadn’t asked for money, since that would have constituted an exception, giving Sami an advantage relative to the rest of the population.

  * * *

  —

  For Nabil, the bank incident was an argument for why Sami should join the army. The bank manager was an Alawite, a member of a religious minority with their own interpretation of Shiite Islam. Under the French mandate, they were given more power in Syria, and now the ruling élite in the country was primarily Alawite. The military was no exception.

  That his father wanted at least one of his sons to join the army was natural. You never knew when you might need connections, a wasta, a person who could help out with bureaucratic tangles.

  But Sami had no appetite for such a career. The mandatory military service awaiting him after graduation was bad enough. Sami couldn’t understand those of his friends who were looking forward to shooting rifles and sleeping in muddy trenches. More than anything, he didn’t want to lose time. Not now, when he had just had a first taste of the freedom of adulthood.

  Military service seemed to unite people, but it also seemed a thoroughly unpleasant part of life. His friend Muhammed preferred to do it before going to university rather than after. He would be gone for almost two years, aside from the occasional home leave.

  Already on his first leave, he had changed, Sami noticed. His curly hair cropped, his back straight, hardened somehow. Muhammed had a new look in his eyes but shrugged when Sami asked him what it had been like.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done about it. Best to get it over with.’

  It wasn’t until that evening, over a bottle of arak, that Muhammed could be drawn on the details. Three conscripts in his division had died during training, he told Sami. Another had lost a couple of cartridges for his Kalashnikov and was sent to prison in Palmyra; the boy was nineteen years old and was never heard from again.

  ‘Military service is the closest most of us will ever get to the regime,’ Muhammed said, ‘so you have to be on your guard at all times. Stay on the good side of the right people and watch what you say. It does make you a bit paranoid in the end.’

  His older brother Ali had told similar stories, but he had done his service long ago, and Sami had almost forgotten that the same thing awaited him.

  ‘Want some more?’ Muhammed asked and held up the bottle.

  ‘No, you take it.’

  ‘To friendship,’ he said and raised the glass.

  * * *

  —

  At night, Sami helped out with repairs and orders in his brother’s computer shop. That meant he had to quit his job at Abu Karim’s. Even though Sami liked it in the restaurant – in his office that reeked of cooking, right in the middle of the well-oiled machinery of chopping, peeling, slicing and more or less creative curses and insults – he felt more at home with technical stuff. A broken computer was a rational riddle. The only cure was patience, calmly and systematically searching for, then fixing, the problem. There were no shortcuts to the solution and no way of talking your way to it or out of it.

  ‘And here I was, hoping one of my sons would become a doctor,’ Nabil said.

  ‘But, Dad, I can’t stand the sight of blood.’

  ‘An army officer then.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s for me.’

  ‘Engineering is a respectable career.’

  ‘But that’s what I’m going to study – computer engineering.’

  ‘I mean a real engineer, who builds houses, something I could be proud to tell my friends about. And what’s wrong with being a doctor?’

  There was nothing wrong with being a doctor but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. Against his father’s wishes, Sami applied to the IT programme at the university in Homs.

  Attending university was going to change everything, but not in the way he thought it would.

  8

  YOU MIGHT THINK it is the major choices that are the turning points, the crucial moments that change your life for ever, but it can be as simple as what you choose for dessert.

  It was the beginning of the university term and the late summer heat remained. The sand-coloured buildings looked as though they were inspired by Roman times, with pillars and gold writing over the entrance, and a huge statue of the former president overlooking the sea of new students as they caught up with old friends or made new ones.

  Sami had finished his first class and was standing in the university cafeteria with the plastic tray in his hand, feeling the soft coolness from the open fridge. There were two kinds of mousse left, vanilla and chocolate, and he hesitated for a second. He liked both, but there was only one chocolate left, which made it feel like the more exclusive choice. He picked the brown cup and put it on the tray.

  ‘Oh, I hate vanilla,’ someone said behind him. ‘Could you please take the other one?’

  He turned to see a girl about his height, wearing distressed jeans and a short denim jacket – finally, no school uniforms – with red hair tumbling down her back.

  Sami smiled. ‘Hate seems a bit strong,’ he said, ‘but sure, you can have the chocolate.’

  If he had chosen vanilla from the start, she would never have talked to him. Everything that happened from then on would have been different.

  ‘Is it OK if I sit here? I’m Sarah, by the way.’

  He didn’t notice that she hadn’t found a place until she stood right next to him. Sarah sat down and took out the earplugs from her phone before he had time to nod. He felt warm even though he was only wearing T-shirt and jeans.

  ‘I’m Sami. What are you listeni
ng to?’

  She mentioned the singer’s name and when Sami said he didn’t know about her, Sarah let him listen.

  ‘Her voice is like candyfloss,’ she said.

  It was true. The song was sweet and soothing yet crispy and clear, and closed out the sound from the other students.

  ‘She’s from Damascus, like me,’ Sarah continued and leaned forward over the table as if to tell him a secret. ‘I convinced my parents that Homs had the best university for my master’s, so I could live away from home.’

  She smiled and Sami noticed a dimple in her right cheek, the most perfect shape he had ever seen.

  ‘So, what are you studying?’

  ‘Modern Arabic literature and English literary history.’ She leaned back. ‘And you?’

  ‘IT. You know, computers and stuff.’

  He kept his eyes on the food and only glanced at Sarah now and then, trying to come up with a question that would make him seem smart and interesting.

  ‘You read…quite a lot then?’

  He blushed and felt like biting his tongue, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Yeah, I like to read. When everything is dull around you, at least you can escape somewhere between the covers of a book.’

  Her leg grazed his and it was probably a mistake, but still a minor electrical shock went through Sami’s body, like touching the damp light switch after cleaning the chandelier.

  ‘You don’t seem to lead a dull life.’

  ‘What do you know? I wouldn’t mind some more adventure,’ she said.

  * * *

  —

  The following day they met in the library after class and studied together.

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ Sarah said, filling her bag with books. ‘Same time and place?’

  He watched her leave, her hair swaying as she walked, the backpack bouncing on her shoulder, and by the door she turned and raised a hand. He waved back and then something struck him.

  ‘Sarah, wait!’

  The librarian gave Sami a look from across the room. He ran up to Sarah, who smiled with raised eyebrows, and there was the dimple, and what was it he had intended to say?

  ‘Maybe I can have your phone number? I mean, if something happens and I’m late tomorrow…’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You can have my number.’

  * * *

  —

  He texted her the same evening.

  Messah alkheer. Kifik?

  She said everything was good, but wrote nothing more. He asked for the name of the singer with the candyfloss voice.

  Lena Chamamyan, she replied.

  Sami searched for her music and found a photo of the singer, and realized Sarah looked a lot like her: round cheeks and dark eyes and red hair, only less curly. A few months after the life-changing choice over a dessert, they were a couple.

  * * *

  —

  To be in love was to gather each other’s peculiarities and habits as treasures. Sarah said Sami wasn’t as serious as everyone thought he was and that his portion sizes were curiously large for someone so slim. Sami noticed that Sarah started speaking faster when she talked about books she was reading, and bit her nails when she got stressed or nervous.

  His lips were large and dry, hers were soft and tasted fruity from her lip balm. When they were together, it was like drowning and free-falling at the same time.

  Sarah came from a Christian family in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. Sami noticed every detail in her student room: the stacks of books on her windowsill, from Jane Austen to Ahlam Mosteghanemi. Three over-watered mini cacti drooping in their tiny flowerpots. The collection of trainers under her bed. The hairs in her brush on the nightstand, the condoms under a pile of magazines. The glass where her lips had left a shiny imprint on the edge.

  Sarah lent him her copy of Chaos of the Senses and he soaked up every word, at first because it was Sarah’s book and then because of the language. The Algerian author Ahlam Mosteghanemi wrote about a woman whose husband was a senior officer. The main character was writing a novel, while the novel wrote her life. Reality and fiction were woven together. Sami started doubting everything that was visible in the world. Were there undercurrents that followed different laws? He took out a pad and paper and wrote a paragraph but was unable to capture the feeling. Instead, he penned a love letter to Sarah. Later she embraced him and reached for what lay under the stack of magazines on the nightstand. Golden sunbeams streaked her hair as it spread out across the pillow.

  Homs was a major city but slightly more conservative than Damascus or Aleppo. Homs was like their prim and proper older sister, confident and unafraid to live life, but never truly overstepping since her parents and siblings were watching. You would routinely find kissing couples in the shade of trees and in hidden corners of the campus, but cohabiting before marriage was rare, and usually carried out in secret. Even more secretly, men who wanted to meet other men sought out special bathing houses.

  Sami staying in Sarah’s room overnight was out of the question. Instead they snatched brief moments of kissing and pleasure. It sounded romantic in theory, the foreplay extended by furtive looks and ambiguous text messages, but their intimacy often felt hurried and insufficient.

  A few times Sarah did sneak him into her room during daytime. They lay in her bed and she read from one of her favourite writers, Nizar Qabbani. The Syrian poet rose to fame in the middle of the previous century when he sought to rebel against the shameful silence surrounding sex and relationships. In Qabbani’s love poetry, the woman was the focus, her body and pleasure.

  ‘I’d never come across a man who knew women so well before,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Hey, what about me?’

  ‘You’re learning,’ she teased and stroked his back.

  Writing so openly about passion and politics, with heat and intensity, was revolutionary for their parents’ generation, Sarah said. There was room for all women in Qabbani’s poems: the ones who fell in love with each other, the ones who had extramarital relationships and the ones who chose not to have children.

  ‘When Nizar Qabbani was fifteen, his older sister killed herself,’ Sarah told him. ‘It was after she had refused to marry a man she didn’t love. That’s what made him want to write about social injustice.’

  His rebellious streak seemed to be a family trait. Qabbani’s father owned a chocolate factory and had supported the rebels during the French rule, a stance that landed him in prison several times. And his grandfather’s brother, the famous dramatist, caused protests when he staged a performance criticizing Caliph Harun al-Rashid – who was not only immortalized as a character in Arabian Nights but was also infamous for his brutality.

  Scheherazade, Sami wrote in black ink on Sarah’s arm.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll cut off my head if I don’t keep telling you stories?’

  He kissed her wrists and held her close under the cover.

  ‘No, tell me more.’

  ‘So, Nizar’s second marriage was to an Iraqi woman called Balqis.’ Sarah lowered her voice. ‘She was the love of his life.’

  During the civil war in Lebanon, however, she was killed in a bomb attack at the Iraqi embassy in Beirut. Nizar never fully recovered from Balqis’ death. He wrote a poem to express his grief and anger, a furious accusation hurled at the entire Arab world, which the poet felt was to blame for her death.

  ‘Will you write a poem if something happens to me?’ Sami asked.

  ‘Don’t be silly. The civil war is long gone. We’ll have a peaceful life with lots of kissing and reading and…’

  ‘Let’s put the book away.’

  * * *

  —

  When Sami heard Sarah talking, he realized poetry didn’t have to have anything to do with words. It was a way of viewing the world, a way of creating patterns
and meaning. Of making visible what was hidden. In this way, it was what he felt for Sarah: as if the world had more colours and sharper contours, and the air was clearer to breathe.

  9

  THE SNOW WAS melting on the streets and showed traces of the New Year’s celebrations. The first holiday from university had passed and Sami lingered in the kitchen, waiting for his siblings to leave.

  ‘By the way,’ Sami said when he was alone with Samira, ‘I’m bringing a friend here tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh lovely. Who is it? Someone I know?’

  ‘Oh, just a friend. I study with her sometimes.’

  ‘I understand,’ Samira said and dried her hands on a towel.

  ‘It’s not like that. Don’t make a big deal of it,’ he said and grabbed his backpack.

  ‘Of course not. No big deal. Tell your friend she is very welcome.’

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Sami and Sarah walked home together, sometimes crossing each other’s steps to get the other one to trip. As they approached al-Hamidiyah, he pointed out Nassim’s store and told her about the bird he and his sister had tried to save on the roof terrace.

  ‘Watch out for the bowls,’ Sami said as they walked up the stairs. ‘Mum likes to feed the cats.’

  He hadn’t been nervous before, but when he opened the door he understood that it wouldn’t be as relaxed as he hoped. Samira must have heard their voices from the open window and was already waiting in the hall. Because they were at home, she had taken off her hijab and braided her hair. She had also put on the gold earrings, bracelet and necklace Nabil had given her as wedding gifts – not that she thought her son would notice the subtle gesture.