City of Sparrows

by Eva Nour

  His friend’s idealism had appealed to Sami, but he had advocated an alternative strategy: to work in secret and silence. Which was a kind of innocent idealism too, since in practice no one could work under the radar of the regime.

  During their questioning, Rasheed’s answers were long and exhaustive, even though Sami did his best to make him be brief. It was always better to keep it brief. Never lie or say more than you needed to; that was a recipe for tripping yourself up. Lies always led to more lies and, in the end, it was impossible to remember what had and hadn’t been said. But Rasheed was stressed and nervous and embellished his replies with names and details. When the colonel leaned forward and gave him an interested smile, Rasheed took it as a sign that he was on the right track.

  ‘Remind me, did you have a lot of customers?’ the colonel said.

  ‘Some,’ Sami said vaguely.

  ‘Three hundred,’ Rasheed specified, not without a measure of pride in his voice. ‘And one customer could be an internet café, so the users were many more. Probably thousands.’

  ‘Is it true you smuggled in materials from Lebanon?’ the colonel asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Sami said.

  ‘Sure,’ Rasheed replied. ‘We paid a guy in Beirut who did deliveries every other week when he went to visit his grandmother, who…’

  The only time Sami volunteered information was when the colonel was joined by two new interrogators, who were mainly interested in the technology they used. The questions were impossible to answer since they were along the lines of: how do you set up a router in a shower? How would you get unlimited download speeds? How would you set up the signal to listen in on your wife’s phone calls?

  ‘You don’t put routers in showers,’ Sami said. ‘And the maximum download speed depends on a number of factors, not least the provider.’

  That evening yet another interrogator, who was more direct, took over. Were they Israeli spies? Or terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood? Thus the questioning ebbed and flowed and they were accused of being everything from spies to terrorists to regime critics to idiots.

  After night fell, Sami was allowed to leave. Rasheed was kept until midnight.

  ‘One last thing,’ the colonel said before they were released. ‘You can’t leave the country for a month.’

  * * *

  —

  It turned out the Mukhabarat had raided at least two other companies in Damascus and Aleppo. One of them was run by a teenager who had hacked the internet provider – in other words, the regime – to make cheap international phone calls.

  A week later the internet was back but with some adjustments. The regime had lowered the price of subscription by a tiny amount. Information was sent out to internet cafés that registration would be required to use wireless networks. Users were also reminded that it was illegal to hack the system to visit banned websites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

  And now, were they supposed to carry on as though nothing had happened? Sami and Rasheed cancelled their trip to the beach. To anyone who asked, Sami said it had been a routine matter and that they had been treated well. He wouldn’t have even mentioned it to his parents had not Ali, whose computer shop was near their office, already told them what he’d seen and heard.

  ‘Are you really going back there?’ asked Sarah, who had decided to give their relationship another chance.

  ‘Anything else would seem suspicious, wouldn’t it?’ Sami replied.

  So he went to the office and started cleaning up the mess, sorting through the papers and binders that were left. The rooms were empty, aside from a man in a black suit and sunglasses who took a seat by the palm trees in the lobby.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Sami asked him.

  ‘Coffee, three sugars,’ said the member of the secret police expressionlessly.

  At the end of the day, Sami got up to leave, as did the man in the black suit.

  ‘So, when are we getting our computers back?’

  The man emptied his coffee cup into one of the planters.

  ‘Computers? You never had any computers.’

  The same procedure was repeated the next day, and from then on, every other or every third day. The secret police pulled cables from their office and tracked down every last one of their customers. The people of Homs were disappointed but not surprised. Give us our Israeli network back, they said, it was so much faster and cheaper than the old one. Sami found it increasingly difficult to laugh in response. He slept less, and was woken up by dreams he couldn’t remember but that lingered like a dullness inside him. It was like moving through murky water. The sounds around him were distorted and the light didn’t seem to reach him.

  * * *

  —

  One night in March, the electrician’s neighbour called to let him know the Mukhabarat had practically laid siege to their block. Around ten of their cars had driven up in the dark. Armed men had banged on doors and finally found their way to Younes’ home, where they had blindfolded and handcuffed him and taken him away. The neighbour had seen it all through his window and recognized Younes’ shaved head.

  ‘Does it have something to do with your network?’

  The next morning Sami went to see the electrician’s family, who were beside themselves. But the arrest had nothing to do with the company, they said, it was personal. Younes’ girlfriend in Tel Aviv had made the secret police suspicious.

  ‘They called him an Israeli spy when they took him away,’ Younes’ father said and blew his nose in a napkin.

  Sami tried to reassure them; he and Rasheed had been treated well by the secret police, no violence or open threats. But he could tell how empty his words sounded.

  So they had been accused of running an Israeli network and now one of their co-workers stood accused of being an Israeli spy.

  ‘Since when is it illegal to have a girlfriend in Israel?’ Rasheed said.

  ‘Sure, but that’s not how they see it. Do you think the colonel would be lenient if he received orders from higher up to arrest us? I doubt it.’

  * * *

  —

  A month had gone by since their arrest. Nothing seemed to happen, but since they could now leave the country they decided to head over to Lebanon and lie low for a while.

  Muhammed said Sami could have the car indefinitely and so Sami enrolled in a programming course at a university in Beirut for the rest of the spring.

  ‘I miss you,’ he said to Sarah.

  ‘I miss the Pink Panther,’ she replied. ‘And you. But mostly the Beetle.’

  He pushed the phone closer to his ear and listened to her breath.

  ‘When will you be back?’ she asked.

  ‘In the summer,’ Sami promised. ‘We can rent a bungalow in Latakia. Go for swims, make fires on the beach and rest on a blanket under the stars.’

  ‘You can’t even swim properly.’

  ‘You can teach me.’

  ‘I mean for good, Sami. When will you move back for good?’

  He was picturing the future but somehow he didn’t believe in it. After the secret police’s raid, everyday life felt like a puppet show, in a shadowland, off to the side.

  II

  ‘Do you think it’s a matter of luck?’ I ask.

  ‘I was careful,’ you reply.

  But after hearing the story of you boiling water for tea by connecting a cable to a power line, I no longer believe you. It’s possible you were careful sometimes. Sometimes, though, I think it was precisely your way of throwing yourself into things that enabled you to escape the worst dangers.

  If you hadn’t hurled yourself forward and been so confident, I’m not sure I would have dared to believe in us.

  I’m at the outer edge of this narrative, far out on the periphery. What right do I have to speak with your voice and bear witness for you? Only the right you grant me. Wha
t is told here has grown like an ongoing conversation, a plait we pull ever tighter with threads of four languages. We break off and start over, then we cry and carry on.

  To be honest, I do most of the crying, since your tears have long since dried. Children wrapped in white sheets and body parts sticking out of the debris is too incomprehensible. A couple of dusty teacups, left behind in a hurry. I inherit your nightmares and memories without knowing how to put them down, if not on paper.

  Your grief takes different expressions; you chain-smoke and go for long walks. To you, it’s not incomprehensible or fiction, since it has already happened.

  12

  OUTSIDE THE POLICE station, the city had rubbed the sleep out of its eyes and roused itself. It was the beginning of autumn 2009 and Sami was finally back home, in Homs.

  Sarah had invited him to stay over in her student room and they talked through the late hours in whispers. When the first morning light fell on her face, he kissed her and sneaked out. He could still feel her lips on his neck, and was grateful they were slowly finding their way back to one another.

  ‘What are you going to do about your military service?’ she had asked.

  ‘It’s fine as long as I’m studying.’

  ‘But you’re not studying here any more. Not since you left for Beirut.’

  ‘I’m not officially missing from the service yet. I’m just a few months delayed.’

  ‘So, what’s your plan then?’

  He had already weighed his options and found each worse than the next. Endure, like his older brother Ali and childhood friend Muhammed? It was unimaginable, to let the army steal a year and nine months of his life. Fleeing the country and living in exile was just as impossible. It entailed leaving Sarah, his family and his friends, in short, giving up his whole existence. The final option was to stay and go underground, waiting to be found out and sent to prison in Palmyra where people could be kept for years, or worse, be forgotten about and disappear.

  At the same time, the country he lived in was a pragmatic one. There was almost always a spoken or unspoken way around things: money. You could stay abroad for a while and earn enough money to buy your way out of military service. That was why he was here, at the police station, to collect his passport, so he could head to Dubai to look for work. When he told Sarah about the plan, he thought she would argue or at least sigh. But she only stroked his hair and looked him in the eyes.

  ‘I don’t like it, but I understand,’ she said.

  While Sami went abroad and saved money, Sarah could graduate and start working as a teacher. They talked about getting married and living in Homs or Damascus. Anywhere they could have a library, Sarah said, with winding bookcases all the way to the ceiling.

  ‘Be careful,’ Sarah said before they parted that morning.

  But going to the police station was not dangerous. It was a routine matter and besides, it was only the army that was interested in apprehending missing recruits. As an extra precaution, he had brought a fake certificate stating he had studied in Homs during his time in Beirut.

  A waft of warm sweat and irritation greeted him when he opened the door to the waiting room. Sami entered just as a name was called out. If at that moment he had turned around, gone back out on to the street and then run until he ran out of air, maybe none of the things that awaited him would have happened. You never know which moments are pivotal ones. Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference at all.

  His name was called. A police assistant studied Sami’s ID and shook her head, as though she were dealing with an unusually troublesome student.

  ‘You’re a wanted man. Come with me.’

  * * *

  —

  Sami was allowed to make one phone call. Not long after that, Ali turned up with a sports bag full of cash, but no bribe could help him. They had already passed his name on to other police stations. After a couple of hours his older brother returned, distraught, his eyes red.

  ‘I promise, I did everything I could.’

  He had called some people they knew, people with good connections, but with no result. Sami’s heart stopped beating in his chest, or maybe it was beating so fast he couldn’t distinguish the individual beats. After Ali left, two officers came to pick him up. His stomach was churning with hunger and thirst. Sami held his arms out and the handcuffs clicked shut.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked as stones crunched under the car tyres.

  ‘To the cinema,’ replied the officer in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Right,’ said his colleague. ‘Remind me, what’s on tonight?’

  ‘I don’t remember, some kind of horror film.’

  They laughed and the driver shot Sami a glance in the back seat.

  ‘Habibi, you’re the most ridiculous case I’ve come across in a long time. To show up here when you’re wanted for military service.’

  They turned the radio up. Fairuz was singing about Beirut, about a city that tasted like fire, smoke and ash. Sami sat quietly until they stopped outside a low concrete building on the outskirts of Homs. Inside, he was taken to an office, to a giant desk, behind which sat a man who introduced himself as the prison director. He had an unremarkable appearance – a wart on his nose, a thin strand of hair combed across his bald pate and chubby hands that rested on his stomach – but his voice was deep and melodic like an opera singer’s. The prison director signalled to a guard to uncuff him and asked Sami to empty his pockets: keys, tissues, gum, wallet. The picture of Sarah slipped out and he tried to poke it back into his wallet before the prison director could see it.

  ‘Who’s this cutie?’ he said, picking the picture up with both hands.

  ‘My girlfriend.’

  ‘Beautiful. Looks like my daughter. You do know it’s against the law to keep pictures of your girlfriend in your wallet, don’t you?’ The prison director smiled at his own joke and proceeded to search the wallet, opening the currency compartment and shaking out a handful of change. ‘We’re done here,’ he said, waving his hand dismissively.

  The guard who had escorted Sami stepped back out of the shadows. His pointy nose, sharp chin and peering eyes made him look like a light-shy, subterranean creature whose habitat was drains and sewers.

  ‘I don’t understand. What happens now?’

  ‘You will stay here,’ said the guard, ‘until it can be determined where you will do your military service.’

  * * *

  —

  He was brought to a cell that was cramped, dark and dank like a cellar. Maybe it was a cellar. A small window with bars up by the ceiling let in a faint, hazy light.

  At first he didn’t notice the slender boy in the corner; he thought it was a bundle of clothes. The boy was sitting with his legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around himself, as though he were trying to hold all his limbs together. On closer inspection, he probably wasn’t that young, maybe seventeen or eighteen.

  ‘So, what are you in for?’ Sami asked when the door slammed shut.

  The boy didn’t answer. He raised his head and it looked like his neck was going to snap under its weight. His eyes were sunken. Twice, the guard came in and said he needed help, placing his hand on the boy’s lower back as he led him out. Each time they returned, the boy threw up in the sink in the corner.

  The cell door opened and two more prisoners were let in. They were men in their thirties, well dressed and freshly shaven; one wore a Rolex and the other a light grey Hugo Boss shirt. Both had on navy chinos and patent leather shoes with low heels. They were quiet and mostly whispered between themselves, but they did tell Sami they, too, were wanted for avoiding military service.

  A couple of hours after that a whole group of prisoners entered, seven men who reeked of alcohol and smoke, talking loudly and cracking jokes.

  ‘Some afterparty,’ said one of them, whose lanky hair fell to far below his ears.<
br />
  He was wearing a turquoise shirt with palm trees and pineapples and big stains under the armpits. The guard opened the cell door once more, looked over at the boy in the corner, who avoided his eyes, and asked if any of them wanted cigarettes. The partygoers bought two packs, at three times the price charged in shops. They seized the opportunity to ask the guard if he had a deck of cards to sell. He did.

  ‘Do you want one?’ the man in the Hawaiian shirt asked after the guard shut the door.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t smoke,’ Sami said.

  ‘You mean you don’t smoke tobacco?’

  He nodded to Sami’s black T-shirt, which had a star-shaped leaf on the chest. He hoped the gloom hid the fact that he was blushing.

  ‘But you play cards, I hope, Mr Che?’

  They sat down in a tight circle and dealt the cards.

  ‘What did you do to end up here?’

  ‘I extended my leave a little,’ said Hawaiian shirt. ‘And when they came for me, they arrested everyone in the room.’

  ‘They didn’t even let us finish our beers,’ another person in the circle said. ‘Party poopers.’

  Smoke quickly filled the cell and Sami tried not to cough.

  Some time in the afternoon, the guard came and took him to a different room. In it was an older man in uniform, whose most remarkable facial feature was a bushy monobrow. The officer checked his ID, hemmed a few times and introduced himself with the same family name.

  ‘We’re related?’ Sami asked, unable to conceal his surprise.

  The man’s jaw worked and he stroked his eyebrow but said there was nothing he could do.