by Eva Nour
‘If you keep talking like that, this will be the last night you spend here.’
Sami realized he had to be more careful, that it was pivotal to learn how to tell friend from foe.
Sami let the black dog, who had found its way back to the base on its own, crawl into his bed and rest its heavy head on his stomach. Before, sleep had been an escape, but now he couldn’t get so much as a wink of it. The voices of the protestors echoed inside him. He longed for Sarah, to feel her body close to his. He listened to the dog’s sighing and counted the minutes until the first light of the new day broke through the window.
21
A NAME, WHAT was in a name? He remembered the signs he wrote with his siblings’ names on, his yearning to name the sparrow on the roof terrace, the pet names Sarah had whispered to him in the night. In the army, a name wasn’t worth much, only the stripes on your shoulders mattered.
‘Sergeant!’
Sami let the shout echo behind him and ran his hand over the bark. A thin layer of splinters and woodchips covered the ground. The knife he had used wasn’t sharp but it was still legible: his name and today’s date. More than two years had passed since he signed out his uniform and blankets. It was finally over. This was the day he was leaving this hellhole for ever. No more nights when he collapsed into bed with aching feet and a pounding headache. No more early-morning runs over frosty moss with the air stabbing at his lungs.
The brigade general looked through Sami’s papers and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly as though the documents amused or annoyed him.
‘This must be some kind of record,’ the general said. ‘On average, you’ve spent one week of every four in the clink. We won’t be sorry to see you go.’
‘The feeling is mutual,’ Sami said and saluted him.
The brigade general signed his name and handed back Sami’s military ID.
‘Get out of here.’
* * *
—
The same day, as he prepared to leave, Sami tried to find the black dog. He looked for it and had almost given up hope when he finally heard whimpering coming from a shrubbery behind the armoury. There it was, licking two newborn puppies. When she spotted Sami, she lit up; it was as though she wanted to apologize for disappearing. A third puppy had died and she had carried it away and covered it with a thin layer of sand: the wet tip of a nose and one paw were still visible. He contemplated bringing them home with him. But the dog was better off here, where she could roam the open fields with her puppies. The roof terrace at his parents’ house, where he was going, was no place for semi-wild animals. He patted the dogs, fetched his bags and snuck out of a back door.
As arbitrarily and randomly as the soldiers had been brought together, their groups were now split up and scattered across the country. Bill was even leaving the country. He had booked a plane ticket to Canada for the same day he was discharged and was planning to become a language teacher. Whatever else you might say about his time in the army, his Arabic had improved, at least as far as insults were concerned.
Rafat would return to his family’s olive groves in Afrin. He gave Sami a long hug in the windowless room they had shared, where the three steel beds would be filled by new recruits. They promised to be in touch if either of them heard from Ahmed.
Before Rafat left the room, he turned at the door and looked at Sami.
‘He was right, you know. We’ve stayed silent for too long.’ Rafat’s face seemed older and paler than when they first met.
Hussein was the only one who asked to stay on in the army. The salary was meagre but it was still better than herding sheep.
‘What about the ocean?’ Sami asked, and Hussein smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
‘It will still be there.’
* * *
—
On the bus home, a sense of freedom filled Sami’s chest. His body was no longer owned by anyone, he was free to come and go as he pleased. Outside, the landscape rushed by, the air had a new edge of cold and the evening sun dipped the trees in gold. He rested his forehead against the window and drew his name, once more, on the foggy glass. A constant that was him, unchanged.
* * *
—
Sami’s bus drove into Homs as night fell and the shooting intensified. His military ID got him through the checkpoints where Ali was supposed to pick him up, but his voice sounded distant on the phone and his sister took over.
‘Dad’s in the hospital,’ Hiba said.
The rest of the words flowed past him as though he were standing under a waterfall, catching only random words and sentences: something about numbness in Nabil’s face, dizziness and vertigo, collapsing in the kitchen.
‘Are you still there?’ Hiba asked. ‘We can visit Dad together tomorrow but it would be safer for you to come home right now.’
He swallowed and asked if it was serious, and heard his sister take a deep breath.
‘They are doing everything they can. Don’t worry.’
That was answer enough. Sami asked in the bus car park and managed to find a taxi driver who, after inspecting his military ID, agreed to take him to the hospital.
The hospital hallways seemed endless. When he found the right door, he still wasn’t sure it was the right room. The body under the starched sheets was a shadow of his father, sunken and fragile, with a tangle of tubes connected to his body. His moustache was unkempt and bushy. Sami pulled up a chair. From close up, his father was even more birdlike.
‘My son,’ Nabil said with both tenderness and reproach. ‘It’s after dusk.’
‘How are you, Dad?’
‘I’m just fine. It’s your siblings I’m worried about.’
‘Hiba said you had a stroke.’
‘Just a little one. I’m fine now. My son, don’t let them drag you into their folly.’
‘You mean the demonstrations?’
‘Only petty thieves and other criminals would…would…’
Nabil’s lips continued to move but he couldn’t find the words. Sami tried to see if the corners of his mouth were drooping or if there was any other sign of the tiny explosion that had occurred in his dad’s brain. Weren’t stroke victims usually semi-paralysed, amnesiac and changed beyond recognition? He must have been lucky. That did nothing to calm Sami, since his dad might just as easily be unlucky the next time.
‘Can I get you anything from the cafeteria – juice or coffee?’
‘My only wish is for you to stay away from them.’
His father took his hand and they held on to each other for a long time; he couldn’t remember ever sitting like that before. He felt the warmth of his father’s body rise towards his face, like the fog on the bus window. As long as a person is warm, he’s alive, Sami thought. From the hospital window the streetlamps looked like waterlilies floating in the night.
* * *
—
His father was discharged a few days later as snow fell in big, airy drifts. Over the next few weeks Nabil quit smoking, or at least tried to wait to have his first cigarette until after lunch. He also tried to see to things he seemed to think had been neglected, like the fact that Sami and Ali were still not married and that Hiba didn’t visit as much as she used to since having children.
And Nabil made one last attempt to persuade at least one of his sons to grow a moustache. Malik, who had entered puberty, surprised everyone by willingly agreeing, and it started auspiciously with a couple of downy hairs on his top lip.
‘Dryer lint,’ said Hiba.
‘Bum fluff,’ said Ali.
The only person who didn’t mock Malik was their mother, but her words were the ones that hurt the most: ‘You look so youthful with your moustache!’
Sami realized he had missed the family’s breakfast-table discussions. He had moved back into his old room and while contemplating what to do next lived off
the small amount of money he had earned during his military service. It no longer seemed as important to work from morning to night. It had partly to do with his father’s stroke, and partly with him looking forward to a freer life.
In the end, it was Nabil who suggested his little brother shave after all.
‘I’ll lend you my razor,’ he offered generously.
22
EVERYDAY LIFE WAS not much different from before, and yet so much was different. Some changes were obvious, like the army’s building more checkpoints in Homs. Heavy armoured vehicles drove into the city, leaving sunken tracks in their wake as though the frosty asphalt were made of chocolate.
Other changes were subtler. Sarah had cut her hair short and there was a new fire in her eyes. If the shooting at demonstrators had scared her at first, it now seemed to have made her more convinced. She talked about the revolution the way she used to talk about novels and poetry. Aside from participating in the protests, she also collected testimonies and published them online. At first they had organized demonstrations at the university, but now the Shabiha or the Mukhabarat patrolled the hallways and almost only Alawite students dared to attend. Instead, they organized smaller protests across Homs on practically every street.
Sarah wanted to introduce him to a friend, who was a role model and leader among the protestors.
‘You have no idea how brave she is,’ Sarah said. ‘One time, she walked right up to a checkpoint and handed one of the soldiers a flyer – just like that. You should have seen the look on his face. I thought he was either going to shoot her or propose.’
They gathered at dusk in a small square. People arrived in small groups, excited and nervous, pulling their scarves closer and rubbing their hands to keep warm. Sami remembered again the intoxication of his first protest and the feeling of an extended siblingship, of being brothers and sisters. Sarah checked her phone repeatedly.
‘She said she was going to be here…Wait, there she is.’
Sami turned around and it was as though the world turned white, illuminated by a bright light. She pushed through the crowd and was stopped several times on the way because people wanted to say hello and pat her on the back. She didn’t seem to make a big deal of it, just pulled up the hood on her baggy top – which only partially concealed the camera underneath – and pressed on towards them.
‘Yasmin, is it really you?’
‘Sami! What a great surprise.’
It was his childhood love, older and without braces and a hijab covering her hair under the hoodie, but unquestionably her.
Yasmin embraced him like when they were little, like before Haydar.
‘You know each other?’ Sarah asked. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘It was a long time ago,’ Yasmin said and smiled. ‘We took English together, didn’t we?’
‘You were top of the class.’
‘Don’t know about that…’
That was all the talking they had time for because the music was turned up and the flags raised. Yasmin handed Sarah and Sami a placard each, while she herself took out her camera from time to time to take pictures. He glanced at her and thought about how keen she’d once been to abide by the rules. How she’d kept reminding him that the walls have ears.
After the demonstration Sarah had to leave, but she suggested that Sami stay with Yasmin to catch up.
‘That’s so cool you know each other,’ she said before she left.
They went to a nearby café and sat outside under the heaters. It was one of those places where men usually gathered to play cards and smoke but Yasmin didn’t mind their looks.
‘I’m so happy to see you again,’ Sami said. ‘What have you been doing all this time?’
‘Studied law, mostly. After my dad died I realized how fragile things are. There’s no time to lose.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know about your father.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry. It was more of a relief, to be honest.’
She started on a new cigarette before the first one was finished – her voice was as hoarse from chain-smoking as it was from shouting – and spoke quietly but earnestly.
‘My dad wasn’t very kind to my mother. That is sort of the reason why I chose law. We were all witnesses to his abuse but didn’t do anything.’
Sami thought of the military map and felt a strike of pain. He too had been a silent witness for far too long.
‘You know, the revolution is the first step towards equality,’ she said. ‘I was a coward before but now I see clearly.’
It sounded simple and obvious when she put it that way. Sami envied her that clear vision. For his part, he felt things around him were growing murkier and murkier. He considered telling her about Haydar, their school friend who had become a prison guard, but decided against it. If he did, he would have to tell her about his time in jail and the army, and maybe she would think of him differently when she realized he hadn’t deserted.
‘Do you want another coffee?’ Sami asked.
‘Why not?’ Yasmin answered and smiled. ‘Two is better than one.’
* * *
—
The world had changed and they had changed with it. Or had he? There were more demonstrations, and Sami watched Yasmin and Sarah standing at the head of the protests, chanting on the barricades. What had he accomplished?
‘Can’t you hear I’m talking to you? What the fuck are you doing here?’
When the voice came closer Sami realized he was the one being addressed. Standing in front of him was an old acquaintance from university, dressed in leather jacket and high winter boots. The name escaped him – he used to be late to lectures and had copied Sami’s notes.
‘I thought we were nothing but shit to you.’
He spat on the ground and stepped in closer, lowering his chin and staring Sami in the face. Sarah backed away and he failed to find the words to defend himself.
‘Come off it, he’s here now, right?’ Yasmin said.
‘How do we know you’re not an informer? That you’re not here to gather information?’
‘Good god, calm down,’ Yasmin said.
‘Shut up, I am calm. And you, you fucking traitor.’
‘Take that back,’ Sarah said and took a step forward.
‘Traitor? Sure I take it back.’
He spread his hands, palms out. Then he leaned forward and Sami could smell the alcohol on his breath; he had never known a face could express so much contempt.
‘Soldier swine fits better.’
It happened in a split second. Sami saw Sarah squeeze her eyes shut and raise her fist. It was like a switch flipped and he instantly knew what he had to do.
‘Ow, let go of me! He was coming at you. Aren’t you going to defend yourself?’ Sarah twisted free of Sami’s grasp and rubbed her wrist. The university acquaintance had already turned his back on them and was staggering off.
‘But he was right, wasn’t he?’ Sami said.
Sarah turned abruptly and walked away. He took a few steps in her direction but a new group of protestors moved in between them.
‘Don’t worry.’ Yasmin shrugged. ‘All choices are political these days, even when you don’t have a choice. I don’t blame you,’ she continued. ‘My brother’s doing his military service, and he says they’ll come after me if he doesn’t.’
He hesitated but in the end asked the question he had been thinking about.
‘Do you know how to organize a local protest?’
Yasmin lit up. ‘Do I know?’ The revolution council of Homs provided organizers with a megaphone and video camera, and other than that it was simply a matter of handing out flyers with a time and a place. ‘Supply bottles of water. Make sure you have a few people on lookout.’
The Free Syrian Army was ready to intervene if regime soldiers broke through.
But they were more of a symbolic protection, since the rebels were loosely organized and would be unable to withstand a coordinated offensive.
It was easier than he had thought. During the first chilly weeks of the year, Sami spent all his waking hours organizing daily local demonstrations, with fifty to a hundred protestors at a time. He spent his days in the house, painting placards and arguing gently with his father. In the evenings they gathered, sang and filmed their meetings. Every gathering was a victory and a risk. The army was not the only danger. The regime covertly supported street gangs who attacked protestors on their behalf.
‘We need to arm ourselves,’ said Sarah one day, restlessly picking at her red nail polish. ‘Look around. We’ve been protesting for almost a year and the graveyards are getting more crowded by the day.’
Yasmin disagreed. ‘We have to be patient.’
Despite her unassuming air, she was one of the strongest voices in the group, precisely because of her thoughtfulness and ability to take a step back.
‘Our strength is that we’re sticking together,’ she continued. ‘The moment we fight violence with violence, they’re going to call us terrorists, spies, traitors – God knows what – and deal with us as such.’
‘Yeah, let’s give it some time,’ Sami agreed.
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
Sarah didn’t say it straight out but Sami knew what she meant. He had only been protesting for a couple of months, hadn’t seen and heard everything. He tried to ignore the accusatory tone in her voice since this was not the time to have a row. Either way, their friends had come to the same conclusion: when demonstrating for peace, peaceful methods were required. The Free Syrian Army was taking care of the armed struggle.