City of Sparrows

by Eva Nour

  One time, he saw a man aiming into the foliage of a tree.

  ‘Shh,’ the man said and looked up at two almond-shaped pupils.

  ‘Shame on you, you can’t shoot a defenceless cat.’

  ‘My stomach’s not ashamed. Would you prefer I shoot you? Great, now it got away.’

  During another one of his careful walks, Sami heard his name being called from across the street. He looked up and couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Younes, the electrician who had been arrested shortly after the raid on their IT company.

  Four years had passed since they last saw each other. Sami looked around and dashed across the street, and Younes embraced him. It really was him. And he looked the same, if skinnier and with his hair grown out and a scar across his forehead. There had been no trial, Younes said. They asked questions about Esther, his half-French girlfriend in Tel Aviv, and his work for the IT company, and then they read out the sentence: terrorist and spy for Israel. He was taken to a prison outside Aleppo and subjected to torture. The scar on his forehead was from a cable. His back looked even worse, he said. He thought he would die in his cell, as so many prisoners had done before him. But then, one day, he heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions and unfamiliar footsteps in the hallway. The Free Syrian Army had taken over the prison. They spent a week going through the prisoners’ files, then Younes and other people they considered innocent were released.

  ‘And now you’re here,’ Sami said.

  ‘This is freer than I’ve been in four years.’

  Younes carried a belt of cartridges over his chest and said he had joined the Free Syrian Army. He didn’t have to pretend his street style any more, Sami thought.

  ‘And Esther?’

  The same moment he asked, he regretted it. What were the chances of them staying in contact over the years? But Younes smiled.

  ‘She’s good. We keep in touch. She was the first one I contacted when I came out of prison.’

  A couple of days later, on Muhammed’s birthday, Sami invited Younes for dinner. On the menu was, incredibly enough, pancake. Muhammed had managed to buy a batch of flour from a regime soldier – on a few occasions during the siege, a temporary smuggle path would open across the red line. Buying food from the enemy didn’t make sense but he was a good contact and Muhammed trusted him.

  They gathered on the sagging sofas. There was Sami and his little brother, who had turned fifteen and didn’t seem so little any more. Younes was half lying on the couch, texting someone and smiling. Leyla, with her scarf tied round her head, talked with Anwar about opening a new school in the besieged area.

  And there was Muhammed, who was the chef for this special occasion. He wrapped his scarf like an apron around his thin waist and borrowed Anwar’s bandana to keep the curls from his face, and started cooking. Flour, water and oil. The smell was heavenly, bordering on magical. Their lips turned greasy and their cheeks rosy. They laughed and talked about what Muhammed should make with the rest of the flour. Round, fluffy khobz to fill with hummus. A sponge cake stuffed with nuts or fruit. Such wild wishes.

  They ate until their stomachs ached, everyone except Malik, who was running a fever and had lost his appetite. They played poker for the last piece of pancake. Anwar won and devoured the last few bites while they enviously looked on. Sami licked his plate and felt a touch of vertigo.

  Then they all went silent and watched Muhammed’s hand move towards his breast pocket. He pulled out a packet of Winston Blue and shook out the miracle: a cigarette. Not a cigarette rolled out of newspaper or a torn-out book page, filled with tobacco extracted from butts picked out of bins or hoover bags. Not dried grass, leaves or whatever else you could smoke to pass the time and quell your hunger. No, a real, American cigarette.

  Muhammed took the first drag, which was only right. They watched the blue flame of the match, watched the fire take hold in the paper and reach the tobacco. His lips closed around the filter, he breathed in and exhaled the first of the smoke. Then it was Sami’s turn. He pulled smoke into his lungs until his eyes watered – the room suddenly seemed to be moving, as though they were on a ship – and exhaled. They all monitored each other as they took their turns. Millimetre by millimetre, the glow moved up towards the filter, until it fizzled out.

  That night, the nightmare began. The cramps came in waves, pulsing like electric shocks through his body. Sami put a plastic bucket next to the sofa and threw up into it until his dizziness had abated. By morning, his blanket was wet and he hadn’t slept a wink. Eventually, sheer exhaustion pulled him into a deep sleep.

  When he woke up, night had fallen. The cramps had subsided but his body was stiff and empty. His little brother was sitting on the edge of his bed, dabbing his forehead.

  ‘The others have been at the field hospital all night,’ Malik told him. ‘The doctors say Anwar almost died.’

  Sami leaned over the bucket but nothing more came up.

  ‘How are you doing yourself?’ he asked his little brother.

  ‘It was lucky that I wasn’t so hungry.’

  Malik’s eyes seemed larger than ever, sunken in their holes, in the yellowish skin. Sami had a sudden feeling of wanting to embrace his little brother, but didn’t. Instead he cursed himself for taking such an unnecessary risk. Food from the regime, what were they thinking? What would happen to Malik if Sami wasn’t there?

  ‘Come on now,’ Malik said, helping him to stand up. ‘Let’s take you to the hospital.’

  * * *

  —

  ‘Where have you been?’ a doctor asked when he finally made it to the field hospital. ‘You’re lucky you all shared your friend’s food, otherwise you wouldn’t have made it.’

  ‘What was in the flour?’ Malik asked, since Sami could barely speak.

  ‘Probably arsenic,’ the doctor replied.

  On the way out, they passed a room with eight more people, all with stomach pains. It turned out Muhammed had been kind enough to make a pancake for their next-door neighbours. He himself was lying on one of the gurneys, writhing in pain, his curly hair flat with sweat.

  To get their friends’ strength back, Sami sent his brother out to buy a kilo of honey on the black market, even though he loathed the men who made money off the war. They were people who avoided taking sides, who only cultivated contacts to further their business interests. Who hoarded food until people’s hunger peaked and then sold tinned goods to the highest bidder. The honey went for the equivalent of three hundred pounds, while a kilo of tobacco was two thousand and rarely available at all.

  But the honey did them good. It lasted two weeks, and gave Sami enough energy to move further than a hundred yards without stopping for a rest.

  * * *

  —

  Sami had barely recovered from the poisoning when he was asked by a healthcare worker to come back into hospital.

  ‘Hurry, come over.’

  There had been one large field hospital and two smaller ones, until one of them was bombed. After that, one big hospital and one small hospital remained. The smaller field hospital was housed on the ground floor of a private residence and had five beds. It was always chaotic; people smoked and shouted at each other, and the staff worked in wellies because there was so much blood. As soon as a patient’s most acute injuries had been seen to, he or she had to leave to make room for incoming ones.

  The larger field hospital had twenty beds and a couple of trained doctors, a few medical students and a veterinarian. There was also a self-taught mechanic who had learnt how to extract bullets and suture wounds – sometimes people jokingly referred to him as the doctor. The hospital was located in al-Hamidiyah and under constant attack. But as it was housed in the basement of a former office building, it was as safe a place as any other.

  A thick smell of blood and disinfectant greeted him. At the start of the siege, there had been morphine and drugs of
all kinds, but now the stores were empty and most surgeries were performed without anaesthetic. A young woman on a gurney propped herself up on her elbow and asked Sami to hold her newborn child while she got to her feet. He held the infant girl in his arms; she couldn’t have been more than an hour old and was no bigger than a kitten. The woman took her baby and thanked him, and Sami took her place in the hospital bed.

  He was pricked in the arm and studied the bar fridge they stored the blood in. After a while, the medic patted the half-filled bag and said that was enough for today.

  ‘You probably need to recover for a bit longer.’

  * * *

  —

  Sami continued to take pictures and chop wood. It saddened him to see people chopping down the healthy trees. The trees had spent so many years growing and now they were cut down with a few well-aimed strokes of an axe, even though they were much too fresh and damp to even make good fuel. Some of the trunks bore traces of hand-carved hearts and names of long-forgotten lovers. Maybe there was a tree trunk that said Sarah and Sami, which was just now being thrown on the embers and turned into sparks and heat.

  30

  THE SKY HAD taken on new meanings. Clear blue meant good visibility for the pilots, overcast meant impending rain and a chance to gather water in tubs.

  The siege of Homs had lasted more than a year. As time wore on, the conflicts between different leaders became more conspicuous. Sami and the other media activists formed a union to strengthen their voice relative to the military council.

  In the autumn of 2013, Muhammed asked Sami and Anwar if they wanted to follow the rebels on a raid. The soldiers usually filmed themselves with their mobiles, but those images were used for propaganda and to strengthen morale among the rebel troops. Sami and Anwar, on the other hand, would be able to document the battle as it was, without embellishing.

  Several of the rebels were hesitant, but thanks to Muhammed’s powers of persuasion they were given the green light. It was going to be a night raid, an attempt at taking over one of the regime’s most important outposts in the Qarabis neighbourhood: a clutch of high-rises that before the war was home to families but was now occupied by two hundred regime soldiers.

  Malik asked Sami if he could join but Sami had to draw the line somewhere.

  ‘Don’t even think about it. You’ll stay here.’

  * * *

  —

  The attack was launched before dawn. It was the hour between night and day, the hour during which Sami often woke up with his heart in his mouth, unable to go back to sleep. Now he was wide awake and hard on the heels of the winding line of rebel soldiers. Nearly two hundred young men were going in and a similar number were waiting as backup above ground. Muhammed and another soldier lifted the heavy manhole cover. A black hole opened up, darker than the night around them. The soldiers climbed down first; Anwar and Sami followed.

  Sami was grateful he had nothing but his video camera to carry. The smooth iron railings soon grew slippery and slick with mud and the tunnel went on and on.

  ‘Halfway now,’ Anwar whispered, almost out of breath.

  If it hadn’t been for the last months’ lack of food, Anwar would have had difficulty getting through the tunnel. He still had some trouble, however, due to his extra luggage: a Kalashnikov on his back and two hand grenades in his pockets, in addition to the camera. Anwar was a media activist but his attitude to guns differed from Sami’s. Neither one of them had a helmet or bulletproof vest.

  They had to lower themselves down the last few yards. Jumping would have made too much noise, risking their covert operation. Sami landed in water. The damp climbed up his jeans and the cold spread through his body but he had no time to focus on it because the FSA soldiers were already continuing down the tunnel. One group had turned left, while most seemed to be turning right. Anwar nodded to the left and he followed.

  They had a flashlight but wanted to preserve the batteries so they only turned it on when they had to. The first time Anwar lit up the tunnel, Sami saw the backs of the soldiers in front of him. The second time, he squatted down to tie his laces. The third time they turned the light on, the soldiers were gone. The flashlight flickered across the walls without revealing a single clue.

  Sami and Anwar waded on, their backs tense from crouching, then the tunnel split, the ceiling rose and they could straighten up. Anwar sighed with relief. A faint light was trickling in from somewhere.

  ‘Where did they go?’ Sami said. ‘Should we stop and…’

  He was interrupted by the rat-tat-tat of a few rapid rifle rounds that hit the tunnel wall right next to them. Anwar backed into Sami, who tripped in the water but managed to regain his footing. More bullets whistled past, closer this time. Anwar was breathing heavily in his ear.

  ‘Are you hit?’

  ‘Shh!’

  A new volley of shots, a few inches from their bodies. They pressed in closer to each other. Sami groped at the damp walls to find a way further into the tunnel when he realized – there was no way in. They hadn’t backed into an adjoining tunnel but an alcove in the same one. They were in a dead end.

  ‘Come on out, rats! We know you’re in there.’

  Judging from their voices, it was two or three regime soldiers in an access shaft about fifty feet down the tunnel. Sami and Anwar didn’t dare use the flashlight so it was impossible to pinpoint their location. The two of them barely fitted in the alcove but there was just enough room for them to hide.

  ‘Do you have your rifle?’ Sami whispered.

  Anwar nodded, sweating under his bandana.

  ‘But there are only four bullets in it…’

  Just then new rounds were fired from the opposite direction. It seemed there was an access shaft there too, about 150 feet away. After a while, Sami could make out another two voices. They were under attack from both directions and had nowhere to go. Anwar pulled a chain from under his shirt and kissed a ring.

  ‘You’re engaged. I didn’t know,’ Sami breathed.

  ‘Was,’ Anwar replied. ‘She lived in Karm al-Zeitoun.’

  Sami pictured Sarah’s face in the dark. What was he doing here? Why hadn’t he listened and left while he still could? The tunnel was dark, silent and damp; the only sound was from the soldiers climbing up and down. The soldiers seemed nervous about what was happening above ground, and at the same time scared of going into the tunnel. Their fear was Sami and Anwar’s only hope.

  Should they lean out and take aim? But in which direction, and what chance would they have of hitting anyone? Even if they managed to catch a glimpse of a soldier in one of the passages, they would also be abandoning their cover. The same was true of the two hand grenades; the chance of hitting anyone was minimal and the person throwing it would be exposed, if only for a second. No, they were going to hold on to the grenades as a final resort if the soldiers stepped out of the access shaft and into the tunnel.

  Sami messaged Muhammed, trying to describe where they were. At the same time, they were straining to listen to the above-ground battle, if it was coming closer or moving away from them. If the rebels were advancing, that could be bad, too, since the regime soldiers would have nowhere to go but down the tunnels, towards Sami and Anwar. That would be the end.

  Anwar turned on the video camera. It was recording when they heard one of the regime soldiers shout, ‘So it’s freedom you want? I’ll show you freedom!’

  A sharp white light lit up the tunnel. Sami was thrown into the wall as though he had received a blow to the head. Grenade shrapnel landed a few metres from them but not a fragment reached their hideout. Sami’s ears rang and howled, his face was cold and wet. There was mud in his mouth but the only thing he could think about was where he had put his phone. He looked around and trod the water, until he realized he was still clutching the phone tightly in his hand.

  Further down the tunnel, another grenad
e exploded. His head pounded, there was a rushing in his ears. He felt exhausted, as though he wanted to lie down and sleep. Anwar’s lips moved but he couldn’t understand him. He looked distractedly at his arms and hands as though it was the first time he had seen arms and hands. Anwar grabbed him and pointed at the water and he understood what was going on. The water was up to his knees. It was rising slowly but steadily. When the regime soldiers had realized how the rebels were getting in, they must have turned on the water to force them out of the tunnel.

  Sami was sweating and shaking and trying hard not to vomit. The only reason the regime soldiers were not climbing down into the tunnel had to be that they were afraid to get caught in a trap. Time passed differently in the alcove, where a second was an hour and an hour was a lifetime.

  His phone lit up. Muhammed.

  Soon in position. Pick u up when mission completed.

  They had probably reached the regime stronghold. The rebels’ tactic was to return to the same tunnel entrance they had set out from, which meant Sami and Anwar had to wait. His phone lit up again.

  Hold on.

  Like they had a choice. The regime soldiers climbed up and down in the two access shafts but they never stepped into the tunnel proper. They fired at the alcove from time to time and threw four hand grenades, all of which missed them.

  Above ground, the battle was drawing closer. Sami, deafened by the explosions, could none the less hear the sound of gunfire. But when he saw Anwar’s lips moving, it was as though the sounds were echoing up from the bottom of the ocean.

  * * *

  —

  It was some time in the middle of the day that the guns fell silent and Muhammed wrote to say it was safe for them to climb up. Trembling, Sami waded down the tunnel behind Anwar to the access shaft from which the regime soldiers had been shooting at them for hours. He heaved himself up and started the long climb back into the sunshine.