by Eva Nour
Further on lay an older man with a walnut walking stick, a pipe in the corner of his mouth and a red rose in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Sami accidentally kicked a cracked gramophone. Passed a turtle with a broken shell. A grey kitten with a broken neck. He saw two schoolchildren, a boy and a girl, with a red bike between them. How could death, being so violent, give such a deceptive impression of innocence?
When Sami raised his eyes, it was as though the entire road had been transformed into a bridge under his feet. A bridge covered in blood and corpses, all turning their eyes on him. A tunnel with twelve men face down on the ground, with their hands tied behind them and bullets in the back of their heads.
With every step, he felt an overwhelming urge to stop, and with every step, he forced himself to carry on. The sound of his footsteps, creaking and crunching, was amplified and echoed in his ears, about as discreet as when the tanks rolled through the streets at the start of the siege. But if there was a sentry on duty that night, he must have dozed off.
Halfway across, he turned around. It was the first time he saw it from the other side; the houses seemed to be crouching in the darkness, turning their backs on him. In that moment, he understood why there were people who wavered and stood still one breath too long. Freedom – during the protests, they had shouted the word until they were hoarse, but now he no longer knew what kind of freedom he was looking for. During the siege, they had been prisoners of starvation and airstrikes, but also free to say and think whatever they wanted. Soon he would be able to eat his fill and fall asleep without hearing the distant sound of gunfire, but he would also be a prisoner once more.
There was still time to go back. The cats slunk in and out of the ruins. The snipers were on a break. He looked at his city, then turned his back on it, and as he did so the city turned its back on him. Sami would never see his home again, or what remained of it. He would never pass the playground where he once swung high on the swing and which had now been turned into a cemetery. He would no longer see the rebel soldiers play football next to his old school, divided into teams according to their battalions.
If he really did have several lives, he left one behind in Homs. Part of him continued to sleep on the cramped sofa, with his knees pulled into his chest. The glow from the stove would die out and the last heat leaving the room would be his breath.
He glanced back one last time and let his eyes linger on the house and the city that had been his home.
Then he ran fast in the direction of the glowing point.
V
Coffee and cigarettes and a never-ending stream of cars on the Champs-Élysées. You always pay. You always roll one for me first. You smile and show me a picture of kittens you put a bowl down for in a ruined house, your home. Remember?, Facebook asks. You smile and remember the kittens.
After swapping memories and stories for almost a year, we become good friends. Then more than friends. Al-tafahum. You say that’s the most important thing for you in a relationship. According to the dictionary: mutual understanding. To be in agreement and exist in a context. Possibly that is the greatest kind of love: to be seen and to have your story recognized.
‘Does it matter that I’m a non-believer?’ I ask.
‘No. I have many friends who are atheists.’
‘Aren’t you worried I’ll go to hell?’
‘I think our actions determine what happens to us after death. And you can do good or bad regardless of faith.’
Later on, you tell me you don’t know what you believe. If there is a god, he’s on Bashar al-Assad’s side, which means he’s not your god.
I used to think believers had an easier time, that they held the answers in their hands and had faith. But I was wrong; you often seem to have more questions than answers.
‘Maybe you could talk to an imam,’ I suggest.
You smile again and brush the crumbs on the table into a pile, shake your head.
‘I’m sorry I tell you such sad stories,’ you say.
‘I’m sorry I ask so many questions,’ I say.
‘No, go on. I like it.’
‘OK. What do you do when you can’t sleep?’
You tell me that sometimes you imagine an old childhood friend, with freckles and a bird’s nest of curly hair, who picks you up and drives you through the spring night, through the Milky Way, down a deserted Champs-Élysées. Your lips close around the filter, you inhale. Your voice rises and scatters like smoke.
37
SAMI HAD AN impulse to touch his chest to make sure it was in one piece, that he wasn’t leaking from invisible bullet holes, that he hadn’t been turned into a sieve and that the man in front of him wasn’t the ferryman waiting to take him to the underworld. Maybe he had already crossed the black river. The regime soldier put a finger to his lips. A circus performer asking for silence, as though it were all staged, with an audience waiting on the other side, hidden behind the black velvet curtain of night. A shove in the back got him moving. The dot of light turned out to be a cigarette lighter with a built-in flashlight. That was when Sami realized he must be alive, because surely there are no lighters in the afterlife.
He was taken round the corner of a building that was almost identical to the one he had lived in for the past six months. The regime soldier led him through a doorway, gently but not particularly kindly, inside which three more soldiers were waiting. They searched him in silence, with a meticulousness that almost made Sami smile. How were they to know his most valuable possession was twelve red lentils in one of his jacket pockets.
Then began a long journey through hidden doorways and tunnels. After exiting the labyrinthine passages they stepped out on to a street, empty apart from a car with tinted windows. The night closed in around them and the moon hung over them, a fruit you could almost reach out for and pluck.
‘I can get by on my own from here,’ Sami whispered.
A gun was cocked and the hand on his shoulder tightened. One of the soldiers hushed him and raised his hand to calm the others. It wasn’t done yet; first he had to see the general.
‘Whatever you do, don’t look him in the eye.’
His tongue felt coarse and swollen. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen; the deal was that he was to be released immediately. If only there had been time to think, but there wasn’t. If only there had been somewhere to run, but there wasn’t. He was ushered into the car with the black windows and recalled other people who had climbed into cars and disappeared. Was this the last time he, too, would be seen?
The car slowed down in front of an enormous building Sami vaguely recognized but had never looked at twice before the war. He was brought into a bare room and placed on a straight-backed wooden chair. There was a chill draught around his legs even though a radiator was steaming in the corner and the air was warm and stuffy with tobacco, a hint of vanilla. The general greeted him and asked a few casual questions. Sami knew the type; it was the kind of politeness that people in power only deign to show when they want something in return. He straightened up and avoided looking the general in the eye, but still noticed the glass eye staring blankly at him. To his right: a short, squat man sweating profusely, his contact and the mediator of his freedom. His presence reassured Sami, but not for long.
A door opened and seven men in handcuffs were brought in and ushered to the other side of the room, which reinforced Sami’s impression that this was an interrogation. Even so, a modicum of relief. He didn’t recognize any of the prisoners and they didn’t recognize him, so he would be able to adjust his story a little whenever prudent.
Of course, Sami said in a voice he hoped exuded calm and confidence, of course he had completed his military service. He was honourably discharged, after a couple of months’ additional service.
Sure, he had sought out a media centre at the start of the revolution, he admitted it freely, but he had broken off contact with the
m when he realized they were traitors.
Yes, he had stayed in Homs when the shells started falling, but only to look after his gravely ill grandfather. What illness? Cancer, his lungs were black with tar, may he rest in peace. Then he had stayed in the besieged area, focusing on finding food and shelter – he only mentioned the practical, the harmless, the things that didn’t have anything to do with avoiding being in places where bombs were falling.
‘Mhm,’ the general said sceptically. ‘Fascinating story, truly.’
He looked to the left with his healthy eye and straight ahead with the glass one, then snapped his fingers at the soldier who had brought Sami in.
‘That one’ – the general pointed to an emaciated prisoner over by the wall, who had stuttered his way through a handful of questions – ‘and that one’ – the finger pointed at Sami. ‘Take them to Abu Riad tomorrow morning.’
Sami was led through the long corridors and put in a grey-painted cell with a steel bed and a bucket in one corner. His contact lingered by the door, like an impatient horse waiting for lumps of sugar.
‘That wasn’t so bad now, was it?’
‘Who’s Abu Riad?’ Sami asked and tried to keep his voice calm.
‘The interrogator. He has quite a reputation, sorry to say.’
‘This isn’t what we agreed.’
‘Yes, well. I’m sure it’ll work out,’ his contact said and wrung his hands. ‘There is just one other thing, a tiny detail…’
He cleared his throat when Sami showed no sign of wanting to continue the conversation, running his hands over his lapels.
‘Tomorrow morning, before your interrogation, a TV team will come here for an interview.’
Sami held his breath before asking: ‘What interview?’
‘The one where you admit to being a terrorist. A traitor. But that thanks to our benevolent leader Bashar al-Assad you have been pardoned and accepted as a citizen once more. To serve as an inspiration to your friends in the besieged area.’
Sami leaned forward and looked him in the eyes.
‘So they can arrest all of us later? Over my dead body.’
‘They have no other reason to let you go,’ said the man and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘Did they let you borrow a phone? Try to sleep and we’ll see how it goes.’
The cell door slammed shut and Sami called his parents. Since the call was sure to be monitored he kept it brief, but the sound of Nabil and Samira’s fragile voices jogged something loose inside him.
‘Why didn’t you tell us you were trying to get out?’
‘I didn’t want you to worry. What difference would it have made?’
His parents cried quietly and asked if he had eaten; he said he was being treated well, that it was just a matter of clearing up a few routine questions.
‘The battery is running low. I’ll call as soon as I get out.’
Sami lay down on the cot and closed his eyes, dozed off for minutes at a time, until his body finally gave in to sleep. He was an anchor at the bottom of the sea; light danced around the dark underside of a boat, high above, out of reach. He longed for it to be over: the interrogations, the mounting fear, the walls closing in on him. He made himself a promise that if he ever got out from here, he would go to wherever he could live freely.
He was woken up by a knock on his cell door and expected to be greeted by a bright white light, blinding cameras. Instead he saw the shadow of a guard and was taken to Abu Riad.
The interrogation room looked like a normal office. Abu Riad was several inches shorter than Sami, had grey hair and was dressed in black jeans and a moss green shirt buttoned all the way up. He smoked like they do in the old western films his dad used to watch, with his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, taking long, deep drags and blowing the smoke into Sami’s face. Abu Riad seemed to consider himself a gentleman but Sami had no doubt that when he left the neat office, it was to go downstairs to the basement where the torture took place.
He stuck to his story from the night before but let slip a few seemingly important things that were useless in practice. He told him where the rebels kept their ammunition – that was no secret, since the regime attacked that particular house regularly – and he told them about the bus explosion.
The official line was that it had been an accident. Around forty rebels died when a bus exploded in one of the besieged streets. Sami told him the truth, that the bus had been filled with explosives and that the plan had been to detonate it next to a house occupied by a regime-friendly militia, right next to the red line. For whatever reason, the bus exploded too early; at least that was the rumour.
The bait seemed to work; the interrogation revolved primarily around the ammunition and the bus. Then Abu Riad changed tack. He pulled a stack of photographs from the breast pocket of his shirt.
‘Tell me, do you recognize any of these people?’
Sami picked up one picture, then the next. A whirlwind swept through his stomach and he had to swallow hard not to throw up. The pictures were of dead people in prison corridors, bodies showing clear signs of torture. Infected wounds, marks from straps, blueish-black, swollen arms and legs. Even if he had known any of them when they were alive he wasn’t sure he would have recognized them. The pictures could have been of anyone: a neighbour or childhood friend, his brother or sister.
‘I don’t recognize anyone. Can I have some water?’
‘Are you sure? Absolutely sure?’
Sami went through the pile again, studying a couple of pictures more closely for show, running his finger over the sharp corners.
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘That’s too bad for you.’
The interrogation continued with trick questions and traps designed to uncover lies. Sami listened closely for allegations he hadn’t admitted to, which would become confessions if left unopposed. Like when he worked as a journalist— He hadn’t worked as a journalist, Sami broke in. But he had said so in his last questioning? No. What he had said was that he had visited a media centre, but when he realized they were enemies of the country he had broken off all contact. Abu Riad mentioned the name of an international news agency.
‘Did they pay you well for the pictures you sold?’
‘I never worked for them.’
‘So how come they were calling you so often? A nobody, an amateur who likes to snap pictures?’
After hours of questions, Abu Riad leaned forward and aimed a smoke pillar at him, making him cough.
‘Your so-called information is useless. And do you know what that makes you? Useless.’
Sweat broke out around Sami’s collar, curling the hair at the back of his neck. Abu Riad studied him with his chin tilted up and his nostrils flaring, as though something about Sami annoyed him but was at the same time too insignificant to waste time on – a mosquito, a pebble in his shoe.
‘I have orders to let you go but we’re not done with each other yet.’
Abu Riad lit another cigarette and leaned back.
‘You have a week. Make sure you’re less useless next time.’
Orders to let you go. That was all Sami heard.
A stack of papers was brought out. Going through it and reading it was out of the question but he skimmed a few random lines. By signing it, he would be confessing to having been a terrorist and working against his country, and making a promise never again to do anything aimed at undermining the government. Sami signed it immediately.
38
HE DRIED HIS hands on his trousers and was led out, blinking in the sunlight. Abu Riad had given him one last chance. Not out of kindness, that much was clear. No, they let him go hoping he had more information to give, or that he would talk to his friends and convince more of them to hand themselves over. Abu Riad wanted to see him in a week’s time for another interrogation. One week. That was the time h
e had to plan his escape and leave the country.
Sami’s contact drove him from the secret police headquarters to the neighbourhood where his grandmother Fatima lived and Samira had played as a young girl. It was like landing in a new world. Cars driving along unspoilt streets, people with clean clothes and faces. He saw students with school books in their arms. Women with bags of food. An old man walking his dog.
As the anxiety started to leave him, Sami fell asleep, leaning on the car window. He woke up when the car braked. A checkpoint at the end of the road.
‘Let’s go this way instead,’ his contact mumbled and made a sharp turn.
* * *
—
The first thing Sami noticed was the tree. In his grandmother’s garden, on a patch of green grass, stood a gnarled orange tree heavy with fruit. A similar tree had grown in the courtyard of his childhood home – before Nabil added an extra floor and before their house was hit by a missile. Samira had been sad about losing the orange tree, about chopping down something that was alive and bearing fruit.
Oranges were brought to Europe by the Moors long ago, his paternal grandfather had told him during one of their walks to the market. Sami remembered how Grandpa Faris’s hands had already been full of fruit and vegetables and so he had been the one to hand over the money to the vendor. They bought five pounds of the sweetest kind and shared the sticky segments. He associated the taste of oranges with all things sweet: from the candied peel to the juice drizzled on to cakes and other pastries. The Spanish kept the Persian word for the fruit, Grandpa Faris continued.
‘Your grandmother was my media naranja. My orange half, my soulmate.’
Sami climbed out of the car and felt an intense longing for something he couldn’t define. Maybe his childhood, when it had been possible to go to the market without keeping a watchful eye on the sky. When it had been possible to lie on a stone bench and look for signs in the cloud formations. When there was time to grieve for a chopped-down orange tree.