by Schafer, Ben
“These men aren’t here to fight for their homes,” Omar countered. “These men are here just to fight.” He pointed to one of Sharif’s men at the far end of the table, a lean man who wore a bandolier over a grease-stained T-shirt and poked bits of chicken around on his plate with his bowie knife. “That one down there is from Turkey, and the twins standing by the door are from Yemen. I saw Egyptians, Libyans, and Saudis hanging around in your courtyard. This revolution was about freedom for our people, not some international jihad. What have you let it become?”
“For such a master of words and public perception, your lack of tact astounds me, Omar.” Sharif hissed. “Be very careful what you say here. You are right when you say that many of my men are not Syrians. I have struggled to maintain my place at the top of this army, and I will not have anyone disrupt that.”
He swallowed a mouthful of beans, then continued, “These are not the same protests you helped start. Yes, many fighters have come to Syria to fight for the honor of Islam, but don’t be fooled into thinking that only the foreigners are here for that reason. You have many former friends and allies in this city who would refuse to work with me if they found out you had come back. Why did you have to become a Christian, Omar? Why, when we were so close to having everything we ever wanted?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
The two men ate in silence for a while as other conversations buzzed around them. I leaned toward Omar and whispered, “How are you doing? Being back with your brother and among your comrades again, I mean.”
Omar smirked. “These were never my comrades. I never cared about war or revolution, at least not like this. I wanted the people to rise up and demand a change in their government. For years it was a hopeless cause. Then after the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, I realized that my dream could become a reality. When Mubarak stepped down in Egypt, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. I felt sure Syria would be next, but it’s been so long now and we’ve gained nothing but bloodshed. The dream has become a nightmare. Once again, the people of my country are merely treated like pawns to be traded between Russia, China, and the West. And all these fundamentalists pouring in from the Arabian Peninsula? My brother tells me that he has spent almost as much time fighting against other rebel groups as he has against the government.” He shook his head. “It makes me sick.”
“That’s probably just the chicken,” I joked.
Jamil wiped his mouth. His plate was completely clean. The man either had a lead stomach or was in for a world of hurt in a few hours. “Sharif, I’m surprised that your situation isn’t more widely known. We’ve heard rumors, of course, but nothing concrete.”
“Why does it surprise you?” Omar asked. “The regime controls the media. They’ve restricted the flow of information. It strengthens their grip on the nation.”
“But I would have thought one of the foreign news agencies would have been here covering an event like this. CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera; you’d think someone would want to have cameras here recording the whole thing.”
“We had a foreign news crew visit us once. They were from Reuters, I believe. They said that they were here to capture the true spirit of the revolution that was happening here.” Sharif laughed, but it was a cold, dead sound. “They were in Rastan for only a day before they decided to leave for Aleppo. Apparently, our struggle was not as photogenic as the conflict in the north. Because we are not Daesh. We are not monsters. Thus, we do not get the headlines. Meanwhile we have to suffer in these conditions every moment of our lives until either the siege is lifted or we are overrun.”
Silence reigned over the table for an uncomfortable minute. Azima finally spoke. “Thank you for your hospitality, Sharif. It is rare in these days to see such kindness.”
Sharif nodded respectfully. “You are most welcome. I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under better circumstances.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Azima said, “what will our accommodations be for the evening?”
“I have some spare rooms upstairs that you may use. I don’t have enough beds for you all, but I’m sure I can round up enough cots and cushions to make the night as comfortable as possible.” He pointed to the Yemeni twins Omar had mentioned earlier. “You two, get the rooms upstairs prepared for our guests.” The two men nodded in unison, then set about their task.
“Thank you.” I pushed my plate away. “I think we have to go to bed a bit on the early side tonight. We have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Yes, tomorrow holds the promise of great change for us all,” Sharif said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHARIF managed to find two rooms for us. We agreed that the men would sleep in one room while the women and Hashim spent the night in the other. Jamil and I, along with some of Sharif’s men, brought up everyone’s personal bags. It made the already tight living arrangements even more crowded, but the bags contained what few possessions these refugees owned. After the incident at the roadblock, I didn’t want Sharif’s men to steal or tamper with anything.
Once we finished, everyone else got settled in their rooms. I didn’t feel much like sleeping, however, so I wandered around as much as Sharif’s bodyguards would allow.
Sharif made it clear that we were not to leave the second floor of the house. It was comprised of three bedrooms, and I use that term loosely given that there were only two real beds between them, that branched off from a central living area. The men were in the eastern room while the women were in the southern room. I didn’t ask what was in the other room, but I never saw anyone enter or exit so I assumed it had been taken over for storage space.
The central area had a TV so old that it wasn’t even in color, a tattered purple couch stacked high with crates of ammunition, and a couple of easy chairs that were stained with what I hoped was coffee. Not exactly home sweet home, but it was cozy enough.
There were a couple of small windows with iron bars that had recently been welded in place. These windows flanked an archway that led out to a moderate balcony. The balcony overlooked the entire compound and had a commanding view of the neighborhood as a whole. I stepped outside and closed the screen door behind me.
It was nice to have some time to myself. The crowd downstairs had dispersed for the evening, though where this contingent of rebels stayed for the night was anyone’s guess. The temperature had already dropped dramatically, and a consistent breeze prickled my exposed flesh. Overhead, the full moon hung just above the hilltops and hundreds of stars sparkled in the cloudless sky. I remembered when my father taught me the different constellations and how we spent hours staring up into the heavens trying to put together new ones.
Even as I gazed into the heavens, I kept one eye on the street. While I embraced the solitude and the memories that it evoked, it was not the reason I had decided against sharing quarters with the other members of the group. There were still dangerous men who wanted to see us dead, and I knew they would not hesitate to follow us into a warzone to complete their objective. Then again, there was always the possibility that they were relying on the Syrian Army to save them the effort.
I stood watch on the balcony, listening as much as looking for any signs that something was wrong. Rastan was no bustling metropolis. Now that Sharif’s houseguests had scurried back to their holes, the streets were quiet and empty. Without a weapon, there was not much that I could do if gangsters or spies came hunting for us. But acting as a sentry gave me an opportunity to keep my mind occupied.
Sharif promised us sanctuary, and I did not doubt that he would do everything that he could to fulfill his duties as host. But there were any number of ways that he or his men could compromise our position without technically breaking the traditional obligations of hospitality. The incident at the edge of town was still fresh in my mind. The People’s Army for a Free Syria, or whatever Sharif’s band of fighters liked to call themselves, were one of the few groups not actively hunting us, but that didn’t mean they had our best interests at heart. T
hey might not kill us, but I doubted that they would shed a tear if we found ourselves caught in the crossfire.
It was going to be a long night. If the army really was about to march into the city, then staying in Rastan was the last thing I wanted to do. Despite Sharif’s protests, I wasn’t about to sit through a war while babysitting a bunch of civilians. If Sharif didn’t like it, that was his problem.
I chuckled. “‘Sharif don’t like it,’” I said in a sing-song tone and started humming The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah.” I found myself really missing my old iPod.
I had gotten to the second verse when I heard faint footsteps behind me. The gentle scent of jasmine perfume drifted on the night air. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
“Hello, Azima.”
She came up beside me and leaned on the railing. “Is it all right if I join you?” she asked. When I nodded, I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders.
We both stood on the balcony, observing the town. It seemed like a nice place, which made the imminent threat of violence that much more tragic. Whatever was bothering Azima, it wasn’t the tanks massing to the north. Her worries went beyond the immediate threat to our lives, although I’m sure it added to her concern. Her eyes were unfocused, staring into the distance as her mind wandered to another place and time. A gust of wind tugged some of her hair loose from the headscarf, and she absent-mindedly brushed it back.
Azima said nothing for a long time. I found her mere presence comforting. After so much time spent alone, bouncing from one warzone to the next, it was nice to finally have some company. I assured myself that that was the extent of my feelings. I told myself that I would have been just as comforted if I spent time with Omar or Jamil or Khamilah. Well, okay, probably not Khamilah.
But in my heart I knew better, regardless of how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise. My life had never given me a decent chance at establishing a real relationship with any woman. Some of my buddies in the Marines had been real ladies’ men, but I was never the kind of guy who could do the whole “casual relationship” thing. Joining a modern-day military order of the Church hadn’t exactly made me catnip to the ladies, either. My relationship with Azima had never reached a truly romantic stage, but as a child on the edge of puberty she had been the closest thing I ever had to a first love. And, as I thought about it, we shared the closest relationship I had ever had with any woman outside my family. Maybe that’s why I had so much trouble understanding my feelings when I saw her in Damascus, and even more trouble expressing what I felt now. Rather than risk making a fool of myself, I decided to join in on the Quiet Game.
“Am I a bad mother?”
I glanced at her. She was still looking off into the distance, brow furrowed in thought. I was beginning to think that I had imagined the question when she continued. “All I want for my son is the chance to be happy. He deserves to be happy. Doesn’t he?” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I was so selfish. If I had just let him stay with my husband, things would be so much easier for my son,” Azima whispered. “Hashim would have had anything he could have possibly wanted.” She put her face in her hands. “Why did I think that I could leave that all behind me? How could I be arrogant enough to believe that I could give my son more than what he had?”
“Azima, you have given your child the chance to live a life of freedom. You have shown him Jesus. He has the opportunity for a relationship with his Heavenly Father that no one can take away from him.” I cautiously put a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head, but said nothing. I continued, “How can your husband be arrogant enough to believe that he could give your son something more than that?”
A single tear ran down her cheek and shone in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I have the strength to raise him on my own.”
“That’s the good part,” I reassured her. “You don’t need to have the strength on your own. You just need to trust that the Lord will give you the strength that you need. And the great part of being a Christian is that you never have to be alone.”
She turned to me and lowered her head onto my shoulder. I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that, so I decided to just stand there and give her the support she needed. “I’ve made so many mistakes in the past, I’m afraid of how I will wreck our future.”
“Azima—”
“I know that my husband would never knowingly hurt Hashim. Maybe if I had been patient, Abbas would have stopped hitting me on his own. Maybe if he never discovered that I had become a Christian . . .” she let the thought trail off.
In all the time I had known her, I had never seen her this sad or this vulnerable. Where was the spark of life, the energy that I remembered? The past fifteen years must have taken a serious toll on her. “We can never know what would have been,” I replied. I put my right hand under her chin and gently lifted it until she met my gaze. “But you deserve to be happy, too.”
“I know,” she said half-heartedly. Azima used her fingertips to trace a couple of thin, white scars that crisscrossed my right forearm. “It seems that I wasn’t the only one to suffer during the last fifteen years.”
A curious look crossed over her features. “Did I tell you why I became a Christian?” I shook my head. “Oh, of course. When would I have done that?” she asked. “Abbas came home from work one day angrier than usual. Like an idiot I asked him what was wrong. He told me that it was not a woman’s place to ask about such things. He just kept working himself into a frenzy. I reached out to calm him down and . . .”
I could see the pain in her eyes as she recounted the story. There was a part of her that would always be reliving those awful days trapped in her own home like a prisoner. I gave her a moment to continue.
“In the course of events, I fell. I tried to catch myself, but landed awkwardly and my wrist snapped. Abbas told me to go see a doctor to get it fixed.” She grimaced. “I think that he was concerned that my injury would prevent me from taking proper care of Hashim. That’s all he ever saw me as: baby maker then babysitter. So I went to the hospital.”
“Wait, by yourself? I thought your husband was one of those strict Islamist types.”
“Islamist, yes. Strict,” she waggled her hand back and forth in a so-so motion, “not as much. He sees himself as a very modern Arab, destined to impose Allah’s law upon others without having to follow every letter of it himself. A contradiction, I know, but the idea is quite common among the upper echelons of the military. He allowed me to go out to go to the store and do various other chores, mainly because he couldn’t be bothered to arrange a male escort for me. It’s not like this is Saudi Arabia. I do know how to drive.”
“So he’s modern enough to allow you to visit the supermarket, but not enough to stop justifying his abuse with the Koran?”
Azima shrugged. “Pretty much.” She barked out a laugh, but there was no joy in it. “I was stupid enough to speak to the imam at our mosque about it. I had hoped that he could calm Abbas down, or at least direct his anger in the right direction.”
I frowned. “You never used to go to the mosque. You were actually quite the little atheist, if I recall.”
“More like agnostic. But that was back when I could spend my Fridays at your house. After you left . . .” she shivered. It might have been the cool night breeze, but I doubted it. “Things changed.”
“Anyway, I had been to the hospital a few times for,” I could tell she was trying to choose her words carefully, “other injuries. I was not the only woman there in my situation, either. The doctors were very careful to ensure that I was taken care of without asking any questions that could be seen as,” she paused, “indelicate.”
“They saw you come in with cuts and bruises time after time and didn’t say anything about it?”
She sighed. “You have to understand that the culture here is different than the one you are used to. You’ve been in America for so long, and you would never have been exposed to this
sort of thing as a child.” A ghost of a smile formed on her lips. “Not with the family that you had.”
“But that doesn’t make it right,” I argued.
“No. I guess it doesn’t. But this time was different. There was a doctor visiting from Lyon, Doctor Gasset. I don’t know why she was there, exactly, but she looked at my charts and immediately figured out what was happening. But she wanted to hear it from me, so she began talking to me.”
I snorted. “That must have been a shock, going from totally ignoring you to coming right to your face with it in nothing flat.”
“Actually, she only brought up the topic of abuse gradually. I stayed in the hospital for a few days, and every day she would come by my room to talk with me. Doctor Gasset wanted to show that I could trust her, and I reached out to her.” Azima sighed. “It felt nice. I had been so utterly alone before I met her, and I had not realized how much bitterness that I held in my heart.
“When the time came for me to return home, I found myself filled with dread. After the respite in the hospital and my conversations with Doctor Gasset, I did not want to go back to Abbas. I mentioned it to the doctor, hoping that she would come up with some excuse for me to stay another day or two. But she wisely pointed out that no matter how long I delayed it, eventually I would have to face my husband. Doctor Gasset told me that she could not take care of me forever, but that she knew someone who could. That is when she told me the story of Jesus and his sacrifice.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Wow. She sounds like a brave woman to openly talk about the Gospel in a Muslim country like that. What made you decide to become a Christian?”
Azima blushed. “You did. I knew that your family was Christian, although as a child I had no real idea what that meant. My whole life I had been raised by a Muslim parent, taught in a Muslim school, and married to a devout Muslim man. But I never felt anything real in Islam, nothing that drove me to be better.