Hope and Despair

by Monia Mazigh

  Maher spoke in a gentle voice, thanking all the Canadians who had helped him to be reunited with his family, and to find his freedom. Now and then he would pause, as if searching for the right word; but he said what he wanted to say and then fell silent. It had not been long, a few minutes at best, but I realized how painfully slowly time was passing. Then it was my turn; I had to say something. We’d all been concentrating so much on what Maher would say that I’d forgotten to prepare something. But the words came, filled my mouth, and I spoke. I thanked everyone who had helped us and mentioned that we intended to withdraw and rest for a few days.

  Overcome with emotion, I couldn’t leave it at that. Thinking of the physical and moral suffering that Maher had endured, of the man sitting beside me, frail and exhausted, suddenly I raised my index finger and my tone of voice changed.

  “Maher’s liberation is only a beginning of justice …,” I said.

  It was impossible to turn away from him, that was clear; I was determined to do everything I could to support him.

  Finally, it was over. Marlene, Sarkis Assadourian, Leo Martel, Myra, and the other civil servants had been waiting in an adjacent room, to give us a degree of intimacy with our friends and family. We’d made up our minds to spend the night in Montreal, at my mother-in-law’s; the van that had brought us from Ottawa was waiting to drive us there. The Department of Foreign Affairs people would be returning to Ottawa. Marlene, Kerry, and Alex joined us, while Riad headed back as well. At last we reached St. Leonard, where my mother-in-law lived. It wasn’t long before her little house was full of people.

  My brothers-in-law, my sister-in-law and her children, they’d all come to see their brother and uncle. No one said a word of surprise at the sight of Maher, but shock and sadness was written all over their faces. As his mother had not had time to prepare supper, one of his brothers called out for pizza. Marlene, Kerry, and Alex wanted to head back to Ottawa, but my mother-in-law insisted they eat with us before they left.

  The pizzas arrived. There wasn’t enough room for everyone at the table so we found seats wherever we could. I watched Maher; he wasn’t eating. My mother-in-law brewed Turkish coffee for her unexpected guests. Maher still had that look about him, the look of a man who didn’t know where he was.

  He would sit down and chat with one of the guests, then suddenly get to his feet, as if he were about to cry. I watched him in silence, not knowing what to do. When everyone had finally gone, I felt almost relieved. It was dark outside and we were all exhausted after a long day of emotion and surprises. Before leaving, Kerry told me: “Thanks to Riad, I’ve found a place where you can stay for a few days to avoid the media. Let’s talk tomorrow and I’ll tell you more.”

  As I thanked Kerry, I found myself wondering what kind of life I would have, living somewhere else than in my own home for several days. Houd’s crying brought me back to reality. I caught Kerry’s eye, then rushed off. Houd needed sleep; he hadn’t had a wink since early that morning and now he was exhausted. Maher wanted to help calm him, but Houd wasn’t happy about this new face he’d forgotten all about, perhaps buried deep in his subconscious; now all he could do was whimper. I laid him down on a mattress on the floor and changed him into his pyjamas; he quickly calmed down and in a minute or two was fast asleep. Barâa wasn’t far behind. But before she drifted off, she wrapped her tiny arms around her father. He hugged her in return, and the two of them sat there for a moment, embracing. When I came back to turn out the light, both children were stretched out on the big bed; Maher was asleep on the small mattress on the floor. I closed the door and tiptoed into the other room.

  The next day we spent the morning at Maher’s mother’s. Maher picked at his food in silence, but I had a feeling he wanted to talk. Finally he stood up, his face tense, and began to talk about what he’d seen in prison. He told of people packed into cells with no hope of ever seeing the light of day again. Then, suddenly, he broke into tears. I felt embarrassed in front of the children, my mother, my mother-in-law. Then my mother exclaimed, “Cry, cry, don’t worry; it’s the only way you’ll find relief. Cry, you’ll feel better …”

  And so it went for the rest of day: words, memories, emotions punctuated by tears or sobbing, then silence. I felt that Maher wasn’t telling us everything; I felt he was keeping the worst for later. His eyes told me more than I wanted to know about how much he’d suffered. Perhaps he felt embarrassed in front of the children, in front of his mother, and that made him hold back; perhaps it was the fear of telling his story, or being reminded of it that left him looking so distraught, so lost. I didn’t want to be prying, so I left him alone.

  A friend of Kerry’s had driven down to Montreal with our car; he would be driving us back to Ottawa. The trip was long and gloomy. I was counting the minutes, but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. At last we pulled up outside Kerry’s house. She was happy to see us; she would be coming back to our apartment with us, then helping to take us to our new house. We had to collect our belongings, bring the clothing we’d need, Barâa’s school bag, and whatever other important items we’d need for a week away from the apartment – which Maher had never seen. I’d rented it while he was still in prison. When he stepped through the door, he closed his eyes and said, “While I was dying in an underground grave, you were doing everything you could, day and night, to survive along with the children.”

  Then he shook his head and tears filled his eyes. I just stood there, helpless. Across the room, the little red light on the answering machine was blinking steadily. I walked over to the device and pressed the button: “You have twenty-one messages,” it said in its mechanical voice. With an abrupt movement I pressed another button, this one to stop playing the messages. I didn’t want to know who’d called. Now was the time to put a few things together and get out. Houd wanted to bring along almost all his toys. Barâa wanted to show her father all her new clothes. And there I was in the middle, trying to sort it all out as best I could, trying to cajole the one and convince the other. After several attempts, our things were in order and our family was ready to go off to spend a few days in hiding, far from curious eyes and persistent journalists.

  The house we would be living in temporarily was an attractive one. The owners, a couple we knew, had gone to stay with their parents for the duration. I wasn’t sure that it was necessary to move, but I was convinced of one thing: there would be plenty of telephone calls back at the apartment, and all that new pressure would not be helpful to our family in its search for peace and quiet. Maher hadn’t yet told me the details of his ordeal; most of what he said were flashbacks, snapshots. I asked him nothing, leaving him free to talk about his experience when he felt ready to do so. I knew it would be coming, and I was afraid of listening to his story; even the thought of it gave me the chills. We were sitting in the living room while the children played in the next room. Two days had gone by since Maher had returned, two days that seemed to weigh on us like two long years. He looked at me long and hard and said, “You know, for ten months I lived in a grave, an underground cell. It was dark, narrow, and damp.”

  It was the second time he’d used the word grave. Then he began to describe the place in detail; my heart was pounding.

  “After every interrogation session, they’d take me back to my cell,” he said. “I was always thinking about you and the children. I was buried in my misery, but the thought of you helped me forget. At the start, I didn’t know where you were, I was afraid maybe they’d thrown you in prison in Tunisia; I was so worried about you. When I was still in the United States, I begged the FBI agents to let me call you, but they refused. They kept telling me I would soon be on the plane for Montreal and my family. The first day I thought I would go mad; I walked up and down in my cell, I couldn’t even think about sitting down on the metal bench. I kept telling the American agents, ‘Let me take a plane to Canada, I want to go home,’ but they wouldn’t answer me. Every instant I dreamed I’d be set free, that it was only
a nightmare, but things got more and more complicated. When they woke me up early in the morning in the New York jail and put me on a plane, I realized I’d never see you again. You know that little suitcase of mine, the American Tourister with my shoes, a light jacket, and the tea glasses we bought together? They took them away from me; I never saw them again.”

  Maher was gasping for breath, jumping from one story to another, as if he wanted to say everything all at once and couldn’t manage to get anything out. He wanted to talk about the pain he’d suffered. He needed to be heard; I was caught up in this whirlwind of emotion.

  “I bought some chocolate in Zurich, for my mother and for you, when I’d come back to Tunis. I put them in my little handbag, along with a pair of pants and some underwear. Well, they let me keep it. It was my pillow in my cell in Syria. When I got to Jordan, I still hoped they’d send me back to Canada. But after several hours of detention, they put me in a car. I was kept blindfolded and head down for the entire trip. I couldn’t see a thing, and anytime I said a word someone would hit me on the neck, curse me, or threaten me. I had no idea where they were taking me. I thought my arms would come loose from my body I hurt so much. Then, many hours later they shoved me out of the car. The guards took me to a place where I could hear people speaking in loud voices, then they led me into a room and took off my blindfold. I lifted my head and saw an old photograph of the former president, Hafez al-Assad, and I understood I was in Syria. Then, all of a sudden, a police agent came into the room. He bared his yellow teeth and said, ‘I heard you’re from Canada, so what goodies do you have for us?’ I realized he wanted cigarettes or money. I looked around me; there was my little travelling bag. I opened it and handed him the bar of Swiss chocolate. What an idiot I was, thinking I could get out of there with a piece of chocolate. The agent took the chocolate and left, then another one came and it was the same story; in a few minutes a whole lineup of agents trooped in demanding chocolate. They took all of it and vanished.

  “But the worst was still to come. They took me down a staircase. The stench of urine, mould, and filth turned my stomach. When my eyes got used to the darkness I saw I was in a kind of cave. I would live there for ten months before they transferred me to Sednaya Prison. My cell was around two metres long, one metre wide, and two metres high. It was very dark, with no light except a little coming through a small hole in the ceiling with iron bars. The door was metal. It had a tiny opening where they gave me my food. There was a dirty sheet, two plastic bottles, and two plates on the floor. I often had to pee into one of those bottles.”

  I stared at Maher. He was ashamed to be saying such things about himself. I tried to react calmly, but deep inside I was shaking.

  “Every time I told the truth they would beat me,” he said. “George, the officer in charge of my file, kept calling me a liar. He’d say, ‘You’ll see what we’ll do to you, you …’ and he’d slap me across the face. He had a sort of electric cable that he’d wave at me threateningly, and I don’t know how, I’d feel the cable hitting my hands, it was like being cut by a razor. One day the session lasted for several hours, I was terrified. George threatened to send me to the torture chamber; I urinated in my clothes.

  “They only let us take one shower a week, with cold water. The weather was hot at first so that wasn’t bad, but when winter came I was shivering all the time; all my body shook when cold water touched my skin. George kept on telling me I was a member of al-Qaeda, that I was a terrorist, that I’d never get out of there alive. He’d beat me with his cable and would only let me go back to my cell if I told him what he wanted to hear …”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear those words, I didn’t want to hear of my husband being humiliated one more time. Maher told me about the days he spent in that prison, about his solitude, about how he constantly wanted to scream and, worst of all, about the cries of others who were being tortured.

  “After each interrogation session, they’d throw me into a room where I could hear the screams of other inmates, their moaning and weeping. I couldn’t see a thing, but I was terrified. I wanted to rip my ears off, their screams were so piercing …”

  He told me the despair he felt, then suddenly the consular visits began and he believed he would soon be set free and returned to Canada.

  “I couldn’t say a word about my conditions to Leo Martel,” Maher went on. “The guards made that clear to me before the meetings, but sometimes I tried to signal to him with my eyebrows that what I was saying wasn’t the truth. I don’t know if he understood me.

  I couldn’t see the sun. The food was disgusting. I hated the gluey rice and the dry bread we had to eat. Often, I thought I was going mad. It must have been a few months before they gave me a copy of the Qur’an and I could find comfort in its words. Your letters were like beams of light for me; I read them and reread them hundreds of times over. They kept me company. I didn’t know exactly what you were doing in Canada, but I was certain you wouldn’t let me rot in that hole.”

  Maher had been talking for more than an hour now. The children were watching television, so we weren’t interrupted. I was feeling more and more ill at ease; Maher’s words were echoing in my mind. He continued:

  “When the consul’s visits stopped, I was sure I was going to be buried alive in that prison for years. I hadn’t heard anything from you, the pain was more than I could bear. I’d been there for months, I knew, I’d counted the days in my cell. Then one day the guard took me upstairs and I realized I had a visitor. Then I saw Leo Martel, the consul, and I was overjoyed. But it was a special visit. We were in the office of Hassan Khalil, the general in charge of military intelligence. The general himself was there. It was my last chance. I had to talk about the hell I was living through, about the torture and the abuse. I was taking a huge risk, but I knew I had to speak out, even if they killed me after.”

  Maher’s face suddenly lit up as if he were proud to have rediscovered the courage that had been broken under so many months of torture.

  “I spoke openly of the beatings, what I had to endure, the way I was being treated, and I demanded justice. General Hassan Khalil sat there like stone. Leo Martel glanced at him nervously. I demanded to be treated humanely. I demanded to see a lawyer. My little speech was over in a minute. I was sure they would beat me to death after what I’d said. But a few days later they transferred me to Sednaya Prison. No matter how bad the conditions were there, it was like paradise compared to the underground cell I’d lived in for ten months. I could see other prisoners, talk to them. I began to hope again …”

  We were still sitting there, talking, when Houd came running in, climbed up onto Maher’s lap, and for the first time said, “Ba-ba, Baba.” At last he was pronouncing the word for daddy, and yet for months he’d only been able to babble. Was he imitating his sister or had the sight of his father made Houd speak, made him say “Baba” to his father? I didn’t know what to think, I was so moved by Maher’s story, and by Houd’s first articulate words.

  Living in our borrowed house was like living in a hotel. We had all the comforts of home, but I was homesick for my apartment. Maher didn’t really much feel like going out. He was afraid of being recognized. On his first Friday back in Canada, three days after his return, he didn’t even go to the mosque for the Friday congregational prayer, an obligation for all Muslim men.

  Instead, Riad and a friend came to our house and we prayed together. It was a good idea to keep away from crowds and large gatherings. Later we found out that journalists and cameras had been on hand that day at the main Ottawa mosque to get reactions from Muslims about Maher’s liberation.

  Maher had lost a lot of weight and was so weak he couldn’t make any physical effort. He figured he’d lost twenty kilograms by the time he left the underground cell, he told me. In Sednaya Prison, he ate better. Some prisoners even had the right to cook their own meals and share their food; he’d been able to put on some weight. He could also see daylight. But he’d brought a
profound mistrust of humans back to Canada. He was no longer the natural, spontaneous person I’d known for all the years we’d lived together. He’d become suspicious, touchy, and would worry constantly that we were being followed. At first I thought those were reflexes he’d picked up in prison; I was sure he’d soon revert to the good-natured, natural man I knew. But every passing day drove home to me that this year of suffering would haunt us for many years to come.

  — 9 —

  DOUBTS AND HOPES

  this is only a beginning of justice …

  After a little more than a week at our friends’ house, we went back to our apartment. Our financial situation was the same as before. I was working part-time and receiving social assistance. With Maher’s return, we were drawing an additional one hundred dollars. For him, work was out of the question: his mental and physical health were fragile, he needed rest – and besides, who was likely to hire someone suspected of terrorism, who was written about almost daily in the press? True, when he did go out, many people made a point of coming over to greet him and shake his hand. People recognized him, and that recognition was tinged much more with sympathy than mistrust. Still, between sympathy and a job offer lay a yawning chasm, and no one seemed ready to bridge it.

  His state of forced idleness was not helping us in our daily lives. With every passing day, I could see Maher’s self-confidence draining away, and there was nothing I could do to help. I was anxious to find another job myself, but all my applications remained unanswered. We were surviving on the flimsy hope that our situation would improve, that at least one of us would find a good job that matched our qualifications. But the truth was that our precarious financial situation created an invisible, creeping kind of pressure that we tried to overlook every day, doing our best to focus on our new life and finding the most pleasant ways to pass the time.