I didn’t notice Hana until she approached me and whispered that we had to meet; she set a precise time and place and warned me not to miss it. She left, so we seemed like two women swapping razor blades to shave our legs. I almost choked and drowned in the steam. I didn’t want anyone to see my terror of going to prison, whose rot I had already been able to feel under my tongue. I imagined the feel of handcuffs and remembered Marwa – I had spent the night beside her and she asked me resolutely to go away and leave her to her wait. I gazed at her and felt for a moment that she had become used to her chains, and that the feel of their rusty links no longer disturbed her; she walked slowly in her room and attentively watched the sky through her window. On moonlit nights, she would sit in the courtyard for hours following the path of the moon like a white ship gliding over the horizon. Her silence was an expression of her contempt for us, and we felt it even more when we heard her peal of laughter with Wasal, who loved her and shared her room. At night, Wasal would sing Frank Sinatra songs for her, and Marwa requested ‘If You Go Away’ after hearing a translation of the lyrics. Marwa paused for a long time over a section she had learned by heart, and made Wasal burst out laughing when she playfully dragged out the consonants as she sang.
Wasal was a good listener. She spoke with the politeness of a woman who wanted neither to ruin her daughter’s life nor exact a high price from us, and before long she had absorbed our dreams and desires. She began to tell Maryam her life story in an attempt to depict herself as a wronged woman, lonely but desired by thousands of men – from the Khan Cordoba to London and New York, where she had arrived on a cargo boat with one of its Spanish crew. The Spaniard’s languishing eyes made her believe that he had been waiting for her for a thousand years; the way he wept at her door and bent over her feet to kiss them awoke her wild dreams of wandering along the Atlantic shore, of living with a man who could recover the taste of her first days with Khalil. She acknowledged that she had loved Khalil and cried for him during the nights when she was deprived of Zahra.
Later, when she began to send letters to her daughter, she realized she had squandered her dream of a warm home to spend her old age in, surrounded by the two clamorous grandchildren who loved her, who didn’t cry when she came near; she would pet them and wipe their noses and they would look at her in wonder. When she came to my grandfather’s house, she opened her bags and distributed presents like any grandmother returning from a trip. She needed to take out a velvety photograph album and point to pictures of her grandsons’ mother as a baby, so they would know that she was their grandmother and not some woman passing through their lives. They exchanged long glances with Zahra and after a short time rushed towards Wasal with a recklessness which delighted her. She became a horse they rode and a cat who miaowed and licked their feet. She sat them beside her at the table and taught them how to hold a knife and fork in a more elegant way and to eat sedately after the English fashion. Her insistence that they wear ties, and their swift acceptance of the ‘horse collar’ as they called it, provoked astonishment in Maryam, who was jealous of Wasal’s ability to make her grandsons sing English songs along with her like her backing vocalists. She felt the gravity of her understanding with Zahra about rescuing the children from this hell, and ensuring a future for them away from the smell of death which rained down ceaselessly over the city, and which would only stop once the city had been drowned.
Zahra was desperate. She surrendered to dreams that seduced her with a different type of recklessness. They woke the desire to arrange her life anew, away from Bakr and his ambitions. She had also believed in them once, on the day she lay next to him on their bed after making feverish love which had taken her breath away. He whispered confidently about the Islamic state which was on its way, where everything would be washed clean, radiant like crystal. Dreams appeared to them both, so close that the smell of them lingered on their fingers, as they immersed themselves in a sublimity of touching and desiring which they hoped would never end.
Because of her memories and her dreams, Zahra endured being taken to the Mukhabarat in handcuffs by Bakr’s side more than twenty times, and coped with the officials’ insults when they described her as an unfaithful, whorish wife. Later, she bore the torture of being hit with a four-ply cable until her back split open, secure in not knowing of Bakr’s new hideouts, nor the colour of his pillows and sheets; she no longer worried about these much after witnessing the cruelty and rage of the Mukhabarat at Bakr’s escape from ambushes they had set for him, like a wounded bird who had the measure of their traps. Zahra realized that quietly drinking coffee with him in the mornings was a dream that had come to an end for the time being. She explained to Maryam how much she needed Wasal, who could ensure a future for her children. Hope returned to her when one of Bakr’s associates handed her a hastily written letter: I’m abroad. I miss you and the children … She hugged the letter to herself and basked in the comfort it provided. Bakr’s arguments with the leadership had reached an impasse, and he accused everyone of abandoning Hama to pursue a holy jihad on their own. In his words she felt the unexpressed regret that oppressed him – until he remembered his position in London as a skilful political speaker, worldly-wise, endowed with the sworn allegiance of thousands of young men.
Zahra laughed as if receiving a gift from God on her final visit to the Mukhabarat. She didn’t curse them and they didn’t torture her; they made do with looking at her with contempt, and she sat calmly at the investigator’s desk as he informed her that she was subject to a travel ban. She nodded and knew from his ease that he was triumphant, no doubt aware that the battle was nearing its end. She had to reassess her daily life as a married woman whose husband had fled from certain death. Maryam marked the occasion of Bakr’s letter by bursting into noisy tears in front of a photograph of Hossam, who was drowning in the labyrinth of a desert prison. He had been led there with thousands of his comrades to be crammed into old, damp prison cells in which no one could make out the partitions, nor even the succession of night and day.
* * *
The spacious house grew cramped. I said to myself that Bakr had abandoned me, despite his urging me to go to Beirut and join my parents. My father no longer listened to the news of me which my mother would relate to him after he returned in the morning from hunting. He would ignore her as if she were a stranger, lie down in bed, and fall into a deep sleep devoid of hope. When he woke up, he dressed hastily and went out to sit in the bar which he almost never left, recalling his misspent youth when he used to laugh like a bull and compete with his companions in gulping down arrack after accompanying Abdel Hamid Sarraj on his nightly errands.
I was scared when I was in the streets and let my feet drag over the asphalt with the diffidence of the defeated. I never used to think that misfortune had this kind of taste. I no longer recognized places; I was like somebody lost who needed hatred in order to regain a little of her balance, to feel that her life was not just water, spilled on to a pavement and disappearing into steam. Marwa made me feel that I was a stranger, that I was surrendering to a fate I couldn’t grasp, blowing away like a feather which hadn’t found a wing to be part of. Her glances turned me into a plank of wood drowning in a tumultuous sea. I didn’t dare look at her chains. She didn’t encourage us to think of smashing them as she tortured us with her silence; she ate from Wasal’s hand and wiped the dust from her butterflies. She ignored Radwan’s pleas to sing along with him as before; he believed singing would save her and our house from the rot we had begun to feel in our mouths. Radwan prayed for the days of Safaa and my grandfather, who never used to leave the house without first reassuring himself of Radwan’s welfare. Now no one cared for him; Maryam no longer paid attention to his clothes and they became soiled, and he appeared more like a tramp than the servant who had once kept clean and perfumed in order to defend his masters all the more fiercely. I saw him sitting by the pool, and his blind eyes moved restlessly as he followed the twittering of the sparrows flying across the sk
y. He didn’t stand up, as he usually did every year, to announce the early arrival of spring – instead he restricted himself to listening to the silence which had settled before long over our gates, which no longer opened and caused a din with their eternal creak. We missed the noise – it had made us feel we weren’t living in a tomb.
Maryam asked for Wasal’s help in convincing Marwa to allow the removal of the chains which tormented her. Marwa had begun to compose a song, glorifying herself and depicting her tortures; as she wanted it to be heard, she had to relent and once more sing with Radwan, as part of an imaginary troupe, performing for an audience deaf to the tale of her epic battle. Radwan tried to regain a flavour of joy but his first notes seemed cold and sad; they left the impression that his voice was growing old, and what remained of it was insufficient for leading the women of the family. His voice was harsh and he made mistakes when reciting, but Marwa flattered him, praising him and encouraging him to continue with his composition of an epic love poem whose heroine has been chained up by her tribe; they keep her and her dreams under guard so she can’t slip through a gap in the tent and corrupt all the other daughters of the tribe.
One day Radwan left the house to look for his friends and found that most of them had shaved off their beards, like roosters whose feathers have been plucked. Most of them now wore suits and ties. The fear in their eyes and their slow movements betrayed that the mosques were no longer safe for their work, their dhikr and their improvised mawalid. A wrong turn that had resulted in three of them being killed by stray bullets had robbed them of their enjoyment of being blind. Radwan tried to convince them to return to their singing, and he listened patiently to their odes of lamentation for their friends, which opened with a verse in praise of the President and concluded in agonizing grief for the three believers, killed by infidels who had turned Islam into a religion of murder. ‘It’s all finished,’ Radwan said to himself as he left the Umayyad Mosque and passed through the main souk, stopping in front of my grandfather’s shops whose locks had lost their shine and rusted. He sat beside the shops, and perhaps he heard Khalil’s groans, Omar’s laughter, my grandfather’s footsteps. He tried to hold back his tears, but the sounds around him were a sign that everything had come to an end.
Radwan returned home along the road which swung around the Citadel, the same route he had taken with my grandfather on their last walk together. He went into his room, carried his boxes out into the courtyard, and began to take out and smash the perfume bottles. Their scent was released throughout the courtyard and mingled with Maryam’s wails; she grabbed hold of him and thought that it was the first time she had held a man with such strength. She realized that her desires really had died. Her determination did not have to last long. Radwan left the remaining vials alone. He returned to his room and would not come out even to bid Wasal goodbye. She kept one of the bottles from which emanated a strange smell, similar to that of rare wild roses. Khalil had covered her neck with garlands of them when Mosul first appeared to them on that day now so long ago. Neither of them had been able to forget the aroma of that dawn, of damask roses whose scent remained long after they had withered.
Maryam suddenly displayed a generosity Wasal greatly appreciated; she had been trying to find a small carpet to take back as a souvenir to London, and Maryam gave her Bakr’s carpet. Contentment radiated from Zahra’s face as, on that last day, she reached an agreement with her mother on many things they hadn’t discussed outright. ‘Those two have secrets now,’ I told Maryam. She would wake up alone, drink her coffee, pray and cook food for men who never came; Radwan would carry it away silently the following day to distribute among poor families. He knew the road to their houses very well and didn’t linger to hear their profuse thanks; he would just throw a piece of cooked meat at the door, knock on it, and continue indifferently on his way. He grumbled at this task, but only under his breath.
Maryam missed quarrelling with him. His silence filled her with a premonition of evil. She saw a fear of death in his shaking hands as they sought out his cup of tea when, at her order, he sat beside the pool. It was part of her attempts to reclaim the traditions and rituals she had boasted of in front of Wasal, when she saw her teaching her grandsons some English phrases. Maryam realized that the children had a cold haughtiness that would cling to them throughout their lives. They belonged more to Wasal than to her, but Maryam was no longer concerned by loss. She sought news of Hossam, which we all needed. Women were now meeting more often in the old city so they could exchange the latest on the arrests spreading among their sons and husbands. The men were sure that they would end their lives within their prison walls. They got used to the smells of the prison and became almost addicted to the bouts of sadistic torture to which they went without protest or discussion, as if they were going to play football.
My dreams were absent once again, so I lured them to me like a flock of doves. I tried to get to sleep early. I sat on my bed like a Buddhist, meditating on the carpet hanging on the wall. I slept like a corpse – as if my body were trying to expel its worries, but on waking I couldn’t move. I felt paralysed. Emptiness couldn’t save me from my hatred which only grew. My cries held no meaning any more. I watched Marwa – she had received another letter and hidden it from everyone, even Zahra.
Zahra had begun to go out every day to care for her father; a stroke had left Khalil bedridden. He asked for my grandfather whenever he was awake, and in moments of delirium he cursed God and dwelled on descriptions of Wasal, comparing her vulva to a coconut. When he was lucid, he would weep and spit in his Aleppan wife’s face, who had left him without food as a punishment for remembering Wasal. She quarrelled increasingly with Zahra, who sought Maryam’s permission to move him to our house to die there. She suggested installing him in Radwan’s room, who was solicitous of his friend. He liked listening to Khalil’s life story, especially the part when Wasal stole him away from my grandfather. The memory of Wasal remained like a lump in his throat. He couldn’t forget her, or talk about her. Radwan rekindled joy in Khalil, so he related his story more than ten times, every time using the same vocabulary and exactly the same sentences. Maryam didn’t care and was silent. She remembered that Khalil was not that old that he might be expecting to die.
Marwa’s determination and Zahra’s support ensured Maryam’s willingness to attempt a reconciliation with Marwa. She began to emerge from her silence, while still in chains, in accordance with Bakr’s instructions and our respect for his authority – as we rotted away. We didn’t know the secret of the almost daily visits of the death squad soldiers who would cast a cursory glance over our things, stay in Marwa’s room for a few moments, and then leave. After their visits she seemed glad, as if she had just said goodbye to some dear friends. She began to drink coffee with Maryam, and was happy to peel an onion or chop garlic when helping her make stuffed aubergines in honour of Khalil’s presence (he loved them so much that he once prepared sixteen different types for his wife, who didn’t share this love, especially when he didn’t apologize for the rancid smells filling the house).
Radwan cried when Khalil was carried in on a stretcher. He perfumed his friend’s body with a strong-smelling scent and shared his room gladly, eager to break his loneliness. Zahra’s solicitude reminded him of Safaa who, in her letters, still seemed to be fond of him to the point of infatuation. His replies were more detached and contained numerous complaints that we were neglecting him. He promised to compose a book for her whose lines of verse would be arranged as if they were pearls, and praised her husband, Abdullah, who was travelling increasingly often to Afghanistan and America on missions described by Safaa as top secret. She was proud of him, his appearances with Prince Shehab El Din at his councils, their confidential conversations, the approving glances – they described him as a mujahid who upheld Islam by expelling the unbelieving Soviets and smashing their tyranny of iron and fire over Muslims. Safaa wrote that the homes of other princes were thrown open to Abdullah and his presence
became a cause of much boasting; he would drop hints about the generous contributions bestowed by their peers exploiting their feverish rivalry to buy Paradise; he was an exceptional ambassador who decided all kinds of matters.
Abdullah did not neglect his friendship with Bakr, who had come limping to him in London. Abdullah spent three nights with him during which they never left the hotel room, quietly reviewing everything that had happened. Abdullah tried to convince Bakr to come to Afghanistan with him, but Bakr was still incapable of forgetting the image of his brothers blown to pieces. They had vanished into the air as their blood rained down like coal dust over his beloved city. Bakr couldn’t look into Abdullah’s calm eyes as his friend tried to suck out Bakr’s rancour at his fellow leaders for deferring the announcement of the civil militia, which Bakr believed would have been sufficient to destroy the death squad’s authority and control, and thereby decide the conflict.
On the second night, Abdullah let Bakr rave about his belief that they could no longer organize the thousands of young male volunteers who believed with absolute certainty in the Islamic state, adding sorrowfully that they were now mere playthings in the hands of neighbouring heads of state, to be haggled over, bought and sold. Abdullah said nothing and Bakr was surprised at his politician’s cheerfulness. On the third day, Bakr came down with a fever and a doctor was hastily summoned; he ordered complete rest.
In Praise of Hatred Page 17