Homecomings

by Yvette Rocheron

  ‘I am a Canadian journalist and I have done nothing wrong,’ Ian mutters in a desperate effort not to quarrel. This annoys Khalid even more.

  ‘Wake up, man! Canadian, American… it’s the same if they decide to go for us. They set you up with a suitable crime – indecent assault, illegal documents found on that mobile. They’ll get onto your blog.’ He pauses. ‘They’ll make us dance!’

  Groaning, biting his lips, Ian shakes his head in disbelief. ‘I get what you are saying, but why? They have bigger game to catch!’

  Khalid sighs. ‘Me, probably.’

  Ian bends forward, studying him, speaking slowly. ‘Because… you’re a lawyer?’

  ‘Could be right.’

  ‘Doing Human Rights work? Underground?’

  ‘The less you know, the better for you.’

  ‘And that’s why you left the family you loved – Virginia, Zaida?’

  Khalid scowls back, but does not answer. Rigid. Determined not to let go.

  ‘Come on, tell me… you’ve taken a few risks?’

  ‘Not recently. With Zaida here.’ His lips hardly let the words through. Face screwed up. Back straight. Frozen. Waiting for the blows. Yet again.

  ‘We are all in it together?’ Ian bangs the table with a clenched fist before flopping into the seat, blurting out, ‘My fault, my fault!’

  His agitation pulls Khalid out of his trance. Back to the present, on his feet, reeling across the room, storming. ‘If only Virginia hadn’t been such a fool! We had no plot to keep Zaida. And you dare accuse us of kidnapping! Try to understand us for once!’

  Ian prefers not to retaliate. ‘Tell me how much Walid paid the police?’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Please. I must pay you back. A question of honour.’

  ‘800 dollars.’

  Ian whistles. ‘A good business for Aleppo. I’ll wire you the money when… we are back in Britain.’

  ‘I’ll drink a pint to that,’ Khalid sniggers. ‘And tell me, are you sure Walid had met the security police before?’

  ‘I was too churned up but yes, they didn’t seem to ask him who he was. What else can I say? Forgive me, I was in no state to understand what was going on. Could he be on it too?’

  Khalid shrugs. ‘Walid in cahoots with the pimp and the security police? Possibly. Syrians gamble on who is going to win any given race. Why let your family be trampled for the sake of obsolete principles? That’s how things work everywhere, just to make a point – in Britain too.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Nowadays, everyone ignores collateral damage in the name of democracy, national interest, a war to be won, money to make on the side.’

  ‘Look, Khalid, it was you who bumped into Walid, not me.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Forget it!’

  True, Walid turned up at that crucial moment, Khalid thinks to himself. Hammam Bakri is the only hamman his people patronise when they are in Aleppo. Was it a happy coincidence, or was Walid stalking his master as well as Ian?

  Someone is calling for Khalid outside the door. Left on his own, Ian throws the bloody American cap onto the floor and stamps on it, raging at himself until Khalid’s prompt return.

  Shaking with fear and anger, he screams, ‘Talk of the devil! Walid’s been in touch with Omar to tell him we are delayed in Aleppo. Damn it! I could swear on my father’s head that Mustapha Al-Dari, that Alawite rat from the Ministry of Petroleum, is behind all this. He’s sure to demand his pound of flesh in exchange for visas and passports.’ He eyes Ian venomously, hissing, ‘God the Merciful, the sooner you leave the better. Your peace mission is a stink! Don’t mistake us. Uncle Omar is a patriot who has committed our family, the Al-Sayeds, to Bashar Assad’s side. Like many people, he believes only Ba’athist regimes can squash the Islamists. Bear in mind, in Syria, not all Muslim Brothers are rebels these days – some have reached a comfortable accommodation with Assad.’

  Ian wants Khalid to confide more, to trust even. ‘If you’re neither a patriot nor a Muslim Brother, whose side are you on?’

  Khalid offers a tired smile. ‘In Britain, Muslims ought to be liberal. Follow your traditions. I believed that. If nothing very deep was good enough for the Brits, it was good enough for me. In Syria, I don’t have that choice. I’m an ordinary Sunni businessman who knows that any change will be fraught with violence and injustice. Never trust anyone. Let alone a bloody pimp!’

  Like any Englander wrong-footed away from his native land, Ian claims flawless decency, but is brutally interrupted.

  ‘Shut up, will you? Syrians are in jail for lesser crimes than hosting a foreign journalist taking illegal pictures!’

  ‘I never did! I came as a tourist. I have no such photos.’

  ‘They won’t believe you. They’ll make me sing for it precisely when it suits them – tomorrow, much later. Liberal Sunni families like ours become their scapegoats. You understand nothing about the violence shaping our lives! Damn you and your family!’

  Khalid is called out again to talk with Omar on the phone.

  An hour later, he is back, collapsing into an armchair, drained of life, refusing to look at Ian directly, muttering to himself in Arabic, searching for English words.

  ‘Ian, it’s not your fault – both of us have been… hooked. Like I said, what I dread… is being… set in place.’

  ‘Already? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your flights are cancelled. We are to wait… inside the hotel. My uncle takes charge, tonight. He’s coming… to offer us a deal. How to get back your passports and exit visas.’

  Muezzin calls drift uselessly over the forest of minarets and satellite dishes, leaving behind a mournful quietness.

  ‘Walter – can he leave with Zaida?’

  They burrow their eyes into each other.

  ‘Walter, yes. Zaida, no, not yet.’

  Ian’s fingers tighten around the armrest in an effort to prevent himself from lashing at Khalid’s throat.

  ‘Christ! Why not?’

  Long pause.

  ‘I can’t cross Uncle Omar. I wish I could.’

  ‘What sort of a deal is it?’

  ‘They won’t return any exit documents unless I guarantee to be a good boy in the future.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Pass on information on underground groups they’ll name when it suits them. As long as Zaida remains in Syria, they can blackmail me. Accuse me of withholding vital information. Or else… something might happen to her.’

  ‘And if you accept?’

  ‘You and Walter are free to leave. You’ll get the flight tickets and passports at the airport.’

  Behind the words Ian sees the cruel smiles which make Aleppo a death trap for Khalid and for himself, the nauseating Brit.

  – 18 –

  Opening Gambits

  Before settling for the night, Zaida is told that Uncle Ian’s passport has been lost and unless it is found in a couple of days there will be a delay in their departure. That’s OK then! That’s why she was sent off to the souk with Walid earlier on; why her father was short with her.

  She is on her own, back in her room, which is huge with horrible twin beds. Alien. Like a tomb. Cluttered with black furniture, heavy tapestries and curtains covering the doors. It is dark, night and day. And there is no computer, only the air-con command to play with. Hot or cold air blows into her hair.

  She disliked being fobbed off with the chauffeur who treated her like a stupid girl not understanding Syrian pounds – but she does now. He sniggered at shop windows showing models wearing naughty bras and knickers but she had covered her hair and shoulders with a shawl without being told to, out of respect. She can tell he isn’t a nice man; he gives dirty looks and shouts at you in Arabic. He has bad breath, a bad aura.

  She
hated him pulling her out of the shop, shaking her like a puppy! Hadn’t she the right to take time buying jewellery for her mother? Later she watched him telling fibs on his mobile, smirking and checking no-one was listening over his shoulder. His eyebrows stick to each other in the middle. And the left little finger is missing. He got shot! Does her father know? He wears big gold rings on seven fingers. She can tell the police if he disappears. That can happen to chauffeurs in Syria. Maybe that’s what happened to Aunt Seema. “You’ve got her beautiful face” – it’s awful! She’s dead!

  She knows how to behave in Syria. Like the other girls of her age, she has to put up with a bra. It’s no fun. Conscious of it sticking out, she took care to walk behind the chauffeur, feeling cross with her father for sending her out alone with this man.

  There was another upsetting incident. After showing the few dance steps she was learning, a male relative exclaimed in English to her dad, ‘Let’s engage her to my son! She’s old enough!’ They laughed, her father nodding. Of course, a nod doesn’t always mean yes, but she isn’t sure anymore. There is so much she doesn’t understand and there is nobody she can talk to. In Hama it got worse when her other relatives, young and chatty, played with her, patting her cheeks or dressing her up for hours as an Arab doll, forcing cotton pads onto her. She had no clue as to what they were giggling about. Sure they called her names. But she didn’t text her mother about it.

  She allows herself a moment’s longing for home. They let her down by not taking her to Tadmor, that’s what Palmyra is called – it has two meanings in Syrian Arabic, ‘the bride of the desert’ or ‘dates’. She’d love to see the temples. And tonight they have been rude, entertaining themselves upstairs, too busy to talk to her down in the courtyard. Her mum would never cut her out for the whole evening! And without being told anything, she would see her daughter’s tummy is hurting. And after the treatment, the two of them would give each other cuddles and talk about women’s things.

  She ignores the television. At Grandad’s, she had her fill of endless soaps; and in the end, very few new words to show for it.

  She switches on a standard lamp by the mirror crowning the bulky dressing table, but no, she’d rather not examine her breasts tonight, she isn’t in the mood. In fitful movements, she undresses fast to slip into the cream pyjama top and shorts that her granny had packed for her, and at the thought she stifles a few tears.

  In the middle of the night, she is woken up by fierce shouting coming from the yard and, a few minutes later, by heavy footsteps marching along the corridor to her father’s room next door. Uncle Omar’s face is terrifying. Cut by scars as big as a hand! She was warned of his late coming to discuss some confidential business.

  There are quite a few people in the room. Someone is getting angry and she can pick out her father calming the man down. She could get up, open the door and shout like Max in that children’s book roaring to the wild beasts – ‘Shut up!’ But she’s too old, that’d bring shame on her. She shivers; something terrible is happening, she doesn’t want to know Uncle Omar’s secret, she’s only a little girl. Grandad Abdul took them to the… mausoleum, a new word meaning a grave for important Muslims. She saw what he did not see: the place, tucked away from the main streets, was shabby – no flowers, no grass, no photos, paving stones cracked or missing. He bent down at eye level, squeezing her hands too hard, speaking slowly. ‘When you’re old enough, we’ll tell you our secrets, our family history, our wars. Will you like that?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, but she won’t want to grow up that much, if it means carrying secrets that make you angry and memories that are sad and scary. She doesn’t want to be told anything about Aunt Seema. She hates it.

  And there is the BIG question. Adults can tell Allah from God but she can’t, not yet. It is a worry that makes her itch all over. Inside the mosque, she believes in Allah but once she is out she is far less sure.

  Her tummy is rumbling and aching. What to do? Mouth closed, she takes a few deep breaths, as her mother had shown her, to calm stomach pains; she fills her chest again and holds the air in, then with caution she releases a thin flow. She is making a sacred promise. If her mum and dad are back together, that’d be cool – believing in Allah or God, she doesn’t mind which.

  If the cramps get worse it is a punishment for telling lies. To her father, she pretended she was sending long emails home from that internet café. And to her mother, on the phone, a few times she overdid it, going on about how much she’d like to stay and why-won’t-you-listen, that sort of crap. In truth, she isn’t that sure herself anymore. Let another girl with proper periods get engaged to that man’s son – not me!

  There is more shouting from next door! Rattled again, she buries her head under two pillows to block it out. Slowly her favourite vision fills her mind: she is sixteen in a bridesmaid’s dress, with make-up and lipstick, stepping down the front steps of Saint Stephen’s church. Her two families are cheering for the cameras. Her mum and dad are kissing.

  The images sink into her every cell, reconciling her with her future. The ache gone, she curls up on her side, falling into a foetal sleep undisturbed by the occasional searchlight sweeping across the windows. Security is being reinforced at Hotel Al-Rais.

  When Ian wakes up, the Western-dressed guard, a slim stinking ferret with a Saddam Hussein moustache, has retreated outside the door of his room. Fearful that a device might have been planted while he was asleep, he remains silent when the hotel attendant collecting the copious breakfast he hardly touched engages in Pidgin English.

  Walter has not been in this morning. Nor Khalid. His pulses are wild. He is left to stew on his own. He throws himself on the bed, raving and howling his impotence into the brocaded cushions. How he hates the sordid deals, shoddy compromises, maimed bodies discovered in dumps in the early morning.

  Biting his lower lip, he turns onto his back, resentful of the extravagant ceiling, aching to get away from the mocking décor. He will be interrogated while being well-fed between sessions. There will be repeated questions about the Al-Sayeds’ involvement with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch when they lived in Britain – material that Military Intelligence is likely to know about already. And their supposed connections to radical Syrian intellectuals, paid by the West. Or, even more insane, their affiliation with Muslim Brotherhood Jihadists in Hama, financed by Saudi Arabia.

  He will say nothing, explain nothing, just wipe off spit and sarcasm with the aloofness of a beggar. That won’t do. With glee they will deride him, stamp on the gay man, a traitor by nature, a repulsive detritus. They will take him where no man wants to go.

  Only the Al-Sayeds interest them.

  How long will they burn his flesh and blow his mind, hour after hour mocking him for having stepped outside the brotherhood of men, unhurried, confident he too will come to loathe himself? How long the crucifixion before he turns their allegations into truths? The birthday book ended with an eagle sweeping over a grave! Whose grave? The question writhes in his stomach. Bloated with terror, he searches for the few needles left from the pack he last used for his father. He braces himself at the gleam of the steel. Stripped to the waist, he props himself up on the bed, forefinger following the meridian from the perineum up the belly, right in the middle, underneath the rib cage. Leave that needle in for ten minutes. Fumble for a point about one inch either side of the median line that should also calm the nausea if he finds the right spot. Lying still, he wills the needles to work.

  There must be ways of not betraying a family he respects and loves.

  Father. Everything rests on him.

  Walter must find a way to contact Gwen and Clint; ask them to alert Human Rights Watch, the Western media, the embassies, The Vancouver Sun. Marianne. Everyone. Get petitions off the ground, all energies focused on Syria.

  They have to make up plans, however shaky. Cultivate hope. Let it grow, or the thugs will bury him as well as Khalid und
er layers of deception and despair.

  The same day, a gang of people in civil dress have taken over the reception rooms, top terraces and inner courtyard of the Al-Rais Hotel without giving any sign to the punters that something sinister is unfolding on the third floor.

  Passports and other papers left at the reception by the Franklins and the Al-Sayeds have been confiscated, together with flight tickets. The service is faultless. Anyone wishing to complain has been advised to deposit their request at the General Information Commission housed in the Military Academy, close to the Republican palace.

  Day and night, the bedroom door is being guarded by security people, who Khalid addresses with courtesy even when Omar Al-Sayed is let in at midnight to kick off a fateful row. Putting his hands on Khalid’s shoulders to keep him seated on the bed, he towers over him.

  ‘Only you, Khalid, can release that fool of yours.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By helping us trace and arrest the people you’ve been conspiring with, people who want to destroy our country.’

  ‘Nonsense! I deny that – this is an outrageous lie!’

  ‘Why did you return to Hama? To develop contacts with dangerous people, didn’t you, to avenge yourself for those terrible nights?’ Scorn swelling the veins of his neck, he glares at Khalid, ready to grasp him by the collar at the merest sign of defiance. Seeing the kid paralysed, the bully smiles. ‘Don’t be a damned fool! I’m your uncle and you’d better listen.’ During his frequent visits to Hama, Khalid was seen meeting children of the disappeared. Officer Walid Hadidi filmed them together two months ago beside the family tombs. ‘The Minister, the merciful, has protected our families and now demands names. Mustapha Al-Dari orders you to fight the enemy within.’

  ‘Who? Every Syrian who isn’t a Ba’athist member? You will dishonour Syria again with more blood.’

  ‘Ian will be allowed to leave immediately. Not Zaida. Keeping her here will make you talk. In three months, you both leave – if the traitors are under lock and key. Syria’s a modern secular country like any other. But with Islamist madmen to deal with.’