I walk. Breathe. I’m not dead yet.
The corridor is long and wide. It’s an open field compared to the cell I share with twenty-five other prisoners.
Saydnaya is hell. I’ve haven’t been here long, but long enough to have been robbed of any hope. No one gets out of this place alive. Every day is an ordeal. The interrogations, the torture, the sadism of the guards. It’s all just a delay tactic: at the far end of the tunnel, I’m well aware, death awaits me. It will be a release.
We descend into the cellar. As we pass the torture chambers, I hear cries of pain from behind their heavy doors. Or perhaps that’s just my imagination.
“In here!”
The guard kicks me into a room I haven’t yet seen. A dimly lit space that stinks of sweat and piss. A porno film is playing on a big white screen. The volume is cranked up loud. Eight prisoners are being forced to watch the movie. If any of them dares to look away, a guard smashes him in the ribs with a metal baton.
Moaning.
Screaming.
And above all else, the amplified panting of the copulating couple on the screen.
“Take your clothes off!”
The man who issues this command is big, broad, and in his midfifties. He has a bushy mustache. He approaches me, limping on one leg.
“Clothes off!”
He slaps me across the face with the back of his hand.
I take my clothes off. The guards watch, grinning. They make sarcastic comments about my body. One of them taps my butt with his baton.
“Nice ass,” he says.
The man with the mustache shows me where to stand, facing the screen, my legs pressed up against a massive oak table. Two leather restraints are nailed to its surface, and he signals me to lay my hands on the leather. The straps are buckled tight, fixing me in place.
“Spread your legs!” the mustache orders. Then he turns to the prisoners behind me. “Gentlemen,” he says — and, to judge by the scream, one of them takes another blow to the ribs — “be my guest!”
Dared al-Saeed walked into the departure hall of JFK’s Terminal 4 and looked around. Four years ago, this was where he had arrived. Since that day, he hadn’t flown again. The thought of spending hours in the enclosed cabin of a plane filled with other passengers made him break out in a cold sweat.
He had long debated whether or not to accept the invitation to present at the medical conference. The location was what finally convinced him: Amsterdam. As a young student, he and his brother Mustafa had visited the city. The Red-Light District, the pot shops, the bars, the canals, the blond girls lying on the grass in the Vondelpark with their long bare legs. Amsterdam had been a hallucinatory experience for them both.
And now Mustafa was dead.
As were four hundred thousand of their countrymen.
While he, Dared, had survived.
He felt terribly guilty.
This trip would be a testament to his brother’s memory. And at the same time, it would give him the opportunity to overcome his fear of flying.
He checked in, followed the signs to passport control. The new president had complained about leaky borders and promised that — as soon as he moved into the White House — they would be dramatically tightened. But Dared didn’t notice much of a difference. No gray-suited men with earpieces, no police, no armed soldiers.
The immigration officer was a rosy-cheeked white man. Dared handed over his passport and green card. As the man examined the documents, Dared saw him frown for just a moment. Dared al-Saeed, born December 10, 1988, in Damascus, Syria. Permanent resident since 2015.
“I hope you thanked our previous president for this,” the agent remarked, returning the passport and laminated card. “Have a good trip.”
“Thank you,” Dared smiled in return.
Not everyone in the United States had lost their minds.
He checked the departure board and found that his flight, KL 6070, would leave from gate B32. There was a long line at the La Brea Bakery. His stomach clenched, and he suddenly felt dizzy. A panic attack. No coffee, then, and no sandwich. All these people, all this hustle and bustle. He couldn’t handle it. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Leaving the crowd behind, he crossed to his gate. He found a quiet place to sit, slid his laptop from his carry-on, and settled in to go over his presentation yet again. Slowly, he felt himself relax.
A voice on the PA eventually announced his flight.
It was just after four. Dared looked up. There weren’t many people in line at the gate. Aboard the Boeing, he found his window seat. There was no one else in his row. As the aircraft taxied out to the runway and the flight attendants delivered their safety instructions, he set his watch ahead to Central European Time.
The engines fired up, and the plane gained speed. Dared felt himself pressed back in his seat. There was no way out of it now — seven hours in the air. He wondered if he should take one Ambien or two.
“Where is your brother?”
I sit on a wooden chair. My hands are cuffed behind my back, my ankles bound to the legs of the chair with plastic zip ties. Except for a filthy pair of boxers, I am naked. I don’t care. After four months in Saydnaya, I have left all shame far behind.
“Where is your brother?”
The man with the mustache punches me in the face. I hear the cartilage in my nose break.
“Answer me!”
His eagle eyes glitter dangerously.
By now, I know his name: Karim al-Zaliq. Because of his strength and temperament, everyone in the red building calls him Thur — the Bull.
“If you don’t tell me where we can find your brother, I’ll knock your teeth out.” There are brass knuckles on his clenched right fist, and, grinning, he brandishes them before me.
I’ve seen Thur knock more than one man’s teeth out. It’s one of his specialties. Eventually it will be my turn; it’s just a question of time.
“Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“He’s not at his home.”
“Maybe he left Damascus.”
“For where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are his friends hiding him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who are his friends?”
“I don’t know his friends.”
“You’re lying.”
“My brother’s four years older than me. We—”
“You lie!”
When he cocks his arm, I close my eyes and wait for the blow.
Do it, I think. Kill me.
“You so-called rebels are all the same!” Thur is shouting now. “Cowards, all of you! You’ll never beat us!” He turns to the waiting guards. “Cut his legs free.”
Before I know what’s happening, they dump me into the bathtub that stands in a corner of the cell. I don’t weigh anything anymore. I haven’t had a real meal in weeks; I have the runs all the time. I look like the other prisoners, like a dead man.
The water in the tub is a yellowish brown and smells like piss and shit. I try to breathe through my mouth and squeeze my nostrils shut. I close my eyes.
“So.” It’s Thur’s voice. “Now tell me where your brother is.”
“I don’t know.”
“All right then.”
One of the guards holds my ankles and another shoves my head under the vile water.
I hold my breath.
Don’t think, I order myself. If I think, I’ll go mad.
The hands that hold me under release their pressure. Gasping for breath, I emerge from the filth.
“Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know. I swear—”
The hands push me down again. Longer, this time. I can’t hold my breath anymore. I swallow. The sludge runs down my throat, into my lungs. Much more of this and I’ll drown.