And in one of the calmer moments of that stormy night in the minibus, it occurred to Bolbol that, as for all citizens, his father’s full record would still be in the hands of the Mukhabarat. Bolbol was assailed by a peculiar curiosity. He wished he could obtain those pages and read over them: what they said about Abdel Latif, how it had been more than forty years since he first arrived in S, that small town near Damascus, and then what they had written on the final pages. Thinking about these things distracted him from telling his brother and sister about Nevine, which he’d been meaning to do. It also prevented him from replying to Hussein, who had again worked himself into a rage over their stupidity for not getting rid of the body long before now.
Fatima spoke up to inform her brothers that the corpse was splitting apart. Bolbol immediately tried to change the subject, as if what she had said was of no concern. He wasn’t in the least bit interested in dwelling on the state of the body. He’d always known that keeping it intact and in the same state as when they left the hospital two days earlier was simply impossible. And when Fatima took it upon herself—out of her sense of duty, Bolbol supposed—to lift the blanket off of the corpse and reveal the nightmare underneath, which the brothers could only have guessed at, Bolbol wished she would just drop dead as well. The dead turn to shit. And even if Abdel Latif’s corpse had literally turned to shit, they still wouldn’t be able to just wipe him away. Their memories were like acid inside them, boring eternally down into their depths and covering their hearts with pockmarks—just as the sight of Layla burning like a corncob ate at Abdel Latif’s heart until the day he died.
Fatima wouldn’t leave well enough alone. She kept drawing her brothers’ attention to the ragged body, from which a string of pus had started to trickle from a tear. Hussein stopped the minibus, turned to Fatima, and shouted angrily, “Let it! Let it turn to shit!” He cursed his father and his family and glared furiously at Bolbol, who wouldn’t meet his eye. Bolbol was afraid he wouldn’t be able to bear what Hussein would say next. For some time now, he’d been glowering at Bolbol in the rearview mirror; they hadn’t expected to pass another night on the move. Silent tears were, as usual, dripping down Fatima’s cheeks, and a peculiar compulsion made Bolbol now decide that he wouldn’t go on allowing Hussein to behave however he liked toward them. Bolbol would carry out his father’s wish even if he had to carry him to Anabiya himself. He felt greatly comforted by this decision, but he kept silent and wouldn’t respond to Hussein’s provocation.
Images of their childhood had besieged them ever since leaving Damascus, of course, but now they were positively suffocating Bolbol. They weren’t all bad, but with the passage of time, those innocent moments had been made strange. Neither he nor Hussein could save the other; they were two sides of the same coin: Hussein was the face of bravery and buffoonery, and Bolbol of cowardice and capitulation. Both had lost the battle with life. Now all three siblings were like strangers to this corpse that, however much it had lost, still retained the advantage of being able to lie there without caring.
The drumming of the pouring rain was hammering their nerves. Twenty kilometers later the optimism they had felt at leaving the previous checkpoint finally ran out. They were back in the unknown. A group of cars overtook them, speeding erratically along the road. The armed men within had harsh faces and long beards. Their dark complexions made them look like foreigners; only one was fair, with braided hair and a half-witted expression. The siblings slowed down as they neared the cars, looked at the men curiously, and then went on their way. Hussein didn’t bother to hide the fact that they were utterly lost. A few lights appeared in the distance, and Hussein said they needed to stop and spend the night in the nearest village. Their nerves couldn’t take any more.
They approached a weak light. A man similar to the men they had seen in the cars waved his flashlight at them to stop, and Hussein rolled down his window. The armed man beckoned at him to slowly approach what appeared to be yet another checkpoint. His accent was peculiar, certainly not Syrian. Hussein told his siblings that the man must be Chechen and added that he knew the type from having escorted so many Russian dancers. They reached the checkpoint and waited. Their hearts were thudding almost out of their chests, and Bolbol felt he could almost hear them. A sniper could easily pick them off here. The wait was enough to liquefy anyone’s backbone. Who knew what they’d landed themselves in this time. After more than half an hour another vehicle straying through the night stopped behind them. They felt safer when they saw that the three young men inside were civilians like themselves. Hussein wanted to ask them where they were going; talking to strangers would be a good way to make them all feel calmer. Hussein lit his third cigarette and opened the door of the minibus and immediately a disembodied voice ordered him to get back in the vehicle. A few minutes later they were approached by a man wearing black clothes and a mask. He asked for their identity cards in faltering Arabic and caught sight of the body before they’d managed to describe the purpose of their journey. Hussein launched into a lengthy explanation at once. The man spoke into his handheld radio, then pulled the blanket off the corpse. The body had changed again, was covered with lacerations and was oozing pus all over. Its stench billowed out and clogged every nose. Three armed men headed over, got in, and ordered Hussein to drive to the prince’s villa at the edge of a nearby village, in the middle of a field, heavily guarded by more masked men. There, they all disembarked and went into the building.
The smell of incense wafted through the entrance hall where they stood, waiting for permission to meet with the prince. The masked guards didn’t say a word, as if they were made of wood. Fatima asked them to show her where the bathroom was, and neither their faces nor their fingers, still resting on the triggers of their rifles, moved. Hussein tried to show off his military knowledge and said they were Dushka machine guns, but one glance from a guard was enough to shut him up. They heard a murmur behind a huge door. The only cheering thing about their situation was that the room was very well heated. Luxury was evident in every detail of the villa. Soon the murmurs got closer and a group of Bedouin men emerged from behind the door, thanking the prince and wishing him long life.
After a few more minutes a tall man opened the door for them. It was a kingdom of masks, no faces at all, no details, and no features. Fatima was the most afraid; she hastily adjusted her head covering so it concealed half her face as well as her hair. In her shabby clothes she looked like a poor woman. Exhaustion from the journey showed clearly on the siblings’ faces, as if they had traveled five thousand kilometers rather than two hundred and fifty, a journey that ought to have taken two and a half hours at most.
Bolbol was astonished to see Fatima kneel down to greet the prince in imitation of the actresses in historical dramas. The prince, who was also masked and wearing an embroidered robe in a sort of Abbasid style, asked them their business. His tone betrayed his irritation, and from his ponderous accent they guessed he was Afghan or Chechen. One of the guards entered, gave them back their identity cards, whispered something in the commander’s ear, and left. Nonchalantly, and in a stately formal Arabic that almost made Bolbol burst out laughing, Hussein stated briefly that they needed permission to proceed so they could get on with burying their father’s body before it rotted away entirely. Hussein had been surprised at the prince’s question; surely he must know the rules governing burial of the dead according to Sharia? Hussein looked at Bolbol for help, but Bolbol had nothing to say, only telling himself that the insults would never end; the children of the revolution weren’t everywhere as his father had said. Here the three of them were, in a strange land, surrounded by foreigners, and they had no idea why they weren’t being allowed to bury their father’s body.