Bolbol got up when he saw Hussein had at last run out of steam. He wanted to make the peril of their enforced idleness clear, to explain the labyrinth he had foreseen them all entering, had foreseen overwhelming them, but he changed his mind when he saw that his brother, even half asleep, was still blathering about tires. Bolbol went up to the cell door instead and caught the eye of the agent he’d spoken with earlier, miming that he wanted another word. The agent opened the cell door, and Bolbol reminded him of their agreement; the agent promised that everything would be all right if they raised the sum from twenty to thirty thousand. Bolbol said this was fine, but explained that they weren’t from a well-off family and that this sum was all they had in the world. The agent returned Bolbol to the cell and asked him to stay close to the door.
Bolbol sat next to Hussein and explained everything to him. Hussein was taken aback; he’d secretly been hoping that the body’s being impounded by the police might actually prove the best possible outcome—saving the family from who knew what dangers might still await them on their trip. Bolbol steeled himself to deliver the news that they could of course still be detained as hostages… Hussein scratched his head and found himself let down by his memory once again; no anecdote or saying seemed entirely germane to their situation. He pushed the question to one side and said that if the Mukhabarat had taken the corpse into custody, they would have to dispose of it themselves. They could burn it or sell the organs or throw it into a mass grave—what would the dead person care, after all? Bolbol was astonished. He felt his brother’s burgeoning fear deeply, not to mention Hussein’s ever-present wish to take revenge on their father one way or another. In Bolbol’s opinion, though, contrary to Hussein’s, losing the body to the security forces would plunge the family into a mire from which they’d never be able to extricate themselves—a trap in which details would get so tangled they would never figure out what had happened to them. Hussein agreed to leave Bolbol to sort everything out, and although Bolbol felt entirely impotent, he was less afraid at this moment than at any other time in his life.
An hour later, the same agent opened the door and pushed a new prisoner inside. Bolbol reminded him of their situation and their agreement, and the agent asked him to come outside. The money changed hands discreetly, after which the agent returned to the cell and pointed at Hussein and Fatima and told them to stand up and leave at once. He reminded them that they still needed to send the death certificate to the civil-records office and make sure their father was struck off the list of wanted criminals.
A few minutes later, they were waiting outside the officer’s room. The agent who had pocketed their money opened the door for them and disappeared, leaving them to his superior, who proceeded to address them at length on the latest news of their case. He informed the family that his commanding officer had asked him to confirm the death of the criminal personally, and thereby close the file and allow his family to bury him. All three siblings stood in front of him politely and attentively as he spoke; they praised the kind heart of the commander, who had looked on their situation with a sympathetic eye and refrained from requiring that the body be sent to a medical committee to verify what was obviously true. After refusing to provide them with an official document verifying that the warrant for their father had been canceled, which would have prevented other checkpoints from holding and questioning them yet again, the officer concluded his short speech and said that their way would be clear after this checkpoint; their problems would lie with the checkpoints set up by the terrorists nearer to Aleppo. The officer said the word “terrorists” most emphatically, then indicated with a brief wave of his hand that they should leave before he changed his mind, or anyway before a telegram arrived demanding that the corpse be taken back into custody. In such a case, there would be no alternative but to obey orders. One gesture from the commander, he repeated, and their lives would once again be turned into a living hell.
It wasn’t the first time they had been made to stand attentively in front of such exhortations, but it was certainly the first time they’d been so close to sliding into the labyrinth. Bolbol had by no means been confident of the outcome of all his negotiations, so he was overjoyed when the minibus was allowed to leave the checkpoint, and the whole complex soon lay some distance behind them. He felt he’d been very close to the ultimate moment—the moment he had avoided for four years. He had felt this same giddiness before, whenever he escaped arrest for a crime he hadn’t committed. On those occasions, his identity card with its incriminating birthplace had been the principal problem; now, the body of his father, the wanted man, had almost drowned them all.
Evening brought back all their fear and confusion, however. Hussein was offended now that Bolbol had struck the deal alone. He considered it irresponsible for an amateur like him to have handled a case as grave as theirs—it ought to have called for his own expert negotiation and people-reading skills. He managed not to complain about it and made do with stating that they had to think of where they would spend the night, adding a casual comment that thirty thousand liras was pretty steep just to ensure safe conduct for a shipment of smuggled goods. Bolbol was afraid that Hussein would conclude by saying that their father wasn’t worth this sum when he was alive, so how could he be worth it dead? Really the price should have dropped by at least three quarters, as with selling used shoes.
Hussein didn’t say it—but neither could he keep quiet. In fact, he soon suggested that they toss the body out on the roadside, asking his brother and sister how confident they were that they would pass other checkpoints without trouble. They would be right back where they started if the next checkpoint agents discovered that their father was a wanted man. He added that the dogs were eating plenty of bodies nowadays, so what difference did it make? Why didn’t they just leave it or bury it anywhere and go back to Damascus?
Bolbol could tell that Hussein wasn’t joking this time; he wanted an answer, wanted his brother and sister to make a decision. Bolbol wanted to ignore him, but suddenly a great strength welled up inside him, and he declared he wouldn’t abandon his father’s body before his last wish was carried out. Fatima agreed and asked Hussein to speed up, even though it would be impossible for them to arrive at Anabiya that night in any case. The highway came to an end a few kilometers before Homs, and they would have to use the side roads, which were dangerous at night; no rational being would even consider traveling them in the company of a dead man.
Whenever Bolbol saw trucks crossing checkpoints with ease, he wished his father’s body would turn into a sack of cumin; it was hard to see any downside to such a transformation—in fact, reaching a state of mutual understanding with a sack of cumin would be easier and far less dangerous. He deeply regretted promising his father to do as he’d asked. Forget about changing Abdel Latif into a sack of cumin—Bolbol would have been content to see himself transformed into a man with a little less sympathy.