The radio brought certainty: there was a curfew because of a revolt allegedly planned somewhere abroad. The population were to keep calm, and not go out of doors from ten in the evening until six in the morning without police permission.
A cool breeze heavily laden with the scent of lemon blossom blew over Damascus from Mount Qassiun. Farid picked up the telephone and called home. His mother answered at once.
“Have you heard? There’s a curfew,” he said.
“Where are you?” asked Claire, relieved to hear his voice.
“At Laila’s. I won’t be able to get home now. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Yes, stay the night with her. And give her my love, and tell her not to let you come home in the morning until you’ve had breakfast.” Claire laughed.
“Yes, Mama, anything else?”
“I want a kiss or I’ll come over to you and Laila, curfew or no curfew.”
Farid blew her a kiss down the telephone. “Good night, Mama, and tell your husband good night from me too.”
“He’s been snoring for ages. He has to go out early. His special permission is under his pillow,” she said, and hung up.
He slept on the couch opposite his cousin’s big bed. When he woke up, Laila had already made tea and prepared a modest breakfast.
“Good morning, dear fugitive,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. He was still drowsy. She dragged him after her to the bathroom like a stubborn donkey.
When Farid left the house he felt lighter than a feather. He thought this was the way you would feel in Paradise, if it existed.
“And now back to real life,” he told himself as he saw a military jeep racing past. He did not guess that hell was about to open its gates to him.
BOOK OF HELL I
If we are to respect the freedom of others we must first respect ourselves.
DAMASCUS, GAHAN, SPRING 1960 — AUTUMN 1961
194. Lilo
The bus made its way along Straight Street, which was crowded with carts, men carrying loads, pedestrians, and street sellers. People deep in conversation in the middle of the road refused to take any notice of it, and had to be alerted by loud hooting before they would step back at least far enough for it to squeeze past, but involuntarily brushing their clothes against it. The driver cursed and kept stepping hard on the brakes, because foolhardy pedestrians would insist on filling the gap that the bus had just left, and then crossed the street right in front of its hood.
Amidst this dangerous chaos, the bus driver still found time to satisfy his vanity by looking in the rear-view mirror and smiling at a woman who preened under his glance. He was a rather portly man in his mid-forties, with a safari shirt and a haircut that emphasized a certain similarity to Robert Mitchum, whose film The Night of the Hunter had just been showing for three months in Damascus. In the same way as James Dean had been the idol of young people and adolescents since Rebel Without A Cause, Robert Mitchum was the model for all bachelors who weren’t as young as they used to be. But however much oil they put on their hair, and even with their shirts unbuttoned to reveal their chest hair, they still oozed loneliness from every pore.
The driver leaned out of his small side window several times, cursing the crowd or hailing someone in a loud voice. It was obvious that he had been driving the Number 5 route through the Old Town for a long time.
Farid left the bus at the stop nearest to his street. As he got out he passed the time of day with Lilo, a rather mediocre barber with an astonishingly ready tongue. Even in the Middle East, that tongue was in a class of its own.
Lilo smiled at him and asked, with a wave of his hand, if he had time for a little tea. A samovar with its fragrant contents stood ready in his shop day in, day out, and when he had no customers Lilo would stand at the door inviting his friends and neighbours in for a cup. His motto was: a barber’s shop should always be full, that brings the curious in, and before they know it they’re leaving their hair behind, or at least a story.
Farid thanked him but declined, and was about to turn into his own street when he noticed two figures who looked like extra-terrestrials: a colossus two metres tall, and a man shaped like a cube with sides measuring one metre fifty. They were both standing four-square a few metres in front of him. The colossus swiftly stepped up to Farid and took him by the collar. “Era uoy diraf kathsum?” he asked. Farid didn’t understand a word of it. This evidently displeased the colossus, and he hit him full in the face with his left hand. The features of the attacker’s face suggested Egyptian nationality. “Nos fo a erohw! Uoy tnaw ot worhtrevo eht tnemnrevog? Nos fo a erohw!” Farid heard him roar, as the force of the blow sent him flying backward.
Leaden fear came over him, pressing down on his lungs. When he hit the ground he could scarcely breathe. Now the second, cubic figure came up to him. He approached as slowly as if he had to struggle against the earth’s force of attraction. Then he picked Farid up as if he weighed nothing at all, or had turned into a grasshopper, and dealt him another blow in the face. This one sent its victim flying right against the other nightmare figure. At this moment Farid saw the old tailor Marwan looking out of his shop, white with fear.
Finally Farid heard the sturdy man say to the colossus, “That’ll do for a start. Let’s go.”
They were speaking Arabic now, but with an Egyptian accent. Egyptians had made their way into the state everywhere since union with Egypt. Nothing humiliated a Syrian more than to be arrested by Egyptian secret service men in his own country.
The colossus took his victim by the collar for the second time and dragged him to a jeep parked nearby. Farid tried to get away, and halfway to the vehicle kicked the colossus in the balls. The kick struck home, and the man let go of him. But the second Egyptian reacted like lightning, slamming his fist into Farid’s stomach. As he fell, Farid saw Lilo standing there frozen with horror, his mouth open and his hands raised.
In his fury the colossus hit Farid in the kidneys, grabbed his prisoner’s right hand and swiftly twisted it behind his back, then did the same with his left hand. Farid felt handcuffs digging into his flesh. Now both men picked him up and went on dragging him towards the jeep. The neighbours were standing at many doors and windows, pale-faced, staring at the scene.
The vehicle raced through the eastern gate and turned left. Only now did screams emerge from the neighbours’ open mouths.
195. Interrogation
From outside, the building to which they drove in the middle of the modern part of Damascus looked like any ordinary office block. The only unusual thing was the strict guard kept on the entrance. The small plate at the entrance bore the words: Interior Ministry.
The jeep drove into an underground garage. The men took Farid one floor down, through a stairwell with neon lighting, and handed him over to two jailers, who opened a large iron door and pushed him through it.
Farid was in darkness, and an acrid stink rose to his nostrils. It reminded him of a hyena that a farmer had once put on show at the fair in a tiny cage, tormenting the animal with a sharp stick until it howled. The cage had been smeared with its excrement.
Very slowly, his eyes adjusted to the lighting conditions. A tiny crack between the door and the wall let a little light from the corridor into this room. Gradually Farid made out faces; there were over twenty children, adults, and old people shut up in here. They lay on the bare concrete floor, which was covered with faeces and urine.