A few metres away a man was standing outside his door, drying his hands on a towel. When he saw the truck he called to someone in the house. A woman joined him, barefoot, and they both looked at the truck. Farid would have liked to call out to them, but he knew it was useless.
After a while they went on. The truck drove out of the city and set off north. Farid knew this road; it was the way to Mala. Soon, however, the driver turned right. One man knew this route. “It’s the way to Gahan,” he whispered, “Gahan.” Most of the prisoners were relieved that they were not bound for Tad, but their relief was of short duration.
About an hour later the truck stopped. An NCO opened the tailgate and told the prisoners to get out and squat on the ground.
They were in the middle of the steppes. The sight of the guards made Farid feel sick. They stood in two rows, forming a corridor to the camp gate, and they did not carry weapons, but were armed with heavy branches and stout twigs.
The guards laughed. Farid desperately looked for a face containing at least some spark of humanity, but they all wore the same sadistic grin. The prisoners were told to go down the corridor two by two to the gate, where a high-ranking officer, flanked by two others, sat at a large table. The first two prisoners started walking past the rows of soldiers, and the branches and twigs whipped down on them. Anyone who fell was beaten even harder. One of the NCOs kept calling out, “Next two!”
Many of the prisoners collapsed, blocking the way for the men coming after them. The guards rained blows down more and more harshly.
Farid’s first blow hit him when he had gone one-third of the way. He stumbled over another prisoner, but quickly got up and ran on towards the table. More blows kept striking him, and at last he fell to the ground. The prisoners were leaping back and forth as if in a wild dance, coming together and scattering again. Farid’s back was burning from the blows. His hands, arms, and knees were grazed by the gravel.
When they had all reached the gate they had to undress. Many of the guards laughed, grabbed their own balls, and pointed at the prisoners’ backsides.
Human beings are repulsive, thought Farid at the sight of them. Dirty as the guards themselves were, stained and scarred, they were laughing at the prisoners. One of the officers at the table grinned cynically and said, “Those aren’t noble Syrians, they’re American Indians.” And he pointed to the coloured stains on them.
Two of the camp staff shaved the newcomers’ heads in turn, doing it so brutally that many of them bled. One prisoner cried like a child, calling out, “Mama, Mama, I need you, Mama!”
It was heart-rending. Even the soldiers stared in bewilderment at the man, who must have been sixty. Other prisoners suddenly began weeping too. The officers laughed at the crazy old man, and the guards obediently joined in their derision.
A pharmacist who was a cultural functionary of the Muslim Brotherhood whispered incredulously, “This can’t be true. We’re not in Syria, we’ve been abducted and taken to Israel. It’s not possible for us to be treated like this in our own country. I swear by Allah, these are unbelievers! How could Muslims torment their brothers in the faith like this?”
A blow struck him in the face, and he fell silent. Yet again, the officers asked each prisoner whether he was ready to repent and sign the statement. Three men agreed to sign. One called out aloud, “Forgive me, comrades, I can’t take any more of this.” The other prisoners stood there in silence with their heads bent. They were driven through the gate into the camp, naked and with their heads shaved.
Suddenly they heard the old man who had been crying and calling out for his mother laugh. “Is the party still going on?” he kept calling. Soon after that he and the three repentant sinners were sent back to Damascus in a minibus. A rumour spread among the prisoners that they were taking him to the al-Asfuriye mental hospital.
Farid and the other newcomers were alone in the yard now. A prisoner who seemed to have been here for some time pushed around a large handcart piled with items of grey camp clothing. When he reached the middle of the yard he tipped his cargo out on the ground and went slowly to a long building behind the huts. Farid suspected that it was the kitchen and clothing depot, since he saw smoke rising from the building. The man came back several times with his handcart and added more clothes to the heap.
That night, unable to sleep, Farid tried to think of Rana, but she appeared only briefly before his mind’s eye and then sank back into deep darkness. Laila escaped him too.
Then he saw his mother wiping away a tear, smiling awkwardly, and finally running away. He ran after her, she went faster and faster, at last he caught up and took her by the shoulders. She turned, and he was shocked to see a strange woman. He woke up, and all was quiet except for a barking dog.
Days in the camp, like the prisoners themselves, lost their names. By chance he heard one of the guards saying he was looking forward to tomorrow because he liked Thursdays best.
In another, distant life he used to study physical chemistry on a Thursday, then mechanics, then two hours of algebra with long, long equations, the calculation of differentials, and logarithm tables. They were difficult subjects. Farid loved organic chemistry, and given a choice would have spent all his time in the laboratory where, synthesizing new compounds, he felt like a real chemist.
They’ll be doing their finals around now. His friends wouldn’t be thinking of him but of the questions they’d be asked. It was strange; he himself had never wondered about the students who suddenly stopped coming to lectures.
He turned over and fell asleep.
197. Said
Next day he was taken to the camp commandant. Captain Hamdi was over fifty, and seemed too old for his low rank. He put the usual questions again. Farid despised them, and did not reply. But when the officer called him a son of a whore he lost the last vestiges of his fear.
“I am not the son of a whore. I suppose even your own mother isn’t a whore either.”
This answer paralysed the officer for a moment, but then something seemed to snap in him. He leaped for Farid, hitting out and kicking him. As if thousands of years of civilization had been extinguished, he was suddenly an ape crouching on the bound prisoner’s chest, letting out yelps.
When Farid came back to his senses he was in the hut, surrounded by prisoners who were all looking at him with concern. He could hardly move.
“What did they do to you, my boy?” asked an old man. His name was Said, and he had been arrested as a hostage in his son’s place, to induce the son, a Muslim Brother, to turn himself in. Said was over seventy and, surprisingly, a complete unbeliever, but now he was imprisoned for his son’s erroneous and extremist beliefs.
Farid couldn’t move his mouth, and his jaw hurt.
“Sometimes,” said Said, shaking his head, “there’s a blasphemous voice that speaks up inside me, addressing God. If you exist, God, it says, then turn the camp commandant into a rat in front of everyone. But it won’t happen.”
“You’re right, it is blasphemy,” a bearded young man shouted at him.
“To be honest, I don’t think much of any Almighty God who leaves his worshippers in the lurch to face such a miserable enemy,” replied Said, with a bitter laugh. He stroked Farid’s forehead.