This news report with all its false claims hurt, and when Farid cautiously asked Osmani how such lies had arisen, he laughed smugly. “Young Comrade, our class enemy tells lies all the time. We have to pick up their weapons and turn those weapons against them ourselves.”
Farid felt like throwing up. When Radio Earth Closet courteously corrected the newspaper report that evening, congratulating the functionary on his present state of good health, Osmani was furious. Immediately after that, it was clear that the witty radio reporter was being ostracized by the communist faithful in the camp. One man whispered to Farid, “I’d advise you to keep away from that viper. He’s a Trotskyite.” Such an accusation amounted to a death sentence in the Communist Party.
“And I would advise you,” replied Farid, “to use your brain and not your backside when you have something to say.”
Next day Farid himself was taken away and put in solitary confinement for two weeks. It may be mere coincidence, he thought, but if so then it was mere coincidence that he hated Basil Osmani.
203. The Chemistry of Isolation
Solitary confinement wore you down. The commandant had his most unpleasant soldiers and guards keeping watch on you. To overcome the absence of sound, which filled his brain with a strange void, Farid began constructing chemical reactions in his head. He carried out processes synthesizing simple elements into complex compounds, and once he had achieved a substance he gave it a name and then, three days later, tried dismantling it again step by step, until he was back with the simple elements.
The bucket for faeces and urine sometimes wasn’t taken away for days, on purpose, and then the isolation cell stank horribly. And in the midst of this wretchedness, Farid’s body asserted itself. When he closed his eyes he had erotic dreams. He wondered where his mind found these fantasies.
In the camp all days were alike, in solitary confinement even the time of day was lost in everlasting darkness, but it must have been mid-April when a soldier — a Damascene, judging by his accent — said that Farid’s friends (he meant the Russians) had sent a man called Gagarin flying around the earth. Farid didn’t understand. But the soldier was talkative that day, and told him about a party to which Osmani had invited all the officers, guards, and soldiers. They had enjoyed a great many delicacies from Damascus in his hut: roast meat, pistachios, fruit. But the soldier, he said, had drunk too much, and his head was still spinning. “Gagarin went around the world in a rocket, I do it with alcohol,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
When Farid was let out of solitary confinement again, the radio presenter had disappeared.
“He was deported to Tad after a quarrel with a guard,” old Said told him.
At that, and in front of all his fellow prisoners, Farid accused Osmani of being behind both his own solitary confinement and the radio presenter’s deportation. “A man who does a thing like that can never be a communist. You’re still the descendant of a feudal tribe. You don’t understand anything, you’re just playing the same old egotistic game as your father.”
Osmani reacted indignantly, but there was nothing he dared do. His comrades warned him that strong anti-communist feeling was abroad in the camp. Two days earlier there had been a brawl between Ba’athists and communists. Osmani knew it had been a mistake for the soldiers to join in and hit out only at the Ba’athists, on Captain Hamid’s instructions. The camp was split more deeply by this partisanship than it had ever been by torture or the work of informers.
For suddenly, in the eyes of many prisoners, the Ba’athists figured as martyrs and the communists as their persecutors. So Osmani held his tongue, even though Farid had spoken out so clearly.
204. Salto Vitale
By now relations between the Syrians and the Egyptians were soured beyond redemption. President Satlan reacted to the crisis with yet more dismissals of Syrians from all political and strategic posts in the Union, by arresting yet more opponents of the regime, and by strengthening the powers of the secret service. He appointed the head of the secret service, Abdulhamid Sarrag, to the post of vice-president and supreme administrator of the province of Syria.
That was the most stupid move the Egyptian could have made. The Syrian army carried out a coup on 28 September 1961 and declared union with Egypt at an end. People danced in the streets for joy, and sang songs against Satlan and his Syrian vice-president. Popular rejoicing lasted for days. The Syrians were glad to regain their independence, and did not guess that they were witnessing the burial of the dream of a united Arabia. They danced as if they were at a wedding instead.
All the Egyptians, now humiliated by Syria, were sent home, and many Syrian secret service men fled to Cairo to go underground there.
As for Elias Mushtak, he did as he had promised and lit thirty large candles to the Virgin Mary. All his life, he firmly believed that his prayers to Our Lady had been answered.
On 4 October, Farid and a thousand other political prisoners were freed. Buses took them to Hidjas rail station. Each of them was given a hundred lira for the journey, and a packet of bread, fruit, and three cans of meat and two of sardines as a gift. Farid gave his packet to an old beggar he didn’t know. The man had been sitting outside the station there for years.
Then he boarded the Number 5 bus to go home. Suddenly, when he got out at the stop near his street, the moment of his arrest came vividly back to him. Overcome by the memory, he stopped and looked around. All at once he saw Lilo standing at the door of his barber’s shop as he had been then. At the same moment Lilo saw him. The barber looked closely once again, to make sure, and then ran with outstretched arms to the neighbour who had been missing for so long.
Farid hugged him. When he let go of the man again, he realized that the barber was making throaty sounds of joy, but could utter no words. With difficulty, he read from his lips that Lilo had lost his voice soon after Farid’s arrest, and had been having treatment for it ever since.
Claire almost collapsed with joy and relief when Farid arrived home. She kept kissing and embracing him. Elias was still at the confectioner’s shop, and would be back later.
She wanted to tell the whole world that Farid was free at last, but just now Farid himself had only one wish: for a bath. He ran hot water into the big tub and lay in it. Gradually he felt the dirt of the camp coming off him. The water turned grey, and stank of mould and rust, oil and sweat. He let it run out and refilled the bathtub. This time he added some orange-blossom essence to the water. Only now did he begin to feel really all right again.
Josef was the first visitor. He rushed right into the bathroom, where Farid had just begun to dress, flung his arms around his friend, and kissed his eyes. When Farid freed himself from Josef’s embrace, he saw Matta standing in the doorway. “My brother,” he cried. “Thank God. Faride and I have been praying for you.” Farid embraced Matta, and then gently impelled both him and Josef out of the bathroom. “If you don’t leave me alone for a moment I’ll be standing here in my underwear until midnight,” he said, and saw Matta’s fiancée and his mother laughing in the inner courtyard.
Laila was very soon there too. Immediately after Claire called she had taken a taxi, urging the driver to hurry so much that he wished he had a siren and a flashing blue light. The moment she arrived she hugged Farid for a long time and kissed him without restraint. But she had to leave again almost at once, for she had a wedding dress to deliver that day. As she said goodbye, she whispered into Farid’s ear, “As soon as you can get your breath back, you must come and see me.” He nodded without a word.