Only the solitary confinement cells in the cellars of the monastery ruins at the east gate of the camp had been spared the technicians’ attentions.
Mahdi Said was an important man. He was regularly flown by helicopter to the Interior Ministry, and came back only a few days later. He seldom spent the night in the camp commandant’s service apartment. Even if it was late, his chauffeur usually drove him to Damascus and brought him back next morning.
Yet Mahdi Said — unlike Garasi — seemed to have a perfect team. Not only was the atmosphere among the officers quiet and amicable, but all went to plan even when the commandant wasn’t there.
271. The Cold Hand of Fear
It was two weeks before the first prisoners were fetched for interrogation. They were two men from Hut 5. Three hours later only one of them was brought back, a Muslim Brother called Sabah Kasem. What happened to the other man no one knew. He never reappeared. The commandant, unlike his predecessor, was a devout Muslim, but rejected the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood. Intellectually he was of a completely different calibre from that brutal drunk Garasi. “He knew my life from the records as well as if he’d grown up with me,” said the interrogated prisoner. But he also said that Mahdi Said had presented him with the choice between a slow death and re-education to make him a good citizen. He wouldn’t have to reject his faith or sign some theatrical piece of paper, just show that he wanted to be a patriot. The first step in re-education, said the commandant, was total obedience. It was up to the detainees to cooperate, and when Sabah refused to cooperate in any way with the camp authorities the new commandant hadn’t even seemed angry, just told him to go away and think about it. “But,” added Sabah, “there was more of a threat in those words than in all Garasi’s hysterics. That’s why I’m contemplating giving up and going back to real life, martyr or not. A hot shower, a water-pipe to smoke in my courtyard at home, sitting with my children among my pots of basil and rose trees — that’s my idea of Paradise.” But his voice betrayed great fear as well as this modest hope. The detainees tried to soothe him, but that fear already had his heart in its cold hand.
Next day Sabah called for one of the guards and asked him to tell the commandant he wanted to be a good citizen. Soon after that he was taken away and disappeared for ever. The Muslim Brothers in the camp cursed him.
About ten prisoners had to go for interrogation every day. Some were treated gently, others brutally tortured. The torture victims spoke of a cold-blooded Mahdi Said who always stayed in the background and, unlike Garasi, didn’t get his own hands dirty. He strolled back and forth between the rooms where the prisoners were being interrogated and tortured, gave orders in a whisper, and then went away again. He himself interrogated only the most important detainees.
Farid found it hard to come to terms with all this. The defeat of the prisoners was absolute. The world had forgotten them again, and the regime didn’t mind about its poor reputation. The government in Damascus was even proud of it, saying it showed how revolutionary it was, and sure enough, the media of the socialist countries repeated this nonsense as if paid to do so by the state.
Microphones and presumably tiny cameras were installed everywhere, robbing the detainees of their courage. One day a new rumour went around: Mahdi Said personally lent his torturers a hand in only one thing, giving injections. No one knew the details. Some said that prisoners were injected with a truth serum, others mentioned pentothal, barbiturates, and other psychotropic drugs. Colonel Badran, they claimed, had ordered these things from East Berlin.
It was 17 April, Syrian Independence Day. The loudspeakers in the courtyard blared out the national anthem and Austrian marching music. Now and then telegrams from all over the world to President Amran were read out. But unlike his predecessor, Mahdi Said did not make the prisoners sing songs of praise to the President. He wasn’t celebrating; even on Independence Day he came back from Damascus by helicopter early in the morning and went through his daily quota of ten prisoners. The journalist Ali Abusaid, who with Farid had carried through the strikers’ demands, whispered to his partner of the time that many detainees were being “turned” during interrogation and then sent back to the huts. As good citizens of new standing they had to show their loyalty by spreading false information, recruiting more men to collaborate with the secret service, and sniffing out troublemakers.
And Ali Abusaid had another tale to tell. He had recognized one of the new guards as his youngest cousin, a nasty piece of work. His cousin had told him in a place behind Hut 1, the only square metre where anyone could go more or less unobserved, that several prisoners had now told Mahdi Said the names of all the leaders of the strike, the men who had won the battle against his predecessor. And almost with relish, his cousin finally added, “And he doesn’t want remorse and loyalty from you and your friends. He wants to crush you.”
The injection most often mentioned by the detainees, said the frightened journalist, was one of the new commandant’s most diabolical methods. It contained a mixture of several psychotropic drugs, and depending on the strength of the dose it made people talkative, docile, or feeble-minded. If it was given in too high a concentration, or to someone with a nervous disability, it could be fatal.
A day later Bishara came back from exercise in the yard, beaming. “Mahdi is one of us,” he whispered. Farid froze.
“What do you mean?” he quietly asked Bishara, looking up at the holes in the beams. He knew he was overheard.
“He’s a Christian.” And as if it were a state secret, Bishara added quietly, “And he’s wily. He converted to Islam only to get promotion, had himself circumcized, said Ashhadu anna la Illaha illa Allah once … and the fools believed he was a Muslim now. But blood’s thicker than water. He’s one of us, and he’s particularly courteous to the Christians. A very educated man. He speaks four languages.”
“And who put this nonsense into your head?” asked Farid, irritated by such naivety in an old communist suddenly keen to lay claim to his Christian faith. “From all I’ve heard Mahdi is a fanatical Muslim, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, and all he has against them is that they want to topple his government.” But Farid’s anger with Bishara, who was desperately clutching at straws to give himself some hope in the ocean of his fears, gradually turned to pity.
It wasn’t long before reality caught up with Bishara. A Christian detainee had been tortured until he went out of his mind. When Bishara heard of that he began to sob despairingly.
After a while the prisoners heard about the building of a camp for those who had been “saved”. It was between Damascus and Tad, in the middle of a green oasis with sports fields, an artificial lake, and clean little apartments. “They prepare people for a positive return to society there,” said Salih, one of the Palestinian prisoners, not without enthusiasm.
Farid was listening with only half an ear. He was stunned by another piece of news: the miserable death of the conscientious objector Nagi Salam, whom he had liked. He had not come back after interrogation. It was said he had been taken away, supported by two soldiers, and was later found unconscious in Damascus, in the stairwell of the building where his parents lived. The doctor they called had been unable to do anything for him.