In panic, he saw death grinning at him from the syringe.
“I can’t tolerate injections, and a high dose of truth serum could kill me. Major, you know I haven’t been a member of any political party since I parted with the Radicals in the summer of 1967. I’ll sign whatever you like. I’m completely insignificant, I’ll never mingle with politics again.”
“Oh,” said Mahdi, “and who led the famous strike that’s ruined our reputation abroad for years, eh? Do you know that our beloved country is mentioned in the same breath as South Africa, South Vietnam, Persia, and Saudi Arabia? Israel would have paid millions to distract the world’s attention from the Golan Heights. Now the Zionists have what they wanted for free, and it’s your responsibility.”
Mahdi adjusted the reflective sunglasses that he always wore during interrogations. Many suspected it was his way of unsettling the men being questioned. Worst of all for Farid was that he could see himself reflected in both lenses and disappearing into the distance, as if his own reflection were distancing itself from him.
“It really was the first non-political strike of my life,” he repeated, “and it was done out of despair, because Abdulhamid Garasi treated us worse than animals. Under the supervision of the East Germans too. That was degrading. It really was the first non-political strike of my life. That’s why we were all united, even the young offenders and the criminals. The strike became political only because the camp leadership was corrupt and didn’t take us seriously. You know all that,” replied Fari, in fear, because he had scented death in the major’s words. But he still noticed his tone of voice turn submissive and pleading.
Mahdi was standing before him now. He perched on the edge of the desk and smiled at him, then he stood up once more and slowly walked past him. Farid did not turn around.
“Please, sir,” he whispered, as he felt Mahdi unbuttoning the cuff of his right sleeve and slowly rolling it up, “I have epilepsy because I had meningitis as a boy in the monastery, and it was left untreated for a long time, so my meninges are delicate, like … like Nagi’s. An injection could kill me. I beg you … please no injection. I’ll tell you everything.” His voice was barely audible now.
“Never fear, my boy,” said Major Mahdi in a loud and triumphant voice, as if to let the whole world know that within a few weeks he had cracked Farid Mushtak, the hardest case in the camp. “Never fear. I won’t hurt you if you’re a good lad,” he assured his victim.
Farid felt Mahdi’s cold hand stroking his bare arm. It was a slow movement of the fingers, as if they were carefully groping into a dark tunnel under his skin. Then the needle burned deep into his arm.
Complete darkness.
BOOK OF LAUGHTER V
Laughter breaks and enters, opening mouths, hearts, and wounds.
TAD, MARCH 1969 — APRIL 1969
273. My Mother Says
When Farid thought back to it, the time between the victory over Captain Garasi in mid-March and the arrival of Mahdi Said in the first week of April had been the craziest period of his life. Hungry as the prisoners were for laughter, their lived unfolded and flowered. They hardly slept. Every evening there were stories, dramatic performances, accounts of films they had seen. Most vividly of all Farid remembered a biting monologue delivered in Hut 5 by the young actor and conscientious objector Hassan Bakkali. It had been received with boundless mirth.
“Reporting for duty, Captain Bulldog!” cried the actor, standing in the middle of the hut and exaggeratedly staring, as if under the influence of drugs.
“Captain, sir, why are we at war with Israel? She has nothing against it, my mother says, and I’m not asking because I’m scared, we’d just like to know why we have to die. If the Israelis are stronger than us then they’ll slaughter us. Is it any fun, starting a war against an enemy with superior forces when you’re weak and stupid yourself? No, my mother says!
“Our people live in a Paradise of freedom and democracy. Well, it says so in all the school textbooks, and we hear it day after day on the radio too, so even the illiterate know. The British, Americans, Germans, Swedes, and most of all the Swiss really envy us our democracy. They come here pretending to be tourists, to learn how real democracy works and see what the Syrians are doing with all their freedom. Only my mother won’t believe it. She’s always saying: if problems were dogs, you’d have to buy pebbles from the jeweller’s. But she learned that saying about the pebbles from our neighbour Mustafa. You see, captain, sir, Mustafa was a good traffic cop. His wife Sahra was the most beautiful woman in our quarter. And one day, when he stopped the Interior Minister’s son for doing a mere hundred and twenty kilometres an hour in the city traffic and asked for his driver’s licence, he was beaten up by the seventeen-year-old lad and fired by his father next day. So now there’s the pair of them, Mustafa and Sahra, left without any money, and so angry that they keep fighting each other. One day, when the man noticed how beautiful his wife was, he had an idea: he’d stop beating her, make up her face, and offer her to a few rich men. She was happy to go along with this plan, just to be rid of her husband for a few hours and stuff herself with the kind of sweetmeats she’d only ever seen in the display windows of confectioners and delicatessen stores.
“From now on they lived a peaceful life, because Sahra brought home more money than thirteen policemen earn, and Mustafa kept house very well and played backgammon with pensioners. People said he wore the horns, but to be honest, he didn’t mind that. He and his wife laughed at their neighbours. And it was when someone said the two of them were a problem to the whole quarter that Mustafa said that about the dogs and the pebbles.
“But I’ve strayed away from the subject. I was going to talk about Israel. Well, the Israelis are supposed to be weaker than we are — and oh yes, you bet they are, because we’re a hundred and twenty million courageous Arabs with a heroic history. And how many Israelis are there? Three or four million, so let’s suppose that’s fifty Arabs attacking one Israeli. My God, people would be standing in line like they were buying butter! Is that honourable for an Arab? Is it manly, fifty to one? Certainly not, my mother says. A victory like that doesn’t even gladden the heart of the dead.
“Arabs give refuge to the weak, so if they aren’t exactly weak then let’s give the poor Israelis some of the mighty land of Arabia. They’re a small and ancient people, and we’ll be praised for treating them so well.
“My mother never thinks about religion when she’s judging what someone is like. For instance, she always called the olive oil dealer Samman an arsehole without ever asking about his religious beliefs. He gives his best oil to light the lamps in church, and sells us the low-quality blends.
“His father was just the same, a devout robber. He robbed the rich of their money, he spent half of it on drink and whores, and gave the other half to the poor to pray for the salvation of his soul. So he thought God would weigh his sins against one rich man that he’d robbed in the balance against the prayers of five hundred poor.