In Praise of Hatred (26 page)

Both Bakr and Wasal were apprehensive at first of the forced relationship between mother- and son-in-law; he still had a lot of unanswered questions about her past – thrilling, vague and morally unacceptable in his view. He was tense during his first visit to her, but surprised by the care she took of him, and even considered her overt generosity to be excessive. Bakr, according to Wasal, was a fundamental part of her picture of the family that would ensure she spent her final days enjoying a feeling of deep contentment. She listened to him and was astonished by his desire to talk, as he abandoned himself to describing his situation, his homesickness, his worries about the coldness of the English and how much he missed Zahra. Wasal concealed nothing, and repentance lent her the ferocity of conviction. She knew that the misgivings roaming through Bakr’s head had to be eliminated if she was to enter his house and wander freely with him through the streets and suburbs of London on Sundays, like an old woman spoiling a younger lover. She spoke dispassionately about her husbands, from Esmat Ajqabash to Khalil and John, disregarding the scores of lovers whom she had left longing for another taste of her kiss; she did this whenever she wanted to leave an ineradicable impression on a man, whether she hated or loved him. The worst men, for her, were those who aroused neither rage nor longing; she would turn her back on them with no regret for their vague, insipid image.

They announced a truce with Zahra’s blessing, who had begun to behave like an orphan. She was lonely, and weary of the probability that she would remain alone without a man for a long time. Forbidden to travel, she withdrew into her own house and paid the price of Bakr’s dreams, which had once been her dreams too. She freed herself from the oppression of her hatred for the other sect, blessed Marwa’s marriage and tried to convince Maryam to come and visit her, which was no longer so difficult.

The streets were still unsafe, and murder became the only outlet for the soldiers and the men of our organization, who were stumbling blindly through their latest operations. The leadership had failed to re-establish communications with the warriors equipped to blow themselves up in revenge for companions who had had their faith mocked openly. Mukhabarat officers treated those they arrested like redundant humanity. If one of their prisoners died under torture, because of the beatings or electric shocks, it meant nothing and it would never cause any disciplinary action; but it did invite some irritation over the dilemma posed by the corpse. Delivery of the body to its family seemed pointless to them, so it would instead be thrown hastily into any available hole and dirt piled up on top of it; the decay of a cadaver aroused boredom and disgust. It restored to death its true nature. Sudden absence and the earth’s gravity returned the bodies to their point of origin, which was a complete fusion with natural elements. The living became more engrossed in retaining their lives than venerating the dead, in a city which death surrounded with exaggerated respect.

*   *   *

Safaa had been staying with us on another extended visit. But occasional letters from their husbands were no longer enough to enable Safaa and Zahra to relax like two women who were simply taking a short holiday from the monotony of their domestic lives in their old family home. The most recent letter from Abdullah had been short, strange and enigmatic. He asked her to return to their house in Riyadh immediately, but without informing her where he was. Despite the Saudi postage stamp and his seal, she was worried by his addressing her in this manner. She consulted Omar, who wouldn’t discuss the matter; he usually avoided mentioning Abdullah altogether.

Nothing remained to Maryam other than the small details of the family’s past that she tried to restore with great enthusiasm every now and again, before finally losing her spark and returning once more to her choking isolation and a fate which she felt was close to a tragedy. It was reminiscent of the stories woven around an imprisoned hero and the torture he had to endure before the princess came, fell in love with him and sacrificed herself in order to save him and bring an end to his captivity; for a window to be opened again, so a breeze could blow in and sweep away the heavy shadows, and return lightness and sincere joy to wandering souls. Maryam went back to being the only one to wake up at the dawn call to prayer. She would perform her ritual ablutions and pray, and then return to make breakfast and wake us up. We would rise sluggishly and exchange morning greetings coldly, and we sat at the table like guests at a hotel.

Omar was supposed to take Safaa to Damascus Airport; the two of them hatched a plan to visit Marwa on the way, and took Maryam, Zahra and Zahra’s sons with them. Maryam read Sura
Yusuf by heart and repeated prayers for travelling, so that God would keep them safe from the patrols which thronged the road to the airport and which were alerted by the family name to delay and search them, and repeat the same questions about their relationship to Bakr, which Omar resolutely denied. He then travelled along the country roads between the villages so he could avoid the obstructions on the main road to Hama, and it provided an opportunity for everyone to contemplate the mountains of Masyaf. They sniffed the clean air and chattered as if they were on holiday. The guide showed off his knowledge, which proved tedious before long, and they arrived late at Marwa’s house, and she sobbed and hugged them one after another. As she kept on embracing them, they all sensed her longing for the house which she had left without the customary trills from my aunts – who had once been famous for not even having to use their fingers to create such a long and musical sound.

Like a child, Marwa listened to Maryam’s comments as she looked over the small house consisting of two rooms and a living room. It was located in the area designated for death squad soldiers, shaken by the barks of wild dogs in the waste ground nearby. Maryam felt Marwa’s homesickness keenly, and decided to ignore the fact that her face wasn’t veiled. It caused a lump in Maryam’s throat which she could tell only Omar about; he just laughed and didn’t pass comment. He drank his coffee and waited for Nadhir, who arrived a little late for this last-minute dinner party. He welcomed his guests but the gathering seemed rather formal, unsuited to his revealing his low spirits or talking about how the siege of Aleppo had killed off in him any further ambitions. How to extricate himself from his position as an officer occupied most of Nadhir’s mind. He remembered his enthusiastic beginnings at the army college, followed by the parachute training at which he had excelled. Whenever he looked at the medals on show in the small cupboard, he felt a disillusionment that his companions couldn’t understand as they rushed to defend the regime; the holy task of protecting their threatened sect was a frequent topic in their private conversations.

Nadhir’s commander reproached him, and reminded him that marrying the sister of one of their chief opponents couldn’t be viewed as a minor indiscretion nor a passing whim, but as showing prejudice in the enemy’s favour. No one would listen to his description of her innocent face beside her butterflies that afternoon, when her gaze turned towards him and dragged him from the terror that blended with everything, and his worry at the role assigned to him. He hadn’t learned to jump from a plane with a parachute in order to besiege cities and murder civilians. Marwa saved him and gave him a feeling of absolution. Her deep desire wiped clean his soul, which was besmirched with hatred. She revived his old dream of living outside the holy sect.

After a while, Nadhir found the voices of the four women and Safaa’s laughter disconcerting; he suggested to Omar that they wander around Damascus during the few hours that remained until Safaa had to leave, and they lurked in the coffee houses of the city, leaving the women to their own affairs of indulging freely in nostalgia.

*   *   *

I didn’t realize I had been left alone with Radwan until the shadows fell and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten any dinner. I got up quickly and went into the kitchen to examine the various dishes Maryam had left us. I tried to summon up some enthusiasm but the feebleness of my body made my movements heavy and unstable. I collapsed on to a chair by the fountain and weariness began to assail my heart until I could feel it like a pall over the whole house. I reflected that it was the first time I had ever been alone amongst all those empty rooms and cold beds. I convinced myself that I would never forgive Marwa, and that Maryam would return to her previous stance. Like a scared mouse, I sat without moving, contemplating the night which descended with a cold, light, refreshing sting. It made me go into my room and watch Marwa’s butterflies quietly, as if searching for the truth of my feelings towards her, or trying to describe the constriction which gripped my heart and turned me into a shuffling, heavy lump. I thought for the first time of the weight of things; of our bodies, of our souls which were so dense they lacked any sense of lightness.

I seemed to discover what I was looking for when I saw the butterfly with azure wings dotted with yellow crosses, fixed to the board with a lotus blossom at its head, pleading with me to save it from the gum that had solidified it and prevented it from flying away. I brought my face right up to the butterfly; I almost saw the ghost of a smile on a patient woman’s lips. I continued thinking about weight and density: our weight upon the earth when we tread on it with indifferent footsteps; the weight of trees in a forest surrounding us; the weight of the dead when they are liberated from their lightening souls and become precisely determined loads, no more and no less, fixed in the cavities of the earth which swallows them back up while their souls, like butterflies, roam freely. It occurred to me to take out the butterfly and pray so that its soul would return to it. I missed Marwa. But my next thought was, ‘I won’t forgive her,’ muddying my palette once again. I felt nauseous and choked; the hatred was like pus coagulating thick and yellow within us, without any possible release.

I left my room and went towards Radwan’s. I walked slowly so I could catch the movements of his hands as they mixed a perfume or groped about for things, but I heard only snoring. I opened the door and saw him in the shadows stretched out on his bed fast asleep. I quietly turned on the light and looked at his skinny body; his head seemed small without its cap, which he insisted on keeping rather than the turban the other blind men wore. His eyes were cavernous and his shadow light, as if he were flying rather than disturbing the earth with his weight. I felt sympathy for him and rebuked myself for the hatred that he found an obstacle to talking to me on my own in the evenings. It occurred to me to wake him up and cry on his shoulder, but the idea of behaving like that with a servant terrified me. I closed the door and went back to my bed, burdened with hatred. I was convinced that it would save me from the absurd compassion that threatened my inner strength, that would turn me into a feather searching for somewhere to settle on a fluid, unbounded earth.

The house became immersed in darkness and quiet; however, this was soon pierced by the sound of shooting very close by. It was at first intermittent, but then turned into a torrent of machine-gun fire, grenade explosions and calls of ‘Allahu Akbar’: the battle was so close it could have been in the next room. At first I was horrified, but I pulled myself together and went out into the courtyard, unafraid. Radwan was worried, blundering about. I stood still so he wouldn’t realize I was also there; I wanted to watch him, not help him. He shouted my name a few times and I didn’t reply, but followed him back to my room where, afraid, he patted my bed. I stood in the door and reassured him, ‘I’m here.’ He relaxed a little and, like an actor in a play, announced what everyone already knew, ‘They are fighting.’ My silence was a hint, picked up on by Radwan, that I didn’t want to talk. He sat on the kitchen step as if he were hiding in a safe place. The screams of ‘Allahu Akbar’ were pleasing, and I involuntarily muttered a long prayer I remembered from the time when I used to sit next to Hajja Radia in her prayer circle and tremble with deep emotion. At that time, all I wanted was to be close to God, and for Rabia Adawiya to appear in my dreams, a woman made of light slipping into our hearts to grant us reassurance. I muttered another prayer and the fighting intensified.

I was trying to draw as ambulance sirens grew ever closer. I calculated that the fighters were stationed at the corner of our street, and imagined that I would see one of them climbing down to me from the roof. For the first time, the dawn call to prayer was not raised. We were prevented from opening our doors. The firing finally stopped at dawn, and then the soldiers came into our house. They overturned everything furiously and kicked at the doors. Radwan tried to find out what they were looking for, but they cruelly flung him to the ground. I saw him trembling with fear as he replied to their questions and told them that the house’s owners were away. For the first time ever, I heard him describe himself as a family servant. He also reminded them that this house was under the jurisdiction of Lieutenant Colonel Nadhir Mansoury. The soldiers exchanged glances, trying to work out what their colleagues might be thinking, and then they left, angry and tense, inflamed, fingers on triggers. I made do with just hating them, without voicing my objections to their accusations as they savagely hurled all our things out into the courtyard. They searched all the houses in the alley, spat in men’s faces and made them stand awkwardly for hours at a time – no one dared to move or object. The soldiers’ faces expressed a powerful fear they thought they were keeping concealed. It was clear from the search that the reason for targeting these particular men was merely their proximity to that morning’s battlefield. Most of the city’s residents declared that they had had nothing to do with it, and the death squad withdrew from the area after the afternoon prayer. We breathed out.

I went out of the house and left Radwan trembling with fear. There were smears of blood on the wall of the house next to the water tap. Few people had dared to stop and examine the destruction and traces of the battle. No one noticed the tears which soaked my veil when I saw the local newspaper a soldier from the death squad was distributing free of charge. It had published photographs of twelve swollen faces and of a blackened corpse, beneath a broad headline which described them as murderous criminals, along with a picture of soldiers raising a victory sign. They were dancing around the corpses and the captured weapons, which had been carefully lined up so they could be photographed with their owners. I regretted that I hadn’t noticed this particular house before, and that I hadn’t helped the young man in the third picture from the right; the marks on his neck looked as if he had been slaughtered hastily with a blunt knife. I used to see him in the alley, and he would quickly lift his gaze towards me as if he wanted to see all the details of my figure, to see my eyes beneath my face covering. I didn’t appreciate his audacity. It was only later that I found out that he was afraid and had wanted my help in securing protection. His soft, smooth face and elegant clothing had made me think he was a womanizer.