In Praise of Hatred (27 page)

I didn’t sleep that night; I was worried, and tossed and turned on my bed. I had prepared a rich dinner of boiled eggs, meat, pickled cucumbers and lots of white cheese. Radwan wanted only a small portion. I tried to draw out the time he would spend sitting with me at the dinner table in order to banish my desolation. Tedium slunk in, however, and formed a heavy barrier between us. We almost rushed to our separate rooms, where I was content to gaze at the dead flies on the light shade. That game didn’t last long, nor did summoning up old pictures from secondary school. It was impossible to escape from the faces of the victims in the newspaper; that young man’s face lay siege to me. I gave myself up to a long daydream and constructed it like a feature film. I dared to desire him and tried to drive out the image of him as a murder victim. I brought him to my bed but couldn’t complete the scene, as if he wanted only to be dead, abstaining from all the pleasures he had anticipated in life. His image leapt up from my bed, and he was dead, and everything was ruined. It nauseated me to imagine myself lying with a man who had died that morning – no one knew whether his corpse had been buried or was still in one of the hospital mortuaries.

The death of these fighters reproached my conscience as if I was the one who had fought them, because in my mind I had abandoned them, despite my faith that they were clearing the way for the Islamic state we dreamed of. We could almost touch it, just as I touched the cool wall now and pleaded with it to shift just a little so I wouldn’t be choked like a mosquito in a hole. I was horrified by the idea that my body needed sex. I blamed Maryam for leaving me alone, despite my keenness for solitude.

I had thought it would be an opportunity for me to gather my thoughts, especially about why the organization had so completely cut me adrift for two whole months. I guessed that this was because of Bakr’s orders from London, or fear on the part of the leadership; Bakr disagreed with them over fixing a date for a ceasefire and returning to negotiations with Sheikh Mahmoud Haritany. With his modest clothing and prominent prayer beads he gave all the signs of being a pious man, but he was ultimately a puppet of the authorities who dispatched him to the meetings. He called for a laying-down of arms, and described our organization as perverse, a departure from the teachings of Islam, as it killed the innocent. No one found any way of silencing him other than killing him, leaving his spilled blood to meander between both sides. This cleared the path for Sheikh Jamil Al Nirabi, known for fatwas that exonerated the authorities; he declared their deeds acts of self-defence, which gained him our bitter enmity. His much-vaunted popularity was in fact limited to his disciples, who benefited from his influence.

However, over the years, officers from the Mukhabarat had
made numerous additions to Sheikh Jamil’s file, particularly after the infiltrators in his retinue increased: documents and photographs relating to his profligate children who had entered into smuggling partnerships with important officers and traders; a full inventory of the gifts offered to the sheikh by the authorities; a tally of the cost of his great services; a list of the titles conferred on him which described him as a magnificent man, a true believer, which almost elevated him to the level of sanctity. His students spread rumours of his miracles until they were considered facts. Whenever he was asked about them, he would shake his head and his tears would flow – they were divine messages which proscribed his footsteps and sanctified the foam sputtering from his mouth as he stood up and spoke in all the mosques which claimed him. He considered himself the next
wali
.
He hid the details of his relationships with Mukhabarat
officers, who made him understand, in their own special way, that his file had reached six hundred pages and could be published at any moment; he had no alternative but to bow ever lower and kiss the ground beneath their feet.

From the first statements distributed by our group declaring the beginning of jihad, Sheikh Jamil realized that the situation had become complicated. This crisis might ruin everything he had built up; there was no opportunity for silence or retreat. He publicly attacked our group’s operations, and surrounded himself with bodyguards for fear of being killed. He became a familiar face on state television as he enumerated the President’s qualities; he praised the President’s faith and made an effort to maintain respect for him among the populace. When the President chose him to negotiate with the group to end the dispute, Sheikh Jamil tried to ingratiate himself with the opposition early on in the session by speaking elaborately about the Treaty of Hudaybiyya. He hadn’t expected the file that was placed in front of him: all his words and speeches were recorded there, together with the fatwas he had made which were incompatible with Islam, and a comment describing him as a traitor to the religion.

Not one of those gathered in that house where Sheikh Jamil had been led, blindfolded and unprotesting, ever forgot that candid conversation which had a whiff of conspiracy and politics rather more than a respect for dogma. Sheikh Jamil placed the authorities’ demands on the table in front of Bakr’s comrades who read them carefully. It didn’t take them long to list their reasons for the need for negotiation, hinting at a lack of trust in the authorities. Sheikh Jamil tried to prolong the discussion, which was like any other between rival gangs, and got lost in interpretations of Quranic verses and hadith and esoteric explanations of historical events, quoting extensively from the days of the Rashidun Caliphs to Mu’awiya. Sheikh Jamil spent three days among papers and discussions. He tried to be silent as far as possible, in order not to make a mistake in an atmosphere made heady from the smell of blood on both sides’ hands. He demonstrated considerable resilience in withstanding insults from both parties.

On the fourth day, the communications officer informed him that the negotiations had come to an end. After darkness fell that night, during a curfew which would continue for months, military vehicles and personnel carriers left the barracks in unusually heavy numbers in order to besiege every single quarter of the city. They raided seventy-six houses, six of which were meeting places for our group’s leadership or weapons caches. Battles continued for more than twelve hours, the details remaining uncertain while rumours were spread throughout the morning, and statements were issued in which each side claimed victory in the previous day’s battle. The painful losses incurred necessitated an emergency meeting among our group’s leadership after three days, and it was focused primarily on revenge.

A few days later, four young men with covered faces went into Sheikh Jamil’s house while he was performing his ritual ablutions. One of them took hold of his neck and another sliced it open; they left his body beside the alcove where he would drink his evening coffee before going out to hold council. His children came across it, drenched in its own blood. They were upset by the manner of his death, and remained unsatisfied by the huge funeral held under military protection; they used the funeral’s extravagance to demonstrate their strength of influence. They displayed the telegram from the President which promised revenge on the sheikh’s killers. At the same time, the leaders of our organization hurled accusations at each other for this murder. They all swore on the Quran that the group had not killed him, and the sheikh’s children and followers received a letter from the organization denying responsibility for his murder, although the wording was dry and harsh and contained no decorous formulas of respect.

Sheikh Jamil’s oldest son concealed the letter and began to prepare for his inheritance after a long night spent alone in his grandfather’s shrine. In the morning, he placed his father’s turban beside his bed and recalled the knowledge he had inherited about the new professors in the Sharia College, the sons of the market traders, and his father’s partners and friends. He was well aware that asceticism created prominent men, and power created statesmen. He fine-tuned his preparations for extracting the price of his father’s blood without delay.

*   *   *

All night, I tried to expel from my mind Sheikh Jamil’s image and story. He had transformed himself – from his origins as the son of an ascetic sheikh – into the turbaned man of power who justified the supremacy of the other sect and the injustices heaped on ours. Desolation settled over the courtyard. I sat on the step, watching the plants and the branches of the giant cypress which leaned over the corner of the courtyard next to Radwan’s room. I decided to take a cold shower and made myself imagine it was still May. I stood under the shower and closed my eyes, trying to resist the cold which penetrated my pores. I crossed the courtyard wrapped in an old bathrobe I had found lying on a sofa in Maryam’s room; I liked its colour, red with bright blue stripes, so I kept it. Like any shameless girl who didn’t hide herself from prying eyes, I left the bathroom wearing only that; I slowed for a few moments, a dove with cloth wings, tickled by the breeze and the cold sting of morning.

I lay on my bed and felt my body, starting with my breasts. I let out a soft gasp of surprise at the lightness of my fingers as they moved over my stomach and returned to my nipples, fearing to complete my rebellion. My body relaxed as I felt myself with a soft touch; I closed my eyes and let my fingers wander somewhere which moistened as soon as I reached it. I felt a surge of defiance which I tried to suppress for a short time, but I returned, blissful and squirming, on to the soft cushions. I wasn’t aware of the open window, nor of my voice, afraid and faltering at first, then rich and harmonious while images of the dead men whom I had dreamed of passed over me to the sound of limpid, girlish laughter.

I don’t know how much time passed until I weakened and wanted to sleep. Nothing else could save me from the reproaches of my conscience which continued to haunt me; even so, I kept touching my body and summoned up lust, a tremor which came gushing, warm and delicious, as if I had discovered some sort of magic which relieved me of my tension, but left me burdened with coldness afterwards. I woke up to the sound of Radwan’s footsteps and the afternoon call to prayer. I rushed to make the prayer, with weakness in my knees and pain in my joints. I was exhausted, and guessed that that strange night had enfeebled my body. I hadn’t been in the courtyard of the mosque for long before an old woman approached me and asked me to help her get back home. She calmly gave me a code word, then reached out a hand as if she wanted to lean on me. We got into a taxi silently, and arrived on a quiet street in a new quarter of Aleppo where we went into a ground-floor apartment in a building still being decorated. Hajja Souad was sitting, visibly worried, in the middle of the spacious living room. I was the last to arrive. She kissed me quickly and asked me not to remove my hijab. After a few moments, the door opened and Prince Shukry came in. I almost gasped in surprise at finding myself face to face with such an eminent member of our organization, a man known for his tenacity and self-confidence; amongst ourselves, we called him ‘the prince of believers’. His sad smile radiated and he watched us quietly, his eyes on me for a long time. He enquired hastily about Marwa and her marriage, and about my uncle Bakr’s situation. I murmured something incomprehensible and confused, and then I gathered my strength to speak my opinion: that I considered Marwa to be an apostate, that she was acting against Bakr’s interests, and that she was damaging the whole family. He nodded, understanding of my zeal.

The time he spent with us was to be short, and he repeatedly looked at his watch. He began speaking when the girls fell silent after having tried to create an atmosphere of joy; they reported the opinions of the people on the street which emphasized their stand alongside us, and the thousands of prayers for our victory. I was astonished at this optimism so confidently displayed; the girls avoided mentioning that the people blamed us at least partly for the destruction that had settled on the city. I decided to express what was inside me by drawing a true picture of what I had seen. I asked for permission to speak, and waited until after the prince had finished. He opened with the verse we repeated every day:
Make ready against them all you can …
He spoke authoritatively and calmly. He told us that negotiations with the authorities would not resume, that victory was near, and that the painful strikes directed at us hadn’t deterred the organization. He prayed for our martyrs, praised our members who had been imprisoned and had resisted brutal torture, and asked us to pray for them. He entered a labyrinth of language which clarified nothing other than the establishment of some sort of an educational institute, which I doubted would be of much benefit to us, and he avoided answering our questions; we no longer knew who would answer them or calm our worries. He threatened the government with surprise attacks of vengeance, and with putting on trial every symbol of the regime after the ‘great victory’, as he called it.

My desire to talk paled when the prince indicated I could now stand up to speak. I got to my feet and looked around at the six girls, and Hajja Souad encouraged me with a slight smile. I asked directly if my enforced leave from the organization during the previous two months was as a result of Bakr’s wishes, or, rather, of his being abroad. My uncle’s absence had opened the door for his detractors to start rumours that he had opposed the recent murder of a renowned doctor. (This doctor had been accused of surrendering up one of our wounded who had taken refuge in his clinic when there was nowhere else for him to hide; he was being pursued by a patrol of the death squad for shooting at them.) I spoke at length to explain how people were tyrannized by fear, exhausted by waiting for the victory we had promised them. I said that people had begun to hate us, and the city was no longer safe for us. Furthermore, I enquired about the leadership withholding essential information about a suspected Mukhabarat infiltrator, whose activities allowed successful strikes by government forces on a number of houses in April: an omission which stank of betrayal.