City of Jasmine

by Olga Grjasnowa

  CITY of JASMINE

  CITY

  of

  JASMINE

  Olga

  Grjasnowa

  Translated from the German

  by Katy Derbyshire

  For Ayham

  PART I

  The first fields are already visible through the plane window, followed by an ocean of houses that vanishes again; then the wing slews upwards and the window reveals nothing but sky blue. The plane rights itself and Hammoudi sees a field scorched by the sun. The wheels hit the ground with a jolt.

  Damascus’s international airport has barely changed since Hammoudi’s last visit. The border guards in the dilapidated cabins are as bad tempered as ever. They scrutinize his passport dourly and point out that it expires in a few days’ time.

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ says Hammoudi. A guard in a poorly fitting uniform shoos him away.

  Hammoudi likes being in Syria, with certain reservations. All his life he’s been told there’s no future here and he ought to emigrate to Canada, Australia or Europe after his degree, if not sooner. The life he’d lived in Syria had confirmed those reservations.

  The luggage takes a long time to arrive. Several large families lose patience; children start whining; a gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair lights a cigarette and gets ticked off by security guards; cleaning women walk to and fro with their water pails, deliberately slow and not cleaning anything. When the light above the baggage carousel finally goes on, everyone crowds around the beginning of the conveyor belt and tries to secure a strategic position; two blond men with reddish beards speaking loud Swiss German win in the end. As the belt starts moving at last, a murmur goes up in the crowd. The luggage is quickly retrieved. Bags, suitcases, bundles, backpacks and boxes are heaved off, placed on luggage trolleys and pushed towards the exit with a sense of euphoria.

  A crowd of people wait behind the barrier in Arrivals, looking out for friends and relatives and storming towards them as soon as the door to baggage reclaim opens even a crack. A police officer repeatedly warns them not to get too close to the door. Faces alternate in rapid succession between joy, curiosity and dismay. Children stand around clutching balloons, babies rub their tired eyes as fathers wave bouquets of flowers.

  Hammoudi is welcomed by his own rowdy group, although he had actually intended to take a taxi straight to his hotel. He’d like a little peace and quiet – two nights of sleeping alone, far away from Claire and from his family waiting for him in Deir ez-Zor. A brief time out, just for himself. That’s why he didn’t tell his friends in Damascus his arrival time. They interpreted his silence as forgetfulness and simply looked up the landing time online. Now they wrap him in hugs and kiss him on the cheeks. Hammoudi is loaded into a car, complete with his heavy case full of gifts.

  Although it’s outside his budget, Hammoudi has booked a room at the Four Seasons. It was only weeks ago that he completed his residency as a reconstructive surgeon in Paris with honours. He’d spent five years working towards that moment and when it finally came it felt as though he was entitled to it. Then he applied to the city’s three best hospitals and was soon invited to interviews at each one. Hammoudi was tall, slim, courteous and charming. His French was flawless. The decisive factor, though, was his perfect facial symmetry – he was just the man people trusted to have internalized established beauty norms. He quickly decided on the hospital that made him the best offer and immediately received a contract in the post. That evening, he’d celebrated by treating his girlfriend Claire to an expensive dinner with plenty of champagne. After that he booked a trip to Syria to renew his passport – a mere formality, but his residency permit in France depended on it, so he thought he’d take the opportunity for a short holiday.

  The marble floors of the Four Seasons lobby glint with cleanliness and the copious flower arrangements exude a morbid scent. Two security men check Hammoudi’s papers, almost refusing to let him into the hotel because he’s not a foreigner. His friends are coming to pick him up again in two hours; he asked them to give him time for a nap and a shower.

  His room is luxurious, the bed wide and firm, the sheets bright white and freshly pressed, the minibar well stocked and the furnishings in Damascene style. A voluminous bouquet on the side table at least smells better than the arrangements downstairs. Hammoudi runs a bath and dials Claire’s number.

  That evening he goes out with his friends. A noisy group in their mid-thirties, women and men; some married, others already divorced or simply single, lesbians or in the kind of relationships that don’t entail commitments. They tour the centre of Damascus, heading into bars, drinking arak, ordering small dishes, more arak and more food. They laugh, scream, bitch and argue. They’re louder than they used to be, trying to reforge the ties between them, to assure each other they haven’t been forgotten, they’re still good friends.

  Hammoudi makes an effort to catch up on his friends’ lives, to remember each of their partners, children and career updates, but his head is soon buzzing. He doesn’t know that his old uni clique is only meeting up now because of him – they’ve drifted apart in the years of his absence.

  At first they’re all awkward, their interactions clumsy, but after a while they relax, not least due to the alcohol. They recall events from their younger days, juggling names of acquaintances, streets and places that Hammoudi barely remembers.

  Damascus, too, is hardly recognizable to him. The city centre has been gentrified over the past five years – tiny grocery shops forced to close and the spaces reopened as Zara or Benetton; bakeries making way for cafés serving soy-milk cappuccinos at European prices; shops that once sold absolutely everything, from screwdrivers to petrol canisters, replaced by mobile phone stores.

  As the next day breaks, Hammoudi collapses into his overpriced hotel bed and instantly falls asleep. Through the window, the curses of drunken night owls mingle with the muezzin’s call to morning prayers.

  Amal tries to act the fear away. She’s spent her whole life studying the people around her: family, friends, lovers, complete strangers. She has memorized their facial expressions and gestures so as to reproduce them precisely on stage. She has learned characters, vocal pitches and emotions. Even as a tiny child not yet capable of speech, she imitated people. And yet it took her a long time to admit she wanted to be an actor. She thought she wasn’t talented or pretty enough for the stage. She thought her hips were too wide, her nose too long and her voice not firm enough. Aside from that, her father always implied acting was not a profession for honourable women. Amal got a degree in English literature but books weren’t enough for her, so one day she auditioned for the prestigious Institute of Dramatic Arts.

  All that seems long ago now. Fear has settled in like a parasite building a nest inside her ribs. Amal knows exactly what might happen to her but she doesn’t know when or whether it will come about, and it’s this uncertainty that makes her tremble. Too many people around her have been arrested or tortured or have simply disappeared, which amounts to the same thing.

  Damascus is a noisy city, messy and hectic, overflowing with buses and taxis hooting, the yells of street vendors, the humming of the air conditioners on the outsides of houses, all mixed with the loud music streaming out of bars and car windows. In Damascus, a person can drown in history and its superlatives. Today, though, the city is submerged in uncanny silence. No traffic, no conversations, not even a whisper to be heard. The sky is decked in grey clouds.

  Amal keeps looking over at the secret-service men, her body registering their every movement and sound. The curtain in a window of the house opposite twitches. An old woman is trying to peer around the heavy damask drapes as inconspicuously as possible, and at that moment Amal decides she never wants to hide behind
a curtain again, not today, not tomorrow and not in forty years’ time; and the only way to achieve that is to stay put in this square, come what may.

  The first demonstration took place two days ago. It was the first time since winter that the air had felt mild, almost warm. Amal and a few of her friends headed for the parliament building with A4 cardboard signs. Amal’s scarf was pulled down low over her face. They hadn’t dared to take the placards out of their bags. At the end of the demonstration they avoided eye contact and dispersed as quickly as they could. They were ashamed to be running away in secrecy after a demonstration while people in other countries were setting themselves alight.

  During the early days of the revolution, the optimists thought the global media and Al Jazeera would report on their demonstrations. They didn’t think the international community would abandon them when they were only demanding of their state what it seemed the rest of the world wanted of it, too. No one was really thinking of toppling the regime – they merely wanted reforms. A few minor concessions.

  People were sick and tired. Amal was tired, her brother was tired, her friends, her fellow students, acquaintances, strangers in the streets, the entire vulgar bohème was sick and tired. They were sick and tired of the corruption, the secret services’ arbitrary decisions, their own powerlessness and permanent humiliation. They were sick and tired of all public libraries, airports, stadiums, universities, parks and even kindergartens being named after the Assads. They were sick and tired of their fathers, brothers and uncles mouldering in jails. They were sick and tired of the whole family having to chip in to buy the sons out of military service while the North American teenagers on cable TV were given cars by their parents and travelled the world. They were sick and tired of reciting ‘Assad for all eternity’ every morning at school and swearing to fight all Americans, Zionists and imperialists. They were sick and tired of memorizing Assad quotes in political-education classes and then filling in the gaps in the right order for their tests. They were sick and tired of being taught in military education to dismantle and reassemble a machine gun. They were sick and tired of being treated like animals. And above all they were sick and tired of not being allowed to say any of it out loud.

  Amal’s generation is the first to know nothing other than the Assad clan’s totalitarian rule. Unlike their parents and grandparents, who well remember the endless putsches before Hafez al-Assad seized power, or the 1982 massacre of the Muslim Brothers in Hama, a clear signal from the government that it was not to be trifled with. Since then, the Assad regime has behaved like an establishment ordained by God. More than that, Bashar al-Assad is greater than God, or at least that’s what’s implied by his omnipresence and that of his father, brother, wife and three children – with portraits in even the furthest corner of the country, like scarecrows to frighten and dispel his subjects.

  The next demonstration. Out of the corner of her eye, Amal spots the Alawi actor Fadwa Soliman, a woman she’s long admired, and for a moment the sight reassures her. She takes a deep breath and wraps one hand around the other to stop the trembling. No one knows what will happen next. The regime might make an example of the demonstrators this time, arresting them all or using violence to break up the crowd.

  After a long time, during which the demonstrators do nothing but stand together and watch the secret-service men, a small man in an oversized leather jacket leaves the group and heads for the nearest café. He’s one of the most high-profile artists in Syria. Amal and around twenty others tail after him like a throng of children, relieved to have evaded danger.

  Al Rawda, meaning Garden of Eden, is a traditional Damascus café serving alcohol and small dishes, frequented primarily by opposition activists, gays, lesbians, young lovers and petty criminals. The demonstrators gather in the garden, which sometimes does seem like a paradise, with its impressive marble arches and palm trees. They talk openly, albeit in extremely hypothetical form, about concessions by the regime, and they flirt more blatantly than ever. Having greeted everyone she knows, Amal goes to the toilet, runs cold water over her wrists, splashes her face and breathes deeply in and out. Her body shakes as the tension leaves her. She’s astounded that the demonstration went so calmly. Amal has never felt as though she belongs to a particular group but for the first time the thought of doing so doesn’t unsettle her.

  Hammoudi’s family celebrates his arrival in Deir ez-Zor with a huge party. The courtyard is full of uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. He had forgotten how stressful a large family can be. The girls are wearing hairbands and frou-frou dresses, squealing as the boys chase them. Then they switch over, the boys running away and the girls pursuing them with even more squeals.

  A giant table is set up in the middle of the courtyard, straining under the weight of all the food and drink. Hammoudi’s father has had a lamb slaughtered, stuffed with rice and nuts and then slowly roasted over the fire in the yard. His mother instructed the staff to spend several days preparing salads and starters, marinating seven kilos of kebab meat and various fish, stirring yoghurt and setting out huge trays of baklava and shaabiyat pastries.

  Their game momentarily interrupted, a crowd of children mobs Hammoudi as he hands out the gifts he brought from France. His aunts load generous portions for all the guests onto delicate porcelain plates that Hammoudi’s mother imported from Japan. His grandparents have seven daughters and not a single son, something his aunts and his grandfather in particular consider a great blessing. He sent all his daughters to university and all seven of them chose medicine. Now they work in different fields but are still inseparable. Throughout his childhood summers, Hammoudi saw his aunts huddled together on the roof of their house, eating nuts and sweets as they gossiped about the neighbours.

  Hammoudi’s cousin pours two fingers of clear liquid into each of their glasses, adds ice cubes and dilutes the alcohol with water, turning the drink milky white. The neighbours are there too, a couple whose son Mohammed, once a chubby boy, has grown into a lanky teenager who dreams of building bridges.

  Hammoudi watches his brother talking excitedly to a girl and smiles to himself – Naji is always on the lookout for a wife, even though he’s not exactly the youngest at thirty-three. He’s the black sheep of the family.

  After the meal, Hammoudi’s grandmother reads the coffee grounds. A long queue forms before the fragile woman bent low from arthritis, who patiently inspects one cup after another and interprets the brown remains. She is one of the few fortune tellers who don’t predict bridegrooms and sons for young girls. She sees a fish, meaning money, in one of Hammoudi’s female cousins’ coffee cups. Hammoudi takes his cup over too; his grandmother strokes his brow but then her eyes darken and she stares at his cup for so long that Hammoudi asks her with a laugh whether his future is really that black.

  ‘God will decide,’ she says in the end. ‘Min timmi ila abau’ al-samah.’ From my mouth to the gates of paradise.

  Later that evening, Hammoudi asks her again about his future, but his grandmother merely shakes her head and asks for a glass of water.

  The morning after the party, while the rest of the household is still asleep, Hammoudi sets out for the municipal administration to get his passport renewed. The security men wave him through, drowsy at this early hour. The corridors are narrow, the walls painted pale yellow and decorated with a bright green border. Hammoudi takes a seat in a stuffy room and waits for his name to be called.

  The waiting rooms of the Syrian Republic have much in common with its prisons – no one knows how long they’ll spend inside them. Time here comes in uncertain dimensions, it stretches out or trickles away. Perhaps a whole day will pass, perhaps only half an hour. Hammoudi tries out all kinds of ways to pass the time, games on his phone, emails, a novel he started months ago; and yet his body is in a permanent state of alert, waiting for his name to be called at any moment.

  Three hours later, he’s permitted to enter a tiny room and hand his passport over to a civil servant in a not-q
uite-fresh white shirt. The wooden desk is piled high with files, some of them already coated in a layer of dust. Above the desk hangs a large portrait of President Bashar al-Assad, its colours already faded. The man nods and says, ‘Come back at four. Then you can collect your passport.’

  The outside light dazzles Hammoudi and he swiftly dons his sunglasses, which look too elegant and expensive for Deir ez-Zor. His entire wardrobe is unsuited for this city, he thinks. His mother even put out a freshly ironed jellabiya for him last night. He makes use of the time for a walk around town, which now seems otherworldly to him, as does his whole childhood. The streets are empty at this hour; many of the residents are taking a midday nap and dogs too are dozing in the shade, while cats rummage untiringly through the rubbish containers.

  Hammoudi buys a lighter and cigarettes in a tiny supermarket. The shopkeeper is in a drunken stupor behind the counter when he comes in, the security-camera monitor and an old TV showing a football match flickering beside his shaven head. Hammoudi glances at the game and tries to make out the teams. Then he tears the cellophane from the pack and hungrily inserts a cigarette between his lips.

  He pulls his jacket tighter around his body and continues his walk. It’s still cool but the temperature rises to over forty degrees in the shade during the summer. Deir ez-Zor is known as the ‘yellow city’ as sand covers the streets and houses for two hundred and twenty days of the year. Even the sky takes on a saffron hue, shifting to a stark shade of red as the evening approaches.

  Hammoudi can’t resist any more, he is drawn to the Euphrates, the emerald-green river revered by the locals like a deity. He strolls at an easy pace and stops at the banks, keeping the suspension bridge in view. He watches a handful of boys, obviously playing truant, leaping into the water. Their dives are dangerous because the current is strong, but it’s an old ritual among the city’s youth. Everyone knows at least one family who has lost a relative to the river, but that doesn’t stop the boys.