City of Jasmine

by Olga Grjasnowa

  Today is the premiere of the telenovela in which Amal plays the lead. The producer has invited all the cast and crew to break their fast in a luxury hotel. Only half of the three hundred invited guests have turned up.

  The entrance hall of the Four Seasons is decorated with cut flowers and smiling receptionists. Music is already echoing in from the terrace. Although the dress code is informal, the women are wearing long evening dresses, high heels and what looks like their entire family jewellery collection. Amal is greeted with kisses on both cheeks; everyone wants to take a selfie with her and congratulate her. The entire setting appears surreal to her. Yet she too is wearing a long white robe and can barely walk in her matching high heels, and she smiles as though her feet were her only problem in life.

  No one present has seen the first episode; it aired late in the afternoon when most people were just waking up from their naps and the housewives were beginning to prepare the evening meal.

  Amal joins a group of women exchanging the latest rumours. They talk about who’s still in the country and who’s going to leave, and when. Out of the corner of her eye, she registers who has had what cosmetic surgery done since she last saw them. A lot of the women have a look of grim determination on their faces. The men, in contrast, are merely freshly showered, if that.

  The sun sets and the muezzins’ calls sound outside. Fruity cocktails and champagne are served. The guests sit down at the huge, festively decorated table to break the fast together; a fast that no one present observes. From a distance they hear isolated explosions – shooting from the Damascus suburbs. Amal’s temples throb. Everyone is at pains not to mention politics. Anyone could be an informer.

  The director, a chubby control freak with a firm command of all the virtues of his profession, makes a toast to Amal. He praises her to high heaven and everyone applauds. Amal feels flattered and a little proud. He says that all Arabs feel drawn to drama and that Amal could become the new figurehead of pan-Arab post-drama, and at that moment not only Amal but even the waiters realize he is ridiculing her.

  Then he invites Amal to dance, intending to create a Disney-like finishing touch. They twirl briefly around the dance floor before Amal heads back to one of the tables. The director looks amused. They sit down.

  ‘Don’t be angry, it was just a joke.’ Amal withstands his gaze and refuses to smile; she knows he’s afraid of women who don’t smile.

  He waves a waiter over, takes two champagne flutes from his tray, and once the waiter is out of earshot he says, ‘I admit it might not have been the best joke ever.’ The music gets louder. He slips his hand between her knees.

  Amal remains motionless for a moment. Then she stands up, smooths her skirt and says, ‘If you touch me again I’ll chop your hand off.’

  Amal knows it’s time to leave Damascus and yet day after day she delays her departure. She clings to petty excuses, first wanting to wait until it cools down a bit, then until winter’s really here, then until her little brother has finished his exams, and then it’s almost Christmas and Amal is still in town. People begin to recognize her on the street more and more, only she doesn’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Above all, she doesn’t want to leave because it’s the only place where the real version of herself exists – a version in which she has no financial worries for the next ten years, lives in the flat her father bought in her name, and has plenty of jewellery, designer clothes and money in her bank account. What’s much more important, though, is that it’s the place where she can work in her profession, where her friends and family are, a place where she speaks the language, knows the secrets and customs and where she’d like to start a family of her own.

  To be on the safe side, she decides to apply for Russian citizenship, which she’s entitled to through her mother. The staff officer at the embassy treats her to a variety of sullen looks but is veritably friendly for a Russian. Seated in front of a huge photo of Putin in a heavy gold frame, he explains she’ll need a transcription from her father’s family register, which she’ll have to apply for at the registry office.

  The next day, Amal enters the shabby registry-office building. The corridors are grey, sparsely lit by bare bulbs, and the paint is flaking even from the frames of the Hafez al-Assad portraits. The toilets emanate a foul stench; Amal pulls her scarf up over her nose.

  The registrar hands Amal the document through the gap below a pane of glass that hasn’t been cleaned for years. The paper is old and yellowed and at first she thinks it must be a mistake – in the ‘children’ column, instead of just the two names Amal and Ali are three more: Ziad, Ali Nidal and Batool. Their dates of birth coincide with Bassel and Svetlana’s marriage; in fact, they’re all in the period when Bassel was studying in Moscow and courting Svetlana. But Amal has no time to work it all out; she feels nausea beginning to rise and she runs to the toilet to vomit. She retches and chokes, the entire contents of her stomach flowing into the toilet bowl; a few splashes land on the seat and some behind the bowl, then Amal brings up only bile, and finally her retches are dry. Once she’s capable of standing she wipes first her mouth and then the toilet seat with a tissue, her motions hectic. She leaves the cubicle and is grateful that there is no one else in the toilets.

  She runs cold water over the backs of her hands and wets her face. She’s as pale as death, her hair is tangled and she can’t rinse the taste of vomit out of her mouth. She stands there with her arms trembling, exhausted and sweaty, unable to process what’s going on. She goes back to the registrar, lurching like a drunk, and asks whether the paper is real. The man glares at her and asks what exactly her problem is, and just as Amal opens her mouth to reply she understands that her father has been lying to her all her life.

  Amal drives to Qudsaya along Rabwah Road, past high hills and a snaking stream. She turns into a steep, side street and parks outside an inconspicuous house, its walls unplastered and the upstairs windows secured with metal bars. She hates this neighbourhood because it’s so close to the shabiha headquarters. This is where her father’s other family lives. She got their address from the registry office.

  For an hour, nothing much happens, except that at some point a young woman appears and gets into the car in front, adjusts the rear-view mirror to reapply her lipstick, starts the engine, pulls out and drives off. Amal stays where she is.

  Eventually a short, tubby woman in a bright pink headscarf and large sunglasses comes out of the house. The headscarf confuses Amal; it clashes with the image she’s had of her father all her life. It was her father who explained to her that the Quran says nothing about headscarves, but that women – especially actresses – should take pains to dress modestly.

  She sees the woman hail a taxi and puts her foot down without thinking. Fifteen minutes later, the taxi stops outside an Islamic fashion boutique, its window displaying long-sleeved dresses dripping with rhinestones. The woman gets out of the car, rummages in her handbag and unlocks the shop with a huge bunch of keys as she greets the staff waiting outside, three pale girls wearing headscarves in three different shades of grey.

  Amal drives on, leaves her car in a guarded car park, buys chewing gum and Coke at a kiosk and walks back to the shop. It’s open now and one of the young women is mopping the floor. Amal enters the shop. Playing the absent-minded shopper, she looks around, her hand running along the clothes hangers. Despite the bright, glittery fabrics, the place feels constricting. Amal’s shoes leave dark prints on the freshly washed floor.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the salesgirl asks with a shy hint of a smile.

  ‘I’m looking for something for a wedding,’ Amal lies, a barely repressible lust for provocation rearing its head.

  ‘How nice! Who’s getting married?’

  ‘My father’s taking a second wife,’ answers Amal.

  The salesgirl looks amazed, then embarrassed, and a certain coolness settles between them. She turns to Bassel’s wife number two for help as she leaves the storeroom. Amal examines her openly.
She looks to be in her late fifties, with a full face and dark eyes framed by crow’s feet. Her body is voluptuous and maternal. Amal wouldn’t be surprised if the woman smelled of milk. She looks at several dresses but doesn’t try any of them on, although the salesgirl encourages her to do so. Her motions are mechanical, she comments on fabrics and cuts without paying attention to the dresses, and then she leaves the shop hurriedly.

  Apart from her and a rather drunk man sitting at the bar, the place is empty. Amal orders a beer; the man nods over at her. The bar is dark, cigarette ends and scraps of paper littering the floor.

  Amal wonders how often her father must have visited his other family and whether his second family’s habits are very different from his first. And which of the families does he count as his first and which as his second?

  ‘I’ve just found out my father has another family,’ Amal says.

  ‘These things happen,’ says the man at the bar. He doesn’t seem the slightest bit surprised. Amal looks at him closely; he’s tattooed all over his body, has a large nose that has probably been broken several times and long, straight hair neatly combed back and fastened in a bunch.

  ‘I was in prison because they thought I listened to heavy metal.’

  ‘You have repulsive taste in music.’

  ‘Will you buy me a drink?’

  ‘Alright,’ says Amal, and gestures to the barwoman to bring them two beers.

  ‘Not beer, whisky,’ says Amal’s drinking buddy.

  ‘Alright, but the next round’s on you.’ Amal nods at the barwoman, who immediately opens a bottle of Jack Daniels and slowly pours two full glasses. She has a pierced eyebrow and her hair is dyed green. The heavy-metal dude necks his glass and slams it on the bar. Amal sniffs at her glass and then does the same, making sure not to pull a face.

  ‘What exactly did they accuse you of?’

  ‘Devil worship.’

  Later that day, as evening approaches, Amal drives back to Bassel’s other family’s house, slightly drunk. She parks so that she has a good view of the front door and turns off the engine. There’s a light burning on the first floor and Amal sees the clothes-shop owner’s head dashing around the kitchen. The streetlamps come on and solitary moths circle in their beams of light.

  A good quarter of an hour later, a young man walks down the road and opens the front door. He is of average build and average height; Amal can’t see any more than that. She shivers in her car.

  A little while later, Bassel shows up. A woman walks alongside him, also in a hijab, and Amal assumes she’s his secret daughter. But as the front door closes behind them, Amal realizes it’s her who’s the secret daughter. She can’t stand it any longer and gets out of her car, slamming the door behind her. Her legs are trembling. She wishes she could run to Bassel but she can’t, not yet. She doesn’t have the strength.

  Amal has always been Bassel’s favourite, the beloved daughter who could do no wrong. She’s always got everything she wanted and she was never surprised by that privilege. Now she feels robbed of it for the first time. She’s simmering with rage, unbounded disappointment and most of all shame. She’s ashamed of her own naïvety, of her father’s lies, his devout wife and his illegitimate-legitimate children with their stupid names, children she’ll never meet, and she’s ashamed she really believed she was worth loving.

  The bell’s ring is piercing; she hears fast footsteps and then the door opens and the shop-owner is facing Amal. She eyes her in amazement. Eventually she says, ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘I want to talk to my father.’

  ‘And what do you think you’ll get out of that?’ Bassel’s wife’s face has taken on an amused and arrogant expression. Her question floors Amal; she doesn’t know what she wants.

  ‘Let me in,’ Amal says.

  ‘No, you’ve got your own house,’ the woman says calmly, trying to close the door.

  ‘Tell him to come out, then.’ Amal’s voice is exaggeratedly loud and articulated.

  ‘He won’t do that.’ And she’s right. Instead, a lanky boy comes to the door, no older than eighteen, and asks his mother, ‘Who’s this? What does she want?’

  ‘Ask your father. Ask your father about Svetlana. Get him to explain it all to you. Ask him about Svetlana!’ Amal yells. The boy stares at her in horror. He probably thinks I’m some kind of Russian mistress, Amal thinks as the iron door is slammed in her face.

  With her lips pursed and her fists clenched, she stands her ground outside the door. She doesn’t know what to do next; she waits for the door to open again but it doesn’t. After a while, she turns around and returns to her car, shoulders raised and head hanging.

  PART II

  In the kitchen, Amal takes a last glance at her script and another at the mirror before leaving the flat. The door to the terrace is open. It’s probably occupied by snipers again. Amal doesn’t check but still locks the front door and the door to the terrace.

  Only now does she remember the curtains she was supposed to pick up from the tailor, and goes back. She puts the receipt saying she’s paid half the sum in advance in her pocket and runs down the stairs, each of which is a different height. The solid wooden door on the first floor is ajar; the architect has probably just popped out of his office to fetch breakfast.

  Amal says hello to the optician whose shop is on the ground floor. He has a thick monobrow and a friendly face, although the lenses of his glasses make his eyes seem supernaturally large. The optician beckons Amal into his shop, which smells of cleaning fluids, and offers her a tea that seems to have a hint of soap to it. Then he says that the satellite dish Amal shares with him – he paid for it and Amal let him put it on her terrace – isn’t working. Could he send someone to repair it? Amal doesn’t mind.

  The sky is pale and cloudless, rain recently fallen. The pavements shine with water, drips glint in the sunlight on the trees’ leaves and twigs. The jasmine bushes exude their beguiling scent.

  Amal pulls her coat tighter and turns left. She notices there are no cars on the main road – the square outside the parliament is probably blocked off again because Assad’s people are holding their demonstration of goodwill outside the building. They’re the most passionate supporters, veritable believers holding up photos of Bashar al-Assad – but also of his father and his older brother, who was to have ruled in his place until he was killed in an accident – like icons at an Orthodox service. Among them, though, there are also schoolchildren, students and civil servants, who are bussed to the demonstrations by the government and can’t say no.

  Damascus is in the grip of the secret police now more than ever. The city’s strategic points are under surveillance; the government wants to keep an eye on every demonstration and every gathering. And yet despite all that, Damascus is the place where Amal was born and grew up, the city where she knows the streets and alleys like nowhere else; where she’s lived the language and the customs and understands the people, some days more than others. She doesn’t want to leave and yet she knows she has no other choice. Perhaps she won’t have to stay away for long; that’s what she hopes. The new curtains are a testimony to that.

  Her heels clatter on the cobbles. The street’s many restaurants are crowded already, the smell of food on the air. She turns into the tailor’s shop. The owner, a rotund man, gives Amal a discount and hands her a sweet, and she laughs roundly. A plump woman in a black robe enters the shop and starts a flirtatious conversation with the tailor. Amal takes the opportunity to say a quick goodbye.

  She strolls past the popular Abu Shaker smoothie bar, a tiny place with photos of the owner, his family and his grandfather – a champion bodybuilder – in the window. The atmosphere is tense. Worry and fear are inscribed on the faces of the passers-by. There are a lot of new people in the city, escaping from the fighting in Idlib, Deir ez-Zor, Homs and Aleppo to the relative safety of the capital. Their faces look even more embittered than the Damascans’, what with the cares and woes they’ve brought with t
hem. They match the new sound of the city: the sirens of police cars and ambulances.

  Amal passes the parliament building and the generals’ club, reaches the Al-Hamra Theatre and looks at the posters for the new productions. The Al-Sham Cinema is closed; officially for renovation but in reality it’s for a different reason. The Assad regime is waging jihad on the performing arts and has closed almost all theatres and cinemas. They’re building thousands of new mosques instead.

  Amal turns right. Outside the Dar al Saalam School, the school of peace, a checkpoint has been set up overnight. The block consists of two cars and five armed soldiers, stopping random people, with impenetrable looks on their faces. They’re teenagers, carrying weapons for the first time in their lives and experiencing power over life and death. That makes them arrogant and stupid. Amal smiles at one of the soldiers; he gives an embarrassed grin. To be on the safe side, she decides not to pass the checkpoint. Many soldiers have begun emphasizing their Alawi accent to make it clear they’re loyal to the regime. They’re everywhere. With their Opels and SUVs, they’ve even changed the smell of Damascus.

  At a kiosk frequented almost only by the secret service, Amal buys a pack of Gitanes Blondes and three flashlights, because there are constant power cuts and she’s afraid of breaking a bone falling over in the stairwell.

  Amal is hungry but she can’t decide whether to get ice cream from Patisserie Damer or just falafel. It’s still a little cool for ice cream, so she opts for falafel at the stall next door. She eats as she walks. Over the past few weeks she’s noticed she’s been followed by a slim boy with a remarkable resemblance to Bassel. Now she thinks she sees him hiding cautiously beyond the next corner. He’s probably from the shabiha, thinks Amal, and casts a hesitant glance in his direction. He doesn’t look like a government man at all, but perhaps that’s what makes him good at his job, she thinks. He’s still there, trying to pretend he’s looking at a window display.