After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  It was four more years before she could welcome another baby. By then the economy in Syria had improved; Hafez al-Assad, after the bloody assaults in Hama and the wars against Israel and in Lebanon, seemed to want to create a secular state more like Turkey than like fundamentalist Iran. In 1987, Hasna’s first daughter, Amal, was born into a more prosperous Syria where formula and medicine were now plentiful again.

  Amal was serious like Yusef and smart like both of her brothers. From an early age, she showed a deep and abiding love for the scriptures; she would become the delight of the sheikhs in Daraa because of her thirst for knowledge and her love of Allah. She was quiet and reserved, which most of their neighbors read as natural goodness and obedience. Only her family saw the depths of her stubbornness, the ways she could play her brothers against each other. Hasna tried not to let her daughter get out of the trouble she sometimes caused for her brothers, but she also adored her brilliant mind. Watching Amal gave Hasna the first intimation of a revolutionary thought that would become one of her lifelong passions—her daughter should have the same educational opportunities as her sons. It was a thought she kept silent about for years. To speak it aloud might make her seem more radical than she felt, might sound as if she were questioning the very structure of her life. But the thought never went away.

  Her second daughter, Laila, only confirmed that desire. From the beginning, Laila barreled through life; where Amal assessed and strategized, Laila charged. She became especially close to Yusef, who was a decade older. They were complementary opposites—he was grave and reserved, she was lively and loud. Their family—with two boys and two girls—felt balanced and complete.

  When Amal decided at the age of eight after reading the Quran and listening to the sheikhs that she wanted to wear a hijab, Hasna took up the hijab as well. Hasna had not worn it before that—in Assad’s Syria, to be overly religious could have implied a suspicious relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. But Amal was growing up in a time when those connotations were more and more a thing of the past and she wanted to do what was right. Hasna was pleased at Amal’s pure relationship with Islam; she was proud to tell others she wore her hijab because of her devout young daughter. She felt only a pinprick of resentment that her educated, passionate, devout daughters could have the things that she did not. Hasna would have liked to have spoken her mind as easily as Amal did, would have loved to have gone to school, would have loved to be as knowledgeable about scripture as all of her children were.

  Yusef was preparing to leave high school when Hasna had her last baby, eighteen years younger than Yusef and eight years younger than Laila. Having a baby in her late thirties felt very different from her earlier pregnancies; she was more tired than she remembered being. After the baby was born, however, her body surprised her: She exclusively breastfed Rana, something she had not been able to do with any of the other children. She thought she might begrudge Rana, happily suckling the milk that might have saved her older brother Amjad so many years ago, but it was impossible to feel anything but delight for this baby with the black-brown eyes. Amal, who was twelve when her baby sister was born, was beginning the preparations she would need to care for her own house someday and loved to cook when her mother allowed it.

  Amal, who always did what was expected of her, finished her high school degree as her mother had wished. It was Laila who gave her parents headaches, who asked more questions than she should, who refused to acquiesce or give in.

  * * *

  —

  In a region where most marriages were arranged, Laila married for love. Nothing about the unorthodox courtship should have surprised Hasna, but it did. Laila was still young and full of plans, and it never occurred to Hasna that those plans might include marriage at seventeen. Hasna had been unsure about Laila’s adamant dreams of becoming an engineer—even the young men who made it all the way through college were not able to find engineering jobs in Syria, which was still recovering from a drought that wrecked the country in 2007 and the worldwide recession that started in 2008. But it never occurred to her to worry that Laila might be willing to walk away from her plans.

  One Friday evening, Amal’s husband, Samir, sat down with Hasna and Jebreel, the whole family lingering over the late afternoon meal in their courtyard. He and Amal had not been married long, but the whole family loved the jovial Samir—he was easy to get along with, secure in himself, quiet but assured in his love for Amal. He told Jebreel and Hasna that his friend Malek al-Salam was interested in Laila. Malek was a member of their clan, a very distant cousin, and a handsome teacher at the boys’ school associated with Laila’s girls’ school. He taught Quran to children on Friday afternoons and had a reputation in their neighborhood for holiness that was untouched.

  Hasna was pleased—it was no small thing to have one of the most eligible young men in the area be interested in her daughter. But she was quicker to speak than Jebreel, who often took time to deliberate on such important decisions. She told Samir “no” immediately. Hasna was adamant: Laila was too young. She could talk about marriage after finishing high school in two years.

  Jebreel and Hasna went to bed that night mulling over the situation. They had sent a similar rejection with Jebreel’s relative who approached them about Amal when she had been Laila’s age. Hasna felt a twinge of regret—Malek really was smart, good, and handsome. He would have made a remarkable husband for Laila. But her reasons were sound. She went to sleep with a good conscience.

  She should have known better.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Amal came over in a rush, too hurried to wait till her mother had heated the stove to boil water for coffee.

  “Laila’s going to marry him anyway,” she blurted as she unpinned her hijab.

  “What?” Hasna sat down, pulling out a chair for Amal.

  “Laila was at the house this morning—”

  “Instead of going to school?” Hasna rose to get out of her seat, and Amal gestured for her to sit down. “Yes, but that’s the least of our problems. She says you can either approve of Malek or not, but she’s marrying him anyway.”

  “Do they . . . ? Have they . . . ?”

  “No, of course not, Mama. No. It’s Malek and Laila. They’re just—they love each other.”

  “What do you mean, they love each other? They don’t even know each other.”

  “Mama, honestly. They do. Malek’s been over here for years with Khassem; they were in our cousin’s wedding together.”

  “Have they talked?”

  “No! They’re making us do it! Samir and I are stuck in between and it’s getting ridiculous! You should see what it’s like, the way Samir and I laugh that they’ve taken over our conversations—Malek loves her and she loves him, and we tell each other what the other one says.”

  Amal and Hasna looked at each other for a moment. It was not appropriate for a man and woman to be alone together, and it was pushing the boundaries for a sister and brother-in-law to act as a conduit. The consequences, if Malek and Laila went further, could be dire—her reputation, his job prospects, their ability to set up a life in the city they loved.

  “Mama, she’s serious. She loves him. I’ve never seen her like this. She almost threw my best teacups, she was so mad that you said no. I told her I’d come talk to you. Please, will you let them talk about marriage? I’m not sure Samir and I can take this much longer!” And then Amal was laughing and Hasna was laughing with her.

  Hasna sighed. “I’ll talk to your father.”

  Amal grinned. “You have to admit, he’s really good looking.” She already knew if Hasna were convinced, Jebreel would be easy to bend—he cared about his daughters’ educations because Hasna did.

  “And he’s a good man. She could do worse.” Hasna patted Amal’s hand, getting up to put the hot water on. She called out over her shoulder, “Let’s drink our coffee, huh? And then you
can tell your sister to come home and tell me this to my face.”

  Hasna’s voice was light. Laila had already won.

  The men of the al-Salam clan packed into their living space for Laila and Malek’s jaha. Malek brought his brothers, his father, his many uncles and cousins. Jebreel had brought his brothers-in-law and their sons, Hasna’s cousins and her cousins’ husbands, and of course Laila’s brothers. Hasna was grateful to her father-in-law once again for the foresight in building a home that was cool in the summer and warm in the winter—the men sat on her expensive Iranian rugs, settled into the comfortable cushions, and smoked as they discussed the fates of the children. The disagreements were minor and affectionately bartered—the men of the clan always enjoyed the chance to gather together and catch up. In the marriage contract negotiation, there had been only one sticking point, and Hasna had quietly discussed that before the official jaha took place.

  She extracted from Malek a promise: If Laila did not finish her schooling, Hasna had the right to have their marriage contract annulled. This was no small concession on his part—he knew it would cause a minor revolution in his household; his sisters-in-law and his mother would hate it. But Hasna was unbending. The men teased Jebreel about life with a stubborn wife, but it was lighthearted—which of the men in Daraa did not have a wife whose heart was flint?

  The night before the wedding, the men left the house and their women neighbors and relatives came over to help the bride prepare for her wedding day. They danced and ate. The girls giggled and whispered stories to a blushing Laila of what was coming. The older women lingered over a table filled with platters of half-eaten baklava and cake and sang the songs that had been handed down for generations. Traditionally in Daraa, mothers prepared the bedding for their daughters and the songs drew out of that custom, when women banded together to help a mother sew what her daughter needed, when a bride spent one last night with her sisters and cousins.

  The next day, Laila and Malek were married. The wedding celebration separated men and women. Malek danced dabke with the male relatives at noon in the Al-Salam Square; the older men wore traditional long white tunics and headscarves, but the young men mostly wore trousers and crisply ironed shirts. They put their arms around one another and leaned into one another while they danced for hours. The dabke wove together the fabric of a new family; at a clan wedding like this one, it reinforced the bonds that already held them together. For generations, men had danced the dabke, held hands and hugged one another with an easiness Western men might never understand. The brotherhood of these men went deeper than almost any other social bond—no political leader or economic hardship could break it.

  That morning, before the men danced dabke, Laila, her mother, and her sisters had their hair styled and their nails done. In the mirror, Hasna critically examined the wrinkles around her eyes—a series of home remedies for skin care, including combining rice water with frankincense, or using aloe vera, kept her skin smoother than that of many other women her age. Her honey-colored hair—a result of her own concoction of hair dye, which relied heavily on bleach—offset her hazel eyes. She glanced at her daughters in the mirrors around her: Laila had her mother’s nose but a thinner version. If she could have sketched Laila, it would have taken a few angular lines—nose, jawline, cheekbones, slash of eyebrow—to capture her face. Amal’s face would have been all curves. Amal inherited Hasna’s cheeks but her father’s dark brown eyes. Laila radiated intensity, Amal warmth.

  Rana was all curiosity. Her eyes, shaped more like Amal’s with a face more angular, like Laila’s, were wide with interest in the day around her. Her mother had always cut her hair and done her nails. Pampering in a salon was something Rana would not have remembered from Amal’s wedding. Rana could barely sit still in the salon, turning constantly to see what was happening with her sisters and mother. Hasna spoke sharply to her a few times; the stylist shot her a grateful glance and they shared a look of amusement. They had been young girls once too.

  Afterward, they went to the rented dance hall and partied for hours with the other women of the clan—even the servers were women, so that they could take their hijabs off and dance together. They giggled and sang and cried together. They ate and ate, food that for once other people had prepared. They admired one another’s hairstyles and ornate dresses.

  At the end of the women’s party, Malek came to get Laila. She embraced her mother and sisters, her aunts and cousins and friends. They helped her put on her abaya; the folds of the white cloth draped around her head and shoulders. She went with Malek to his parents’ home, to the small suite of rooms they would share together, where they would begin their new life.

  * * *

  —

  The start of their marriage was rocky. As he predicted, Malek’s promise to Hasna was not received well by the rest of the family—they did not feel that Laila should be able to get out of serving the family just because her mother wanted her to go to school. And within a few months, she was too sick to go to school and too sick to serve the family, and that caused tension too.

  The next-to-oldest brother’s wife banged on the door of Laila and Malek’s suite one day, demanding that Laila come help them with the feast for the day’s guest. “I can’t! I feel awful!” Laila yelled back. The idea of slaughtering and preparing a lamb sent her running to the bucket she kept near her bed.

  In disgust, her sister-in-law went to their mother-in-law. Malek’s mother did not bang on the door, but her quiet knock was imminently worse. “Laila, every woman in this house has been pregnant and we have all felt sick. In this house, you will get up and do your duty and that is that.”

  Laila got up and walked, not to the kitchen, but past her mother-in-law, out the door, straight to her mother’s home. There she cried and dry heaved before curling up in her childhood bed for a nap. She was sleeping when Malek came to find her. Hasna answered the gate to Malek’s knock with her chin jutted out; he had the presence of mind to look chagrined.

  “Is this what we agreed, then? That my daughter would spend every day of her life working for your mother, always cooking, always cleaning, with no breaks to go to school? I know she is pregnant, and that school might need to wait until she feels better, but this sickness will pass in a few weeks, and then what? You promised me more than this, Malek.” Malek agreed with Hasna at once. She had been prepared to invoke the clause erasing their marriage, but he respectfully asked her what to do.

  Two days later, they moved into their own apartment. A few weeks later, Laila went back to school, riding there and back on the back of Malek’s motorcycle, her pregnant belly pressed against his lower back while he drove.

  It was not common, the level of love Malek and Laila held for each other. Their passion was evident to everyone around them; he was always proper, but Malek’s eyes were never far from Laila. He adored her and, seeing this, Hasna adored Malek as much as her own sons. And no woman could question the love Malek showed for Laila when she gave birth to his son.

  Laila only had a few months left on her high school degree even with a baby; she would be the second woman in their family after Amal to finish high school. Amal’s daughter, Noor, now a bustling toddler, and Laila’s baby, Hamad, a curious seven-month-old, stayed with Hasna often. She was proud of the good lives her daughters were building.

  * * *

  —

  The boys, though, were still struggling. Yusef wanted to get married; he was already older than Jebreel had been when he had married Hasna. But he wanted a business of his own first, and they were still struggling to keep Jebreel’s business afloat.

  Hasna often reminded Yusef that he was lucky to have any source of income at all, something he readily acknowledged. When his friends came over on summer evenings after dinner, they carried a palpable frustration with them. Yusef’s friends were almost all from their neighborhood and Hasna had known most of them since they were in diapers. They should h
ave been able to get jobs, should have been working in their chosen professions and thinking about marriage, but most of them were not. Yusef worked with his father, but the business was not his passion. He labored for his family unquestioningly—he was not Laila, to rail against the system until it changed. He would do his duty first. Hasna knew this was a good quality but she saw with sadness how much it cost him. She would give anything she could to help Yusef live out his dreams. But that would have involved leading a different life, one that was politically connected, and the risks outweighed the advantages.

  Khassem had done well on his exams; like Yusef, he could draw, but he wanted to use that ability to become an architect. There were few architects in the country but Khassem was not worried—he had always been at the top of his class. He would attend a four-year college in Damascus and set himself up there at an architecture firm.

  And then, in his last year in high school, after the exhaustive battery of college-entrance tests were finished, the school announced who would be accepted to the university in Damascus. The students in the top three spots received not just a guaranteed enrollment but full scholarships with room and board provided. The results were a surprise to everyone: Khassem was in the fourth slot. The girl who edged him out for third was someone he had gone to school with his whole life. He had tutored her; he knew what she was capable of. There was no possible way she had scored higher on the tests than he did. At home, inside with the doors closed, they all acknowledged: It was her father, an Alawite with connections deep in the Assad regime. Khassem and his family could not do anything about the fact that they were Sunni Muslims. What had been an occasional practice of picking Alawite children over more qualified Muslims or Christians under Hafez al-Assad now seemed to be the norm for his son Bashar’s administration. Slowly, over years, the second Assad regime was ensuring that people utterly loyal to their family held every position of power in the country.