Our Women on the Ground

by Zahra Hankir

  Anthony had asthma and was allergic to horses. When he called me from Antakya in southern Turkey the night before he left, he was worried about being near horses, but told me he had his inhalers and had never needed more than that. He was also angry about a comment a colleague in New York had made. “This is going to be a great workout for you,” the editor had told him over the phone. “I could die on that trip and he is saying it is a great workout,” Anthony said to me.

  The last time I spoke with my husband was on February 14, 2012. He was in northern Syria and called me from his satellite phone to wish me a happy Valentine’s Day. He said he was to leave Syria in a day or two, again traveling by hiking and horseback, and that the trip had been the best one of his entire career.

  When Malik and I finally reached Antakya on the night of February 16, I checked into a boutique hotel called Al-Liwan. The place reminded Anthony, ever so nostalgic, of the family house he had rebuilt in south Lebanon. His grandmother had lived there as a little girl during the Ottoman occupation of the Levant, and he often joked that he wished he had been born a Turkish gentleman in the days of a tolerant and cosmopolitan Levant.

  I was awakened shortly before midnight when my cell phone rang. It was Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the Times.

  “Anthony had a fatal asthma attack,” she said. I repeated the sentence in my head, but I could not understand what she was trying to tell me.

  “What do you mean, a fatal asthma attack?” I asked.

  Nothing I had ever been through prepared me for that moment.

  “Anthony is dead,” she said.

  I curled up on the bathroom floor and cried. I wanted to scream but Malik was asleep, and I didn’t want to startle him.

  The Spanish author Javier Marias writes in his novel The Infatuations that death is hard to overcome because the finality of it is hard to accept:

  It’s incomprehensible really, because it assumes a certainty, and being certain of anything goes against our nature: the certainty that someone will never come back, never speak again, never take another step—whether to come closer or to move further off—will never look at us or look away.

  I remember shaking Anthony very hard when I was finally allowed to see him uncovered the next day—I had to wait for the autopsy to be done and for him to look like himself again. As ridiculous as it sounds to me now, I shook him to wake him up, to get him to stand up and walk out of that cold morgue, which smelled of everything malignant.

  Many colleagues and friends traveled from all over the world to pay their respects and attend a memorial service in Anthony’s honor. I was very appreciative of and grateful for their presence.

  I suppress, as much as I can, my memories from the night he died and the following two days I spent in Turkey in hospitals, morgues, courtrooms, and police interrogations. On the flight from Adana to Istanbul, I screamed like a madwoman. Malik was sitting on my lap, agitated, and Anthony was in the cargo hold lying in the only coffin we could find in Adana. It had belonged to a German man; Muslims don’t bury their dead in coffins.

  In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes that “people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible.” Invisibility is a comforting feeling when your heart is so heavy. After he died, I preferred places where I knew no one and where no one knew me. Places where I felt most invisible and completely anonymous.

  It has been more than six years since Anthony passed away. And yet on some days, it still feels as raw as it did that night in Turkey. I quit journalism, left my home in Beirut, and moved thousands of miles away from everyone I knew and everything familiar. Along the way, I became someone I don’t recognize. I lost my balance and the discipline I once had. Anything that requires the smallest mental effort is now daunting, including writing these lines.

  I am thankful for being a mother. In so many ways, I think it saved me from making the wrong choices and forced me to get out of bed when I had no energy, will, or desire to do so. Raising a happy and healthy child will always be my biggest and most rewarding achievement.

  I turned thirty-seven in January. But the last birthday I remember was my thirty-first. I cannot account for the last six years of my life. I have forced myself into an exile and an isolation that is now so strong I cannot seem to break free.

  What Normal?

  Hwaida Saad

  There’s a scene from a Syrian TV show in which one woman detainee at a Syrian prison asks another what had happened to a person they both knew named Taym. The first prisoner had been detained during the early stages of the Syrian crisis in 2012, while the other had been taken in more recently.

  The second detainee answers, “Taym works at a field hospital in the liberated areas.”

  “What? The liberated areas?” the first woman asks. “We have liberated areas in Damascus now?! Why are you upset?”

  “In theory, yes, we have liberated areas,” the newcomer responds with a faint smile, traces of blood on her lips.

  The first detainee is surprised by the second woman’s rather subdued answer and her lack of enthusiasm. It’s obvious she hasn’t an inkling as to what had been going on beyond the prison walls during her detention. She claps excitedly, demanding more information about the so-called liberated areas.

  “You must tell me everything, especially about the liberated areas! Is the war coming to an end, then?” she asks.

  The newcomer maintains the cold, expressionless look on her face.

  It’s a short scene, but to my mind, it sums up the events in Syria from 2011 to 2018. By now, I feel as though the story of the country has become a long and unending saga. The second detainee’s sarcastic smile says it all.

  * * *

  —

  When I first sat down to write this essay, I hesitated. I was forced to think about the past seven years and the numerous exchanges I have had with individuals on social media. I have so much in my head: events, names, and places I’ve been. There is so much to remember.

  Yes. It has been seven years of the Syrian conflict already, and we’ve now entered its eighth. Yes. The years that have passed us by are a string of moments, and I’ve lived through them all, every detail. The events I’ve followed have grown bigger and bigger.

  There are the countless stories that I’ve reported for the New York Times. There are the accounts of people I met and corresponded with through Skype, WhatsApp, or Facebook. Where do I start? How do I start? And the bigger question: What happened between 2011 and 2018?

  * * *

  —

  Anthony Shadid was part of the story in the beginning, although he wouldn’t make it to the end.

  It was 2010. The New York Times had hired Anthony to take over as Beirut bureau chief from Robert Worth. For years, I’d been covering Syria from afar, occasionally taking trips into the country with Robert. Entering Syria as a journalist wasn’t easy, even back then. Arranging a trip would involve days or even weeks of waiting, since international and particularly American media weren’t welcome in Syria. And there were complications involved at every stage, from applying for a visa to crossing the border. But it was nonetheless still possible to enter the country legally as a journalist at that point.

  Anthony had an attractive personality. He was always smiling, very sharp, and, most important, he spoke Arabic fluently and had a deep understanding of Middle Eastern culture. At the time, the newspaper’s local office doubled as a work space and a home for Anthony and his wife, Nada Bakri, who was also a reporter at the Times. The couple converted one of the house’s five rooms into an office for us, with four chairs and joined tables. Anthony insisted that we work together, in the same room, rather than in separate ones. We had a very good relationship; I often helped organize his trips to Syria.

  Beirut was quiet back then, and early 2011 was uneventful. The demonstrations in Tunisia were broadcast on a
lmost all the TV channels, and I watched them with Malik, Nada and Anthony’s son. I didn’t think much of them at the time. I thought they were just protests, nothing more than a passing event.

  * * *

  —

  By the time the war erupted, entering Syria to report from the ground had become an increasingly dangerous endeavor. And in any case, it would have been too risky for me to get information from my sources in person.

  In the early days of the uprising, I communicated with Syrians I had already met during previous assignments in Damascus by phone. Later, some of my colleagues at the New York Times who were also covering the uprising shared with me a list of phone numbers belonging to prominent Syrian opposition members as well as protesters, suggesting I reach out to them. Some of those individuals were active on Skype, so I also connected with them there. One Skype contact led to another, and the list grew longer and longer. Later, the Syrian government blocked Anthony’s and my mobile and landline numbers, so we could no longer make any phone calls to Syria. I resorted to the virtual world for the crux of my reporting, communicating with Syrian citizens through Skype, WhatsApp, and other social media.

  I don’t know where they all were before the war started: Mohammad, Bilal, Maysara, Abu Al-Baraa, Abu Al-Majd, and the others.

  Perhaps they were at school or university. Perhaps they were street vendors or owned stores in Syria’s old souks. Perhaps I walked past them, or bought from them. Perhaps they were laborers in Lebanon, toiling the land or working menial jobs. They were Syrian citizens, their full names known to all. They were ordinary people going about their daily lives.

  But the beginning of 2011 changed all that. Names morphed into pseudotitles whose origins could be traced back to long-gone eras.

  Mohammad became Abu Moaz Al-Shami (Abu Moaz of Damascus); Bilal became Abu Bilal Al-Homsi (Abu Bilal of Homs); Nour became Thaer Al-Dimashki (Damascus rebel). Their faces changed, and their jobs did, too.

  Yahya used to be a car mechanic in Beirut. He joined the revolution early on, growing a beard and joining an extremist group. He says he remembers Beirut, but doesn’t like it.

  Abu Taym, also from Homs, used to work in agriculture. He later became a commander. He’s torn between his love of Lebanon and his duty as a commander of a battalion in the Free Syrian Army.

  Rami Al-Sayyid of Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in the Damascus district, lived in Achrafieh, Beirut—just steps away from me—in 2000. He chose to stay in Yarmouk at the beginning of the revolution, and lived through it all. Now he’s trapped in the conflict, and reminisces about his beautiful days in Beirut. He wishes we had met in those days, before the war, a wish I share with many others I’ve spoken with. I became obsessed with that idea, too.

  Even the chef became a battalion leader. He changed his name from Hadi to Abu Al-Laith (Father of the Lion). He describes himself as moujahid fi sabeel illah, “a fighter for the sake of Allah.” He used to spend his holidays between Beirut and Damascus, dancing late into the night with his friends. But now he deems a woman’s voice ’awra (a blemish or weakness). Sometimes, Abu Al-Laith slipped and forgot that he was a moujahid—he would send me flirtatious messages accompanied by heart and rose emojis on Skype. He was once a professional at making Arabic sweets and kebabs; he’s now a professional at making hand grenades.

  * * *

  —

  In the beginning, my exchanges with these men were filled with humor. Our Skype chats were a much needed break from the long days of protesting, and later, when the peaceful demonstrations turned violent, from the battlefields. Reading the words or hearing the voice of a woman made the men nostalgic for their loved ones after having been disconnected from them for various reasons. For the most part, they weren’t bothered by the fact that I was Lebanese; they loved the personal questions, such as my age and social status.

  But after President Bashar al-Assad issued a general amnesty in May 2011 that applied to all detainees belonging to political movements, including the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, violence rose dramatically. Armed factions started surfacing, and non-Syrian parties, mainly Hezbollah of Lebanon, began to enter the fray, too.

  As the conflict spread its tentacles, the questions from my online sources took an ugly turn. The men wanted to know what my political affiliations, religion, and sect were. That infuriated me. Most explained that their questions were necessary for them to establish trust and ensure their safety, especially after sieges on “liberated areas” had begun, metaphorically.

  “Don’t misunderstand my question,” one of my contacts said. “You know that the situation is critical and that we must be wary of the regime.”

  Some were diplomatic. Others, not so much.

  “Honestly, I do not love or trust the Shi’a, nor the Iranians, and we fear you might be one of them,” one contact told me.

  Their questions bothered me a great deal, and I insisted on not mentioning religion or sect whatsoever. I didn’t want to play their game, especially as the “sect game” in Lebanon had already exhausted me. (Syria was once a haven for my family; we’d often visit in order to forget my country’s sectarian, doctrinal complexities. But today, Syria has become a place that reminds me of all those complexities.) My defiance was a great obstacle in both my emotional state and my career: it sometimes meant I’d lose the contact altogether, or that they’d cross me off their Skype list.

  And yet some were still prepared to play the “love game” with me, even taking risks and crossing the siege to come to Beirut to meet me in person.

  One of those men was a Syrian from the Homs countryside who was educated in Lebanon, at the Beirut Arab University, and opposed the regime. He adored the Lebanese accent and remembered Beirut fondly, but hated the Dahieh—a mostly Shi’a Muslim southern suburb of Beirut.

  He had tried hard to rise above the sectarianism; his city, which is situated along the border with Lebanon, was under siege by regime forces and Hezbollah. He didn’t ask about my sect. Perhaps he didn’t insist on finding out because he thought we were of the same denomination. Or maybe he had come to his own conclusions based on the fact that I lived in Achrafieh, a predominantly Christian area in Beirut.

  We didn’t talk about religion. He was enthusiastic about the revolution. But his enthusiasm wore off as the number of armed factions operating in his area increased and corruption spread. Our chats were a mix of his rendering of Lebanese pop star Elissa’s songs—even though he didn’t like music—and the sounds of regime shelling and propelled grenades pouring down around him. He was highly educated and witty.

  As the war took a different direction in Homs, and Hezbollah came onto the Syrian scene, our banter began to change. The ongoing shelling and siege in his hometown had a negative impact on him. His mind was swinging between his loyalty to the revolution and his hatred toward the Lebanese militia. He started reflecting on the differences between the doctrines of Sunni Islam and Shi’a Islam as the political schism between them deepened.

  After a year, he grew tired of virtual chitchat and decided to take a risk and come to Beirut to meet me, the Lebanese houriyyat al-bahr, or “Beautiful Mermaid.” (The term houriyyah in Arabic wasn’t widely used before the days of Daesh; the group popularized it as it had promised its soldiers that if they martyred themselves, they would be granted “pretty women” in heaven.) I found the nickname beautiful. It reminded me of a film I love, A Fish Called Wanda. The man sold his laptop—one of the only valuables still in his possession after he’d lost nearly everything—to pay for the trip’s expenses.

  When we met in person, he didn’t hide his resentment toward Hezbollah and Shi’a Muslims: he criticized them strongly and freely. I had brought a Syrian friend along to the meeting, and we listened to the man silently. His comments were blunt to the point of being offensive. My friend and I tried to take the edge off with faint smiles, after which we exchanged knowing glances. The
man seemed confused by our behavior, and doubt filled his soft face as he realized that one of us “could belong to the enemy’s sect,” or be a supporter or member of “the other party.” In his eyes I saw struggle and confusion between his loyalty to the revolution and his infatuation with a reporter who had drawn him to Beirut and whose political and religious affiliations he knew nothing of. After all, I might have belonged to a sect he considered his biggest enemy.

  His first cause was the revolution. Later, matters became increasingly mixed up. His brother was killed by a Shi’a neighbor. He lost his city, which had fallen into the hands of the regime and Hezbollah in the spring of 2013. The price of his revolution was high. His anger and bigotry fluctuated, but his passion strengthened. A counterrevolution was brewing inside him.

  He decided to emigrate and live elsewhere with his depression. We stayed in contact for a while after he arrived in Sweden, where he was seeking refuge. There, he began to suffer in different ways, as he had to contend with a new language, a new community, and new traditions.

  * * *

  —

  After the crisis in Syria turned bloody, some regions were “liberated.” In other words, they came under siege. During the siege, ideas changed, and so did faces—many of which grew beards. On the radio, jihadi songs replaced those of Elissa. Innocence gradually disappeared. Tired of demonstrating, some decided to join armed factions.

  Death edged closer and closer, touching everything and taking everything. For me, it started with the passing of Anthony on February 16, 2012, during his reporting trip to Idlib, which had just been announced as liberated by the Free Syrian Army.