We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled

by Wendy Pearlman

  Then we started walking. Store owners left their stores and came to watch us. Everyone was filming with their cell phones, but was silent. I wanted to move them, so I said, “Why aren’t you ululating for Syria’s brides?” I ululated, and the crowd went crazy ululating and clapping for us. I remember there was an elderly man who began to cry. We did not hear a single curse or insult. People were saying, “God bless you. You are the heroes of Syria.”

  A security force member came, a gun in his hand. He told me, “Take that sign down and don’t cause problems.” I raised my sign even higher. We became more determined. You felt like you were facing an executioner: It’s either you or him.

  The whole protest lasted about half an hour before a full security detail arrived on the scene and detained us. They threatened us and cursed our mothers and brothers. They kept demanding, “Who are you working for? Who’s behind you?” Then they took us to the branch office. We heard them say among themselves, “Why did those filthy whores go out? Were they looking for someone to ride them? Why don’t we take them down to the jihadists? One hundred jihadists would take each bride.” It was terrifying psychological torture. Your mind fills with questions. Will they really do that?

  They had us wait in the corridor. You see bloodstains on the wall and ask yourself, “Whose blood is that?” You see older men, barefoot and kneeling on the floor. You wonder how long they’ve been like that. You see young men with their heads covered. They beat them as they pleased. We saw the guys cuffed and hanging from rods, metal digging into their flesh. I remember one guy telling the officer, “Father, please, I kiss your hand. Please take me down, just give me thirty seconds to use the bathroom.” The officer told him, “No. And if you do it on yourself, I’ll make you drink it.”

  After a while they took us away for interrogation, one by one. Interrogation lasted from three o’clock in the afternoon until eight the next morning. Then they took us down to the cell. Every day we’d hear the shots of field executions. We got sick and got lice. In the cell, there was one person with epilepsy, three people with asthma, one person with ovarian cancer. We were a tiny room with twenty-five diseases. For fifteen days, my sister was on the verge of death. I started beating down the door. I screamed at the guard, “I don’t need my sister. She will die for the sake of Syria, but you will be held accountable.” They were afraid because we were from a religious minority. The next day, the doctor came.

  We stayed in prison for two months, and then were released on a prisoners exchange. After I got out, I went back to Midhat Basha market and asked the shop owners about the brides incident. One said, “Yes, I remember. They arrested them.”

  I told him that I was one of the brides. He hugged me and started crying. He said, “Do you know what happened the next day here?” He told me that there was an old man who used to sell children’s toys, displayed on a table. The day after our protest he cleared everything off his table and put up only four dolls dressed as brides. Just four brides.

  Part VI

  Living War

  Abu Firas, fighter (rural Idlib)

  It’s been so long since I heard that someone died from natural causes.

  In the beginning, one or two people would get killed. Then twenty. Then fifty. Then it became normal. If we lost fifty people, we thought, “Thank God, it’s only fifty!”

  I can’t sleep without the sounds of bombs or bullets. It’s like something’s missing. Last year, they shelled the market on the holiday at the end of Ramadan. People left the market. Half an hour later, everyone returned and went back to buying and selling.

  Rana, mother (Aleppo)

  It was a nightmare in every meaning of the word. Or like a horror movie come true. The feeling of terror is indescribable. I got physically ill from the stress and pressure. Even now, I have all sorts of digestive problems.

  We were bombed in the winter and all the windows broke. My son’s lips would turn blue from the cold. Finally we had to flee the house with only the clothes that we were wearing. We spent eight months living in different places. Sometimes we found places to rent and sometimes we didn’t. It was like a vacation, but with bombing. Now even my three-year-old can tell the difference between different missiles and rockets.

  My family lives in the countryside. I didn’t see them for six months. Then when I finally went to visit, they bombed those areas, too. The adults and ten kids slept in the entryway, but we didn’t actually sleep the whole night. The bombs would explode and the door would dance, shaking from the impact. After a bombing, the sky would become brown from all the dust and dirt thrown up into the air.

  We went back home but the bombing continued. I’d call my mom and ask, “Have they bombed you over there, or not yet?”

  Amin, physical therapist (Aleppo)

  There were parts of Syria where my experience as a physical therapist was needed, like in the camps for the internally displaced. So I found myself working in such a camp. I had the idea that I was going to help people. But I realized that, three years after the start of the revolution, people didn’t care anymore. We’d approach a patient saying, “We want to treat you so you can walk again.” He’d say, “I’m finished. I just want to die.” Or there would be kids, and we’d tell them, “You need to get an education. You need to . . .” And the children would say, “I don’t want to be dragged around in a wheelchair anymore. The other boys make fun of me.” There was one child from the camp with polio. He used to come and say to me, “When I was a little kid . . .” And he was only ten years old.

  Every time someone dies we say we need to continue, we need to continue. But continue what? We’re coming to a dead end. I saw so many of my friends die. Friends die in the revolution and friends in my army unit when I was still doing my compulsory service. They were so young. Once I was talking to this guy and his only dream was to talk to his mother again. We had no means of communication then, and he died before he could speak to her or anyone else.

  Another time, one of the other guys called his girlfriend and said, “Sweetheart, I’m out of minutes on my phone. I’ll call you back on Amin’s phone.” After a while she called me asking about him, and I told her that he’d been killed. She cried and my friends said, “Why did you tell her that?” I said, “Because that’s what happened. It’s normal. He died.”

  This is when we lost our humanity. I’d open my phone and look at my contacts and only one or two were still alive. They told us, “If someone dies, don’t delete his number. Just change his name to ‘Martyr.’” That way, if you got a text from that number, you knew that someone else had gotten hold of the phone and might be using it to entrap you.

  So I’d open my contact list and it was all Martyr, Martyr, Martyr . . .

  Jalal, photographer (Aleppo)

  In the beginning, we filmed protests on our phones. Later we were able to bring in more advanced cameras and taught ourselves how to use them. Foreign journalists started coming. I’d go out with them as a fixer and watch how they worked with photos. By 2013, I was working with news agencies as a photographer myself.

  Some people have a good instinct for battle photos or for photos of everyday civilian life. I love photos of hope; hope in the midst of death. For example, I took several photos of a vendor with a cart of oranges. Behind him, the building is completely collapsed. It’s night. The oranges are hit by a glimmer of light, and you see that they’re wiped clean. For sure, this man has witnessed many people die. But in spite of everything, he’s standing there, selling this delicious fruit. You see this image and think, “This is life.”

  At the same time, whatever comes out of these people is understandable, as far as I’m concerned. The regime has turned us into monsters so it can justify killing us by saying that it’s fighting monsters. Syrian society has been shattered, because families have been shattered. Bring any family together today and you’ll find four or five empty chairs.

  I once photographed a barrel bomb that killed three kids. I was photographing the f
ather as he sobbed. He kept saying, “I left them for one hour to look for a safer place to take them. I came back and they were gone.” I have four kids, and the whole purpose of my future is to guarantee their future. So I imagine this man who loses his kids—the thing that defines his future. I completely understand if he turns into a monster.

  But even a monster has hope. He hopes that someday he’ll go back to being a normal human being.

  Kareem, doctor (Homs)

  The operating room was in use around the clock. For each surgery, we took an X-ray. It’s just a fraction of a second, but we took so many that we calculated that we were exposed to about twenty minutes of radiation a week. Once we received a young man who had been shot by a sniper and needed surgery by a vascular specialist. None were able to reach the hospital due to the siege, so one gave us instructions over the phone, and we carried out the surgery as he directed.

  One Sunday I spent the night at the hospital and woke up to intense shooting. Regime forces were shelling Baba Amr and occupying the whole neighborhood. Seven of us fled to the basement. We hid and listened to the tanks get closer.

  We heard a group storm the hospital. They were shooting bullets and shattering glass. We thought we were done for. The regime viewed doctors as partners with the rebels. As far as it was concerned, if you treated the brother of someone who participated in a demonstration, then you both deserved to be punished.

  We waited like sheep to be slaughtered. And then we had an idea. One of us was brave enough to shout, “Where are you? We’re down here!” We tried to show that we were only civilians who had nothing to do with the fighting. They called us up and we saw them: eight people, armed to the teeth. The leader was a shabeeh wearing a belt filled with knives. He spoke with an Alawite accent. The rest were just kids, conscripts in the army who didn’t know what they were doing or why.

  The shabeeh commanded us down to the basement again. We thought that he would drop a grenade and kill us, but suddenly they left and the hospital became calm again. Half an hour later, another group came, also breaking things and opening fire. We tried the same trick; it worked, and again they ordered us to stay in the basement.

  We waited for them to come down and kill us. It didn’t happen. Instead, a terrible burning smell descended into the basement. I felt like I was going to choke. I went upstairs and saw that they’d broken into the administration office. They’d stolen all the money there, which must have made them forget about us. And then they burned the place to hide the crime.

  We managed to extinguish the fire, but the smoke made it impossible to breathe. A tank was parked at the main gate of the hospital; if we exited from the front, we’d be arrested or killed. The only option was to go out the back, climb over the wall behind the hospital, and seek refuge in the residential building on the other side. So that’s what we did. One nurse weighed over two hundred pounds, but sheer fear carried her over, too. It turned out that the army had just searched that building. If we’d climbed ten minutes earlier, we would have been caught.

  We stayed with the neighbors for seven days, eating rice and stale bread, and sitting in the dark without electricity. Two patients remained in the hospital. One was in intensive care, hooked up to a ventilator. A nurse and the hospital guard stayed with her until there was no oxygen left. When the patient died, they jumped over the wall and joined us.

  The second patient had been shot in the frontal lobe. He was there with his son, who was maybe eleven years old. The boy would leave at night, knock on doors asking for help, and then go back to his dad. On the third day, the army entered the hospital and killed them both. We saw them take the corpses away.

  The attack on Baba Amr was the first time the army used surface-to-surface missiles, rocket launchers, and airplanes. The international community said nothing, so the regime continued using them after that. Eventually, they announced an agreement that allowed civilians to go out. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in a shock that lasted about fifteen days. I kept thinking, “What happened? How did I survive? Why am I not dead?”

  I returned to my house and found that the army had been staying there. A stray cat was inside and the house was flooded with water and diesel. Most of the furniture was stolen and whatever was left was ruined. All of the house’s privacy was violated. My private things, my wife’s private things . . . they wrote on the wall, “This is freedom.”

  Imagine that you find your own neighborhood looking like Hiroshima. Destruction. Buildings knocked to the ground. A strange calm . . . as if you’re in a theater. Silence. Only the tweet of sparrows.

  Hiba, former student (Qalamoun)

  I was studying pharmacy in Damascus. Then things got agitated in our area. The checkpoints made it too difficult to reach campus. I took leave for the semester and my family went back home to Qalamoun.

  My dad was on the board of directors for a charitable organization, and I started working with them to help people who had fled from other parts of Syria. We thought of them as our guests. We did other projects, too. Kids were getting really bored stuck inside all the time, so we worked with them to put on a show with music and dancing.

  Qalamoun is near the border with Lebanon, so there were conflicts every now and then. Normally there would be shelling followed by airstrikes, and then everything would go back to normal. November 2013 was different. Airstrikes started and didn’t stop for twenty-five days. The battle of Qalamoun had begun.

  We hid in the basement. My dad and brother refused to stay with us. They spent the days working at the charity, where people were bringing the injured. One day, dad came home and I could tell that he was hiding something. Finally he told us; my brother had been martyred. The bullet had gone in his neck. He remained alive for a while, but no one had the means to save him. Later they tried to bring him to the cemetery to bury him, but there was too much shooting and they had to turn back.

  After that, mom was in a bad psychological state. Dad urged us to go to Damascus so she could rest a bit. He refused to leave Qalamoun. It was his town and there was still work for him to do.

  We left, and he stayed. Then the regime took over the area and started arresting people. They targeted board members of the charity on the suspicion that they were assisting the FSA.

  One evening we called dad but his phone was off. We kept calling and calling. Fifteen days passed and we heard nothing. Then we received a text from his number saying, “I ran away.” Ran away? I was suspicious. I texted back, “Call us on your wife’s number.” He had mom’s number memorized, but not saved on his mobile.

  He didn’t call. We waited and waited and he didn’t call . . . and that’s how we knew that it wasn’t him.

  We asked around at different security branches. We asked and asked. We used every connection we had and paid whatever they wanted. They always made us promises like, “Next month . . .”

  Months went by and at some point, a man called us. He’d just been released from prison, where he’d been with my dad. He told us, “He’s lost some weight, but he’s strong. He’s only worried about you.” I asked if there was any way to send him a message, to tell him that I gave birth to a little girl, and my sister got married, and we’re doing okay? He said that he’d try.

  With time you get used to the idea that your brother has died. You say, “This is the situation for everyone in the country, not just us.” This is fate. This is what God has written for us. But the feeling that my dad might be in prison, waiting for us to do something . . . I blame myself. I did everything I could do, but somehow I should have done more.

  Sometimes with the daily routine, you forget a bit. But then some little thing happens and it comes back to you. Like last year, there were two big snowstorms. I’d cover myself with blankets and immediately think, “Oh God, how is dad staying warm now?”

  Osama, student (al-Qusayr)

  The first time the army came into al-Qusayr, they arrested a lot of people or beat them in the streets. The second time and thir
d time, they shot people. After that, guys started taking up guns. Al-Qusayr became really dangerous. There was shelling, like in other towns. A sniper was positioned on a tall building near the main street and shot anyone who passed. My dad had a bus and would drive people across the street so nobody got hurt. He became wanted by the regime and then they arrested him and took him away.

  People started buying weapons, and the armed groups grew. I was spending all my time outside, asking a lot of questions. I was just in ninth grade, and my family was afraid for my safety. One day mom told me that we needed to go to Jordan because my grandfather was sick. We were going to visit him and then return home. But it turned out that they tricked me; we went to Jordan and never came back. I was so upset that they did this to me.

  Meanwhile, Hezbollah wanted to come from Lebanon to Syria to help the regime. One way was through al-Qusayr, because it’s right on the border. The FSA shot at the Hezbollah fighters, and the regime started shelling. The regime didn’t care that it killed people; it just wanted to take the city so its allies could get through. Hezbollah moved in and all the people left, except for poor people who didn’t have the means to leave. Forces from Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia encircled the town.

  The people of al-Qusayr withstood for three months. I think it’s remarkable that they held out for so long. Al-Qusayr became known worldwide. On the news, you’d hear, “Poor al-Qusayr, the town is being destroyed.” People in other countries sent money, but the leaders of different FSA brigades took it for themselves. They put it in their pockets while the young guys were dying. I couldn’t understand: Why did they want money so much when they could die at any moment?