“The Europeans don’t understand us,” the waiter said as he brought platters of barbecued chicken and bottles of beer. “As Syrians, we are all losing so much.”
At another table, two Alawite businessmen offered us rakija, a form of brandy made with anise, and came to join our table. We spoke openly of politics, but when I mentioned the regime’s reputation for torture and detention, there was visible stiffening.
“That does not happen,” one of the businessmen said. “It’s propaganda.”
Then the men excused themselves politely and left; Maryam was embarrassed.
“You should not have asked that,” she remonstrated quietly.
“But it’s true,” I said.
She turned her face away, and in a cloud of narghile smoke replied, “Syrians cannot bear that we are doing this to each other. Once we had a common enemy—Israel. Now we are each other’s enemy.”
7. The Shabaab
The war had come to Damascus—hit-and-run operations by the opposition; bombings in defence of their minute strongholds. The government, which has tanks and aircraft, kept to the high ground and pummelled opposition fighters from above. The FSA are said to be armed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and to some extent by the United States, but when you see the fighters—the shabaab, the guys—you see what they need is anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft guns. They have none. Their weapons are old. Their uniforms are shabby. They fight wearing trainers.
Zabadani, a town close to the Lebanese border on the old smugglers’ route, had once been a tourist attraction but is now empty except for government gunners on the hills and FSA fighters in the centre of town. Before the war, the town was more or less a model community: mainly populated by Sunnis but a friendly place where people were welcomed, and where ethnicity and religion did not matter.
“There is a feeling of belonging in Zabadani that the regime deprived us of,” said Mohammed, a young journalist I had met in Beirut who was born and raised in Zabadani, but who had been forced to flee. “We felt Syrian. Not any ethnic or religious denomination.”
I crowded into a courtyard of an old building in town, which was protected from shelling on all sides, with a group of fighters on what they counted as the fifty-second day of straight shelling in Zabadani. They did the universal thing soldiers do when they wait for the next attack: drink tea, smoke cigarettes, and complain.
“What did you do in your former life?” I asked this ragtag bunch. One was a mason; another a truck driver; another a teacher; another a smuggler. Thirty years ago, the roads from Damascus to Zabadani were infamous for smuggling.
“You could buy real Lacoste T-shirts, anything, for the cheapest price.” Everyone laughed. Then there was the sound of machine-gun fire and the smiles disappeared.
At the Zabadani triage hospital, which keeps getting moved because it keeps getting targeted and blown up, the sole doctor was stitching up a soldier who had been hit in a mortar attack. The current hospital location had been a furniture shop and was well hidden in the winding streets of the Old City, which had been taken over by the FSA. As the doctor stitched in the dark, he talked: “Both sides feel demoralized now,” he said. “But both sides said after Daraya”—referring to the massacre—“there is no going back.”
The doctor insisted on taking me back to his house and giving me a medical kit for my safe keeping. “You need it,” he said. As I left, his wife gave me three freshly washed pears.
“The symbol of Zabadani,” said the doctor. “They used to be the sweetest thing.”
There are no templates for war—the only thing that is the same from Vietnam to East Timor to Sierra Leone is the agony it creates. Syria reminds me of Bosnia: the abuse, the torture, the ethnic cleansing, and the fighting among former neighbours. And the sorrow of war too is universal—the inevitable end of a life that one knows and holds dear, and the beginning of pain and loss.
War is this: the end of the daily routine—walking children to schools that are now closed; the morning coffee in the same cafe, now empty with shattered glass; the friends and family who have fled to uncertain futures. The constant, gnawing fear in the pit of one’s stomach that the door is going to be kicked in and you will be dragged away.
I returned to Paris after that second trip, and thought often of a small child I met in Homs, with whom I had passed a gentle afternoon. At night, the sniping started and his grandmother began to cry with fear that a foreigner was in the house, and she made me leave in the dark.
I did not blame her. She did not want to die. She did not want to get raided by the Mukhabarat for harbouring a foreign reporter.
The boy had been inside for some months and he was bored: he missed his friends; he missed the life that had ended for him when the protests began.
For entertainment, he watched, over and over, the single video in the house, Home Alone—like Groundhog Day, waiting for normality to return so he could go out and play, find the school friends who months ago had been sent to Beirut or London or Paris to escape the war, and resume his lessons.
“When will it end?” he asked earnestly. For children, there must always be a time sequence, an order, for their stability. I know this as a mother. My son is confused by whether he sleeps at his father’s apartment or his mother’s and who is picking him up from school.
“And Wednesday is how many days away?” he always asks me. “And Christmas is how many months? And when is summer?”
“So when is the war over?” this little boy asked me.
“Soon,” I said, knowing that I was lying.
I knelt down and took his tiny face in my hands. “I don’t know when, but it will end,” I said. I kissed his cheek goodbye. “Everything is going to be fine.”
ANDERS NILSEN
Rage of Poseidon
FROM Rage of Poseidon, a graphic novel
LALLY KATZ
15-Second Android
FROM 15-Second Plays, a chapbook
ANDROID
Here I am. An Android. Made only to last fifteen seconds. That’s all the time I have for this world. I am born to die. And in that time in between, I will brush my teeth.
The Fifteen Second Android begins to brush its teeth. It speaks as it brushes.
ANDROID
I wake up. For the first and last time ever. And I have morning breath. I use toothpaste to brush it away. I will fall asleep, for the first and last time ever, and I brush my teeth with toothpaste before bed.
It spits out the toothpaste, rinses its mouth and the toothbrush.
ANDROID
I didn’t floss. I didn’t use mouthwash. But my life wasn’t bad, all in all.
The End
KYLE G. DARGAN
The Robots Are Coming
FROM The Baffler
with clear-cased woofers for heads,
no eyes. They see us as a bat sees
a mosquito—a fleshy echo,
a morsel of sound. You’ve heard
their intergalactic tour busses
purring at our stratosphere’s curb,
awaiting the counter intelligence
transmissions from our laptops
and our earpieces, awaiting word
of humanity’s critical mass,
our ripening. How many times
have we dreamed it this way—
The Age of the Machines,
the post industrial specter
of tempered paws, five welded fingers
wrenching back our roofs,
siderophilic tongues seeking blood,
licking the crumbs of us from our beds.
O, it won’t be pretty, America.
What land would you trade
for our lives? A treaty inked
in advance of metal’s footfall.
Give them Detroit. Give them Gary,
Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten
nurseries of girders and axels.
Tell the machines we honor their dead,
distant cousins. Tell the
m we left
those cities to repose of respect
for the bygone era of molten metal.
Tell them Carnegie and Ford
were giant men, that war glazed
their palms with gold. Tell them
we humans mourn the ecosystem
of manufacture all the same.
ANDREW FOSTER ALTSCHUL
Embarazada
FROM Ploughshares
WHEN 600 MILLIGRAMS of mifepristone is introduced into the bloodstream, it binds to progesterone receptors without activating the receptors, acting as an antiprogestin. Progesterone is fundamentally important for sustaining an early pregnancy.
Try again—in English. When mifepristone is introduced into the bloodstream of a pregnant woman, it cuts off the supply of progesterone to the developing embryo.
This does not sound like a friendly introduction. It sounds like a tourniquet. Or a naval blockade.
It alters the endometrium by affecting the capillary endothelial cells of the decidua. As a result the trophoblast separates from the decidua, secretion of human chorionic gonadotropin into the maternal circulation declines, and bleeding ensues.
Translation: It wreaks havoc. It ruins everything.
This is all hypothetical.
Hypothetically: If a woman were given 600 milligrams of mifepristone and then, 36 hours later, 800 micrograms of a prostaglandin analog—let’s call it “misoprostol”—up to 99% will abort within four hours. This applies to pregnancies up to seven weeks since last menstrual period (LMP). Between seven and nine weeks, it gets a little, shall we say, dicey, although Ngoc et al. reported success rates of 96% among Vietnamese women at 56 days’ gestation, and Winikoff et al. reported success ranging from 84% to 95% in China, Cuba, and India.
China, Cuba, and India strike you as interesting places. Vietnam, too. You think you’d like to travel there one day. Maybe soon. Maybe someone there can teach you the difference between a milligram and a microgram. Maybe they can translate “success.”
Incidentally, it’s best to administer the misoprostol intravaginally—which increases the percentage of successful abortions. While it’s true that nausea, cramping, diarrhea, and other side effects will ensue for virtually all women, 67% will not require any pain medication using this method.
One imagines women are relieved to hear this. Why aren’t you?
Why is a good question. A popular question. As they say here in Peru: ¿Por qué? As in ¿por qué are you here? As in ¿por qué are you traveling alone?
Since you arrived two weeks ago: ¿por qué? ¿por qué? ¿por qué? You’ve quit your job, given up your apartment, cashed your savings. And that’s just for starters.
¿Por qué? Literal translation: “For what?” As in: For what have you come? As in: What do you want from us?
Too hard to explain. Historia, you tell the shoeshine boys, the police officer. Cultura, you tell the old woman in the bowler hat. You point at the colonial buildings, the 17th-century cathedral, the ice-crowned mountains. The Andean sky is a blue confection, rich as ice cream. Your country is beautiful, you say, shivering in the thin air, winded by the altitude. You consult your pocket dictionary: muy lindo. The men—shopkeepers, taxistas, the kid at the desk of your hostal—laugh at this. Las chicas están lindas, they say. You didn’t understand at first. And then you did.
“Why you no have girlfriend?” asks Teresa, a waitress in a pleasant café overlooking the main plaza. She is twenty, twenty-one. She and the other waitresses have taken an interest in you. You come to this café twice a day, sometimes three times.
No sé, you tell her. You struggle for words but all you come up with is Not now.
She wipes your table, smiling mischievously. “When?” she says. Then starts to sing, waltzing with her dishrag: ¿Cuando? ¿Cuando, mi amor, estaremos juntos? From behind the kitchen curtain, shrieks and giggles. A group of German backpackers turn to watch. You eat your eggs, hiding a smile. Yes: Already, you are not who you were.
Teresa, says la jefa, looking up from the counter. No seas tonta. La jefa is older than the waitresses—maybe thirty, maybe forty—serious and dignified. She is fond of the waitresses, as though they were her wayward little sisters. They pretend to be afraid of her, but when they want a day off they nuzzle up to her and flutter their eyes.
La jefa crosses the café, heels clacking on the warped wood floor. The tables all wobble, no two chairs the same height, the thick walls all cracked. These buildings have been here for centuries—they’ve survived earthquakes, conquest, the careless trampling of a million shiftless turistas. “I sorry,” says la jefa. She waves an arm at the kitchen curtain, rolls her eyes like Greta Garbo. “These bad girls.” ¡No! you say.
Malditas, she says, waggling a finger in disapproval. Chismosas. She puts your change on the table, neatly arranged in a clay saucer. A plump yellow cherry wobbles atop the filthy bills. La jefa turns to leave, brushing your shoulder. Jovencitas, she says, walking away. “Too young.”
Turns out, not everyone is so taken with the magical powers of mifepristone. Believe it or not, in some parts of the world, particularly in strongly Catholic countries, mifepristone is illegal or virtually unavailable. In such places, one might find a substitute, say the antifolate methotrexate [which] provides another medical approach to pregnancy termination. Turns out, regimens with methotrexate and intravaginally administered misoprostol appear to be effective for abortion at 49 days’ gestation. Translation: It works just as goddamned well.
Hypothetically.
None of this is a secret. A quick search of WebMD, a few medical journals, yields more notes and statistics than you know what to do with. You copy, you paste, you boldface. When the owner of the cybercafé strolls by, you fake a coughing fit, click back to ESPN.com. Later you send an email to a friend in medical school, with a subtle, succinct subject line: S.O.S.
¿Por qué? ¿Por qué, amigo? In the hostal, the café, the bodegas. In the plaza, where you spend afternoons reading while shoeshine boys, children selling postcards, Chiclets, finger puppets, wool hats, hum around you like a swarm. They clamber onto your bench, recite the names of the first ten U.S. presidents. ¿Papi, por qué está acá? They start to shine your hiking boots. ¿Amigo, no quiere postcard? You no have girlfriend for write?
¡No!
You like the chicas, amigo? ¿Le gustan las peruanas? They are always in motion, moving from bench to bench like water coming to a boil. You have girlfriend? they ask. You want meet my cousin?
¡No!
On a nearby bench, three young women in black pants and heavy mascara study you. It occurs to you that you look very friendly, very fatherly, boys crawling on your lap to inspect the book in your hands: Love in the Time of Cholera. Translation by Edith Grossman. You read aloud a few sentences. The boys are not interested. You ask them their names. ¿Como se llaman? The young women spurt into laughter. The kid who runs your hostal has taught you a new word: brichera. From his smirking explanation you extracted the words chicas, gringos, and sex. The kid raised his eyebrows, pointed at you. You tried to join in the fun—you pointed back. He turned away, offended. You went back to your room and checked the dictionary, but there was no entry for brichera.
Teresa is dating a Dutchman. You’ve seen him in the café: reed-thin with yellow hair, so tall he has to duck coming up the stairs. The girls call him Javier, though this is only a Spanish approximation of his name. He’s a guide, la jefa tells you. He leads rich europeos around Peru and makes lots of money in tips.
Another waitress, Flor, has a German novio. But she used to be with un frances. Her sister Laura, who works only on weekends, is also dating a German, though she says she prefers australianos. Diana, who comes in on la jefa’s day off, lived for a year with a man from Suiza, but now is pining after an Englishman who left for Chile last month.
Italianos are popular, because they like to dance. Franceses drink all night, and always buy. The Dutch, it is said, are very gallant, muy caballero; eve
ryone in the café has dated a Dutchman at one time or another. No one in the café will admit to having dated an israelita.
“Even no Flor!” says Teresa, and laughs. Flor puts her hands on her hips. Ni tu madre, she shoots back.
¿Y los americanos? you ask, pleased at how your Spanish is advancing.
Americanos . . . Teresa is unsure how to answer. Americanos very . . . no sé. She clamps her arms to her sides, rocks stiff-legged across the room like an intoxicated robot. Son estúpidos, says Cristina, the dishwasher.
¡No! cries Teresa, rushing to your table. ¡No! says Flor. Soon they are all sharing your chair. They assure you that not all Americans are stupid. Some, in fact, are muy lindos. You, for example—you are muy buena persona, they say, un gringo diferente.
Through a curtain of black hair, soothing hands, you say, No soy gringo. You don’t like the word, its air of arrogance, selfishness. You see plenty of gringos here: the Brits, the Germans, the Dutch, who treat the country like a giant souvenir shop. The Israelis who move in packs of twenty and take over whole plazas, smoking and singing songs in Hebrew. Soy Americano, you tell your amigas.
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