by Monia Mazigh
Sudden relief. My fears evaporated and, as if to avoid the possibility that he might change his mind, I hurried off with the children to the tax-free zone, found a public telephone, and called Thérèse Laatar.
“Everything went fine, there was no problem. We’re going now to the departure gate,” I told her. She seemed pleased too, wished me bon voyage, and hung up. I checked the number of our departure gate. We finally reached a large hall where I sat down with the children. The walls were decorated with beautiful Roman mosaics. As I sat thinking about the new life waiting for us, I admired the beauty of these works. Curiously, in the thousands of tiny pieces of stone glued one beside another to form everyday scenes of Roman life, I found a feast for the eyes that took my mind away from my sadness.
* I found out later that, in the United States, all federal prisons are named Federal Bureau Prison. The institution where Maher was incarcerated was called the Metropolitan Detention Center.
— 2 —
BACK IN CANADA
the storm begins …
NOVEMBER 15, 2002. The Air France plane touched down gently on the Dorval airport runway. From my seat in the centre of the aircraft, I tried to see through the window. I could see nothing. It was dark, perhaps eight or nine o’clock at night. Barâa had not slept at all during the flight; she was a little tired but delighted that she would soon be back in Ottawa. Houd had gone to sleep but was now awake. I offered him his pacifier and a small rattle, but he turned his head away. He was looking around and smiling at the other passengers instead. My heart was racing. What was in store for us? I was returning to Canada, but I felt as though I had lost all my happiness, as though a heavy weight was pressing down on me. It was all I could do to stand up. The flight attendant invited passengers with small children to leave the plane; I hurried on ahead. Houd’s stroller was waiting at the beginning of the exit ramp. I put Houd in it, took Barâa by the hand, and prepared to make my way to the customs desk. A young black lady dressed in uniform had come to meet us. In planning our return journey, I had insisted to Mr. Pardy that I needed someone to help me, that I was worried about my children. Everything about my life now seemed to be uncertainty. I was looking hard for “official assurances,” for some sense of security. I understood that the lady worked for the Montreal airport authority, but I was in another world and didn’t even catch her name. We went to pick up our luggage, which I hefted onto a baggage cart, with the lady’s help. The children were quiet, not knowing what was going on. At last we came to customs. A customs agent beckoned me forward. She wanted to search my belongings. She asked for my Canadian passport, I handed it to her, then she opened my bags. Where was I coming from? she asked. She wanted to see the children’s travel documents too. I handed her Barâa’s passport and Houd’s travel document. She took them and went into a small office. I couldn’t see anything. A minute passed, two, almost ten minutes, then she reappeared. Her stony expression unchanged, she searched again through my two duffle bags. Suddenly she happened upon a file box full of my favorite recipes. In an instant her eyes lit up, as if she had found what she was looking for, then she opened it, realized her stupid mistake, and put it back with a visible touch of disappointment. Then she asked to see my health insurance card, my credit cards, and even the cash I had on me. She counted out the American dollar bills one at a time and put them back in my wallet, asked for my Tunisian passport, and took it with all my other documents into the small office. The airport employee was still with us.
“I’ve never seen anything like this!” she said, rolling her eyes.
We waited. Still the agent didn’t come back. The children were as if in a state of suspended animation. I was feeling more and more intimidated and uncomfortable. What should I do? On the one hand, I wanted to get it over with and leave, but on the other, I wanted to know why I was being treated this way. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that the agent was going into her small office to get orders from someone else, then coming back to carry them out. My stomach was churning. Was this a foretaste of the new life that awaited me outside the high, cold walls of the airport? Time passed, my patience was running out. I looked at the children; they were exhausted. We had left our house in Tunis early that morning and now it was almost ten o’clock at night, Montreal time. I saw the customs agent come back; she handed me my documents, then asked, “You’re travelling alone? Where is your husband?”
That was the last straw. I couldn’t restrain myself.
“Really! You go through this whole song and dance as if you don’t know where my husband is? You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t know where he was, isn’t that so?” The agent defended herself. She didn’t know anything about what was going on. She didn’t follow the news, she said.
“You must follow the news because you work every day with people coming from abroad,” I snapped back.
It was clear that she didn’t like my replies. She ignored what I was saying. Now she wanted to be done with me, made a last cursory search through my belongings, then gave me permission to go. But I still had to hand Houd’s travel document over to Immigration. I pushed the heavy baggage cart with the duffle bags almost dragging on the floor. Finally I found the right place. A smiling lady was waiting behind a window. She took the document, asked me a few questions, and was about to let me leave when the customs agent walked up with what seemed like a smirk on her face, called the immigration official, and the two left together to another office. Through a small window I could see them talking. Again I felt ill at ease. Was it humiliation, fear, or sadness that took hold of me? But I did nothing. I was too tired to react. Ten minutes later, the immigration officer came back, asked me a few questions, then let me leave. I was both relieved and despondent. My head was spinning, I had to get out of this place at all costs.
We were finally moving toward the exit when, out of the blue, I remembered that I had to stop off at the Lost and Found. My mother had reminded me to recover Maher’s suitcase. It was a small room filled with travel bags of every size, shape, and colour – black, brown, white, damaged, crushed. Suitcases were everywhere, some leaning against the walls, some on shelves, others on the floor. Suddenly, my heart stopped beating. I spotted the blue suitcase and raised my head as if expecting to see Maher standing with a smile in front of his things. But it was only his suitcase. The lock had been broken. Gently I opened it: on top, I saw Houd’s expired passport. It was among Maher’s clothes. I closed the suitcase and put it on top of the duffle bags. The baggage cart could barely move. Pulling the stroller along behind me, we headed for the exit. Bassam and Taoufik, my brothers-in-law, were waiting for us. It was eleven o’clock at night. There was worry on their faces. They thought we had missed our flight. I felt the blood pounding in my temples. I clutched Barâa’s little hand in mine. I could only think of one thing: to rest.
Bassam drove us through the dark, nearly deserted streets of Montreal. The children were asleep in the car, their heads drooping to one side. In silence, I watched the bleak buildings parading by. I was trying to focus on the new life, which was promising to be fraught with hardship and strain. This silent, gloomy trip taking me from the airport to my in-laws’ house was very different from the one I had taken with Mourad from Mirabel airport to the Côte-des-Neiges district eleven years before. It had been my first visit to Canada. Mourad, who had been living here for years, had sponsored me to come and live and finish my studies in Canada. It was the first time I had set foot in a country other than Tunisia.
I had grown up reading books by French authors, speaking French at school, and watching European or American films on television. I dreamed of seeing cities such as Paris, Rome, and London, visiting their museums, walking their streets, and seeing the people I’d often read about. Emigrating to Canada meant an opportunity to step out of the world of books, to experience for myself what I had lived vicariously through reading. Canada would give me something my birth country had denied me, I thought: the opportunity to fulfill my in
tellectual capacities independently of my political or religious affiliations. In Tunisia, I belonged to no political movement or party; I had always protected my independence of thought.
At age twenty, after several years of reflection and meditation, I decided to cover my head and adopt a modest style of dress. I became a veiled young woman, in other words. It was my personal choice; by making it, I sought to deepen my spiritual life, to free myself from all the social pressures experienced by young women of my age. I felt that the girls I knew cared too much about their appearance and bodies and neglected their inner beauty, their natural and mystical attributes. Since my childhood, I had been fascinated by prayer, by the dialogue between human beings and their creator. Although they were practising Muslims, my parents never forced religion on us; they guided us, but let us choose our own way.
My choice drew several reactions: my close friends expected it, but others who didn’t know me well were surprised and some were shocked. How can you be educated, middle-class, and wear a head scarf? How can you give up your freedom and cover your head with a symbol of women’s submission or religious fundamentalism? But I had enjoyed a great deal of freedom in my parents’ house; I didn’t associate with religiously oriented political groups; I was not under anyone’s influence. But the society I grew up in did not respect my personal choices nor my self-determination. In that society, success had a single face and a single name. When I received my Quebec selection certificate, then my Canadian landed immigrant status, I was jumping for joy. At last, a country where I could continue my studies, become the university professor I’d dreamed of becoming, without worrying about my appearance or my religious beliefs.
I shall never forget my fascination with Montreal’s streets, so broad and impressive compared with the tortuous lanes of Tunis. Mourad drove us to his little apartment on Rue Decelles. I was happy, chattering non-stop, badgering him with question after question: “And what is this neighbourhood? And that cathedral, what’s it called?” On and on I went, like a country kid discovering the lights of the city for the first time. I was enchanted, dazzled. Mourad laughed; it was culture shock, he told me. I didn’t know what my brother was saying. I was feasting my eyes on all the space that was opening before me, I wanted to take in the smell of freedom in deep breaths; to make the new life that lay before me mine.
But on this day of return, I was far from dazzled; I was sad, pensive, and downcast. Silent, I waited for us to arrive at my in-laws’ house, longing for the trip to be over so I could rest at last. Finally the car pulled up in front of the house; the lights were still lit; my mother-in-law was waiting at the door. Bassam carried Houd in his arms and I wakened Barâa gently so she could walk to the house. Quickly I undressed the children and got them into their pyjamas and into the big bed. My mother-in-law had laid a narrow mattress beside the big bed; this was where I would spend the night. I closed the door and went to the living room; it was almost midnight. My brothers-in-law had left, each to his own home. My mother-in-law was sitting in a rocking chair, her eyes were red. How she seemed to have aged!
“Good Lord, what is happening to us? Do you think we’ll ever see Maher again?” she said, almost moaning.
“Yes, when God wills it,” I replied.
“Try to get some sleep, Monia. You look exhausted. I’m going to stay up a while and go to bed a little later.”
As if I had been waiting only to hear those words, I left at once and went to the bedroom. The children were sleeping peacefully; I kissed them, then slipped into bed on the mattress and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
The next day, Bassam drove me to pick up my car. Before leaving for Tunis the previous summer, we had left our car in the garage of some Montreal friends. I took Houd with us, leaving Barâa with her grandmother.
Houd would burst into tears every time he saw a new face. He didn’t know where he was, what was happening to us. He had to see me, to feel my presence before he would calm down. All my efforts over the past months to have him get over his colicky period seemed to have been for nothing: he was like a baby only a few weeks old all over again. I was at my wits’ end. People would ask me why Houd was afraid, why he was crying all the time. They had already forgotten that Houd was experiencing the tragedy of his father’s disappearance in silence, that he didn’t have words to express his grief and distress. He was the most fragile of us, but also the one least expected to show a reaction. We tend to think that babies can’t understand, that they can’t grasp the seriousness of situations. But I’m convinced that they need to feel safe and are constantly alert to signals in our voices, our eyes, our touch. If the signals don’t give them assurance of safety, they will cry out for it. The sudden change in our lives had not been lost on Houd. He was living it every day and only a return to normal could bring him what he was asking for. I wanted to get back to Ottawa as quickly as possible. There I would feel at home; there I could give Barâa and Houd the semblance of stability they would need to deal with this new stage in their lives.
With my car retrieved, we drove back to my mother-in-law’s to pick up Barâa, loaded our luggage into the car, and left for Ottawa, where my mother had been waiting for us since the day before. It was getting late; time for me to leave, get back among my own things, to my old routine. Maybe I could pick up pieces of my life as it was before …
Night had fallen when we finally reached Ottawa. The trip had gone well, the children had been good. I parked the car in front of the big white-and-brown building where we had moved before leaving for Tunis the previous summer. We had been renting the apartment for years for my mother. When she had come to live in our house to help with the children, Maher kept the apartment as an office for his consulting company. It was not far from Bayshore; last summer we had left our things there, not wanting to pay a high rent while we were away in Tunisia. Our plans were to rent a house when we came back. Maher’s arrest had turned our plans upside down. From now on, this was where I would be living, with my mother and my two children.
Curiously, I felt relieved to be back in Ottawa. Was it nostalgia for the five years Maher and I had spent together in this city, or was I really feeling at home again? I didn’t know for sure. I climbed the stairs with Houd in my arms and Barâa beside me to our second-floor apartment. I knocked at the door, then turned the keys and entered. My mother was sitting in front of the TV; she’d been expecting us. Barâa ran to her grandmother’s arms and Houd began to cry, frightened as always. I was glad to see my mother again too. She was always there, always ready to help me without a word of complaint. She had always been at my side during my pregnancies and when I was preparing my thesis defence. Whenever I needed her, I could count on her. As I embraced my mother, I felt I had recovered a piece of my life before, with Maher. But unfortunately, deep down I knew that I had become a single parent, that I must accept the role and get used to it.
Before giving birth to Houd, I had had a research contract with a professor at the University of Ottawa. When Houd was a year old, I had planned to look for work again, teaching at a university, I hoped. A year before, I had completed a doctorate in finance at the McGill University Faculty of Management. I had had two job interviews, one with the École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal and the other with the University of Ottawa. I had been certain that I would be accepted and I would be offered the job, but both times I was turned down. Budgetary restrictions, they told me. Yet I was perfectly bilingual with a fresh degree from one of the most prestigious business schools in Canada. I’d suspected that my head scarf may have bothered certain members of the selection committee, but I had no proof and had to accept the verdict with bitter disappointment. One day I would succeed, I reassured myself. I would be teaching in a management department.
But on this, my first day back in Ottawa, everything had changed. There I was, sitting in our small apartment with my mother and my children, eating in silence. My struggle would be a different one now. It was going to be a near-impossible task
, and I knew it. With my husband suspected of terrorism, thrown into a Syrian prison thousands of kilometres away, two children to look after, and a political and social climate of fear and paranoia, how could I possibly win my wager? Questions spun in my head, questions I didn’t want to answer. The best I could do was let them keep spinning. Hope and doubt clashed in my mind; I amused myself keeping both alive. I wanted the battle to be ongoing, for it never to end. Whenever I felt doubt gaining the upper hand, I would give myself thousands of reasons for believing that Maher would be back, that everything would be over, and I would suddenly come alive again and gain strength. Then slowly but surely, doubt would creep in and the questions would return to haunt me; where there had been hope, now doubt would reign.
