Khaled Khalifa - Death Is Hard Work

After the divorce, her father said bitterly, “She married for the sake of some takeout from Broasted Express and the chance of sitting with some big shots in their fancy ballrooms.” These big shots regarded Fatima as the wife of a servant, nothing more, but their good-natured acceptance of her presence among them led her to believe she could count herself as their friend, with the right to participate in all their private affairs. She would ask the wife of a Japanese company’s local agent about the best slimming club in Damascus and wait gravely for a reply, or she would confess to the wife of a French oil company agent that she didn’t want to have a child for a few more years so that she could keep her stomach from sagging for as long as possible. The following day, back in the school where she was now a teacher, she would yawn in the staff room and grumble nonchalantly about her husband’s never-ending late nights with his friends and business associates. The aura of prestige always contains a little foolishness, and Fatima greatly enjoyed playing the fool, however unwittingly, especially when she saw the prospect of credulity in her colleagues’ eyes.

After Mamdouh’s departure, Fatima returned to her old room in the family home, reeling with dented pride, in utter disbelief that everything was over and that her total value had been reduced to six suitcases crammed with worn-out clothes and shoes, a collection of fake perfume bottles, and the balance of her dowry of two hundred thousand liras, which Mamdouh had paid after both parties signed the divorce contract.

That day, Bolbol had sat next to his father in his capacity as the elder brother, by no means enjoying this distinction. His father’s concealed rage kept him silent for a long time; this insult to the dignity he had maintained all his life had cut him deeply, and Bolbol sympathized with this respectable man who had been forced, because of his idiotic daughter, to shake hands with a student he considered worthless. Their father settled the matter swiftly, opened the door, and asked Mamdouh to leave. That night was the first time Bolbol truly realized that his father would die one day. Abdel Latif had gone into his room, closed the door, and wouldn’t speak to anyone for days. Afterward, as he did whenever he felt weak, he went to Anabiya, where he was content to walk through the meadows and respond to invitations from childhood friends to play cards and reminisce a little. After he returned from these visits, his confidence and sense of self were restored.

When it was their turn at the checkpoint, the agent on duty told Hussein that the Mukhabarat would have to check their identity cards while he examined the corpse. Bolbol sincerely wished that his father had indeed died on that day long ago, when it would have been so easy to carry out his request that he be buried with his sister. Kindhearted neighbors would have come by to condole with them as they had done when his mother died. On that occasion, a delegation of four men had accompanied the family to the graveyard, which was four hundred kilometers from the village, and one of them even hosted an additional ʿaza for the departed on their return. The neighbors prepared a generous feast for the mourners, grateful that Ustadh Abdel Latif al-Salim had allowed them to share his grief.

Bolbol saw Hussein coming back, escorted by an agent waving his gun and gesturing to the rest of the family to get out of the van. Hussein stood next to Bolbol and whispered, “They’re going to arrest the body.” Bolbol assumed there must have been some mistake, but no, when the agent led them to a tiled, windowless room, opened the door, and pushed them roughly inside, he understood that things were serious. It was true: they had placed the corpse under arrest. Their father had been wanted by more than one branch of the Mukhabarat for more than two years now.

The cell was crowded with more than twenty people of different ages. One of them, a woman of about seventy, told Fatima without being asked that she was being held hostage in her son’s stead, who had deserted from the army last year. Another, a young man of around twenty, missing a hand, told them that the Mukhabarat suspected him of having lost his hand fighting as an insurgent, and not in a car accident years before. He added that he and the two friends he was sitting with there in the improvised holding cell had been on their way to catch a boat from Turkey to Greece, intending to travel from there to Sweden. He’d never believed their journey would be as simple as that, particularly as their lives were bound to their identity cards, which showed their place of residence as Baba Amr, in the city of Homs. Like all young men from Baba Amr, one of the first places where revolution broke out and which was punished by merciless bombardment as a result, they had gotten accustomed to being stopped at every checkpoint. Meanwhile, other prisoners were snoring loudly or staring silently into the shadowy corners of the cell, their expressions making plain their sense of degradation. They had been here for some time, and bruises from beatings could be seen on their faces. One of them was wearing pants stained with clotted blood; his head was wrapped in his shirt. Bolbol tried to will himself to look at these people; no one knew what would happen to them once they were transferred to whichever branch of the Mukhabarat wanted them. He looked at Fatima, still listening to that old woman who wouldn’t stop chattering about her son, saying that it didn’t matter anymore if she died, and she was glad he’d deserted. Bolbol told himself that no doubt Fatima would now tell the old woman about her sister-in-law’s rape and her fiancé’s desertion; this last detail had stimulated Fatima’s appetite for gossip.

From his position in the corner, tucked away as much as possible, Bolbol could see the faces in the shadows of the room: dark, afraid, and sad. The detainees murmured to one another in voices like the droning of an old bee, monotonous and incessant. It was impossible to say what would happen to any of them. No one could enter a place like this and know what was in store for them. So many people had disappeared in the previous four years, it was no longer even shocking; there were tens of thousands whose fates were unknown. Hussein asked Fatima to say that she was divorced from Mamdouh but not to mention her remarriage, believing that her first husband’s name and regime connections might improve the siblings’ standing with their jailers. Fatima nodded without asking why this mattered. She knew how much he liked giving commands, and she generally liked to obey him. Taking up their old roles made them feel less afraid, and they would go through these motions as often during their journey as they had—without ever understanding why—during their childhood.

The floor of the cell was cold, and the loud, nonstop conversation of the Mukhabarat agents came in through the one small window. Bolbol remained aloof from the detainees, careful not to say a word, careful not to get himself in trouble. He asked no questions and allowed no one to question him and avoided so much as feeling sympathy when he heard stories that ought to have aroused immeasurable rage and sadness. He could almost have fallen asleep were it not for the clanging of the huge iron door as it opened every now and again. His memory summoned up the tales he had heard of the horrendous tortures endured by detainees in just such situations. The facts related by those fortunate enough to be released from cells like these were discussed and circulated everywhere, too terrifying to be believed. In his heart he knew that he would never be able to endure torn-out fingernails or electrocution or suffocating indefinitely in a congested cell or being forced to walk over rotting corpses. Probably he would just die after his first session. He closed his eyes, oddly reassured by this. He, at least, would leave behind a corpse with no last will or request; he didn’t even care if his body was reduced to ashes or left for the dogs to gnaw. When the time came, he would be capable of lying next to his father without fear. This thought gave him the courage he needed, without having to boast of any real or imaginary exploits.