Khaled Khalifa - In Praise of Hatred

Maryam sought refuge in God and calmed down a little as she walked in the street. She leaned on me and we sat with Sheikh Daghstani who listened to her, nodded, and promised to visit us; we needed visits from strangers so we could complain to them of our weakness and reaffirm our hatred for the other sect to which Marwa now belonged, our virtue turned to delusion in the wake of her departure.

For days I thought that what had happened must have been a nightmare or a prank, were it not for the evidence of Marwa’s empty room and her abandoned clothes, which Maryam distributed among the poor as if Marwa had died. There was no possibility that it wasn’t as true as the evening which descended heavily. Maryam observed everyone’s silence and indifference; she took the few photographs of Marwa out of the family albums and burned them. She looked at me unhappily out of the corner of her eye. Safaa salvaged what remained of the pictures before I could be fully satisfied at their transformation into ashes, which floated on top of the water in the pool for a few minutes before disappearing.

Everything began to look the same to Maryam. Night was like day, hunger like plenty, black like white. She surrendered to a fate she had prepared for herself in silence and without consulting anyone. She learned to play deaf skilfully when she heard a conversation she didn’t like. Marwa’s marriage turned her existence upside down, as it made her think of certain things again, especially after Omar arrived on a visit and we heard the laughter we hadn’t heard for some time. She told him all the details; he patted her hand and said something which confused us: he mocked our doubts, and I learned from this that he had already visited Marwa in the home — an officer’s house on the outskirts of Damascus — she shared with Nadhir. He got to know her husband, and they became friends. Maryam knew that she had now become totally isolated. Her dreams came to a virtual end and she had nothing left but to chase the wasps away from the jam which no one ate any more. She stacked the jars in the larder so we could give them to passers-by.

The first days of Marwa’s absence were very hard. Zahra wiped pus away from her father’s sores and helped Safaa with her preparations for the birth. I went to see Uncle Khalil and expressed my sympathy for his pain. My concern for him meant I regained Zahra, the friend I had lost long ago and whom I needed now. Radwan helped me feed Khalil, and I recited the Sura Al Baqara for him. I tried to recite it using tajwid and Radwan nodded approvingly, joining in where he had memorized it by heart. We became a duet, mourning a man we loved and refusing to listen to his ravings which interrupted our recitation, as if we were reciting to ourselves and not for his soul. We had decided to wait for it to ascend from his body and flutter away over the city — along with the countless number of souls that had crowded together over the preceding months, until Aleppo turned into a city of wails, curtailed funerals, silent elegies and deep sadness in mothers’ eyes as, a few metres away from them, murderers strutted about in their uniforms and boasted.

* * *

With my own eyes, I saw Samir Nirabi trying to escape from a night-time ambush by one of the Mukhabarat patrols. He shot at them from his hiding place and used up all his ammunition. There was nothing in front of him but the bakery at Bab Al Nasr, so he threw himself into its large red-hot oven; the few customers vomited in horror at the sight. Madness took possession of the soldiers and they emptied their magazines into his corpse, which was badly charred, amid cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Bismillah’ from passers-by. The soldiers circled the area to take futile revenge on the blackened corpse. The baker couldn’t believe his eyes when Samir Nirabi rushed into the oven; he had a breakdown and was afflicted by nightmares. He didn’t leave his house for a year, after which he returned to his village to look after livestock, and escape the malice of the children who bashed on tin cans, swarming after him like the insects which rush to the watermelon fields and leave scars on the fruit’s smooth skin.

I saw Samir’s mother walk barefoot through the city, cursing both sects and wailing with bitter tears as, behind her, her sons and daughters raised their fists like they were mourning the air. The soldiers prevented her from touching Samir’s remains, so she spat in their faces. I didn’t dare approach her; I felt that words were worthless. I remembered Samir Nirabi’s lean face when he passed by me in the college corridors, avoiding either looking at me or hinting at our relationship. Hossam was only one year older than him, and had recruited him from one of the secondary schools. They went to the swimming pool together and Samir was transformed from a frivolous young man who followed young foreign girls home from school, serenading them openly and showing off his gold jewellery, to a harsh defender of the Islamic state and its martyrs. His mother would remain openly hostile to our family for the rest of her life. She swore that she would have revenge on us, and on the death squad who banned her from leaving her home. She would open her window every morning to curse everyone tirelessly until the day she died of a sudden heart attack.

* * *

We all took prodigious care of Safaa as her due date approached. She regretted having returned to give birth amongst us; she missed her Saudi home comforts, and was worried and afraid for her baby. We needed a joyful event in our house to taste fully of life. The midwife came several times and examined Safaa in her primitive way, and watched over her closely in the final days. She shared the task of bringing in anise and algae with Maryam; I prepared and perfumed the baby clothes for the new arrival, and was delighted by Safaa’s interest in them. Maryam stuck to Safaa like her shadow; she even slept on the floor next to her bed. Maryam needed to worry about someone to this impassioned extent in order to forget about everything that had happened.

No woman had given birth in our house for some time. The clan all gathered along with other women I didn’t know, and Zahra ordered me to fetch towels and hot water. When the child’s first cry was heard none of us trilled, as if we had forgotten how to do it, but there was joy on everyone’s faces. Radwan laughed as he investigated the baby, carried him around and approved the name Amir. We became very attached to Amir and he offered us an escape from the truths drowning the city — the chaos of revenge murders, hatred and cruelty.

Around this time, there was widespread resentment at the murder of a famous doctor whose clinic had been crammed with the poor, and who had been well known for his ardent Marxism and frank hostility to our movement. Then Sheikh Jamil was killed; a sycophant well known for his loyalty to the authorities, which was exploited by his children in order to inherit his sheikhdom and influence, and so pillage the country in partnership with corrupt officials. Most people were afraid of having even a minor political accusation raised against them as it might lead to a spell hiding underground; Sheikh Jamil spent his entire life without anyone even daring to question him. His family made sure he was fully exonerated, so that no similar fate would befall any of its members.

Thanks to the face of the young child whom I began to call ‘my prince’, I regained both my dreams and my optimism. I wondered how such a being would blossom, how his little face would grow, and his fingers, his eyes, his feet. Safaa stopped trying to get in touch with Abdullah; he was lost on the paths of Afghanistan along with the volunteers he had gathered from various Arab countries. Their asceticism left a considerable impression in the hearts of the Afghans who welcomed them and shared their slices of stale bread. They respected the volunteers’ neutrality towards the internal factions who argued over how to divide up the country. Abdullah didn’t sleep for nights at a time as he established regiments of volunteers to help Sheikh Nadim Al Salaty, whose respected presence prevented murder between the factions. Abdullah disguised himself in women’s clothing to reach a house in a remote suburb of Kabul so he could break bread with his new companions. In that outlying house, Abdullah announced to all the leaders present that the Arab mujahideen would stand on their neutrality; their role was to provide the support needed to expel their enemies, and they would not fire a single shot against any Afghan.