Khaled Khalifa - In Praise of Hatred

I dawdled in the streets and raised the cover over my face; I saw my reflection in the window of a shoe shop, and I looked worn out and depressed, lacking in either youth or vitality. I felt my body beneath my heavy coat; my breasts were shrivelled, and had lost all memory of my fingers’ caresses. I wandered back to the Armenian restaurant and collapsed, exhausted, on to the same chair where Hossam had sat with me and tried to smile without managing to. I asked for some food I then left untouched, and for a cup of tea I took two sips from. To any customers watching, I exhibited all the symptoms of a girl pining away with unrequited love. I paid the bill and ignored the sympathetic waiter who asked me if I was waiting for someone.

After the afternoon prayer I was still tired. I sat in another café and sipped a glass of juice, ignoring the laughter of the young men and women at the crowded tables. I felt unwanted there, but I didn’t move; I stayed, taking up two chairs, and confusing them all by ordering several glasses of juice I didn’t drink, and by the generous tip I left. I needed to be among crowds. I was surprised by my neutrality towards the young men infatuated with the flirtatious girls. I wanted to stay out of the house for as long as possible, so I walked in the park, enjoying the autumn breezes.

But when it started to get dark, I wanted to get home to bed straight away. Jalloum’s streets were deserted, even though it wasn’t yet eight o’clock. I walked faster when I sensed someone following me. I took out my key and unlocked the door. A patrol of the Mukhabarat was waiting for me just inside. Two men were holding back Radwan, Humam, Omar, Maryam and Zahra in my room. One of the Mukhabarat seized me roughly by the arms and handcuffed me, but I didn’t utter a word as I was taken away. My gaze clung to the window where they all gathered, to Omar’s familiar, quiet, beloved face, as those around him reached out their hands, willing me not to die.

‘I HAVE TO get used to life without spices,’ I told myself; in my determination to stay alive, I had to come to terms with losing the pleasures I had been addicted to. For the first time, I thought hard about those moments of sweetness whose loss seemed an unbearable anguish. I remembered Maryam scolding me whenever I leaned over the saucepan and inhaled the scent of the spices like a drug addict. I would lift my head in rapture from the smell, which hit the back of my throat with a burst of flavour, and tickled my nose. The family had all grown accustomed to my quirky behaviour. I wanted to cling to something strange. I was so enamoured of spices that I would sprinkle them even on slices of raw carrot and devour these with relish.

Now, I had to reconsider my life and learn to exist in a narrow cell whose floor was cracked and cold. It was like a kennel fit only for an unloved dog caught by scavengers who kept it captive among the revolting detritus of the rubbish tip. A deliberately neglected animal, its skin grew blotchy, torn apart by fungal infections, but still it didn’t whine. I was that dog whose jailers were on tenterhooks for her to howl, so that they might better relish her pain and the wounds which wouldn’t heal. The scars from their whips, electrodes and cigarettes would remain as tattoos, which even henna patterns couldn’t hide. In later years, whenever I uncovered them and stood in front of the mirror I realized that hatred was worthy of praise, as it lives within us exactly as love does. It grows moment by moment in order to settle finally in our souls, and we don’t want to escape it even when it causes us pain.

For more than a hundred days, I was kept in solitary confinement. As I fought against the grave dangers facing me, I thought about the sea which I had once been content just to look at, rather than dive into. The few times I had seen it, I had been astonished by its awesome presence. I needed its sublime power in order to avoid the image of my dead mother and the memory of my father’s cruel gaze, as if he were accusing me of her murder. I was haunted by the sight of her cold face, staring into oblivion. I wondered why the dead loved oblivion to such a degree that they grew to depend upon it so immediately. I imagined my mother floating naked through open space, silently searching for Hossam. A living corpse thrown amongst us for a short time, she couldn’t bear our incessant chatter and left us without apology so we would learn the meaning of her silence, and her passion for the space which she missed so much. There, the dead wandered uncurbed in an oblivion which was their own, in a time which was their own; they toyed with their memories and mocked their sanctity, letting them fall away from their skin like the repulsive sweat, which they had also rid themselves of. I imagined her throne in Heaven, overcome with the desire to decorate it with birds singing sweetly, and my mother smiling in apology for her deafness.

A picture of my dead mother; the sea whose depths I longed for. I lost track of time and began to calculate it according to the patrols and the sound of the guards’ quick footsteps in the dark passages, lit only by a lamp which flickered plaintively in the damp. Its light seemed so weak, a lament for a strange world I could never have imagined until I tasted its pain and knew how barbaric people could be; the animal was still inside them.

I came close to death in the first days of my imprisonment. I saw its many hues, clearly defined, peaceful and quiet, leading each living being into God’s kingdom and along the path stretching like a single line between Hell and Heaven; I was sure the latter would be my eternal home since I was a mujahida as described in the group’s literature. Those pamphlets were full of long stories about my great faith and my heroic deeds, which I had no recollection of. My eyes didn’t gleam with pride when an interrogator put one in front of me; they had published my photo next to those of some other girls, most of whom I knew, and some young men. I felt a stirring of sympathy for one of them, and I looked at his mocking smile for as long as I was allowed. It occurred to me for a moment that I loved life more than the title of ‘exemplary martyr’. I no longer cared about anything other than getting out alive from the torturer’s acid pit. My confidence was faked, as was my wish for the courage befitting one of God’s beloveds , as we were described by the organization, in a writing style I grew to hate. This hyperbole distanced me from those things whose truth I was now to ponder, as if time and solitude were diminishing me even though I had spent most of the past years alone among my aunts.

In my cramped cell, my aunts were transformed into swans swimming on a calm river; Radwan was leading their chorus and gathering the spray from their wings, a lover content with his blind gaze towards the rustling of their feathers. At that moment the image fragmented, returning me to my jumble of memories. I thought of my pillow which had lured me towards the thousands of dreams I had then drawn in an attempt to master my fear of the nights spent in my grandfather’s vast house; I thought of all that silence and space which had been bequeathed to us, as we moved through the house, feverishly seeking out the rustle of our ancestors’ souls. Maryam was sure they lived alongside us, but when we in turn became just photographs she forgot about them and cried for us instead. She took charge of Zahra and Bakr’s children and my brother Humam so she wouldn’t be left alone with the cobwebs and Radwan’s sighs, which she feared would bring back dreams of absent children. In my cell I couldn’t escape from her kind and affectionate, even compassionate, face. I remembered how Maryam had brought out some henna from Mecca so she could send her beloved sister to the grave with her hair braided and coloured, just as my grandmother had done for her daughter when she was a young bride, so she could hand her over to be grasped by the strong hand of my father, and led away through the labyrinths of life that had determined her end.