Roundabout of Death Read online

  The intensity of the shelling didn’t prevent this wounded dove from thinking about how much she loved her son, how willing she was to go starving in order to feed him. Here he is, her little chicken beside the window, squawking as he waits for his mother to arrive, his dilated eyes frantically staring out in all directions. Would he notice all of the military equipment that had been cleaned and then installed on the balconies of the business hotel, where all the snipers were stationed early in the morning before the sun came up and before the women came out to tell the men, “Here I am, I’m coming to see you”? They had all done their hair and prettied themselves up with makeup as soon as they awoke, which quickly electrified the city and all the people who had just woken up as well, each and every one of whom had to rely entirely on themselves to get up and go to work.

  Here is that mother coming back home again, her little chicken pressing his beak against hers as she shoves specks of grain into his mouth, or any other morsels she could find. The two of them are refreshed: the little chicken hops on top of her and yanks the kernel out of her beak even as she shoves it into his. And here’s a Rio car stopping in the middle of the square, alongside the Dushka, and three people creep up to search the vehicle. One of them opens the trunk, places a little chicken inside, no, it’s not a bird, it’s a human being, he has been plucked from the business hotel, his hands bound and his eyes covered with a blindfold, then they slam the trunk shut and the car speeds away.

  Every day I sit right here, watching the square, Saadallah al-Jabiri Square. And, oh, how has it changed.

  It was designed by one of our comrades in this form so that marches could easily be assembled, so that slogans could be chanted, so that students could gather here, all the way from first grade through their higher education. To that I’d also have to add all the professors and teachers, all the doctors and every patient who seeks their counsel, all the party bosses, government officials, and security apparatchiks, men and women, all congregating together, all with their own paraphernalia, be those images or posters, all of which are distributed in the morning, and which they bring out with them in the evening. I carry something, comrade, and another comrade or two carries an image of the sacrificing Leader. Security officials of all stripes are spread throughout the square, along with all divisions of the police, and the Party membership in all of its glory, and members of the National Front at all levels, and that’s how the demonstration becomes a million strong, even more, you might say.

  Once, before the space was transformed into a square, there was a tramway that passed through here, a green and yellow one, and the business hotel was only two stories tall. Now there are six blocks, off to the right coming from Shukri al-Quwwatli Square, named after the first president of the republic, and from the left, here at the cafe, where I sit, in a landmarked property of the Islamic religious endowment.

  Also off to the left there is Mosul Street, which runs into the Officers’ Club, then a brothel, crawling with beautiful ladies from all over the world. There was an artist who used to hang out there, running his paintbrush all over the chairs. Outside of the brothel, toward the main street, there was the Republic Cinema, and next to that there was a falafel restaurant and another cafe that was open year round, and between those two places a Party branch with two guards always stationed outside, one to the right and one to the left, flanking the entrance, both very nice even though each of them sported a Russian-made rifle.

  The Quwaik River runs right through the middle of the square that wasn’t a square back in those days, Aleppo’s river where we all used to swim over by the Turtle Bridge.

  Back then someone came and built walls around the river. They laid down concrete and contained the water inside, turned the place into a public park, and then brought small boats to transport people.

  Then a capitalist showed up, poured a cement carpet over the river, laid down a silk covering on top of that, and then shiny cobblestones that the masses could walk along as they praised the Leader.

  A few Toyotas had arrived in the area carrying officials who were all wearing matching green uniforms and assorted sneakers. They fanned out across the square with Russian-made rifles, took several laps around, maybe five or more, I’m not sure exactly, didn’t count, I guess, then they all started to advance toward the business hotel, and at that moment everyone inside came out into the street and started shouting, “Hey, hey, hey. . . ” They had yellow bands wrapped around their arms, some had tied yellow cloths around their foreheads. The soldiers stood there, motionless, for half an hour, their guns at the ready. The officials in the Officers’ Club came out to greet them, saying hello to some by shaking hands, some kissed one another, perhaps they already knew each other. Maybe those who were members of the shabbiha weren’t supposed to be there long because they took off after making several laps around the place, which was filled with the sounds of kissing and shouting and Hey hey hey. . .

  A Palestinian showed up, someone I had met recently. And Jamal, whom I have known for a long time, came around to tell me that my house had been bombed. We were all silent. Jamal is a little bit overweight, well, not just a little, you can think of him as being very fat. The Palestinian guy likes to call him Axis of Evil. He sat down at our table and lit up a long Marlboro Red. He took a sip of water and started to unload, telling us how he had just been at his house an hour ago when all five stories came crashing down, and because his house was like a garden, it absorbed the five floors in their entirety, crushing all the glass and the metal.

  It was time for me to go home. But before I did, I passed by Bab Antakya and then Al-Saqatiyah to buy some meat as my wife had asked me to do.

  I found my way over to the Hanging Gardens Gate, that’s what we called it anyway. The cobblers were fixing up people’s shoes while they waited. All along the southern wall, between the two gates—the Hanging Gardens Gate and Bab Antakya—the cobblers had either dug in or, if not dug in, they had rented out shops where they could repair shoes. And bring us a black market.

  When you come out of that black market, you reach a small mosque, I don’t know who built it, and I’m not going to try to find out. I see an airplane circling high up in the sky—the word circling is just long enough to communicate the experience—before it swoops down. It’s a MiG-32, as far as I can tell, and now the plane is striking, launching its missiles. “Let’s move, brother! Looks like this one could hit us.” I’m convinced Seven Seas Square is the real target. BOOOOOM. The people all jump up and scatter in every direction, and just like that everyone’s eyes shift down to stare at their hands. Apparently some text messages sent by young men who mill about in the markets and the areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army had gone through. The missiles hit their targets, and the pilot carried out another sortie with great skill, then a third, raining bombs on the residential homes before flying away.

  After you turn past the mosque you come to the cobblers, where one after another of them will greet you and invite you into his shop to tout flats, half heels, high heels. During this time you’ll find the guy frying up kibbeh in oil, splitting it in half on the grill and sprinkling fried red pepper pods alongside. People cram all around him, some eating and others waiting their turn to receive their wrap, still others holding their meal and waiting for their bottle of ayran yogurt drink even as he wipes the sweat from his brow and prays to God for strength.

  And there’s the beloved rooftop restaurant that serves kebab with spiced Aleppan pistachios. Inside there are Bedouins, people from nearby villages eating, furniture merchants: they all pay full price these days. When a shell comes crashing down, whether fired from a tank or a plane or even from field artillery, the people scatter and drive off in their Trela trucks or their Suzuki jeeps, loading them up with women and children and the elderly, driving around the city several times to drop people off. If they can find anyone who’ll take them in, the drivers will let them out near the monument, where the men will wait with them for as long as two hours befo
re they’ll take them back. And here come people carrying foam bedding and sheets, spreading them out to cover half the street, stretching it out as far as they can. Some of them set up shop there, unfolding all the bedding and then starting to set up tents. “We’ve got a house now, my child, don’t worry.” They awaken at dawn, praying to God as they watch the sunrise, then shake their weary heads.

  BAB ANTAKYA

  Here we are, in front of Bab Antakya; heaps of massive stone have been piled on top of each other in order to form this gigantic entryway. I cross under this Byzantine gate, which not even the fiercest armies were ever able to breach, to arrive at the mosque. Turning back, throwing a second glance in that direction . . . I can no longer see it. I think somebody must have taken it away, convincing myself they are stealing history itself, before continuing on my way unfazed.

  I walk ahead a bit to the Al-Shuaibiyah mosque, finding an armed guard stationed there, then another, then another until they add up to five. One is wearing a mask, he could be with the Free Syrian Army, I think to myself, and it turns out that, yes, they are all with the Free Syrian Army, I can tell because they aren’t wearing standardized uniforms, they’re just slumped back in chairs with their fingers resting on gun triggers.

  The city has been divided into east and west by these same hands of the Free Syrian Army: the west and a sliver of the north are with the regime army, now engaged in a battle for neighborhoods here and there.

  The regime security services have made use of the Mardel, a strike force comprised of Kurds trained and armed as part of the state’s own paramilitaries and integrated into its cadres; they have also made use of the Armenian community, which allowed them to continue playing dominoes in the middle of the street without any worries. All that matters to them is that no rockets fall on their houses, which is also the case for the Christian community in general, whose leader claimed that they are not for the regime but for the stability of the country, which is to say, one foot in heaven and the other foot in hell. In other words, if this foot leans one way, they lean with it, and if the other goes the other way, they are bound to that one as well.

  Professor Joubran is an accomplished painter who ships his canvases to Beirut, and from there they are sent all over the world. Not too long ago a car bomb exploded near his studio, setting it ablaze.

  I happened to overhear Professor Joubran say all of this during a conversation he was having at the cafe. He added how distraught he was about everyone who got killed, whether they were police or anybody else. When he was finished speaking, I asked him why he didn’t write up a report explaining what had happened to him and then submit it to the mayoralty.

  “What makes you think I didn’t?” he retorted. “I submitted a report to the alderman, and he transmitted it to the mayor.”

  “And what happened?”

  “They sent me two hundred liters of diesel oil to keep warm.”

  A staggering silence settled over us, an indeterminate silence, more eloquent than anything that could have been said.

  And here I now find myself slithering eastward through the marketplace. I encounter people from the countryside just outside the city who have come to buy goods or make deals without buying anything right away. Continuing toward the east I leave the souq behind me and come to the small plaza outside the Al-Faqqas bathhouse. Here, too, there are Free Syrian Army forces with Russian rifles in their hands scattered around the square. I totter onto Al-Qassab Street, breathing in the aroma of meat from outside the entrance, and as soon as I get inside I find fresh flesh hanging from metal hooks.

  APOCALYPSE NOW

  I think this is the title of a film I saw once, maybe it was by Pasolini or Fellini, something like that. It was 1:35 p.m. as I walked in the direction of my mother’s house. I was administering a kind of self-care by sipping a cup of tea, sitting there with her on the patio, surrounded by five of my brother’s children.

  I entered the Al-Telal neighborhood, where only a few shops remained open, while the rest had been shut. There were some men walking here and there, and by the time I reached the old fire station I saw about twenty soldiers from the regime’s army spread out all over the place, brandishing their weapons, blocking the Free Syrian Army from breaching the Aziziyeh neighborhood from another front. I didn’t greet any of them because I was suddenly overcome with a shudder of panic, especially once they started to haphazardly open fire into the air.

  My daughter called me on my cell phone to tell me, after saying hello and asking how I was, that I shouldn’t go to her grandmother’s house. But why? Because she had received a phone call from my mother insisting that I shouldn’t come because the shelling and the gunfire were like a heavy downpour. All right, I told her, even though I kept walking, looking up at the sky after I heard the sound of a screeching jet plane, which plummeted, spinning toward the area behind my mother’s house, where it dropped its payload. My mother’s house is near the central square while I’m in the new part of Aleppo and, my God, just look at what a distance I still have to traverse.

  I continued walking at a measured pace as I watched women who had taken off half their clothes or even more than that as they bought vegetables and meat. When I reached the bakery, women were lined up on the right and men were lined up on the left. These people cannot find enough bread to eat, in a country covered with wheat. Even now you find them mobbing the bakeries; here there were nearly fifty women off to the right and a hundred men on the left. I hadn’t made it yet, though. There were still two blocks to go before I would make it to her.

  “How did you get here?” she asked. “Didn’t I tell your daughter that you shouldn’t come?” “What’s done is done,” I said. “I’ll make you some tea,” she said. “Go right ahead,” I told her.

  As she got up, I looked over at the five children. Her preparation of the tea and bringing it out onto the patio is a beautiful ritual. In that moment I was enjoying this small pleasure that I kept buried deep down inside: the way she poured the tea, how the children lined up alongside her, the way she poured a splash of water into each cup to cool off the tea, how they would sit around her, so respectful and well-mannered, all with the tacit understanding that at any moment we might be confronted with a sudden airstrike that could pounce upon the neighborhood just behind us, and then hear horrifying sounds caused by those explosions.

  She was sad, and I asked her why. She didn’t respond, silently handing the children their cups. When I asked her a second time, it turned out that her stoicism had its limits, and she burst out crying, informing me that a sniper had shot Fatima.

  “What?!” I asked.

  “Yes, they shot your cousin Fatima,” she repeated.

  Couldn’t they have found someone besides Fatima? She was poor and disheveled, we had all helped to raise her after her father passed away and her mother got remarried. My mother took the most responsibility in raising her, both her and her sister actually, until she grew up and married a poor man. She ended up having, I don’t know, four or five daughters, I had met some of them, they were beautiful, blonde, their eyes were broad and green.

  “How did this happen?”

  “She left her house in Al-Arqoub after it was destroyed, caught between the Free Syrian Army and the regime forces, she fled and rented a place in the Maysaloun neighborhood, where she was standing with her husband when they shot her from the minaret.”

  The minaret of the Shaykh Abu Bakr mosque, where my mother used to say prayers and blessings for us. I distracted myself by sipping the tea when my mother fell silent. My brother’s wife’s voice called out to the children that they should go and get dressed. “The woman is going to leave,” my mother told me, “she’s going to get her family together and leave . . . ”

  “And go where?”

  “To stay with her family, or to their workshop in Al-Sulaymaniyah, it’s a Christian neighborhood that isn’t in danger of being hit . . . ”

  “I’m going, too.”

  “They buried h
er at the cemetery today, I don’t know which one . . . ”

  “The modern cemetery.”

  “They all went to bury her, your sisters, their husbands, they all went to bury her, poor thing, she died at the same age as her father.”

  I slunk back outside as feelings of disgust and mercy, misery and pity washed over me. As I walked into the street, a plane dipped in my direction, swooped down and dropped its bomb. I could hear the sound of an explosion, then another one and another. More explosions would come later.

  COCK FIGHT

  Here I am going inside our cafe, Joha’s Club, where I find my regular seat unoccupied. Maybe today won’t be like all the others. I hear the sound of a fighter jet in the sky, nothing else but the sound of explosions. The soldier posted at the corner of the business hotel has cordoned off the sidewalk with decrepit metal objects. He’s watching over the street, perhaps he’s singing now, no longer concerned with much of anything at all. He has laid down his rifle in front of him, between the telephone wire and the little mailbox, leaving an opening no more than ten centimeters wide. A GMC truck is parked right outside the front door, transporting a DShK and a PKS machine gun on its roof. I notice a phalanx of soldiers forcing people who are carrying bread down onto the pavement where cars normally fly by, but there are no vehicles going past right now. They have blocked off the road from up by the club, or even before the club, all the way from the gas station down here, all the way to the beginning of the Jumayliyah neighborhood.