Roundabout of Death Read online

  I tried to call my mother. And here I am now trying a second and a third time but failing to get through. I find myself getting embroiled in a conversation with the crew, the regulars at the cafe, a conversation about what took place yesterday. We no longer give a damn about exactly what happened or where the bombing took place as much as we want to talk about where the clashes were. The conversation was still raging as I tried calling my mother, but the recorded message said, “The number you have dialed is unavailable . . . ” Just then I got through, the phone was ringing in my ear, I couldn’t believe it, and the ringing continued until she picked up.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s me, Jumaa, your son,” I said. “How are you? The line’s been busy, everybody must have wanted to check in on you, see how you’re doing.”

  She burst into tears, bawling as she told me, “My house is ruined, it’s been totally destroyed. What am I supposed to do now? I’m just sitting here at your sister’s.”

  She continued weeping. It had been a long time since I had heard her cry like this, or maybe I had never heard her cry at all until today. She mumbled some words I couldn’t make out, concluding with, “May God give you endurance.”

  “Stay away from there,” she said. “They’re bombing everywhere and the fighting is as fierce as a cock fight, gunfire like a storm from hell . . . don’t come over here, son. I left the house and just ran away. I beg of you, don’t come here.”

  Her voice faltered and the sound of her weeping echoed in my ear. I was overcome with sorrow and bitterness. I didn’t say a word, kept silent, distracted myself by observing the pine tree in the public park. The treetop was so tall, it seemed boastful and proud, it could have been the first tree ever planted in this park.

  Soldiers and other security officers were coming and going, spitting and snorting all the way.

  The Palestinian shared that his son had begun experiencing extreme phobias the day before. He had gone to consult the doctor about this, but the doctor replied that it wasn’t anything serious. The Palestinian said that his son would start convulsing whenever he heard the sound of a missile, and after the seizure stopped, he would lie down in his father’s lap and start crying. The doctor said this was all very normal.

  “How old is the boy?”

  “Sixteen,” the Palestinian answered.

  “It’s normal and happens in the best of families,” the doctor reassured him.

  Muhammad D joined the conversation. When asked how things were with him, he turned toward me and replied animatedly, “Oh geez, I’m not a real man, I guess: I live in Souq Al-Hal.” He doesn’t live in Souq al-Hal, though, he lives in an adjacent neighborhood, where all kinds of missiles have fallen. He turned to the Palestinian guy to ask if the word “missiles” was the correct nomenclature, whether he should use that term or “projectiles” instead . . . the Palestinian told him to carry on without offering an opinion on which word was more appropriate.

  “In the square opposite Bab Antakya,” Muhammad D continued, “there are sounds that come together in the night, these coming from the Al-Kalasa neighborhood, those from Bab al-Jinan, and others coming from Bab Antakya.”

  “Muhammad D can sit on the balcony and watch the battles while he smokes,” the doctor told him.

  “No, man,” I said. “You need to get inside the house. When there’s an incident or a battle happening, find a protected room and sit in there.”

  “But which one is actually protected?” Muhammad D asked. “The only room that doesn’t look out on the street, the one you would call protected, also has a window, and it’s well within the range of the security forces, I mean, as soon as I stick my head out they could shoot me right away. Just let God sort it out, man.”

  I needed to call my mother. I’m so very nervous about her and about the house. Something was eating at me, a lump in my throat was strangling me, clogging my respiratory system. “I have to go,” said a man at the table that looks out on the square. “Why are they all gathered out there?” We stood up and stared at the scene. They were filming and conducting interviews with some passersby who said there was nothing happening in the square, that everything was peaches and cream, and may God punish the armed gangs who had dragged the country down into such violence.

  THE SCHOOL OPENS ITS DOORS

  The school is opening its doors today, the students are waking up early, slinging on their backpacks, and heading over. That’s all in the past, though, when Jumaa the Teacher himself was going to school for the first day, and he was always a little bit late, to the point that his students would be lined up waiting to get into their classes. Here they are assembling together, missing out on first period, and so they start shouting out their names—So-and-So, grade one, Such-and-Such, grade one, and so on and so forth until they have eaten into second period, by which point Jumaa the Teacher will have finally shown up.

  He lumbers into class, dragging his feet, the sun still struggling to rise in the sky. The early days of September are merciless, the heat scorches people’s heads. Jumaa the Teacher begins by asking students their names, which schools they come from, until third period is over, the bell rings, and the students all start to shout, “Hey! Hey!” At this point Jumaa the Teacher likes to stroll down to the teacher’s lounge so he can say hello to his friends and veteran colleagues, while freshman teachers slump into chairs by the entrance. Once the entire staff is present, the headmaster introduces everyone, or invites them to introduce themselves.

  But today nothing of the sort is going to happen, because classes have been suspended—and why is that? Because some schools are with the Free Syrian Army now and some are with the regime, some have been converted into storehouses for airplane parts and projectiles, while others are secure, although some of those are occupied by internally displaced people, and still others have been destroyed by tank blasts and artillery, and so forth and so on.

  We would visit the schools that appeared on the agenda, write down all the names and then sign the form, sit down for a spell before asking the following question: “Is there anything else, Miss?” Normally she would reply, “No, there’s nothing else,” and then she would declare, “We’re glad to see that everything’s fine.”

  Jumaa the Teacher chose a school near the technical college because it was close by. He took a shared taxi and got out in front, wrote down his name, gave his signature, and went to the cafe. Jumaa the Teacher had selected that school in particular because it was a high school, whereas the only schools near his house were a primary and a middle school.

  Jumaa the Teacher had only ever taught in a high school that was located in the Sulayman al-Halabi neighborhood, where he taught the Arabic language. He would walk into class, read texts and teach grammar: the subject is always in the nominative case, whether substantive or undefined. And the object is cased similarly in the accusative, either substantive or undefined, dragging the genitive along with it, again whether substantive or undefined. Jumaa knows the prepositions, the particles of exception, and various forms of clarification and conditionality. You might say he knows all the ins and outs of Arabic grammar because he has spent such a long time teaching it, having now reached the brink of retirement.

  He constantly quarrels with the headmaster about mistakes made at the school. He never shuts up, which may be why nobody can stand him except for this little crew that sits with him at the cafe. When they get into discussions about politics, he’ll throw himself into it with abandon, offering an opinion that leaves people scratching their heads, even if they eventually absorb what he’s saying without ever accepting his perspective. He always blurts out muddled views, this despite the fact that he watches TV every day, paying close attention to what they are saying, listens to the Arabic-language broadcast on Al-Jazeera, passionately following what is happening. Jumaa the Teacher is stern in his classes, to the benefit of his students to be sure, and he begins every class with, “Take out your books, anyone who doesn’t have their boo
k?” He gestures toward the door, and some students will leave, huddling by the door until class is finished, at which point he goes to ask a student representative to escort them to the headmaster. Since the headmaster is tired of this broken record, he instructs the representative to take them back to the disciplinarian, and so they walk back behind him, and when Jumaa opens the door for them, with only eight or nine students remaining in class with their books, only then will he start his lesson.

  So much for the students in third grade science and literature. There are just two elective sections remaining, in which Jumaa the Teacher can offer either reading or composition.

  Now he’s off to the cafe, surveying Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, noticing but trying to ignore two Dushka machine guns, sensing without acknowledging the armed soldiers, and then reaching his usual spot where he can relax for a bit before the political talk gets going.

  Once the political conversation starts, there is nobody more disagreeable: on one occasion he’ll side with the Free Syrian Army, on another with the regime, occasionally he’ll be opposed to the use of violence or the emergence of the Free Syrian Army, while at other times he’ll argue against both the opposition in exile and that inside the country, claiming that the opposition is responsible for all this destruction, that if it weren’t for them there wouldn’t have been any of this killing and ruination in the first place. And when someone disagrees, he’ll fiercely defend his idea, fighting to support his position, letting no one else say a word, but without ever shouting them down.

  And so everyone grew extremely familiar with his debate style; they’d follow along as he expressed his opinion, hearing him out, but never reveal their own thoughts on the subject. As for why Jumaa the Teacher behaved that way, there’s a story.

  TWO LITTLE BUMPS ON TOP OF MY HEAD

  I stood in front of the mirror straightening my hair. The comb hurt as soon as I pressed it against my scalp. I pulled my hair aside and suddenly felt those strange bumps of arousal poking through once again. I styled my hair in a way that kept them hidden, so that nobody would be able to see them. I got dressed in a hurry because I needed to go inspect my mother’s place. There was no longer any reply on her cell phone, and I needed to see for myself what had happened.

  Schools hadn’t opened their doors to students that day either, you might say they had opened one door and one door only, that of the administration, so that teachers could go inside, while all of the classrooms and other spaces—including the security station, the library, and the staff offices—had been turned into shelters for displaced people.

  The refugees removed all the chairs from the classrooms and other spaces so that they could put down foam bedding, string up what passed for blinds over the windows, and pound nails into the walls so that they could hang up their belongings. The gas was communal, more or less, and when the canister ran out and there was no longer any fuel to be found, someone would go buy some or else they would find electric heaters. They began telling each other stories about the destruction and devastation that had befallen their homes. Then, bit by bit, the conversation would turn toward less serious matters, because it wasn’t possible to talk about such things forever.

  One of them asked why they didn’t build something that would allow them, meaning the displaced people, to be able to feed themselves. The people sleeping in the schools awoke to the sound of that person’s voice shouting, “Oh my God!” Someone had brought a watermelon from the farmers’ market and laid it out in front of everyone. Another person brought grapes and so forth and so on, until the entire scene was filled out, and you could see fires and smoke, eggplants of all varieties, tomatoes, zucchini, and pumpkins. Someone made coffee and tea while someone else fried falafel and boiled eggs; another person made sandwiches with cured meats, tomatoes, and pickles for everyone to eat. In short the people started producing things to eat, including pita bread and other kinds. You would soon start to find everything from electronic goods to plumbing equipment; you might say an entire market had sprung up, including vendors of vegetables, bags of potato chips, all kinds of oil, country-style, animal-fat and industrial ghee, as well as chamomile and mulukhiyah leaves. I’m telling you, it would make your head spin.

  Jumaa the Teacher, who was deeply involved in the whole thing, dropped by the school in order to sign in, then sat down with the administration.

  “Everything all right, brother?” the female principal asked him.

  “Aren’t you going to sign this?” he asked her in turn.

  “I wasn’t aware you were a teacher here.”

  Jumaa the Teacher signed in and then walked away in a huff.

  It was a calm morning, everything on our west side of the city was chaotic, cars were driving the wrong way on the roads. If people were driving the wrong way, though, that was only because everything had been turned upside down. That morning all kinds of people were waiting on the doorstep to come inside, people with diverse features, some with hands and feet and a head, all moving at their own pace with their heads down, carrying loaves of bread. They weren’t concerned with what day it was, what time it was, whether it was summer or winter. They had managed to procure bread, and that was all that mattered.

  Jumaa the Teacher arrived at the Al-Halak shared taxi stand and found a number of cars that were willing to take him to Al-Halak but he told them he wanted to go to the main square via the Tawleed Hospital road. The passenger seated next to him snickered and said, “It’s like you don’t live here, as if you didn’t realize they’ve blocked off the way into the square via the Tawleed road.”

  “Who blocked it off?”

  “Talk to the driver, maybe he can help you.”

  Jumaa went to speak with the driver, who had paid him absolutely no attention at first. The driver told him they were going first to al-Shalaal, then directly from there to Shaykh Maqsoud, then they’d turn right, finally heading toward Al-Halak.

  “No, no, that’s not going to work for me,” Jumaa the Teacher said, getting out of the car, deciding to continue his journey on foot instead.

  All kinds of gunfire broke out, whether he was in the public gardens or the streets surrounding them. Jumaa the Teacher was stricken with panic, that’s right, stricken with panic, or let’s call it terror even. Still, sometimes the main squares would dazzle him. He was now bearing witness to clashes between the Muslim Brothers and the regime. He had previously witnessed the 1973 War—he didn’t refer to it as the War of Liberation the way the regime did. Maybe that was just inattentiveness, or maybe it was something else.

  It’s true that he had rounded up the corpses of fighter pilots on the moist earth, sometimes wrapping them with a sheet, but all of that was nothing like what was happening to him now. He looked to the right, where he saw Mukhabarat agents dressed in military fatigues sitting on chairs they had taken from shops that had opened their doors to them in exchange for protection, fanning themselves with scraps of cardboard because the power was out.

  And so the calamities continued even as he started to walk, nothing could rattle his confident strides, not the aerial bombardment, the shelling, not the bullets he could hear whizzing past, he didn’t care, the goal was clear as day before his eyes, and nothing was going to prevent him from getting there.

  Jumaa the Teacher made it near his mother’s house, as far as the next neighborhood over, and then his body finally arrived at the street leading to her place.

  “You can’t go this way,” the soldier flatly said, waving a rifle toward him.

  I’ll take the next street, Jumaa the Teacher decided, but on the next street he found the exact same situation, then on a third street, and so on and so forth, until he reached the produce market at Maysaloun, where he dropped his face into his palm. He wouldn’t be able to see the house from there, so he headed west to the Sulaymaniyah neighborhood, where there were women of all ages and shapes and sizes standing in line to buy bread before moving on to buy the rest of their groceries.

  When he
made it back to the cafe, weighed down by sadness and exhaustion, he sat in the comfortable chair by the window. Suddenly the street burst into action, with gunfire coming from all directions, missiles of every make started to crash down, and as he looked out the window to find out what was happening, he saw a woman using her hand to cover her head and crouching down as she took shelter against the wall. He couldn’t quite see what happened next. He gathered all the courage he could muster and rushed into the fray, grabbed her by the hand, and dragged her back with him. Everyone was flying around in a panic, and he ran with her until they made it to the door of the cafe. He shoved her inside and she remained silent.

  “I have no idea what they’re targeting,” he told her, “but they’re attacking with full force.”

  Her face was gaunt, she was depleted and clearly needed someplace to sit down.

  “What do you say we go sit in the cafe for a bit?” he asked her, and she nodded at him in agreement.

  He walked up the stairs ahead of her and she followed him until they reached his usual table, where some young men he was acquainted with were sitting, so he zigzagged over to another table after saying hello to all of them. He sat down at a table that looked out on Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, from where he could watch everything that was happening directly across from them and out on both sides. She sat down beside him. The sky he looked up at in that moment was as transparent as water. He asked about her situation, what she was doing in such a place at a time like this.

  “Nothing, nothing much, they just started attacking,” she said curtly, the shock of all the noise clearly affecting her, causing her to behave this way.