Sarmada Read online

  “Me, personally, I don't want to be anyone's sacrifice, not just so I can substitute someone new to oppress me and deprive me of my right to life and self-expression; my right not to be part of a group, but a private individual whose personal freedom is holiest of all; my right to break out of the sectarian flock, out of the party flock—it's just a different sect with a different vocabulary—out of the flock of the independent nation ruled by a colonialist whose eyes are only slightly less blue, out of the flock of God and those who use him and make up laws to control me and keep me from reaching out to Him if I want to.

  “Comrade, if we should toil for the sake of the nation and good and freedom, then we should toil for love and freedom, for our rights and dignity. And beyond that, religious fundamentalism and dictatorship are two sides of the same coin. As soon as the Arab regimes fall, the fundamentalist lie will collapse, too. But it's not you all or the other Arab political parties that are going to bring down the regimes. No, you're all made up of the same ingredients. The regimes will fall because of something no one will see coming: when people stop using the imported language of others and discover their own. And when they do, they're going to leave the whole lot of you behind. You won't believe your eyes. You're the ones who want a revolution, but it's the people who are going to invent new forms of change once they find their own language again. The language you stole from them because you've never known how to talk to regular people.”

  Despite the uproar from his comrades and their attempts to interrupt him, he carried on pouring out everything that had pooled in his heart over all those years of pathetic, wasted pain and rage. He shouted at them, “Your hate for the dictator runs so deep, it's blinded you and now you're beginning to resemble him. Dictatorship has corrupted us all, and more importantly, it's driven a wedge between us and our people; it's separated us from ourselves. Not to worry, though, another generation will give birth to revolution. It definitely won't be us. We're just a bunch of hollow hacks. We're full of self-loathing more than anything else.” He left before they could kick him out.

  He began writing love poems to Buthayna, although she'd already turned him down a number of times. Comparing him cursorily to her manly Hussein, she found him a university kid, who had a different way of talking about Sarmada, and she could never tell whether he was happy or sad. He was outwardly fake with people and he was torn between his cultural elitism and his true nature, which she could discern as he went on talking. He shared some snippets from the history of his family, who were famous throughout the mountain region, pairing truth with the incredible, but ultimately it was one of those Sarmadan tales that provided the village with its uncanny talent for telling its own story and gave anyone who encountered it the freedom to tell it as he or she pleased. The truth was that Saloum's story had managed to grip even conceited Buthayna's attention, so she turned to look up at Windhill, her eyes full of the sarcasm she marshaled so well, tinted by a mysterious glimmer. Behind the hill lay the Mountain of the Bearded Shaykh; it got its name from the abiding snow that resembled an old man's bright white beard and shined back at her. She turned to look at him, imploring him to tell the story and everything else he'd been unable to say before. As Saloum's sadness-troubled voice spilled out on the roof of the al-Khattar family home, the dish of grape molasses went untouched and the cup of yerba mate was sipped at only once because his hands were busy wandering through the air as he began to remember.

  The story goes that al-Bunni, Saloum al-Rayyash's greatgreat-great-grandfather, was mad about hunting and he set off one snowy morning, concealing a wounded leg that had begun to suppurate. He took his rifle, saddled up his horse, packed provisions for seven days, and headed westward toward the rugged ground. Al-Bunni, whose infamy reached all the way to Istanbul, had cost the Ottoman garrison more than fifty Janissaries and years of wounded pride, until they finally decided to appoint him the unofficial chief of the area from the northern edge of the rocky wasteland all the way to Hebariyeh. Sarmada became a symbol of anti-Ottoman rebellion: Sarmadans paid no taxes and their sons never served in the Janissary Corps. He opened up his home to the hungry from across the Levant during the famine and its rooms became shelters for refugees, help-seekers and those who were wanted at the Ottoman gallows from all over the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant. He was big and tall and had the kind of handlebar moustache a falcon could perch on. He was a hyena hunter, a friend to wolves and a tracker, and he knew the deserts of the Lajat and its trails. He had memorized the secrets of the great rocks and their hiding places. He couldn't stomach settling down in one place, and no sooner had he turned up somewhere than he'd be heading off again, and he only ever stayed put when someone came to him to plead for protection or when a guest had nowhere else to turn and was forced to take refuge with that taciturn, irascible, crack-shot rebel. He had kohled eyes and plaited hair hanging down over his back and shoulders. He never shirked a raid, or threat, or point of honor no matter where it might lead him. He was accompanied by a troop of roving kohl-eyed, plait-haired riders who were greeted with prayers and ululations in all the deserts and villages of the mountains they visited. They symbolized the bold streak of independence that ran through the Lajat.

  Al-Bunni wasn't looking to get his hands on power or a covenant by rebelling against every last outside power that tried to interrupt the harmony of the place. He already knew he was the last male in his line. Nevertheless, he wanted to solve the riddle, or at least to break it down so he could understand why and maybe decipher the code before his nebulous destiny came to a dead end. That same destiny that had nursed him as a baby—his family's highest priority, a priority that couldn't even be discussed until he was weaned at the age of five, having sucked the breasts of six wet-nurses dry.

  “He went in the direction of the Zatiri Springs deep in the wasteland of the Lajat,” said a shepherd, answering al-Bunni's wife, Mitha, whose heart had been heavy for days. She was, of course, perfectly used to his habit of coming and going and she understood that nowhere on earth felt more like home to him than the back of his purebred horse, Kaheela, which carried him over the wasteland's rocky carpet and through the boulder-wilderness to the distant borders of his longing. Thus she steeled herself for many teary years and wept for al-Bunni until the coal-black of her irises leached to a blue-green. The shepherd recalled, “We were together, me and al-Bunni, and he shot at a falcon. He did exactly what his grandfather did years ago, but the only way to catch a falcon is to trick it and if it does end up getting caught, it’ll raise its head high and plunge its sharp beak straight through its heart. It refuses to grow decrepit, so when it starts getting old, it circles up and up in the air toward the sun and then comes barreling down in a suicidal free-fall.” The shepherd was showing off his knowledge and his conversation drifted off course, wading through details that meant nothing to a pregnant woman whose husband had disappeared in the enchanted rocky wasteland.

  As Mitha listened to the shepherd’s story, her eyes filled with tears, but she stopped her sobbing momentarily when she heard him say that he’d heard al-Bunni talking to the falcon and that he’d washed out its wounded wing and cared for it over those three days, and then poured gunpowder on the wound and cauterized it with a glowing knife blade, and then let it go. It flew away after circling around al-Bunni’s head several times. It dropped him a feather it had plucked out of its breast, and he grabbed the feather and waited and then another feather fell, and a third, and then a fourth. “I heard him say, ‘Fate’s given us another chance. We’re going to have sons,’” said the shepherd.

  “What else did he say? Do you remember? How did he look? Where did he go?”

  “That’s all, I swear. He told me to go back and he stayed in the wasteland.” Mitha suddenly remembered her old fears of al-Bunni being the last in the al-Rayyash line. The exact same thing had happened to his grandfather, except that he’d killed a sacred falcon during the glut and the birds had prayed that his line would be wiped out. Al-Bunni was the
last of his line according to those who knew the secrets. “It has to be a sign from God,” she said to herself. She crossed through a bemusing wasteland, over obscure deserts, following a heart accustomed to loss. She took a pinch of salt and made for the spring. The same spring that Azza Tawfiq had known about. The spring that was the last thing Hela Mansour ever remembered. She threw the silver grains in, repeating her wish: first that she would have a son and then that the one who'd disappeared would return, but only if that were possible, because she had a hunch that the power of the spring was only ever enough for one wish.

  Al-Bunni disappeared, or to be more precise, he followed the example of his forefathers: when they felt death drawing near, they set out for the faraway deserts and died there, graveless, offering their bodies up to the scavenging animals. The old wound in his thigh had been torn open once more and gangrene was consuming his body. He didn't want anyone's pity; he couldn't stand to die surrounded by other people's humiliating compassion. He didn't want anyone to see him in pain or wasting away. He'd lived as a free man, outside the jurisdiction of natural laws, and he wanted to die just as he'd lived.

  Mitha, who was pregnant, gave birth to Shrouf, who begat Qoftan, who begat Shaheen and Shaheen married a woman who was called Saliha al-Kanj. She gave him four daughters, Fatima, Sara, Maryam, and Rahma, and he continued to wait for a son, but in vain. Five sons were snatched away by death before their third birthdays for reasons that maybe the holy birds knew, or maybe the soothsayer of Kanakir could guess, so Saliha al-Kanj turned to the woman who possessed the power of the birds for help.

  “Please. You have to help me. I want a son who will live.”

  “It's all in God's hands. You'll have a son only if it's your destiny.”

  “I've tried every remedy and offering. I've gone to every imam and soothsayer, but there's no use: we haven't had a boy despite all our trying. We don't want the family line to be cut off.”

  The soothsayer examined her fresh face and blue eyes, and began to think. After a period of silence that to Saliha al-Kanj seemed to last a lifetime, she spoke: “A son will come. Give him a name with the word God in it, have him baptized in the Christians' font, and take him to the shrines of six Druze saints, so that he shall survive.” Then in a rasping voice, with manufactured piety, she added, “God willing... Go on, now, madam.” As Saliha al-Kanj rose to leave, she called to her “O believer…”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “When the boy comes, don't let him out of your sight for a moment. A moment's distraction and it'll all be over: forget about day and night, forget about the bathroom and the call of nature. Don't take your eyes off him, not for a moment. He must be protected from death by wakefulness, there can't be any dozing off or distraction, and he must remain purer than pure. He shall be watched and pure and clean, free of the slightest indecency, free of even a single sin. And then as soon as he reaches puberty, find him a wife. You mustn't forget. Now, go.”

  Saliha al-Kanj gathered herself up and left. A secret bliss moved within her, and with her every exhalation, worry flowed out on the breath of fear. Izz Allah arrived to a chorus of prayers and was carried from Sarmada's baptismal waters to the Druze shrines. Saliha raised him God-fearingly: matching every inch he grew with an offering, starting with the Mother of Rams tree and then taking him to the shrines of Ammar ibn Yasser and the venerable Abed Mar and Shaykh al-Balkhi, the great Sufi, and then to Ayn al-Zaman and the grave of Abel and the tomb of John the Baptist in the Umayyad Mosque and the Mosque of the great Shaykh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi. Every six months she offered a sacrifice and divided it up among the shrines, which she visited barefoot and bare-hearted, imploring God's saints to protect her only son.

  The boy remained under constant surveillance the whole time, showered with love so implacable it was manic. It turned into a pitched battle between a desire for life and the power of death, which Saliha had fought all alone in the beginning. When sleep began to weigh on her eyelids, she'd assign her two daughters to watch the boy, only to wake up in terror after a brief nap. He grew up happily, and her insomnia grew along with him, until people started calling her the “Two-lifer” because she never slept, neither at night or in the daytime. Saliha al-Kanj had accepted the wisdom of the soothsayer of Kanakir: death comes when your back is turned. It slips through negligence. People don't die when they're being watched. Death only comes when everyone is distracted. Her neighbor Umm Saeed told her about her husband and confirmed the fortune teller's wisdom: “He asked for some water so I walked over to the water jug and came back, but the depositor had already collected his deposit! Dear me! I turned my back for just a moment and he was gone. He died thirsty. God keep you, Abu Saeed.”

  “I swear by the five cosmic principles, the soul departs in silence.”

  Zolaykha al-Joudi stepped in to cut off the mindless conversation: “Is that the same Abu Saeed who we mourned with the dirge that went:

  An old man has died,

  And the village mourns a life,

  We've lost poor Abu Saeed

  who fucked donkeys before he had a wife.

  These never-ending conversations helped Saliha al-Kanj fight back the ghoul of time until the family heir was all grown up and the curse of the sacred bird had been broken. The people of Sarmada continued to visit the al-Rayyash family and pass the time, and they even organized supervision shifts to help Saliha protect her child from stealthy death.

  The plan succeeded and Izz Allah was rescued from the claws of prophecy. His younger sister, Rahma, was taken out of school before she’d even finished second grade so she could make sure that her precious brother went on living, shielded by secret amulets, the name of God, and bloodshot, deathdefying eyes. As soon as Izz Allah had entered his sixteenth spring, he began to consider his marriage to Futoun al-Hamad. She was fifteen, just returning from high school, carrying a leather schoolbag decorated with colorful buttons and embroidery. She had her braided black hair up in a ponytail and if you’d stretched it out, it would’ve just about reached her knees. Her face was white, tinged with red and innocence. She had a sharp, impudent tongue that would cut anyone who dared go near her pride. The thing Futoun found most hurtful of all, though, was not being the first at something. She used to lead a gang of boys and girls and would challenge them to different contests: jumping, jumping with your feet tied together, swimming, and so on. She was the first girl to wear a short, knee-length skirt and a tank top in Sarmada, and everyone made excuses for that girl. She got away with things that no one else could get away with.

  “What? You think you’re Futoun, Jabir’s daughter, now?” The adults asked when one of the girls did something that broke with convention or wore something that exposed part of their legs.

  It was because she was known to be a spitfire and also because she was the eldest grandchild of Abu Jabir Hazim al-Hamad, one of the great revolutionaries and someone who understood the Nakba through and through because he’d fought alongside Izz al-Din al-Qassam and then during the General Strike in 1936 and had been promoted to lieutenant in the Arab Liberation Army. He was held as a political prisoner throughout the period of unification with Egypt because he quickly realized that Pan-Arabism was just a naive dream that meant nothing in the real world and that what unified the Arabs couldn't be legislated into a distorted union. Hazim al-Hamad showered his granddaughter with affection, or to quote: she was the only person who could touch his wounds and she proceeded to set down—on eleven cassette tapes—the memoirs of this man, who died aged nine years older than the century. He told her the secrets of the Nakba and cautioned her that the Syrian people could never unite with others, no matter how noble the intentions.

  Returning from school, Futoun's feet were wet because she'd cut across the swirling valley with Ismaeel's son, Na'el, the boldest boy in the village. She was in a foul mood because she'd been unable to jump more than three rocks—and he'd seen this with his own eyes. When she couldn't stand his teasing anymore, she gra
bbed him by the jacket, jostled him, and dared him to go on mocking her. When he tried to defend himself, she slapped him, and when he returned the slap, she grabbed a rock and hit him. His clothes were covered in blood. Then she cursed at his sister when she tried to rescue him from her lunatic claws.

  When she returned home, she tried to hide her face, made red by the slap, and her hands, which were soiled with mud and Na'el's blood, but her eyes were busy trying to figure out what was going on. Her house was full of strangers and Khayzuran, one of Izz Allah's female relatives, welcomed her with ululation, congratulations, and blessings. Years later, she told her son about that day, which she'd never been able to forget.

  “Little by little, I began to understand what was happening: they'd decided to marry me off. The weird thing was that I didn't object or throw a fit. Of course, they'd already put together a bribe to shut me up: a trip to Damascus to eat ice cream at Bekdash as well as some new clothes, including two skirts that fell above the knee with hems made out of transparent muslin made to look like flowers and three tank tops, along with two tins of Haurani semolina cakes.

  “But it wasn't the bribe that got me to go along with it all, or the fact that my grandfather Hamza had agreed to it, or my father's silent congratulations. It was just a strange desire to have a gold ring on my finger before all the other girls in the village. I just had to be first.”

  The wedding took place six months later. At first, she thought the marriage was just one big prank and that it would soon be over, but eventually the temptation to discover what the world of the body was about, to get answers to forbidden questions, to know the amazing thrill she'd heard so many of Sarmada's young married women talking about, eased and encouraged her acceptance.

  The bride was brought to the wedding on a white horse like a princess, wearing a fez adorned with gold coins and over it a gauzy white headscarf, and a dress of velvet decorated with natural silk. Every last girl in Sarmada was jealous of her. The wedding was attended by all the different mountain communities and was a mix of Islamic, Druze, and Christian rituals.