‘Habibi, you’re the most ridiculous case I’ve come across in a long time. To show up here when you’re wanted for military service.’
They turned the radio up. Fairuz was singing about Beirut, about a city that tasted like fire, smoke and ash. Sami sat quietly until they stopped outside a low concrete building on the outskirts of Homs. Inside, he was taken to an office, to a giant desk, behind which sat a man who introduced himself as the prison director. He had an unremarkable appearance – a wart on his nose, a thin strand of hair combed across his bald pate and chubby hands that rested on his stomach – but his voice was deep and melodic like an opera singer’s. The prison director signalled to a guard to uncuff him and asked Sami to empty his pockets: keys, tissues, gum, wallet. The picture of Sarah slipped out and he tried to poke it back into his wallet before the prison director could see it.
‘Who’s this cutie?’ he said, picking the picture up with both hands.
‘My girlfriend.’
‘Beautiful. Looks like my daughter. You do know it’s against the law to keep pictures of your girlfriend in your wallet, don’t you?’ The prison director smiled at his own joke and proceeded to search the wallet, opening the currency compartment and shaking out a handful of change. ‘We’re done here,’ he said, waving his hand dismissively.
The guard who had escorted Sami stepped back out of the shadows. His pointy nose, sharp chin and peering eyes made him look like a light-shy, subterranean creature whose habitat was drains and sewers.
‘I don’t understand. What happens now?’
‘You will stay here,’ said the guard, ‘until it can be determined where you will do your military service.’
* * *
—
He was brought to a cell that was cramped, dark and dank like a cellar. Maybe it was a cellar. A small window with bars up by the ceiling let in a faint, hazy light.
At first he didn’t notice the slender boy in the corner; he thought it was a bundle of clothes. The boy was sitting with his legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around himself, as though he were trying to hold all his limbs together. On closer inspection, he probably wasn’t that young, maybe seventeen or eighteen.
‘So, what are you in for?’ Sami asked when the door slammed shut.
The boy didn’t answer. He raised his head and it looked like his neck was going to snap under its weight. His eyes were sunken. Twice, the guard came in and said he needed help, placing his hand on the boy’s lower back as he led him out. Each time they returned, the boy threw up in the sink in the corner.
The cell door opened and two more prisoners were let in. They were men in their thirties, well dressed and freshly shaven; one wore a Rolex and the other a light grey Hugo Boss shirt. Both had on navy chinos and patent leather shoes with low heels. They were quiet and mostly whispered between themselves, but they did tell Sami they, too, were wanted for avoiding military service.
A couple of hours after that a whole group of prisoners entered, seven men who reeked of alcohol and smoke, talking loudly and cracking jokes.
‘Some afterparty,’ said one of them, whose lanky hair fell to far below his ears.
He was wearing a turquoise shirt with palm trees and pineapples and big stains under the armpits. The guard opened the cell door once more, looked over at the boy in the corner, who avoided his eyes, and asked if any of them wanted cigarettes. The partygoers bought two packs, at three times the price charged in shops. They seized the opportunity to ask the guard if he had a deck of cards to sell. He did.
‘Do you want one?’ the man in the Hawaiian shirt asked after the guard shut the door.
‘Thanks, but I don’t smoke,’ Sami said.
‘You mean you don’t smoke tobacco?’
He nodded to Sami’s black T-shirt, which had a star-shaped leaf on the chest. He hoped the gloom hid the fact that he was blushing.
‘But you play cards, I hope, Mr Che?’
They sat down in a tight circle and dealt the cards.
‘What did you do to end up here?’
‘I extended my leave a little,’ said Hawaiian shirt. ‘And when they came for me, they arrested everyone in the room.’
‘They didn’t even let us finish our beers,’ another person in the circle said. ‘Party poopers.’
Smoke quickly filled the cell and Sami tried not to cough.
Some time in the afternoon, the guard came and took him to a different room. In it was an older man in uniform, whose most remarkable facial feature was a bushy monobrow. The officer checked his ID, hemmed a few times and introduced himself with the same family name.
‘We’re related?’ Sami asked, unable to conceal his surprise.
The man’s jaw worked and he stroked his eyebrow but said there was nothing he could do.
Sami was taken back to the cell where they played cards for a few more hours until the thirst and cigarette smoke gave him a headache, at which point he tried to get to sleep, to no avail. Eventually he did drift off and awoke when the cell door banged open.
‘Line up,’ the guard shouted, even though the faintest whisper would have reverberated in the cramped space.
He was accompanied by three other guards, and Sami gasped when he saw their camouflage uniforms and red hats.
‘Where are we going?’ asked one of the partygoers as he packed up the deck of cards. He must have still been drunk to dare to question the military police, and he was promptly dragged outside.
‘Now, silence!’ the first guard shouted, also seemingly nervous next to the military police.
As they were ushered across the dirt yard, their heads lowered, Sami felt a warm breath against his cheek.
‘Boloni,’ the boy whispered to him. ‘They’re taking us to Boloni.’
‘Look down! I said eyes on the ground!’
They were shoved into a minibus with a bulletproof rear window, through which they watched the streets of Homs and freedom rush past.
All the emotions Sami had gone through during the day, which had raged and clawed at the inside of his chest, turned into desolation. Despite all the rumours and stories, he hadn’t believed it until that moment: that this was the truth of their country, that you could kiss your girlfriend goodbye in the morning, go for a walk and that same evening be sitting handcuffed in a military vehicle on your way to a prison, the second one of the day.
13
BOLONI WAS ONE of the military police’s prisons outside Homs. Dusk was falling when they arrived but Sami caught a glimpse of the building from the outside: a square block with armed guards on the roof. Chained together in pairs, they shuffled inside.