Hawaiian shirt paused and looked down at his feet.
‘It’s something I’ve thought a lot about,’ he continued. ‘If it’s possible to learn evil, surely it also has to be possible to learn goodness. Don’t you think?’
Sami didn’t reply, but that seemed not to matter. Maybe he was talking more to himself than anyone else.
* * *
—
On the third day in Boloni, they were taken into the courtyard for inspection and a scolding from the prison director, a short, robust man in his forties with sun-bleached hair. He yelled as much at the guards as at the prisoners, and sometimes took part in the torture, which he seemed to relish. The prisoners were ordered to sit on the cold ground with their heads lowered.
‘Us too?’ said the man who used to wear a Rolex.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ replied a younger guard, glancing nervously this way and that.
When the prison director noticed that the two formerly well-dressed men, now sporting rumpled shirts and stubble, were standing up next to the other prisoners, his face darkened. He walked up to them, grabbed one by the chin, then the other, and spat out the words:
‘Who do you think you are? Just because you’re judges doesn’t mean I can’t beat you to death. Sit down!’
The two men sat down immediately, right next to Sami. They pushed the palms of their hands to the ground to keep from shaking.
Sitting soon became the worst form of torture. The concrete floor was too cold to lie down on and the lack of space made it difficult to stretch out anyhow. No matter which way Sami turned, he felt like his legs were being worn down. His body was growing numb. Bruises appeared around his knees, calves and thighs where blood vessels had burst.
* * *
—
After one week in prison, the gate opened and two guards entered the cell.
‘Which one of you is Sami?’
His tongue froze and his throat twisted. So it was his turn to be dragged out in the yard, to be turned into a piece of bruised meat. One of the guards chewed impatiently and looked around in the cell.
‘Either show yourself now or you stay another week.’
Hawaiian shirt put a hand on Sami’s shoulder, and the guards grabbed him under his arms. He felt like he was passing out but a sudden slap shook him back to life. Instead of being pulled into the yard, he was taken through the main doors, outside, where an armoured car was waiting for him.
‘Your lucky day,’ the uniformed driver said. ‘You’re going to the army’s recruitment centre in Homs.’
* * *
—
It was like stepping into a parallel universe where people were neat, sweet-smelling and had beautiful skin with no lacerations or bruises. As he walked into the recruitment centre, Sami looked up to see his father, Grandpa Faris and Ali standing by the registration desk. It felt like it had been a year since they last saw each other.
‘My son!’
Sami walked slowly forward and his dad met him halfway, embracing him and kissing his cheeks. Grandpa Faris stroked his hair and Ali put a warm hand on his back. Sami breathed in their scents: oud and soap and clean, perfectly clean, skin.
‘Sarah wanted to come too,’ his brother said, ‘but her bus was late and we didn’t dare to wait for her.’
They were smiling but it looked forced and Nabil’s eyes were wetter than usual.
‘Are they treating you well? Have you eaten?’
Sami nodded and thought to himself that it was almost true. During his detention he had managed to eat two potatoes, and there was no point worrying his family. The fact that he hadn’t showered was harder to hide. But they held him for a long time, until the uniformed woman in charge of registration noticed them.
‘Why is he not wearing handcuffs?’ she said, pointing at the guard who had brought Sami in.
‘I was told to take them off while he met with his family.’
‘This is no family dinner. Come on, you, visiting hours are over.’ The woman rapped her gold rings on the desk.
‘We’re doing everything in our power to get you out of there,’ Ali said and gave him a final hug.
The meeting was over in minutes. Sami would be taken back to the military prison in Boloni and wait for the decision about his placement. In the car, the driver handed over his phone.
‘A gift from your brother. You’ve got five minutes.’
Sami called Sarah first, then his mother. He could hear Samira swallowing several times but her voice was strikingly calm. He must do what the soldiers told him to do, she insisted.
‘Don’t get riled up over nothing, conserve your energy and eat when they feed you.’
She said what he needed to hear.
* * *
—
Back in Boloni, the persistent rain kept the temperature low and turned the nights into protracted battles. Time stood still or moved in circles, even the sounds of torture blended with exhaustion and hunger. Sometimes he didn’t know if he was awake or asleep, if he was sitting or lying down, if he was a body or a human.
On the eleventh or twelfth day, he had lost count, there was a break in the tedium. Together with the two judges, whose shirts were now virtually transparent, he was handcuffed and taken to a new location.
* * *
—
Al-Nabek was on the road between Homs and Damascus, known for the nearby monastery Mar Musa. The city was in the valley and the monastery up in the mountains. A British archaeologist had recently found ten-thousand-year-old remains next to the monastery: stone circles, the foundations of walls and graves. Traces of people who had lived and died. The thought boggled his mind, that humans were so short-lived compared to the objects they surrounded themselves with.
Having left the crowded cell, Sami was now standing in an endless field. The autumn sun was high in the sky, warming his neck, and the air was dry with sand. The din of voices and feet intensified. Five thousand men surrounded him, ready to be assigned to their new divisions. Most had registered more or less willingly when called up. A small number of women had joined of their own free will. They often came from Alawite families and did not attend the usual military service but went to military school to be placed on administrative services later. Around a hundred men had, like Sami, come straight from prison.
The field was surrounded by numbered lorries and a soldier with a megaphone called out names and numbers. When Sami’s name rang out, it felt like when he was younger and had to go and get the football from the old man’s house. Mud and quicksand, like the world was losing its contours.