‘Where did you get that?’
‘Never mind, just look.’
The black dog lumbered into the room and curled up next to the bed, its tail languidly beating the floor. Sami sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, watched the grainy video. Judging from the date, it had been uploaded the day before. When he recognized the face, his legs started bouncing up and down and he pulled a flake of dry skin from his lip.
‘Enough already,’ Ahmed said, looking into the camera, fixedly and slightly wild-eyed. ‘The regime is shooting us, they are killing our sisters and brothers. Peaceful demonstration isn’t enough any more.’
Ahmed held up his military ID and Sami thought about how often he had seen those hands illuminated from below by the drawing table. Long, thin, sinewy fingers, which would not have looked out of place on a musical instrument. It was with those hands, piano hands, violin hands, that he tore up his military ID.
‘I’m no longer fighting for Assad’s army, I’m fighting for the Syrian people. Long live the Free Syrian Army!’
The name was not unknown to them. The armed rebel group, the FSA, had been founded over the summer. It disseminated pictures and videos of deserting soldiers while rumours spread about what had happened to the deserters. Deserting was far worse than being a conscientious objector and almost always led to a bullet in the head or a disappearance.
‘Your lips are going to be a mess if you keep doing that,’ Rafat said.
‘Have you talked to his family?’
‘I can’t get hold of them. People say his parents have been arrested.’
The black dog raised its head from the floor and studied them before lowering it back down and putting a paw across its nose. If Sami had been in a sleep-like state during the past few months, he was wide awake now. Why had Ahmed not warned them? They had talked about everything. Hadn’t they? But Ahmed had made a decision, planned his escape and left on his own. In addition to his disappointment and mounting restlessness, Sami couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of jealousy. Ahmed had dared to leave.
Although they were not brothers, they had lived so closely together. It made him think of Homs and how much he missed his family. He hadn’t been able to visit since the New Year and asking for leave was pointless. The more soldiers deserted, the more restrictions were introduced. After his infraction with the map, the general had decided Sami would not be given any opportunity to go home. Perhaps he sensed Sami would choose to stay and join the protests, or maybe it was just his way of demonstrating his power.
‘What’s it like in Homs?’ the brigade general had said as he and Sami stood together in the gloom by the drawing table. ‘I’ve heard they’re planning to grow potatoes there.’
Because of the strong turnout over the past year, Homs was called ‘the capital of the revolution’. ‘Growing potatoes’ was code for crushing the resistance and levelling the rebellion. A chill ran down Sami’s spine. It meant complete destruction, and he knew that the same expression had been used before the massacre in Hama.
‘I thought you were familiar with Homs,’ Sami said as neutrally as he could.
‘I am,’ said the general and straightened up. ‘Haven’t I told you I did my training there?’
‘Then you should know how cold the nights get. A pretty unsuitable place for growing potatoes.’
The general snorted and said Sami was never going to be granted leave anyhow.
So he would have to sort it out himself.
* * *
—
Sami went to bed with his uniform on. Instead of sleeping, he lay down and waited for the night to turn into greyish light. He finally sat up in the steel bed, carefully, but it still gave off a squeak. He stiffened, but Rafat’s snoring rose safely from the other side of the room, where he slept on his back with a slightly open mouth. Sami tied his boots and took the backpack he used for leave and sneaked out of the room. Outside the door was the black dog, who drowsily lifted its nose when it saw Sami.
‘Ssh,’ he said and patted the rough fur. ‘Want to join me on a little adventure?’
He handed out a piece of dried meat and the dog waved his tail happily. Not only had it put on some weight, it was even getting a bit round.
The sky was still grey when they began to walk through the base but soon the dusk began to dissolve.
‘Come on, we have to hurry.’
The dog sometimes ran before him, sometimes after him, clearly excited about the excursion. After half an hour the trail began to descend and they were out of sight of the camp. Sami changed clothes in a shrubbery and put his uniform in the backpack. If anyone asked where he was going, he had faked a permit to leave. He would spend one night in the clink for wearing civilian clothing, but in the best-case scenario that would be the worst of it.
The black dog moved playfully up and down the path, then suddenly became quiet. Sami stepped out of the bush in his new clothes, jeans and a woollen sweater over a washed-out T-shirt, and whistled low. No dog in sight. He continued down the path and froze at the sound of an angry growl. Two wild dogs blocked the trail, puffy and with yellow eyes fixed on him. They were smaller than the black dog but long-legged and sinewy, and above all they looked at him with starving eyes.
‘Hey, careful…’
Sami patted his breast pocket for dried meat but realized that it was in the military jacket in the backpack. Instead, he held out his hands and spoke softly.
‘Stay calm, I won’t do you any harm. Good dogs…’
Sami took one step forward and one of the dogs began to bark, white froth foaming in its mouth, and soon the other dog followed. Sami moved back and felt the thorns penetrate his sweater. The dogs barked breathlessly and approached, glaring at him, when he heard a sound beside him. The black dog rushed out of a bush and stood between him and the two wild animals. It took only a few lunges before the wild dogs turned and left, tails between their legs.
Sami breathed out and hugged his rescuer. The black dog panted back, its tongue lolling; if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it smiled.
‘Now, we’re almost there.’
The vegetation on the last stretch changed from jagged shrubs to trees with orange-brown leaves as if the crowns were in flames. Just before he reached the village, Sami said goodbye to the black dog, and it seemed to understand, turning back and going the same way they had come from.
The village was small and there was a shop that sold mobiles. He just had to wait an hour before it opened. The shop was similar to the ones he used to pass on the way to school, with a similarly short, grey-haired man behind the till and a box of fresh bread next to him. Sami bought two croissants in addition to a cheap phone and a SIM card.