‘Our strength is that we’re sticking together,’ she continued. ‘The moment we fight violence with violence, they’re going to call us terrorists, spies, traitors – God knows what – and deal with us as such.’
‘Yeah, let’s give it some time,’ Sami agreed.
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
Sarah didn’t say it straight out but Sami knew what she meant. He had only been protesting for a couple of months, hadn’t seen and heard everything. He tried to ignore the accusatory tone in her voice since this was not the time to have a row. Either way, their friends had come to the same conclusion: when demonstrating for peace, peaceful methods were required. The Free Syrian Army was taking care of the armed struggle.
* * *
—
Sami and Sarah didn’t talk about the future because this was their future. Freedom, and the new society they were trying to create. They met at each other’s houses and planned activities, usually in the evenings when the military patrols were less frequent.
But it was dangerous work. One night, in the gentle glow of the streetlamps, Sami witnessed the security police breaking into their neighbour’s house to seize the son, a well-known media activist. When they didn’t find the one they were looking for, they took the father instead.
Sami watched from across the street as the elderly man was forced out in plaid slippers and a blue robe. He blinked in the streetlight and was reaching for something in his pocket when he got a hard push in his back and stumbled on the icy step. Sami saw a pair of glasses fall out of the old man’s hand and land on the asphalt. One of the security officers stepped on them, almost unknowingly, while he lifted the man by his arm and shoved him into the black car.
By the morning someone had swept away the splinters and the broken frames. The glasses had vanished without a trace, just like the old man, who never returned to the house.
23
THE ARMOURED VEHICLES were not there just for show. Shops began to close and people began to hoard tinned goods. Some families sought refuge in the countryside. Yet even so, most remained calm. The regime would never dare, they said. As soon as the first missile is fired, the US, France and the international community will react. They said.
In the early spring of 2012, a year after the birth of the revolution, the first rockets were launched at Homs. Until that day, Sami had thought there was a limit, a red line of decency. Yes, he knew tanks had rolled into Daraa at the very start of the revolution. That demonstrators greeting the soldiers with flowers had been attacked with teargas and bullets. And yet he couldn’t shake a seed of doubt that it was all really happening.
It wasn’t just the situation he was unfamiliar with, it was himself, too – or more accurately, humanity. People were created equal and the same, which meant the light that existed in others, existed in him too. The darkness that existed in others, he could summon too. Inside the armoured vehicles were soldiers Sami had served with, soldiers who were now shooting at their friends’ homes.
Rockets and missiles darkened the sky. Sami started taking pictures of the damaged houses. As evidence, he told Sarah. This kind of rocket was from the previous century and had a target radius of one hundred to two hundred yards; nothing you used if you had an exact military target.
Yasmin agreed that they needed to document things. They needed a media centre to coordinate and disseminate accurate information. They took turns meeting at each other’s homes or finding other premises they could be in. Yasmin came to Sami’s house sometimes, when she needed help editing photos or designing pamphlets.
‘Hello,’ she greeted Malik, who always seemed to show up in the hallway when she arrived. ‘What are you up to, ya albi?’
Malik was too big to be called a sweetheart any more but still smiled and blushed. Yasmin leaned down to take off her shoes and Sami came just in time to see his little brother straighten his back.
‘Oh, you know,’ Malik said. ‘I’m thinking of joining the rebels.’
‘Don’t listen to him, he talks nonsense,’ Sami said.
‘I don’t. I want to do something, too.’
Yasmin nodded and said that the media group always needed volunteers. Maybe he liked to photograph or collect testimonies?
‘I mean something real,’ Malik said. ‘Something that changes something. Between a man with a camera or a man with a gun, who would you listen to?’ Malik twisted his hands when he realized what he had just said. ‘Not that I mean that your work isn’t…’
Yasmin shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal but Sami felt the anger rise.
‘First of all, you’re not a man. You’re thirteen.’
‘Soon fourteen.’
‘Second, go and do your homework.’
‘We’ve got vacation from the school.’
‘OK, brothers,’ Yasmin interrupted and turned to Malik. ‘Just tell us if you change your mind.’
Sami remembered the impression Yasmin had made on him when they were young. The feeling of being in the spotlight when she listened or talked to you, as if every word had meaning. As if you meant something yourself. Of course Malik was now feeling the same.
‘Your little brother is cute,’ Yasmin said and continued to Sami’s room, where Sarah was waiting for them. ‘He reminds me of my brother.’
* * *
—
The media activists printed newspapers and posters, shared images and texts on social media. Over time, structure emerged. Yasmin became the informal leader of the work and the forty or so activists engaged in it. Their work became more serious as circumstances became so. Sami’s inner doubt grew stronger and stronger, but all outward doubt disappeared with the vibrations in the ground. When the missiles hit, he threw himself on the floor and covered his ears. Blood throbbed at his temples. The wall of a building further down the street collapsed, but not where he was. Time lost all meaning, at least in terms of how it had flowed before, divided into hours and minutes. Now he divided time into chaos and impending chaos.
For the first time he saw the bodies of young people, whose faces were covered in dust and whose skin steamed with heat. He had been wrong. Apparently, a body could continue to emit heat for a short while after death. The shock that rushed through his body, however, wasn’t something he could talk about.
* * *
—
In the middle of March, late at night, he had a call from Muhammed. At first he didn’t recognize his friend’s voice. He was speaking in clipped, jerky sentences from the top part of his lungs.
‘Come, you have to come.’