And there was Muhammed, who was the chef for this special occasion. He wrapped his scarf like an apron around his thin waist and borrowed Anwar’s bandana to keep the curls from his face, and started cooking. Flour, water and oil. The smell was heavenly, bordering on magical. Their lips turned greasy and their cheeks rosy. They laughed and talked about what Muhammed should make with the rest of the flour. Round, fluffy khobz to fill with hummus. A sponge cake stuffed with nuts or fruit. Such wild wishes.
They ate until their stomachs ached, everyone except Malik, who was running a fever and had lost his appetite. They played poker for the last piece of pancake. Anwar won and devoured the last few bites while they enviously looked on. Sami licked his plate and felt a touch of vertigo.
Then they all went silent and watched Muhammed’s hand move towards his breast pocket. He pulled out a packet of Winston Blue and shook out the miracle: a cigarette. Not a cigarette rolled out of newspaper or a torn-out book page, filled with tobacco extracted from butts picked out of bins or hoover bags. Not dried grass, leaves or whatever else you could smoke to pass the time and quell your hunger. No, a real, American cigarette.
Muhammed took the first drag, which was only right. They watched the blue flame of the match, watched the fire take hold in the paper and reach the tobacco. His lips closed around the filter, he breathed in and exhaled the first of the smoke. Then it was Sami’s turn. He pulled smoke into his lungs until his eyes watered – the room suddenly seemed to be moving, as though they were on a ship – and exhaled. They all monitored each other as they took their turns. Millimetre by millimetre, the glow moved up towards the filter, until it fizzled out.
That night, the nightmare began. The cramps came in waves, pulsing like electric shocks through his body. Sami put a plastic bucket next to the sofa and threw up into it until his dizziness had abated. By morning, his blanket was wet and he hadn’t slept a wink. Eventually, sheer exhaustion pulled him into a deep sleep.
When he woke up, night had fallen. The cramps had subsided but his body was stiff and empty. His little brother was sitting on the edge of his bed, dabbing his forehead.
‘The others have been at the field hospital all night,’ Malik told him. ‘The doctors say Anwar almost died.’
Sami leaned over the bucket but nothing more came up.
‘How are you doing yourself?’ he asked his little brother.
‘It was lucky that I wasn’t so hungry.’
Malik’s eyes seemed larger than ever, sunken in their holes, in the yellowish skin. Sami had a sudden feeling of wanting to embrace his little brother, but didn’t. Instead he cursed himself for taking such an unnecessary risk. Food from the regime, what were they thinking? What would happen to Malik if Sami wasn’t there?
‘Come on now,’ Malik said, helping him to stand up. ‘Let’s take you to the hospital.’
* * *
—
‘Where have you been?’ a doctor asked when he finally made it to the field hospital. ‘You’re lucky you all shared your friend’s food, otherwise you wouldn’t have made it.’
‘What was in the flour?’ Malik asked, since Sami could barely speak.
‘Probably arsenic,’ the doctor replied.
On the way out, they passed a room with eight more people, all with stomach pains. It turned out Muhammed had been kind enough to make a pancake for their next-door neighbours. He himself was lying on one of the gurneys, writhing in pain, his curly hair flat with sweat.
To get their friends’ strength back, Sami sent his brother out to buy a kilo of honey on the black market, even though he loathed the men who made money off the war. They were people who avoided taking sides, who only cultivated contacts to further their business interests. Who hoarded food until people’s hunger peaked and then sold tinned goods to the highest bidder. The honey went for the equivalent of three hundred pounds, while a kilo of tobacco was two thousand and rarely available at all.
But the honey did them good. It lasted two weeks, and gave Sami enough energy to move further than a hundred yards without stopping for a rest.
* * *
—
Sami had barely recovered from the poisoning when he was asked by a healthcare worker to come back into hospital.
‘Hurry, come over.’
There had been one large field hospital and two smaller ones, until one of them was bombed. After that, one big hospital and one small hospital remained. The smaller field hospital was housed on the ground floor of a private residence and had five beds. It was always chaotic; people smoked and shouted at each other, and the staff worked in wellies because there was so much blood. As soon as a patient’s most acute injuries had been seen to, he or she had to leave to make room for incoming ones.
The larger field hospital had twenty beds and a couple of trained doctors, a few medical students and a veterinarian. There was also a self-taught mechanic who had learnt how to extract bullets and suture wounds – sometimes people jokingly referred to him as the doctor. The hospital was located in al-Hamidiyah and under constant attack. But as it was housed in the basement of a former office building, it was as safe a place as any other.
A thick smell of blood and disinfectant greeted him. At the start of the siege, there had been morphine and drugs of all kinds, but now the stores were empty and most surgeries were performed without anaesthetic. A young woman on a gurney propped herself up on her elbow and asked Sami to hold her newborn child while she got to her feet. He held the infant girl in his arms; she couldn’t have been more than an hour old and was no bigger than a kitten. The woman took her baby and thanked him, and Sami took her place in the hospital bed.
He was pricked in the arm and studied the bar fridge they stored the blood in. After a while, the medic patted the half-filled bag and said that was enough for today.
‘You probably need to recover for a bit longer.’
* * *
—
Sami continued to take pictures and chop wood. It saddened him to see people chopping down the healthy trees. The trees had spent so many years growing and now they were cut down with a few well-aimed strokes of an axe, even though they were much too fresh and damp to even make good fuel. Some of the trunks bore traces of hand-carved hearts and names of long-forgotten lovers. Maybe there was a tree trunk that said Sarah and Sami, which was just now being thrown on the embers and turned into sparks and heat.
30
THE SKY HAD taken on new meanings. Clear blue meant good visibility for the pilots, overcast meant impending rain and a chance to gather water in tubs.
The siege of Homs had lasted more than a year. As time wore on, the conflicts between different leaders became more conspicuous. Sami and the other media activists formed a union to strengthen their voice relative to the military council.