That made the fishmonger insist, since problems were there to be solved and he was proud of his reputation as one of the city’s best fishmongers.
‘Since you insist,’ the elderly man said at length. ‘Fish is best served fresh, as you know, and if I take all the fish now, they’re going to go off before the wedding. The best thing would be if they could be delivered fresh, straight to the grill. Then the guests would have the pleasure of seeing them wriggle on the hot coals!’
The fishmonger smiled and asked the elderly man to come back in two days.
Two days later, the fishmonger showed him twenty buckets with five carp in each. The elderly man was happy, overwhelmed. He thanked the fishmonger, paid and wished him all the best in life, both with his house and his future children.
Then the elderly man put the buckets in his car, waited until nightfall, and emptied the fish out in a stream which ran in the direction of the besieged neighbourhoods.
For the starving people on the other side, it really was like being invited to a wedding. Women and men gathered by the stream and fished in the moonlight.
Sami arrived too late, standing with cold water up to his knees for hours without catching a single fish. He pulled his net through the water and from time to time thought he glimpsed a silvery shard of glinting fish scales, but it always turned out to be one of the white stones on the riverbed.
* * *
—
Another idea to help alleviate the starvation, which was never carried out, was to round up a flock of sheep by the red line and shove chillies up their behinds, so the animals would bolt into the besieged area in desperation.
As food stores ran ever lower, the civilian population’s patience began to run out and the siege seemed to enter a new phase. The regime was holding them hostage and the rebels had not been able to push them back as promised.
During the year, a group of battle-hardened rebels from the Free Syrian Army left and joined a branch of the terrorist organization al-Qaida, the al-Nusra Front. In Homs, the group was small at first, and unorganized, founded partly out of religious fervour, partly as a result of personal conflicts among the rebel leaders.
One of the members of the al-Nusra Front was called Tareq. He was a former university friend of Sami’s, a twenty-four-year-old from one of Homs’ more well-to-do families. He had neither lost a loved one nor suffered more from the war than anyone else, but he was prone to taking on the grief of others and considering it his own. It was not uncommon for him to end up in heated discussions with one of the imams who lived in the besieged area. The imam would urge Tareq not to mix politics and religion. The most important thing was to ease people’s suffering, not to stoke hatred.
‘You’re a kafir, no better than any other infidel,’ Tareq told the imam. ‘God is the highest and his will must be reflected in every part of our society.’
Sami continued to meet up with Tareq on occasion, to have tea and talk to him, even though his friend had become an extremist. Socializing was limited under the siege and at least it was a breath of fresh air to have someone to argue with.
‘How can you justify violence in the name of religion?’ Sami asked.
‘What do you mean? People do that all the time,’ Tareq countered. ‘The American president says “God bless America” and drops bombs on the Middle East. And the rebels are shooting at the regime every day…’
‘You can’t compare the Free Syrian Army’s self-defence with a desire to take over the Western world and introduce sharia law.’
‘Why not? Muslims are being killed and oppressed. We have to defend ourselves.’
* * *
—
Sami was having tea at Tareq’s hideout, a miserable basement with no electricity or water, when Tareq informed him that one of the al-Nusra soldiers was spreading rumours about him. They were saying Sami was an atheist and an infidel, and that he should be taken care of. That usually meant death.
‘But I’ve never even met him,’ Sami exclaimed in surprise.
‘He’s seen your pictures and what you’ve written about us. You’re shaming our leaders.’
‘I write about anyone who commits crimes and transgressions, irrespective of their allegiances.’
‘Either way, he says you’re a bad Muslim.’
Before they could finish the conversation and without pausing to think it over, Sami got up and walked straight to the nearby house of the leader of the al-Nusra. He knocked, was patted down and shown into the living room. The group had about fifteen members in Homs at that point and most of them were gathered there, on sofas around a glowing cast-iron stove.
‘What can we do for you, brother?’ said their leader, a man in a black kaftan with prayer beads in his hand, who introduced himself as Abu Omar.
‘I’m not your brother,’ Sami said. ‘And that doesn’t make me a bad Muslim.’
‘There, there, calm down.’
But Sami wouldn’t calm down. Things were boiling over inside him. People who claimed to know the Quran should know better than to talk ill of others, especially if you didn’t know them. And to create a so-called caliphate, were they out of their minds? How was that supposed to work, when they hadn’t even been able to leave their own neighbourhood for over a year? When the regime kept shooting at them and dropping bombs? Non-Muslim lifestyles were hardly the enemy here and not worth starting a war over. Wasn’t there enough war to go around anyway?
Sami left the house of the al-Nusra leader without waiting to see their reaction. Later, back at the basement, Tareq laughed and said Abu Omar had taken to task the person who had been spreading the rumours.
‘Abu Omar thought you seemed well read. Maybe we should recruit you.’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Sami.
* * *
—
That would happen sooner or later, death, that is. But for the moment, he and Malik and Muhammed and Anwar were alive.
They had moved the sofas into the basement of Muhammed’s house, even though it offered only limited protection against a barrel bomb. Barrel bombs were old oil drums filled with explosives and scrap metal, which scattered in the air like confetti.
The regime had also released sarin gas over Eastern Ghouta, the Damascus suburb where Sarah had grown up. Sarin was heavier than air and sought out low points in the terrain, like basements. Because of that, the nerve gas was especially effective in areas where people had already moved underground to escape the airstrikes.
We’re safe, Sarah wrote. But no word from my cousins yet.
The longer time went on, the less Sami found the words to express what he felt. Maybe because he hardly felt anything any more.