City of Jasmine Read online

  His parents are scared for him, he knows that, and he knows too that their fear is not due to the political situation but because of his character. It took Hammoudi a long time to decide what he wanted to do with his life. In fact, after leaving school he wanted to do nothing at all; he was more than happy. He enjoyed getting up late, starting the day slowly with a pile of books in bed, with no institution to tell him what to think; long lunches with his mother and epic nights out with his friends. But social decency demanded he learn a profession, no matter how modest. To begin with Hammoudi tried law, but he found the clauses and codes so dry and boring that after two weeks he felt sick even thinking about leaving university. He travelled to Thailand, Laos and China and when he came back he signed up to study Arabic literature. That was another nonstarter. When he dropped out of the course again, his father lost patience and threatened to cut off his allowance. Hammoudi signed up for medicine in the end, without informing his father. They didn’t speak for two years, not until Hammoudi had passed his preliminary exams. Then he got a grant from the foreign ministry and continued his degree in France.

  Initially, the decision to study medicine had been pure defiance. He wanted to prove to his father that he could manage a degree with no problem at all, and he did. He memorized what he had to know and went through the routine of sitting all the exams. Easy as pie. But during his first student placement in a clinic, he saw the maimed faces of children who’d been in accidents or were born with deformities. It wasn’t their appearance that shocked him, it was his own reaction. He couldn’t get the idiotic grin off his face while he spoke to the children. Burns victims were the worst. It took him a long time to learn to control himself, and when he at last succeeded he knew instantly he had found his calling, he had finally arrived in real life. He specialized in treating burns victims.

  Hammoudi doesn’t want to sit around doing nothing in his parents’ house any more, so he takes a seat between two filing cabinets in a gloomy office and interviews for a post as a cosmetic surgeon. He doesn’t like the job, nor the consultant or the entire hospital. He’d be operating on young women who want their noses fixed – or on their mothers, stubbornly resisting the aging process. Hammoudi doesn’t think it would be challenging enough for him. He’d be only too glad to leave it to someone else and he longs for France, for the language in which he can use the precise medical terms and read handwritten medical reports. But his aunts have used their contacts to get him the interview and it would be rude not to attend. Aside from that, he’ll soon be broke if he doesn’t start working soon, and he couldn’t stand the humiliation of asking his parents for money.

  During the interview, though, it turns out that Hammoudi isn’t even allowed to work in Syria. The consultant on the other side of the desk explains calmly and objectively that he first has to prove he actually studied medicine. Hearing this news, Hammoudi is tempted to laugh out loud. Then the consultant gets up, sends his regards to Hammoudi’s aunts and says he’s welcome to come back as soon as he’s passed his examination. He has no other option but to go to Damascus and sit the Syrian exam for doctors who studied abroad. At least that will give him a chance to escape his parents’ care for a few days. He packs a small bag and sets off for the capital in his father’s SUV. He’s in an evil mood; he’s started smoking again, getting through almost two packs a day, which he now smokes during the eight-hour drive.

  This time he stays overnight at the place of a friend, an architect who has several small offices around the city that aren’t always in use. One is in the centre of town and has a sofa bed and a bathroom. His friend has left the keys with a neighbour, a young actress who lives on the top floor.

  Hammoudi spends a long time looking for a parking space before settling for a spot almost a kilometre away from the apartment. It’s cold and Hammoudi thinks about picking up some new clothes while he’s in Damascus. Most of his belongings are still in Paris, with Claire. He’d only planned to spend five days in Syria.

  The actress is curt when she hands him the keys. She offers him a coffee but her tone implies he’d be better off turning it down. He studies her face; it’s attractive, though not all that interesting. Her gaze is absent and she seems irritated. He wonders whether he’s seen her in some film or other, and because he’s been staring too long he mumbles, embarrassed, ‘I think I’ve seen you in a film.’

  ‘You must be confusing me with someone else,’ she answers, and quickly closes the door.

  Hammoudi goes down the stairs to his friend’s office. The rooms are dark and stuffy but not as uncomfortable as he’d imagined, though they’re no match for the Four Seasons. He strips down to his underpants, stretches his tired limbs out on the sofa, writes a text to Claire but doesn’t send it, and falls asleep.

  The next morning, Hammoudi finds himself alongside four other doctors, two of whom studied in Ukraine, one in Russia and one in Oxford. They are asked questions in a tiny room. The questions are simple but the candidates from Ukraine and Russia have difficulties answering even them. The roaring trade in diplomas and PhDs in the former Eastern Bloc is an open secret. Hammoudi and the Oxford graduate exchange amused glances.

  The two of them fail the exam, though. They’ve been away for too long and have forgotten how the system works, says the false Ukrainian doctor when their names are the only ones missing from the list of passes, and he breaks out in obscene laughter.

  Hammoudi stays in his friend’s flat for a few more days, waiting for the next examination date, although he doesn’t actually want to repeat it. His return to Syria is the greatest defeat of his life, although he can’t admit it to himself. During these days, he doesn’t know why he should even get up and take a shower in the morning. Once he finally manages to leave the house, he spends hours roaming the streets of Damascus.

  On one occasion, he runs into his old friend Reem, a woman from his law course. It’s lunchtime so they go to a small Armenian restaurant with a water feature in the courtyard. It’s very crowded and Hammoudi has to shout to make himself heard. Reem orders mezze and Hammoudi lamb.

  As they wait for their food he tells her about his unfortunate circumstances.

  ‘And they won’t let you leave the country?’ Reem asks. Hammoudi shakes his head.

  ‘Maybe you could find someone to sort the situation out,’ says Reem, though not with much conviction.

  ‘Do you know anyone?’

  ‘I’ll ask around.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Hammoudi.

  ‘You know, it’s alright living here,’ she says after a while, as their food arrives. Hammoudi looks at her and nods.

  ‘Really, it’s not bad at all. I don’t know what your problem is with the place,’ she says, and she lights a cigarette even though they’re still eating.

  ‘I don’t have a problem with the place,’ Hammoudi answers. ‘I just want to go back. My girlfriend’s in Paris.’

  ‘Then she’ll just have to come over here,’ says Reem. Hammoudi doesn’t look at her, staring instead at the fountain and holding back tears. He feels a hand on his shoulder, Reem tentatively stroking his sleeve.

  From then on, old friends keep calling Hammoudi and trying to persuade him that life in Syria isn’t all that bad, after all. The conversations exhaust him so much he has to turn off his phone. He distances himself increasingly from all of them – he doesn’t want to hear anything about Syria, all he wants is to go back.

  One afternoon, he runs into the actress in the semi-dark stairwell. She’s wearing sandals despite the cold, and a gold necklace dangles around her neck. She seems confused, though clearly in a better mood than last time. They look at each other without a word, then she gives a faint smile and says hello. Hammoudi nods and is about to pass her when she asks, ‘How about a coffee?’

  Hammoudi is surprised but he says yes.

  Amal asks him up to her flat. The windows are wide open.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, actually,’ says Amal
and goes to close the windows. ‘Would you like tea?’ she asks.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Black?’

  ‘Green.’

  Amal clatters around with the kettle and then returns to the sofa where Hammoudi is sitting. He takes a surreptitious look around the flat; it’s clean but not tidy. Two large, grey sofas face each other in the living room and the walls are decorated with pictures obviously done by art students. On the wide windowsill are potted plants, equally obviously in need of watering.

  ‘Have you moved into the office?’ Amal asks.

  ‘I’m only staying a few days.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Deir ez-Zor.’

  ‘Ah, a provincial boy,’ she says blithely.

  ‘I’ve been in Paris for the past seven years,’ Hammoudi responds, instantly annoyed with himself for trying to impress Amal. Then he adds, ‘The city’s changed.’

  ‘Deir ez-Zor?’

  ‘Damascus.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Amal, studying his face.

  ‘The atmosphere’s different, as if something’s about to happen. People aren’t hiding any more.’

  Amal rises to her feet and Hammoudi realizes he’s gone too far. She must assume he’s with the secret service and wants to quiz her about the silent protests in the city, he thinks. He mumbles something about being tired and makes a quick exit. Amal doesn’t try to stop him from leaving.

  Hammoudi repeats the exam a few days later. The Oxford graduate is there again too. This time, though, both of them have discreetly placed an envelope on the chairman of the examination board’s desk. They don’t answer a single question, even when the examiner asks them directly several times. After passing the exam, they part ways swiftly. They’re both embarrassed.

  Amal is on stage practising a scene for the graduate performance at the Institute of Dramatic Arts. She’s tired and hungover and insufficiently prepared. The male lead doesn’t know his lines and is sweating profusely. Amal, smelling of powder and chewing gum, shouts at him that she wants a divorce, realizing she’s missed her cue. At that very moment, her phone rings. The other student looks genuinely sympathetic, while the professor bestows a scornful glare upon her.

  The professor is from Moscow and communicates with the class solely through an interpreter, despite having been married to a Syrian woman for twenty-five years. The perfect target for student jibes, with his eternal plaid shirts and bloodshot eyes. Amal could understand him without the interpreter, but he usually turns up to classes drunk and slurs his words so badly that the interpreter has to make up what to translate.

  The professor is responsible for some of the most unpleasant moments during Amal’s course, and the fact that she’s just filmed a TV series playing the sought-after leading role doesn’t make matters any better. Amal earned twenty-thousand euros in cash for the role, an obscene sum of money, especially for a debut. Unfortunately, the professor is about as much a fan of TV series as he is of Amal’s acting skills.

  Once she’s finally managed to turn off her phone, the professor breaks up the rehearsal, shouts for a while and threatens to leave the room. Amal hopes he falls down dead. She asks him if she can leave, at which he gestures with his hands as though trying to shoo away a fly. She quietly curses him, picks up her bag and her script and says goodbye to a few of the other students with kisses on the cheek. She’s particularly polite to Rami, who’s always slightly inhibited and admitted to her two years ago that he works for the secret service.

  She marches out of Wannous Hall, scrabbles around in her bag for her sunglasses and puts them on. Despite being one of the most modern buildings in all of Damascus, the Institute’s façade with its staggered white cubes reminds Amal of a once sophisticated holiday resort somewhere on the Crimean Peninsula. The Institute’s spacious garden adds to that feeling, with its fig and apricot trees, jasmine bushes, cypresses, planes and poplars grouped around a statue of Hafez al-Assad in a rather odd pose. Amal suppresses the impulse to spit at the monument and hurries past the group of students lounging outside the entrance to the opera house.

  The Institute has been admitting increasing numbers of applicants with connections to the secret service or the army. The boys and girls are driven to class in limousines with darkened windows and sit at their desks with loaded but safety-locked weapons, and everyone knows not to criticize them too harshly. That’s another reason why Amal wants revolution, wants it absolutely, and so she takes out her phone and calls back the unknown number.

  ‘Do you want to come dancing with us at the Marmar tonight?’ asks a male voice on the other end of the line, breaking like a teenager’s. It’s a voice Amal has never heard before.

  ‘Of course,’ she answers quickly.

  ‘We’re meeting at seven,’ the voice says, and then the line goes dead.

  The Marmar never opens before nine but they have to use code words to arrange meeting places for a demonstration. Amal knows by now that the Marmar stands for the Libyan embassy, because the nightclub is nearby.

  Amal buys kanafeh on the way home, though she ought not to eat pastries if she wants to keep her figure. Damascus has changed dramatically over the past few weeks. The city is full of secret service men, walking the streets in small groups, checking crowded squares and crossroads and being driven from place to place in white Opel estate cars and buses. Amal automatically crosses the road when she sees one of them, and they’re truly impossible to mistake: shaven heads, wide shoulders, eyes hungry for power and luxury. Fear is written on so many faces. They’re waiting for the revolution to conquer the city.

  Since the demonstrations began in Tunisia, Amal has been studiously learning the language of revolution. She sits at her computer at night watching videos from Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, reading everything about the uprisings that for reasons she can’t decipher are referred to as the Arab Spring – to be followed by the obligatory long winter. Facebook, the latest drug of choice of Syria’s young generation, hosts heated discussions. It’s a place to share news, meeting points and information, to argue and debate, and it feels briefly as though anything were possible, as though they really were the people. Syria’s young generation feel solidarity with their peers in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, and dream of a just world.

  Amal and Luna are standing outside the Libyan embassy with about a hundred others. The sun is setting and the air is growing cooler. The daylight will dwindle rapidly from now on. Luna stares at the line of policemen opposite them. It looks as though she’s trying to memorize every face. A few hours ago, Gaddafi commanded his forces to shoot at demonstrators in Libya, and Amal gives her body the order to stand still.

  Luna looks like she’s come straight from the beauty salon. Amal wonders what’s got into her friend – she normally abhors crowds. She’s from a rich family and has three older sisters and two younger brothers, with the result that none of the children are policed all that strictly. Equipped with the requisite parental leniency and a generous allowance, Luna is accustomed to doing only what she feels like and above all when she feels like doing it. Toppling the regime wouldn’t be in her interests – her father and brothers hold important posts – but Luna can’t resist a brief flirt with revolution. It’s as though she were trying on a dress she knows she’ll never wear; it flatters her figure but shows off too much bare skin. As soon as Luna found out about the demonstration she wanted to come along, at any price.

  Amal and Luna’s relationship is complicated; they’re not just friends, they are also rivals. Luna admires Amal’s independence and thinks everything comes a little too easily to her, but at the same time she looks down on her slightly. Amal thinks Luna is spoilt and inconsiderate but she’d still do anything for her. It’s a friendship neither of them can evade – they come from the same class, move in the same circles, and above all they both love talking and bitching. They know each other so well that they’re always capable of finding each other’s scar tissue and either soothing it or reope
ning old wounds.

  Many of the demonstrators are clutching candles and the group is soon singing together. Their faces are expectant and oddly unconcerned. Then a man they know says that latecomers trying to join the demo have had their passports confiscated. As he’s speaking he gently touches Amal’s elbow. His name is Youssef and he studies directing in the same year as Amal. His skin is tanned and his green eyes are framed by a dense ring of lashes. Amal briefly thinks about flirting with him. But seeing as she only recently separated from her ex-boyfriend because he suggested they get married, and her ex is also at the Institute – his father is a distinguished director, his mother an equally distinguished scriptwriter and his grandfather an even more distinguished party functionary – Amal decides it’s too soon for an affair. Which is a shame, she thinks, because she’d like to have sex. She soon loses sight of Youssef.

  As the darkness deepens, a security officer from the presidential palace approaches the demonstrators, a man with the body of an athlete and an unsettling air. Politely and with the authority of someone not accustomed to repeating himself, he demands that the crowd disperse. No one leaves the square. Luna whispers to Amal, ‘Let’s go!’ But Amal is still obeying her mental command to stand still.

  ‘We’ll stay a bit longer,’ she whispers back, not quite knowing where this sudden confidence has come from.

  Armed soldiers are waiting in eyeshot. It gets colder and people start jumping up and down almost imperceptibly, warming their clenched fists with their own breath. Isolated stars twinkle their hearts out in the sky and Amal thinks of the Mayakovski poem her mother often used to quote:

  If stars are lit

  does that mean – there is someone who needs it?

  Does that mean – it is essential

  that every evening