City of Jasmine Read online

at least one star should ascend

  over the crest of the buildings?

  About twenty minutes later, a tanker truck drives up and one of the officers announces through a megaphone that the demonstrators are to make way because the residents are waiting for their heating-oil delivery. Amal sees the road behind them being blocked off as hurriedly as possible. The tanker prevents any of the demonstrators from making an escape.

  The lights go out in the buildings around them. In a matter of minutes, four buses loaded with armed soldiers pull up outside the embassy. They start photographing the demonstrators and shouting obscenities at them. It’s not long before they attack, at first tentatively, almost gently, but soon they get a taste for it and grow ever more aggressive. They beat the demonstrators with sticks, kick them when they’re on the ground, and some of them take out their jack knives.

  The time has come to make a run for it – Amal drags Luna after her as her friend emits a single small scream. A woman is being beaten up right in front of them, falling at the very first blow. The soldier kicks her in the stomach, the ribs, the side, the head. The buttons of her blouse come undone and she lies there on the ground of Hugo Chavez Street in only jeans and a grey bra while several secret-service men go on attacking her. Around her, the demonstrators run to and fro, trying to save themselves. A young man is beaten up in front of them too. Out of the corner of her eye, Amal registers that it’s Youssef. Luna and Amal run on as fast as they can. They don’t stop until they reach a quiet side street far from the Libyan embassy. They’re breathing heavily, Luna crouched on the ground and bursting into tears. Amal’s lungs are on the brink of collapse but she tries not to let it show as she strokes Luna’s thick, black hair. A little later, once they’ve tidied themselves up and calmed down, they take a taxi and ride home in silence.

  The next day, Amal receives a Facebook message from Youssef, asking if she’d like to go for a drink with him. Why not? she writes back. She then spends the rest of the morning with her laptop on her bare thighs, clicking through his Facebook profile. They know each other from the Institute but only vaguely. She looks at his holiday photos, snapshots with friends and family, Youssef sitting at his piano, posters for his first film and a photo of his ex-girlfriend. The laptop gets unpleasantly warm on her legs so she puts it aside and calls Luna. She tells her she’s going out with Youssef that evening, so Luna goes online at the same time and clicks though his photos while they talk. A few hours later, Amal starts painting her nails and straightening her hair.

  That evening, she waits impatiently for Youssef in Bab Tuma, the Christian quarter. When he eventually shows up she stares at his tall figure without a word. He’s ten minutes late and as Amal arrived ten minutes early, she’s now freezing cold. Youssef has a black eye and a cut above his eyebrow. A slight drizzle falls on them as they stroll along the narrow roads to the Jewish quarter of Old Damascus, where few Jews live these days. Youssef radiates calm and contentment and is taller than Amal remembers. He’s thin and wiry, wearing elegant clothes, has an open face and is extravagant with his laughter. His eyes are dark and slightly tilted. Amal notices how much she enjoys talking to him – and would like to sleep with him even more.

  They’ve now stopped outside a bar opposite the police station, which opens out onto a garden. The grass is strewn with empty beer bottles and plastic bags, and discarded condom wrappers. Youssef gives Amal a questioning look; she shrugs and he holds the door open for her. Inside, it is dark and surprisingly cozy.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ Youssef asks, and Amal looks around for seats. All the tables are occupied.

  ‘Over there,’ Youssef points at two free places at the bar. Once they’ve sat down he takes his time to calmly look at Amal – not just as a potential lover but also as a director with aesthetic demands – and decides she’s beautiful. She has a very delicate figure that even a TV screen couldn’t make too wide, high cheekbones, full lips slightly improved by a surgeon (though Youssef doesn’t know that) and radiant white, straight teeth, the result of regular bleaching sessions. Her eyes are almond shaped and as green as damp moss, her ears small and graced with golden earrings, her hair long.

  A bad-tempered barman with gelled-back hair deposits a bowl of peanuts in front of them; Youssef immediately takes a handful. He orders two beers and puts a packet of cigarettes on the bar for Amal to help herself. A cool gust of wind wafts in from the garden. Amal reaches for the cigarettes, brushing against Youssef’s hand.

  They talk about the Institute, avoiding all political subjects in public. To keep the conversation going, Youssef tells Amal about his grandmother, who fled from Palestine to Damascus in 1948, alone with her four children, and lost both her daughters along the way. Despite detesting her husband, she had another four children with him in the Yarmouk refugee camp. Youssef doesn’t tell Amal that his father went to prison twice. Once was because a drunk neighbour fell from his balcony and landed on Youssef’s father’s car – according to Syrian legislation, the owner of the vehicle was responsible for the accident. The other time because his car was parked in Old Damascus and was run into by a secret service vehicle. Youssef’s father never got over the primitive way justice was administered. He died when Youssef was ten. Youssef’s mother, too, paid a high price for being born under the rule of the Assad clan. She had to raise three children alone, working day and night and never daring to complain out loud about the injustice done to her and her husband, and she died a year ago of heart failure.

  There’s a large flatscreen TV in one corner of the dimly lit room, showing footage of Umm Kulthum concerts. As the singer performs her greatest hits, Youssef takes Amal’s hand.

  She looks him in the eye a little longer than necessary. He strokes the back of her hand and his thumb moves across to the centre of her palm, then he runs his thumb and forefinger along Amal’s arm as his mouth approaches hers. Suddenly the energy in the room changes – the waiters bustle to the rear, the owner turns on the light, the TV is switched to Al Jazeera with the volume up. The Egyptian vice-president Omar Suleiman, having swapped his military-intelligence uniform for a stylish blue suit only a week ago, announces in a fittingly slow and stately tone that Mubarak will be stepping down from office. Behind Suleiman looms a dark figure, never introduced during the broadcast.

  ‘It’s a bad omen,’ says Amal, and Youssef looks concerned. He doesn’t let go of her hand. Some of the guests clap and the camera pans onto Tahrir Square, where people start cheering, hands, fists and flags raised to the sky. It’s an historic event and it weighs heavily on the room. Youssef kisses Amal on the mouth as the night owls still perched opposite the police station swiftly empty their drinks and rush inside their houses.

  Youssef pulls Amal up by her elbow and hurries to get her home too. They don’t talk about the kiss; they don’t talk at all. The moon is round and yellow. Outside Amal’s front door, Youssef seems almost shy. Amal gives him a brief kiss on the cheek and goes quickly inside. Youssef stands still for a minute, then walks back into the night.

  Amal tries to wash all thoughts of Youssef out of her hair, first cold and then warm, and then she decides to seduce him – but only if he calls her again.

  Meanwhile, Luna has other problems. She’s waiting ever more impatiently for her lover to leave his wife and their three children. Luna is only twenty-five but she’s been divorced twice already. She married her favourite cousin at the age of sixteen, but sadly the two of them didn’t get on. She had a baby at seventeen and was a single parent by the time she came of age. Three years later, she married a second time but her husband showed no interest in her son, so she started looking again.

  Hoping to give fortune a helping hand, Luna has decided to use black magic. She found out by chance – so she said – that a well-known magician from the Maghreb was coming to Damascus, and she was lucky enough to get a sought-after appointment. Luna wasn’t even particularly superstitious, but the man was very rich and it was better to be safe than sorry.

>   Dark clouds cover the sky from the east as Amal gets out of the taxi. She’s running late because one of her neighbours asked her to look after the keys to his flat and hand them over to a friend of his. She’s got a white teddy bear in a plastic bag with her for Luna’s son, who’s out visiting one of his many cousins. Amal warned Luna off this magician ‘nonsense’, as she put it, but Luna got her own way as usual.

  She lives in a beautifully renovated old building. All the rooms are arranged around a courtyard full of sprawling pot plants crowned by a gigantic satellite dish on the wall. Like most families in Damascus, Luna’s is dysfunctional. Her father is a fervent Baathist general, even sporting the obligatory moustache – a magnificent and well-groomed example. He has two passions: parrots and pot plants, which make his house look like a botanical garden. The parrots quote Rumi poems, painstakingly taught to them by Madame General. The general’s signature often adorns execution orders.

  Luna hasn’t told her parents why she’s called in the magician; her mother tacitly assumes he’s a potential bridegroom and Luna’s father hasn’t asked.

  In the family living room, which is stuffed full of dark furniture, stands a tall, attractive and even blue-eyed man. The only thing spoiling the picture is the back of his head, which is as flat as a pancake. Prince Charming has commanded the lights be turned out and the candles lit. Madame General has just brought a tray of coffee from the kitchen, complete with dates, nuts and baklava. The scent of strong coffee and cardamom pervades the room. Amal takes a cup and introduces herself, but the magician takes not the slightest notice. He is blatantly inspecting the room, stopping for a while by the family photos, including several shots of Luna’s father in his general’s uniform, family holidays and celebrations. He looks at one of them for a particularly long time, then he writes something on the picture frame with his forefinger and makes his way to the kitchen. Amal watches him moving a glass out of place on its shelf so that it’s dangerously close to the edge but she lets him get away with it; her curiosity wins out. The magician placidly lights incense sticks, enough to knock out a large cow. Then he goes back to the living room, takes a seat on the gold-embossed upholstery and announces that a particularly evil djinn is living in the house. He takes Luna’s hand and says, ‘Someone put something in your food when you were just a child. I see a large, yellow-painted room and a very strong woman who could not have children.’ As he speaks he tries to read Luna’s face for signs that he’s right – although it would be hard to get it wrong, Amal thinks – nearly every house in Syria has a yellow room, and there are infertile or unmarried women in almost every family.

  Luna gives a slow nod and the self-proclaimed magician lets go of her hand, which drops loose towards the floor. He now raises his arms to massage his temples with his thumbs, as though clairvoyance was very exhausting. ‘There were children of your age sitting around you, and you were eating the Eid meal. There were shaabiyat pastries—.’

  ‘But every Sunni family serves shaabiyat pastries,’ Amal butts in, and she notices that one of Luna’s rings is missing. Unlike the magician, though, she knows the diamond is a fake.

  The man punishes her with a disdainful glance and Luna too gives her a warning look. Just at that moment, something breaks in the kitchen.

  ‘Go and look!’ the magician commands Luna’s mother. His voice holds an authority to which he’s not entitled, which makes it all the more convincing. ‘I think the djinn has broken a glass. Probably on the top shelf to the left of the fridge.’

  Madame runs straight to the kitchen, shortly followed by a shocked call of ‘Ya Allah!’

  Luna looks in her direction, troubled. She doesn’t notice the missing ring.

  A storm sets in outside, rain and branches whipping against the thin windowpanes. The magician goes on guessing. ‘One of your cousins saw it at the time but she didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Why not?’ Luna asks quietly. Her voice is trembling with agitation.

  The man fixes his eyes on her and says, ‘She was jealous.’

  Fearfully, Luna enquires, ‘Of me and Bilal?’

  He gives a self-satisfied nod. Now he even has a name. Amal sighs and sits down on the edge of the sofa. The rain is coming down in streams. Several rolls of thunder sound in a row, and shortly afterwards the sky is lit up by delicate lightning flashes.

  Luna’s mother returns from the kitchen, as pale as death, balancing shards of glass on a dustpan. Her eyes are already flickering with panic. Luna’s father comes rushing down from the upper floor. The stairs groan under his weight.

  ‘If you breathe on the photo in the silver frame, a name will appear, and a boy with that name will die within the year,’ the magician announces with much ceremony, now blatantly eyeing Luna’s body. He stares at her small breasts outlined beneath her yellow dress, at her slim waist and her lips, painted dark red. Amal feels like a voyeur who ought not to be witnessing the scene, but she can’t tear herself away.

  Luna and her mother instantly jump up to take a look – and a name really does appear on the photo frame: Ali. All eyes turn involuntarily to Amal.

  Luna’s father shrugs and confirms Amal’s thoughts: ‘So? There are at least three Alis in every family. Why didn’t you just go ahead and write Mohammad on it?’ He has a habit of speaking in a barking, military tone at home with his family.

  The magician closes his eyes in a theatrical gesture and says at a slightly altered pitch, ‘The djinn has put rats’ droppings on your marital bed. You will lead no married life until the djinn leaves this place.’

  While he talks to Luna and her mother the magician looks them straight in the eye, with the obvious result that they return his gaze and don’t notice his hands. He has already slipped the odd thing into his pockets, the ring, a silver spoon here and there. As they now all enter the master bedroom, he surreptitiously flicks a small portion of rats’ droppings onto the bed. He’s not a bad actor, Amal realizes with respect. Only she and Luna’s father saw that the shit came from his direction; for the others, it looked like something supernatural really had taken place. Luna’s mother blanches and faints, her husband catching her just in time. That sets off a terrible fit of rage from the general. He lowers his wife’s unconscious body from his arms onto the carpet and grabs the magician by the shoulders, shouting that he’s a godless man and should get out of his house; he should end up in Saudi Arabia where they have the death penalty for his kind. And he’s going to have him locked up and he’ll personally ensure he never sees daylight again. He sprays saliva as he yells. His lower lip trembles after every sentence.

  His daughter and his wife, who has now recovered her senses, besiege him and beg him to let the magician go.

  The general spits on the floor and leaves the room. His opponent acts unimpressed and suggests taking a closer look at Luna’s bedroom. Once they get there he grips her by the wrist and presses her gently onto the bed. Her mother is quick-witted enough to follow them, and Amal too hurries after them, not expecting the magician to go that far. Luna’s mother sits down on the bed next to her daughter and asks, ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Well, there are various options – an amulet would help, of course, there’s a shop in the old city where you can get that kind of thing. But that won’t be enough. I have a lot of clients from the Gulf States who use more drastic methods. It depends how much you want something, Luna.’

  Luna looks at him wide-eyed. She’s sitting hunched on her bed, passive and shocked. Her hands are wrapped around her body and now she starts rocking back and forth.

  ‘What kind of options?’ her mother asks.

  The magician cautiously unbuttons Luna’s blouse; Amal doesn’t know whether to leave or not. But then she decides to put an end to the whole mess. She puts her hand between the magician’s shoulder blades and whispers in his ear, ‘That’s enough now. If you don’t stop I’m going to call the police, and don’t forget you’re in the home of a general in the Syrian army.’

  Amal l
ives in the centre of Damascus in what is one of the city’s tallest buildings, even though it only has four floors. The law doesn’t allow structures to be built any higher than the parliament. Her flat is large and luxurious, across two storeys – a gift from her father for passing the entrance exam for the Institute of Dramatic Arts.

  Youssef picks Amal up in the evening. They chatted on Facebook earlier and decided to go to a demonstration together.

  Youssef’s hair is shorter now, Amal notes, and she kisses him despite her plan not to start a new affair. Amal didn’t hear anything from him for three days, and even that brief absence was enough to unsettle her.

  ‘I missed you,’ Youssef says.

  ‘Is that why you didn’t get in touch?’

  Youssef says nothing, embarrassed.

  ‘Let’s go,’ says Amal.

  ‘Are you cross?’

  Demonstrations are always held right after Friday prayers. They call it the ‘Friday of Dignity’. Every demonstration is given a name, voted on in advance on the internet. But there are also protests more like flash mobs. A dozen activists gather outside a government building and chant demands, then instantly disperse.

  Today, about a hundred people are outside the Interior Ministry to demand the release of political prisoners. Their eyes are restless, mistrustful and tired, not a spark of optimism left in them. They hold photos of prisoners, most of them more than a decade old. Many of the young people standing there haven’t seen their fathers since they were infants.

  Amal and Youssef are in the middle of the protest. Amal shivers even though it’s warm, and suddenly she’s gripped by utter hopelessness. It’s like a dark premonition of things to come. Several people call out ‘Selmiyyeh! Selmiyyeh!’ meaning ‘peaceful’.

  ‘Let’s go, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Youssef says. Amal nods in relief and they leave the square without further discussion. They don’t hold hands as they walk side by side but their bodies are so close that there can be no doubt, even for random passers-by.