The Dark Side of Love (118 page)

Work in the quarry, interrogations, freedom to exercise, those were all matters in which he had some influence. The food would be better in future too, and a doctor whom they trusted would treat the sick prisoners every day. However, he would have to discuss all the other demands with the Ministry. The presence of the Germans was a delicate strategic matter, and only the Ministry could permit family visits. But he, Commandant Garasi, swore by his military honour to do what he could for the prisoners' demands. But first they must restore order and end the hunger strike.

“The Germans must go at once, don't you understand yet?” cried Salman the Muslim Brother, standing up. The others followed suit.

“It's now or never!” said Ali Abusaid the journalist. For it was clear to them all that even the criminal fraternity among them – and so far it had been difficult to persuade those men to do anything – would react if they discovered that they had been sent to a special camp designed for studies in interrogation. So the committee let it be known that the secret service HQ was holding on to the Germans because they were carrying out long-term experiments. All the detainees at Tad would die, because the authorities were interested only in experimenting with their lives in every imaginable way. In other words: the prisoners were raw material for the testing of new torture methods, and President Amran was the first in Arabia to be introducing such methods and recording their effects.

The prisoners' committee exaggerated, but there was no other way of convincing the criminals. Now they too joined the political prisoners in insisting that the Germans must go unconditionally, and at once. They wouldn't go along with the other demands, but agreement on this one point was a breakthrough, and meant the end of total isolation. It was the criminals who sent the first secret message through to Damascus with news from Tad. How they did it they weren't saying.

“We have our own pigeon post,” said one of the big gangland bosses when Farid tried questioning him.

Garasi was no longer in control of the camp, and that evening the officers knew it. An anxious first lieutenant broke his word and phoned Colonel Badran. Low-voiced, he told him about the mood among the soldiers. The colonel listened quietly, so quietly that the young officer asked from time to time, “Are you still there?”

Unlike the European and American newspapers, it took the Arab press a long time to react to the hunger strike at Tad. The Lebanese were first to report it, then the Jordanians and Iraqis, who traditionally did not have good relations with Damascus.

On 1 March the Syrian government newspaper also published a short report of certain differences of opinion at Tad. Half-heartedly, it called for explanations and the punishment of those responsible. However, the place was still described as a prison for serious criminal offenders and terrorists.

Garasi was cracking up. He set his guards on the prisoners, and ordered raid after raid. But neither the “Tad Printing Press”, with its logo of a pencil and three pieces of barbed wire, nor the camera which had taken the pictures of all parts of the camp could be found.

Colonel Badran was extremely displeased. What annoyed him most was the steady trickle of news and photographs getting out of the country. He summoned Garasi.

On his return, the commandant told his officers that it had felt like an interrogation. The cold demeanour of young Colonel Badran, who hadn't even returned his military salute, had been alarming. He had wordlessly slammed a French newspaper down on his desk in front of Garasi. “How did
Le Monde
get to know these criminals were in your camp? I've checked the list. It's correct in every particular, and it must have been smuggled out only a few days ago. Don't you see what's going on? The Jews will finish us off. First they occupy the Golan Heights, now they're spreading lies about human rights in Syria. What are cameras doing in a camp? Captain Garasi, you are treating those prisoners as if they were on vacation at Tad. When are you going to wake up?”

The colonel had laid particular emphasis on the word “captain”.
Badran had been an army captain himself before the coup. He was seething, for France was demanding an official explanation from the Syrian government: was it true that torture camps existed, and were Germans and Russians working there? Development aid and negotiations on arms deals had been put on ice.

Colonel Badran demanded a firmer hand with the prisoners and no leave for anyone working at the camp until the leak had been tracked down.

“You want a firmer hand with the prisoners, but suppose there are deaths?” asked Garasi.

“Then come to me. I'll shoulder the responsibility.”

This was something new to Garasi. He had never heard anything like it in thirty years. “Can I tell you something in confidence?” he pleaded.

Badran sensed that this experienced officer was carrying another secret around with him. “Go ahead.”

“The Germans imposed on us,” said Garasi in a hoarse tone, “have offended the national sensibilities of the prisoners. It was the only thing that let the politicals build a bridge with the criminal fraternity. All of a sudden the Muslim Brothers and the pimps are united against us. There's never been any such thing before.”

Colonel Badran was thoughtful, and remained silent. Garasi secretly smiled behind his smooth mask of concern.

“I'll have to speak to the President about it. This is a tricky business. The Germans stay for now. We can't have criminals and terrorists dictating what's good for the Fatherland and what isn't. You must keep your camp cut off from the outside world. It wasn't the Germans who sent those lies abroad, it was Syrians,” announced the colonel, standing up.

Garasi decided to act with the utmost severity. At the beginning of June 1969, only one more year would stand between him and
retirement. So he must make just one more little effort, and then he would have reached safety.

“Only a firm hand will keep that devil's spawn down,” he shouted hysterically when his officers told him that yet again none of the prisoners had touched food all day.

Two days later the first two men, a criminal and a Satlanist, died of inanition.

The prisoners' committee asked for an hour's commemoration to be observed that night. They sensed the discouraging effect of death.

Next morning Garasi had five doctors brought in from Damascus. They went from hut to hut, examining the prisoners. Three were so weak that they had to go to hospital at once.

However, the detainees were afraid the sick men would be mistreated in Damascus. They were reassured only when the doctors solemnly swore to take care nothing happened to them.

Around midday, Garasi sent the cook out into the yard to grill deliciously seasoned kebabs, bake fresh bread, and offer mixed salads. It immeasurably increased the prisoners' torment. More than ten men were unable to hold out any longer, and ate so much and so greedily that they had terrible stomach pains. Next day, however, they were back on hunger strike.

Finally President Amran intervened. He fired his Interior Minister. A day later Garasi sent for Farid, Salman, and Ali Abusaid. Seated at his desk, he looked thin and debilitated. “We'll come to terms with you. The Germans flew home to their own country last night. Work in the quarry has been stopped, and anyone who doesn't commit a punishable offence will not be touched, as before. Food will improve, you can have longer to exercise in the yard, and from now on two doctors will be on duty for six hours a day in the camp. Visits from family are permitted once a month, and young offenders under twenty will be taken to a new re-education centre. In return we expect you to behave well and observe discipline, cleanliness, and patriotism.” Garasi's voice was shaky, although he was trying hard to say those last words in a peremptory tone. There was nothing of his former bearing left. Anyone could see he was afraid.

Farid, Salman, and Ali Abusaid ran down the staircase three steps
at a time, and out in the yard they began rejoicing and dancing. “We did it! We won! Cheer up, we won!”

The guards watched them. Farid was turning somersaults and rolling along the ground, only to leap up again next minute whooping like a lunatic, uttering noises that made all the others laugh. Ali Abusaid performed several perfect cartwheels. Criminals, Muslim Brothers, nationalists, Radicals, and communists alike fell into each other's arms to celebrate the end of the hunger strike.

Word was sent to the kitchen and the bakery. Before long there was vegetable soup and crisp flatbread. Darwish came to Hut 5. Its doors, like those of all the other huts, stood open. He greeted everyone, handed out cigarettes, and congratulated them on their victory. Then he went over to Farid, who was sitting on the floor spooning up his soup, bent down, picked him up like a baby, and kissed him on the cheek.

“You deserve it, laddie!” he cried. Many of the prisoners were laughing and weeping at the same time. “We'll soon be home,” they rejoiced, and when the guards came and kept assuring them that they'd all make a new start now and forget the past the prisoners applauded. Farid winked at Ali Abusaid, who was sitting opposite him enjoying a cigarette. “They live on forgetfulness, like chickens,” said the journalist, resigned.

“And we live on memory, like camels,” replied Farid.

It was 12 March 1969.

Garasi stood beside the truck that was taking his household goods from his service apartment in the camp back to his home village of Daraia near the capital city Damascus. “Look at me,” he told his officers. “This is my reward: I've sacrificed myself for the Fatherland for thirty-three years, and now I'm discharged from the army because some criminal goes and dies. Because that's the reason, even if no one says so. They'd rather claim I was involved in a conspiracy.” All
of a sudden his voice had a defiant edge. “Why don't they put their cards on the table? Then I'd have something to say myself about those bastard experts I had foisted on me – oh yes, they left the sinking ship as soon as things got too hot. Off and away they went. But the powers that be don't want to hear about such things. It all has to be my fault.”

Then, as if regretting this outburst against his superiors, he changed tack and was all humility. “I told the Interior Minister, please, even if he didn't have any sympathy for me he might at least think of my children … how will they … at school …” And Garasi, whose eyes were usually hard as marble, was weeping and sobbing. His words drowned in his tears; no one could make out what he was saying any more.

Then the gate opened, and he stopped short in surprise. A Landrover drove up to him and ostentatiously stopped only a metre or so away. A man in civilian clothes beckoned the startled captain over to him. Garasi went. Little could be heard, but the commandant's stooping posture showed that the civilian was more powerful than he was. What he was saying seemed to confuse Garasi. The captain pointed despairingly but energetically at the truck, but the civilian in the car moved not a muscle. He just stared wordlessly into the distance. Through the open gate, the assembled officers, NCOs, and soldiers now saw two jeeps and a small van, the kind used for transporting prisoners. Garasi was pleading with the civilian, but the silence choked his words. And the captain who had so recently been lord over the lives of thousands, collapsed. His arms, which he had always used to emphasize what he said, dangled helplessly as he went towards the small van. A powerful man was holding the back hatch open. And when Garasi stood hesitating by the vehicle, the secret service man gave him a firm and disrespectful push that sent him flying inside it. Then the man bolted the hatch and got into the front seat next to the driver.

Without giving the officers, NCOs, and soldiers standing around so much as a glance, the man in civilian clothes made a slight gesture, indicating his wishes to the driver of the Landrover, and the vehicle raced out of the gate, churning up a great deal of sand and dust. After a while it disappeared from sight in the endless desert.

The truck containing Garasi's household goods was looted that same night. When a phone call came from secret service HQ days later, saying that the former commandant's belongings were to be sent to his children in Daraia, the man on duty was rather confused, not just because the truck was now empty, but also because the caller spoke of the convicted officer Garasi.

The worst of it for the officers, NCOs, and soldiers in the camp was the embargo on contact with the outside world imposed on all of them by the secret service HQ. Their telephone lines were tapped, and the connection was broken at any hint of ambiguity. A motorized unit formed an impenetrable ring surrounding the camp. Large notices in English, French, and Arabic now stood for a radius of ten kilometres around it, declaring the terrain a military restricted area and forbidding intrusion on pain of death. No journalist ventured to come anywhere near the camp.

Inside it, cheerful chaos prevailed after Garasi's departure. Secret service HQ, which had power over the camp “for dangerous elements”, was taking its time. And as if all the prisoners had lost their memories in the elation of victory, they were mingling on friendly terms with the soldiers, officers, and guards. They ate, smoked, played cards, and joked together, and discussed what the future would bring. Suddenly hearty, childlike laughter found its way into the camp.

It was at this time that Farid got to know a young soldier called Nabil. Aged twenty, Nabil had had bad luck. Two days after arriving at his barracks north of Damascus, he had had an angry exchange of words with an NCO, who saw to it that the young man was transferred to duty at Tad. But Nabil assured Farid, in confidence, that the real reason for his disciplinary transfer was the NCO's hatred of all townies and Christians. Nabil was both. His parents came from Bab Tuma in Damascus, where his father ran a small food store selling preserved delicacies. Like many young people, Nabil knew the
famous confectioner's shop belonging to Farid's father, and told him that he sometimes used to spend all his weekend pocket money there on his favourite sweetmeat, a confection known as nightingale nests.