The Dark Side of Love (119 page)

He had fallen unhappily in love with a rich young woman, but soon she decided to marry a wealthy neighbour, and he had to bury his love deep in his heart. Six months ago, however, she got in touch with him again; it seemed that her marriage had disappointed her, and she wanted to run away with Nabil.

Farid listened to the young soldier's tale of woe for nights on end. He soon realized that just having someone listening to him acted on Nabil like a magnet. He sought Farid out as often as he could to tell him more about his sorrows and his perplexity.

For a long time Farid had thought listening an art mastered better by women than men. Claire said that in that case, he himself had very feminine ears. He knew that listening makes you wise, but he had no idea that in his own case his ability to listen would actually save his life.

The elm was burning. The fire played around its stout, split trunk and licked up to the tree's low crown, a blazing pyramid spraying sparks into the dark sky with all its might, as if they were those long-lost glow-worms that can hide away for decades, emerging at last in their search for love.

The strong wind sang its loud song through the flames. It sounded like screams of pain in chorus. The sparks went out in mid-flight, but many splinters of the tree were strong enough to withstand the cold air above and fall back to the ground, still glowing. The dry grass and bushes caught fire. The air smelled of burning wood and thyme. A spark suddenly dug into his right cheek. Farid started up, his heart racing, and struck the burning splinter of wood away. Everything immediately dissolved into darkness.

It was some time before his eyes, dazzled by the fire, could see the
sleeping men around him in the large, dark hut. His vision clouded over again, but he didn't feel like lying down any more. Sitting on the floor, he held his head in both hands. His temples were throbbing with pain, and sparks flashed in a dark firmament behind his closed eyelids. He helplessly rubbed the root of his nose, which was supposed to help when you felt dazed.

The yard was dark, and the faint light of the lantern made it seem even darker. A blackbird was singing. Farid's eyes wandered from the place where he sat, looking through the grating and across the yard with the two palms at its centre. The sky was growing brighter only slowly, but now Farid could see the blackbird on top of the right-hand palm. As if it felt reassured now that it could see the sun from its high perch, it sang one last time and flew away.

Farid was freezing to the core. He had a numb sensation in his limbs, but his head was clear; the dazed sensation had gone away. Very slowly he rose to his feet to go to the grating and get more fresh air. After a while he heard moans in the far corner of the hut, where Basil was penetrating his lover Fahmi's backside. As usual, Fahmi was begging his passionate lover to be quiet and not pinch him so hard.

Farid closed his eyes. The cold breeze felt pleasantly cool on his hot face. He breathed in and out deeply, as the doctor had once recommended, because at such moments the brain needs plenty of oxygen. In the middle of his third or fourth breath he heard the voice again. Ever since childhood, he had experienced it after every fit of unconsciousness: a clear, cold voice speaking to him. As a child he had thought he was hearing a real person, but as the years passed he knew that the voice was inside him.

A successor to the dismissed commandant would be coming today and would destroy the camp, said the voice. Trembling all over, Farid decided to say nothing to the other prisoners. He didn't want to crush their reviving hopes.

For the first time in over a decade, he thought back to his years at the monastery of St. Sebastian. Above all, he thought of Brother Gabriel, who like Farid himself had suffered from epilepsy, and after an epileptic fit had prophetic knowledge of events that sometimes didn't come true until several years later.

“Epilepsy,” Brother Gabriel had said at the time, “cleanses the mind of all the layers of civilization that have accumulated over it for ten thousand years. For a few seconds the brain is naked and innocent as a newborn child. In those seconds it is at one with God, and that's where the knowledge come from. It's a kind of knowledge that animals and babies have too, and we can't explain it. But neither the babies nor the animals can tell us what they've experienced. If an adult ever comes by that knowledge again he's a prophet. And all prophets have been epileptics.”

Shortly after the midday meal on that same day, the new camp commandant arrived. A bus drove up to the camp gates behind his inconspicuous Landrover. There were ten officers and about twenty NCOs in the bus, and another was following with civilian staff. Only the Landrover drove in through the gates; the other vehicles parked outside.

The new commandant was not a tall man, but the way he walked showed that he was athletic. He couldn't be older than forty. His head was handsome, although he had a bald patch, and his eyes were hidden behind reflecting sunglasses.

He stationed himself in front of the palm on the left, just where the previous commandant always liked to stand, but unlike Garasi the new man wore civilian clothes. He was talking almost cheerfully to three civilians who seemed to be his subordinates. His voice was quiet, so quiet that even though the prisoners kept absolutely still they could hardly make anything out.

The soldiers quickly formed up under the orders of the new officers. Soon after that some of them stormed into the administration building and the barracks. The rest of them surrounded the camp.

Apparently the men had precise instructions, for a little later screams were heard, and the prisoners, eyes wide with shock, saw the former officers and NCOs being driven out of various buildings under the blows of their own men.

After that the entire Mafia leadership, including Dr. Maqdisi, was brought out of the hospital, bamboo canes wielded by the secret service men whipped down on them, and they were sent to join the disgraced officers and NCOs. Over eighty men now stood there, paralysed, held at bay in the yard by only ten civilians.

They were wailing like bereaved widows. What a humiliation, in front of all the soldiers and prisoners! Finally one of the civilians raised his hand, and the wailing stopped. There was deathly silence.

“The convicted prisoner Abdulhamid Garasi,” began the new camp commandant in a calm voice, “made a confession in front of a military tribunal to the effect that all of you, officers, NCOs, and criminals, rendered services to the dangerous elements in this camp, smuggling information, drugs, arms and books, even radio sets and cameras in for them. You have done the Fatherland more harm than the Israelis did in twenty years. All the accused army men, consequently, are discharged with immediate effect. They have quarter of an hour to pack their things and go to the gates. From there they will be taken to a prison until judgement is passed on them. The criminals will go to a special prison where they will keep quiet for ever.”

Farid heard not a trace of anger or vengefulness in that voice as it announced the destruction of so many lives. His legs felt weak, because the commandant was doing exactly what the cold voice had prophesied to him. He sank to the ground, but held the bars of the grating with both hands.

“Mother, oh, my dear Mother,” he heard himself whispering. He looked at the figures who had been acting so big only recently, and who now stood there small and bowed. Some fell on their knees. “Sir, have mercy on my children! I'm guilty, but they – they can't help it,” cried an NCO. He had been one of the few kindly ones among the brutes. His tears infected the others, and many of them began to weep, including Milhelm, the gangland big boss.

The old guard Istanbuli pleaded hoarsely that he had nothing to do with any of it. He was here as a volunteer and hadn't taken a lira for anything at all. He begged to be allowed to go home. He was an old man, he said.

“An old man, yes,” replied the commandant, “but Garasi
incriminated you in particular. You were the courier between Milhelm and the journalists, he said. The enemies of the Fatherland had only to take their lies to Milhelm, that scum of humanity, and you passed the reports and photos on. Congratulations! A well-organized gang. Istanbuli, the old fool whom the army has fed for forty years, collected from both Milhelm and the journalists and put those lying reports into circulation. The
New York Times
,
Le Monde, Der Spiegel
– they all printed the stories to destroy Syria's reputation. It so happens that all those newspapers and magazines are owned by Jews. You might not believe it, Istanbuli, but we already have your contact man the journalist Hadi Almasri behind bars, and he's told us to the dollar what sums you had from him. Think of that! And where, then, is the money?” asked the commandant, in venomously dulcet tones. “Your wife has now found the box for us. Five thousand three hundred and seventy dollars. Every dollar earned by treachery. A nice trade! Do you know what the penalty for treachery is? For proven activity as an agent for an enemy power? Do you happen to know, little uncle? No? The death penalty,” said the new commandant, not even sternly but more as if it were a joke, yet death could be tasted in his words.

Three of the civilians kicked one of the most objectionable and hard-hearted NCOs as he crawled to the new commandant on his knees. “Sir, let me kiss your hand. I beg you for mercy, my wife is very sick, I needed money. Garasi blinded me! What poor devil can refuse a commandant who wants to share his loot?” But the new commandant remained unmoved. Only the corners of his mouth twitched with revulsion. His smooth, dark-skinned face gave nothing away.

Farid felt pity stir in him, and hated himself for it. Pity for the officers and guards who had tormented him. He was ashamed of himself. But when he saw his two guardian angels Darwish and Samih standing casually in the kitchen doorway, watching the spectacle, his peace of mind returned.

Oddly enough, none of the common soldiers were punished. Far from it; the new officers and NCOs spoke to them in very friendly tones. Suddenly Farid saw the soldier Nabil whom he liked. He was on guard at the entrance gate, and when Farid waved to him he smiled and gave a little nod.

The new team got down to work, and it was clear that they served their commandant with liking and great respect. The higher-ranking officers of the new regime sat in a semi-circle around the commandant in his civilian clothes, on chairs that had speedily been brought out and in the shade of the two palm trees.

Half an hour later the detainees learned the commandant's name: Major Mahdi Said.

Next morning the guards and soldiers told the detainees in the eight front huts to pick up their two thin blankets and straw mats and move into the other eight huts. It was hell. The huts were over-full anyway. Fights broke out, the smell of other men's sweat was a torment. Farid noticed something in him changing. He turned angry and aggressive in defence of his straw mat and his food ration. Hunger, overcrowding, and weariness robbed the detainees of respect, friendship, and personal affection. To his horror, Farid found that Sami Beirumi, a journalist whom he had always liked, proved to be quarrelsome and sly now that they were crammed into the same hut together, and didn't even shrink from stealing the bread of a fellow prisoner lying in a fever. He ate it before the sick man woke up.

No one knew why they had all been crowded in together at such close quarters, but soon they heard hammers, saws, and drills at work in the vacated huts. Six days later all the prisoners were moved to the front rows of huts again, and the back rows became the building site. They had spent only a few hours in their new quarters when one of the detainees spotted microphones in the ceiling.

“Those are the visible ones, but they wouldn't have needed all that time to install them. So what else have they hidden away?” he asked out loud in Hut 4, when other men found places on the floor and in the walls that looked freshly plastered. Several beams in the ceiling had odd little holes in them, conspicuous because of their symmetrical arrangement.

Farid was sure now that the new camp commandant was about to conduct another stage of the experiment, for if the assumptions of a detainee who was a professor of physics were correct, the huts were now under surveillance all around the clock. There was talk of new, sensitive microphones from Russia, so small that you couldn't see them at all with the naked eye. The prisoners were helpless, every one of them exposed to the guards like an open book.

Next day, when one of the prisoners tried scratching at the new plaster, he was taken away within minutes, and brought back an hour later with his fingers broken. That proved it to everyone: they could keep nothing secret any more. Fear paralysed them. Even in the darkest times, the huts had always been a place of refuge, with a certain protective intimacy about them. Of course they had also been subject to nocturnal raids, but those were regarded as attacks, intrusions into the detainees' personal area. The new commandant, however, had simply done away with all intimacy.

Only the solitary confinement cells in the cellars of the monastery ruins at the east gate of the camp had been spared the technicians' attentions.