It had been so nice listening to him. He had quoted the Koran, a verse about olive trees. God’s light lit by the oil of a blessed tree, an olive tree … whose oil is well-nigh luminous though fire scarce touched it. Light upon light!
A while later the door was opened again. They threw the young farmer on the floor. Sadiq ran his hand over him, felt his pulse. Was he alive? Yes. He continued to check his pulse at regular intervals. Is he alive? Yes. Sadiq tried to avoid his sewage-coated fingers coming into contact with the wounds. He must not do any more damage.
The night passed. The door was opened wide. The terrible trio.
They dragged Suleiman out.
God’s light lit by the oil of a blessed tree, an olive tree.
* * *
Morning came.
Abu Ahmed came in with tea.
Sadiq looked at him. “Where is Suleiman?”
Abu Ahmad made no reply.
“What happened to him?” Sadiq persisted.
“You don’t want to know.”
It was several hours before Sadiq came to himself again. He lay on the filthy floor, sobbing. He had never wept for anyone as he wept for Suleiman. A person he had known for only the briefest time. A person who should have lived but no longer did. A person with a vitality and strength he had scarcely seen the likes of, a farmer who should have had sons and daughters, a whole flock of children. A voice in Sadiq’s head now took up and shouted what Suleiman had exclaimed upon being thrown into the stinking cell: What sort of hell is this?
A few hours later he was kneeling in the backyard, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back. Two men held him down.
He felt the blade of a knife against his throat, the sharp edge pressed against his skin, barely cutting it. He was aware of a sharp pain, of blood trickling. He prepared himself mentally. He imagined the sensation of the knife edge slicing through skin, flesh, sinew, and finally the artery.
Poor Sara. His poor old mother. They were the ones he thought of most. The children would manage.
“We know you’re a spy,” a voice above him said. “Who are you working with here? Who’s given you information?”
“I’m not a spy, I’m a father,” he repeated. “If you’re going to kill me, then kill me because I’m a father who refuses to abandon his daughters, but don’t kill me because you suspect me of being a spy.”
Sadiq thought that if he admitted to spying, they would kill him. He told himself, No matter how much they beat me, I must never say yes.
The knife was taken from his throat. They began to beat him instead. He was still blindfolded. The worst beatings were when you could not see what was happening. You had no chance to tense your muscles before the blow landed, you were unprepared. He could easily take a beating with eyes open after this.
They threw him back in the cell. A little later Abu Ahmed came in. He brought water. Sadiq gulped it down. Then he got diarrhea. He dragged himself back and forth the few steps to the hole in the floor. I cannot be sick now, he thought. My situation is desperate, I am soon to be beheaded.
The following day his diarrhea was gone. He and his body were attuned.
In the afternoon, a new prisoner was tossed into the cell. He could tell by the coughing, and by the voice, that he was an older man. Sadiq did not ask him anything. He did not want to know. The sorrow over Suleiman was too great.
Even so, unbidden, after a while the man began to speak in the darkness. He was a truck driver, his routes taking him all across Syria. He crossed the front lines and back several times a week. On his last trip he had been transporting a consignment of freshly plucked olives to be brined, preserved, or pressed into oil. He had driven from al-Nusra’s area of control over to ISIS territory and had been stopped at a roadblock, where his vehicle had been searched. They had found several cartons of cigarettes among the freight. “I had no idea they were there, no idea at all,” the man insisted.
Although cigarettes were not forbidden in the Koran, they were deemed haram by ISIS and looked on as a form of “slow suicide” and pure pleasure. ISIS came down hard on people smoking on the sly, even in their own homes, and flogging was the usual punishment. Selling or smuggling was worse.
The next morning the older man was gone. Sadiq did not ask Abu Ahmed what had happened.
* * *
The trio returned.
“We know you’re shabiha,” the bearded one said.
“My son, this is the first time I’ve heard that word, what is it?” Sadiq replied.
He had actually learned the word at Osman’s. It meant “ghost” in the Syrian dialect, and was used to refer to men in Assad’s intelligence service. They appeared out of nowhere, capturing people, brutalizing and killing them before disappearing again. If the ghosts got hold of you, it was unlikely you would see the light of day again.
The bearded one got to his feet. “Who’s paying you? What did you tell them?”
“I’m just a father.” Sadiq kept to his mantra. “I swear to you, if I was a spy I would tell you. I’m here as a father, I want to fetch my daughters home…”
“We’re very fond of your daughters, they’re good Muslims,” the younger one said. Sadiq gave a start. Did this guy know his daughters?
“And because we are fond of them, I’ll make your last night taste that little bit sweeter, because tomorrow we’re going to kill you.”
They tossed a bag of sweets to him.
Sadiq just stared at him.
“The sweets are from your son-in-law,” the one with the beard added. “He asked me to give them to the old man. I promised to send his regards.”
He kicked a water bottle across the filthy floor. Sadiq
