The Dawn Prayer (Or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison)

so tightly that everyone’s legs overlapped, and some inmates—like Theo, and Ammar, who was a Shabiha—got stuck sleeping in the middle between everyone’s feet, so that most of the men had to sleep with their legs bent up. On top of having no blanket on a cold night, I was also in the middle at first, lying there curled up to keep warm. Then Rias, my old friend from the hospital, noticed I had no covers. He stood up, handed me his only blanket, and motioned for me to squeeze in between him and another inmate. When I tried to share his blanket with him he waved me off and got under his neighbor’s. I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude. We were jammed together so tight that it was impossible to roll over unless the man next to you did the same, and still it was a huge relief to be there, with men who had a deep and unshakeable sense of brotherhood, so different from either Theo’s stubborn isolation or the Moroccan’s self-serving and ever-shifting loyalties.

When morning came, sunshine flooded into the room along with the sounds of birds singing. Piled up on the windowsills, which were so deep we could sit on them, were the bowls from dinner the night before. Dangling above them from outside one window was a light that the guards had hung a few hours after it got dark. I was one of the first to awaken and did so with a bladder so full that holding it was not an option. After months of erratic bathroom access and drinking contaminated water, I had some kind of urinary tract infection that resulted in pain whenever my bladder filled up. Unfortunately, there were no soda bottles in the room yet, just a big blue five-gallon water jug we all drank out of. Sensing that this wasn’t the type of place where I could knock on the door, I grabbed one of the halawa bowls and whipped it out. A few of the men waking up weren’t happy to see me urinating in one of the dishes we ate out of, but there was really nothing I could do about it. When I finished I went to empty the bowl out the window, but several of my cellmates told me to wait for the bathroom run to dump it there, and not wanting to make any more waves, I listened.

Just then the Moroccan woke up, and chose this moment to attempt to demonstrate to the room his nonexistent dominance over me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled. “Dump that shit out the window!”

“What? Fuck you!” I bellowed back. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to—Theo?”

I set the bowl on the windowsill while staring him down. It was now game on between America and Morocco in Syria.

It wasn’t long into the day when Theo learned how insignificant his little physical therapy sessions and massages were when it came to making an ally out of the Moroccan.

“Hey, Theo, give me massage!” Abdelatif demanded loudly. The whole room watched.

“No, not right now,” said Theo softly.

“What?” the Moroccan asked, surprised.

“I’m not going to help you anymore if you talk to me like that.” It seemed Theo was trying to make an impression on our new cellmates by showing them he had some balls.

Abdelatif’s response to Theo’s defiance was so swift and conniving that JR Ewing would have tipped his hat to him. First he began by grilling Theo on why he refused to convert to Islam, which won the support of half the men in the room. Then he started in on why Theo knew Arabic so well, which won over the rest, and before Theo knew it he was surrounded by suspicious eyes, all accusing him of being a CIA agent. Theo tried to defend himself, but Abdelatif was just too devious. I’m sure he would have tried the same thing with me if he hadn’t realized I was immune to his accusations, as I already knew most of the men in the room better than he did.

The night before, after the lights went on, Theo had been giving a bunch of the men English lessons, but now by nightfall every man in the room had marked him as a spy and class was out. And after all this, he still dropped to his knees that evening to give the Moroccan’s leg a massage.

The first time I was locked up with the soldiers, few were very religious, but now they all prayed five times a day without fail, and not only did none of them give me a hard time about my conversion, they embraced it. We would line up in two tight rows to kneel, with one of the men playing the role of imam. My conversion may not have been real, but there was something truly amazing about being so welcomed into the Alawite sect of Islam, them praying to their God, me praying to mine.

Sometimes I’d hear the door open directly next to me as we prayed and the guards would enter. As the imam recited the Koran we would hear the thud of their punches and whack of their slippers, which they removed and used to smack Theo atop the head over and over again. By the time they were done with the slipper beatings his hair was so caked in dirt and dust that he looked twice as gray and three times as broken as he had before.

On these occasions I would just keep my head down, my eyes closed, and Allah took care of the rest, for I was never once assaulted or harassed in any way during prayer.

On several occasions during the months leading to our transfer I got so frustrated with Theo’s stupidity that I yelled at him for not being Austin Tice. Austin was a marine who’d served in Afghanistan and had made it from Turkey all the way down to the outskirts