By his second day in Abu Karim’s office, he already felt like part of the team. It was not unusual for the restaurant to have a call from a company ordering two hundred chicken sandwiches in one go. Could they deliver in two hours? They always could. If they weren’t fast enough, someone else would be. Sami was responsible for keeping the books on a day-to-day basis, under the supervision of Abu Karim’s oldest son. A couple of hours after school, on the weekends and more in the summer. Before long, the other employees got used to Sami being around.
‘Hey, bookkeeper boy, want a sandwich?’ Anwar, one of the more experienced chefs, would say.
Anwar was wide and tall and had what people used to call ‘good health’. His starched apron was stretched tight over his stomach, and the sleeves of his white shirt were neatly rolled up around his thick arms. He kept his hair in a tight knot and wore a black bandana that gave him the look of a martial arts trainer. Despite his size, Anwar was the smoothest operator in the kitchen. No one could roll sandwiches like him. He moved between benches and bowls and juggled bread and chopped vegetables as smoothly as a professional karate coach.
Sami watched in awe as Anwar squirted on sauce and clamped the sandwich shut in one motion. He made Sami feel like he was one of them. Sami, who made his own money and was free, a grownup, at least in his own eyes.
* * *
—
Winter and spring blended together. Sami worked at the restaurant and tried to keep his grades up. He regularly visited Ali’s computer shop but barely ever saw Hiba, who spent all her time at the music school where she had just been accepted. It was at this time their mother was taken to the hospital with a lump in her breast. It was benign, but even so, it did something to her. Samira said the sunlight was too strong. She pulled the curtains shut and often stayed in bed until almost noon.
Meanwhile, their youngest brother grew increasingly neglected. When Malik came home with the wrong school books or a scraped knee, Sami scolded his little brother and told him he had to do better. Malik would put in an effort for a while, but would often be distracted by what was in front of him in the moment, a comic book or a friend to play with.
Being siblings was supposed to be uncomplicated, a love that was a given. But that was not how it was for Sami and Malik. Perhaps it was because his little brother was so much younger that he didn’t feel like a real person, more like a dog who was always demanding attention and following him around. Never a moment’s peace. But Sami had promised to help with bedtime and it was on one of these nights that Malik whispered to him.
‘You know what, I have an idea about how to cheer Mum up.’
The next day, Malik brought home a puppy that he claimed a friend of his had asked him to look after. The little mutt had tangled fur and ears that flapped when it shook its head. It was like Malik himself, with a dark, unkempt fringe and big, soft eyes, playful and naive. Was his little brother insane, bringing home a stray dog? But when Malik scratched the dog’s ear, it rolled over and licked his fingers.
‘Aw,’ Samira exclaimed and put her hand on its pink belly like a star.
‘It can live on the roof,’ their dad said.
* * *
—
Memories can change shape over time, but later in life, when Sami thought about his little brother, one moment always came to him first. It was when Malik took his hand on the roof terrace and pointed to a hunk of green shell next to a heap of black, raggedy fur. The turtle squinted as they approached. The puppy languidly wagged its tail. There they lay, the dog and the turtle, dozing next to each other, as though they were sprung from the same womb.
7
NABIL DIDN’T SAY in so many words that Sami ought to choose one thing or the other. Instead there were unobtrusive comments: I always hoped your older brother would become a doctor. Or, imagine having an officer in the family, the advantages you’d get.
It wasn’t just education and careers that had to be chosen. When Sami turned eighteen, a voting card arrived in the post. His first instinct was to tear it up but Nabil stopped him.
‘It’s never going to get better than it is with the Baath Party,’ his father told him.
Baath means renaissance, and what was to be born anew was Arabic nationalism. The Baath Party advocated a united Arab state, since it was said that the division of the Middle East into different states and peoples was made up – artificial lines and borders drawn by colonial powers.
When Sami thought of belonging, he felt more like a resident of Homs than anything else. Syrian, sure. Arab, why not? But he didn’t understand the pompous speeches and parades. Did his father really think there would never be a better party? Sami didn’t know. All he knew was that his parents, in fact most of their generation, thought differently than he did. It wasn’t just that they supported the regime. Some even seemed in love with the military uniform gazing back at them from school books, office posters and long televised speeches. Or perhaps the aftershocks of previous massacres were still reverberating, a quiet quake manifesting as silence.
‘Fuck the Hafez generation,’ said Muhammed, one of the few times Sami heard his friend swear.
There was an imbalance in their society. It was like tiny tears in silk cloth, growing and multiplying until the fabric was unable to conceal what lay behind it. The knowledge of the massacre in Hama was one tear, and the militaristic school uniform and the propaganda songs were another. At the same time, living in their country was fine, so long as you stayed on the right side of the curtain. On the surface, nothing was wrong or lacking. There were hospitals, schools, holiday resorts, churches and mosques. There were malls, gardens, theatres and libraries. The problem was the arbitrariness, that you could never know when the fabric would rip in two and reveal the other side.
‘There’s no point bothering with politics,’ Nabil said. ‘So long as you have nothing to hide and you keep your nose clean, they leave you alone.’
Sami used to think that way, too. It was a banal, inconsequential event that made him change his mind.
What happened was that Sami went to the state bank to cash a cheque and the teller asked him for a bribe. A bribe! Sami knew it had happened to other people but hadn’t thought it would happen to him. Naturally, he wouldn’t pay someone under the table for a service he was entitled to.
‘Is it true, did he really ask you for money?’ the bank manager said.
Sami described the course of events again and explained his surprise. Gave a matter-of-fact account, curbing his anger, to make sure the teller would be reprimanded. The bank manager nodded several times. He was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on the polished teak table, a confidence-inspiring pose that made it seem he was both listening intently and not listening at all. When Sami was done, silence fell and the bank manager took a sip from a dainty porcelain coffee cup. Then he dabbed his lips with a napkin, folded it four times and put it in his breast pocket. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.