11
THEY WERE QUESTIONED together and Sami slowly grew frustrated with his friend. In the interrogation setting, the differences between their strategies and personalities became starker. Most of what Rasheed knew about his native country, where he had only spent a couple of years as a child, he had heard from horror stories told by Syrians in exile. But he believed the country could be changed, and that a change was best effected through cooperation and openness. That was why he had suggested using flyers to advertise and initiating collaboration with government employees. If they were open and honest and invited Baath sympathizers to join them, everyone would be a winner.
His friend’s idealism had appealed to Sami, but he had advocated an alternative strategy: to work in secret and silence. Which was a kind of innocent idealism too, since in practice no one could work under the radar of the regime.
During their questioning, Rasheed’s answers were long and exhaustive, even though Sami did his best to make him be brief. It was always better to keep it brief. Never lie or say more than you needed to; that was a recipe for tripping yourself up. Lies always led to more lies and, in the end, it was impossible to remember what had and hadn’t been said. But Rasheed was stressed and nervous and embellished his replies with names and details. When the colonel leaned forward and gave him an interested smile, Rasheed took it as a sign that he was on the right track.
‘Remind me, did you have a lot of customers?’ the colonel said.
‘Some,’ Sami said vaguely.
‘Three hundred,’ Rasheed specified, not without a measure of pride in his voice. ‘And one customer could be an internet café, so the users were many more. Probably thousands.’
‘Is it true you smuggled in materials from Lebanon?’ the colonel asked.
‘Maybe,’ Sami said.
‘Sure,’ Rasheed replied. ‘We paid a guy in Beirut who did deliveries every other week when he went to visit his grandmother, who…’
The only time Sami volunteered information was when the colonel was joined by two new interrogators, who were mainly interested in the technology they used. The questions were impossible to answer since they were along the lines of: how do you set up a router in a shower? How would you get unlimited download speeds? How would you set up the signal to listen in on your wife’s phone calls?
‘You don’t put routers in showers,’ Sami said. ‘And the maximum download speed depends on a number of factors, not least the provider.’
That evening yet another interrogator, who was more direct, took over. Were they Israeli spies? Or terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood? Thus the questioning ebbed and flowed and they were accused of being everything from spies to terrorists to regime critics to idiots.
After night fell, Sami was allowed to leave. Rasheed was kept until midnight.
‘One last thing,’ the colonel said before they were released. ‘You can’t leave the country for a month.’
* * *
—
It turned out the Mukhabarat had raided at least two other companies in Damascus and Aleppo. One of them was run by a teenager who had hacked the internet provider – in other words, the regime – to make cheap international phone calls.
A week later the internet was back but with some adjustments. The regime had lowered the price of subscription by a tiny amount. Information was sent out to internet cafés that registration would be required to use wireless networks. Users were also reminded that it was illegal to hack the system to visit banned websites, such as Facebook and Twitter.
And now, were they supposed to carry on as though nothing had happened? Sami and Rasheed cancelled their trip to the beach. To anyone who asked, Sami said it had been a routine matter and that they had been treated well. He wouldn’t have even mentioned it to his parents had not Ali, whose computer shop was near their office, already told them what he’d seen and heard.
‘Are you really going back there?’ asked Sarah, who had decided to give their relationship another chance.
‘Anything else would seem suspicious, wouldn’t it?’ Sami replied.
So he went to the office and started cleaning up the mess, sorting through the papers and binders that were left. The rooms were empty, aside from a man in a black suit and sunglasses who took a seat by the palm trees in the lobby.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Sami asked him.
‘Coffee, three sugars,’ said the member of the secret police expressionlessly.
At the end of the day, Sami got up to leave, as did the man in the black suit.
‘So, when are we getting our computers back?’
The man emptied his coffee cup into one of the planters.
‘Computers? You never had any computers.’
The same procedure was repeated the next day, and from then on, every other or every third day. The secret police pulled cables from their office and tracked down every last one of their customers. The people of Homs were disappointed but not surprised. Give us our Israeli network back, they said, it was so much faster and cheaper than the old one. Sami found it increasingly difficult to laugh in response. He slept less, and was woken up by dreams he couldn’t remember but that lingered like a dullness inside him. It was like moving through murky water. The sounds around him were distorted and the light didn’t seem to reach him.
* * *
—
One night in March, the electrician’s neighbour called to let him know the Mukhabarat had practically laid siege to their block. Around ten of their cars had driven up in the dark. Armed men had banged on doors and finally found their way to Younes’ home, where they had blindfolded and handcuffed him and taken him away. The neighbour had seen it all through his window and recognized Younes’ shaved head.
‘Does it have something to do with your network?’
The next morning Sami went to see the electrician’s family, who were beside themselves. But the arrest had nothing to do with the company, they said, it was personal. Younes’ girlfriend in Tel Aviv had made the secret police suspicious.
‘They called him an Israeli spy when they took him away,’ Younes’ father said and blew his nose in a napkin.
Sami tried to reassure them; he and Rasheed had been treated well by the secret police, no violence or open threats. But he could tell how empty his words sounded.
So they had been accused of running an Israeli network and now one of their co-workers stood accused of being an Israeli spy.
‘Since when is it illegal to have a girlfriend in Israel?’ Rasheed said.
‘Sure, but that’s not how they see it. Do you think the colonel would be lenient if he received orders from higher up to arrest us? I doubt it.’