A Woman in the Crossfire Read Free Page A

to find one last document for salvation, claiming to be doing something adequate to my belief in the value of working for justice: but what does that even mean anymore? Nothing. All the slogans, all the pain, all the murderinciting hatred and all the death have become meaningless in the face of this reality: empty streets, a ghost town. Military convoys are dispatched every which way, but there’s no army presence. Where has the army gone? Who can believe such a farce now? The army lets these gangs kill people and intimidate them; it won’t intervene. In the face of these gangs, the security forces that once terrorized the people are suddenly transformed into the downtrodden.
    What is this madness?
    Death is a mobile creature that now walks on two legs. I hear its voice, I can stare right at it. I am the one who knows what it tastes like, who knows the taste of a knife against your throat, the taste of boots on your neck. I have known it for a long time, ever since I first escaped that narrow world, then a second time, then a third. I am the crime of treason against my society and my sect, but I am no longer afraid, not because I am brave – indeed, I am quite fragile – but you get used to it.
    Today, on the Friday of Dignity, the Syrian cities come out to demonstrate. More than two hundred thousand demonstrators mourn their dead in Dar‘a. Entire villages outside Dar‘a march toward the southern cemetery. Fifteen people are killed. In Homs three are killed. People are killed and wounded in Latakia. In the heart of the capital, Damascus, in the al-Maydan district, demonstrators come out; some are wounded and then moved to al-Mujtahid hospital. Army forces surround Dar‘a and open fire on any creature that moves. In al-Sanamayn the military security commits a massacre, killing twenty people.
    I am no longer afraid of death. We breathe it in. I wait for it, calm with my cigarette and coffee. I imagine I could stare into the eye of a sniper on a rooftop, stare at him without blinking. As I head out into the street, I walk confidently, peering up at the rooftops. Crossing the sidewalks and passing through a square, I wonder where the snipers might be now. I think of writing a novel about a sniper who watches a woman as she walks confidently down the street. I imagine them as two solitary heroes in a ghost town: like the street scenes in Saramago’s Blindness .
    I return to the capital, and I know this place will never be the same again. Fear no longer seems as automatic as breathing. Once and for all, and all at once, life here has changed.
    I return to the capital, knowing I will not despair from tirelessly fighting for justice, even if death rips open my chest. Like I said: You get used to it. Nothing more, nothing less. I am waiting for death to arrive, though I will not carry flowers to my own grave.

5 April 2011
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    I will infiltrate the sleep of those murderers and ask them, “Did you look into the eyes of the dead as the bullets hit their chests? Did you even notice the bullet holes?” Perhaps they glance for a moment at the red holes left behind in foreheads and stomachs, the same place where our eyes always come to rest.
    Here in Damascus the murderers will soon fall asleep, and we’ll remain the guardians of anxiety. Death is no longer a question. Death is a window we open up to our questions.
    Damascus is just like any other city. It becomes more beautiful at night, like a woman after making love.
    Who kills from the rooftops? Is it a cowardly killer? It most certainly is – how could he be deemed courageous when he has already been stripped of his morality?
    From my house I head out in the direction of the squares and the mosques. In the middle of the afternoon, I need to see the city streets, street by street, square by square. I don’t believe anything but my own eyes. The squares are empty, possibly because today’s a holiday.