A Woman in the Crossfire Read Free Page B

Everyone is holed up inside their fear.
    Security patrols roam dense in the streets; everywhere I go cars are coming and going, fast and slow; giant buses are jam-packed with security forces; men wearing helmets and military uniforms fan out in the markets and the squares, in the broad intersections and anywhere else demonstrations might break out.
    Men in plain clothes congregate here and there, but the size of their presence gives them away. How did I learn to distinguish between a security agent and an ordinary man on the street in Damascus? The truth of the matter is that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this game I play actually started, when my acumen became more reliable than any question or conversation. I know them by their eyes, by the drape of their clothes, by their shoes. Today more security forces than ordinary people are on the streets, in the alleyways, beside the kiosks, in the squares, outside the schools: security forces everywhere I go.
    Patrols are deployed near the entrance to the Souk al-Hamidiyyeh 2 , and near Bab Touma they stop some men for questioning, grabbing their IDs. I can’t wait around long enough to find out whether they kept their IDs in the end; I must keep moving. I glance at them out of the corner of my eye as I pass them, and then turn into a crowded alley. Here, almost, is human life. The security presence is heavy all around the Umayyad Mosque, and hordes of people are holding up flags and portraits of the president.
    The mosque is closed, they won’t let me in, they claim there are people inside praying, but before leaving I sit down outside to smoke a cigarette and calmly watch the situation.
    Suddenly I start to notice strange figures I haven’t ever seen before materializing in the street. Oversized men with broad and puffed-out chests, their heads shaved, wearing black short-sleeved shirts that reveal giant muscles covered in tattoos, seething at everything that moves. Glaring as they walk, their hands swinging at their sides, figures that sow terror wherever they go, thickening the air all around them: Why have I never noticed them in the city before? Where do they live? And why have they appeared today?
    I walk back through the Souk al-Hamidiyyeh, nearly empty except for a few street vendors. The shops are all closed. Nothing but security forces scattered all around while at the end of the market even more buses sit packed with armed men. I can now appreciate the meaning of the phrase ‘tense calm’. I have heard this expression before, thinking it more a figure of speech than an actual description. These days in Damascus I can understand ‘tense calm’ by people’s eyes and movements. I walk out of al-Hamidiyyeh towards al-Merjeh Square despite having resolved not to go there any more after what happened one day a few weeks ago outside the Interior Ministry.
    Al-Merjeh Square is empty except for security forces who are lined up in significant numbers, spread throughout the square. Not too far off there is a bus filled with men and weapons. With its wretched hotels Al-Merjeh Square seems more distinctive when all the people have disappeared and its shops are closed.
    It looks nothing like it did on 16 March, when dozens of prisoners’ families assembled outside the Ministry. Nearly assembled, they did not actually succeed. Standing there in silence, they looked odd, almost elegant, holding pictures of their loved ones who had been imprisoned for their political opinions. I stood with them, beside the husband and two sons of a female prisoner. Suddenly the earth split open with security forces and shabbiha 3 , who started beating people. The small group started to panic, and I, staring right at those men, screamed, “Anyone who kills his own people is a traitor!” The people didn’t fight back, they took all the blows and the insults and then started disappearing one after the other. They were taken away by men who had