My Road From Damascus

Jamal Saeed

Description

Humorous, witty, horrific, and poetic, Jamal Saeed's story is Syria's story: surviving 12 years in brutal military prisons, an enchanted childhood, his loves, Syria's deadly upheavals, and his family's escape. An extraordinary account of survival in Syria's most notorious military prisons that is written with 'brutal clarity - and yet, there is a poetic quality to the telling.' - Frances Itani, award-winning author of Deafening and Remembering the Bones. Jamal Saeed arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, as a young man, his writing pushed both social and political norms. For this reason, as well as his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads, he was imprisoned on three occasions for a total of 12 years. In each instance, he was held without formal charge and without judicial process. Saeed chronicles modern Syria from the 1950s right up to his escape to Canada in 2016, recounting its descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 06 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781778520020
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

My Road from Damascus
A Memoir
Jamal Saeed Translated by Catherine Cobham





Contents Dedication Epigraphs Chapter 1: Silver Charm and Apple Trees Chapter 2: Despair Was the Secret of My Courage Chapter 3: Holy Chapter 4: From Syria’s Next Great Writer to Dog Food Chapter 5: The First Arrest (1980) Chapter 6: My Penelope Wove Nothing Chapter 7: The Berlin Wall, Saddam Hussein, and the Wooden Penis Chapter 8: Rufaida (1996) Chapter 9: The Bank of Little Stones (March 1992) Chapter 10: Howl Chapter 11: We Didn’t Mean to Get Married Chapter 12: My First Interrogation Session Chapter 13: Cell Number Four Chapter 14: Birds and Jinn Chapter 15: Show Me Yours, and I’ll Show You Mine Chapter 16: Geography and Galileo Destroyed My Piety Chapter 17: The Radio War of 1967 Chapter 18: Haifa and the Breaker of Shackles Chapter 19: A Small Black Radio Chapter 20: The Road to Damascus Chapter 21: First Steps Underground Chapter 22: Looking for a Ceiling to Sleep Under Chapter 23: Saint Sister Theresa Chapter 24: Doomsday (February 1981) Chapter 25: Apples (June 1991) Chapter 26: The Road to Al-Qala’a Civil Prison Chapter 27: In the Citadel (Al-Qala’a Civil Prison, April 1981) Chapter 28: William’s Treasure Chapter 29: Hashish Smugglers Give Lectures on English Literature Chapter 30: Letters, Short Stories, and Exams Chapter 31: My Great Escape Chapter 32: Honoring the Guest at Tadmur Prison Chapter 33: The Welcoming Ceremony Chapter 34: Debates in Hell Chapter 35: Privileges Granted by the Governor Chapter 36: First-Class Prisoners Chapter 37: Silva’s Son Became a River Gift Chapter 38: Just Write It Again Chapter 39: Hunger Strike after Ihsan’s Death Chapter 40: Brothers and Enemies Chapter 41: The House High on a Hill Chapter 42: Damascus Spring and Khadija’s Death Chapter 43: Minibus Visions on the Road to and from the House Chapter 44: The Syrian Uprising Chapter 45: He Didn’t Leave His Grave to Buy Potatoes Chapter 46: The President Welcomed War Chapter 47: A Checkpoint by Barada River Chapter 48: Telephones Ringing, People Dying Chapter 49: My Family Almost Kidnapped Chapter 50: Passports and Visas Chapter 51: The Road from Damascus Chapter 52: Dubai Chapter 53: The Upside-Down Coffee Cup of God Chapter 54: The World Keeps Turning … So Do We Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright


Dedication
To my parents, Saleh Saeed and Najeebah Shabow, who waited a long time for me to come home.
My mother is still waiting, but my father has stopped waiting for anybody.


Epigraphs
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
— Jack Kerouac, On the Road
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
— Acts 9:3
In Damascus The stranger sleeps Standing on his shadow Like a minaret in the bed of eternity Not longing for a country Not longing for anyone . . .
— Mahmoud Darwish, “The Damascene Ring of the Dove”
Footnote: I love the elegance and lyricism of Darwish’s poem about Damascus and am amazed by the splendor and glory of Damascus in many poems and books. However, these elegant poems and books do not refer to the sobbing that tears you apart, the sobbing that I, along with most of the people and houses in Damascus, know all too well.
— Jamal Saeed, May 2021


Chapter 1 Silver Charm and Apple Trees
I was holding my grandfather’s hand in the backyard, watching my grandmother as she helped our cow give birth in the open air. The cow was bellowing in pain, and I felt really sorry for her. Sitti , my grandma, slipped a silver ornament in the shape of a star on the cow’s horn and prayed to Allah to help her. After the cow had given birth to a lovely little calf, I asked my Sitti about the strange object she’d hung on the horn.
“It is a hamili,” she replied. “It makes giving birth easier.”
I looked closely at the star-shaped silver charm and asked about the engravings on it. Jaddi , my grandfather, explained they were words and symbols.
“ Jaddi , what do the words say?” I asked, looking up at him.
“They are the words of Allah,” he said.
“Did Allah himself write these words?”
“No. He sent them in a message delivered by an angel. And people wrote down the angel’s words.”
“Can I speak to Allah?” I asked.
Jaddi laughed. “Only the prophet Musa can speak directly to Allah.”
“Where does Musa live? Can I visit him?”
“Why do you want to visit him?” Jaddi asked.
“I want to ask if I can go with him when he speaks to Allah. I’d like to hear Allah’s voice.”
“Musa lived a very long time ago, and, anyway, he wouldn’t take young boys to visit the Almighty.” Jaddi laughed again.
“Your mother had a difficult labor when she was giving birth to you,” Sitti told me, “and so the midwife asked where the village hamili was . The neighbor’s goat was giving birth for the first time, just like your mother, so your aunt rushed next door and snatched the hamili from where it still hung on the nanny goat’s horn. The word of Allah helped your mother when you came into the world,” she added, tenderly touching the amulet’s engraving.
In the weeks before I was born, Najeebah Shabow prepared carefully for the arrival of her new baby. She gathered together pieces of cotton fabric saved from flour sacks and sewed a small swaddling blanket, as well as a pillow and some garments, which were traditionally the same for boys and girls. Najeebah lovingly embroidered the baby blanket, pillow, and clothes destined for her baby, and his many siblings to follow, and the crib was made by the village carpenter, Abu Hikmat. Abu means “father of” in Arabic, and if a man has a son, you always identify the man as father of his first son’s name. As I was the first son, my father was called Abu Jamal, even though I had six other brothers and was the first of ten children. It’s the same for a woman, where Umm means “Mother of . . .” To this day, Najeebah Shabow is greeted as Umm Jamal .
When my mother’s time came, my father went to fetch the midwife to help with my birth but found she was assisting her daughter-in-law who was also in labor. It’s a rare situation in a small village to have two children born on the same morning. I was my mother’s first child. She was just nineteen years old, and I was born in my parents’ bedroom. My mother told me that she was in the middle of a powerful contraction when the midwife finally arrived.
“This is the easy stage,” the midwife assured her.
My mother was not at all happy to hear this. “Get away from me, you bitch! I’d rather have a whore for a midwife.”
The midwife laughed and began her work.
“After you were born,” my mother used to say, “your grandma put salt on your body and washed you in a small tub in the other room in the house. She rubbed you with olive oil and ground myrtle leaves, put kohl around your eyes, and dressed you in the clothes we had prepared. Then she brought you to me. You were very small, and many of our friends and relatives thought you wouldn’t survive. But I whispered in your ear, ‘You will live.’”
My mother told me the story of my birth many times over the years, but I was most touched by it when I was just out of prison the first time and she told it to me yet again. Perhaps it was because I could relate the story of the hours following my birth to the new life of freedom I was experiencing outside prison.
My father understood freedom in his own way.
“Be your own boss so you don’t have to take orders from other people.”
This was why he chose not to work in the asphalt company that was one of the main employers of our village, founded by the French in 1927. My father had another theory, which was that farming was the most honorable career because it provided food for everyone. He loved farming.
I thought of him on the plane to Canada when the flight attendant gave us a form to fill in. I looked at the flag at the top of the form and my eyes rested on the maple leaf, which I knew was the Canadian national symbol. I thought of all the different symbols that nations, companies, and individuals chose to represent them and decided that, if I were asked, I would choose the apple. Not because of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, but because of memories of my own life from many years before, and one memory in particular.
My father was a pioneer farmer in our village, Kfarieh, in Syria. He was the first farmer in the area to plant Golden Delicious and Red Delicious apple trees. When I was about four years old, I stood watching him as he dug a series of holes and began to plant seedlings in them.
“Plant me, Dad,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
Stepping into one of the holes, I explained, “I want to be an apple tree, and then Mom will gather apples from my hair.”
My father laughed. “But then you couldn’t move.”
“Change me into a moveable apple tree,” I said.
I felt like an old apple tree sitting on a plane. When the flight attendant offered us a drink, I asked for apple juice.

A. Mahmoud
Kfarieh, the green village where I was born and spent the first seventeen years of my life.


Chapter 2 Despair Was the Secret of My Courage
As the steel door swung open, seven s