PART SEVEN
28
Chapter Twenty-Eight – A Warm Literary Evening
On a quiet winter evening, the small table gathered the three of them beneath the soft glow of a dim lamp, the air tinged with the scent of simmering lentils, prepared just as grandmothers once did, with a touch of nostalgia. The warmth of the house came not only from the fireplace, but from spirits accustomed to companionship, and from conversations that illuminated the hidden corners of their hearts.
Mr. Ahmed sat at the head of the table, Muna to his right, and Numan across from him. Between them stretched an initial silence, as if inviting something profound to emerge.
Mr. Ahmed broke the quiet, lifting a piece of bread, and looked at Muna with the knowing gaze of a father who understands. Then he turned to Numan, his voice gentle, almost playful:
“Numan, Muna told me that you often speak of Russian literature… But tell me, have you read others as well? Or have the Russians enchanted you with their storytelling?”
Numan smiled, a glimmer in his eyes betraying that he had anticipated the question. He lifted his gaze and replied, his voice carrying a trace of childlike longing:
“Indeed, I read many. Yet English literature holds a special place in my heart. I remember the first time I read a line by Shakespeare—I felt as if I had discovered an ancient mirror, one that did not merely reflect a face but revealed the secrets behind it.”
Muna interjected softly, as though completing an unfinished line:
“Shakespeare does not merely write words, he writes the echo of humanity within them… as if life itself is set upon the stage, with all its absurdity and depth.”
Numan nodded, adding with quiet conviction:
“And from England, there are many who left a mark on my soul: Shakespeare, George Orwell, Dickens, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, William Blake, Tolkien, and Agatha Christie.”
He continued, explaining with a measured enthusiasm that blended knowledge with passion, reality with dream, as he traced the contours of each writer, their themes, and their profound vision of humanity and society.
Mr. Ahmed raised his eyebrows in admiration and said:
“Such variety. Orwell, for example… I read 1984—it was an intellectual shock.”
Muna smiled and added:
“Orwell frightens us because he is honest. He shows how the human spirit can be crushed when truth itself becomes a crime.”
Numan spoke again, his voice contemplative:
“The Germans too have left a deep mark. German literature dives as profoundly as Russian, but it measures its pain with precision, entwined tightly with philosophical thought.”
Mr. Ahmed, growing more intrigued, asked:
“And are you familiar with German writers? Who do you consider most significant among them?”
Numan took a sip of water before replying:
“At the forefront is Goethe, the giant of German classicism. Faust is not merely a play; it is the human struggle with oneself and the ghosts of ambition. Werther’s Sorrows, a fountain of intense Romanticism, and the West–Eastern Divan, a meeting of cultures in the language of poetry. After him comes Schiller, the master of conspiracy and redemption, Maria Stuart, and the Ode to Joy that Beethoven set to music.”
He continued:
“In the twentieth century, Thomas Mann stands out, a Nobel laureate, with Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, and The Magic Mountain. Then there is Kafka, though he hails from Prague, he remains a pillar of German literature, with works like The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle.”
Muna’s eyes lit up and she said:
“Kafka resembles the Russians in some ways, yet he is far more solitary. His characters do not resist; they slowly dissolve within a bureaucracy ruled by the absurdity of existence.”
Numan continued:
“And we must not forget Bertolt Brecht, the pioneer of epic theatre, with works like Mother Courage and Life of Galileo. Then there is Heine, the political poet, with his calm and his irony, and Hermann Hesse, who wrote Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game. And finally, Remarque… Remarque is different.”
Mr. Ahmed, his eyes reflecting a sincere curiosity, asked:
“Remarque? I have heard the name, but I haven’t read him. What makes his works distinctive?”
Numan replied in a reverent tone:
“He does not write about war; he writes about the human lost within it. All Quiet on the Western Front is not a tale of battles, but an elegy for the soul, as if to say: when a dream is killed, nothing remains. War, for him, is not heroism; it is the denial of heroism, the shattering of the traditional image of the fighting man.”
Muna added:
“And what sets him apart from Russian literature is the economy of the scene. While the Russians plunge into the psyche for pages, Remarque can express unbearable pain in a single sentence.”
Mr. Ahmed contemplated the cup in his hand, then spoke softly:
“It is wonderful to hear this from you both. Perhaps what our schools lack is not texts, but the souls that bring them to life. Literature, when taught as a lifeless duty, loses its spark.”
Numan, a long-cherished thought echoing in his voice, said:
“True literature does not teach us how to survive, but how to understand our losses. How to become human, despite all that seeks to crush us.”
Muna looked at her father and said:
“Literature is not taught; it is lived. Perhaps that is why a reader often feels out of place among peers—because he is preoccupied with his own questions, not with ready-made answers.”
A silence fell, but it was not a silence of emptiness; it was a silence in which words ripened. Then Mr. Ahmed took a deep breath and said:
“How wonderful it is to converse with young people who do not just read books, but listen to the echoes of humanity within them.”
Numan nodded, and Muna smiled. A new warmth crept into the corners, as if the books mentioned had opened their windows and let in an invisible light.
Muna drew a deep breath after sipping from the cup that Numan tried not to leave empty, and then added:
“Dad… I think the problem is not the absence of literature, but the disappearance of its impact. People flee from deep questions because the answers demand they confront themselves. That is why literature becomes a luxury rather than a necessity. Even the young who read are often seen as creatures out of place.”
Numan laughed and said playfully:
“I know that all too well… In my town, they said reading is the occupation of the unemployed, and anyone carrying a book knows nothing of farming, business, or marriage!”
Mr. Ahmed smiled with quiet wisdom and said:
“Yet from those very ‘unemployed’ minds, renaissances are born. True poverty is not in the pocket but in the imagination. Societies that fear readers fear seeing themselves reflected in a mirror.”
Silence settled again, but this time it was full, as if the table itself had listened and learned.
The three exchanged sincere glances, and within the inner horizon of each, something new was forming… something that resembled awareness, something that resembled a dream.
Mr. Ahmed laughed, shaking his head, and said:
“By God… it seems I will need a notebook to record your recommendations, not just a single question!”
Muna laughed in response, a gentle ease spreading across her face, as if she could see her own thoughts reflected in Numan’s words, and she whispered:
“I knew… I knew you would delight him.”
After dinner had dispersed with the quiet of a long story folding upon itself, they moved to the back porch. The night was mild, the air drifting softly as if whispering secrets the day had never confessed. They sat around a small rattan table, at its center a copper coffee pot, and three cups, their steam almost lifting the remnants of fatigue from their souls.
Mr. Ahmed lit a small lamp in the corner, letting out a long sigh, part contentment, part nostalgia, then said as he poured coffee for everyone:
” This is how I feel at peace… when warm conversation meets the aroma of coffee, far from the world’s clamor.”
Numan took his cup, murmuring thanks to Mr. Ahmed, then stared into the surface of the coffee as if trying to read something hidden within it. Inside him, a restlessness stirred, as if the evening’s talk had stirred contradictions in his depths. He had read much… yet some of the pain in Mr. Ahmed’s eyes could not be found in books. In this man, he saw the remnants of a generation that believed thought could not be separated from craft, and that family was not merely a blood tie, but a project of meaning.
Numan suddenly asked, as though releasing a question held in his chest for days:
” Uncle Ahmed… have you ever felt that what you read didn’t save you?”
Mr. Ahmed let his gaze wander between him and Muna, then took a slow sip of his coffee and said:
” Yes… many times. Books do not save you, my son. But they mature your sorrow. They teach you how to bear the world, not how to change it all at once. Literature is more like a lens through which you see the vastness of the wound, not a balm that hides it.”
He paused, then added, with a tone echoing from a distant time:
” When my father died, I read everything (Ansi Al-Hajj) wrote about loss, yet I could do nothing but cry in the shadows, flipping through his old photographs.”
29
Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Memory That Never Sleeps
Muna looked at her father with a gaze that seemed to emanate a silent kindness, as if she were draping him in a blanket of unspoken calm. Her eyes said more than words ever could, yet she did not speak.
In that moment, words felt heavy on her tongue, as if afraid to disturb the warmth that hung between them. Within her, currents of conflicting feelings struggled to surface: a deep love for her father, a renewed admiration for Numan, and a sorrow she could not discern—whether inherited from her mother’s voice or woven alone in the early nights of loss.
Finally, she spoke in a low voice, like the hesitant glow of moonlight, careful not to wake the sleeping world:
“Sometimes… I feel that we love books because they say what we cannot tell others. We read them as if sending messages to ourselves… but through the words of someone else.”
Numan looked at her long, astonished by her simple yet profound grasp of meaning. He wanted to tell her something that had been troubling him for days: that she herself had become, long ago, his favorite book. Yet he remained silent, knowing some moments are more beautiful when left unsaid.
He turned then to Mr. Ahmed, as if returning to a safe corner, and said:
“Can you believe it, Uncle, when I read Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, I felt as if I were living under another kind of surveillance? It’s not just the state that watches us; we watch ourselves. We hide what we think, and we fear being different.”
Mr. Ahmed inclined his head, then shook it slowly, his voice carrying more sorrow than reproach:
“This is what worries me about your generation… that a young man like you might grow up afraid to speak his truth, or be forced to abandon his dreams, because society does not favor the dreamers.”
A gentle silence settled over the room, not empty, not hollow, but as translucent as a droplet of water suspended between light and memory. Yet for Numan, it was anything but serene. Mr. Ahmed’s words had unlocked a door within him, one he had long kept bolted.
Something trembled inside him, invisible to Muna, though her father caught a shadow flicker across his features. With a steady concern, he asked:
“What’s troubling you, Numan?”
Numan drew in his voice as if lifting it from the depths of an old well:
“It is one of the consequences of those accumulations… the accumulations of early awareness, and that audacity in questioning that time was never meant to endure.”
Muna tilted her head slightly, her tone gentle, wrapped in genuine curiosity:
“And may we… understand the details of that memory? With the precision and depth it deserves?”
Numan looked first at her, then at her father, and saw an irresistible honesty in their eyes. Yet something inside him hesitated, as if the wound remained raw and tender.
This time, his silence stretched longer, until it seemed he might not speak at all. Finally, he said:
“I would rather not delve into that painful memory… one that still haunts me to this day, and I do not know when it will end.”
He left the sentence unfinished. But inside, he saw the scene as clearly as if it were unfolding again: that day in a distant autumn, standing in the school courtyard, he had addressed the master of ceremonies—a man of considerable rank in the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, the party that governed the state, shaped society, and orchestrated its domestic, regional, and international plans in Syria—with a voice he would never forget:
“Please, esteemed sir… I seek clarification on a question that has been lingering in my mind!”
The man had replied then:
“Please, go ahead with your question, and I thank you in advance for your interest and participation.”
Yet the question, which had never ventured beyond the confines of thought, had been enough to cast him into the prison, leaving within him a chain of fear that still echoed through his nights, despite all the freedoms that appeared around him.
The three of them needed no further words. The balcony remained silent, yet understanding. Night gently tapped the wound on the shoulder, leaving an empty chair for hope beside them… as if it might come.
At midnight, when the sounds behind the windows had faded, and warmth had slipped from the balcony into the rooms, Numan remained alone in the darkness, as though wakefulness had borrowed him from sleep for a thought yet unfinished.
He sat at the edge of the bed, unwilling to light a lamp. The streetlight filtering through the curtains was enough to reveal his features as a ghost in contemplation. He pressed his palm against his forehead, closing his eyes as if trying to extinguish something within him that had burned since long ago.
Why had that day returned?
Why had all the long years failed to erase that feeling?
And how could a memory remain alive every time someone mentioned a dream?
It was not only sorrow that troubled him, but the old astonishment at injustice he still could not understand, though he had lived it. In the prison, he had not only been beaten, but his very innocence had been questioned, as if the question itself were a crime, not curiosity.
He lifted his head, muttering softly:
” It was an innocent question… nothing more.”
Then he smiled bitterly, speaking as if answering himself:
” But innocence, Numan, is not always a virtue.”
He remembered his mother’s face the day he was released from prison, how she had hidden her tears within a trembling smile, and how his small hand had clutched the edge of her garment, afraid of the daylight.
He did not fear the world… he feared that no one would understand him.
He rose from the bed and approached the window.
He opened the glass silently, inhaling the night air as if conducting a cold reconciliation with life.
I wonder… if I told her everything tonight, would she understand?
And if her father asked me more, would I dare answer?
And if I wrote it down in a novel… would I be healed?
He sifted through the questions in his mind, as if searching for a single sentence that could rescue him from the weight of the past.
But nothing seemed enough.
Then, suddenly, an impulse struck him. He retrieved an old notebook from his bag, the one he had kept for years.
He opened a blank page and wrote:
“Freedom is not a slogan… it is a daily test. And I, since I was a child, have failed it many times… because I believed that the dream alone would suffice.”
He paused, staring long at the line, then closed the notebook.
He did not want to continue writing; he only wanted to remind himself that he still mattered.
And so his night ended, neither with a decision nor a promise, but with a new silence—less painful than before, because it was not the silence of fear, but of deep understanding that some wounds are not healed with words… but with life itself.
Morning crept over the city in soft shades of gray, as if the night still held the hem of its cloak, reluctant to depart completely.
In the small garden near the house, timid birds sang, like learners of a first melody, keeping company with the falling leaves that touched the ground gently, teasing them without disturbance.
Numan stepped onto the balcony, holding a cup of coffee he had yet to taste. The coffee itself was not his true desire; it was the moment—the quiet, uninterrupted moment—when he could watch the world without someone asking the usual question: “What are you thinking about?”
But then he realized he was not alone.
Muna was there, sitting at the edge of the table, flipping through a small notebook, as if tracing an ancient map—not searching for treasure, but for a moment of confession waiting patiently for someone to arrive from the other side.
She lifted her eyes to him, then spoke in a calm voice that did not seek his gaze but struck straight at his heart:
” You didn’t sleep well… did you?”
He answered softly, a quiet honesty that needed no excuse:
” Sometimes… staying awake isn’t a choice.”
She closed her notebook slowly, then raised her face toward him, her eyes holding a mixture of tenderness and a faint reproach:
” I wish you had told me everything… don’t I deserve to know? And because you don’t deserve to face it alone.”
He studied her for a long moment. He had not expected the morning to be so clear. It felt as if a transparent wall separating him from confession had shattered, and what he feared now lay exposed on the surface of her heart.
He said, turning the cup between his hands:
” I wasn’t afraid of the story itself… but that it might change the image of me in your eyes.”
She smiled. And her smile was like a quiet prayer, one that listens with the soul:
” No image of you in my heart could ever be altered. Everything you are… is what makes you, you, and I wouldn’t want anything else.”
Her words almost wounded him with their gentleness, but they did so like a tender breeze touching an old scar… healing it without reopening it.
Then, suddenly, with a playful lightness that barely hid her emotion, she said:
” Come on… tell me, how would you have saved the world if you were a hero in an Orwell novel?”
He laughed. For the first time that morning. Not a loud laugh, but one like the first drop of rain after a long drought.
He said:
” I would begin with a small question… as if to ask: why do we fear what we know to be true?”
A light breeze passed between them, as if life itself had exhaled.
In that moment, Numan realized that something might change afterward. Not in Muna alone, but in himself as well. And that this morning, ordinary as it seemed, could very well be the first step toward a slow healing—not forgetting, but acceptance.
Then he asked her, his eyes carrying a silent hope:
” Do you really want to hear the details of my imprisonment? Even though it has nothing to do with you, coming as you do from a neighboring country, where politics differ… and perhaps the talk of politics would bring you nothing but deep pain, a pain that only multiplies?”
Muna grasped the profound meaning behind his question, yet she replied with gentle insistence:
” Yes.”
He said, trying to prepare her for what was to come:
” Then listen to me as if you were reading a novel by Orwell or Kundera… or someone like them… not as someone who lived it all on a land that hates questions.”
Muna asked, with honest curiosity:
” And have you read about politics as well?”
He answered:
” Yes, and about religions, philosophy, and other sciences too…”
She continued, following the path of her inquiry:
” And who are these writers? What are their most notable works?”
He smiled and said:
” Your question is excellent, because it touches on literature that grew under the shadow of oppressive regimes and one-party rule… communism, fascism, military dictatorships, even theocracies. Many of these writers faced censorship, exile, or imprisonment because they exposed the oppression the system imposed on humanity.”
Then he rose to his room and returned with an old notebook, its pages bearing the marks of his fingers. He turned the pages gently and said:
” I will read to you, briefly, about some of them… so you don’t grow bored, though my heart holds much about them.”
He began to read:
” The Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz was the first I read, at the beginning of my love for reading among Arab authors. In his novels Children of Our Alley and Adrift on the Nile, he spoke of much of the suffering endured by the Egyptian people and offered subtle critiques of authority, so much so that he survived an assassination attempt for his ideas.
Then I read Russian writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, who revealed the existence of Soviet labor camps and were exiled from their homeland.
In China, I read Lu Xun and Lao She, Diary of a Madman and Cat City, symbolic works created under suffocating censorship.
From Poland, I discovered Czesław Miłosz through The Captive Mind, in which he offered a psychological analysis of how writers adapt to oppressive systems.”
Numan looked at her, a faint smile brushing his lips, and said with a tone heavy with meaning:
” As for Orwell… we read him to understand what we live, even if he himself never lived it.”
Muna turned to him, after listening with a trance-like attention, as if standing in sleep, and said with a light touch of humor:
” So you’re back to Orwell… I think he’s the writer who awakened that memory in you last night.”
Numan gently closed his notebook, cradling it in his hands, and turned toward her with a quick glance, as if trying to divert the conversation. He said:
” “And what about Orwell?” ”
Muna looked at him, her gaze half astonishment, half reproach, and said:
” “I mean… isn’t it time for you to share your own suffering with me, instead of skirting it by talking about others?” ”
He fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a low voice, as if speaking more to himself than to her:
” “Yes… I will tell you everything. But I pity myself, the part I see sparkling in your eyes, that it might become a story, and then turn into something I would never wish for it if something new arises.” ”
She raised her eyebrows in undisguised surprise:
” “Are you really afraid to that extent?” ”
He nodded, then added, as if trying to melt the frozen pause between them:
” “Very well… I will begin as we prepare breakfast. Ask your father to join us; it is a day off, and he should step out of his office for a while, refresh himself… and share both the food and the words with us.” ”
Muna rose lightly and walked toward her father’s desk, while Numan went to the kitchen, arranging a simple table, using the quiet heat of the stove to order the fragments of his memory.
On the table, the cups and plates stood in gentle silence, as if listening to the story that had been hidden for too long, waiting to erupt.
They sat in a circle that mirrored a family at a cozy winter dinner, yet what was about to be told would be far from warmth.
Numan drew a slow breath, as though emptying his chest of an ancient burden, and spoke with a voice dampened by memory:
” “It was the sixth of October… in the year nineteen seventy-four. A month unlike any other in my memory… for I was born then, and something else was born as well—something that does not die.” ”
Muna looked at him with questioning eyes and whispered,
“Something else… as if you are speaking of a second birth?”
Numan nodded and said,
“Yes, it is that… but from another womb.”
He continued, hands interlaced over the table,
“Two weeks before that day, the teachers and administrators gathered at Douma Boys’ High School and decided to hold a celebration for the first anniversary of what was called the October Liberation War, led by the team of Hafez al-Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Armed Forces.”
Muna’s father shook his head and commented briefly,
“I know something of those days…”
Numan smiled and said,
“The spirit should have remained suspended over questions left unasked… After the administration received approval from the authorities, all staff and students were informed that attendance was mandatory. Courtyards and entrances were adorned with banners, photographs, and flags. Representatives from the party, popular organizations, and the political administration attended the celebration.
The ceremony began, as always, on such national occasions. Words praising the great victory, hymns proclaiming eternal glory. Everything proceeded as it was meant to… until a student raised his hand and asked permission to speak. He was allowed, welcomed to participate.”
Muna raised her eyebrows with cautious curiosity,
“And was asking allowed?”
Numan gave a sad smile,
“It seems it was not… even if at first it appeared otherwise.”
Then he plunged into the story:
” The student said: ‘Last year, two months after the war ended, a new student joined our class with an educational supervisor. There was no empty seat in the room except the one next to me, so he sat between me and my classmate. We got to know him, and he said: he is from the Golan, and his family had fled during the October Liberation War, after their village was occupied. I asked him: ‘Wasn’t the displacement in sixty-seven?’ He said: ‘No… we left in seventy-three.’ And since that day, I have kept asking myself: how can we call it a liberation war when we lost the rest of our land in the Golan? Do you have an answer?’ ”
Muna’s father gasped, saying:
” Boy!… That’s a question in your country written with blood, not ink!”
Numan shook his head with a deep sigh:
” And so it was… within seconds, the students gathered and set off in a spontaneous march, and more students joined, chanting, crowding, lifting one of them onto their shoulders. No one directed the scene; it was as if anger itself was their leader. They marched until they reached the school gate, then Jelali Street, then the marketplace.”
” And what did you do?” Muna asked eagerly, leaning closer.
Numan averted his gaze to the window and said:
” I was among them… walking without feeling that I walked… until we reached the police station, and its chief came out with a Russian rifle and fired into the air above the students’ heads. The chants scattered, voices broke, images fell, the cheers shattered, and the demonstration scattered like autumn leaves…”
He sighed, then continued:
” In the evening, when darkness fell over the city, I was reading in my room… but the sound of what had happened during the day had not ended.”
Then I heard my grandfather’s voice calling me, the timbre threaded with suspicion and unease:
“Did you commit a crime?”
I answered, my heart hammering at the shock of the question:
“I did not do any of what you speak of…!”
As we spoke by the door of my room, the policemen entered. They informed my grandfather that they were taking me with them.
He stood firm, defending me, saying:
“He has done nothing that warrants taking him!”
One of the officers replied:
“True, what you say is right, but the station chief wants to ask him one question. We will return him to you immediately.”
My grandfather requested to accompany me, but they refused, reassuring him:
“There is no need. It is only one question, and we will return him quickly…”
Muna’s father asked, his voice heavy with an old anxiety:
“And did they return you?”
Numan laughed, with a bitter edge to his humor:
“I beg your pardon… the worst of misfortune is what makes you laugh!”
Muna covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide with shock:
“And how did you get out?!”
Numan continued, his voice softening as it traced the shadow of memory:
“One day you will know… it all happened on the evening of the sixth of October, 1974, which corresponded to the twentieth of Ramadan, 1394.”
Muna asked, astonished:
“And you still remember both dates together?”
He sighed deeply before answering:
“The memory of those days remains etched in the permanent corners of the mind. But what came after… what took everyone by surprise… was that their detention stretched all the way to the sixteenth of October, 1974—matching the thirtieth of Ramadan, 1394.”
“It was ten days,” he said slowly, “ten days that cannot be erased from a human memory, nor vanish for even a single moment…”
In a hushed tone, as if confessing a secret to a shadow, Numan murmured:
“We spent the first night at the Duma police station. After that… the so-called ‘simple questioning’… which hid behind it a hideous face of threat, a subtle shape of humiliation, and a flavor far bitterer than any insult…”
Muna recoiled, her voice dropping as her eyes widened at an image she had never imagined:
“How?! Why?! Did they… did they even have a formal charge against you?”
Numan bowed his head, as if recalling an ancient phrase, then spoke:
“All we were asked… all there was… a single question, nothing more: ‘What is your political affiliation? And who incited you to take part in a demonstration that threatened the security of the state?’”
Muna’s father whistled softly, astonished and burdened with sorrow, then whispered:
“And you were just students… nothing more…?”
Numan answered, his voice carrying the weight of one who has felt the beginning but cannot yet fathom the end:
“Yes, eleven students… we were gathered as if plucked from the edges of a photograph. I know some of them… but of many, I know nothing…”
He drew a breath, exhaling sharply, each word edged with a hard clarity:
“In the morning, they took whatever money we had in our pockets. One of the policemen claimed he would rent two taxis to take us… somewhere in Damascus.”
He paused briefly, then continued, each sentence seeming to pass slowly through his teeth:
“We arrived in Damascus after noon… they brought us into a building they said belonged to the Political Security. One of the guards said, ‘Our teacher is a good man, trustworthy. He would not wrong anyone… but he’s out for lunch… or on a round… and he will be back soon.’”
“And so,” Numan went on, “they left us in a small room, like a guardhouse, at the far end of that cold building.”
Muna whispered:
“And… you were… fasting?”
“Yes… and just before the afternoon, one of them came in and began taking us… one by one… and we never saw anyone return with him.”
Muna’s pulse seemed to chase itself; she looked as though she were breathing through her eyes.
Numan added, his voice dropping, slow and deliberate:
“When my turn came, that guard grabbed me with a painful grip and dragged me inside. He opened a door and shoved me hard. Inside… I barely had time to see anything before a sharp slap rained down on my face… and I was thrown to the ground as though I were nothing but rubble… or stone.”
Numan spoke in a voice calm yet jagged enough to scratch the surface of stillness:
“That man who struck me… he asked me, perhaps the one in charge, or the leader, or the devil—I cannot tell:
‘Were you cheering for Gamal Abdel Nasser and Gaddafi?’
I told him, softening the weight of the truth:
‘Abdel Nasser has been dead for four years, and I have no relation to him… nor to Gaddafi.’
He cut me off with an insult aimed at my mother… and I said to him, fury propelling my words:
‘Everything—everything but my mother! She has no relation to anything but purity and chastity…!’
It was then that his anger surged. He motioned to the guard, and I was led through another door to an armored vehicle, where my companions were already inside.”
He paused, as though drawing a breath that had been held hostage by patience stretched to breaking, and said:
“And as soon as the initial interrogation ended, that vehicle set off, as if dragging the bodies of the fragile like wind drags dry leaves, tilting left and right, caring nothing for the road, ignoring every hole, until we collapsed upon one another, our heads striking its ceiling, faces almost disfigured, our bodies threatened to detach from themselves…”
His voice rose, then fell, heavy and low:
“Just before dusk… we arrived. The vehicle finally brought us to a gateway leading to a cemetery, and at its end, a back door opened, and we were unloaded before a massive, towering door of stone and iron, resembling a great castle gate. Its walls were high, crowned with barbed wire, and the reception was fierce with all their physical and moral might, like raging bulls in a Spanish arena, waiting for their victims, thirsting for revenge against anyone who had ever bested them or dared defy them.
We finally reached a narrow passage leading to a tall iron door, which seemed to me the very end of the road, with no exit. In that moment, I realized, with a stark resolve in my soul, that what I had considered a temporary passage had become a sojourn of unknown duration and an uncertain fate.”
I looked toward the door and sighed without realizing it, as if surrendering myself to whatever lay beyond, stripped of hope or objection.
Muna asked in a quiet, hesitant voice,
“Does that mean… you knew you would stay there?”
Numan answered her with a sidelong glance,
“It’s as if the walls themselves whispered: beware! You will have a long story here…”
I was led into the first room after the door, to the right. The corridor stretched long, the rooms lining its sides like graves carved in cold stone, etched hastily into the heart of a mute night.
The room was nearly the length of my body, and I lay on the floor; its width barely half that. Four walls, a heavy ceiling, a small round window stuck like a pupil of a hole in the opposite wall, through which thin strands of light, a trace of air, and painful whispers filtered—whispers of voices I could not identify, yet I knew them well: they belonged to those tortured under that dim, sickly light.
Muna’s father whispered, furrowing his brow,
“Unbelievable! The rooms are this small?! Impossible—these are not rooms, they are coffins!”
Numan nodded and sighed,
“But coffins that do not hold silence… there is something in them far slower than death itself…”
Beneath the window, the squat toilet groaned under its filth, its stench suffocating even the meager air that slipped through the tiny hole above. Beside it, a brass tap dripped endlessly, drop by drop, insufficient yet unceasing. Opposite, a concrete slab rose about forty centimeters from the ground—unsuitable for sitting or sleeping—but it existed, and that was enough.
Minutes passed without a sound save my own breathing, until the door opened suddenly. The small window cracked first, then the outer panel, revealing the guard’s face, featureless, as he held out two thin military blankets, saying,
“One for sleeping, the other for covering.”
I asked him, placing them beside me:
” And the pillow?”
He replied with a cold rigidity:
” Figure it out yourself… and don’t ask again.”
Hunger had already worn my heart down, and my mouth was parched from fasting, more than fasting alone could explain. I said, keeping my plea steady:
” I have been fasting, and the time for breaking it has just arrived. Could you please bring me a loaf of bread and a glass of water to break my fast?”
He glanced at me for a moment and said:
” I’ll tell the teacher.”
I smiled—the smile of someone who has nothing but courtesy—and added:
” Thank you, and please extend my personal regards and gratitude to him… in advance.”
Muna let out a small laugh, mingled with surprise and a hint of reproach, then asked:
” And you really expected him to bring you bread?”
Numan answered, his tone laced with both irony and humor:
” I expected nothing… but a kind word, like water… must always be allowed to nourish even the stone.”
He continued, staring into the distance as if summoning the shadow of that moment:
” Heavy minutes passed after the guard left, each one pressing down on my chest like hours. No one came, nothing reached me. The pale light seeping from the high slit in the wall began to fade, yet the sounds from the adjacent rooms did not cease; moans, screams, blows striking like hammers on living flesh.”
He leaned back in the chair, sighed, and said:
” When I began to prepare myself for sleep—or rather, to curl in on myself—I spread one of the blankets on the floor as a makeshift bed, and folded the other to serve as a pillow. As I closed my eyes, the guard returned. He opened the small window in the iron door and said in a dry voice, like a slap: ‘Take off your clothes and wait!’”
Muna interrupted, her eyes wide with astonishment tinged with a pang of horror:
” Your clothes?! Why?”
Numan offered a faint, weary smile and said:
” At that moment, I did not ask. I did not dare. I took off my school jacket and stood there, waiting. After a short while, the guard returned, peering at me through the little opening again, and said: ‘Take everything off. Leave only your shorts.’”
Muna’s father exhaled audibly, his voice tense with concern:
” And did you obey him?”
Numan’s eyes remained fixed on the void as he answered:
” I did. I stood in the corner, trembling from the cold, waiting for him to return. But he never came back. Time stretched, and I felt my strength drain from hunger and thirst. I approached the water tap fixed to the wall, tried to clean it with my hands, and collected what little drops I could manage to sip, performing ablutions for prayer.”
Muna raised an eyebrow and asked:
” And you were still fasting?!”
He nodded and said:
“Yes… I didn’t know the direction of the Qibla, so I prayed standing, facing wherever I happened to be. I combined Maghrib and Isha prayers, and when I finished, the door opened again. The guard entered and dragged me behind him, gripping my hair as if I were nothing more than a rat caught in its burrow.”
A heavy silence fell over the three of them, as if some unseen weight had landed on their chests… Then Muna’s father murmured in a low voice:
“My son, a country should not treat its children like this…”
Numan shook his head and said:
“Some countries, Uncle, devour their children when they fear their dreams.”
He continued, his voice slow and deliberate, as if recounting a strange dream he had yet to awaken from:
“The guard led me into a room resembling an official’s office—neat, orderly, lit by a dim light that offered no comfort. A man stood by the door from the outside, and three others were quietly stationed in the corners, as though they were part of the furniture or the shadows themselves.”
He paused for a moment, then added, recalling the details of the room:
“Two meters or so from the desk sat a man in his fifties, his hair thin, streaked with gray mingled with a light blond that seemed to have forgotten to turn gray. He rose from his chair and approached me with a smiling face, saying: ‘Welcome, Mr. Numan! That is your name, as I have read…’”
Muna glanced at her father and whispered:
“He seems kind at first glance… do you think he really was?”
Numan gave a fleeting smile and said:
“Kindness in places like this is a smooth kind of treachery…”
Then he continued in a low voice:
” He flipped through some papers in front of him and said, ‘Numan Albarbari. A high school student, cultured, devout, and religiously committed.’ ”
Then he looked at me and asked,
” Are these facts correct? ”
I answered calmly,
” Yes, correct. ”
He raised one eyebrow and said,
” How can culture and devotion coexist in a young man your age? ”
I replied,
” I have read about many who were far more devout and cultured than I am. ”
He leaned forward, intrigued:
” Like who? ”
I took a short breath and began to recount:
” Muhammad the Conqueror, the Ottoman Sultan, ascended to the throne at around nineteen, a memorizer of the Qur’an, skilled in jurisprudence, fluent in multiple languages, and he captured Constantinople in his youth.
Ibn al-Nafis, the discoverer of the pulmonary circulation, a Shafi’i jurist and brilliant physician, who united knowledge, religion, and philosophy.
John Henry Newman, from Britain, first a priest, then a cardinal, a religious thinker of profound faith and meticulous intellect.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, who opposed Nazism in his twenties and paid with his life for his stance. ”
Surprise was clear on Muna’s father’s face, then he said,
” Did you really read all these? ”
I answered calmly,
” Yes, I did. ”
The man, astonished, asked,
” When and how could you understand them? You are still young, working in the summer to pay for your studies. ”
I replied without hesitation,
” It is my favorite hobby. ”
He leaned forward, curious,
” And what are the most important subjects you read about? ”
I answered,
” I do not limit myself. I read everything that comes under my hand. ”
He sought clarification,
” For example? ”
I said,
” I start with what helps me understand my lessons, then I expand… into science, language, literature, thought, philosophy, and religion… everything that satisfies my curiosity. ”
The man asked,
” And do you remember what you read, or do you forget it? ”
I answered,
” I summarize everything I read, so that if I forget, I can return to the notes. ”
The man let out a short laugh, then said,
” So I am facing a little scholar! ”
I replied modestly,
” God forbid… I am nothing but a small learner. ”
Finally, the officer asked,
” Do you need anything before we start the interrogation? ”
I said,
” Sir, I have been fasting all day, and dawn is almost upon us. If you would kindly provide a piece of bread, a glass of water, and two cigarettes before the fast begins. ”
The man called one of his guards and ordered him to bring what I requested. “You may rest and sleep,” he said, “and we will postpone the interrogation until after breakfast tomorrow.”
Numan, his eyes briefly clouded as if recalling that night, said,
” In the evening, I had finished my humble breakfast—two pieces of bread with a bit of tahini sweet, water, and two cigarettes that felt like the last traces of freedom beyond these walls. ”
Muna shook her head slowly and whispered,
” It seems they did not mistreat you at first, did they? ”
Numan said,
” Some doors do not close all at once, Muna… they turn gently, then suddenly slam shut on you. ”
” The man entered himself and led me into that interrogation room I had left just before dawn. I looked at the man seated behind the desk. He looked tired, yet his calm smile remained. After a brief stand to greet me, he sat again behind the table. In a low voice, almost a whisper, he said, ” We begin now, Numan… but let me be clear with you. We know everything about you, yet we want you to speak for yourself. This will spare you much of the torture, beating, and humiliation that others face. I promise you that what you say of your own will can change your fate, which most prisoners meet. And since you are educated and devout, you understand the value of truth! ”
I looked at him in silence. No desire to argue, no ability to ignore.
He opened a file before him and asked, ” Numan, what is your relationship with so-and-so? ”
I looked at the name… I did not know him.
” I do not know him, sir, ” I said.
He stared at me for a long moment, then moved his pen across the paper. ” Very well… who tore the President’s picture, and what is your connection to that? ”
” I did not see anyone tear the President’s picture, and I know nothing about it, sir! ”
The questions continued, some about people I had never heard of, some about books I had borrowed from school and public libraries, or stumbled upon in a local market. Others were about youth gatherings I passed by, not knowing a single name among them. The questions coiled around me like invisible ropes, and perhaps the most significant of the books they asked about was 1984. ”
Muna’s father interrupted, his voice tinged with concern,
” And were you truly uninvolved in all that? Or is there at least a hint of suspicion? ”
Numan said with quiet certainty,
” I read a lot, yes. And sometimes I engaged in discussions during lectures, true. But no organization, no incitement, no affiliation. Just an open mind… and that alone was enough to make me a target of suspicion. ”
Muna, her eyes brimming with tears, asked,
” And did the interrogation last long? ”
Numan nodded, and said,
” Two days without sleep. Questions repeated, phrased in different ways. Every answer recorded, every silence counted. And whenever something confused them, they brought out folders and notebooks, as if they were digging inside me, not through their papers. ”
He paused for a moment before adding,
” On the third day, the interrogator said to me, ‘ Numan, there is no point in evasion. We know you are connected to those we are looking for, but we want to hear it from you.’
I told him, ‘ Sir, I have nothing to hide. And if I did, why would I hide it from you? Do you think I have any desire to suffer in this prison?’
He laughed, then said, ‘ So you are stubborn… we shall see how long you last.’ ”
Muna’s face darkened, and she whispered,
” Did they beat you? ”
Numan looked at her for a long moment, then said,
” The beating was the least of it, Muna… ”
Silence fell between them.
Numan spoke, his voice tinged with a quiet sorrow, as if the words were being drawn from a cold depth:
” On the third night, I had lost all sense of time. No window to tell me day from night, no call to prayer to mark dawn or dusk. The cell was narrow, its walls pressing back my breaths as if reminding me, moment by moment, that I was utterly alone. ”
Muna’s father interrupted,
” And did you feel fear? ”
Numan offered a faint, weary smile and said,
” Fear? Fear lived in me and never left, but it was not fear of blows or shouts… it was fear of the unknown, of fading away, of having your story forgotten in a rusted drawer. ”
Muna lowered her head, whispering,
” And how did you spend that night? ”
Numan replied,
” I curled up on the concrete slab, using one blanket as a pillow and the other as a thin cover, offering neither warmth nor protection from the cold. The room was thick with silence, yet from beyond the wall came muffled cries, sudden screams, the dragging of chains on wet floors. The wind whistled down a distant corridor, and muted moans echoed like shadows from another world. ”
Muna’s eyes glistened as she interjected,
” Was there anyone else there? ”
He answered in a faint voice,
” I saw no one, yet the sounds spoke in ways the eyes could not. There was pain, pleas, gasps… and some we could not hear, because they had fallen silent forever. ”
Muna’s father cleared his throat lightly, as if expelling something stuck in his chest, and said in a heavy voice,
” And you stayed alone that night? ”
Numan nodded and said,
” Yes… alone with a fear unspoken, and my mother’s face that never left me. I curled up on myself, not knowing why I did not cry. Perhaps something inside resisted breaking. I tried to recall what I had memorized of the Quran, but my voice failed me. Then I whispered my mother’s prayer: ‘O God, be gentle with us, and be for us, not against us.’ ”
He paused for a moment, then continued,
” Just before midnight, the iron door suddenly opened, and my heart leapt into my throat. The guard came in, grabbed the back of my head like one grips a bottle by the neck, and said, ‘Come!’ I did not speak. I dragged my feet behind him, almost bare on the cold floor, the wall brushing past us as if watching with a single half-closed eye. ”
Muna whispered, holding her father’s hand,
” Father… I cannot imagine it… why? Why would they treat a person like this? ”
Numan spoke quietly, bitterly,
” Because when fear inhabits a state, every question becomes a crime, every curiosity a charge. ”
Muna’s father looked at them and sighed, his voice edged with anger,
” All that, and there was no clear accusation? ”
Numan replied,
” In those worlds, uncle, an investigation does not start with an accusation. It begins with an administrative order, and grows, little by little, into a tunnel with no exit. ”
Muna said,
” Where did they take you? ”
Numan looked at her and said,
” To a dimly lit room, with a metal table and two chairs. A man I had never seen before entered—light beard, cold features. He sat opposite me and said in a quiet voice, as if reciting a memorized hymn, ‘You are here because there is something in you we do not like… You think, you read, you ask. And that is too much.’ ”
I asked him,
” Is this a crime? ”
He smiled and said,
” Not a crime… but not wanted either. What is wanted is that you become a copy of the others. Do not question, do not analyze, do not light the lamp if it is extinguished. ”
I asked quietly,
” And if I love the light? ”
He stood, rising from the chair, and said,
” You will learn to love the darkness… or dissolve in it. ”
Muna gasped,
” My God… how did you endure all that? ”
Numan said,
” I clung to something small inside me… I called it a dream, or maybe faith, or the memory of my mother’s face… I do not know, but it was my only light. ”
He fell silent suddenly.
Muna’s father said, in a firm voice,
” Go on, my son, do not stop… the story must not be buried in silence. ”
Numan looked at him, then at Muna, and smiled a pale smile:
” I will continue… but not now. It is time for lunch. Some pain needs a breath between, and some darkness cannot be swallowed all at once. ”
Muna added,
” I cannot bear to eat while imagining you in such a scene. Take this glass of water and continue. ”
Numan sipped some water and went on:
” When they led me again from the cell, I felt I was surrendering to a night that would never end. My steps were heavy, my legs barely holding me. The iron door opened to the face I now know so well, the calm, always-smiling investigator I met on the first dawn.
He smiled at me and gestured to a chair in front of his desk:
‘ Please, Mr. Numan. ‘
I sat, but my eyes did not. They roamed the same space, as if time had stood still since that night. Men in the background, standing like statues that did not breathe. A large portrait of the president watched us from above, overflowing silence. Instruments of torture hung on the walls: a whip, wires, wooden rods, a metal device that could not hide its purpose. Nothing new… except a deeper cold running through my bones.
He moved a paper on his desk and said,
‘ Look, Mr. Numan… I have sought personally to be the one to investigate you. I do not want you to fall into the hands of investigators who do not know how to speak to a young man as cultured and aware as you. You will not be beaten, you will not be humiliated… this is how I have seen you, and this is how I want to speak with you. ‘
Then he added, rising and gesturing for me to follow,
‘ Before we begin… come, I will take you on a small tour. After that, we will return and continue our talk… as friends, not as prisoner and investigator. ‘
I looked at him and said nothing. I only stood.
Muna whispered,
” A tour? In the prison? ”
Her father raised his eyebrows, as if sensing something:
” This is no outing, but a prelude to a message wrapped in threat. ”
Numan continued,
” We climbed a narrow staircase, two of his men behind us, heavily built, their hands tied behind their backs yet never letting go of their weapons. We reached the prison rooftop, and he spread his arms as if presenting a sacred vault and said,
‘ See? Here we are… in the heart of a grave where no one hears, except the dead. ‘
I gazed into the expanse of darkness. Towering walls, silence weighing like blocks of iron. The air was cold, yet not clean… as if it, too, was imprisoned here.
Then he led me back downstairs, passing through a corridor where the walls themselves whispered with dampness. He stopped beside a massive machine against the wall, pointed to it, and whispered,
‘ Look closely… this is merely a tool, pressing the body until nothing remains. We use it when we despair of confessions. Everything then flows into a watery abyss below… where no name remains, no scent. ‘
Muna gasped, her hand trembling in her lap.
” This… is unbelievable. ”
Her father said, with steady gravity,
” On the contrary, Muna… this is the machine of the system, not of the heart. ”
Then he turned to me, as if concluding the display, saying,
” Whoever enters here, leaves everything behind… even memory itself. And if someone asks about them, we say: they never passed through here, we do not know them. The voices you heard a moment ago? They are still gambling on denial. ”
Then he gently grasped my shoulders and led me back to his office. He ordered his men out and closed the door himself. His voice softened, leaning toward me:
” Mr. Numan, please… do not think of yourself as if you were in Sheikh Hassan’s prison. Do not let the place frighten you. ”
He paused, then added,
” I want a conversation between us as friends… nothing more. Do you welcome that idea? ”
I looked into his eyes and saw one mask listening to another. I said,
” Yes… I am ready to converse, with all the honesty and openness I possess. Whenever you wish, we may begin. ”
Muna lifted her eyes to her father and whispered,
” But… can it truly be a conversation? Or is it just another chapter in a game? ”
He answered calmly,
” Sometimes, Muna… conversation in prison is another form of torture… but a gentler one. ”
Numan continued quietly, hesitating:
” He sat across from me, placing his right hand on the table, and spoke softly, as if addressing a friend returning from a journey:
‘ You are a clever young man, Numan. I have read your file, and I admired the notes you wrote by hand in the margins of the books confiscated from your room. I sent my men to search the apartment where you live thoroughly, yet they brought me only your summary notebooks. Isn’t this your handwriting? ‘ ”
He laid one of my private notebooks before me. I nodded, and he continued,
” You have a mind that thinks, and a spirit that engages… and that is why I am here to listen, not to dictate. ”
He fell silent, as if waiting for Muna to offer a thread of speech, but I chose to wait.
He spoke while opening a small drawer in his desk and took out a notebook with a faded cover:
” Why did you write this note on your summary of Doctrine and Politics? ”
He paused for a moment, then read in a voice closer to a whisper:
” The danger arises when doctrine becomes a tool in the hands of power, and power becomes sacred, unquestioned by anyone. ”
I looked at him steadily and said without hesitation:
” Because I have seen it… in history books, and in our reality.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his 1859 work On Liberty that the danger begins when political power becomes sacred, beyond critique, whether in the name of religion or nationality.
He said that freedom cannot exist without accountability, and it cannot be protected without a mind that resists false sanctity. ”
The investigator smiled faintly, glanced at the paper before him, and said:
” You said you prefer dialogue… so let us converse. ”
Muna tilted her head toward her father and whispered softly:
” Father, it feels as if he is trying to win him over in a different way… doesn’t it seem so? ”
Her father replied with a heavy sigh:
” He tempts him with words… before binding him with confession. ”
Numan continued:
The investigator interlaced his fingers and asked:
” What do you think of those who deny everything, believing that silence will protect them? ”
I spoke with deliberate calm:
” Perhaps because they lost trust… after seeing those who confessed yet were not saved. ”
He fixed me with a long, steady gaze and asked:
” And you… will you follow their path? ”
I answered with measured voice:
” I did not do what I am accused of, nor am I ashamed of what I did.
But I do not think confession here creates justice, nor that denial will save. ”
He smiled, as if he had found what he was looking for. Then he rose slowly and moved toward a small, unopenable window, saying as he turned his back:
” Do you believe a dream can be killed? ”
I answered, my eyes on the hanging lamp’s glow:
” No… but it can be exiled, starved, imprisoned… even buried temporarily.
But it does not die. ”
He turned suddenly and said:
” Very well… then let this night be the beginning of the dream, not its end. ”
Muna followed the words as if listening to an ancient riddle. She whispered softly:
” He’s offering a deal… or am I imagining it? ”
Her father replied, watching the tremor in her voice:
” Perhaps.
But most likely, he is preparing the ground to take what he wants… with the skill of an actor, not the honesty of a friend. ”
Numan continued:
” The investigator sat again, leaning back in his chair, then fixed me with a long look as if weighing the weight of my words. He spoke in a low voice, tinged with a strange warmth:
” If I were in your place… I would seize the opportunity. We do not sell illusions, but we offer choices. ”
I answered with a deliberate calm, emerging from the deepest corner of my unease:
” I am not here… asking for salvation at any cost, but I am ready for dialogue, as you said, provided it is dialogue… not entrapment. ”
He chuckled lightly, a brief laugh like one caught off guard, then masked it behind an air of composure:
” You like to appear strong… Very well, let me show you how power is respected when it is in its place. ”
He opened a drawer and pulled out a small black-and-white photograph, leaning toward me and holding it before my eyes.