My story, The Syrian Doctor in Paris, was published in The Philippine Graphic and received a Certificate of Recognition by the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. I have read this piece in performance in Paris and in Jackson, Tennessee.
My deepest sympathies go to the Syrian people who have suffered long and hard. ~ Cecilia
The Syrian Doctor in Paris
By Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
May 9, 2014, the last
rebels leave Homs
He lives in a flat near the Ile Saint
Louis. Today, he’s up at four in the morning because he hardly slept and news
feeds from Syria stream into the internet. His favorite sites are “The Syrian
Revolution 2011” and the “Local Coordination Committees in Syria”, which give
up-to-the-minute news in Syria. The sites will warn: “Artillery shelling and
mortars and heavy machine guns aimed at the country districts of Daraa
Al-Balad’s neighborhoods;” Or: “Explosive barrel bombs targeting the village
Guenitarat in Aleppo.”
It’s May and Paris is still chilly at this
time of the morning. He glances at the velvety blackness outside and tries to
make out the hulking outline of the Notre Dame. It is too dark but soon, when
the sun is up, the Notre Dame will present itself with its turrets and
gargoyles, a sight that used to enchant him and which still gives him some bit
of solace. Quietly, so as not to wake his son, he makes a pot of tea and
resumes his vigil in front of his computer. He has a couple of hours before he
has to go to the Hopital Cochin.
The images today are of rebels in Homs lining
up to board buses. He has seen dead children in white shrouds lined up after
the chemical attack in Ghouta; he has seen piles of bodies barely recognizable
as human beings. But today’s news about the capture of the last rebels in Homs upsets
him. He can trace his roots in Homs back to the sixteenth century.
Even though he has lived in Paris for decades,
he calls Homs “home.” Right now, even as he performs surgeries, does his
rounds, deals with patients and hospital staff, home is Syria. It’s home even
though Assad has bombed and obliterated the schools he had attended, the
mosques his ancestors had built, the streets and alleyways he had walked on.
Most of the landmarks of his “home” have been ripped apart, shot at, destroyed
by bombs, scud missiles. Some of the girls he had loved, the boys he had called
“brothers” are dead, some from chlorine and sarin nerve gas. Some from barrel
bombs.
He chews his lower lip at the sight of the
men who have held out for two years in the Old City, burrowing like rats in the
tunnels and pathways they have created. Assad’s soldiers had surrounded the Old
City, and for over a year the rebels and people who remained had been eating
nothing more than grass, and if lucky, some unlucky cat – their imam had to
issue an official permit allowing them to eat stray dogs, cats, even rats. The
Syrian doctor looks at the drawn faces and hunched shoulders of the rebels.
Some are younger than his son. That was another sorrow — the Syrian child
soldiers — nine-year-old, eleven-year-olds toting rifles — boys who ought to be
in school, who ought to be playing instead of killing.
The news is not good, but there is nothing
unusual about this. The situation has been getting worse and he wonders how a peaceful
march could have spiraled into this awful war.
When the last of the rebels are bussed out
of Homs, he remembers he’s supposed to see Christine that evening. Suddenly he
finds her tiresome. She’s French, trim, perky and he sees her once a week for
dinner and he has sex with her regularly. With Christine he can make love with
a wilder abandon that he can with a Middle Eastern woman. He can enjoy her body
fully, allow her to pleasure him as well. She is a social worker, divorced, and
makes no demands for him to marry her, which to him is one of the attractions
of Christine.
Today he performs surgeries in the Hopital
Cochin and Clinique Blomet. He attaches bones together with pins and plates; he
welcomes doing these because the activity pulls his mind back to Paris, away
from Syria. He can lose himself in that work, forget for hours that some of the
rebels were picked up for further questioning, meaning they would be tortured
and killed.
He calls Christine after work. “Hello, Christine,
good afternoon,” he says, trying to sound cheerful. They met after Christine’s
divorce and he made her laugh and that was how their affair got started. With Christine,
he always appears buoyant, light hearted, optimistic. But tonight he can’t put
on this mask.
“Hello!” Christine replies, sounding
happy, her cheerful voice grating on his nerves. He recalls the girl he had
loved in Homs, wonders what their lives would have been if they had gotten
married. His marriage in France had been a disaster; the only good thing that
came out of that was his 24-year-old son.
“Tonight—“ he starts, then stops.
“The same café, yes?” Christine says in a
voice less cheerful. “Is something wrong?” she adds. Then before he answers,
she says. “I know the news is bad. I am sorry.” Her voice trembles.
People have been saying “I’m sorry,”
and he’s never sure how to answer them. He is tired of “I am sorry” while the
world’s governments have turned their faces away from Syria. Ignored Assad’s
crossing of red lines, reduced the misery of millions of Syrians into
statistics. His head throbs when he hears “I am sorry.” This afternoon, he
decides to disregard Christine’s sympathies, says instead, “Something has come
up and I can’t make it tonight.” He’s aware Christine will know it’s a lie.
Christine sucks in her breath and is
silent for a few seconds. Then recovering, “Of course, I understand. Don’t
worry. I’m fine. Take care of yourself.
Next week…?” Her voice trails off.
He does not answer; he can’t think
about next week. He can’t think of Christine, not of the weekly dinners and love
making. His mind overflows with images
of faces of his countrymen filled with anger, desperation, fear, anguish, pain.
He has been yearning to hear the musical call of the muzzeraine and he wonders
if it still echoes through the streets of his youth. He hopes the perfume of
jasmine still sweetens the night air of his family’s open courtyard, even
though he knows his parents’ home has been reduced to rubble.
Christine continues, “I know it’s a
difficult time. If I can help, let me know.”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” he says. “I
have to go. I have a meeting with Dr. Khatoud,” he lies.
He hurries out of the Clinique Blomet,
gets into his car, and drives toward his flat. But before he gets there, he turns
and heads toward the Sorbonne. He stops the car and studies the white buildings
which had frightened him when he was eighteen. He closes his eyes and recalls
that long ago journey from Homs to Paris, his sad farewell to his father who
died a few months after he arrived in Paris. As he starts his car he wonders
how long his mother will hold out in Syria, wonders when she will accept that
it’s time to leave. He hopes she makes the decision soon, before things get any
worse.
It is almost eight at night when he enters
his flat. When he closes the front door, silence surrounds him. The hallway
feels clammy and he smells the mustiness of his old books which fill the
bookshelves. He thinks he should get rid of some of these books, save only the
ones that had belonged to his father.
Later, he switches on his computer and he
settles down to catch more images of death and destruction, to catch images of
home, even when home is no more.
###
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Tags: literature, fiction, Syria, Syrian, war, Middle East, Aleppo, Damascus, Raqqa, Homs, Philippines, Philippines, writing, short story, flash fiction, Paris
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