A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea Page 9

  While her sisters made friends with the girls in the neighborhood, Doaa sank into a depression, unable to eat and spending entire days in the dreary apartment watching news from Al Jazeera, Orient News TV, and the Free Syrian Army channel, aching to be home and taking part in the revolution. She desperately tried to make contact with her friends back in Syria, but the phone lines were mostly cut or jammed and she rarely got through. Occasionally, she managed to reach her sister Asma for just a few minutes on Skype.

  One day Doaa received a message from her sister that filled her with worry. Asma read it out loud to her: “I miss you. The neighborhood misses you. It’s hard to live here without you. The whole neighborhood is crying. You are the light of the neighborhood and it has gone dark without you.” Back home, more people were dying every day, the supermarkets had almost nothing to sell, and each week more buildings were bombed to their foundations. Doaa begged her father to take them back to Syria where they could make a difference, rather than feeling useless in Egypt. Shokri looked at his daughter incredulously. “I am not bringing you back there to die,” he said, dismissing her pleas. Doaa argued and begged, but Shokri stood firm.

  When Shokri grew too ill to work, she and Saja decided that it was up to them to support the family. They couldn’t start school until the next year, so they figured that they could use the free time to help their father, even though they were only seventeen and fifteen years old.

  They found work in a factory that produced burlap bags. The owner told them that he wasn’t actually short of workers—about one hundred men and a few women were already working there—but he wanted to do his part to help Syrians. Every morning, the girls took a 7:00 a.m. bus to the factory and spent the day sewing bags, counting them, and carrying them on their backs to a scale where they were weighed and then placed on a stack. Doaa, weighing just eighty-eight pounds, would struggle under her heavy load. The workdays were long and hard. They had only one break for noon prayer and then worked until late in the evening. They had nothing to eat during the day; only cups of tea were served at their workplace. Doaa and Saja were two of just a few young women working in the factory, but they were treated with respect and kindness by their coworkers.

  The best part of the job was the friends they made there. Doaa and Saja would whisper and joke with some of their young female Egyptian coworkers. One time one of them linked arms with Doaa and told her, “I love Bashar al-Assad because he gave us the chance to meet you.” Doaa missed her school friends back in Daraa and savored any opportunity to have girls her age to talk to. It helped her imagine a time when she could maybe feel more at home in Egypt.

  As Doaa settled into her work, she began to feel less helpless and dispossessed. She was now bringing home money for her family and earning the respect of the people she worked for. She no longer felt like someone who had run away from the fight for her country, but like a young woman who was taking care of and providing for her family. Every time she handed money to her parents, she felt pride lift her chest. Her mother noticed the difference in her daughter’s attitude and felt a quiet satisfaction at watching her transform into a capable young woman.

  Doaa also attracted the attention of the young men around her. During the three months she worked at the factory, two Egyptian men proposed to her, but she refused them both, despite being at an age at which girls often wed. Marriage was the last thing on Doaa’s mind. When she did marry, she knew it would be to a Syrian man once she returned back home.

  One day Doaa took a day off work to take care of her mother, who was sick. As she made her mother tea and took care of Hamudi, she worried that she might lose her job or that the owner would cut her pay, so when she returned to work the next day, she went straight to the shift manager and offered to make up the time.

  She entered his office with her eyes lowered and apologized for missing work. But instead of scolding her, as she expected, he smiled kindly at her and asked for her home address. The following evening, the doorbell rang and the shift manager and his assistant stood there bearing a basket full of fruit and sweets, and asking for Hanaa. When they sat with the family, they said that they had come to wish her a quick recovery. “We love Syrians. You are welcome in our country and we stand by you,” the shift manager told Hanaa and Shokri, leaning forward over his tea. “And don’t worry about your girls at the factory. I am looking after them.”

  Doaa was touched.

  At night, while Doaa relaxed from a hard day’s work, her thoughts would return to Syria. She spent her evenings flipping through news channels, waiting for the segments about the war. She texted back and forth with her closest friend, Amal, who was still in Daraa, and asked for any news. Doaa told Amal how she wanted nothing more than to come back home. But Amal warned her, “It is better that you don’t, Doaa, the situation is getting worse. It is dangerous for everybody. I don’t even go to demonstrations anymore now that you’re not here.” Doaa’s text conversations with Amal always left Doaa feeling conflicted. The danger of returning to Syria didn’t frighten her, but leaving her family without her support did. She couldn’t abandon them. She realized that she was needed here more than she was back there.

  Meanwhile, Hanaa could tell that Doaa was longing for Syria, so Hanaa hid Doaa’s passport and kept a close eye on her stubborn daughter. Hanaa saw text messages on Doaa’s phone from friends back home that urged her to come back and rejoin their struggle. When Hanaa confronted her about the texts, Doaa assured her that she would not abandon the family. Hanaa then realized that in the months since Doaa had left Syria, she had matured. She had taken on responsibility for her family and was doing her part for them to get by in this life of exile, and that was all that mattered now.

  However, the work at the factory was taking its toll on Doaa’s health and she was becoming more fragile with each passing day. When she was anxious and tired, she couldn’t eat, and her anemia returned. Shokri heard about a Syrian business owner, Mohamed Abu Bashir, who said that he could give all three of Shokri’s daughters sewing work for 500 LE ($50) each per month—more than they got making burlap bags. They all quickly accepted the new jobs.

  Mohamed had converted a small ground-floor apartment into work spaces for his ten employees, installing big industrial sewing machines and ironing boards in the bedrooms. Saja and Nawara worked the sewing machines to make skirts and pajamas, while Doaa was in charge of ironing.

  The girls worked alone in one room and chatted and joked together as they worked. The boss made his rounds several times a day and would often single out Doaa for praise. This made her feel useful and appreciated in her job, despite the fact that the girls’ paychecks never quite added up to 500 LE after some mysterious deductions were made by the owner.

  Though Doaa still longed for Syria, after six months she was slowly beginning to find her place in Egypt and was accepting her family’s fate. They had just enough income to cover rent, and with the food vouchers from UNHCR, they were able to buy ingredients for the meals Hanaa prepared. They also slowly paid off the debts they owed to those in the Syrian community who had helped them when they first arrived.

  Doaa realized that the longer she stayed in Egypt, the more she felt her old dreams slipping away from her. In Syria, before the war, she was on a path to go to university. She still had one more year of high school left, but now she had no meaningful way to continue her education in Egypt. The best she could do was to attend some classes at a school run by Syrian teachers during the local school’s afternoon shift for refugee students.

  Doaa tried to comfort herself by thinking of the progress she and her family had made in Egypt. While they didn’t have much, their situation had improved, and the constant tension that they had felt in Syria began to ease. Little Hamudi, who, when they’d first arrived in Gamasa, would never leave Hanaa’s side, began to make friends and sleep peacefully through the night, his nightmares and anxiety finally receding. Doaa told herself that for now all she wanted was peace and happiness and food
on the table for her family.

  FIVE

  Love in Exile

  After six months as refugees, the Al Zamel family was growing accustomed to life in Egypt. Doaa’s sister Asma and her two young daughters were now there with them. Asma had left Daraa to join the family when the bombing intensified, turning their neighborhood into a death zone. Asma’s husband, however, despite her pleas to him to leave with them, stayed behind to fight for the Free Syrian Army.

  Growing numbers of Syrians were fleeing the country to stay alive, and also finding refuge in Egypt, including in Damietta. On weekends, when the Al Zamels took strolls along the seaside walkway, also known as the Corniche, just like the Egyptian families, passersby clearly saw that they were outsiders, but understood that war had driven them here, and they were accepted. On these walks, the eyes of the Al Zamels would occasionally meet the eyes of others, and their heads would nod in acknowledgment, as if they were telling the family, “We feel for you.” Syrian women were easily recognizable by the way they wore their veil differently from Egyptian women. So men would often call out to them, “You are welcome here!” And sometimes they would call out in jest, “Will you marry me?”

  As news from home trickled in, the Al Zamels accepted that they would be staying in Egypt much longer than they had originally thought. Friends from Daraa told them that some of their neighbors had been killed in the struggle, and that their once bustling neighborhood was now deserted. Not long after Asma fled Syria, her house was hit by a missile and the house across the street was reduced to rubble. Doaa’s family worried about the friends who were left behind and sent daily text messages to them, checking to see if they were still alive. Doaa searched the news in vain for signs of a break in the violence and a return to peace so she could go home.

  In early May, six months after their arrival in Egypt, Doaa’s twenty-four-year-old cousin, Maisam, had news. Maisam and his wife, who had arrived in Egypt two months after the Al Zamels, lived in an apartment upstairs. One day he sat next to Hanaa, sipping tea, and announced excitedly, “My best friend, Bassem, is coming to stay with us, you’ll love him, Aunt Hanaa! Everyone who knew him in Daraa did.”

  Bassem was twenty-eight years old and, up until the war, had a thriving downtown hairdressing salon that he’d bought with his own savings. When the war started in Daraa and his business was shut down, he joined the opposition and began fighting for the FSA. Eventually, he was caught. During his two months in jail, he was tortured, tied up by his hands, forced to sleep sitting up, and deprived of water. Maisam suspected that Bassem had endured even worse, but he refused to talk about it. When he was finally released, he learned that his brother, also a fighter for the FSA, had been killed while carrying Bassem’s ID card in his wallet. Because of this Bassem was no longer just a guy with a record, but someone the government had probably registered as an enemy killed in combat. Without a valid ID, it was impossible to pass through the army checkpoints that dotted the entire city. Bassem was already under scrutiny after prison, but now his life would be in greater danger every time he left home.

  Maisam had convinced his friend to leave Syria before he suffered the same fate as his brother. Maisam told Hanaa that Bassem was due to arrive in just a few days.

  Several nights later, Maisam called Hanaa and asked her to prepare a meal. “Today is a holiday,” he proclaimed. “My friend Bassem is here!” Hanaa instructed Doaa to warm up some leftovers and bring them upstairs since Maisam’s wife, Shifaa, was pregnant with twins and needed the help.

  Doaa did as she was told and carefully carried some plates of hot food up a flight of stairs to Maisam and Shifaa’s apartment. Shifaa opened the door and smiled gratefully at Doaa when she saw the plates of food. “Thank you!” she gushed, giving Doaa a quick hug. “And tell your mother thank you. I can barely move, much less cook!” Doaa kissed Shifaa’s cheek, smiled down at her huge belly, then nodded to her cousin Maisam, catching a glimpse of the new visitor.

  The first time Doaa saw Bassem, she was not particularly impressed. Modesty and custom prevented her from looking directly at a strange man. So as she entered the room, she kept her eyes lowered and went about quickly placing the dishes of food on a cloth in the center of the floor where the places were set. Doaa managed to steal a quick look at the young man’s profile and found him unremarkable.

  After a few minutes, she excused herself, telling Maisam and Shifaa that she had to help Asma and her daughters pack because they were moving to Jordan the next day. Since Asma’s husband was still in Syria, they had decided to settle back in Irbid to be closer to him. Doaa hugged Shifaa, left the apartment, and promptly forgot all about Maisam’s young refugee friend.

  The next morning, Shokri, Doaa, and her sisters helped Asma carry her heavy bags down five flights of stairs and loaded them into a taxi for the four-hour trip to the Alexandria airport.

  Once at the check-in counter, officials looked at Asma’s ticket and noticed that it was one-way, but that she didn’t have a visa. They told her that the only way she could leave would be if she bought a return ticket for an additional $500. Asma burst into tears when she heard this news. She didn’t have that much money. Shokri explained to the airline official that they were poor refugees and that his daughter needed to rejoin her husband. “Let her go and we will pay later, please,” he begged.

  The airline employee softened when he heard this and said, “You can have two days to get the money. I’ll change your ticket, just bring the cash.” Asma texted her husband in Syria, alerting him to what had happened and asking him to wire money, and the family made the long journey back home.

  Back at the apartment, Doaa and each of her sisters grabbed a bag and struggled to haul them up the long flights of stairs to the apartment. Bassem entered the stairwell as Doaa, the last in the group, was lifting and dropping a suitcase one step at a time up the stairs. She was wearing a red veil, one of her favorites, and a long, flowing dress. Her face was flushed from the exertion.

  “Can I help you?” Bassem asked as he reached out to take the suitcase. Seeing his gesture, Doaa held on more tightly to the handle and politely refused. Bassem, struck by the sight of this slight woman determinedly hauling a heavy suitcase up a flight of stairs, tried to insist, but that only made Doaa more adamant that she could do it herself. “I can manage just fine alone,” she said curtly. She wasn’t used to talking to men she didn’t know, but she also took pride in her ability to handle her own affairs and hated the idea of anyone pitying her, especially because she was a girl. She wouldn’t let a man she barely knew think she was weak. She continued to stubbornly drag the suitcase, step by step, up to the apartment.

  Doaa didn’t think much of the episode, but Bassem was left enchanted. He rushed up to Maisam’s apartment, breathing hard from the climb, but also out of excitement, and asked, “What is the name of your beautiful cousin with the red veil?”

  Maisam answered, “That’s Doaa! I told you that the night you arrived when she brought up our food. Or maybe that was Saja? I forget.”

  “Is she engaged?”

  Maisam grinned. “No.” Then thinking twice, he responded, “Neither of them is.”

  “Good. I want her to be mine.” Bassem smiled. “There’s something about her. She has completely captivated me.”

  Maisam shrugged, thinking that his friend had become a hopeless romantic, but glad to see him excited about something. Pursuing Doaa would be a good diversion for him, Maisam thought, as he watched Bassem move around the apartment with a new spring in his step.

  Bassem had been solemn and reticent since he’d arrived in Egypt. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened in prison or of the death of his brother. He seemed to want to keep that experience cloistered away and to move on. If courting Doaa helped him get by, Maisam would help in whatever way he could.

  A few days later, Bassem and Maisam packed up the few belongings in their apartment to move. Maisam and Shifaa had found a different building that had an equally aff
ordable flat for rent on a lower floor, so Shifaa would have an easier time getting around once the twins were born. They invited Bassem to move with them.

  Once they all settled into their new home, they invited the Al Zamel family to come visit for lunch. When Bassem answered the door, Doaa noticed that he had dressed for the occasion, wearing a crisply ironed shirt and dress trousers. His black hair was slicked back with gel, and a pronounced goatee protruded from his trimmed beard—a modern look. He fixed his dark almond eyes on Doaa’s the moment she entered the room, and throughout the meal he kept the conversation animated, making the guests laugh. Doaa kept feeling his gaze return to her, as if seeking her acknowledgment and approval.

  On their walk home, Doaa turned to her sisters, asking, “Why was he looking at us like that?”

  “I think he fancies you!” Saja said, grinning. Thinking that Saja just had an active imagination, Doaa made a face at her little sister.

  The following day, Maisam came by the Al Zamel apartment for his regular afternoon visit. As Doaa made tea in the kitchen, Maisam sauntered in. Leaning against the counter, he grabbed a biscuit from a plate and said, “Hey, Frog,” using his nickname for her, “what do you think of Bassem?”

  Doaa gave him a blank stare. She hadn’t thought much about him at all.

  At Doaa’s silence Maisam exclaimed, “Doaa! Bassem is seriously taken with you. He wants to propose to you!”

  Hearing this, Doaa set down the teapot she was filling and looked at her cousin in shock. “What? So quickly? He’s only seen me twice.” In traditional Arab culture when a couple got engaged, they entered into a formal arrangement that allowed them to openly date and then decide if they were meant for marriage. But Doaa wasn’t interested in any of this.

  “Twice was enough to convince him of his feelings for you.” Maisam began to make a case for his friend. “Listen, Doaa, Bassem’s a hard worker. He was successful back home. He has savings, and here he will be sure to get a good job.”