A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(27)

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.