As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
Zoulfa Katouh
To Hayao Miyazaki, who founded my imagination
To Ali Al-Tantawi, who revolutionized my imagination
And to all the Syrians who loved, lost, lived, and died for Syria.
We will come back home one day.
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Every lemon will bring forth a child and the lemons will never die out
—Nizar Qabbani
THREE SHRIVELED LEMONS AND A PLASTIC BAG OF pita bread that’s more dry than moldy sit next to one another.
That’s all this supermarket has to offer.
I stare with tired eyes before picking them up, my bones aching with every movement. I stroll around the dusty, empty aisles once more, hoping maybe I missed something. But all I’m met with is a strong sense of nostalgia. The days when my brother and I would rush into this supermarket after school and fill our arms with bags of chips and gummy bears. This makes me think of Mama and the way she would shake her head, trying not to smile at her red-faced, starry-eyed children trying their best to hide the spoils of war in their backpacks. She’d brush our hair—
I shake my head.
Stop.
When the aisles prove to be truly empty, I trudge to the counter to pay for the lemons and bread with Baba’s savings. From whatever he was able to withdraw before that fateful day. The owner, a bald old man in his sixties, gives me a sympathetic smile before returning my change.
Outside the supermarket a desolate picture greets me. I don’t recoil, used to the horror, but it amplifies the anguish in my heart.
Cracked road, the asphalt reduced to rubble. Gray buildings hollowed and decaying as the elements try to finish what the military’s bombs started. Utter and absolute destruction.
The sun has been slowly melting away the remains of winter, but the cold is still here. Spring, the symbol of new life, does not extend to worn-out Syria. Least of all my city, Homs. Misery reigns strong in the dead, heavy branches and rubble, thwarted only by the hope in people’s hearts.
The sun hangs low in the sky, beginning the process of bidding us farewell, the colors slowly changing from orange to a heavy blue.
I murmur, “Daisies. Daisies. Daisies. Sweet-smelling daisies.”
Several men stand outside the supermarket, their faces gaunt and marked with malnourishment but their eyes sparkling with light. When I pass by, I hear bits of their conversation, but I don’t linger. I know what they’re talking about. It’s what everyone has been talking about for the past nine months.
I walk quickly, not wanting to listen. I know that the military siege inflicted on us is a death sentence. That our food supplies are diminishing and we’re starving. I know the hospital is about to reach a point any day now at which medications will become a myth. I know this because I performed surgeries without anesthesia today: People are dying from hemorrhages and infections and there’s no way for me to help them. And I know we’ll all succumb to a fate worse than death if the Free Syrian Army isn’t able to stop the military’s advances on Old Homs.
As I head home, the breeze turns cold and I pull my hijab tight around my neck. I’m acutely aware of the dried spots of blood that have managed to creep under my lab coat’s sleeves. For every life I can’t save during my shift, one more drop of blood becomes a part of me. No matter how many times I wash my hands, our martyrs’ blood seeps beneath my skin, into my cells. By now it’s probably encoded in my DNA.
And today, the echo of the oscillating saw from the amputation Dr. Ziad made me stand in for is stuck in my mind on a loop.
For seventeen years, Homs raised me and cultivated my dreams: Graduate from university with a high GPA, secure a great position at the Zaytouna Hospital as their pharmacist, and finally be able to travel outside of Syria and see the world.
But only one of those dreams has come true. And not in the way I thought it would.
A year ago, after the Arab Spring sparked across the region, Syria grabbed the hope awakening in the masses and called for freedom. The dictatorship responded by unleashing hell.
With the military deliberately targeting doctors, they became as scarce as laughter. But even without doctors, the bombs didn’t stop, and with the Zaytouna Hospital standing on its last legs, they needed every helping hand they could get. Even the custodial staff were promoted to nurses. Having spent one year at pharmacy school, I was the equivalent of a seasoned doctor, and after their last pharmacist was buried under the rubble of his home, there was no other choice.
It didn’t matter that I was eighteen years old. It didn’t matter that my medical experience was confined to the words in my textbooks. All of that was remedied as the first body was laid out before me to be stitched up. Death is an excellent teacher.
In the last six months, I have participated in more surgeries than I can count and closed more eyes than I ever thought I would.
This wasn’t supposed to be my life.
The rest of the way back home reminds me of the black-and-white pictures my history textbooks showed of Germany and London after World War II. Flattened homes spilling their interior wood and concrete like a perforated intestine. The smell of trees burned to ash.
The cold air bites through my lab coat’s worn-out material, and the harsh touch of it makes me shiver. I murmur, “Feverfew. They look like daisies. Treats fevers and arthritis. Feverfew. Feverfew. Feverfew.”