Chapter V: The leader’s favor

The responsibility falls on the other in the state of the executioner, and the entire family is responsible for atoning for the father’s guilt.

-The fact that we did not imprison you along with him, your kid, and the rest of your family is something for which you should be really thankful, woman.

This is how the officer responded to her.

A year after his arrest, she went to the responsible officer in the Air Force Intelligence branch in the city of Latakia, not to inquire about her husband, lest she decide to join him, but rather to make a plea for mercy in the hopes that they would take her name off the black list, allowing her to find employment to support her son, the lone individual, or a philanthropist who did not receive a security denial to assist them.

Despite this, she was no longer empty-handed; Following months of research and deliberation among State Security branches, the decision was ultimately made, and the executioner’s justice was carried out. She received the decision in the form of a telegram at the post office.

“To the wife of the traitor, we would like to let you know that we have studied your request, which you submitted to us on April 19, 1981, as a favor from the leader for you and your son and an exceptional honor from him that is not typically given to the families of traitors. However, the leader of the homeland, its protector from colonialism’s lingering effects and its impenetrable fortress in the face of conspiracies and homeland thieves, may God prolong his life. Following your husband’s betrayal earlier in the year 1980 AD, he made a decision regarding your confiscated land. It was decided to let you plow it, water it, harvest its crops, and support yourself from its proceeds, while prohibiting you from selling it or other confiscation of your property until another decree is issued regarding it, and you are left with it.”

The mother, who was sincere by nature and clung to hope, devoted herself to taking care of the boy and the land for the years that followed. Despite her youth, she refused to be married and stayed waiting for him to come back.

They told her not to get attached to the impossible, for it will not return. All those who were arrested in those days entered death cells in Sednaya prison, and none of them returned.

She opted to wait nevertheless, hoping that a miracle or a response to her request from God might occur in the future.

Being deeply devoted to religion, she made sure to raise Walid in accordance with the amount of religious instruction permissible in the dictator’s nation. She made the most of the permitted amount of time, which was hardly enough to learn enough of the fundamental religious principles, the honorable hadith of the Prophet, and some passages from the Holy Qur’an.

She repeatedly reminded him, “You don’t need many books since you already have everything you need. Gabriel gave the Messenger of God, Muhammad, this Qur’an, and you will invariably find what you require.”

The only thing she worries about is that the naturally disobedient boy will do something at school that will raise questions about him, like not applauding for the leader or singing the morning hymn of submission to the ruling party, or even forgetting a few of his words. This would put her in the awkward position of being accused of neglecting her educational duties and her patriotic obligations to teach the boy the values of the homeland and the laws of citizenship, which causes the leader to withdraw the special dignity, to find herself and her son on the street homeless, and perhaps more than this.

She made sure to constantly remind him with chants of all he needed to know in order to survive in the dictator’s nation.

She scolded him and advised him not to discuss his father in front of anybody, whether they were friends or foes, students or teachers, since the walls in our nation have ears to hear and hands write security reports, whenever he inquired about his father.

-A boy like you should refrain from bringing up anything that irritates the leader, his sect, or his entourage given the history of disobedience and rebellion that your father has shown.

Walid grew up and used to sit by himself in their field beneath the contentious mulberry tree as he contemplated his father’s fate and his guilt while gazing up at the fruits of the tree above him and wondering, “Why the old man forbade me from eating them?”

He quickly realized why, as peach and mulberry trees aren’t as common in the Kurdish mountains where they grow, which are more well known for their apple trees. Although he is allowed to eat the berries of any other tree, their area, unlike all the lands around it, has some of them. For a curious and disobedient youngster like him, any forbidden item is enticing.

He still lacked bravery, though, and whenever the old man caught him sitting under the tree, he would gaze at him and tell him not to think or dared to reach out for one of its fruits.

Furthermore, he pondered about things he shouldn’t have been thinking about, much as feeling empty and alone causes one to focus on the minute details of everything.

He imagined, for instance, a nation without a death penalty, in which every child has a father and every father cultivates and harvests his own land. When a father returns home each evening to find his children waiting for him, he wraps them in a warm blanket and gives them a hug, and the children go to sleep feeling secure in the knowledge that tomorrow will be at least as good as today.

The school bell rung, signaling the end of the school day.

He went out with two of his friends.

On the way home, a street vendor sells peaches, berries and other fruits.

Before the winter, when the season of apples and its harvest season will arrive, farmers begin to gather the fruits of some seasonal fruit trees.

Come on, peaches, I’ll get you something to eat on the way back, one of them offered.

You buy? the other retorted with mockery. When we get there, I’ll make you pick as many peaches as you want from the large peach tree that’s in our vineyard.

Then let’s go buy some berries, he said.

Walid interjected, asking, “What’s wrong with you?” with the youthful eagerness of a child. Do you purchase any berries while you are here with me? Do you not understand that this is the thing that makes our land famous?

Only the two boys climbed the disputed tree in the vineyard, while the third, the rebellious host, did not kept them from doing so by something of pride, magnanimity, and the manhood of a child who had barely reached his tenth year.

-Walid, why didn’t you take them to a different tree?

While he was resting on her lap to treat the wounds the old guy had left on his back, the mother asked him

-He said, “I assumed he wouldn’t be furious if they didn’t climb that branch, mother,” with the naivety of a child.

-And did they?

-no

-Even if they did not, you should have prevented them from the beginning, for in our vineyard there are many trees, leave the old man’s tree alone.

The boy fell silent, as soon as he heard her call it the old man’s tree….

He didn’t want to upset her, or provoke her.

He chanted silently the national anthem, “Together forever, Hafez al-Assad.”

He then fell into a deep sleep