An Unsafe Haven. Nada Jarrar Awar
is already showered and dressed.
—Morning, hayati, says Hannah. Sit down and let me pour you some coffee.
Peter looks at Anas but he has a hand over his eyes.
—Is everything all right? Peter asks. Anas, are you OK?
Hannah hands him his coffee and tells him what has happened.
He sits down and waits for his friend to look up. Anas is an extraordinarily handsome man. He has the brooding features characteristic of many Arabs, Peter believes, but in him they are softened by luminous eyes and a palpable quietness of spirit.
—How did she manage to get them out without your permission? Peter eventually asks. Surely they would have stopped her at the airport.
—If anyone did try to stop her, she would’ve paid them to keep quiet, Anas says. Anyway, they’re not too strict about things like that these days. Lots of people who have foreign passports and can afford it are leaving.
—At least we know they’re safe, Hannah interrupts the ensuing silence. Brigitte will get in touch soon, I’m sure.
—Do you have any idea where she might be? Peter persists.
—I’m pretty certain she’ll have gone to Germany to her parents. Still, it depends on whether or not she wants me to find her at this point. She’s got lots of friends to stay with.
Peter senses hesitation in Anas’s voice.
—We can try to find her.
Anas puts his cup down on the bar in front of him.
—I’d rather she got in touch first, he says. I don’t want to rush her. She’s probably confused and very angry with me right now.
—No matter how she feels, says Peter quietly, they are your children, Anas, and you have a right to know where they are.
A moment later, he wonders if this was the right thing to say to a man in such a vulnerable state. Perhaps empathy, rather than rational thinking, is what he needs right now.
Peter looks at Hannah but her expression tells him nothing. He sighs and lifts his cup to his mouth.
There are times when he harbours doubts about his true nature, wonders whether or not being a physician has made him impervious to the pain of others, or if, even with those to whom he is closest, he has developed a studied indifference, a metaphorical second skin that protects him from the dilemmas of compassion. Some of this disconnection, he knows, he brought with him from America and a childhood home where a show of emotions was discouraged. During periods of clarity, he has seen that, in trying hard over the years to adapt to a culture so different from his own, he has lost the ability to appreciate the subtle ups and downs of human relationships, a shortcoming he is reluctant to acknowledge openly but which nonetheless shapes his everyday dealings with others. Once or twice, when he has tried to approach Hannah with his suspicions, the fear that she might confirm them and judge him further for his apparent indifference has stopped him. At times distrustful of his feelings, he has become adept at avoiding them, working too-long hours to pay proper attention to anything else or simply putting on a façade of detachment that leaves him only in sleep.
As the situation in Lebanon has worsened and Hannah’s anxieties continue to increase, he has been close, at times, to admitting a distance even from her, a pulling away from the concentrated passions she harbours, which are a good portion of her essential self. And although he is troubled by Anas’s sadness now, he is inclined to leave the dealing with it to Hannah, for whom extreme emotions are an everyday occurrence.
It is often like this, he thinks, my true self appears to me only in bits and pieces, like flashbacks in a film, incoherent but sharp-edged, revealing as much as they manage to hide from me. That surely is why I am bewildered at times like these.
He looks over at his wife again before continuing.
—Look, Anas, I have a friend who is with the International Red Cross here. Maysoun is Iraqi and works mostly with refugees from there, but I’m sure she can find out for us. She told me they have a register of people fleeing war. She’d be able to trace anyone who has left Syria. What do you think?
—I don’t suppose it would do any harm to find out, Hannah says, looking at Anas. Let Peter do this and then we can figure out where to go from there.
Anas smiles.
—You are good friends, he says. Once the exhibition opens and I can go back to Damascus, I’ll be able to think more clearly and decide what to do …
—Wait a minute, Peter interrupts him. You don’t have a German passport, do you?
Anas shakes his head.
—I’m pretty sure the embassy in Damascus will have closed down. If you decide you want to go to Germany to find your family, you’ll have to get your visa from the embassy here.
—He’s right, says Hannah. You can’t possibly think of going in and out of Syria just yet. Besides, there have been battles going on very near Damascus the last few days and it’s dangerous. Stay on with us for a while longer, until we can work out what to do.
Anas hangs his head. Peter looks on as Hannah puts her arms around him and, for a brief moment, is conscious of the rhythmic beating of his own heart.
When Anas goes inside to get ready to leave for the gallery, Peter turns to Hannah.
—I can’t believe Brigitte would leave like that without telling Anas about it, he says.
—Maybe she was worried he’d use the children as an excuse and prevent her from leaving. He could have contacted the authorities and had them stopped at the airport. She wouldn’t have been allowed to take the children away without his consent.
—I can understand her wanting to save the children from the war, Hannah. But she should have found a way to let him know she was planning to escape. She could even have come here with the children instead of disappearing like that.
He grabs his jacket and starts for the front door.
—By the way – he turns to ask her – are you visiting another refugee encampment for your articles today?
Hannah shakes her head.
—I can’t do any work after what has happened. Anas is absolutely devastated and I need to be with him.
—I realize he’s upset. But nothing we do at this point is going to make him feel better.
She looks at him with what seems like reproach.
—He can’t be left to deal with this on his own, Peter.
—Anas is going to feel upset no matter what we try to do. He has to cope with the situation in his own way and he’s aware we’re here to help whenever he needs it.
—Whatever you might think, I will not leave him today. I have to make sure he’s OK. Then, frowning, she continues quietly: You know, there are times when we seem so different, you and I.
Before he can be alarmed by what she has said, he decides to make a joke of it.
—Just as well we are and I can help tone down your angst, he says.
But she only turns away.
From the beautiful residential neighbourhood of Abou Roummaneh in Damascus, Anas drives his children to school every morning, stopping the car to let them safely out, then placing their bags on their backs and watching them walk away, his heart leaving with them, the tug of separation lingering as he drives on to his studio on the outskirts of the city, as he sets to work and anticipates release from the everyday, as he dreams.
With Marwan and Rana, he has tried to cultivate a quietness that had been