The Clothesline Swing. Ahmad Danny Ramadan
to jump in each one of them. The smell of jasmine around your old Damascene home was tickling your senses with sweet promises. The fountain in nearby Abaseen Square was still pouring water, and the yellow taxi cars—their paint cracking under the spring sun and giving layers of metal skin to the wind—roamed around it. The smell of the apple blossoms coming from Ghouta rode on the breeze and filled the hills of Damascus with an inviting fresh aroma. The giant Umayyad Sword statue in the middle of the city shone with the colours of the rainbow under the warm late-spring sun.
That morning, when your sense of escapade peaked, and you wanted to accomplish more on your own, you convinced your sister. “We need to go visit our grandfather’s grave,” you told her.
What made this enter your mind? You’re not sure. You were too young to give reasons for things you wanted to do. I would say that you wanted to relive the experience of the Ramadan feast. During the last Ramadan, your father took you in the early morning to the graveyard near your house, to visit your grandfather. The tradition of visiting the dead, wishing them a happy feast, is the gloomy opening to a long day of treats and cash gifts, followed by eating too many sweets and singing racist songs on a swing.
“Ali will never die, for his daughters are black and ugly like monkeys.” We sang those songs for the Ramadan feast, way before feasts forgot to visit Syria, unaware of how inappropriate they were.
You and your younger sister walked hand in hand in what you assumed was the right direction. When I heard the story for the first time, I knew you would get lost; you have a horrible sense of direction. You walked down the covered street of Medhat Basha, your nose stuffed with the smells of exotic spices from all the shops on both sides. Then you took a left toward Qanawat Street. Back then, the old men used to sit around and drink black tea while playing tawlieh; they swore at each other over a wrong turn of the dice, and each pulled puffs from his beloved arjileh. Each one of them brought his own, proud of the beautiful design of the arjileh he had bought. You and your sister walked by them, unaware that those old men would soon be replaced by thrift shops opening on the corner of every street. The thrift shop owners would spend their days shouting back and forth with old women buying cheap clothes for their sons and daughters, bickering over five Syrian pounds’ difference between the price she wants to pay and the money he wants to make. Those thrift shop owners were similarly unaware that soon they would be replaced by people protesting against the Syrian regime, carrying green flags and screaming their lungs out for freedom. The protesters were equally unaware that they would be replaced by soldiers carrying guns and swords, shooting people on sight.
Deep in the old streets of Damascus you walked; the streets were painted with the sweet light of early morning sun. Your sister shivered a little, but you have always been resilient to cold. The cold weather waved within your soul as you walked down that road. It brought fresh bursts of energy within you. You felt alive and all-knowing, like a god on his throne. Your smile broke into a grin when you saw the entrance to the old graveyard. It was the doorway into the forbidden, the far-away and the special. As you took your first step into the graveyard, you wondered for a second if someone would ask you and your sister if you should be there. Someone would tell you, “But it’s not the Ramadan feast yet, son,” and send you back to your parents.
No one stopped you as you entered the graveyard.
In the morning, these places lose their scare factor; they become quiet calm places, where the distant noise of cars passing feels muted. You walked on the right side of the graves, saying the Islamic salute to each one of them, like your father taught you. The tombstones were embedded with Quranic phrases and names of the bodies resting underneath. The tombstones in Damascus are always formal: they write your first and last names, the name of your father and the date of your death, followed by religious prayers. It feels impersonal and lonely.
But then comes Eid and people pour into the graveyards. They carry flowers and myrtles, and they gather around their loved ones’ tombstones. They tell the dead stories, follow up on the news of their loved ones, pray for them and read passages from the Quran. Fathers tell their sons stories about their dead grandfathers and exaggerate the details to fill the imaginations of the children with a glorious past.
“My grandfather had four wives,” your father told you upon your first visit to the graveyard, as you stood there listening intently. “He used to own a little piece of land on the outskirts of Ghouta, near Mashrou Dummar. He built a house over there, surrounded by gardens. He planted two trees of each fruit he loved so they could mate and reproduce.”
“He called it Noah’s Garden,” your father said, amused; in the background you heard the distant prayer of a crying woman.
Your great-grandfather’s wives used to gather in that garden, where their husband had built a pool. They loved each other, your father attested, and were close to each other like sisters. “They used to swim in the pool, all four of them surrounding my grandfather, bringing cherries, apples and figs for him to eat while he rested in the cool water, escaping the heat of August.” Your father explained that even while swimming in the water, his grandfather never took his white hat off. Your father assumed that he kept it to hide his receding hairline.
You realized, a bit too late, that you were drifting within your memories of your father’s stories and had lost your way in the graveyard as you walked aimlessly with your sister. Fear slipped into your eyes and your hand tightened upon your sister’s. Suddenly you freaked out. You realized that you had taken too big of a bite from the world; you were suffocating with it.
Your sister saw your tears and automatically she produced some of her own. You started running around, trying to find an exit. Instead of comforting her, you scanned your surroundings, looking for someone else to deal with her. You knew nothing of how to care for her, and instantly thought of your mother, who was always there to carry your sister on her lap and bounce her until she calmed down. By then your sister was crying loudly. Her weeping was heard across the graveyard. The tombstones were towering over you both. You saw them as towers denying your view of others who might come to your rescue while she imagined them as monsters that would devour her. The thought drove her to a hysterical cry.
Suddenly an old man appeared behind one of the tombstones; he was wearing a white shirt and a little white hat. You approached him, and something familiar about his long face, big white moustache and black-framed reading glasses made you feel comfortable and safe around him.
“Uncle, please tell me, where is al-Bezorieh?” you asked him, and he smiled.
“It’s far. It’s far away.”
Your little hearts dropped to the ground, but while your sister started to cry out loud, you remained calm, if only on the outside. “We want to go to school, Uncle, take us to school, please.”
The man walked and gestured for you to follow him; among the graves he peacefully floated, touching each one, saying al-salamualykum to all of them. He spoke to them as if they were old friends, long missed. You both followed him, trusting his knowledge. In seconds, you found yourselves at the doors of the graveyard. “You go down this road,” he pointed with his finger, shaky and bony, “and you will find yourselves in familiar places.”
Late to school, you started to run, but you gave a final look behind your back and the old man was nowhere to be found.
“I miss Damascus,” you tell me and I detect your change of mood; I’m losing you to the darkness once more. Death has decided to join us again, as we roam the house in a rhythmic act of final moments. He helps us turn off the lights and make sure the fire of the stove is not left aflame. You and I continue our conversations as we dance that early evening dance. I pass by the yellow carpet, and you turn off the lanterns in the seating area. I pass by the kitchen, while you take your medicines in the bathroom. The dogs, old like us, attempt to follow us at first, then sit down in a corner, pile up and sleep.
“You miss your Damascus; I have been telling you that it’s gone for years now.” I remember having this same conversation three weeks ago. “The Damascus you know, where grandfathers