5

The Time before Sophia

Homs, 1927-1950

The power of memory... The first twenty or thirty years in Karim's life were overshadowed for a long time by his later experiences in Damascus. To him those early years seemed bathed in a mist of innocence. It was only in December 2010 that his childhood and adolescence returned to him, banishing his later years to the remote recesses of his mind. A certain visitor and a promise made now moved him, to think back to these same beginnings, reflecting and recounting. Not only was his dearest listener, Aida, surprised; he himself was amazed at all he had experienced. And he recognized just how much a single event in all those years had molded him into what he had become.

Karim was the oldest of seven children in the wealthy Asmar family, itself a branch of a powerful Sunni Muslim clan. His father, a rich timber merchant, owned estates on the outskirts of the city of Homs that had been leased for a time to tenants for market gardening. But when the sugar plant opened its gates in 1948, his father took everything back under his own management. His agent now oversaw the planting of sugar beet year after year, and the sugar plant bought up the harvest. Although the big farm was located just outside the gates of the city, none of the children had ever seen it. It was simply a source of money for Karim's father, who remained a city dweller through and through. His father had studied philosophy and briefly taught at a high school in Homs. But the timber trade, which he had run as a sideline while he was a student, became ever more lucrative and ultimately his main profession. Still, he admired France and French philosophers and men of the Enlightenment. At the time, France was the occupying power in Syria, and Karim's father hoped that the French would make Syria into a liberal democratic republic. But Homs, his city, rebelled against the occupiers; many of his relatives took up arms against the French and regarded him as a traitor. After independence several of them were to become nationally known politicians.

Karim's father refused to be intimidated and sent his first three children—Karim, Saliha, and Ismail—to one of the elite Christian schools, until his daughter Saliha ran away with a Christian in 1950, a year after graduating. This came as a shock to their father, who was now jeered at by the rest of the more rural-conservative clan. It was all his fault for sending his children to the infidels for schooling, people said. Other relatives claimed it was a well-deserved divine punishment for being a traitor.

His father immediately took Karim's younger brother Ismail out of the Christian school and enrolled him in a Muslim school, together with the two younger brothers. Fatima, his second daughter, in her last year of elementary school, had to leave school since her father now maintained that the sheikh was right—school learning and books were the ruin of Muslim girls.

From that time on, all laughter deserted the house of Asmar. Karim would long remember his mother's tears and sadness, and how his father tormented her, reproaching her for the “soft" way she had brought up their children. Relatives showed an exaggerated concern for the clan's reputation. All this lay like a leaden weight upon the family, and so Karim took refuge wherever he could, in his school and afterward in cafés, returning home only when he was exhausted.

Since his daughter Saliha had fled, Karim's father had taken to hating Christians and prayed daily at the mosque. His mother and his younger sister now had to wear headscarves, and his father grew a beard. He still wore European suits—but no tie. Although this harmless accessory had originally come from Croatia, it was quite usual for conservative preachers to see it as symbolizing all things Western. Karim knew that his father's piety was all pretense and that the ugly brown prayer mark had simply been painted on his forehead instead of the prayer bump forming naturally as a result of repeatedly pressing it to the ground during prayers. Every morning, his father would touch up the stain. At the time, people would use the juice of green, unripe walnuts. Later they switched to European suntan lotions. This fashion was restricted to men. Karim's mother and sisters, aunts and female neighbors, although they actually prayed more often, never sported a cosmetic prayer bump.

But ritual displays, or even genuine expressions of piety, were not enough for the clan. So Karim's father announced one day, to his relatives' applause, that he would not rest until his honor had been washed clean with the blood of his daughter Saliha. After Friday prayers, he declared triumphantly that his firstborn son Karim be appointed avenger and executioner by the court of honor. This court had consisted of a single judge, Saliha's father.

Karim would never forget the meeting. The walls of the large drawing room seemed to have closed in on everyone present. The room was filled with relatives, friends, the imam of the Great Mosque, two senior army officers, and the Homs chief of police. More than ten people stood outside in the corridor. Tea and cakes were served.

Karim's father stood in the middle of a crowd of expectant faces. Karim felt wretched. A sad family affair had suddenly become a public spectacle.

When Karim's father gave his fiery speech and sentenced his daughter to death, the excitement of relatives and strangers alike peaked in a frightening climax. Shouts and applause resounded throughout the house. Saliha's brothers and sisters stiffened and turned pale at the exultation of the adults, who were then invited to share a celebratory meal.

This all happened in 1950, when Karim was already twenty-three. He had graduated from high school at eighteen, completed a two-year training course to become an elementary school teacher, and started work at a small school on the outskirts of Homs.

His sister's flight had been a major event in his life, but earlier on, something even more important had happened that changed his life forever.

Many years prior to his father's passing sentence, he had fallen head over heels in love with a young Christian girl named Sophia.