35

So Near and Far

Rome, December 15-17, 2010

One day a woman named Sahar Khoury called Stella from Beirut. She introduced herself saying she was a distant relative of Salman's. She told Stella that a warrant had been issued in Syria for Salman's arrest. He was wanted, but there was no need to worry. He was being protected, and people were doing their best to get him safely out of the country.

Sahar spoke good Italian, and sounded friendly, nearly motherly. “To assure you that I'm calling on Salman's behalf,” she went on, “he suggested that whenever I give you some information, I also tell you something that only he could possibly know. Any news you may receive from someone else is fabricated and may be controlled by the secret service. Do you understand?”

Stella said she understood.

“With this call, I am to tell you that Salman is well and that he loves you as much as the first time you met in Heidelberg.”

Stella didn't want to cry, but when the woman mentioned Heidelberg, she couldn't hold back her tears.

Sahar Khoury waited patiently. “I'm so sorry,” she kept repeating, “but I've been instructed to keep in touch with you... I'm truly sorry..."

“No, I'm so grateful to you. I've been restless for days and now somehow I feel relieved… now I know that Salman has good friends, and you are one of them. I know he'll come home safe and sound, but..." and Stella began weeping again.

Sahar joined her. She cried over the misery being inflicted on this innocent woman in Rome, just because she had fallen in love with a Syrian man. But she also cried over her own misery at always meeting the wrong men. First Antonio, that hypocrite, for whose sake she had broken with her family, and who had vanished from Beirut one week before their wedding. And then Shadi—they were together for three years before death put an end to her short-lived happiness. He was twenty-nine.

“We'd better stop crying now," Stella said, ashamed of her tears and of infecting the woman on the other end of the line. She asked Sahar for her telephone number and said that she would call in two days and leave a message for Salman. The bus driver would take it to Damascus. However, Sahar would have to translate the letter into Arabic, because taking letters written in a foreign language across the border could get you killed.

~

Stella took two weeks' leave after confidentially telling her boss, the dean of her faculty, what had happened to Salman. He advised her to go to the Italian Foreign Ministry.

On Thursday, she planned to treat Paolo to a meal, so she reserved a quiet table at the New Station. Ricardo, the old waiter, asked whether Salman was already back. Stella replied that she would come with a much younger, and more handsome, man than Salman. Ricardo, who had known Stella for years, laughed. “In that case, you're coming with Paolo."

“That's right," Stella said, and a little breath of happiness fluttered in her heart.

At dinner, Stella tried to explain to her son that Salman had been delayed in Syria. She kept getting into a muddle. There was nothing left of what she had worked out to reassure Paolo, who listened in silence. After beating around the bush for a while, she finally managed to tell Paolo that his father was a wanted man in Damascus.

“Mama,” he said. “Dad is a clever guy, and those assholes in Damascus won't get him. I promise you that. I know my dad,” he said with all the confidence of an underground expert. He stroked her hand soothingly. Stella didn't know what to say. She took his head in her hands and, across the table, kissed his eyes and cheeks.

“I won't tell on you, otherwise my friend Salman will get jealous,” she heard old Ricardo say.

~

That evening, Stella lay awake for a long time. She wrote Salman a letter and told him proudly how brave Paolo was, and how they both missed him. She must have rephrased it at least ten times before it sounded like a harmless love letter. The following day was a Friday and she dictated the letter to Sahar over the telephone. Realizing that it would be much easier if Stella sent the letter to Sahar either by e-mail or in a text message, they both laughed.

Stella put the phone down. For a moment, the sun shone through the window, directly through a break in the clouds above Rome. Before calling Sahar, Stella had thought about some friends—lawyers, journalists—who could help her. But now she knew that she didn't need anyone. She would get through all this on her own. She felt her love for Salman more deeply than ever before.

The cloud cover closed in again, as if the show had come to an end. Stella looked at the clock. It was time to go shopping. Paolo wanted to prepare an Arab dinner with her. She took from the shelf Salman's favorite cookbook of Damascene dishes, La città che profuma di coriandolo—The City that Smells of Coriander.