Under The Pomegranate Tree

"Mazen? .. What do you intend to do, Right after you finish your military service?" Mousa asked Mazen After a little silence , they were already in their military beds. Mazen released stronger snores than he normally does at night, it took him less than a minute to fall into a coma. Since the days of the thunderbolt training period Mousa had envied him, about the fact that nothing affected his superior ability to sleep even on troubled days.

He realized that he was talking to himself then: “What will he do though? He will indeed return to be a pigeon breeder, this guy does not dream. I do, I will definitely be happy to leave everything behind, my uncles in the Emirates will send me a visa, yes, on my next vacation I will urge my mother to ask them .. She will not let me down, and they definitely won't let her down. I'm not staying anymore in this shit country! When is my next leave? Gosh! It is at the end of next month .. "

For a moment he had the idea of running away at night again, he touched his shaved head, looked at his pink, swollen feet and immediately changed his mind. Then he remembered that his grandfather was dying, his death was something that would certainly speed up his leave. The grandfather Alzheimer's has reached a level that pushed him to walk 40 kilometers, on a two-days journey from Aleppo, where his son was caring for him, to his hometown on the Turkish border, nothing remained in the old man's memory except that barren road leading to there. He walked barefoot to his village. There, they laid him in his old home, on a cold, dusty mattress, and since then he has been delirious and his health going from bad to worse, his sons and their sons are flocking there, but Mousa remains in his place to guard the night.

His grandfather was a true tyrant in his youth, (although he was nothing but a worker in the cotton harvest) to the point that he inadvertently killed his first wife - Musa's grandmother - in a moment of anger, right after a brief argument. And with a lightning blow with a stone ashtray, which was as deadly as a hammer, she was led to the grave after a coma for a few days. Everyone kept that secret, of course. His sons from his second wife vehemently refuted this story, asserting that it was the meninges that finished her within a week.

Mousa’s dark brown grandmother with long copper hair, just descriptions.. without even a picture, that is all he knew about her, and that is not much less than what his father knows. Who was in his third year when she passed away. And barely sixteen when he fled home heading to the capital to join the regular army, he was freed from his father's authority, once and for all, so he could start building his own.

When it comes to getting employed, youngsters from the countryside had no choice but to throw themselves into the arms of the military, there was no institution that takes citizens without education or qualifications except it. Receiving young, resilient bodies, and minds like white notebooks, ready to be underlined with all that cruelty, that was basically all what they were looking for. His father will spend thirty-three years in this midst, during which he will participate - on board of a T-62 tank - in bloody wars, some of which were really dirty, without exceeding the rank of Warrant Officer. Of course, that did not deter him from acting like a first class general, especially upon his return home. This time it was Mousa who longed to break free of his authority, once and for all.

He parked his military car next to the house, in the eyes of many people, only the bad authoritarians drove that Land Rover. But even more, this one was driven by a big and strict figure, wearing a terrifying military uniform and shiny black boots, everyone had broken down their eyes when his reddish wolf-pupil eyes looked around. They were very afraid of him. How are they not when they are aware of the Kalashnikov and the ammunition in his locker at home?

A royal breakfast Abu Mousa used to have under the pomegranate tree, yogurt, cheese, eggs, thyme and oil from the most fertile hills of Idlib, eats calmly, smokes a cigarette or two with a cup of tea, then rises up and rearranged what slipped from his pants, sucking his 50 years old paunch. That every distinguished Warrant Officer should have, then he would decorate his waist with his own pistol. He gets completed, and the fruits of the pomegranate hang around him, for him, and for all his brutality and charm.

Everyone wooed Abu Mousa, in order to avoid his potential threat in general, and in particular to seek his help, as he knew a wide network of corrupt employees in various places working for the state, especially his colleagues in the recruitment division. In circles such as these, nothing is impossible, passing a few thousand liras capable of changing the sorting path of soldiers to any military base.

Many of his relatives and acquaintances had a five-star compulsory service in the Fifth Armored Division , where he headed the accounting department there. He got this sensitive vacancy in his last years of service. During that era - marked by a stifling international blockade - his refrigerator at home was filled with valuable nourishments, such as bananas and canned foods meant to feed soldiers during war.

This lasted only for a few years, after which Abu Mousa employment was ended, along with a group of officers from the narrow circle surrounding the division commander, after he was promoted to take on administrative duties at the Army Chief Command staff. The team he will head there is very loyal, appointed by the top leadership, stable and unchangeable.

He handed over the land rover, the pistol and the kalashnikov that he was proud that he carried with him in all his wars, and bought with all the money he collected in an eventful career, a small taxi that small earners usually ride to earn a living, and that old wolf became a taxi driver that roams the streets at night when some humidity replaced the heat of the daylight, while he was driving slowly, he would listen to the icons of Iraqi music.

After the early retirement, he could discover the night that he was deprived of for a long time, to touch the face of the capital, which rural soldiers inhabitants like himself to only be considered as parasites by the conservative damascenes, even if they did for decades. To wander around the Umayyad Square, after the traffic slows down in the sleepless city. To drive other roaming beings after midnight: informants, Nightclubs goers, Gulfy tourists accompanied by minor prostitutes, and even those who goes to the mosque for morning pray, and many others that are no less contradictory and strange, to exchange with them in the spaciousness of the night, conversations about the vague situation, each according to his specialization.

When he returned home after work, he was no longer telling epic stories about wars, but rather the adventures of a taxi driver, those were hard-to-believe stories from a man about whom the lie was never known. They were more extreme and funy, wars of another kind. As for the stories of wars that his family kept about him and his heroic legacy, now those stories were to be told to his clients.

This legacy was useless when the moment came for Mousa to be taken to the military service, there was no longer a paradise for soldiers called the “Fifth Armored Division”, no old acquaintances left around his Father, or enough money needed to bribe them. There was just that yellow taxi, with which he drove him to Hanano barrack in Aleppo, where the call up soldiers were being collected. The taxi was parked near the gate, meters behind him, while he was saying goodbye to Mousa. In that scene, Abu Mousa appeared to his son, for the first time, as a mere industrious civilian, unable to harm or benefit anyone as he had once been.

He gave him 600 lira, that was the bulk of what he earned in the last two days. “son..” called Mousa after he walked a few steps, gave him his pack of cigarettes, “I know that you smoke… you can start smoking in front of me from now on, you have become a man, did you hear what i said son? Be a real man! may God be with you. I will try to get you a leave soon” These rare moments, full of fragility and tenderness. They do not usually come from a rough ex warrior like Abu Mousa, but he knew very well that his son was on his way to see the true face of the state, a face he knows extremely well.

A deferred spark of emotion flashed ever since, igniting his heart with timid warmth and a rudimentary sense of humor. He kept visiting Mousa in all the training centers he was sent to during the holidays, after he was able to obtain only a few short vacations for his son, he used to bring with him some supplies and packs of cigarettes. And hugs him warmly, despite the smell of the jamuka that smelled of him like other soldiers. The smell that reminded him of his youth like no other. He watches him eating what he brought him of food, with a greed of a tiger that was nearly killed from famine, recalling silently in his memory his meals during the ferocity of wars.

After his father got very sick, Abo Mousa drove to Aleppo, to see his face before death took him away. He was grasping the steering wheel, pushing on the pedal, grinding his teeth, sending all the available petrol to the aging engine, the rusty body of the car shakes, and about to disintegrate, the lamps vibrating, their faint light exposing poorly the bad quality highway. As for his mind there was some running memory: he is a barefoot child, his mother sews him a light-colored dress, a long red braid running over her shoulder, his father is a giant with broad shoulders, carrying a mountain of cotton. They are lightning-fast images, and short movements, that seem clearer than the present itself. They will stay with him always. His eyes reddened, he feels the hatred towards his father rushing into his vanes, but finally manages to release it down to the drain, the heavy load vanishes, he looks at his watch, still an hour of travel is ahead of him.