My surprise upon returning to Damascus for the first time, after obtaining the residence permit in Beirut, was like that of a tourist visiting a country for the first time, wishing to collect images and observing people... Who are they? How do they think? How do they live? Beirut was the only destination that I headed to when leaving the Syrian hell. It is the most European city of the East among all the capitals of the Arab world. Therefore, the differences generated by the subconscious mind were huge and uncontrollable, first of which was the absence of gunfire and bomb blasts and ending with a bustling nightlife.
The striking difference that the recently arrived Syrian notes is not the reduced or inexistent chances of being killed by a shell or an explosion, or enjoying a walk on the sidewalk of a safe country. After all, this has been internally programmed in Syrians to the point where it has become natural. The difference was in the essence of people who have not experienced «even if for a long time» a civil or world war such as the one in Syria. I would look at them as a different human species; I would actually look at myself among them as a different human species. I would take refuge in silence and smiles – «my alternative passport». The same feeling came over me when I returned to Damascus despite the short period I had spent in Beirut initially (15 days). But they were enough to make me feel that I was in Damascus in a complex human combination: the Syrians had cautious looks, filled with confusion. Despite the skill of people in inventing happy times by going out to restaurants or attending occasions, it was clear how feigned and unreal they were in the country of death par excellence.
In this place too these images have their own details, life, people and secrets... It too is the life of humans in flesh and blood... I wanted to come closer to the people in the street... Hear their conversations... Their tones of voice... I wanted to approach the lives of others with the conscience of a tourist.
I set out from the Charles Helou Station in Beirut. The station was neglected and miserable, and the services very poor. The ethics of the drivers are guided by financial gain and boredom resulting from long waits (which could be as long as 24 or even 48 hours) until their turn comes, organized by a man responsible for arranging trips to Damascus. In addition, taxi drivers have to pay to the station administration an estimated sum of LBP 20,000 for their three or four passengers. As a result, they treat customers commercially because they know that they are merely occasional customers, and not permanent ones. Sometimes some drivers ask for a certain sum of money from the passengers to facilitate and speed up their trip, such as paying one of the brokers to speed up getting your papers stamped at the border crossing, etc.
The driver that I chose as soon as I arrived from among the hawking of scores said that the wage was acceptable before 2011 as the station was teeming with Syrian and Lebanese passengers and other nationalities going and coming from Damascus, whereas after the breakout of the war the figure went down by around 80 percent from its former activity and is limited to Syrians with a very small number of Lebanese. The Lebanese used to go on an almost weekly basis to shop in Syria where the quality and prices of goods were better than those of Lebanon, and especially to the Al-Hamidiyah Souq. According a Lebanese friend of mine, this station always reminds her of the aroma of thyme and Aleppo soap that cars smell of on their way back from a trip to Damascus, not to mention the religious visits to shrines, mosques and churches like the Sayiddah Zaynab Shrine, Sayiddah Raqiyyah Shrine and the Umayyad Mosque.
The car took off and there were four of us – a lady and two guys. One of them was a painter who was returning to his country after five years of being away to avoid military service. He had rented a studio in Beirut and saved a sum of USD 8,000 (the equivalence of a Syrian employee’s average salary of 16 years) to pay as a fee to the army for exemption and be able to see his family. The lady was going to Damascus to get a bride for her twenty-year-old son. «I want to marry him off and put my mind at ease. Young people get lost in Beirut and lose their minds.» This was her response when I asked her surprised: «Isn’t it early for him to marry?»
The third passenger kept silent throughout the whole trip, looking watchful. He looked like a Syrian menial worker in Beirut, just like thousands like him.
We arrived at the Lebanese border crossing and as usual the queue was long. There were only two windows out of ten to give an exit stamp. But this paled in comparison to the queue of those coming into Lebanon. There were many currency exchanges, coffee vans, brokers and many others. There were those who break the law or get their entry ticket stamped with an entry ban because of overstaying their allowed period and the offender paid USD 200.
We crossed the Lebanese border and the tension was clear on the face of the young artist as we approached the Syrian border for fear of a mistake in his paperwork or even a change in the laws regarding those who may pay a fee to be exempt from service, and being forcefully conscripted. We were waiting for the driver to come back from the Syrian room for ID checks with the young man perplexed and fearful until the driver returned and gave us our IDs back. And we left the border in the direction of the plain... before descending from Mount Qasioun to Damascus again... A descent similar to taking a plunge and drowning in the love for this elderly city that sleeps reassured of the love of all its victims for it.
Those who have not lived in a city during war will never know it... The places are no longer as they used to be... Bread, stone and violets have to be returned to the love of its noble silence; cement screens fill the place, rifles and angry faces passing by quickly in cold and in heat. An old pulse returns to you. There are beautiful women in neighborhoods and happy people, soldiers carrying their Russian rifles around corners, and posters of martyrs fill the streets.
The next day I went to the old Al-Buzuriyah Souq and got Aleppo soap and thyme for my friend as an attempt to bring a whiff of Damascus to its sister Beirut. For cities too have nostalgia nagging at their memories. I thought that I hold too the old scent of Beirut to Damascus. The scent of oranges and orange blossoms... The smell of the sea and the songs of porters... faraway... very... very faraway... from the smell of lead bullets and garbage.
