In a few hours, they may come and take me. I'm safe until the morning. They already changed me cell several times. Now, I'm with Alma and her little daughter.
Tonight it's better, more peaceful, but I don't find rest. I'm thinking over and over about the events that bring me to jail. Tomorrow, Alma will be released and she promised me to bring you these papers.
I'm so sorry. I wish I sent you a message earlier, but I was choked up by the death of my father. My uncle Joseph told me it was a hidden bomb which exploded close to his shop. My uncle who came to visit my father, was the first to see the corpses in the street. Many wounded also.
I want to tell you my story, for our friendship's sake. But before they are two things you can do to help me : first, contact Abdallah and ask if he can use his key to get me out of this prison and second is highly conjectural, but if you heard about someone named John Long, from the US, this man stole me a book and I do believe he shouldn't leave Syria with it.
My uncle came overwhelmed by horror. He cried and shaked for hours, unable to speak for a long time. Then, he adviced me to quickly leave Damascus with his wife and children. The capital city no longer seemed secure enough for us to stay there.
The day after we left without Joseph as he had some unfinished business.
I wanted so bad to stay at least for the burial of my father, but my uncle convinced me against it : the roads were too dangerous to gather the whole family for funerals, and the corpse was too damaged.
The haste of my departure prevented me to inform you. I was totally destroyed and forgot my phone and lots of stuff.
Until now I still don't realize my loss. Sometimes I have the crazy feeling all that is just a dream or a bad joke, and my father has just been unawake for a long time.
But time is running, let's go back to the facts.
The travel was very difficult, especially near Homs. We stopped many times, to check the road was clear. Fortunately it wasn't Friday.
Once in Aleppo, firstly we visited our cousin to get the keys of the apartment.
She offered me her condolences and told me about a stranger asking for a book my father might have.
- He seemed English. He didn't tell me his name and pretented to know your father. But I never saw him before. He told me he came to check a book written by a poet called Abd Al-hazred. Do you know him ?
I found strange that a customer came in Aleppo instead of Damascus where my father had his shop. But also at that moment it wasn't important. So we took the keys and went to our apartment. There, my aunt asked me to buy some vegetables.
While walking I noticed many men I never saw before, talking with foreign accents, wearing military clothes.
All of a sudden a strong hand gripped my shoulder. It was a woman slightly smaller than me, gazing aggressively. With her I saw a brown-haired man.
She talked but I couldn't understand one thing of the strange sounds she pronounced. I was frightened but didn't dare to run : I was alone and they were two, maybe more.
Then, there was this other voice. A man's voice, which seemed to use the same language as the woman. I turned the head. A few meters from us there was someone else. I couldn't clearly see his face, as he stood in the shadow, but he was blond.
The tone of his voice was calm, almost impassive. I didn't understand one single word, but the woman relaxed and let me free. As suddenly as they appeared the two of them quickly got along, out of sight.
The blond man walked in my direction and came into the light.
He asked :
- Are you Jacob's daughter? I was supposed to meet him in this city.
His intonation was maybe a little mechanical, but he just spoke flawless Arabic.
- Yes, I'm Dinah. My father... Sorry my father just passed away in Damascus, from a bomb attack. How do you know him ? Have we already met ?
- My condolences. No it's the first time we meet each other but you look a lot like Jacob and he showed me a picture of you. I'm John Long, an American customer of your father's. He told me about a rare book. I was just wandering in the streets when I saw you in trouble.
- Thank you so much for your help. But who were these people ? And what did she say ? Her language was strange.
- I don't know them, but they were speaking a Chechen dialect. Kisti I think. From what I understand they were supposed to meet one of them close to this place, but misbelieved the place and the person. I explained them their oversights and pointed them the way to join their meeting point.
- Chechen people ?
- Yes, they are quite numerous these days in the Middle-East. I guess this whole region is going through a lot of disturbances. And it isn't over yet.
- What do you mean ? Do you know something ?
- No, I don't. I came just for the book. By the way sorry to bother you, but would you let me in the secondary shop of your father ? I made all the travel from the US to see that item.
As I was hesitating he added : "don't worry, I just want to have a look, that's all".
It wasn't far from where we were.
Once in the shop I offered John Long some tea. Then, he began to search in the bookcases of the main room.
I looked around me in the antiquities storage. All these antiquities he spent his time looking for. Everything there reminded me about my father. Hard to describe this feeling. As if he was in this room but invisible and nonperceptible. Again I doubted his death. As far my memories go he had always been there for me.
A narrow strip of paper can be seen under the keyboard of the computer. I took it and read : JosephCurwen. Bad secret place, it was my father's password. He used it also on his other computer at Damascus.
The place was so dusty. I was thinking I should clean it, when my visitor stood up with a book in his hand. I'm not sure but between his fingers it was written on the cover "The book of the musician" in Arabic. Mouth wide-opened and eyes exorbitated, my guest didn't seem to believe what he was holding.
- Are you fine ? Is it the book you were looking for ?
- Have you ever heard about cultural linguistics ?
- About what ? No. Never. What is it ?
But John Long answered to my question by an other question : "Can I have some more tea please ?"
At the same moment I went back to grab the tea pot there were gunshots. I ran to the window see what was happening outside. From where I was I couldn't see much except empty streets and a few men running.
I heard some screams, then nothing. Just silence.
I cam back to the main room of the shop, but nobody. The stranger was gone. I searched quickly, but no old book with the same green cover as the one he was holding.
But I'm wasting my time to give you all these details. Morning is impending. Now at any time they can take me.
From that day on, things got worse in Aleppo, districts after districts, fights after fights. Hidden inside our apartment we could do nothing but see this whole disaster and wait.
During the time of the fights our dreams took place in huge, weird and unstable landscapes, where we could hear the piercing sound of the wind and feminine voices, weakened, singing far away a guttural and lugubrious chant in an other language. Sensation of threat in the air like there was an astonishing creature hiding and waiting for an heedless moment to appear and hit.
One morning we realized that all the five of us had the same dream. That time was so frightening we never dare again tell each other our oneiric visions afraid to check the persistence of that phenomenon.
I wished my uncle Joseph was there. He is skilled in dream interpretation.
Our lives were conditioned by the fights between rebels and the national army. We could wait for hours the end of the struggles. The first days of battles the roads going to Aleppo were totally closed. The phone and computer networks and electricity were also cut for several days.
We were trapped !
Then a new life began.
There were the days where nothing worked and the others where it worked for a couple of hours. We had to adapt and learn to take the best advantage of the quiet times with electricity working or else stay peacefully. The prices of food reached extravagant heights. Each time we thought "it can't get worse", the depth of the pit we were falling into grew even more.
First the fear of being hurt, then of being killed, and at last even death seemed to be a desired solution to escape all this madness.
We suffered the violence of bomb shellings, the increase of kidnappings of men, women and children for ransom. At the beginning wealthy families were principally targeted, but with the economy collapse even ordinary people were touched by the abductions. Sometimes people came back after several days having been tortured to make them concede how much they got. Many slipped away for Turkey, the closest border, then Lebanon, Jordan and even further.
We didn't know where to leave, so we stayed.
Street gossips said the situation at Homs was worse, talked about chemical attacks, invisible and smellless gases bringing hallucinations, unconsciousness, convulsions and finally death.
Women were particularly in danger. They had to face the same risks as men, plus the exposition to other violent situations, such as sexual aggression, and the repudiation of their relatives if they had been raped.
Young men involved in hard fights where their friends could die, did not hold back themselves to satisfy their needs.
I don't like to talk about that, but I have to come back to this moment, when I was myself abducted. Everybody think I was abused. It is not true, do not believe them.
It's embarrassing, my memories about this are inconsistent. I remember scary pictures. The face of my kidnapper, neither a fighter, nor a stranger, but the heir of a fortunate family, well-known in Aleppo. Then I remember wake up lying on the floor. To move and see was painful.
Have I dream what follows ?
I see John Long the book opened in front of him, his lips moving but I don't hear a sound. Then shapes... I can't say otherwise or describe them correctly. A mix of scaled tentacles, white flesh shaking like jelly, bat wings and so many other... things. Like the dictator of this country, covered with blood and laughing, his light eyes full of insanity...
Then a crude light filled everything and I woke up here in this prison. Still alive but without my left leg. It had been cut a little above the knee. Now it's better but at the beginning it was just so painful and confusing. Like my leg was still attached to my body.
However this lost is nothing compared to what I can see here. The women are brave and bear treatments I couldn't have imagined.
We are reciting the phone numbers of each of us for the first to leave warn all of our families we are still alive. Yesterday I was lucky Alma's little daughter got some paper to draw. It's the same paper I'm using to write you this letter.
God, please help me, the sun is shining ! I hear them coming. Two days ago they asked me about John Long, told me I'm the only survivor found surrounded by corpses.
I don't know if I will go out of here alive but I still think of you
May you not forget me