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Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War
by Deborah Campbell
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But the sky had fallen. Within four years a tenth of the population had fled the country. Syria was the only country still letting Iraqis in.
The producer glanced over his shoulder at the bars on the grime-smeared windows of the checkpoint. "We're not actually interested in the refugee story," he confided, lowering his voice. The Syrian authorities, he explained, were eager to show the American public what a fine job they were doing, taking on the civilian burden of an Anglo-American war, so the television network was going along with that. But it wasn't the story the crew had come for. What they were really looking at, he said in a low voice, was how Iraqi terrorists, hiding among the refugees, were using Syria as a base. The refugees themselves probably wouldn't make the news. "We'll shoot B-roll," he said.
The cameraman with the shaved head emerged from the checkpoint. The lavatory, he informed us, was not exactly five-star. We were still clustered in the shade waiting to be allowed to walk over to the immigration building, since the producer had forgotten his passport at the Damascus Four Seasons. Eventually, with the help of a Syrian minder who had been assigned to monitor our activities, we were waved through.
Now we had to pay our respects to the Syrian general in charge. After crossing a dirt field, we were ushered inside the squat immigration building, where he was seated in a dim back office—a fat man behind a fat desk. We sat on chairs around the walls of his office as if waiting for the dentist. The news producer sat next to me, talking about the price of real estate in Washington. Did I know it had gone right through the roof? He counted himself lucky to have bought in when he did.
An assistant entered with a flagon of coffee. On a signal from the general, he poured an espresso-sized cup, passed it to one of us, waited for it to be drained, then refilled the cup and passed it to the next person, going around the room. I was reminded of taking communion in my aunt's church as a child, but the news crew looked awkward, wondering what they might catch and whom they would offend if they turned it down.
The general ran through the numbers of Iraqis coming into Syria. Sixty thousand this month; between a million and a half and two million over the eighteen months since 2006. Damascus—holding out the promise of salvation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR—was swelling with the largest migration the region had ever seen. There was concern that the Iraqis would bring their war along with them. If that happened, it could tear Syria apart.
It reminded me of the Damascus University professor of economics I'd spoken to the week before. He warned of coming radicalization should the war leave Iraqis destitute and without options. If the international community did nothing to alleviate their suffering, he told me, "we should expect instability and international terrorism that will affect not only the region but the developed countries."
"Questions?" the general asked.
We were as silent as schoolchildren awaiting a dismissal bell.
Released at last into the heat and tumult of the border area, I split off from the TV crew. There was only one minder for all of us, a small nervous man named Basil with a moustache too big for his face. The TV crew was more than enough to keep him busy.
I approached a crowd of several hundred Iraqis lining up outside the immigration building. Fathers held babies, fanning them with pink residency applications. Weary toddlers rested their heads on their parents' shoulders. I walked over to a skinny teenager whose black T-shirt had a single word in English across the front: TERMINATION. He was from the southern city of Basra, where he said Shia militias were murdering barbers and shopkeepers who sold ice, since ice cubes and a clean shave did not exist in the time of the Prophet Mohammed.
Excerpted from A Disappearance in Damascus by Deborah Campbell. Copyright © 2017 by Deborah Campbell. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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