Fatima (Not Her Real Name)

            Fatima (not her real name) lives on the top floor of a crumbling cinder block and cement apartment building down a narrow street in Jaramana. The outer entrance is two steps up off a street mounded with small hills of crushed gravel and dusty leaking bags of Portland cement. There is a lot of new construction here.

            It’s hard to tell if Fatima’s building is new or old. Like so many apartment blocks in Damascus, the places seems half finished, like the workers got called away or took a break and never came back. In the dank, chilly stairwell, PVC electrical conduit sprouts anemone-like from the unfinished window frames. Cinder block walls on the landing are open topped, bits of trash stuffed in the gaps.

            Outside each apartment door, flocks of shoes herd around torn and stained doormats. The stairway winds upward, the screech and clatter of the street receding floor by floor.

            Fatima answers the door. In black jeans and sweater, her dark hair cut short, she hugs the old woman and they murmur to each other.

            About three feet off the thinly carpeted floor, a ring of smudges on the gray white wall in the entryway evidences children at play. The plaster walls are nicked, gouged, scribbled.

            Bags of rice and beans sag on the small counter in the tiny kitchen. Loaves of bread poke out of a paper sack. On the range top, a greasy teapot gurgles, wisps of steam floating from the spout.        

The bedroom is a heap of clothes and thin mattresses pushed against the walls. The cracked window is frosted white in the corners. A milky yellow mercury vapor streetlight bleeds into the room. There are no toys.

            The single fluorescent tube screwed high on the wall casts a sickly green glow over the common room. A refrigerator hums in a corner. A rust flecked electric heater with a single glowing element is the only heat.

            Sweet tea is brought out in small glasses. A plate of sugar cookies is passed around. Sitting in a plain chair, hands in her lap, Fatima looks only at the floor. Her fingers lace and unlace, skin raw, nails bitten to the quick.

            Jet-black hair spiking from his head, the boy, her son, peaks around the corner, his nose red rimmed from the sniffles. He sprints across the cold floor and clutches his mother’s knees. Her hands move to his shoulders, then his head. He looks up at her.

            Across the room, the older woman fidgets in the spongy orange upholstered chair. Her purse is perched on her knees. Behind her gold-framed glasses, her eyes dart around the room, moving from person to person.

            “He shouldn’t hear this,” she says. Fatima pushes the boy away but he springs back to her like attached by an elastic band. He smiles. This is a game. Fatima runs her fingers through his hair and the daughter gets up and gently pulls the boy away and into the other room.

            Fatima looks into the middle distance. Then down again at her ravaged hands.

            She tells her story.