So it was in the morning that day that I started hearing television. I couldn’t make out the words. It was local soap operas and old films, it was not my concern at all.
Then, they blasted the volume. Chants from the other set of cells, where I spent my first nights, erupted again “God, Syria, Bashar that’s it!” and “We sacrifice for you Bashar”
So now I am all alone in this cell. They know I am not Syrian, but when the guard shouted how he could not hear all the prisoners chanting for Bashar, everyone took it to another level. Except me. I’m not Syrian. Besides being insincere, I couldn’t get myself to chant for Bashar. But there was always fear of retaliation for being a traitor, or was it a spy. It often gets confusing in there, even for them I’m sure.
As the chants subsided, you could hear Bashar go off. I wasn’t quite understanding everything, but it didn’t seem at the time that it was a particularly interesting speech. What a dictator should do if he had any respect for Machiavelli’s Dictator-for-Dummies. Once in a while, you could hear the audience applaud, so the whole facility would also clap. It started bugging me, I wanted to hear what the guy had to say.
I remember the part of talk about US and Israel, crazy how I didn’t tie any of that talk to my specific situation. Again, I didn’t think that video would be released right away.
Anyway, once he was done, everything went back to normal. No television. No chanting. Dinner was served with the usual scheduled restroom tour.
After dinner that night, I was called upon once again. Blindfolded just like every other time, I got up with my shoes on. But still wanting to play the part and hurrying like an abused little pet, tail low. I walk into the office and the man started yelling immediately, wanted to know who I worked for. I knew they mean some intelligence agency, but I also knew they were sure I wasn’t a spy. So i would answer that I worked for Petrographics and hope it would frustrate them, and I would play stupid.
But this guy was telling me that I was taking him for a ride, Basta3batt walla bastahbil and that hes not going to take it. I told him “Sir, you guys are the Mokhabarat. I can’t try to play stupid with you, you guys already know everything and if I lie, you will know.” And of coruse I would follow this up with extreme gestures to display my fear, shaking maybe a little bit too much.
This session wasn’t too ugly, I was soon on my way out back to my cell. The only thing i could think of on way back to cell was that I was successful in not getting my feet hit again. And this made me proud that I avoided more of the falaka beating.
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