Free Dreams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar Page A

he says with anger.
    Aneesa looks at him and sighs.
    â€˜I’ll go and get some cushions for us to sit on inside the tent,’ she says. ‘You put it up, Bassam, and I’ll be right back.’
    She skips as she moves, her body light and delicate. For a moment he imagines she might float away from him and up into the pine trees.
    Bassam eventually calls his father to help him pitch the tent, so that when Aneesa comes back, her arms full of cushions, it is up, its two flap doors pulled back to invite them in. She claps her hands and the cushions fall on the ground.
    â€˜I knew you could do it, Bassam,’ she squeals with delight. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, baba ?’
    He is not sure why he did not confide in her about his political activities. It was partly because he feared for her safety but there was something else also. Perhaps, Bassam admits to himself, I wanted to do something that she would not be a part of; something that would give me the sense of being free and independent.
    Bassam hangs his head and for the first time since his capture feels fear, not just for himself but for everyone, his mother and his sister, for these sorry men who are as mindless as the wretched war they insist on making.
    He is being held with about a dozen other men in an old building near the city sports centre. There are armed militiamen at the entrance to the building and in the hallway outside the room where the prisoners are kept. The room is large but has no windows and a group of men are sitting on cushions on the floor. The air is heavy with smoke and someone lights a cigarette when Bassam walksin. He stands there for a moment looking for a familiar face when one of the men motions to him to come and share his cushion.
    â€˜The floor is cold,’ says the man quietly, though he does not smile. ‘You’ll be better off here.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    Bassam leans his back against a wall and looks around. Some of the prisoners seem to have been here for several days. They look bedraggled and sleepy.
    â€˜They brought me in yesterday and still haven’t told me what’s going on,’ the man next to Bassam says with a sigh. ‘I was on my way back home from work and was stopped at a checkpoint. I work down at the port.’
    Bassam nods but does not say anything.
    â€˜What about you? Does your family know what has happened to you?’
    Before Bassam can reply, the door opens and an armed man appears, dragging someone in behind him. The detainee falls on to the floor and moans loudly. Nobody moves until the guard shuts the door again.
    â€˜He’s been badly beaten,’ one of the prisoners says as he leans over the injured man.
    When they lift him, the man moans again. They move him to a corner of the room and put his head on a cushion. Someone puts a jacket over him.
    â€˜Does anyone have any water?’
    One of the men takes a small plastic bottle out of his pocket.
    â€˜I saved this from this morning,’ he says as he hands the bottle over.
    The injured man sips at the water and closes his eyes.
    Bassam’s companion shakes his head.
    â€˜So, does your family have any idea that you’ve been taken?’ he asks again.
    â€˜They came for me at home. Walked up to my front door, greeted my mother and asked me to go with them.’ Bassam shrugs his shoulders. ‘I never thought they’d be as bold as that.’
    â€˜It happens all the time,’ says the man. ‘If they want to get you, believe me, they’ll find you.’
    â€˜Had they been looking for you too?’
    The man shakes his head.
    â€˜I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. The militiaman at the barricade didn’t like the sound of my name.’ He smiles and looks at Bassam. ‘The funny thing is, I’ve been all right all this time, escaped the worst of the bombardments, and now this! What Allah wills is bound to happen. There is nothing we can