Sanctuary Read online

  ‘The Nursing Institute at the University of Damascus,’ she replied, also in English. ‘After qualifying I worked for two years at Al Assad University Hospital before coming over here to London.’

  ‘Goodness me, what a coincidence. I graduated from the University of Damascus and served my internship at Al Assad.’ His tone was avuncular as he added, ‘Many years before you would have been there of course.’ He took a bite of his forgotten sandwich, no longer flustered now they were on home ground.

  ‘Did you?’ She pretended surprise although she knew his background; she’d made enquiries. ‘Coincidental indeed. Extraordinarily so, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Well not really when you think about it,’ he replied. ‘All six main government-owned hospitals are affiliated with the university and close to the campus. Most medical graduates do their training at one or another.’

  ‘Yes, but still coincidental that we both did ours at Al Assad,’ she persisted. This fact, which was true for Hala never lied, was only one of many coincidences she considered portentous, proving their respective fates were intertwined. For a highly practical young woman she could at times, when it suited her, be surprisingly superstitious.

  ‘And here we are,’ she continued, ‘working together at Great Ormond Street Hospital where my mother worked all those years ago. Another extraordinary coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Rassen wasn’t quite sure how to answer. She’d given him another of those looks that was a mixture of amusement and secrecy, as if they shared something special. Which, in a way, he supposed they did. He didn’t know why – perhaps simply because of their mutual background and language – but he felt somehow that he’d gained an ally.

  ‘Yes, yes, I believe you may be right.’

  They exchanged a comradely smile and sat in comfortable silence eating their sandwiches and looking out at the park. Then, draining the last of her Diet Coke, Hala looked at her watch.

  ‘Oh dear, I’d better be getting back to work.’ She stood. ‘It’s been so nice talking to you, Dr Khurdaji.’

  ‘It has indeed, Hala.’ He stood also, offering his hand. ‘And to those who know me, my name is Rassen.’

  Their handshake was firm, friendly.

  ‘Good to meet you, Rassen.’ She grinned broadly, doing little to disguise her elation. Breakthrough, she thought.

  Walking back to the hospital, Hala was visited by a strange sense of déjà vu, as if she had lived this part of her life before. She hadn’t of course. This part of her life was simply echoing a part of the life her mother had led. But she fervently hoped hers would continue along a similar path.

  It did. She and Rassen were married one year later, exactly the same length of courtship as had been observed between her mother and father. And two years after their marriage she gave birth to a child, just as her mother had.

  Hala always remembered that day in the park.

  To others, Hala and Rassen Khurdaji appeared as unalike as was humanly possible: he the quiet, scholarly, serious-minded doctor; and she the outspoken, non-conformist nurse, committed to all manner of social activism. But as a pair, they were one, their ideals and beliefs identical. The parents of both being intellectuals, they had been brought up in liberal households with secular beliefs, a fact that in the past had at times caused problems for Hala. Even in a secular city like Damascus, home to a range of faiths and sects, she had met with confrontation from conservative Muslims. And London was no different.

  ‘Why do you not cover your face?’ she would be asked. ‘Why do you not at least wear a headscarf?’

  ‘Because I will not be labelled,’ she would reply. ‘I believe it is a woman’s choice to wear whatever she wishes.’

  ‘But you profess to be a Muslim, do you not?’

  ‘I profess to be a secular Muslim,’ she would insist. ‘This is the way I wish to be identified. My religion is not who I am, it is simply my faith.’

  Rassen, whose own beliefs had never been challenged, was surprised to find that, following his marriage, he too was occasionally criticised.

  ‘Surely you should insist your wife cover her head,’ he would hear now and then.

  ‘She does when in a mosque,’ he would mildly reply, ‘otherwise neither of us sees any need. Hala is free to wear what she wishes.’

  The man who had confronted him – for it was always a man who made such comments – would either shake his head in profound disgust or raise an eyebrow and tut-tut his disapproval. But whatever the reaction and however strongly delivered, it was clear Rassen Khurdaji was considered weak for allowing his wife to commit such outrage.

  And here in London of all places, Rassen would think. But of course there are many Muslims living in London, and many of them are conservative. Ah well, he decided, no matter.

  Following the completion of his agreed five-year tenure at Great Ormond Street, Rassen and Hala returned to Damascus. They were eager to do so, having missed their homeland and, besides, their son Elias was by now three years old, and it was high time he came to know his family. Both sets of parents had flown over to London for the wedding, but neither had yet met their new grandson.

  Upon his return Rassen accepted a position as paediatrician at Children’s University Hospital, Hala working there also on a part-time basis while bringing up their son. The reunion not only with family but also old friends, mainly those of Hala’s acquaintance, resulted in a far more active social life than Rassen had anticipated. Both maternal and paternal grandparents were only too eager to babysit little Elias, in fact they begged for the privilege, so a pool party at the popular Le Meridien Hotel or a boisterous dinner at one of the colourful restaurants in the Old City was easily encompassed. And then there were the weekends when they, and other couples with young children, would head out of the city for group picnics or visits to amusement parks. The social whirl of their lives seemed to Rassen endless.

  ‘I’m quite aware Damascus has long been a party city,’ he remarked drily, ‘but my activity of choice was always an occasional visit to the Opera House. Unlike you and your young friends I’ve never been a particularly social creature. I must say I find it all rather tiring.’ In case she thought he was being overly critical, he added with a good-natured and world-weary sigh, ‘Ah well, it’s probably just the age difference.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, my darling, this is a flurry of “welcome home” invitations, that’s all. Things will die down before long, you wait and see.’

  Things took longer to die down than Hala had predicted for she was enjoying her social life. As soon as Elias reached school age, however, she embraced the extra shifts she was able to accept at the hospital and work once again became her priority. Just as her husband was devoted to his vocation, so too was Hala. The medical profession remained, along with the abiding love they shared for their son, a true mutual passion.

  Not unsurprisingly, the example set by his parents had a profound influence on young Elias’s choice of career. From his earliest teenage years there was just one path the boy was set upon. Elias would become a doctor like his father, and like his father he would specialise in paediatrics.

  Their son’s career choice proved most fortuitous for Rassen and Hala in the long term. By the time the unrest was at its peak and Syria was on the brink of civil war, twenty-year-old Elias was in England, studying medicine at Oxford University. For this, Rassen and Hala would be forever grateful, particularly suspecting as they did the horrors the future might hold.

  Civil unrest had been brewing for a decade, but it was in the early spring of 2011 that the nationwide protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government came to a head. Over the years, the conflict had grown exponentially from mass protests organised by activists in the hope of bringing about democratic reform to an all-out armed rebellion, and upon orders the government’s military forces responded violently. It would not be long before the burgeoning fray would include international intervention on a grand scale, creating a
n ongoing, multi-sided, armed conflict of massive proportion.

  Damascus was becoming centre stage in a theatre of war, yet as 2011 rolled into 2012 and the months kept passing the city’s hedonists continued their revels as if oblivious to the fact. The pool parties at the ever-popular Le Meridien Hotel were more frenetic than ever, except Le Meridien had undergone two full refurbishments, becoming the Dedeman Hotel and more recently the elegant Dama Rose. The elite still flocked to the popular restaurants in the Old City, most particularly to the Naranj, which took up virtually a half a block and was known to be Assad’s personal favourite. Women still rushed to hairdressers in preparation for whatever social event was in store; luxury cars still headed out of the city – along the roads that remained open anyway – to country villas for weekend parties; and wealthy homes still served guests lavish dinners, their tables laden extravagantly with the richest of foods.

  All this while not far away those in Hom were dying of starvation; a massacre was taking place in Houla; and refugees were crossing the borders into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan in frantic search of food for their starving families.

  Are the party people of Damascus as oblivious as they appear, Rassen wondered, or are they turning a desperately blind eye? Any enquiry he made resulted in the same answer. ‘We don’t want our world to change.’ But their world had already changed.

  Towards the end of 2012, Rassen and Hala answered the urgent call for doctors and medical personnel needed in Aleppo, the most populous city in Syria, where the civil war was reaping the worst of its carnage. Determined to commit to the long term, they sold up their house and belongings in Damascus, deposited the funds in their son’s London bank account and left with only the barest of essentials.

  The ancient metropolis of Aleppo, roughly three hundred kilometres to the north of Damascus and forty-five kilometres east of the Syrian–Turkish border, had become the scene of house-to-house fighting between rebels and government forces, often in residential areas and therefore causing huge civilian casualties.

  When the armed opposition had initiated a series of car bomb attacks on government buildings and had openly executed prominent supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the government forces had retaliated with relentless jet, mortar and artillery bombardment, including the dropping from helicopters or planes of ‘barrel bombs’. These improvised explosive devices, consisting of a large metal container filled with high explosives, shrapnel, oil and chemicals, were dropped at random, inflicting shocking wounds. Flesh was shredded from bones, limbs were shattered and massive head-to-toe injuries were suffered by those unfortunate enough to be caught within the bomb’s considerable blast radius. All too often these victims were civilians, and all too many of these civilians were children. Already, there were not enough doctors, nurses and medical staff to handle the workload in Aleppo’s hospitals. Volunteers were desperately needed.

  Upon their arrival in the city, Rassen and Hala took up positions at a hospital in East Aleppo on the southern edge of the Old Quarter, and from that moment on their work did not let up. They’d rented a small tenement in an apartment block not far from the hospital, but as the months passed they found they were rarely there. It was simpler to stay in the hospital’s medical facilities, eating and sleeping when they could, remaining close by their work stations ready for each new attack and each new influx of patients, be they government forces, rebel fighters or civilians.

  By now, the Syrian army had entrenched itself in the western part of Aleppo, with a military base further to the south, while the rebels had established their stronghold in the eastern part of the city. Between the two was no-man’s-land where people lived in a state of siege, fearing every day for their lives as all about them chaos reigned and buildings were razed. The once noble metropolis of Aleppo, including the Old City World Heritage Site with its precious antiquities and its magnificent architecture, ancient and medieval, was being systematically reduced to rubble.

  By early 2014 a further complication had come into play, as if the war were not messy enough already. In the rebel-dominated areas of Aleppo, splinter groups had formed and many fighters were changing sides in order to join the forces of ISIS. Those who believed in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed the purpose of their battle was the enforcement of Sharia. The focus of their attack, therefore, was now upon their fellow rebels rather than the government. The war’s madness was spiralling. And more was to follow.

  In September of that year, with ISIS in control to the west of Deir Ezzor Province and the border region of Raqa Province, the United States led coalition air strikes inside Syria as part of its military intervention against ISIS and its bid to rid the world of terrorism.

  It would be exactly one year later that Russia, a long-time supporter of the Assad government, would mount an air campaign, stating its purpose was also the direct targeting of ISIS and other terrorist groups. The escalating conflict in Syria had gone far beyond civil war.

  Over the two years they had been in Aleppo, Rassen and Hala had steeled themselves to the daily horrors that confronted them, but it was difficult, particularly when children were involved. They never spoke of it; there was no point. Their eyes did not even meet when a child’s freshly mutilated body was delivered – they simply got on with the task at hand. But Hala knew the helplessness of the situation was taking its toll on her husband. Rassen’s entire adult existence had been devoted to the healing of children, making them whole and healthy, not cutting off small limbs or confronting, with such hideous regularity, the deaths of those who had barely known life. She worried for him, and she kept herself as strong as possible for his sake. We will have to leave soon, she decided; he cannot keep going at this physical pace and under this emotional strain.

  Having served for as long as he had, Rassen was by now the most senior doctor at the hospital. He had, like so many before him and like so many others working in hospitals throughout Aleppo, adapted to performing operations for which he’d had no formal training. He was now an expert. There was little he couldn’t do, simply because there was so much that had to be done. They’d all discovered this – doctors, nurses, medical aides, humanitarian volunteers with no specific qualifications – all laboured day and night and were often called upon to improvise under the most appalling conditions. There was a constant shortage of equipment and medication, and at times, in order to avoid another bombing raid, the hospital’s lights were turned out and they operated in the beam of a torch. Adding even more to the pressure was the awful knowledge that staff numbers were steadily dwindling as many amongst them were killed or detained or forced to flee. Yet still those remaining worked on.

  It was an afternoon in late September 2014 when the rebel leader strode into the hospital, flanked either side by two of his henchmen. A strongly built man in his early forties, neatly bearded, he wore the style of quasi-military uniform that had become the badge of many revolutionary groups: peaked cap, black T-shirt, Kevlar bulletproof vest, khaki trousers and boots. His comrades were similarly attired, although they favoured check shirts beneath their vests, headbands rather than peaked cap and their beards were ill-kempt. All three had AK-47s slung over their shoulder.

  ‘Dr Rassen Khurdaji,’ the leader barked, his voice distinctly audible even above the general mayhem of the reception area, where a nurse and a number of orderlies were busily tending to the wounded and dying who lay groaning, some on stretchers and gurneys, others sprawled or curled up in agony on the floor, while the less severely injured squatted against the walls.

  ‘Bring me Dr Rassen Khurdaji.’ The man, clearly accustomed to others jumping to his command, appeared not to notice the bedlam surrounding him as he barked his order to the nurse, who was kneeling beside one of the stretchers.

  Hala took her time before standing to confront him. She had been checking the vital signs of a young woman, one of the many newly delivered victims of the latest air strike. The woman was dead. With the pen she carried Hala made the requisite mark on th
e hand of the corpse and stood, signalling two of the orderlies to collect the stretcher.

  She turned and faced the rebel leader, meeting his eyes enquiringly, indicating she was not a lackey and wanted more information, but her mind was ticking over at an alarming rate. She’d been unnerved by the man’s demand for Rassen. Others had been summoned on occasions, for no apparent reason, and had never returned. But she noted now that the two henchmen either side of the man each carried an unconscious child in his arms. Boys, from what she could see of their dress, and from their size probably around eight and ten years old respectively, although it was difficult to tell, as both children were completely grey, their clothes, their skin all covered in dust. They’d obviously been dragged from the rubble of the recent blast. Hala felt her initial panic subside. It would appear the rebel leader was not on a headhunting mission after all, but seeking medical attention.

  ‘I am told Rassen Khurdaji is a great doctor,’ the man said, ‘the best in all Aleppo.’

  ‘Dr Khurdaji is the senior physician at this particular hospital,’ Hala answered with care, ‘there are many fine doctors working throughout Aleppo.’ As she continued to meet his gaze, her unease grew. The man, with his strong-boned face and trimmed beard, would have been handsome, but for the unsettling light of madness in his eyes.

  ‘You will tell Dr Khurdaji that Captain Yusuf Khalil, Commander of the East Aleppo Free Syria Contingent, demands to see him.’

  For the first time the man’s gaze shifted briefly to indicate the children his comrades held in their arms.

  Hala turned to the two orderlies who were standing, stretcher in hands, awaiting her command. She nodded and they left with the woman’s body and the unspoken but clear instruction to fetch Dr Khurdaji.

  So this is Khalil, she thought as she stood silently awaiting the arrival of her husband. She’d heard of Yusuf Khalil from any number of patients she’d treated in the past. Everyone in the region knew of him; his reputation was fearsome. A psychopath, he was known to turn on his own men, shooting them at will should they happen to displease him. No one was safe in Khalil’s presence. The two henchmen, now standing eyes front, not daring to move, their sad burdens hanging limply in their arms, attested to this.