I was seven years old when he pulled me into the bathroom of our old, crumbling house. It had a traditional squat toilet, or what some call a “Turkish” toilet. Its stone was a dark, porous basalt, rough to the touch, and as a child, I found it impossible to feel that it was ever truly clean. The darkness and countless holes that pitted its surface filled me with dread, and in the center was the gaping drain, a small abyss that I fixated on, fearing that a rat might emerge from its depths and attack me.
To this day, the feel of that stone against my skin cuts me like a wound. I can still feel my small, frail body pressed against it, the coarse surface scraping against my skin. I hardly remember his hands on me in that place, nor the wetness of his mouth. What I remember instead is the harshness of the stone, the darkness of the drain, and my obsessive stare into its void, terrified that a rat might leap out and gnaw at my exposed limbs.
For three years, I endured harassment and assault at his hands, in various places, under the guise of familial trust that made him seem above suspicion. I remember every detail, every movement, the nausea from sheer disgust, and the lingering physical and emotional pain that still clings to me. Yet, my mind seems to have erased what happened in that bathroom 39 years ago, until the memories suddenly clawed their way back out of the prison toilet drain. The same fear of the rat, the same helplessness, the same violation of my body. It was as though my body had forgotten how to relieve itself, and I found myself resorting to every meditation technique and yoga pose I knew — movements I despise — to try to relax my muscles enough to release the urine that was threatening to burst my bladder.
In those moments, I found a strange distraction. The constant trickle of water from the toilet faucet, a steady drip that echoed in the small space. Despite placing a plastic yogurt bucket beneath it to catch the flow, the water continued to spill over, unending, with no one bothering to fix it. I don’t even think anyone had bothered to ask.
Our priorities were different: we were more concerned with getting just a little hot water for a shower, which came in only limited quantities after 3:30 each day, just enough for three, maybe four girls at best.
The sound of the leaking water in the toilet was driving me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I tried to mentally transform it into the soothing white noise of a waterfall, the kind I used to listen to for relaxation, but it was useless. One night, my mind wandered into an irritated monologue about the environmental damage caused by wasting all this water, about the planet’s worsening droughts and the strain on our fragile ecosystems. But I quickly felt ashamed of myself for even thinking about such distant concerns, so disconnected from my immediate reality and the reality of the other women in this cell. We who had no luxury to worry about protecting the environment or conserving its resources.
“My Uncle Works for the Minister”
The spot near the bathroom door was Angelique’s, the self-proclaimed supporter of the Lebanese Forces political party. There hadn’t been a bunk available for her, so the other women, irritated by her haughty attitude, had made sure her mattress was laid out right in front of the bathroom entrance. They would step over her to get in and out or wash their clothes while she slept, waking her with splashes of water.
They often mocked the way she spoke, mimicking her demands to the nurse or the “Bash” (the prison guard). They would imitate her whining for “Alteco” (a super glue brand) to reattach one of her broken acrylic nails, or her pleading with the guard to allow her to bring in an eyebrow pencil, or her constant complaints about the lack of a mirror. As a form of payback, the women had assigned her the daily task of cleaning the cell, a chore normally shared by two inmates.
Angelique objected, insisting that she wasn’t used to such work: she had maids at home to do that, she claimed. She would remind the others that she wouldn’t be stuck in the General Security prison for long, boasting that her uncle worked for a minister and had promised to get her out as quickly as possible. This arrogance only made the other working-class women angrier. They would shout at her, “Out there, people might work for you, but here, nobody has to clean your shit. We’re all the same here.”
Angelique found herself isolated and unpopular. She tried to befriend me, perhaps seeing in me another outsider who might break her loneliness:
“Affection is a gift from God. Since I came to this cell, no one has been able to stand me.”
“Be patient,” I replied. “Everyone is stressed. I don’t think anyone really means to be cruel.”
“No, they mean it,” she snapped. “They humiliated me just because I asked the nurse for a suppository, and the jerk had the nerve to ask me in front of everyone where I planned to put it.”
I was shocked by the nurse’s question, agreeing with her that it was inappropriate and either a crude joke or outright harassment, both of which were unacceptable.
It seemed she just needed to hear someone say those words, to be reminded that not everyone judged her as a shallow, promiscuous woman based on her appearance or manner of speaking. We would laugh when she would invite me to her “terrace” — the upper bunk she had claimed after one of the other women had been released.
Over time, she seemed to realize that it was in her best interest to stop boasting about her uncle and the minister who had yet to get her out of trouble. She eventually started joining the card games, slowly opening up to share parts of her life, which, despite her bravado, was not without its own suffering and abuse.
Angelique had been very secretive about her charges. Rumors had circulated that General Security had taken her from her home, but the full story only came out when a new detainee, Zeina, was brought into the cell.
Zeina had a complete mental breakdown in her first days, self-medicating with tranquilizers that only deepened her nightmares and prolonged her sleep. The nurse would stand over her every morning and evening, making sure she swallowed her pills, fearful that Zeina might hoard them and use them to take her own life out of sheer despair and shame.
The moment Zeina entered the cell, she looked at us all, unable to comprehend the number of bodies crammed into such a small space or the many eyes staring back at her. She started screaming and thrashing, banging her head against the iron door until she collapsed, her body convulsing on the ground.
I stood there like a fool, silent and useless, despite the fact that my workplace had spent a lot of money training me in first aid workshops, and in how to act in cases of arrest, kidnapping, imprisonment, and war. But, unfortunately, none of that proved useful in real-life situations, where only prayer helps if you are a believer, and despair if you have lost all hope.
Sarah, the Ethiopian girl, was the sharpest among us. She quickly placed her finger in Zeina’s mouth to prevent her from swallowing her tongue or biting it off with her teeth. Foam started to come out of Zeina’s mouth, and we began screaming and banging on the iron door with our hands and feet. The officer on duty shouted angrily, “What is it? Shut up, both of you!”
We screamed louder, hitting the door together with our hands and feet, begging for help, shouting that the girl was dying, but no one responded.
After more than fifteen minutes, the nurse finally came in. By then, Zeina had calmed down, after we had tried everything possible — splashing water on her face, covering her, rubbing her body, and trying to wake her up.
The nurse, without any concern, said, “So what? It happens a lot. Does it really need all this screaming?” I went back to staring like a fool, silent, because in this place, we are all worthless and without value.
That’s why we spared ourselves the screaming when Hajja Amina’s feet swelled up from her diabetes, and her body began to tremble.
“One Hundred Thousand in Counterfeit Cash in the Hands of General Security”
It seems that Zeina is caught up in the same case as Angelique, which has created an unspoken tension between them. Neither knows what the other has said in their statements to the investigators, nor if one has blamed the other. Zeina is the very embodiment of what people call “bint al-balad” (a salt-of-the-earth, working-class woman)—simple, generous, and noble. She took on the role of caretaker for the pregnant woman and Hajjeh Amina. She has a deep love for cleanliness and would shout at anyone who didn’t follow her strict hygiene rules. She would buy cleaning products and sponges, spending her days scrubbing the sink, washing the walls around it, and unclogging the drain that, whenever it backed up, released the stench of sewage, prompting Zeina to yell at anyone who had thrown food scraps down it.
Once Zeina would calm down, she would often break into tears, struggling to grasp the reality of what had happened to her. The person who had betrayed her was her own lover. He had invited her to spend her birthday in Istanbul—a first for her, someone who had never set foot in an airport or been on a plane. He had traveled ahead for work and asked her to bring something important for him when she followed. Of course, she didn’t question what the item was or what it contained. She trusted him first, and then the General Security official who had handed her the package. After all, how could she suspect that a “man of the state” would give her a bag containing something illegal just before she boarded a plane? She took it, fully convinced that she was simply delivering a package. As she strolled through the duty-free shops, amazed by the displays, she even bought herself an electronic cigarette, despite not being a smoker, and took the bag into the smoking room.
Zeina made it to Istanbul without incident and handed the package to her boyfriend’s friend, the security officer. They celebrated her birthday together, and she was nearly floating with happiness over his love and generosity. He even bought her a dress and a pair of high-heeled shoes, the kind she had never worn before, as her daily work required more practical footwear to support herself and her three children as a single mother. But on their return to Beirut, they were both arrested at the airport. Some security officials and members of a network involved in smuggling counterfeit currency had already been detained. Zeina had been carrying a bag containing one hundred thousand dollars in counterfeit cash as she strolled through the duty-free corridors. How could she have doubted her boyfriend or the security officer?
Angelique would whisper to me that Zeina was a liar and that her boyfriend was a scam artist. Zeina, on the other hand, would pull me aside to ask if Angelique had shared anything with me, insisting that Angelique was the liar and that the investigator had told her that she had traveled and smuggled money multiple times. I tried to listen to both of them without getting involved, but I genuinely believed that Zeina had no knowledge of what was happening. Her life revolved around her family, neighborhood barbecues, and her children, whom she was trying to educate. She had never left Akkar, and every time she thought about the shame she had brought upon her family, she would collapse into uncontrollable fits of anxiety.
During the investigation, her boyfriend admitted that she had no knowledge of the situation and that he had used her. She cried bitterly, unable to process the betrayal. Because of her repeated breakdowns, the officer allowed him to sit with her to try to calm her down. She returned to the cell, exhausted from weeping, and started talking to me about him. He had promised her, right there in prison, that he would convert to Islam so they could marry, convince her family of his sincerity, and hire lawyers to secure her release. He begged for her forgiveness, and she chose to believe him—she wanted to believe him.
She would tell me, “He’s a good man. I don’t know why he did this. He loves my kids, and they’re so attached to him.” She didn’t know what Angelique had whispered to me, that for every $100,000 smuggled, the courier received $1,200, with an additional $300 for expenses. In other words, risking three to five years in prison, at best, for just $1,500. What kind of poverty, what kind of desperation, makes a life so cheap that it can be traded for $1,500? I’m not going to talk about ideals, national pride, or the country’s economy. What nation, what loyalty, and what dignity can exist in a place that has worked so hard to corrupt its own people, stripping them of any sense of citizenship?
Zeina’s sedation delayed her family’s awareness of her situation. They had assumed she was still on her work trip to Turkey. Despite her fear of them—or more accurately, the guilt she felt for the financial burden she had placed on them, poor people who earn their living day by day, and for the shame she had brought upon a family that had always valued modesty and a good reputation—they rushed to her side as soon as they found out, bringing her strength and love.
“Don’t worry about anything. We’re all with you. They told us you’re on tranquilizers. You have to stop them, may God bless you. We’re a God-fearing family, and we won’t abandon you.”
After she stopped taking the sedatives, she started waking up from her nightmares, crying out in the middle of the night and startling everyone in the cell. She would pace on all fours, screaming, “I want my mom, bring me my moooom!” We tried to calm her down, but we failed, and she would either collapse from exhaustion, lose consciousness, or fall back into a fitful sleep, allowing us to return to our own beds and try to catch what little rest we could.
She missed her children, who had no idea where she was. Every mother in the prison made a point of keeping their children in the dark about their incarceration. Whenever one of us returned with red, swollen eyes after being allowed a phone call, we knew she had just spoken to her children. We would pretend to be cheerful and strong so they wouldn’t worry, maybe to protect them, or perhaps out of shame, or because, in our own weakness, we were incapable of offering them any real comfort or shielding their feelings from the harsh reality. We talked to them to soothe our own souls with their voices, not to reassure them about us, the forgotten ones inside.
Julia’s four-year-old daughter was the only child who knew exactly where her mother was. Every time Julia spoke to her, the little girl would express her pain: “I’m so mad at Papa because he put you in jail.”
“A Case of Adultery”
He had abandoned her two years ago—a drug addict, complete with the full package that often comes with it: violence, unemployment, theft, a hot temper, uncontrollable rage, or complete numbness. Julia’s attempts to obtain a divorce had failed, as the church forbids it, so she filed for separation. Despite over two years having passed, she still hasn’t received the priest’s approval or blessing.
As for the husband, he didn’t care about the paperwork or the church’s decision. He found himself a new lover and moved in with her, while Julia and her daughter returned to her family’s home, which now shoulders all their expenses despite their financial struggles. With time and distance from her estranged husband, Julia met a Muslim man. They fell in love, and for the first time in her life, she experienced a healthy relationship with a responsible man who loved her and her daughter, treating them as his own family. She decided to convert to Islam as a way to escape the church’s grip and its rigid laws, hoping to marry the man she now considered her true partner.
All of this unfolded while her ex-husband was fully aware and entirely indifferent, until she became pregnant and entered her seventh month. At that point, after two years of ignoring her, he suddenly decided to file an adultery case against them, now using his legal leverage to extort $20,000 from them.
When I met her, she had been in prison for a month. Fear consumed her. She was wracked with cramps from the cold, weakened by the poor-quality prison food, and exhausted by the constant movements of her unborn child, which we could all see and feel when we placed our hands on her growing belly.
Prayers from the Bible and the Quran, along with every kind of plea in every imaginable language—from Bangladeshi to Ethiopian to Arabic—had been whispered over that child. Every woman who laid a hand on Julia’s belly prayed that this unborn baby would become their intercessor before God, to free them from the injustices they faced, to break the chains of their suffering. I feel a deep sadness for this unborn child, who has absorbed so many of these sorrows before even entering the world. What kind of trauma are we passing on to them if the theories are true that a fetus can hear its mother’s voice and sense the emotions around it?
Julia doesn’t have the money to satisfy her ex-husband’s greed, and the priest still hasn’t granted her the separation papers. It seems the unborn child’s intercession hasn’t been enough. Her due date is fast approaching, and the judge only shows up at the prison once a week. I can only hope her next hearing won’t find her cradling her newborn, spending his first days in the grim cells of a Lebanese prison, a victim of religious authorities and a vengeful addict.
“A Blue Pill and a Pink Pill”
As someone born and raised in Damascus, in the house of my Damascene grandmother, I claim to know this unique, layered, and complex environment. I understand what is visible and what remains hidden, especially when it comes to the generally shy, religious women, with their soft, low voices and modest clothing that conceals their bodies. They wear cotton undercaps to prevent their headscarves from slipping or revealing small hairs at the front. The triangular corner at the front is essential and must sit under the chin, distinguishing it from the head coverings of other sects.
But in these environments, as soon as the women shed their manteaux and hijabs, and free their legs from thick, pale stockings the color of the dead, their hidden personalities emerge — their loud laughter, their provocative clothing that they have no place to wear except in all-women gatherings, which have either dwindled or disappeared for those who have migrated to the sad lands of the north, or for their husbands. But what if the husband isn’t interested in these provocations at all? What if, instead, they become a source of pressure, reminding him of his inability to perform whenever he desires, or whenever his wife desires — a wife he considers demanding and unappreciative of his work pressures and chronic fatigue?
This was Hiba’s situation. She found the solution through Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms, and from the advice shared in closed women’s groups where members search for solutions to their emotional, and specifically sexual, issues. The advice is simple: a blue pill for the husband and a pink one for her, accompanied by a seductive satin nightgown, styled hair, bright red lipstick, and provocative music. At this point, the women in the cell around Hiba widened their eyes as they listened to her story. Most had never heard of the pink pill before, and they began to exchange glances, whispering about her as if she had committed some grave sin, while none of them commented on the man and his blue pill.
Hiba was a simple, good-hearted woman, trying to present herself as clever, cunning, and knowledgeable about such matters and their secrets. She laughed coyly as she described how she would place the pill in her husband’s hand to ensure the desired outcome.
Many of the women scolded her for talking so openly in front of everyone. One of them warned her that what happens in the bedroom is a private matter, that what she was sharing was disgusting and unnecessary. But Hiba’s intention was not to share private sexual moments; rather, it was a way to confess the frustrations she had endured in her marriage, the cumulative psychological impact that had destroyed her self-confidence over the years.
All her attempts to catch his attention, to spark his interest and desire, had failed. “I feel like he doesn’t see me,” she said. “He doesn’t notice if I’m dressed up or wearing makeup or not. I’m like air to him. But he pays attention to his food, his ironed shirts, the cleanliness of the house, and his kids. Even the pill, I swear to God, didn’t open his eyes, but at least now he comes closer. My husband is cold, isn’t he?” I smiled and responded, “How would I know? Why are you asking me?!”
Their acquaintance had not lasted long — just three months online and a single meeting in Jordan. He had come from Germany, where he had obtained asylum years ago, and she had come from Syria. They recited the Fatiha, got married, and began making travel arrangements.
A few months later, she became pregnant with twins and gave birth to them in Germany. She then returned to Syria to complete her final year of engineering studies, as her father had insisted as a condition for the marriage. Her family helped care for the twins. Meanwhile, her husband delayed renewing her German residency until it expired. Perhaps the blue pill had worn him out, or perhaps life was simply more comfortable without her and the noise of the twins. When he felt a bit of longing, he would travel to visit them.
Hiba became suspicious of his behavior and felt it was her duty to find a solution to keep her family together and secure a better future for her children in Germany, rather than Syria. She also felt a deep guilt over her insistence on finishing her studies, which she believed was the reason her husband had abandoned her and was now punishing her.
In those same online groups dedicated to blue and pink pills, someone recommended an office that could help her renew her residency, especially since her German embassy appointment in Lebanon had been missed due to her son falling ill and being hospitalized. The appointment she had scheduled at the embassy in Jordan fell through because the borders closed after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The office managed to renew her German residency, which turned out to be fake, leading to her arrest at Beirut airport. She was taken to prison. Like many women in this prison, she feared the social stigma, even though none of them had committed a crime or caused harm. She chose not to tell her husband the full details, only informing her father, who appointed a lawyer on her behalf. They lied to the husband, telling him that she had been detained at the airport for a month and a half, not in prison.
Her family took care of the twins, and she considered herself lucky not to have brought them along on her trip. She had been preparing herself for a second honeymoon with her husband, hoping to fix what the pregnancy and childbirth had damaged. She had ordered her colored pills online to arrive in Germany by the time she did, and had only packed her first-night lingerie — that same piece we all saw, with its holes and sheer fabric. We made up poses and scenarios that only existed in our imaginations, in the dreams Hiba clung to as she was deported from prison back to Syria.
“The Bride’s Trousseau”
It wasn’t just Hiba’s nightgown, brought from the belongings locker, that became the subject of our jokes and laughter, but also the full “bridal trousseau” in Suzanne’’s bag. “Tafree’at” as we call them in Syria — nightgowns in every color, length, and style: satin, lace, feathers, silk, baby blue, fiery red, pure bridal white. This assortment of lingerie caught the attention of the security officer as he searched through her bags at the airport. He looked at her, a young, beautiful woman who hadn’t neglected a single detail a bride might consider for her groom. She had applied thick false eyelashes, painted her long nails bright red, and adorned them with small, sparkling stones.
The officer insisted on inspecting her clothes piece by piece, lifting each nightgown one by one, holding them up for display, and smirking as he looked at her. He took pleasure in her embarrassment, the redness in her cheeks as she lowered her gaze to the ground, tightening her headscarf for fear it might slip off. She shrank into herself, raising her hands to cover her chest, as if trying to shield her body, which had already been stripped bare in the officer’s imagination.
She admitted that she could never tell her fiancé what happened during that search. He was extremely jealous, and she feared he might blame her for it or become repulsed by the idea that another man had seen her in this way, or worse, imagined her this way. She refused to call him to reassure him, still bitter that he had pushed her to use a fake Venezuelan passport to reach Sweden, after all their attempts to reunite had failed.
“Let him learn his lesson.”
“Now is not the time to teach him a lesson. Poor thing, he’s probably worried.”
“I’m just treating him the same way he treats me. When he’s upset, he stops talking to me.”
“That’s called punitive silence. Trust me, talking it out is better.”
“What do you mean, disciplinary silence? You’re so educated. It’s called treating someone the same way they treat you.”
I felt a sudden shame for using terms like that, which might have made me seem condescending, even though that wasn’t my intention. At the same time, I was surprised by the way this young woman, twenty years my junior, thought — her ability to retaliate, even in her miserable prison circumstances, despite her love for him.
Still, she hadn’t forgotten to send a message through her family, reminding him that the prison and lawyer fees were his responsibility.
Finally, her release came, along with Hajja Amina’s. They entered the cell to the sound of ululations, ink stains still fresh on their thumbs from the release papers they had just signed, a freedom that had taken far too long to arrive. I left, but they remained in prison. Unfortunately, their documents had been lost in the General Security’s safe — their IDs, passports, phones, and everything they needed to re-enter Syria, once they were finally deported to the border at the Masnaa crossing.
