As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

by Zoulfa Katouh

For every life I can’t save during my shift, one more drop of blood becomes a part of me. No matter how many times I wash my hands, our martyrs’ blood seeps beneath my skin, into my cells. By now it’s probably encoded in my DNA.

It didn’t matter that I was eighteen years old. It didn’t matter that my medical experience was confined to the words in my textbooks. All of that was remedied as the first body was laid out before me to be stitched up. Death is an excellent teacher.

But then, perhaps, even without evidence a sliver of a chance at survival is better than living at the mercy of genocide.

I clear my throat. “There are still more patients—” “Your life is just as important as theirs,” he interrupts, his voice leaving no room for negotiation. “Your. Life. Is. Just. As. Important.”

I wish we were being broadcast live on every channel and smartphone in the world so everyone could see what they’re allowing to happen to children.

Do all six-year-olds know what death is? Or is it only children of war?

We held our heads high and planted lemon trees in acts of defiance, praying that when they came for us, it’d be a bullet to the head. Because that was far more merciful than what awaited in the bowels of their prison system.

The Arab proverb has never been truer: The worst of outcomes is what is most hilarious.

The sadness disappears from his eyes, replaced with a ferocious intensity. “This is my country. If I run away—if I don’t defend it, then who will?”

When I leave, it won’t be easy. It’s going to shred my heart to ribbons and all the pieces will be scattered along Syria’s shore, with the cries of my people haunting me till the day I die.

“It doesn’t hurt for you to think about your future. We don’t have to stop living because we might die. Anyone might die at any given moment, anywhere in the world. We’re not an exception. We just see death more regularly than they do.”

“So, might as well go down fighting,” Kenan finishes. “I won’t let them own my fears.”

“I said, feelings give you hope. There’s nothing wrong with finding comfort amid what’s happening, Salama.”

“I want you to hold on to that. No matter what happens, you remember that this world is more than the agony it contains. We can have happiness, Salama. Maybe it doesn’t come in a cookie-cutter format, but we will take the fragments and we will rebuild it.”

He looks relieved, his chest expanding with air, and a smile lights up his face. It’s as if I’m gazing at the sun.

Why? Why is no one helping us? Why are we left to die? How can the world be so cruel?

“I’m exhausted,” I whisper. “Me too,” Kenan replies. I shake my head. “No. I’m exhausted from all of this. I’m exhausted we’re suffocating and no one gives the slightest bit of a damn. I’m exhausted we’re not even an afterthought. I’m exhausted we can’t even have basic human rights. I’m exhausted, Kenan.”

And I realize the anger was always there, growing slowly and surely. It began long ago when I was born under the thumb of a dictatorship that kept on applying pressure until my bones fractured. It kindled into a small flame when Mama and I held hands and prayed as the protestors’ throaty voices ricocheted off our kitchen walls. It fused with my bones, its flames licking through my myocardium, leaving decayed cells in its wake, when Baba and Hamza were taken. It built and built and built with each body laid in front of me. And now, it’s a roaring fire crackling along my nervous system.

“This is the price of a future with freedom, Khawf. It’s a price Hamza pays every day. But I’m Syrian. This is my land, and just like the lemon trees that have been growing here for centuries, spilled blood won’t stop us. I have my faith in God. He’ll protect me. I’ve been force-fed oppression, but I will no longer swallow its bitter taste. No matter what.”

In the end it doesn’t really matter; there are no innocents in the eyes of the military. They’ll kill us all, protestors or not. To them, the idea of freedom is infectious, and we need to be put down before it spreads.

“Hey!” I call out in surprise. He turns my way. “Aren’t you scared?” I ask loudly. He looks at me for a second before grinning. “Always. But I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Every lemon will bring forth a child and the lemons will never die out.”

He and I are owed a love story that doesn’t end in tragedy.

I wonder how the outside world fares, how they sleep at night knowing we’re being butchered in our sleep. How they allow this to happen.

He presses a hand against my chest, over my wedding ring. “Your heart is beautiful.”

“I wanted so many things,” he says and rests his forehead on my shoulder. Melancholy drips from his tone. “But meeting you, loving you… you made me realize how life can be salvaged. That we deserve to have happiness in this long night.”

“Thank you for being my light,” he whispers.

“Know that even in death, you’re my life.”

It reminds me that as long as the lemon trees grow, hope will never die.