March 4, 2025

RAINDROPS

by Mizna Intern | in From the Journal

Raindrops by Mazen Halabi originally appeared in Mizna issue 8.1, in the summer of 2006. In 2025 his work remains one of the numbered works written by or about Syrians to be published by Mizna. While Halabi’s story was first published before the Syrian revolution of 2011 against the Assad regime, and is now running in the aftermath of its fall, his work remains relevant and insightful. Raindrops is a story about youth: its sarcastic and playful moments, as well as the aberrant and painful lessons learned when growing up under a violent regime.

There are two main conditions to storytelling: necessity and safety. We at Mizna hope that 2025 will be the year of safety and storytelling for the Syrian community in all its religions, ethnicities, generations, and identities. We start this hope with Halabi’s story, and extend our hope to all Syrians whose stories are surfacing after decades of extreme violence, censorship, and fear.

Thunder drummed in jubilation as our tires tangoed with the city’s cobblestones, and we rode like Khalid and Abu Obiedah, banging on the city’s gates, claiming Damascus as our own. We were her boys, and she gently embraced us, pulling the cover of rain over to protect us. Our clothes, drenched and heavy with rain, clung tightly. We were soaked to the last inch of our bodies. We wore soft, innocent smiles. Not a word was uttered.

—Mazen Halabi

RAINDROPS

A winter storm blanketed Minneapolis over the weekend. It painted the city, decorated the trees, and greased the roads. It promised a pretty hectic rush hour come Monday morning. I knew I had to be in the office early, so I left the house earlier than usual. I avoided the main highway and took the city’s side streets. The drive was slow, slippery, but I moved along. I usually spend my commute speeding through the four-lane highway, going through my list of phone calls and mentally recounting my appointments; but that morning I got to see the city waking up, driveways getting shoveled, delivery trucks following their routes, and parents bundling their children up before jettisoning them off to school. Stopped at a traffic light, I noticed a teenager throw a snowball at a friend’s window, yelling for him to come out: “Mikey . . . Mikey . . .” A boy raised the window on the second floor of the English Tudor, poked his head out, and in a half-whisper, so as not to not wake up the rest of the family, answered, “I’m coming.”

These children, painted on a canvas of snow, brought me back to Khaldoun, a boy I met my first year of high school in Damascus. Khaldoun used to come by our tile store every day before school. He would rest his foot on the sidewalk, ring his bike bell a few times till he got my attention, and then tap his watch with his two fingers as he mouthed from a distance, We’re late. I would usually finish up the order with the customer, grab my satchel, and kiss my dad’s hand as he patted my head and murmured, “Allah yerda ‘aleik, God bless you. Come after school—we’re busy tonight.” Then I would jump on my bike, and we would zigzag our way through the dusty city alleys to get to school on the other side of town.

Our school was on the rich north side of town. An old building, like most in Damascus, it embodied history in its columns. It was a boys’ school with a good reputation. Most of the students had to have some kind of waasta, or connection—know somebody high in the government—to be able to get into the school. Khaldoun and I knew the custodian, Abu Mahmoud, an old guy from our neighborhood who told us how to get in. On the day that we filled out our admission applications, he told us to use the address of the apartment in the building across the street instead of our own. This way we would fall within the school district, and they would have to admit us. It wouldn’t matter for any correspondence between the school and our parents. Postal services are not just slow in Damascus—mail is never delivered.

Abu Mahmoud, it turned out, had let too many kids in on his nifty little secret. On the first day of school, the principal called us in. We piled into his office, fifteen of us, not knowing what we had done but knowing we were in trouble. Mr. Khateeb, a short brainiac with big glasses and wild hair, was angry. He was wearing an old wrinkled suit that had seen its best days. His pants were yanked up mid-waist, packing their contents to the side like Mount Ararat. Khaldoun, standing next to me, murmured, “Ouch, if that’s how he treats his own boys, imagine what he’ll do to you.” “Shut the hell up, you little jackasses!” yelled Mr. Khateeb. “Come in here. Fifteen of you living in the same goddamn house . . . fifteen of you! Either your mother is the biggest sharmouta on the face of the earth, having fifteen kids with different last names, or that is one fucking giant apartment. What the hell am I going to do with you now? School’s already started and no one will take your little dumb asses. You’re gonna stay in this school, but I swear to God if I hear one peep out of any you, I’ll send you right back to the goddamn rat hole that you came from. Now get the hell out of my face.” Never having heard language like that, we shuffled our feet nervously as we walked out, breathing a sigh of relief upon reaching the safety of the halls. Khaldoun, with a half-smile, said facetiously, “Welcome to the big league, boys. This is going to be a great year.” Houssam, a short, hyper little kid who was walking ahead of us, turned around and, trying to sound bigger than he was, exclaimed, “Did you see the unit on that guy?” Samer, from behind us with a high-pitched voice piped in, “Why were you looking at his penis, you little faggot?” Houssam, with a gleam in his eye, replied, “At least I have a penis, ya khrenta, you little eunuch. What, do you use a magnifying glass and tweezers every time you have to pee?” Samer lunged at him with arms flailing and for the most part missing their target. Khaldoun and I had to separate them, grabbing each as they were trying to claim a little turf in the new school. From that moment on, the four of us were best friends.

We all had similar backgrounds. We were from large, poor, religious families. Khaldoun and I went to mosques on opposite sides of our neighborhood. Samer was a hafiz (someone who memorized the Qur’an), and Houssam was an altar boy at the Assyrian church. We were boys walking sheepishly through the gates of manhood. We spent lots of time together and we had opinions about any and everything—girls, sports, politics, money, poetry, UFOs (in that order); we knew it all. During recess we usually stopped at Abu Mahmoud, who in addition to performing his custodial duties also operated a concession stand. We would pick up sandwiches and tea before playing our latest pranks or choosing our next argument.

Abu Mahmoud sold all kinds of wrapped sandwiches that he had made, but he never labeled them, so you never knew what you might get. Yet he would always ask with the most pleasant demeanor “What you would like?” just before reaching over to the basket next to him and handing you the closest mystery. As soon as the kids got their sandwiches, a Wall Street–style bazaar began and the trading proceeded quickly and furiously. Loud shouts were fired out: “Lebaneh!” “Zaatar!” “Jubneh!” “Falafel!” Lebaneh was the blue chip of sandwiches—you could trade that for anything. Every once in a while some unsuspecting freshman went back to Abu Mahmoud for an exchange. Not only would this bring the whole operation to a screeching halt and shut down the trading floor, but Abu Mahmoud would hand it to the young guy and calmly say, “Shouf wela hmaar, listen, you little jackass, I’ve had it up to here with your shit. These are the best goddamn zaatar on God’s green earth—you’re lucky you’re getting one today. So take your sandwich and get the hell out of my face.” The kid would usually walk away perplexed, as the trading resumed behind him.

At the end of the school day, Khaldoun and I would usually ride our bikes home together, slowing down by the girls’ school and then traversing the old city’s alleys, picking fruit from trees that spilled over courtyard walls—blackberries, figs, apricots, nanerj, akee dunia. Our conversations would vacillate between the topics of adolescence and those of adulthood, from crude jokes to theological discussions of Ghazali. Khaldoun was witty and extremely intelligent. One day as we left school, the sky started to pour. Never had the parched ground below seen such a hard rain. Kids scattered in all directions, trying to prevent the rain from drenching their pressed school uniforms. Khaldoun and I stood there for a few minutes with our tongues hanging out, trying to catch a few drops. Abu Mahmoud yelled at us to go home as he locked the school gates behind us. The streets were amazingly empty—no cars, no people—as if the rain had just washed everything aside to watch us ride. We got on our bikes, school bags tied behind us, looked at each other, smiled, and rode through the city as slowly as we could possibly pedal. As if in an initiation ritual, Mother Nature ordained us. The rain washed our faces with holy water as other drops crashed and rejoiced in celebration. Thunder drummed in jubilation as our tires tangoed with the city’s cobblestones, and we rode like Khalid and Abu Obiedah, banging on the city’s gates, claiming Damascus as our own. We were her boys, and she gently embraced us, pulling the cover of rain over to protect us. Our clothes, drenched and heavy with rain, clung tightly. We were soaked to the last inch of our bodies. We wore soft, innocent smiles. Not a word was uttered.

Our regular stops by the girls’ high school finally paid off. Khaldoun met a girl whom he quickly fell in love with. Zainab was simply gorgeous. She had long, dark hair that she always adorned with a red ribbon. Her big black eyes would sparkle as she smiled, radiating her whole face, like sunlight reflecting off peaceful waters. She was the only person I knew who was smarter than Khaldoun. She had read books we had never heard of, and she would recite poetry by the qaseedeh (the entire poem), providing us the slightest bit of comfort as she breathed the famous lines that were familiar to us. And she loved Khaldoun more than anything. Her eyes would nervously scan the crowd when school was out, and she would light up with a huge smile when she spotted him. She would wave and mouth the words I’ll see you on the other side. There were so many boys waiting for girls that Mrs. Edelbi, the principal of Zainab’s school, banned the boys from waiting by the entrance.

The boys got a whiff of the love story, and they teased Khaldoun mercilessly. And when I told them she was not only beautiful and smart but also a Communist, the chant went around school about the brother dating the comrade. Samer had the school band play the chant to the tune of a famous song before the weekly national anthem recital. The topic of Zainab took over our conversations. “You know what my cousin in Kuwait told me?” Houssam asked us rhetorically, citing his most commonly referenced source. “That Communist girls wear red panties!” He crossed his arms and nodded his head decisively as he said that, indicating that this was as airtight a fact as you were gonna get. We had questioned Houssam every previous time he cited his infamous cousin, but this time it didn’t really matter. To us it was a fact. Besides, you put four boys and an image of red panties together and amazing things happen. We got quiet, our jaws went slack, and you could almost hear the sound of our brains churning, creating fantasies and processing images faster than a Cray supercomputer. The only thing that brought us back to earth was the sound of Mr. Khateeb yelling his usual “Ya tyoos, mules, get your asses in the classrooms before I make drums out of them!” We all walked to our chemistry class, our minds still aglow with shades of red. Samer, in his usual high-pitched voice, was the first to speak, half an hour into the chemistry session. “You know what, I’ll just have to marry me a Commie.” We all nodded in unison as we returned to our now slightly altered fantasies, while a subconscious “yep” dripped from our lips. I don’t remember a word Mr. Saboni said that entire hour.

That year was tough on the city. The oppositional Islamist movements were putting pressure on the dictatorial government, and the government responded without mercy. Political arrests, disappearances, midnight raids, and gunfights became as common as the issuance of parking tickets. A lot of the opposition came from our neighborhood and there wasn’t a household that didn’t have a missing or arrested member. Khaldoun and I couldn’t avoid the activities around us. We started reading outlawed books and listening to contraband music. And our conversation during our daily bike ride became more passionate, more serious, older.

One day near the end of the school year, Khaldoun missed a couple of days of school. Assuming he was sick, I called his house to give him the class notes and tell him about the chemistry exam. His mother answered and, in a choked-up voice, told me that he had been arrested by the secret police. Not knowing what to say, I just hung up. The boys had plenty to say when they heard the news. They were curious at first about his confinement. How long would they keep him and what would they do to him? We all knew what they did to political prisoners and we had to deal with those thoughts somehow. “You know, they’re going to beat him so hard on his feet, those size-11 shoes that he got from his brother will finally be a perfect fit,” whispered Samer, only half-jokingly. Growing louder and bolder, he continued, “And what about all the electricity up his ass—he’ll have a permanent fucking boner. We’re all gonna wish we got arrested when we’re thirty, fucking old and can’t get it up no more.” We all laughed, the tension softened. Then we got quiet when Houssam said, “God help his mother.” We thought of her, awake in the middle of the night, when the world is asleep, except her and maybe her boy, in her white prayer clothes, with wilted eyes, calling on God to protect her child, in a soft whisper, “Elahi.” The class bell rang piercingly loud, jolting us back to our present situation. Houssam wiped his eyes and said, “At least he doesn’t have to take this fucking chemistry test.”

Zainab would stop by our store every day after his arrest. She would stand just outside the door for a few minutes, hesitating, wanting to hear the best news, but afraid of another crushing disappointment. I would come out and shake my head—not a word. Her face would turn red, her eyes tear up, her shoulders drop, and she would tuck her hair behind her ear and walk away. Two months went by and Khaldoun hadn’t shown up. Zainab stopped by the store that day, angry and agitated. I came out. “Did you hear anything?” she pleaded. “No,” I muttered to the floor. “What the hell do they want from him? He is a young boy!” she yelled, alarming the customers. My older brother came out, turned to her and said firmly, coldly, gently, “Zainab, listen to me . . .” He paused a moment, then, with steady eyes, “He’s never coming back.” Her body shook, her hands trembled, her soft face turned red with an expression of disbelief, anger, and resignation all at once, like an innocent standing before the noose. She bit her lip, wiped a tear, pushed her hair back, and walked away. That was the last time I saw Zainab.

The years went by. We finished high school and went our separate ways. Samer took over his dad’s shop in the city’s old spice market. Houssam eventually moved to Kuwait, teamed up with his cousin and started a software company. I moved to the States. Zainab joined the resistance in southern Lebanon and was killed during the Israeli invasion. She had asked to be buried in the old cemetery in our neighborhood. Her grave is easily identified. It has a tombstone with no name, no date, nor religious inscriptions. It is simply wrapped with a red ribbon and marked with the words I’ll see you on the other side.

It had been a long day at work. I left the office thinking about the items that I needed to pick up for my wife; we were having company over that evening. I pulled into the garage. My son was outside throwing snowballs at his friends. He ran to help me with the bags. I kissed him. He told me that he had done his homework and asked if he could see a movie. “Allah yerda ‘aleik, come home right after the movie. We have company tonight,” I told him. I walked in the house. My wife asked from the top of the stairs if I had picked up the Brie and the pomegranate juice. I told her that I had. I took off my jacket, threw my keys on the table, and picked up the mail and the few faxes that we had received.

That afternoon, a man with a soft, scraggly beard and sunken eyes, holding his hands close to his chest, walked into our family store in Damascus. He was looking around in bewilderment, inspecting the tiles, the columns, the door. My younger brother, who was now running the store, looked at him suspiciously and asked if he could help him. “You used to have a counter over here, with a phone and a leather pad,” the man whispered, mostly to himself. “We took that out more than seventeen years ago,” my brother said. The man continued in a soft, nostalgic voice, “And you used to have a table with a big chair that your dad sat in.” My brother, with a smile, said, “The chair wasn’t that big. We took it out when we redecorated the store, more than ten years ago, after my dad passed away. Did you know my dad?” my brother asked gently. “No . . . I mean, I did, but I was a friend of your brother.” My brother had heard the story of Khaldoun from me, so he knew right away who he was. He shook his hand, asked him to sit down, and offered him some tea. Khaldoun sat down, still looking around, trying to process the images and match them to what had been with him all these years. His hands trembled a little, his hair had receded. He was old. My brother asked how he was doing. He said he was OK. They had released him two days ago, nineteen years after his arrest. Things had changed a lot and he was trying to find his way around town. The government had destroyed his family’s house when they put a six-lane highway in the middle of our neighborhood in an attempt to break up the opposition. His mother had passed away never having seen him again. He asked about me, and my brother told him that I had moved to the States and that I had a family there. He asked if he could write me. My brother told him that he was sure I would love to hear from him, and that he could send me a fax if he would like. He gave Khaldoun a pen and a piece of paper. Khaldoun scribbled a few words, and he looked at the paper for a second or two before handing it to my brother, who promptly sent it to me. Khaldoun finished his tea, thanked my brother, and walked out, gently, curiously, purposefully, trying to claim our city again.

I rifled through the mail, the bills and the offers for zero-interest credit cards and mortgage refinancing. Then I came upon the fax with the few Arabic words scribbled on it. My wife called for me to help set the table. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said, eyes fixed. I sat down on the steps and read the words in disbelief: 

My Dearest Akhi, 
I hope this letter finds you well
Like Job I endured and like Jonah I was reborn,
the though of raindrops eased the journey.
See you again soon, my brother.
Khaldoun

My heart raced, my hands trembled. I was at once happy, angry, and sad. I imagined the boys’ reactions—jubilant, yet subdued: “Ya sharmoot, you didn’t miss much—it’s the same old fucking town . . . How is that boner? . . . Lucky bastard, you didn’t have to take any of the chemistry finals . . .” And then I thought of his mother—old, gray, with the white prayer head cover: “Waladi, my little boy . . . Thank you, God. You finally heard my prayers . . . are you hungry, habibi?” And the soft whisper to God: “Elahi.”

The next morning I drove to work. When I got to the highway ramp, the cars were lined up, inching forward as the metered light turned green. I pushed in one of the contraband tapes that Khaldoun and I used to listen to—I had spent hours the night before looking for it in old boxes. The cars inched up a little. The sound of the angry poet on the tape erased the silence, but the words were not as sharp as they used to be, the years like rain having softened the edges of those large boulders. The light turned green; we inched forward a little more. “In Kuwait, my cousin told me, there are no ramps. You get your own highway from your house to your office… But in Kuwait there are no Damascene berries and no jasmine.” The bike bell rang. The light turned green. I looked up. He smiled, tapped his watch with his two fingers, and mouthed, You’re late. I pushed on the gas pedal and sped off onto the freeway, surrounded by sounds and images that seemed to ease this journey.

Mazen Halabi, a Syrian-American and community activist, left Syria following the Hama massacre in which more than 40,000 people were killed by the then President, Hafez Assad. He has worked with multiple civil society organizations during the Arab Spring and the Syrian revolution. He holds advanced degrees in computer science and business, and works in the IT industry.