"As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow" by Zoulfa Katouh, Chapters 11–17

Nour was part of the custodial staff for three years before she was promptly promoted to a nurse when the first martyrs were wheeled into the hospital.

It was from Nour that I first learned how to stitch wounds, fashion makeshift bandages, and drain fluid out of patients’ lungs.

She ululates and I laugh. The joy sounds strange against my ears, but I welcome it.

He listens intently to every word I say as I explain the different departments and how we divide the patients based on the severity of their cases.

His tone is quiet but livid. “No one deserves this. Here babies are starving, while in cities like Damascus people are throwing away their leftover lunch because they’re full.”

The bullet must have missed her artery by millimeters.

I’m bluffing. I know that, but he doesn’t. I need to risk her life a heartbeat longer more to save Layla’s and her baby’s.

My eyes fly to Am and then to the people all around, but no one gives us a second look, each engrossed in their own world.

He purses his lips, mulling it over.

My trembling doesn’t stop, and the tears, spurred by my mountain-sized guilt, blur my vision.

I used a little girl’s life as collateral.

“You have to leave. If word of this gets out, what do you think Dr. Ziad would do? Your reputation will be sullied.”

His eyes have taken on a dreamlike sheen, and I’m entranced by the peace his words have painted on his expression.

I thought I made sure to check if he was in my vicinity, but then again, I was running on adrenaline and nerves and could have easily not seen him.

The terror I felt that day when I heard there was a military sniper in our neighborhood was unparalleled.

All I could hear was Hamza's plea replaying in my brain like a broken cassette. His voice beseeching me to save his wife.

Standing in the middle of this ravaged, torn city, he is beautiful and real.

“I still don’t like it,” she says stoutly.

The scars on my hands begin to tingle and I rub them. This is all just in my mind. I know it. The guilt is manifesting into a phantom pain.

I stifle a whimper at the sight of my brother, who’s smiling bashfully as he walks up to Layla.

The tables outside and inside the restaurants were crowded with families enjoying an early dinner of every Syrian dish imaginable. Kibbeh barbecued on coal, lamb chops skewered to perfection, tabbouleh, wara’a enab, freshly squeezed oranges picked from the countryside.

The stench of festering lesions and rusted blood reeks but I don’t gag.

The stench of festering lesions and rusted blood reeks but I don’t gag.

Layla can preach about a rosy world, but Khawf and his cynicism are the reality.

I look around and all I see is red and gray, figures slumped over one another and the miasma of despair clinging to the air.

Peonies. Fragrant flowers. A tonic from the petals can be used as a muscle relaxant.

Oh, it would be so easy to fall in love, I think wistfully.

I try desperately to gather at anything scientific to explain the act of falling in love. How long does it stay in the body incubating before I begin to show symptoms? Is it chronic or fleeting?

He studies my features, and my synapses fire neurotransmitter after neurotransmitter.

I run to the bathroom, my sock-clad feet thumping on the carpeted floor, before I reach the sink and heave. My hands clutch the edges tightly, the blood disappearing from the capillaries as I vomit bile.

Torn, bloodied muscle curls over the fractured humerus, the tendons pink and stretched like an elastic band.

I hold up his arm carefully and when I look at Dr. Ziad, who’s operating on the laceration on the soldier’s thigh, he shakes his head.

Cool air washes me from head to toe and I take in a deep breath, begging it to launder away the residue of bile and blood from my mouth.

My hands coil tightly into the fabric of my lab coat, frustration about to cleave my heart into two.

My stomach churns with the buildup of gastric acid and I scuttle to the medicine stockroom.

Am makes a disgruntled sound, and before Kenan can say anything, he says, “We’ll provide you with the life jackets, but that’s it. Carry little. Everything but your lives can be replaced.”

My bookshelf was stacked with homemade concoctions I’d whipped up from all the herbs and flowers I’d gathered, neatly arranged beside one another alphabetically. Jam jars filled with sprigs of tea tree, buds of witch hazel, dried rose petals.

“It's supposed to make your skin smoother and erase your dark circles.”
Layla huffed, feigning offense. “Are you saying I don't take care of my skin?”

The clouds have parted, allowing the sun’s last tangerine rays to peek through the holes in the hollowed buildings of my apocalyptic city.

Slowly, I come up beside him and gingerly near the edge but don’t swing my legs over.