Besides watching comedy shows and movies with Amma, the other thing I have been doing since March this year is read … Krishnan and I have always been bookworms. I was too numb as I read initially and the few books that I read in March and April are hazy. I cannot recollect until and unless I flip through a few pages. They were anyway fiction books, so it doesn’t really matter. It was just one way of tamping down on the pain and distracting myself. It worked sometimes, and ended up triggering me afresh at times.
Vishakha, my niece who has inherited my love of books, suggested “As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow”, set in the Syrian revolution. It’s truly an amazing book !! Just because Syria happens to be the playground for extremism by certain groups, and it happens to be in the Middle East, the world ignores it. The pain felt by the citizens, the families getting ripped apart… no one cares about their stories. Am glad Zoulfa Khatou wrote this book. At least the readers will know how terrible life is in present day Syria under a dictatorship.
As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow – A Summary
18 year old pharmacy student Salama suddenly finds herself being a surgeon in the local hospital. The constant bombings and Syrian military sniper raids have left the town of Homs totally broken. Salama lives with her best friend Layla, who is also her sister-in-law as she married Salama’s brother Hamza.
Salama’s mother dies in a bombing, her father and brother are taken by the Syrian military and are tortured in a jail. Both Salama and Layla pray that they are killed rather than going through the torture.
The Syrian revolution is at its peak and the Free Syria Army (rebels) try their best to protect Homs.
Since Layla is pregnant, Salama tried to leave Syria and a person called Am, helps people to reach Italy by boat. Layla insists on leaving and Salama gives in finally. She uses an opportunity when helping Am’s daughter to bargain for a price reduction and he agrees. While Salama is tortured by what she did, she doesn’t see another way out.
Salama also helps another little girl and in the process falls in love with the eldest brother Kenan. A little later we realise that Kenan’s mother had seen Salama during Hamza’s wedding and felt that she would be a good match for Kenan. Salama and Kenan fall in love and eventually get married.
At this point, the author reveals the biggest twist of all …. Salama asks Kenan to move into Layla’s house with his brother and sister so they all can live together and leave for Italy whenever they manage to get the boat. It’s when Kenan walks into Layla’s room as Salama is giving her the news about her marriage, that the reader realises Layla lives as a memory – she had died in a sniper attack five months back !!! We all have heard of PTSD and these hallucinations are exactly what trauma does.
Salama also has “khawf” as her constant companion – another figment of her imagination.
The bombing of the hospital where Salama works is heart wrenching as is the Sarin gas attack… How can human beings be so cruel to fellow human beings ? But well, we have several demons masquerading as human beings and Syria seems to be in the grip of one such dictator.
The ending is positive as Salama, Kenan and Kenan’s siblings escape from Syria and reach Berlin where Kenan’s uncle and aunt live. It’s nice to know that some people at least make it out of hell.
For me reading this book was cathartic in certain portions …. with Krishnan leaving the physical realm suddenly, similar instances make me cry and this book is based in a hospital. The way Salama and Kenan feel for each other is very similar to how Krishnan and I feel for each other – incomplete without the other.
Do read the book. It’s well written and it’s definitely not a sob story. It uplifts and leaves you with hope.