In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa

smell of cheese, was a black bag carrying a satchel: featureless, scentless, without even a single bump.
    My otherness came to an end when I got close to the girls who were like me in many respects. Some of them removed their veils as soon as they arrived at school and took off their heavy outer coats to fit in with the other schoolgirls, who were frank about their hostility to us. They gave us nicknames such as the Penguin Club, or sometimes the Zuzu Club, an ironic reference to our refusal to see the film Beware of Zuzu . It starred Souad Hosny, who danced her famous dance. The girls at school imitated her by resting a finger on one cheek, pretending to be meditating on their conquests and famous lovers they regretted, and sighing for imaginary bridges to faraway cities which Hala described as if she were describing a brothel; she also said that everything here was nauseating, and that I would leave one day.
    There was an unwritten pact between us and those girls. We openly exchanged spiteful glances and hatred as we sat in school like respectable classmates suffering the same oppression and burdened spirits in that depressing building. We also concurred tacitly in our hatred of the Mukhabarat sympathizers, who wrote reports for their branches expressing their loyalty to the Party and their pride in the word ‘comrade’, which the headmistress pronounced with the same deliberation, heavy meaning and veneration. We hated Nada who wore suits of commando camouflage and marched around, shouting in high-pitched masculine accents, the very image of the officer from the death squad who brought her to school with his car stereo turned up and the misbaha of wine-coloured amber beads clattering away. He sang along cheerfully to Fuad Ghazi, a singer famous for her frequent appearances on state radio and television. As the girls came out of school, the officer almost blocked the gate with his car door. We saw how handsome he was, while the headmistress averted her eyes as he stared shamelessly at our chests. Nada climbed in beside him with a military showmanship that made her terrifying. She would walk in halfway through a lesson and leave whenever she felt like it. The teachers all ignored her slam of the classroom door – with the exception of the chemistry teacher; on one occasion she wouldn’t allow Nada to leave and threatened to expel her. Nada left with a derisive glance, and we all waited for the next chemistry lesson with the ardency of someone desperate for the next instalment of an exciting TV serial. The chemistry teacher curtly asked Nada to leave. Nada laughed sardonically. The teacher came up to her and grabbed her by the hair and flung her out of the classroom. She closed the door and calmly returned to the blackboard, to the sound of Nada’s threats. The headmistress tried and failed to prevent the teacher’s transfer to Izaz, a small town north of Aleppo. Quietly, the chemistry teacher gathered up her papers, stood in front of us and said, ‘This is a pigsty. Not a school.’
    With her taut brown face and strong features, Nada looked like a professional handball player. Her hair was long and curly, her breasts large, her movements swift, and she spoke authoritatively as if she came from a place we knew nothing of. The girls tried to curry favour with her, but she fled from them and went off on her own. She was candid about her lover, Abu Ramy. She revealed some of their secrets to impress some of the girls, who didn’t hide their pleasure in his bulging muscles when he drove off at excessive speed. They talked about his officer friends, discussing their names, their salaries, and the brands and colours of their cars. The girls asked her to take them to the restaurants and hotels in Aleppo where the death squad officers went, where they would place their guns on the tables and guffaw as they saw other patrons avoiding their gaze before leaving quickly. The girls accompanying the officers felt arrogant, and