My Syrian Lover

By D. M. Cortese

Hers is the story of how an ordinary middle aged woman is transported from a humdrum existence; morally sedate and sexually naive, to pushing the boundaries of her conscience and experiencing pleasure of a magnitude she had never imagined. Her journey takes her into the realms of illicit love and clandestine liaisons which turn her life upside down and she finds herself dealing with love in it's highest manifestation as well as situations embroiled in secrecy, uncertainty and grief. The cost is the guilt she lives with having an ongoing affair with a married man, the sacrifices she makes; the concealed life she lives and how she compromises her career and, in the end, her security and trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514497975

D. M. Cortese

D M Cortese works in a job where behavioural science plays a part in conflict resolution and aligning people with the right progression for maximum career development. Cortese enjoys travel and learning about other cultures and this first novel is a culmination of those three elements brought together.

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Copyright © 2016 by D. M. Cortese.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016911044

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-9799-9

                Softcover        978-1-5144-9798-2

                eBook            978-1-5144-9797-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/04/2016

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Chiara’s Diary: Syria, June

It’s early summer, and the heat rises from the flat roofs as far as I can see. In the narrow streets the town is waking up, and shopkeepers are opening their shutters with a raw disregard for late sleepers who live in apartments above. Sunday mornings are my favourite. Early the call to prayer wafts across the town, tugging at the senses, a soft contrast to the angular shapes of the buildings and orderly steppes of the olive trees in the surrounding countryside. Now the church bell rings with its solemn measured interval, and I lean over the veranda to watch people hurry up the hill to shop or drink maté under the cool of an awning. I love Syria. Even in these troubled times there are many places of safety where life goes on in relative peace, and I am lucky enough to stay in one of them. I’ve become accustomed to the checkpoints on every road in and out of the town, where army personnel meticulously take in every detail of the vehicle and shine torches in your face at night.

It’s noisy here, and the main language is that of the traffic. Car horns are perpetually blasted, each sequence having its unique meaning: a quick beep as a greeting, two to state that you have no intention of stopping, and then the cacophony of impatience as queues grow at the petrol station, spilling out into the street when an intermittent delivery is made. Attendants are efficient; the queues at the concourse are not. Whoever pushes hardest for the next spot at the bowser gets the fuel as long as your petrol cap is open and ready. The attendant wields the fuel line with one hand and smokes with the other, and when our turn comes, I watch as the lira click over in thousands until the tank is full. No one half fills their car here. There’s no small change given; the attendant adds your paper money to the growing stash in his smoking hand and bids you God’s blessing as you pick your way through to exit, only to find that the way out is merely another entrance in these chaotic times.

Driving here is an art. There are few apparent rules, and he who arrives first has right of way. In the town centre, traffic police add their harmony to the road symphony with shrill whistles, often stopping to chat to a friend or lazily waving a half-hearted hand to direct the flow. Offences are dealt with as they happen; a 500-lira note concealed in a handshake fixes the problem. No fines, no tickets, and no hard feelings. Pedestrians prove to be a greater hazard than the vehicles as they stroll along the road and cross without so much as a glance. Short beeps indicate your presence, but they seem reluctant to move to the side, and only repeated warnings make them attempt to take a step out of the way.

There are motorcycles laden with produce, furniture, and families. No helmets, and a code which lies somewhere between pedestrian and driver—no matter which side of the road you drive on or in which direction, motorcycles have a law of their own. At night, driving along the unlit roads between villages, you often come upon a motorcyclist with no tail lights at all, or a passenger holding a torch to light the way for the driver because he has no front light.

I look from the veranda to the gentle hills surrounding the town. Maazin has gone to attend to some business, and my uncertain Arabic makes it hard for me to venture out alone, so I sit in the warm wind and let my mind wander. How I love this country. It’s on the brink of change, cruelly halted by the current unrest, but ready to embrace the world’s tourists: Shop signs in Arabic also have English captions. Hotels and resorts beautifully designed and furnished are ready to greet visitors, mostly empty now, but ready. The vista makes me smile, the olive groves slowly merging with new builds, the old and the new meeting respectfully.

My daydreams are shattered by the zipping of machine-gun fire and persistent car horns as another funeral procession makes its way through the town; a banner and flag garnishing the front vehicle attached to a billboard portraying the image of a young man in army uniform, proudly holding his weapon, his pride to fight for his country evident in his eyes, his posture haughty and defiant. His face will be added to the boards which line the streets of all the towns and villages: posters of countless faces, hundreds of lives ended by war, but never forgotten, images of army personnel, civilians, and even children, all mourned in death, lives lost by chance, murder, or crossfire under the common heading of war. The gunfire continues, and even though I’m storeys above, I’m mindful of the possibility of stray bullets, so I move back a little but watch as the trail of vehicles moves slowly past. The cars are full, perhaps eight people inside some, and vehicles with running boards carry more. When the last vehicle has passed and the sound of the gunfire reduced to an echoing boom, I resume watching the day unfolding; further down the road a donkey is tethered to a tree, standing stock-still under the shadiest part. He will move with the sun and by late afternoon will have circumnavigated the tree and be facing the opposite direction. An old yellowing plastic bucket full of water his only sustenance until his owner collects him. Chickens venture into the street but seem to understand that to linger means certain death, and they scatter noisily when a vehicle approaches. The animals are cared for, and theft is a rare occurrence, as the penalties are stiff and the shame is worse. Women pass by with flatbread wrapped in clear plastic bags piled high on their heads, the condensation inside indicating its freshness, and they carry a bag of vegetables in each hand. The petrol station has run dry, and the unlucky few who did not get any fuel reluctantly move off. They will travel on down the road until they find another source, and the attendant is fixing the heavy steel chain across the entry and exit, his pocket bulging with his takings. The potato vendor passes in his van, the crackly recording playing loudly through a speaker, ‘Batata, batata, batata . . .’

CHAPTER 1

T hey met over ten years ago, both migrants to Australia, unlikely to have ever met otherwise, he being Syrian and she Italian. They had both arrived in the Nineties, coming to family already established in Australia and hoping for new opportunities and a better life. Their fortunes had been kind; he was the proprietor of a convenience store close to where she lived, and she was a regular customer. Her job and its location made it impossible to buy necessities such as milk or bread during regular hours, so she would be at his shop early in the morning or later at night on her way to and from work. Chiara was a loner of sorts, sociable enough when out with friends or family, but really preferring her own company. She could comfortably stand in front of a conference room full of people and deliver facts and figures, but in private she was reserved and quiet, preferring to observe and listen. She had a wicked sense of humour which had long been suppressed under the need for professional propriety, so if she did ever let out a witticism or joke, people weren’t sure how to tak e it.

She was of average height and build with long, unruly hair and brown eyes, perhaps not aware that she had a certain charisma about her, particularly when she found something troubling: her dark brows would raise up and meet the beginnings of frown lines on her forehead, and her eyes would look solemnly down, alluding to a demure and sensitive nature. She didn’t think of herself as beautiful, but she knew she was presentable and that when she smiled it was genuine.

Her marriage of nearly twenty years had failed, and she was immersed in her work, spending longer than necessary in her office, transformed from a clinical, uninteresting box to a home away from home, substituting the soulless family house into her own small apartment, complete with flowers on the desk and coffee machine on the filing cabinet, welcoming and friendly as befitting her job and reflecting her simple needs in life. Her long hours at work had indeed contributed to her success, as she had managed to climb the corporate ladder high enough to think that the next step could be a directorship and that ambition overshadowed any thoughts she may have had about the importance of companionship for the future. She was in charge of a division of over 600 employees working in the travel and tourism industry, and for the last eight years she had focused her attention on her career and it dominated her life, shielding her from the realisation that she and her husband no longer loved each other or even spent time together, their only son the reason for maintaining a sham of family life whilst he was still in education. Whatever feeling she had left for him was that he had cared enough to stay until their son was grown and out of school. Chiara’s husband had left her for someone she knew, but there were no hard feelings, as they’d drifted far apart over the years and led relatively separate lives, the house a convenience rather than a home, and when the end came in the early 2000s, it was a relief for her. There were no recriminations, no tears, and no arguments. She certainly was not looking for a relationship or even a thrilling social life; she was relatively content in a mundane routine and was contemplating her personal future with only passing interest, still relishing her independence, her own company, and freedom to come and go as she pleased. She was not rich, but her salary and sense with money meant that she was able to live a relatively comfortable lifestyle, and her persistent saving had ensured that she would continue to be self-sufficient, and that seemed to be all that mattered.

Maazin made pleasant conversation with all his customers; he would chat about anything topical and offer an opinion if asked or just nod and listen. On many occasions when she was in the shop, she would hear customers offloading their problems to him or talking endlessly about their hardships and gripes, and he would patiently listen and empathise or make a small suggestion. Over time he had learned of her situation; she had told him little snippets about herself in the time she had shopped there. In the past she’d only casually mentioned that she didn’t see much of her husband; their working hours didn’t coincide, and he liked to go sailing on the weekends and she didn’t. But he had noticed when she stopped wearing her wedding ring and asked about it, and she had told him that they’d divorced. To her it was a plain fact, and she wasn’t ashamed to say that things just hadn’t worked out over the years. In the weeks that followed, he’d asked how she managed and if she missed her husband. She’d smiled and said she managed all right and that she didn’t miss him because really, they’d not spent time together for quite a few years. He’d seemed surprised that they’d stayed together so long if that had been the case, and she agreed that perhaps it would have been kinder to part earlier. Chiara was intrigued by his advice and comments, as she was unaccustomed to talking freely about herself and hearing genuine observations about her life from a complete stranger. She would laugh about the amount of time they spent in their respective jobs, both of them saying to the other about ‘needing to get a life’, and she was quite happy to talk to this Middle Eastern man, so obviously her junior, yet who seemed so worldly wise, so inquisitive in his conversations, and with whom she felt comfortable chatting during her brief visits to his shop. Chiara never inquired of his personal life, but she knew he was married, as he’d mentioned his wife, and now and again she would ask how she was. That was the extent of their acquaintance, and on the odd occasion she saw him outside of the shop, they would share a quick greeting and go their separate ways.

There were periods when she didn’t see him at all, finding out later that he had been away for a couple of weeks or having time off for a few days with his family, but his cheerful smile was always the same when he was there, and she was always pleased to see him, even after a stressful day at work, as his quick humour and silly jokes always made her smile. He was a real person with nothing to prove to her, unlike the corporate buffoons she dealt with on a day-to-day basis, each trying to impress and get ahead in their careers, their vocabularies full of company jargon, clichés, and metaphors. It was refreshing to let down her professional facade and be herself with him.

It was after one particularly tension-filled day that she realised she would probably be too late passing the shop to get what she needed, and she was surprised to find him only just closing when she drove past. She apologised as she got out of the car, asking if she had time to pick up a couple of items, and he assured her that there was no rush and, if she was going to be late, she should just call the shop and he would wait. She thought that it was a very kind gesture and thanked him as he gave her the number.

He was kind to all his customers. He related many stories of other regular patrons to her, saying that he thought good customer service was important, and she said that others could take a leaf from his book, which made him look inquisitively at her and ask for an explanation. Having English as a second language was not without challenges, and he was always interested to learn new anecdotes and expressions. He also liked to learn phrases in other languages, so of course she taught him some Italian ones, which he repeated over the following days until he got them right or tried out on other Italian customers, often making them look up in surprise. He was good at making people feel at ease, and this was reflected by how busy his shop was most of the day. He greeted everyone with at least a smile and a nod or by name, if he knew it.

It was just like that for many months, and if Chiara was ever away or didn’t come in for more than a few days, he would ask her where she’d been. On one occasion he asked if she was back together with her husband, as he had seen her with him and had wondered. She looked puzzled then remembered that they had met up to sort out some unfinished legalities over a coffee in the local shopping centre. For a brief moment she was taken aback, half amused that he had seen her and not said hello, and she wondered how he knew it was her ex, then the thought passed and she dismissed the vague feeling of unrest which accompanied her emphatic no. As time passed he sometimes asked her what she did outside of work. She struggled to find an answer; she worked outside of work, often spending hours on her laptop, writing reports or composing correspondence, and when she wasn’t doing that, she did the usual housework, gardened, and occasionally watched TV. She told him so and added that she liked walking and meeting friends for a coffee. It made her think briefly about her childhood and teens, when she’d been much more adventurous, but that had all been part of another life in rural Italy, before she’d moved to the city for university. He’d nodded and asked her why she didn’t go out much. Wasn’t she bored? Her answer was quick. She replied no; she had plenty to keep her busy.

Later, she’d thought about her life as a child; she and her multitude of cousins had always been up to mischief, and she was so often the ringleader, encouraging them to roam far into the hills, to find caves, where they would build a fire and tell stories. Often, there would be aunts and uncles out looking for them as they returned at dusk, dirty and red faced from chasing sheep and clambering down the steep hillsides, searching for hidden treasure, pieces of basalt or iron ore, which they kept in their pockets but which had always disappeared after the laundry was done. As she grew up and the village dances became more interesting, she never roamed far without an older cousin or aunt trailing behind, as teenage girls were a species to be protected. She’d been headstrong at sixteen, determined to move away and live the city life, to go to university and make a career for herself. She’d met with reprisal and concern from her family but had won in the end, as her dogged determination had worn them down.

Maazin was