Page 5 - A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return, Expanded Edition

she cut a dashing figure. She always seemed to me like the heroine

of a comic book. The Washington Post describes her as risking her
life “to cover wars from the perspective of ordinary people, particu-
larly women and children.” In other words, people like Zeina and

her neighbors.

Here is an excerpt from Colvin’s last dispatch, to the Sunday Times
of London three days before she was killed:

They call it the widows’ basement. Crammed among make-
shift beds and scattered belongings are frightened women
and children trapped in the horror of Homs, the Syrian city

shaken by two weeks of relentless bombardment. . . .

Snipers on the rooftops . . . shoot any civilian who comes
into their sights. Residents were felled in droves in the first
day of the siege . . . but have now learnt where the snip-
ers are and run across junctions where they know they can

be seen. . . .

No shops are open, so families are sharing what they have
with relatives and neighbours.

The story sounds so much the same as Zeina’s.

I found a recipe for sfouf on the Internet. It looks pretty easy to
make, but you need semolina flour and turmeric. I shall walk two
blocks to the supermarket for the flour and spice, and nobody will

shoot at me. Doesn’t everybody deserve to live like that?

—Trina Robbins
March 2012