The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  That’s when the nightmares started. The nights when Mother rushed to my bed because I couldn’t stop screaming until the light was turned on. The horrible dreams in which I saw Father lying face-down in a grave at the side of a desolate road or bobbing at the bottom of a lake, his eyes bulging and shackles of weeds around his feet. My head was filled with such images because during school breaks, the other boys would speculate about what had happened to him. When they noticed me, they’d elbow each other in the ribs and look down in embarrassment. Some days, Mother would have to come pick me up from the principal’s office. With sad, dull eyes, she’d murmur a quiet apology before taking me out into the corridor and forcing me to shake hands with whichever boy I’d got into a scrap with.

  It was around then that I started wetting the bed too. This was followed by a series of other firsts: the first Christmas without him, the first New Year’s, the first summer, and, eventually, my first birthday without him. I couldn’t do anything without thinking that the last time I’d done it, I’d been with him: going to the outdoor pool; buying ice cream in the parlour that sold the crazy bright-blue flavour we used to call Smurf; going for walks and singing out loud. I went through various phases, including one in which I clung to Mother, refusing to leave her side for a second. Afraid that she, too, might shut the door behind her and never return, might vanish like window frost in the sunlight. If she told me before she left the house that she’d be back at seven, by ten past I’d be on the phone, ringing every number in our address book in a panic, trying to find out where she was.

  Not even Yasmin could console me. Once, in the cold blue mist of a spring that had arrived late that year, she took my hand, but I shook her off and walked alone across the field, half-hoping she’d follow, half-relieved when she didn’t. Whenever she peeked into my room, where I spent much of the time brooding on my bed, I’d pretend not to see her, fixing my eyes on a spot on the floor so that I didn’t have to look at her. And I stopped walking to school with her. I’d walk alone instead, looking behind me every now and then to see her following from a safe distance.

  She was always tiptoeing around me, ready to step in if anyone started giving me a hard time, always ready to help. But I found her presence painful; I couldn’t bear it. Once, when she told me I hadn’t smiled in a long time, I snarled back: “That’s all right for you to say, you still have a father!” I knew she was hurt, but she didn’t let it show, which made it even harder to put up with her, because it showed she was so much stronger than me. I would have liked to behave differently. But I couldn’t, because I was afraid she’d ask about the last Abu Youssef story, the biggest secret my father and I shared.

  -

  3

  Our route is narrow and rocky. Children play at the side of the road, and Nabil does his best to avoid the potholes.

  A little while ago, we overtook a roaring, clapped-out delivery lorry as it dragged itself up the mountain. Piled on the flatbed was a metre-high stack of furniture, on top of which perched a girl with black pigtails and a goat, both staring at us in bewilderment. The city lies far behind us. All I can see in the mirror now is the road snaking behind us, and beyond it, the sea. We pass the odd squat house, cube-shaped and whitewashed. The landscape is dominated by citrus groves and boulders. My memory of the city smells fades as we ascend. Pines and broom are dotted across the mountainside, releasing their own wonderful scent.

  It’s not even sixty kilometres from Beirut to Maasser el-Chouf, yet the journey takes us over two hours. Nabil beeps the horn several times whenever we approach blind bends in case another car is trundling towards us. But the higher we get, the less traffic we encounter.

  The air is clear and cold; I could do with another layer of clothing.

  “This is the most peaceful place in Lebanon,” Nabil says in a relaxed voice, as if he’s wrapped in a bathrobe and sprawled on a lounger. “No noise, no cars. It’s totally unspoilt around here.” He slows down and pulls in at the side of the road. “Here we are.” I remember Father telling me many times how, as a young man, he’d sought refuge in the silence of the cedars and looked out on the countryside unfurling below him. And it really is peaceful; were it not for the chirping of crickets, the silence would be palpable.

  “There aren’t many places like this left in Lebanon,” Nabil says. He points up a steep track. “Shall we?”

  Here, at a height of almost 2,000 metres, I can see the entire country for the first time. Or at least, that’s how it feels. A long, shimmering strip of coast stretching out left and right. Beyond that, the azure sea and foamy white crests of incoming waves. On the shore, miniature harbours and towns gleaming like silvery pearls. Green fields and terraced vineyards on the hillsides. And below me, bathed in the brash midday sun, Beirut, with its sphinx-like, self-assured smile.

  The cedars are truly breathtaking. Nabil lets me go ahead and trots behind, his hands clasped behind his back as if he’s meditating. For a while, he kicks along a stone. I’m filled with awe. I’ve pictured this moment so often, seen myself walking along this very route, observed myself as if I were sitting on the branch of a cedar. Now that I’m really standing here on this soft dark-brown earth, I can see how close the reality is to my dreams. Cedars all around me, some over forty metres tall. Their trunks are so thick it would take an entire football team to embrace them. The spicy smell is intoxicating. They’ve grown old and wise standing watch over the country down the centuries.

  “The trees are five to six hundred years old on average,” says Nabil. He has stopped a few metres behind me and is smiling, delighted that he can teach me something. “Though some of them are over a thousand years old.”

  I can’t help it; I see Father before me, leaning against a trunk, a blade of grass in the corner of his mouth as he looks down on the city.

  “This trunk,” says Nabil, pointing to the cedar in front of me, “has split into three sub-trunks. That means it’s between two thousand and five thousand years old. It’s hard to determine the exact age.”

  “How come you know so much about these trees?”

  Nabil’s smile grows even wider. He was clearly hoping I’d ask.

  “My father was a cedar guardian.”

  “You mean a Guardian of the Cedar, during the war?”

  “Oh no, of course not!” he says, raising his hands, “We’re Muslims.”

  The Guardians of the Cedars, a far-right, nationalist, Maronite Christian party, were one of the many militias involved in the Lebanese civil war. I know this because over the past few years I’ve spent more time whispering in libraries and delving in dark archives than I’ve spent with my fiancée. In 1976, the Guardians of the Cedars took part in a massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp Tel al-Zaatar. Today, they are fighting Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war.

  “My father was a repairman, but during the war he had a side line in fruit and cigarettes,” Nabil says. “He made a good living. There were always things that needed fixing, and no one was prepared to do without fruit or cigarettes.”

  I nod.

  “Cedar guardian …”

  “Yes.” He stops and looks at the trees as if they’re close relatives. “The cedars are under threat. The guardians make sure that they survive, plant new trees, and keep an eye on the stock. And, like all guardians, they have to deal with intruders.”

  “What kind of intruders?”

  “Goatherds.”

  “Goatherds?”

  “Yes. They drive their herds into the newly planted areas because every time the forest expands, the goatherds lose pastureland. So, they let their goats eat the saplings.” He looks around. “My father became a cedar guardian at some point after the war. He was too old for big repair jobs, and cigarettes and fruit were available everywhere, so he was looking for something else to do.”

  The trees are so mighty, so noble. It’s hard to imagine they might be gone one day
.

  “Climate change is the biggest threat,” Nabil says, reading my mind once more. “The ideal altitude for cedars is between 1,200 and 1,800 metres.”

  “How high are we now?”

  “Around 1,400 metres. That used to be ideal, back when the snow arrived on time and lay on the mountains for ages. The ground stayed damp and cold for several months. Cedar seeds can only germinate when it’s cold, which means …” He looks at me, like a teacher prompting a pupil.

  “… that their natural habitat keeps shifting to higher ground,” I respond.

  “Exactly.” Nabil nods. “But the Lebanon Mountains only go so high. If there’s no rain in summer, and the trees can’t even draw moisture from mist in the spring, sooner or later there’ll be no more cedars.”

  It’s a horrible thought. My image of Lebanon is inseparable from these giants.

  “They’re so beautiful,” I say, more to myself than to Nabil. “And they really do look like the ones on the flag.”

  Nabil nods again.

  “That’s why we call them ‘flag-shaped’. Ground water can only nourish the tree up to a certain height.” He looks up at the trunk in front of us. “Eight to ten metres, maybe. Then the tip of the tree dies and the spread of the lower branches gives the cedar its distinctive shape.” He traces the horizontal layers of branches with his finger.

  We walk for a while, crossing fields and narrow trails. I try to imagine how it might look here one day: the grass tall and wild, the cedars withered or vanished entirely; no more snow-covered mountaintops, just scree and sheer rocks. What would that mean for a country whose identity, whose very name—Land of the Cedars—is synonymous with this tree? The cedar is on everything, from stamps to banknotes. Lebanon—a country without a name?

  “Don’t look so glum,” says Nabil, patting me on the shoulder. “We’ll be long gone by the time the last cedar disappears. These trees are much tougher than us. Maybe the sea will reclaim the coast, and everything will go back to how it was in primordial times.” He laughs light-heartedly. Strange as it sounds, it’s comforting to think that we humans won’t be around to see the cedars die out.

  Later, we sit on the grass, our backs against a thick tree trunk, and look out to sea. Nabil has fetched savoury pies from the car.

  “My wife made them,” he says, handing me one. It’s filled with spinach and sheep’s cheese.

  I think of Mother and how she used to make these pies while I tugged at her apron in excitement. When she wasn’t looking, I’d stuff my mouth with sheep’s cheese before she noticed anything and sneak out of the kitchen, chewing contentedly.

  “What else are we doing today?” Nabil asks.

  I like the fact that he says “we.” But once again, I’m aware that I don’t have a plan. All I have is a vague idea, though who knows where it will lead me.

  “I need to go to Zahle,” I say.

  “Zahle,” he repeats. “That’s sixty kilometres or so. From here we’ll have to take mountain roads, though, so it’ll take about an hour and a half.” He looks at his watch. It must be early afternoon by now. “I’m happy to drive you,” he says, “but how much time are you planning to spend there?”

  “I don’t know.” I look down. “Depends on what I find.”

  -

  4

  I’d never bothered much with friends, and now I was paying the price. I spent most of my time alone, obsessing about Father not being here anymore. The silence he’d left behind spread like deadly nightshade.

  I’d always found it hard to make friends, even when he was around. The only thing I had in common with my classmates was our route to school. On the rare occasions when I found myself standing around with a group of kids in the schoolyard, I’d keep quiet, my hands in my pockets and eyes on the ground, present but not really there, giving the odd nod, acting as if I knew who’d scored the best Bundesliga goal over the weekend, pretending I’d seen the latest Schwarzenegger film too, and yeah, the explosions were cool, and sure, I’d snuck into the cinema with a friend of a friend who’d bought us tickets. In truth, I wasn’t in a football club, I didn’t play any instrument, and I didn’t have video games at home. I couldn’t join in the conversation, but then there had been no need to when Father was around. There had been no reason to concern myself with the outside world. On our street, I had everything I needed to be happy: warmth, togetherness, fun. I had my father and Yasmin, and sometimes Khalil, the diabolo expert. That was enough for me.

  But now I couldn’t even look Yasmin in the eye. A gulf had opened up between us. I avoided her, partly because I was afraid she’d ask me about the story, and partly because I was beginning to grasp what it must have been like to grow up without a mother. This newfound understanding should have brought us closer together. I could have looked at Yasmin and taken heart: in spite of all she and Hakim had been through, she’d turned out to be a joyful, strong, happy girl. That could have lifted my spirits, given me hope that things would get easier one day. But it never even occurred to me. My fear of getting close to her was mixed with shame, shame that I’d never shown her the kindness she was now showing me. It made me turn away from her even more, until I realised I was completely alone.

  After Father disappeared, it felt as if the outside world no longer existed, or at least as if it was oblivious to what was going on in our street. People simply carried on as if nothing had happened. My greatest fear was that no one would remember him, that he’d be forgotten like a rainy day in April, so I saw it as my duty to mourn him for as long as I could. I carried my grief around with me like a bowl of tears, shuffling through the streets with my head down, avoiding eye contact. At school, I spent most of the day staring out the window. The teachers wrapped me in cotton wool, warning the other kids to be nice to me and not to mention Father when I was around. My grades had never been very good, and the teachers were afraid my performance would slide even further if they didn’t watch out for me. I tried. I really did. But when I attempted to strike up a conversation with the other kids, to talk about things I thought they’d be interested in, I sensed a barrier going up. Their replies were terse, as if each word was one too many, as if there was a danger I’d take what they said the wrong way. No matter what I did, I would always be the boy whose father had disappeared.

  Miss Lisewski, the maths teacher who sang silly songs to help us remember our times tables, always came over to me at breaktime when she spotted me standing alone in the corner of the yard. She was a tall woman, not very pretty. Her eyes were too far apart. Rumour had it this was the result of an operation she’d had to catch children cheating in exams, especially the ones who sat by the walls. No other teacher embodied their subject quite like Miss Lisewski, whose head was always bowed, like the number nine.

  “Don’t you want to play with the other children, Samir?” she’d ask. What she really meant was “Off you go, Samir, play with the others!”, so I’d do what I was told. I never felt like I was really joining in, though. Despite my lack of talent, I was passed the ball more often than many other kids, and I was never fouled or jostled. The layer of cotton wool around me seemed to unnerve my classmates. They had plenty of opportunities to tease me during these football games, but they didn’t dare. Sometimes, as they challenged each other for the ball, I’d look through the tumult of kicking legs and spot Yasmin with a group of girls, watching me. When she caught me looking at her, she’d smile and wave, but I always pretended not to notice.

  Laura’s birthday marked a turning point. After that, I stopped harbouring any desire to be less alone.

  A few weeks after the Easter holidays—our first Easter without Father—I developed a routine for when the final bell rang at school. I’d put my books, pencils, and copybooks into my schoolbag as slowly as possible and stay in my seat until all the other kids had left the classroom. It was the same every day: chairs were scraped back, the volume suddenly rose, rucksacks
were opened and copybooks thrown in, jackets were zipped up, and excited conversations were carried out of the room and down the corridor. I’d usually wait until the teacher asked me to leave, gently explaining that she needed to lock up. If I could still hear my classmates’ footsteps echoing in the corridors, I’d kneel to tie my laces. I’d try to waste as much time as possible before starting my journey home. That way no one would see me when I walked out into the schoolyard alone, and I’d spare myself a sight I dreaded: other children running past me into the arms of their parents. Mothers kissing their kids, taking their schoolbags and walking with them to the car park. Fathers laughing and shadow-boxing, putting their arms around their sons’ shoulders and driving them to music lessons or football.

  At first, I kept a lookout for him. I’d scan the grown-ups deep in conversation as they waited for their children, hoping to spot him among them. I’d convinced myself that the first thing he’d do on his return was pick me up from school. But as time went by, I began to realise that I was no longer sure what he looked like. I still had the photo of him at home in my little wooden box. But he was a young man in the picture, and there were times I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. Just holding the box was enough to make me burst into tears. Every time I picked it up, I noticed its smell had become a little fainter, fading just like the picture of him in my head. There came a point when I could no longer call to mind the exact shape of his face. I couldn’t remember what his laugh was like. It felt like he was behind a fogged-up window, darting past while I tapped on the pane, trying to get him to stop. No matter where I went, I saw him. If I stopped to look in a shop window, I’d see a reflection of him walking down the opposite side of the street. If I looked out the classroom window, I’d see him standing behind the big oak tree by the fence. And if I missed my bus, I’d see him looking out the back window, waving to me as it pulled away in the pouring rain. That was why I decided to spare myself some pain and wait in the classroom until everyone was gone.