The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  Amir blinks.

  “Stories about me?”

  “About you and Sinan Aziz. You were characters in his stories.”

  “Really?”

  His eyes light up. He seems genuinely surprised, and his old face flushes with boyish excitement.

  “Imagine that,” he says, raising a hand and scratching his forehead in amazement. “That he didn’t forget me, I mean.”

  I shake my head.

  “He definitely didn’t forget you.”

  “What kind of a character was I?” Amir still seems amazed.

  Now that I see him opposite me, his hump rising behind his head like a mountain behind a tree, it seems mean of Father to have compared him to a camel. But Amir has a right to know.

  “You were Amir, a camel who was the servant and faithful friend of Abu Youssef, the protagonist of these stories.”

  I was afraid he’d be disappointed or hurt, or indignant even. But his face becomes even more animated before I’ve finished the sentence.

  He bangs the table with the palm of his hand and bursts out laughing.

  “That’s brilliant!” he says. “Were they bedtime stories?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fantastic. Did he write them down? Do you still have them?”

  “He just told them to me.”

  I’m relieved that he’s so pleased.

  “That’s really amazing. And? Am I how you imagined me?”

  “Well, I didn’t know that any of you existed in real life,” I say. I feel like a little boy whose toys have started talking to him from the bedroom shelf. “I thought you only existed in his stories.”

  “Well, I’m here, as you can see,” he says with a laugh. “Tell me, what kind of adventures did they have?”

  “All sorts of adventures. You and Abu Youssef, you were famous throughout the land. You were hailed by everyone, from kings and sheikhs and princesses to the ordinary folk, and they all wanted your autograph.”

  He beams with pleasure.

  “I like the sound of that,” he says. “Thanks for telling me. It’s amazing, isn’t it—we forget so much as we grow older, but the stories we heard as children stay with us all our lives, don’t they?”

  “That’s true,” I say. “And these were pretty special stories.”

  I take a quick gulp of lemonade before the ice melts entirely. There’s no sign of Nabil. He’s probably snoozing under some tree.

  “Amir,” I say. “There’s something I have to ask you.”

  “Ask away.” His voice is still bright with pleasure.

  I’m not sure how to phrase the question. It’s been keeping me awake ever since that meeting in the Rhino Night Club. The feeling is so strong that I haven’t been able to shake it off.

  “Sinan Aziz was a rhinoceros who was unbeatable at cards,” I begin. “You were a camel, the hero’s trusty servant. There was an Ishaq in one of the stories too, a slave driver who could change into a lizard.”

  Amir’s face suddenly darkens.

  “Ishaq,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “A slave driver, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And he could turn into a lizard?”

  “Yes. At full moon.”

  “Very apt.”

  “That’s what Aziz said too. Did you leave the Carlton because of Ishaq?”

  “Partly.” Amir nods, embarrassed. “But that’s all in the past. Let’s not go into it.”

  “All I want to say is this: Ishaq was in these stories …” I speak slowly to make sure he’s with me. “Sinan Aziz was in the stories. You were in lots of his stories …” I pause for a moment. “Amir.” I look him in the eye, trying to keep his full attention. “All of these figures are real people.”

  “Yes,” he says uncertainly. “I understand.”

  “So,” I say and take a deep breath. “Who is Abu Youssef?”

  The crickets’ singing has grown louder. It’s everywhere, a cacophonous concert resonating in the valley. The dogs that were dozing on a terrace now pad sluggishly down the road. A man comes out of the house across the way, looks into the sun, and nods at me before heading off into the village. Amir reappears with a fresh jug of lemonade. I had gone inside to use the toilet, then sat down outside while he was refilling the lemonade. The inside of his house took me by surprise. All the rooms were bare. No furniture except for a mattress in one room. I didn’t see any sign of a TV, a telephone, or a computer. I remembered what Sinan Aziz had said: If you knew how he lives, you’d be congratulating me on how quickly I found him.

  It’s sad to think of Amir all alone up here. He doesn’t seem too bothered by it, but this reclusiveness seems at odds with the jolly camel who loved crowds, loved signing his autograph and being the centre of attention. It’s as if real life had let him slide once the stories about him stopped.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says, putting down the jug. “There was a guy called Youssef in the hotel. I didn’t really know him but maybe he and Brahim were friends. That could have fed into the stories. It’s one possibility, though I never saw the two of them together, and Youssef was only there for a short time. Which is why there may be another explanation …”

  “Which is?”

  “There’s nothing special about the name Youssef. It was a very common boy’s name in Lebanon at that time, still is today. Let’s say you were telling a story about France and you wanted your hero to symbolise the French people, to be a typical Frenchman, you’d call him François, right? François and Youssef are symbolic, they’re everyman. Brahim may have given his hero that name deliberately. He’s a prototype, you could say, the classic Lebanese: friendly, hospitable, loves parties, an adventurer like his Phoenician ancestors. And of course, there’s bound to be a lot of Brahim in this character too.”

  Amir smiles at me. This second explanation sounds very plausible. I know how much Father loved Lebanon. It would be just like him to create a symbolic character whose name would be instantly recognisable as Lebanese.

  “It makes sense for a dreamer like him,” says Amir, who has obviously read my mind.

  “Yes, it does.”

  He nods his head in satisfaction.

  “Not every question is as complicated as we think. Am I right?”

  “Definitely,” I say. We clink glasses.

  “Can you tell me more about my father?”

  “Of course.” He massages the back of his neck with one hand while he speaks. “When I started at the hotel, in March 1981, Brahim and Sinan Aziz were already there. I often worked with Sinan. I don’t know what Brahim told you about Ishaq, but at the time, Sinan was not exactly slim, and I had this hump. Ishaq didn’t want the guests to catch sight of either of us. We were good, hard-working employees at a time when not many people wanted to work in hotels, so he couldn’t easily replace us. We were good enough for menial tasks, but we didn’t look the part in a fine hotel. It was the Carlton, after all, a prestigious Beirut institution. Ishaq was pretty brutal. He’d make us do the worst possible jobs for days on end. One day he roared at me, ‘You’re damn lucky there’s a war on in Beirut. We used to have Cirque du Soleil round the corner. They’d have loved to get their hands on a talking camel like you.’ Your father cheered me up later. ‘Technically, you are a dromedary, as you only have one hump. He should have referred to you as a talking dromedary.’ I had to laugh, the way he said it. He never treated me any differently on account of my appearance, and we were probably a bit closer because we were both Christian.”

  “Was religion an issue among the staff, then?”

  “No. But we were afraid it might become one. It wasn’t that there were bombs going off all the time in Beirut. It wasn’t the kind of war that had everyone rushing to the cellars as soon as the alarm sounded. The trouble was often confined to par
ticular streets, so chances were you’d hardly notice it. Weeks would go by without any shots fired, but then the gunfire would break out again. A lot of it was about gaining control of entire districts. It wasn’t just Christians fighting Muslims fighting Druze; everyone fought everyone if they thought they had something to gain. For us, it was more a war of fear. We kept hearing about road blocks, about militias randomly stopping people in the street and taking them away, or shooting them on the spot and dumping them in the sea. The thing we all worried about most was one of our workmates’ relatives being abducted or killed. Things could have turned sour if, for example, Christian militiamen had murdered a Muslim colleague’s cousin. Then we wouldn’t have been just workmates any more, we’d have been Christian workmates. Religion would have become important all of a sudden, even though it was largely irrelevant in our daily interactions. Brahim understood perfectly how to leave what was going on outside the hotel where it belonged—outside. He did it by treating everyone exactly the same, even though he had special status himself. The tricks he played on the rich tourists meant that he always had money, and he shared it with us. If Ishaq withheld a portion of our wages, Brahim would sometimes lend us that amount and more. He always had money to spare because he worked where the best tips were to be had. He really was very popular, your father. When I started working there in 1981, he was already a minor celebrity. He was the one who represented management, who’d welcome important guests when they arrived, shake their hands. He was the man to talk to if you wanted your wedding in the Carlton. He handled all the details—the number of guests, the menu, the wines, the lute player, the mini fireworks display by the pool. He was indispensable, really.”

  “You said he was very popular among the staff. Because he shared his money, you mean?”

  Amir shakes his head emphatically.

  “No, no. It was his whole manner. The kind of easy-going light-heartedness he had about him was pretty rare in Beirut at the time. The fact that he shared his money with us helped, but it wasn’t the main reason for his popularity.”

  “What was the main reason, then?”

  “Sooner or later, word got around that Brahim’s mother was very wealthy. As a matter of fact, your father didn’t actually need to work at the Carlton at all. He could have left Lebanon and studied abroad. But there he was in the hotel with us, and he didn’t seem to care about money. The rest of us would have seized an opportunity like that with both hands. We’d have packed our bags and waited somewhere else for the war to end. Studying abroad would have been like winning the lottery. Your father was different, though. Perhaps it was foolish of him, but we all admired Brahim’s rebellious streak.”

  Rebellious. That’s the word I was looking for. Suddenly, I remember the print in my pocket. I slide it across the table.

  “Can you tell me anything about this photo?”

  Amir’s fingers draw it closer. He studies it silently for a while. Then, in a quiet voice, he asks, “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s from an old slide,” I say. “I’ve had it for a long time. I had a print made a couple of years ago. His disappearance has something to do with this slide.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I don’t think I was ever meant to see it. He showed us the slide by accident one night and my parents had a big row over it afterwards. Mother accused him of breaking a promise. She was under the impression that he’d destroyed the slide years earlier, and she was furious that he still had it. I took the slide and put it in a safe place.”

  I look up to see if there’s any reaction from Amir, but he’s just looking at me, waiting for the rest of the story.

  “While they were arguing, Father said something to Mother: ‘The photo means something to me.’ I’m convinced that this slide triggered something in him. He behaved strangely from that evening on, and a few weeks later he was gone.”

  Amir rests a bony hand on mine. His skin is warm and his grip so firm that I look up in surprise.

  “I’m sorry, Samir,” he says. “I’m so sorry your family had to go through all that.”

  I try to smile gratefully but I’m not sure I succeed.

  “Do you know anything about this picture?”

  Amir’s hand loosens its grip on mine. He holds the print in both hands and studies it at length.

  “I recognise the scene, but from a different angle,” he says, frowning. “I haven’t seen this picture before. See the photographer at the left edge of the frame? I’ve seen the photo he took.”

  “You mean there’s another photo?”

  “You know who that is, standing beside your father?”

  “Bashir Gemayel.”

  He nods.

  “Brahim was very proud of that photo. Of the original, I mean. He even had it in his room, over his bed.”

  “Do you know when it was taken?”

  Amir wrinkles his forehead.

  “It must have been April or May 1982.” He examines the photo closely, as if that might elicit the exact date. “But there’s something about your theory that doesn’t add up.”

  “Which theory?”

  “Your theory that this photo triggered something so momentous that he decided to leave his family.”

  “What doesn’t add up?”

  “I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it would surprise me.”

  “Why so?”

  He points at the picture.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so many other people in the picture, looking on in the background?”

  I had actually wondered about this, but eventually I’d put it down to Bashir Gemayel’s celebrity status.

  “The whole thing was staged.”

  “Staged? How do you mean?”

  “Well, like I said, it was April or May 1982. A Wednesday, I think. Just a regular morning in the hotel—guests lounging by the pool, staff taking in grocery and toiletry deliveries at the rear entrance. This happened every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My colleagues were helping to unload supplies. I was assigned to the laundry, so all I can tell you is what others told me later.”

  “Please. Go on,” I say. “It might help me piece things together.”

  “That morning, Brahim got a call from reception to say that a VIP had arrived. So he went down to greet the guest on behalf of the management, as he always did. He was more than a little surprised to see Bashir Gemayel standing there. This was west Beirut, after all. Bashir was founder and leader of the Christian Forces Libanaises. He was the enemy, at least as far as the ruling militias in west Beirut were concerned. Bashir showing up in the Carlton wasn’t exactly the eighth wonder of the world, since he was well guarded, but it was very unusual all the same. Your father greeted the guest. Bashir turned to him. ‘Are you the manager?’ he asked. Brahim explained that Mr. Abdallah was tied up but sent his apologies. Then Bashir said to his people, ‘Let’s do it here.’ He pointed at Brahim. ‘Give the uniform to this young man.’ One of Bashir’s men handed Brahim a Forces Libanaises uniform, with the cedar in a red circle on the jacket. Your father put it on. They even tucked a gun into his belt. Then they positioned Bashir and Brahim in front of the staircase in the foyer, under the chandelier, and a photographer took pictures. When it was over, Bashir only wanted the gun back. They said your father could keep the uniform. The whole thing took no more than fifteen minutes. Then they all trooped out of the hotel and drove off.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” I say.

  “We didn’t think so either,” says Amir with a knowing smile. “But three days later someone brought a copy of the Forces Libanaises paper to the hotel, spread it out on the table, and there was the photo, on the third page. The caption read, ‘Our leader, Bashir Gemayel, welcomes the 25,000th recruit of the Forces Libanaises.’ Your father was given a completely fictitious name too. D’you see? It was a propaganda photo. Who know
s, maybe it was pure chance that they were driving by the hotel that day and got the idea for a photoshoot. The foyer was very grand, after all, just the right backdrop. Brahim was simply in the right place at the right time; that’s how the photo came about, and this shot”—Amir points at the print on the table between us—“was probably taken by a colleague who happened to be in the foyer at the time. It was full of people, as you can see.”

  What Amir says sounds credible, but I still feel a piece of the puzzle is missing. Father’s reaction to this photo was so out of character. I can’t see how such an apparently casual incident could have had such a dramatic effect on him.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that your mother asked him to get rid of the slide, though,” Amir continues. “Your father is wearing a Forces Libanaises uniform and standing beside Bashir Gemayel. He even has a gun in his belt. If your parents had been stopped at a road block manned by Muslim militias and your father had this photo on him, you can be sure they’d have taken him prisoner or killed him.” Amir sees my uncertainty. “Thirty years,” he says. “Time passes and we begin to question things. We see puzzles even where the answers are plain to see. We don’t want to accept that the solution is usually simpler than we think—we wish it were more complicated. We wish there were countless obstacles to overcome before we can find the answer. And you know why? Because overcoming these obstacles gives us time—time and an excuse to keep pondering the question, even though we’ve long since realised there’s nothing more to it. The irony is that the longer we think about it, the more discrepancies and questions arise. And at the end of our lives, we realise that all we’ve found is new mysteries and no new answers, apart from the one simple answer, the one that seemed far too easy at the outset.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say.

  “I know I am,” says Amir, handing the photo back with a smile.

  “Did my father admire Bashir, I wonder? I’d like to know why this photo was so important to him, like you say. There must have been a reason why he kept it and hid it.”