Marwan returned to the table, a bottle of mineral water in his hand. He sat and poured a glass.
“Look,” he said, and gestured toward the entrance. A black BMW had pulled up in front of the café, reflecting everything in its tinted windows. The door opened and a thirty-something balding man emerged, dressed in an Armani suit and patent leather shoes. He was a surreal sight in these filthy surroundings.
“Look. That one’s a killer.”
“Why do you think?”
“Just watch.”
The waiter rushed out when he saw the man. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the guy must have ordered something, because the waiter hurried back to the fridge and retrieved a bottle of water.
“He won’t have to wait,” said Marwan. “Hamas’s killers don’t need to wait for anything.”
“Again, why do you think he’s a killer?”
“Only killers have such eyes. Look at his expression. Their eyes are like this, like glass.”
“I don’t see anything. How do you figure?”
“I am Palestinian. I’ve known a killer or two.”
I looked the man over, but didn’t see anything unusual about his face. His eyes were olive-green and bored. I couldn’t imagine him, in his elegant suit, shooting somebody in the leg—not the way they usually did it in the Gaza Strip. If they thought you had loose lips, they would find you at night, press the rifle barrel into your leg, and shoot so the bullet blows the leg bone to pieces and comes out the heel. Nobody can stand on a shattered leg bone; the limb is generally amputated from the knee down. They would also push people from rooftops. Sometimes it happened that they didn’t have to push; it was enough to remind men that they had wives and children, and the men would jump themselves. Those were the things we covered in the interviews over the past few days; those were the stories I was taking with me in my underwear.
“I should have been a killer,” said Marwan. “I’d have been a good one, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think you’d have been a good one. You’re too sensitive.”
“This is true. But I should have at least given it a try.”
“Don’t talk crap. Of course you shouldn’t have tried. You’re too smart to be a killer.”
“That doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, I’d live better than most. It’s just my eyes. I’d be sorry for my eyes.”
The waiter brought the water for the man in the suit; the man paid him, then got back into his car and drove off. The soldiers pushed the crowd back with their rifles and held the gate open for the car. The whole scene lasted no more than five minutes.
“See? What did I say? Killers don’t need to wait.”
“It’s also possible he’s a politician or diplomat.”
“He was a killer, I’m telling you. Give me a cigarette, please. I’m out.”
I passed him the pack. Marwan took one and lit up. From outside came the din of the crowd of people pleading to be let through. We didn’t speak; we just watched a family weighed down with luggage and wailing children. A few minutes later a black-clad Hamas soldier entered the café. The long black beard that hung from his face collected drops of sweat and appeared to sparkle in the sun.
“Foreigner!” he shouted.
“That’s you,” Marwan said, signaling the soldier, who stepped up to our table.
“Here is your passport, foreigner. You can cross. Your permission arrived from Egypt. Follow me.”
We stood up from the table, made our way through the crowd, and then walked down the dirt road to the gate. The soldier opened it a crack, and we stepped through. A booth stood by the chain-link fence. The bearded soldier gave the man inside my passport so he could take down my information.
“Have a great trip, brother,” said Marwan, hugging me. “You’re coming back for sure?”
“Definitely.”
“Good. I will wait for you every day. Just a week?”
“Yes. Just a week.”
I got my passport back and took a taxi to the Egyptian side. The border crossing there was empty, so I didn’t have to wait to get my stamp. After making it over the border I haggled with a Bedouin to take me to Cairo. He drove me in his beat-up Mercedes truck. I sat in the passenger seat. The horizon was brown; a storm was brewing above the desert.
I spent a long time gazing into the rearview mirror, studying my eyes. They were the same as always.
Homecoming
They were there to hunt deer. The young man’s father had arranged the paperwork with the hunting association, giving them permission to shoot a few animals. Dusk found them already in the forest’s easternmost region. His father and the father’s friend had brought the rifles; the young man had recently returned from Africa, and didn’t have one of his own. The fading sun shone through the leaves as they made their way to the wooden tower blinds. They had unpacked the equipment from the car, which they’d parked by the cabin. There was still a month left in summer and the blueberries by the path were ripe.
The father handed the rifle to his son, saying only, “The Remington 7 is yours.” The young man took it wordlessly and checked the bolt. It was a high-caliber weapon with a walnut stock, loaded with the type of expanding, dum-dum bullet his dad used for wild boars. For shooting a deer, his father’s favorite rifle, an antique Mauser, would have been enough. His grandfather had found it in the forest, where it lay discarded by a fleeing German soldier. Between them they’d kept the weapon hidden for fifty years.
“We can still have a smoke here,” said the father’s friend, and passed around a pack of Marlboros. The young man looked into the face of his father, the man whom the doctor had forbidden from smoking. All three took a cigarette and lit up.
“Don’t tell your mother. You know what she’s like,” said the father, turning to him.
“What’s she like?” interjected the father’s friend.
“Well, she worries.”
“Why, what’s the problem?”
“I have high blood pressure. High risk of a heart attack.”
“But you didn’t actually have a heart attack.”
“No,” said the father and stubbed his cigarette out against a tree trunk.
“Then why worry?”
“Well, you know what she’s like.”
They went farther down the path, hazelnut and oak trees lining the way. Dark was falling fast: minute by minute the shadows grew and the animals ventured farther from cover. The birds went quiet in the trees, and only a few crickets could be heard. They were already close to the clearing where the tower blinds were. They took their rifles from their shoulders and loaded them. The son pointed the barrel at the ground; he didn’t need his father to remind him of anything about hunting.
“And what was it like in Africa?” the father’s friend asked the son. “You’ve become awful quiet.”
“It was good.”
“Where were you exactly?”
“Sudan.”
“Isn’t there a war there?”
“Yeah.”
The father, panting now, stopped to catch his breath. They all stopped.
“I’m proud of you,” he said to the young man and leaned against a tree.
“You should be,” said the father’s friend. “Not just anybody can go photograph a war.”
The young man didn’t say a thing; he just gazed at his father’s boots in the dark. The old man had aged over the past year. His belly stuck out and he had become frail. The mother and her son frequently joked about this, if only to ease the simple sorrow of the fact. “We’ve become antique porcelain dolls,” they’d said to him when he got off the train. The father had looked down at his boots when he saw his son’s expression of surprise.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
They arrived at the clearing, its two tower blinds appearing at opposite edges. Grass had grown over the tree stumps that marked where the forest once stood. In neighboring Austria, the wood brought a good price. A t
ree disease spreading through the forest was a good enough pretext for chopping it down, and in turn keeping the hunting association’s till full. This had happened years ago, before the appearance of Italian guest hunters. Since then, they had no need to sell the trees. In the countryside, boars and all kinds of other game could be found, attracting foreign hunters in droves. A living could be made from it.
When they arrived at the edge of the clearing, the father began to speak. The crickets chirped in the grass.
“We can’t leave behind any animal we’ve wounded, because it will die in agony.”
“Of course, of course,” said the father’s friend. “But we’ve been hunting together for ten years now. Do you need to say this every time?”
“It was something I heard from my father,” the old man said, looking into the son’s face.
“I’m more interested in hearing how Africa was.”
“The weather was nice,” said the son.
“Tell us about it in the cabin. We’ll be here for two more weeks,” said the father. “Now let’s climb up the towers. We’ll go up this one, as usual. The other one’s yours,” he said, turning to his son.
The question posed by his father’s friend echoed in the young man’s head as he trod toward the tower. He climbed the ladder and sat on the perch. The moon appeared from behind the clouds, illuminating the clearing. He saw the tower opposite, embers flashing from cigarettes the father and his friend were smoking. It was a full moon, but not as bright as it would have been in the desert.
“Do you love me?” Rania had asked him in Khartoum, as she ran her hand along his chest. “Because I love you very much.” The woman’s white teeth flashed as she broke into laughter, black laughter. “You’re an ugly white,” she said, “but your eyes are blue and green. Green after lovemaking.”
The young man gazed at Rania as she combed her hair in the mirror. He liked to look at her back and how she worked the comb through her hair. “You are like a gazelle,” he said, stepping up to the mirror so he could touch her. “Light a cigarette for me,” said the girl, leaning forward so as to touch his hand. He lit the cigarette. Rania stood from the seat and kissed him on the lips. During the kiss he blew smoke into her mouth. “Gypsy kiss,” said the young man. “That’s what it’s called in my country.”
The wind began to blow from the east. The young man leaned out of the tower but saw only the bushes rustling in the wind. He could just make out snatches of conversation from the other tower: the father and his friend were talking about the state of the country’s national soccer teams, and both were swearing. The young man thought how nice it would be to light a cigarette and drink a beer. There was a case waiting for them back at the cabin, if only his father would call off the hunt. As he looked up at the moon, the terrace of the Carlton Hilton popped into his mind.
“You won’t leave me on my own. I slept with you and this brings shame on me as a Muslim girl.”
“You’re not a real Muslim,” said the young man. “And you weren’t a virgin.”
They both worked for a humanitarian foundation and were paid in hard currency. Whereas the young man photographed the refugee camps and the genocide, Rania was the local interpreter, speaking four languages fluently. When he flew home, she’d accompanied him to the airport in tears. She sent a few letters to him, but when she got no response, she gave up.
Something moved in the brush. At first the young man thought it was the wind, but after a few moments it became clear that an animal was coming his way. It couldn’t have been too big; from the sound he concluded that it was probably a fawn. He raised his gun to his shoulder and waited. He hoped that the animal would change its mind and not step into the clearing, because he didn’t want to kill it. He waited through a few quiet minutes. He was thinking he had gotten lucky, and then the deer appeared. It was a young one, beautiful and muscular. He aimed at the heart. As he put his finger on the trigger, the email from that morning returned to him.
“The people who carried out the coup are closing all bank accounts. I can’t get my money. At any moment they could invalidate my passport. They have already slaughtered five members of my family and they even shot my father. Please send money so I can get out of here. Five hundred euros for a ticket to Paris. You are my only chance. Rania.”
The shot missed the deer’s heart, striking above the back thigh, shattering bone. The bullet’s impact knocked the animal on its side, but it got quickly back to its feet and clomped into the thicket. The blood shone blue on its back.
“Go after it,” they called from the neighboring tower. The ladder creaked loudly as he climbed down. He opened the chamber and reloaded the gun. He began to follow the trail of blood, dead leaves crackling under his feet. He followed the trail for a few minutes before he heard the animal’s whimpering. A wounded deer cries like a child. It wasn’t hard to zero in on the source of the noise.
The deer lay on its side. It kicked the air with its forelegs; it could no longer stand. The area was filled with the sound of its crying, its nostrils quivering and steamy, its eyes open wide. The young man held the rifle to his shoulder and was preparing to shoot when he remembered how much his father hated it when he wasted bullets. He took out his knife and used it to cut the artery on the deer’s neck. The crying was soon overtaken by a deep gasping, and in under ten seconds the deer expired. He wiped the knife clean with a handful of dry leaves.
Footsteps approached, and his father emerged from the thicket.
“That was beautiful, for not having shot in a year.”
“I didn’t hit it right.”
“It won’t be left out in the forest, that’s the main thing. Tomorrow we won’t have to go sniffing around for the rotting carcass. We can call it a day.”
The young man put the deer on his shoulder and they began back to the cabin. The clouds covered the moon. The forest was bathed in darkness, but they knew the path. The cabin was modest and simply furnished, with a wood stove, three beds, a big rough table, and chairs with comfortable cushions. The hunters drank cold beer as they skillfully cleaned the deer. There was one month left in summer.
The Field
The mine had torn his left ankle apart. Because of the flies he took off his shirt and spread it over the stump, then wound his belt tightly around his leg where the artery was. He watched the bugs feast on the blood from the soaked-through material.
In Chad, in the area between Abéché and Gaga, there were hardly any villages. The road was impassable due to the season’s rain. The river, which dried up during the summer months, surged over almost everything, due to the two months of continual showers. When the rainy season finally ended, the riverbeds were full with drinking water and the country was covered in green. Flowers grew red by the riverside, and the desert was kinder to its inhabitants. The entire phenomenon, however, wouldn’t last longer than a month.
Adam Abdelkarim lay squinting in the knee-high grass. It was approaching noon. He was perhaps thirty miles from Abéché. If he strained to see, he could make out the Sudanese border. His phone buzzed with each passing minute, the device signaling that it was running out of power. Nor did he have enough credit to make a call. He looked down at his leg and caught the smell of his own blood and flesh.
He had left the backpack that was stuffed full of children’s books behind him. He hadn’t tried to drag it with him to the road, because every movement brought unbelievable pain. He had already come close to fainting when he tied off the bleeding artery.
It’s true. I shouldn’t have come, he thought. But I am so close. He closed his eyes.
When the white foreigners had been evacuated, they’d all gathered together in the canteen. A drunk Belgian was shouting at the top of his lungs that this was the “last supper,” but otherwise it was mostly quiet. People just ate and tried to use their phones. There hadn’t been a signal since early morning; the rebels had seen to that. The canteen’s black workers nervously circulated with water pitchers. There was specu
lation about what would happen next, but exactly what that was, nobody could say for sure.
In Chad there were eight different armies in constant battle. The two most prominent were the national army and the United Front for Democratic Change; the former was in government hands, the latter recruited from the smaller tribes along the Sudanese borderlands.
Fighting would break out at the end of each rainy season, with the rebels desperately trying to take the capital, N’Djamena. Nobody knew exactly why they were fighting; they had simply grown accustomed to the continual war that two generations had been raised with. Over time slogans like “Change,” “Democracy,” and “Unity” wore away in direct proportion with the amount of Chinese or Russian ammunition fired. Only the tribal affiliations and the appetite for wealth remained for those who took part in the fighting. Few could resist. Everything was worth dying for: manliness, honor, a woman, arable land, enemy tribes’ property; or perhaps they just fought to do away with the creeping rot of boredom that came with the rainy season.
During the rainy season, however, there was no war, because the roads were impassible. The government and the rebels forged a fragile peace agreement, which grew stronger with the first storm’s raindrops. Everyone was of one mind in this respect: while the showers fell, the fighting ceased. But there hadn’t been a drop in a week. Military action was flaring up in the east of the country.
Adam thought of Susan, the Englishwoman, and her scent of lavender. He pictured her light blue scarf. Under his foot he felt the gravel of the humanitarian base. Adam tried to recall their last conversation. The woman was around twenty years older. The base wasn’t ready yet, and she had been the first white person to arrive.
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