One of those bombs you used to be so good at making, Luqman. You would be refreshed, and you would rest easy. Do you remember? God, those were the days! You’d make your bombs, and the buyers would come. Buying and selling. Your business developed and grew, and you became partners with the Albino. You two would secure the supply of bombs and whatever follow-up or servicing they required. Then the Lord made you prosper. And the Lord is generous indeed when he makes someone prosper, Luqman. You had a team of workers that even the Americans envied. You began exporting and working with people of various nationalities until your reputation ranked with the greatest professionals in the world.
And now? And now your fate is tied to half-woman spinsters like Salaam. You, Luqman, who were once able to make the most famous and richest whores in the world get down on their knees. You—
“Luqman? Can it be?”
The speaker didn’t give Luqman a chance to recognize his face before he threw himself upon Luqman with an embrace and kisses on both cheeks. The pounding on his back and shoulders continued until Luqman was seized with a fit of coughing. Luqman pushed the man off him and onto the stone bench beside him.
“Najeeb! Is it you? You scared me, man! I thought you were one of the crazies grabbing me. But tell me, why are you dressed like this? What are you doing here? Are you sick too?”
CHAPTER 6
Salaam went into the kitchen to prepare lunch.
When they were riding back from the sanatorium, Luqman hadn’t said anything. Salaam asked him whether he was annoyed, but he didn’t answer and remained silent. In the end, she became angry too and turned away in disgust.
On the way back, he hadn’t stopped thinking about Najeeb. My God! How time flies, and how cruel fate can be when it turns against you.
Luqman had not been sad on anyone’s account for a long time. For just as long, Luqman had forgotten the very meaning of sadness. But the pitiful sight of Najeeb made him sadder than he could bear because it reminded him of what had befallen himself.
He got up to pour himself a glass of whiskey. He turned the fan to face him, since the heat had started oppressing his lungs again. Then he sat down once more on the couch and put his feet up on the small coffee table in front of him. He closed his eyes.
What was happening to people? Goddamn “the people”! In the end, what mattered to him were his comrades. What was happening to his comrades? What comrades are you talking about, Luqman? It’s been ages since you’ve seen any of them. You’ve long forgotten them, and they’ve forgotten them. Each one scattered to a different place. It’s true, you sometimes call a few of them who have left the country. It’s not because you miss them or want to reassure yourself about them. Instead, you actually place the call for two reasons: Salaam works in the Central, which means your calls are free, and you hope they might give you some financial help or a plane ticket that would allow you to leave this swamp where you lead a life fit only for a dog.
Najeeb was something else. Why? Because he came from the same place you did. From a war without any connection to his principles and convictions. Because he was like you, making a living on someone else’s dime. He seized the opportunity of a lifetime to get rich and become someone, a respected personality, a name that made the earth tremble, someone with authority, admiration, cars, nightclubs, casinos, power, women, and cash.
A savage brute, he hated people and didn’t like social interaction. He was a wolf that trusted only himself and his pack. A specialist. A professional. An amazing sniper, just like the Albino was a skilled artist in his torture methods, and you in making bombs—rare types that today have become extinct. You were gods—prophets, rather—deciding fates, believing in your calling, and working alone, high above the level of the common riffraff and the dregs of humanity.
For all these reasons, the sight of Najeeb and his broken dejection made you sad. That’s why you listened to him for so long as he told you of his “hellish” plot that would save you both and bring you back to your former splendor and luxury—
“Mother! Luqman!”
Salaam screamed, and Luqman raced to the kitchen after grabbing down from the wall her deceased father’s walking stick.
Once again, Luqman saw Salaam’s hair standing on end like the fur of an electrocuted cat. But he didn’t discover the thief or assailant he expected. Salaam was standing on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, stammering as she spoke and gesticulating wildly.
“The oven!” she said. “Look in the oven!”
Luqman went over and bent down. He saw its eyes staring at him, gleaming with their sharp blackness.
“It’s dizzy from the gas,” she said. “Hurry, or it will regain consciousness and charge you!”
Luqman smiled. He wouldn’t hurry at all. He’d take his good, sweet time, and then a little extra, if that’s what it took. Here it was, sitting on the oven’s baking rack, perfectly ready. And here was Luqman. He had finally got it, after a long wait and much annoyance.
He turned to Salaam and said, “Go out of the kitchen and shut the door behind you. Then put something at the bottom to block the crack underneath. Don’t open it until I call and say you can come in.”
“Let me close the door to the balcony first,” she said. Then she went out.
“Welcome, welcome!” whispered Luqman. He bent over, closed the oven door, and turned the gas knob to high. Luqman waited. Then he turned off the gas. You won’t die quickly, you bastard! But slowly, leisurely, just as Luqman sees fit.
It occurred to him to ignite the flame on a low setting so that he could roast it peacefully, little by little, until the fur got warm, then the skin, and finally the veins and arteries, which would burst like air bubbles, one after another.
He would roast it. Then he would feed it to Salaam!
Luqman laughed. If he cooked it in her oven, she’d be furious. Maybe even kill him. Miss Hysteria! That was the perfect name for Salaam. Miss Hysteria Clean-Freak herself. This kind of disease was perhaps particularly common among spinsters.
A sound of rustling came from the oven, and of claws scrabbling against metal and glass.
“Have you woken up?” asked Luqman. “Okay. What death do you prefer? Anything in particular? Roasting? How nice that would be! But the matter is complicated because of Salaam. What else is there? Slicing your throat? A stab to the heart? Why shouldn’t you have the festival you deserve, seeing as execution by hanging is all the rage these days?”
Of course, he ought to give it a bit more gas, enough to knock it out completely without killing it. How would he gauge it? He’d count to twenty. Or maybe a little more. Until it was good and dizzy, and Luqman could grab it and do with it as he wished.
Luqman turned the knob to full, and a strong odor filled the room. He began to count—“One, two, three”—up to twenty. Then he turned off the gas and waited a moment. He opened the oven.
The rat was on its back with its legs in the air. Grabbing it by its tail, Luqman picked it up and shook it. “Come on! Open your eyes!” It didn’t move. He shook it some more, violently. Then he began to smack its body with his hand. “Wake up, you bastard! Get up, you scum! Open your eyes!”
The fucking bastard was dead. It tricked him and died. After dozens of times, it had beaten him once again.
Luqman hurled it across the room. He went over and began jumping on it like a madman until his sandals split it open completely and transformed the corpse into something that held only the vaguest resemblance to the body of a poor rat, killed by gas—saved, that is, from Luqman’s vengeance.
--
“I’ve brought you a surprise, Luqman. Look who’s joining us for lunch!”
Lurice was the last thing he needed that day to complete his joy.
“How lovely to see you, Madame Lurice!” Luqman said as he rose to welcome her. “My God, it’s been too long! How are you doing? I always ask Salaam about you and your health, and she always reassures me and tells me, ‘Madame Lurice is doing better than e
ver!’”
Lurice didn’t respond. She looked around apprehensively, as though she were looking for someone or feared some surprise.
“What’s wrong with her?” Luqman asked.
Salaam responded that Lurice saw imaginary people coming to kill her, or to beat and torture her. Salaam told how Lurice’s relative, when he visited her one Sunday as usual, made rounds through the entire house to confirm for her that no one was there except them. This reassured Lurice, and she calmed down a bit. That’s why Salaam insisted on her coming down for lunch.
“It might do her good to see you and lessen the pain of the Albino’s absence. She misses him so much!”
“She still hasn’t forgotten him?” Luqman asked.
Salaam answered in disapproval, “Why? Have I forgotten? Have you forgotten? How do you still expect a widow and a mother to forget her only son? What’s wrong with you, Luqman?”
“Okay, okay!” Luqman said to calm her down. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it. Besides, what’s your problem, telling me off in front of her as though I—”
“Don’t worry,” Salaam said. “She doesn’t see you or hear you. She’s always lost, confused, somewhere else mentally. Every now and then she wakes up and comes back to her right mind, and I think she has gotten better because she begins asking me clear questions or wants me to help with some memory or detail that is escaping her.”
“Have you taken her to the doctor?” Luqman asked.
“A whole league of doctors,” answered Salaam. “Some of them said it was likely the shock that came after the death of a loved one. Others came down on the side of an illness they called schizophrenia. Meanwhile, some maintained it was a nervous breakdown, Alzheimer’s, or a neurosis. This went on until Lurice begged me to stop torturing her. She made me swear on the memory of the Albino that I would let her live out the rest of her days at home in peace.”
“What about all the expenses, the doctors’ examinations, and the costs of the medicine?” Luqman asked anxiously.
Salaam laughed as she shook her head. “Don’t worry! I’ve been spending her own money on her. Don’t forget she was one of the most famous seamstresses. She still possesses everything she saved over her entire life, as well as everything the Albino was giving her for years.”
“Is it a lot?” Luqman asked, suddenly attentive.
Salaam didn’t turn to answer his question. Instead, some confusion rendered her mute. She retreated to the kitchen on the pretext of having to set the table.
Lurice! Are you the prey I’ve been searching for all this time? The treasure I stumble upon by chance after years of panning for gold? Is it from you, not from her own pockets, that Salaam rains down dollars upon me? Of course! God, how stupid you are, Luqman! Didn’t it occur to you? Didn’t you ever wonder? How could it escape you that the modest salary from Salaam’s job could never support herself, her brother, and you?
Luqman came over to sit down next to Lurice. Lurice was startled and jumped up. She moved away into a corner of the room.
He looked at her contemplatively. If the Albino had lived and grown old, he would have looked like Lurice. Her sunken eyes, her diminutive stature, her skinny pallor—all this reminded Luqman of the Albino.
He took two more steps towards her. She retreated to the door. Why this alarm? Why did she hide her head between her arms as though he were lifting his hand, or a cleaver, to strike her? What was wrong with you, Albino, he wondered. You fell in love with an ugly, miserly spinster, and a cunning one at that. Moreover, you came from a high-strung, feebleminded, simpleton of a mother.
“Have you forgotten me, Mrs. Lurice? I’m Luqman, the Albino’s friend, your only son. It’s okay. I’ll sit down again in my place. You, too, come on back to where you were.”
Luqman sat down, and Lurice...she sat down too.
Lurice began smoothing the skirt of her dress against her knees with a continuous, monotonous movement as though she were ironing it, until she suddenly raised her head, looked at Luqman, and finally smiled!
“Luqman! It’s so good to see you!”
But her smile quickly disappeared into a look of worried supplication. “Is everything alright? Has anything bad happened to my son?”
“The Albino is perfectly fine, Mrs. Lurice. He asked me to bring you his greetings so that you wouldn’t worry. He wanted you to feel at ease about him and to pray for his success.”
She remembered him! Finally! It must be one of her moments of clarity Salaam had spoken about. Of course! He ought to take advantage of their being alone together to present Najeeb’s plan to her and persuade her of the need to finance it. When Najeeb mentioned that plan to him, he had thought it unlikely to come to fruition. First, because of how strange it was, and also because of the need for some capital. But now, after seeing the money sitting a few steps in front of him, why not?
“May the Lord preserve him for me! He has buried me with gifts and money. ‘Spend it, Mother,’ he says to me. ‘Live, and be happy! I have enough from what you spent on me through years of staying up late and slaving over the sewing machine or at the feet of customers.’ I say to him, ‘Enough, my dear! The house is full of boxes and other things.’ Instead of one of everything, I came to have two, and sometimes more! Two televisions, two refrigerators, and so many tape players, vacuum cleaners, iron, and fans. It was so much that I had to bring things down to store in the basement. I would ask him, ‘Where did you get this?’ And he’d answer, ‘A lucky find! I came across it in the market for next to nothing.’ People ask why I don’t throw away the old furniture, and I laugh in my heart. If they only knew! It’s because I’m getting the groom ready to get married and move to his new house where he’ll have everything he needs...”
But why shouldn’t Luqman take a shortcut and convince Salaam? Lurice wasn’t a sure thing. Even if she understood him and gave him her word in this moment of lucidity, how could he be sure that she wouldn’t forget again and make all his efforts with her go to waste?
“...Then he proposed to Salaam, and I insisted all the more: ‘Your fiancée isn’t a young woman of twenty, and if you don’t hurry, I’m not going to get the grandchildren I deserve.’ I would open my heart and beat my breast as I prayed for him: ‘Oh, Lord, keep him safe! You are the one who had mercy upon me and gave him to me after all my vows and my waiting. Keep him safe from wicked people, and from evil, and from harm. Have mercy on him, just as he has mercy on the orphans, the widows, and the poor. He looks after them, distributing food and assistance to them.’ And you, Luqman, aren’t you going to come to your senses like your friend and find yourself a respectable bride?”
But of course! Salaam, the one busy setting the table in the kitchen, was Luqman’s key to the guarded treasure.
CHAPTER 7
“What are you doing here? Don’t you know evening visits are against the rules?”
“I’m not a visitor. I came to ask for permission for Najeeb to leave, and the director agreed. She’s the one who told me to wait here while they finish gathering his things.”
“Is he your brother?”
“Nearly. He’s a close friend.”
“Listen, if he leaves, he might start taking drugs again. And if he gets addicted a second time, he’ll be sent straight to prison because, from now on, we won’t take him in here. We made an exception and gave him a chance by keeping him here and giving him work. The director of the asylum took compassion on him after he begged and pleaded. So she entrusted him with the job of cleaning and polishing the dishes. And you, what do you do?”
“I’m a businessman.”
“A businessman! What kind?”
“Cars.”
“Really?”
The attendant stared at him in disbelief. Luqman jingled his car keys—Salaam’s keys. “I forgot my cell phone in the car. Could I make a call?” he asked.
The attendant surveyed him dubiously. Then he pointed to the glass phone booth near the door. He stood up to listen in, as though
putting Luqman to the test.
Luqman typed a number and began speaking in a loud voice, “Have you finished the customs forms? Good. And the inventory? Who? What did he want? No, no. Stolen cars are not my specialty. Tell him to look for another dealer. We run an honorable business, and we don’t want any problems...I’ll come by first thing tomorrow...Of course, I’ve postponed my trip for another few days.”
The attendant was satisfied. Indeed, he was so satisfied and pleased that he offered to get Luqman a cup of coffee or some refreshments.
“Tell me, sir, which cars do you recommend?”
“Mercedes! No question about it. Mercedes is the queen of cars. Durable, economical, and spare parts are cheap and widely available. Take my word for it as God’s own truth!”
“Do you deal in used cars?”
“New cars too. Why? Are you looking to buy?”
“I am. But I’m looking for something good. Something from the past few years, for instance.”
“How will you pay?” Luqman asked. “I don’t accept payment by installments.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the attendant answered. “I’ve set aside some money.”
“From your salary?”
“What salary, man? Are you making fun of me? Since when have state salaries paid for cars? No. During the war, when money was growing on trees, I was swimming in cash. The good Lord said, ‘Here, take it,’ and so I took an unbelievable share. Excuse me, they’re calling for me.”
Thank God he was free of that vile attendant. The next step would have been him asking for Luqman’s telephone number, his home address, and the address of his car lot.
Oh, Salaam! Page 4