by Rawi Hage
George lifted his glass. Whisky, he said.
Whisky, I whispered back sarcastically.
There is money in whisky. Work with me for a few months, forget about the poker place, make your money and leave.
I am not joining your military.
No, you do not have to. This is a side job. Cheap whisky from Romania, a few thousand imitation Johnny Walker bottles, and fake labels. You combine it all and you have Johnny ready to go. The manufacturer needs to send a few hundred cases of it to the Muslim side. You load a truck and meet someone downtown. You deliver, and that’s it.
Who’s in on the deal?
No one, just you and me and the manufacturer.
Abou-Nahra?
Abou-Nahra is not so important.
Are you coming along?
No. You do the delivery alone. I can get you a military pass, in case you’re stopped. First you’ll do it once a week. Give it a few weeks and the whole West Side will be begging for more.
It is an operation for two, I replied.
Well, who do you have in mind?
I will let you know.
Let me know soon. The first shipment has to go on Thursday night, the man is waiting, and I thought of you first. I always think of you.
We all think of ourselves first and foremost, I said, and I threw him back his lighter and left.
9
I LEANED ON THE EDGE OF MY VERANDA AND WATCHED A few Christians go by. The faithful trotted past, like horses, carrying shopping bags; at the end of the street they lingered over vending carts that displayed kitchenware and vegetables. When the vendors called, housewives came out on their balconies and lynched baskets, money, ropes. They ordered by the dozen, negotiated from the sky, and hand-picked goods while batting their long eyelashes. Their orders resonated against the broken walls. Their baskets came down from their verandas like buckets into dark wells. And when the vendor filled the baskets, these women, like miners, pulled on the ropes, started fires, and cooked meals in metal pots and red sauce.
I saw Rana walking by below. She dug her head toward the ground. She reached the end of the street and turned round and passed below me again. She was waiting for the housewives to fold up their ropes and their long tongues that entered every door, wrapped around every pillow, slithered like serpents in beds, and stretched under every young skirt to assess menstrual flows and hymens.
Tongues that slurp sauce on tasting spoons, I thought. Tongues that curse the dead, tongues that hang laundry and people’s lives on balconies and roofs, tongues that tell . . .
My mother told me, Rana said, as she finally reached my door, either Bassam comes and asks for your hand or let him stop prowling like a cat around your window.
I am working on something, I said. Just be patient.
I cannot come here any more, Bassam. Abla, haydi al-sar-sarah, saw me entering the building the other day, and she said the forty days of mourning are not over yet. In this neigh-bourhood, people watch and gossip all day. I am sick of it, Bassam, I am sick of the war and the people here. I want to leave, Bassam. Let’s leave soon. You are not going to spend the rest of your life lifting boxes at the port.
I am working on something. Soon, I said. Soon we will leave, khalas. And I held her waist, kissed her lips, pulled her skirt up, and brushed my hand on her curves. Wetness and warmth streamed gently, warmth on fingertips, warmth on cracked lips, warmth from tongue on salty fingers, fingers spinning in curly hair, fingers splitting blouses, fingers crawling, fingers suffocating pillows.
We burned two cigarettes, and Rana said, I saw George the other day. He was driving a new BMW. Is it his?
Probably not. It must be Abou-Nahra’s.
I was walking with my friend Leila the other day, said Rana, just talking and looking at clothes, and this nice sports car stopped next to us. I did not recognize George because he was wearing sunglasses. Then he pulled off his shades and asked us if we needed a ride. I said, No, thank you, we are not going too far. Then cars started to honk behind us and George’s door was already open, so we got in. He drove us back here . . . He is so funny, he played this Arabic music very loud and drove like he was in a race . . . You’re so quiet, Bassam . . . Your silence is breaking me, it is breaking me. All you want is to touch me. I meet you, and you want me to take off my clothes, and then you lie on your back and look at the ceiling, and smoke, and hardly say a word to me. You are breaking me.
LATER, I WENT TO George’s place. Members of his platoon were stretched on his sofas, wearing cotton shirts, cowboy belts, and Levi’s jeans. I recognized Nicole, the woman from Broumana. Her husband, Laurent, was drunk and talking about Africa. Highways of cocaine were stretched on mirrors. Noses operated on glass like vacuum-cleaner hoses, driving white powder into the molecules of numb, wide eyes. The apartment buzzed with invincible fighters, with swelling laughs and shiny teeth. The fighters filled the kitchen with their straight, broad shoulders, they sang to the music with commanding voices, they landed their lips and heroic praises on one another’s cheeks, and their sharp-shooters’ eyes were aimed on serpentine asses. There was food and drink and talk and cigarettes.
I stood against the wall with a beer in my hand. I talked to a few people: to Fadi, to Adel, to Raymond, to Souha, Chantal, Christine, Maya, Souhail, and to George, who was smiling and high.
George said, Have a good time now, and we will talk later. There is a girl inside bleeding from her nose.
I will ask one of your soldier friends, Joseph Chaiben, to help me with the whisky job, I said.
We will talk tomorrow, he said, and kissed me on the cheek. You’re my brother, you’re my brother, he said, and walked toward Bébé and her husband, Monsieur Laurent.
YOU CAME FOR the tea, the manufacturer said to me when he opened the door. Listen. It is simple. I make the contact. It is business; everyone drinks. Did you eat?
Yes, I said.
You have to try my wife’s bamia. Come, sit down and eat.
No, I ate. Next time, thank you.
You like whisky? he asked me.
Only the good kind, I said.
The manufacturer laughed. I won’t offer you any of mine, then. By the way, I knew your uncle. He was always involved in politics. I would tell him, Stop wasting your time with all these activities. But he was a socialist, he liked demonstrations! At the warehouse tomorrow, my son Hakim will load the truck for you. You just give them the merchandise; no money exchange is involved. The contact’s name is Ali. George gave you directions?
Yes, I said.
Will you be alone?
No.
It’s just business, he said again. No religion, no war; this is only business. Muslim, Christian — it does not matter.
JOSEPH AND I DROVE down to Al-Aswaq. The streets were vacant. Little plants sprang from beneath the sidewalk’s cracks, lived underneath broken arches, shone in front of looted stores, sprang from the bellies of decaying sandbags, and dwelt in deserted governmental buildings that longed for the old days when lazy bureaucrats strolled in long hallways, snoozed on metal desks, dipped their moustaches in thick coffee, paraded their thin ties on hairy, conceited chests, waved their hands to expel flies and welcome bribes and seal endless deals with forged wills, illegal roofs, rebirth certificates, religious divorces, contaminated water pipes, underage driver licences, expired bank notes, stumbling constructions, derelict sewers, stained travel documents, and clandestine harvests of hallucinogenic plants that grew in the Bekaa Valley on the steps of Heliopolis, where Fairuz, that whining singer, sang at night under twinkling stars that had guided the three Babylonians from the east and down south into that stable with ruminating cows and the child who extracted milk from the virgin’s round, black nipples.
I drove, and Joseph navigated. I know this place like my own fingers, he said to me. Turn right, there, next to the barrel. Stop.
I pulled out my gun, and got out of the van, and stood beside it. Joseph pulled out his AK-47 and took his position behind t
he vehicle.
Chai, come and get it. Chai, Joseph shouted.
A man whistled from the first floor of an empty building.
Ali? I asked.
Bassam?
Yes.
At Ali’s signal, two young boys appeared from behind the sandbags. They were dressed in worn clothes and plastic flip-flops, and had dirt-smudged faces.
I got into the van and turned its rear toward the West Side of the city. The boys’ tiny arms pulled cases from the van and carried them inside the building.
Forty cases, I said.
Mahmoud, did you count the number of cases?
Forty, the little kid shouted from inside the building. Arba’in. Twakkalala Allah.
Kassak, and watch out for the land mine on your way back, Joseph shouted to them.
TEN THOUSAND NEEDLES had penetrated Nicole’s arms, but still I brought her a little bag to open. Monsieur Laurent stood above the stove with a spoon in his hand, breaking powder and heating liquid.
Tiens, Bébé, mon amour. Tiens.
When the band around her arm was released, Nicole smiled at me. Should I give the money to George or to you?
Give it to George, I said.
I strolled down the stairs into the city, and over to the church walls, and under the church stairs I sat and smoked. A few cats with striped fur passed by, a few rifles meowed, a few heels licked the earth, and a few bells tolled on the roofs above me.
Eventually, George showed up with Abou-Haddid at his side.
How is the junkie? he asked me. Did the old man shoot as well?
No.
Did he pay you?
No, I told him to give you the money. You should have told me what was in the . . . I paused. Do you have the whisky cut for me?
The man did not pay me yet. When he pays I will take care of you, do not worry.
Next time, tell me what to expect. I am not your private pusher, I said. And I left.
George called out after me, but I did not answer him.
ALL THE NEXT DAY I lay in my bed and floated. Cigarette smoke hung about me, rose to the ceiling, and formed a grey cloud. Bombs fell in the distance. The plate under my bed was filled with ashes and yellow Marlboro butts with smashed faces and hunchback postures. The candle beside me shone its light on the comic book in my hand. My slippers waited for me under the bed like Milou, Tintin’s dog. When I heard a knock at my door, I pulled my gun from under my pillow and killed the candle flame swiftly. I walked to the door in my slippers and glued my eye to the peephole. I saw a dark shadow.
I moved away from the door. Who is it? I asked.
It is me, Nabila. Bassam, open the door.
I obeyed.
Why are you hiding in the dark? Steal a candle from the priest, set the house on fire, but don’t hide like a stray ghost.
Nabila followed me into my room. I swept the table with my hand, searching for the box of matches. When I found it, I shook it like a Brazilian musical instrument. I struck one stick against the box’s rough edge, and Nabila’s face shone.
You are still skinny, still yellow and skinny. Let me come tomorrow to cook for you and fix the house.
No, I said.
Have you seen Gargourty?
Yesterday.
I have not seen him in a week. I called his workplace and they said he no longer works there. I went many times to his place, but he is never home. No one has seen him. Um-Adel, his neighbour, said he is hardly ever home.
He must be busy.
Doing what?
Working.
At what?
I don’t know. Whatever comes along.
Like what? What is he becoming? Is he working with Abou-Nahra?
Yes.
But at what?
Security.
Security! Nabila shouted. Security for what? I will call that fat slob Abou-Nahra. I will call him. If a hair on my nephew’s head is harmed, I will curse his dead mother in her grave. Talk to George, Bassam. He will listen to you. You two are brothers. He should go to school.
I am leaving this country, I said.
Where to?
Rome, Paris, New York, wherever I can go.
Take him with you. Take him. Talk to him. Yes, both of you leave. Go to France. I will give you the name of George’s father, that coward, and ask him to send his son a French passport and money. I’ll ask him for George’s papers, tell him that his son is lost. I’ll tell him to invite George for a trip, for a vacation. May the virgin saint open all the good doors for you, Bassam. Help your brother. Help him. When do you leave?
I am waiting for some money to come.
I will give you money if you will just go and find George’s father.
No, I will be all right.
Look at this house. Bassam! And Nabila picked up the glasses, the overflowing ashtrays, and the clothes from the floor.
Leave it, I said.
She continued picking up items and arranging them like my mother once had.
I grabbed her wrist, pulled a pillow from her hand, and threw it against the wall. Leave it, I said.
Nabila squeezed my hand and touched my face. Now that you’re alone, you have to take care of yourself. Do not live in dirt like a rat. Open the window. This place smells of cigarettes and sweat. Look at you. Look at you now, unshaven, neglected.
She retrieved her hand, kissed me on the cheek, and walked out into the dark hallway and down to the street.
ON OUR SECOND DELIVERY, Joseph and I had the van filled with sixty cases of Johnny Walker. Joseph reached for a box, opened it, and pulled out a bottle.
Don’t drink it. This shit might poison you. It is not a good day to die, I said.
No one dies before his time comes, said Joseph.
A fatalist fighter, I mocked him.
Listen, let me tell you this story, and we’ll see if you believe in fate or not. We were at the jabhah. You know Youssef Asho? The Syriac boy? We call him RBG.
No.
Anyway, this kid was on duty one week. And I was in charge at the front that day. I see a woman, an old woman in black, walking toward us, you hear? I took the sniper gun and looked in the binoculars. I see a big cross on her chest, so I knew she was one of us. I called to her, Ya khalti (my aunty), where are you going?
She said she was there to see her son, Youssef. This woman must have walked through ten land mines and escaped them all. She appeared from nowhere, like a spirit.
I called Youssef. He was in the other building. Now, the fastest way for him to cross was over a little street, but that street is exposed to a sniper. The other way to cross is longer because one has to go around. When Youssef heard that his mother was there, he walked across the sniper’s street, and on the last few metres a sniper bullet whizzed right above his ear and missed him.
When his mother saw him, she started to cry and said that she had had a very ugly dream, and that her heart was telling her something horrible was going to happen.
Youssef was furious at her. He started to curse her, and he held her arm and pushed her, and shouted in her face, asking her to go back, calling her a crazy old woman.
I smacked him on his head, and told him to respect his mother, and never to talk to her that way. I ordered him to leave the jabhah. I do not want impolite people like you in my platoon, I said to him.
Then I made him take a jeep and drive his mother back home. Now, this guy gets home, takes off his clothes. His mother boils water for him, prepares the bathroom, and leaves. While he is cleaning himself, a bomb falls in the bathroom and kills him. It tore him to a million pieces. His mother became insane. Now she spends all her time living and praying on the steps of the Saydeh church. She took a vow, and ever since her son’s death she has never bathed or cleaned herself. Now, what do you have to say to that story?
Drink, I said.
ON THE WAY TO our drop-off with Ali in Al-Aswaq, Joseph and I encountered two young boys who stood in the middle of the street. They waved their hands at us. One of
them had kinky hair and torn sneakers on his feet; the other was in jeans and open sandals. The one with the kinky hair held an AK-47, and the other had a gun stuck in his skinny waistband.
I stopped the van, opened the door, and walked toward them. Joseph followed me.
Stay in the van, one little kid shouted at me.
Who is in charge? Who is in charge here? I asked him.
I am, the boy said. Go back to the car.
I ignored his request and held my ground.
Where are the shabab going? the boy asked.
Why are you asking? Joseph said.
Open the back of the van and don’t ask too many questions, the boy said.
Either you say who the fuck you are, or get out of the way! Joseph said.
The little kid took two steps back and with a little difficulty he cranked his rifle and pointed it at us. His friend ran over, shuffling his feet, wobbling under the weight of his gun, and pointed the weapon in Joseph’s face. Open the van, the first kid shouted. Open the van! He pointed his machine at me. It looked twice his weight, and thrice his age.
Joseph and I walked toward the van. The boys rushed behind us.
The back door is locked. I have to get the key from the front, I said.
Both boys followed me as I opened the van. I pulled out the key with one hand, and with the other quickly reached for Joseph’s military belt on the passenger’s seat. I grabbed the first thing that stuck out of the belt — a hand grenade. Then I dropped the keys on the van’s floor, dived under the wheel, squeezed my grip on the grenade spoon, and pulled the metal pin. I turned toward the kids and stretched my arm in their young faces.
Drop your weapons, ya ikhwat al-sharmuta (brothers of bitches), I said. I do not give a fuck about God or his happy kingdom. I will open my hand and we will all turn into pieces of meat.
Now, ya wlad al-sharmuta, that will teach you to fuck with the forces! Joseph shouted, and pulled out his gun and aimed it at their faces. Drop the shit from your hands, Joseph yelled. Count to three, Bassam. If they do not drop their weapons, open your palm. No one fucks with us!
The kid with the gun lowered his weapon first. The other held on to his AK-47 for a while. Then his eyes started blinking, and he began inhaling air through his nose at fast intervals. As soon as his kalash went lower in his hand, Joseph grabbed both weapons. He started to slap one boy while the other retreated slowly and then ran away through the back streets.