De Niro's Game

by Rawi Hage

  Conyo, he cursed me, with his fist in the air, and he walked on, counting the cobblestones, mumbling to the walls, descending to the trains, and cursing, echoing, spitting at the ground.

  I CALLED RHEA.

  Do not call me any more, she said. Or maybe call when you are ready to tell me something worthy. I am tired of your clinging and your secrets.

  I have a meeting with Roland at his house before I get on that plane to Canada, but I lost his address, I lied.

  35 rue Fouchons, she said. She hung up immediately.

  I took the train, and then walked to Roland’s place. From across the street I watched the entrance to his house. Soon, I saw the man I had beaten with the pipe, driving his big car. I waited until he dropped Roland off and left, and then I rushed to the door and entered the house behind Roland. I pulled out my gun and stuck it near his liver.

  Let’s have some tea, I said.

  Roland slowly turned, and when he saw me he smiled.

  Ah, te voilà. We were looking for you last night. We wondered if you would be leaving today.

  I know. That is why I came.

  Roland took off his gloves and his coat. No need for the gun. Come sit down, he calmly said to me. He went into his living room and sat.

  I took a chair in the corner and let my gun hang loose in my hand.

  You are a stupid idiot, he said to me. Listen, I will give you one more chance, and it is your last chance, he said. Put that gun down.

  I lifted it and pointed it at his face. I am the one who should be giving chances here, I said.

  Fine. He nodded.

  The man with the bandage works for you, I said.

  Moshe, you mean? Yes, he does.

  Did you ask him to beat up Rhea? I said.

  It is touching that you care. Sit down and do not be a stupid romantic.

  Why did you beat her? I asked.

  Because she is mine. Rhea has always been mine, since she was fifteen. Do you understand? Rhea’s father worked for us. After his death, I took care of her. The mother is a shopaholic, an empty society lady. Rhea was a neglected woman. Listen, my little boy, you are stepping into dangerous zones. But the good news is that we need something from you.

  I have nothing to offer you, I said.

  We need you to tell us what happened to George.

  Why should you care about George?

  George worked for us.

  Us?

  Yes, the Mossad. Us. We recruited him on his trip to Israel. George knows all about his father. We suspected that Abou-Nahra was opening up to the Syrians. He will probably get even closer to them — especially now, after the assassination of Al-Rayess. Al-Rayess was our man in the region. We armed his militia, trained them, and gave them strategies. You see, George kept track of him, he got close to him. And Abou-Nahra trusted him.

  George was an agent?

  Yes. A smart and a good one. So should you be, my boy, a smart and a good one. You tell us where George is. We know that the last time he was seen, he had volunteered to pick you up from your home. He wanted to ask you a few questions about your involvement with the Al-Rayess assassination. We know. We have agents with those Christians. All we have to do is ask. Talking to us is your only hope. You cannot go anywhere without our consent. Do you understand?

  How much does Rhea know about this?

  Only a little, Roland said. Only that we want you to tell us more about George.

  What about the visa to Canada?

  You would have been stopped at the airport in Paris, put in jail for fraud . . . And we would have intervened, giving you the option of release and a good lawyer if you told us what really happened to George. You would be in jail. What better place to keep you locked up than in a legitimate jail? And if you did not speak, we would have sent you a nice, big, loving guy to be your friend, if you know what I mean. You are small in this game, very small, Roland said. I will give you a few minutes to think. You lay the gun down on the coffee table if you want to talk. We can do something for you, maybe; if you do not talk, you will not go anywhere, believe me.

  I stood up, pointed the gun in his face, and said, Put your hands on your head.

  He did.

  I frisked him and grabbed his wallet and sunglasses. There were a few hundred francs in the wallet. I took them.

  On the floor, I ordered.

  My men will be here in a minute, Roland said. I am giving you a last chance.

  Do not move or I will shoot you, I said.

  You are a petty thief! You are un idiot, he shouted from the carpet.

  I stomped on the sunglasses and broke them. Then I rushed to the phone on a nearby table and pulled the wire from the jack. I tied Roland’s hands with the wire, and took the house keys from his pocket. I walked toward the door and opened it slowly. When I saw nothing, I closed the door behind me and locked it. I ran down the stairs and into the streets, then through the back alleys toward Rhea’s apartment.

  WHEN I REACHED Rhea’s place, I called her from a phone booth across the street.

  Didn’t I tell you not to call me again? she said. And anyhow, don’t you have a plane to catch?

  I want to tell you about George now, I said.

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, Tell me.

  It is not good, I said. The news is not good. I am across the street. Open your door to me.

  When she agreed, I took the stairs up. I did not want to wait for the metal elevator to lift my thumping heart.

  Rhea opened the door in tears. She held on to me briefly, and then, as if realizing that she was in the arms of the messenger of death, she pushed herself back and held her hand over her mouth.

  So you’ve known all long what happened to George, she said.

  The last time I saw George, it was just before I left, I told her.

  She waved her hand to invite me into her home. When I entered, she turned her back to me, sobbing. I laid my hand on her back, but she shook her head. I held her shoulders and turned her gently toward me. She was still crying, and her tears spilled down her face.

  George was my brother, I said.

  I took a deep breath, then spoke without stopping. Once, George and I took our hunting guns and entered the high mountains, I began. We stood still like snakes, holding erect barrels and venomous powder. We stood still and watched for branches bowing under the weight of a feather, bowing to a mating call. And soon we wounded a little bird. I held it in my hand.

  Kill it if it is still alive, George told me. Kill it!

  But I couldn’t bring myself to kill that little bird. Its beak opened and closed in silence, as if it was asking me for water. Its eyes began to close above my palm.

  Kill it! Why are you looking at that wounded bird? Kill it and release it from its suffering. Finish it off. Your brother sounded irritated.

  But I waited for the bird to fly again.

  George snatched the wounded creature from my open palm. He laid it on a rock, and with the butt of his rifle he hit it on the head, more than once, and then he walked away, looking for more.

  Why are you telling me this story? Rhea asked.

  George and I killed more than birds, I told her.

  People?

  Yes, I said, and I told her about killing Khalil, and about our money scams, and our silent quarrels, and about George joining the militia. I told her all about Monsieur Laurent, and Nicole, and my torture.

  Rhea listened, leaning her body against the sink, at times looking me straight in the eye, and at other times looking at the floor or the ceiling. Then she said, So, you are telling me all this, but where is George now?

  I did not answer her directly. Instead, I continued talking about the massacre at the camp. I described to her what George had told me about the lights, the dog, the birds, the cadavers that piled up and rotted, the axes, the rivers of blood.

  I talked and Rhea shook her head. Finally, she interrupted me, shouting, Okay, that is enough now. I don’t know . . . I don’t know wh
y you have to come here now and tell me all this. She shook her head again. And you waited all this time to talk to me. Do you think it is a game? You waited, and where is my brother now? You tell me all these things, things that I do not know are even true. We don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. And yet you come and tell me all these evil things.

  I ignored her shouting. I ignored her small eyes, and her twitching cheeks, her brown dress. I ignored her protest, and when she tried to leave the room, I held her back, cornered her against the kitchen sink. I told her about the night her brother took me under the bridge.

  This is all confusing, Rhea said. Your stories are not making sense. I do not know these people you are talking about. You come here like this, and expect me to listen to it all. I need to leave, she said. Please let me go.

  But I was merciless.

  We sat in the car, under the bridge, I said to her. George and I quarrelled. He had come to take me to the militia headquarters just before I was leaving Lebanon. He picked me up in his car. I didn’t want to go with him, but he kissed me, he called me his brother. He made me hop in his car, and we drove below the Nabaa Bridge. You brother was sent to take me back to my torturer, and then they would have killed me. But he said that he would give me a chance. He played with his gun. He filled it with three bullets and spun it. He smiled, and then he said to me, I am giving you a chance.

  I took the gun from his hand, and without blinking, without giving myself the time to think about the sea, the ship, the new place that I wanted so much to go to, I held the gun against my head and pulled the trigger. It clicked, and it did not go off.

  I laid the gun next to me on the car seat. You brother smiled. He picked up the gun slowly. He was not scared; no, he was composed, and as fearless as ever. He held the gun in his hand. Then he turned his face toward me, gave me a smile, and a shot went off.

  Rhea held her hand to her mouth and struggled to leave my embrace. You knew all this, she said. You knew. And you . . .

  I pushed her back, and said, I buried him there. I buried him under the bridge. The gun dropped on my feet, and George collapsed on me. There was an open wound. I could see the other side of his face, open, a piece of his brain hanging. The windshield turned red. And the red liquid moved down the glass and rushed toward the dashboard like rain. I sat and I watched the houses, the passing cars, submerging slowly in red rain. De Niro’s hair spilled on my lap. I caressed it. I caressed it.

  Without thinking, I touched Rhea’s hair. She froze, scared. I held her firmly by the shoulders and continued: I buried him under the bridge. I dragged him above the sewage, toward a pile of stone. I laid him next to it. I picked up the first large rock I saw, and put it against his head. Then I laid another rock on the other side. I surrounded him with stones, and then I went back to the car, took his gun and his rifle, and laid them at his side. I covered him with rocks and stones. And then I grabbed the sand, scooping it with my palms, to fill the space between the stones. He is there. Your brother is there, under that bridge.

  You want to know his whereabouts? Listen, I said to Rhea. Listen. I went back to the car. I sat in the driver’s seat. The windshield was drenched with blood. I tried to wipe it with my hand, but it just made it more opaque, somehow thicker, with large, wide lines. The blood was drying fast, and turning darker. Blood sticks. So I went back to that pile of sand, scooped up some more, and tried to rub it against the glass. Now everything turned to red mud, like that mythical river in our land. I just wanted to see the road, you see. I just wanted to see something else besides that doomed city. I just wanted to leave.

  Rhea looked me in the eye then, and slightly twisted her shoulder, but I dropped my hands onto hers and said quietly, Please let me finish.

  She barely nodded, and I could feel her body sagging with weakness, her knees bending and almost touching mine.

  I broke that car’s glass, I said. I went back and chose the largest rock I could carry. I laid it on the car’s hood. I went back inside the car, pulled a jacket from my bag, and put it on the driver’s seat. I climbed out of the car and up onto the hood. And I lifted the rock, and smashed it against the wind-shield. The glass broke in a million little pieces.

  I lifted my jacket from the driver’s seat and flung it against the sky, and got rid of all the little stones. I was surrounded by ten thousand glowing red-and-green diamonds. I laughed. After that, I drove away fast, and the wind was in my eyes. I drove, and the wind rushed through my shirt, and tears fell from my eyes, but I was not crying. The wind hit my face, and it felt as if my head was pushed under water again. I gasped for little breaths, exhaling the smell of blood. And then the blood got thicker on my hands. I couldn’t hide it; it was in front of my eyes. And it took over the wheels and the car, and it started to move through the lanes, fast, passing cars and diesel trucks. The blood on my hands was swinging the car out of control. So I had to get rid of the blood.

  I drove the car onto a small dusty road, and I drove through a green meadow that led me to the sea. I left the car and rushed to the rocky shore, and I stepped into the water, and started to clean myself of my sins, of this burning land, of my loved ones. And the sea turned purple, like the onyx that had once filled the shore. And the blood screamed louder than the seagulls, louder than the ancient invaders. I buried my head in the waves and washed my hair. The pebbles behind me rocked back and forth; the clams shut their shells. I sat between land and sea, vomiting what I did not eat, spitting out the yellow substance that joined the sea foam and rushed past me to shatter on the massive rocks.

  After a while, I went back to the car and stripped myself of the clothes I was wearing. I opened my bag and put on the other clothes that I had packed.

  Then I drove away from there, and I did not think of George. You see? You see? All I wanted was to ride away on the sea.

  I pulled back from Rhea. I had nothing more to say.

  She didn’t turn away from me then, but still I left her in tears. I went down her stairs and into Paris’s streets.

  I walked to the train station. It rained, and the trains arrived and departed, and the passengers passed.

  The woman at the ticket window asked me, Monsieur, où allez-vous aujourd’hui?

  Roma, I said. Roma.

  Glossary of Arabic Terms

  AKHU AL-SHARMUTA: brother of a bitch

  ALA ALAARD YA IKHWAT AL-SHARMUTA: Down on the floor, you brothers of bitches

  AL-AMN AL-DAKHILI: internal security

  AL-ASWAQ: marketplace; a reference to the region that divided East from West Beirut during the Lebanese civil war

  AL-GHARBIYYAH: West Beirut

  ALLAH YIRHAMHA: may she rest in peace

  AL-NASIK: the Hermit

  ARAQ: distilled alcohol made of grapes

  ARBA’IN TWAKKAL ALA ALLAH: Forty, God be with you

  ARGILAHS: hookahs

  ARS: pimp

  ASAS: foundation

  BATAL: hero

  BAMIA: okra

  BONSOIRAYN: Lebanese slang meaning bonsoir twice

  CHABBAB: young men

  DABKAH: a group circular dance

  DANTA, YA BEH, MUSH AYIZ IDDIK CRAVATA HARIR KAMAN?: Your highness, do you want me to offer you a silk tie as well?

  FANNAS: a liar

  GEORGE AL-FARANSAWI: George the French

  HABIBTI: my darling

  HAMSHAH, SHALKHAH: slang meaning hot, attractive girl

  HASHASH: drug user

  HAYDI AL-SARSARAH: this gossiper

  IRAN: a liquid yoghurt

  JABHAH: the name of a place, or a faction, on the front line

  JAHILIYYAH: pre-islamic period

  KALASH: slang for Kalashnikov, a weapon used widely in the war

  KANASA: snipers

  KASS: a drink based on green almonds

  KAYF: joy; slang for hashish

  KHALAS: enough, or finish

  KHALL: vinegar

  KUNAFAH: a cheese pie

  LABNAH: soft chee
se

  LAHM BA’AJIN: a thin meat pie

  MAJALIS: the name of the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces

  MAJNUN: crazy

  MAN’OUSHE: thyme pie

  MARIAM AL-ADHRA’: Virgin Mary

  MASHKAL: problem

  MASSAT: blowjobs

  MAZAH: an assortment of finger foods

  MUQAWAMAH: resistance

  RAKWAH: a small pot with a short spout used to make Arabic coffee

  RJA’ YA ALLAH-RJA’!: Go back, for God’s sake

  RUH: spirit

  RUMMANAH: pomegranate; slang for a hand grenade

  SAHTAYN: good appetite

  SAKANAH: an army barricade

  SHABAB: young men

  SHAHID: martyr

  TANTE: aunt

  TWAKKAL ALA ALLAH: Have faith in God

  ‘UMMAH: nation

  ‘USTADH: teacher

  WOU YALLAH SHID YA BEEBO SHID MITL MA SHAD BAYAK AWWAL LAYLAH: Push, push Beebo, in the same way your father pushed on his wedding night

  YA CHIC INTA: handsome

  YA HABBUB: a term of endearment

  YA IKHWAT AL-SHARMUTA: brothers of bitches

  YA KALB: dog

  YA KHALTI: my aunty

  YA ’UM AL-NUR: Mother of Light

  YA WLAD AL-SHARMUTA: sons of bitches

  YALLAH, KASSAK: cheers

  YASSAREH: leftist

  ZAJAL: a form of improvised dialect poetry

  ZAKHIRAH: a piece of wood the Lebanese Christians believe originated from Jesus’ cross

  ZU’RAN: thugs

  Acknowledgments

  I WOULD LIKE to thank the Canada Council and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for their support. I also would like to thank Lisa Mills for her presence, friendship, and support during the writing of this book and after. Thanks to John Asfour for his friendship and much-appreciated guidance. To my publisher Lynn Henry, and all the people at Anansi, and to Martha Sharpe for acquiring the manuscript and for ongoing support. Thanks to my brothers and family: Mark, Merdad, Ralph, Gigi, and Ramzi. A special thanks to: Dima Ayoub, Leila Bdeir, Laurence Cailbeaux and Jesh Hanspal, Nick Chbat, Tina Diab, Jocelyn Doray, Julia Dover, Eva Elias, Majdi ElOmari, Erin George, Kathryn Haddad, Mansour Harik, Nasrin Himada and Raphaelle Beaulieu, Magdalona Gombos, Aida Kaouk, Sandra Khoury, Johanna Manley, Ramzi Moufarej, Nehal Nassif, Maire Noonan and Antoine Boustros, Milosz Rowicki, Babak Salari , Julian Samuels, Pascale Solon, Laurelle Sprengelmeyer, and Shannon Walsh.