by Rawi Hage
In a low voice the Lady of the Stairs said, Now I remember everything. And I must leave.
Without a glance at him or a trace of sadness, she went to the bedroom, covered her body and feet in her black clothing, and walked out of Pavlov’s house. Pavlov stood at the window and watched her walking against the flow of black, back to the end of the road’s beginning. There she stopped once, turned back, threw Pavlov a look and a modest smile, and disappeared.
REX AGAIN
Pavlov slept well that night.
The woman is gone, he reflected, before falling asleep. It had taken the musicality of death for her to remember death. At this thought, he felt regret in his heart. The last few days, and her playfulness and laughter, had made him happy. The few encounters he’d had with women had always been fleeting. Courtship stressed him: the interruption of his private thoughts, the need to pay attention to others, the tragic, grotesque, serious business of love, the idea of possession as well as procreation—all these horrified him. Existence was his exile and nothingness was his home.
He reminded himself that a dog might grieve the loss of companions but did not care for the ceremonies of the living for the dead.
He was woken in the night by nearby gunshots. Alarmed, he looked for his slippers by the dim light of a candle. But by the time he had found them and made up his mind to open his balcony door, quiet had returned. All seemed calm except for the sound of faraway explosions.
In the morning, he urinated inside the yellow-stained ring of the toilet bowl. Saturn, Saturn, he sang, and then he laughed and praised the ringed planet as he brushed his teeth in a circular motion. He opened the curtains and the sun came in. He boiled coffee on his little gas stove, and went downstairs to feed the dog. He opened his door and there was Rex, shot, his body lying on the gravel road, decapitated.
He closed the door.
Then he ran upstairs, grabbed a garbage bag and returned to his front doorstep. He put the remains of the headless dog in the bag, carried it to his kitchen, emptied his fridge, put the dog in it and walked towards his uncles’ house. He paced back and forth in front of the building. He approached the front door and knocked violently. Again no one answered. He threw stones at the entrance and waited, and finally made his way back home.
After a while, he walked to the grocer’s to buy candles and ice. The grocer was out of candles. Your laughing cousin bought them all the other night, the man said.
Pavlov bought a six-pack of ice. He carried it home and emptied it over Rex’s remains. Have you ever seen that hyena inside her house lighting candles? he asked the dog, but Rex could no longer shake his head.
That night, Pavlov sat on his balcony and waited. He watched and listened. He didn’t eat. He drank water and smoked. Then he howled at the full moon. He howled for the longest time, calling to the head of his dog. He howled until his throat burned, wondering all the while when, exactly, his hyena cousin had managed to enter his house and light up his stairwell with her small candle flames.
He drank a glass of water to soothe his throat from all the howling.
Water, Pavlov thought, as he held the glass in his left hand. Death by water was intriguing—and the idea of sailing away from this inhospitable place consumed his thoughts. The sea could be a good burial site for the dead, he considered—but then he was troubled by thoughts of his mother, and all the fluids that must have escaped her body during his birth. He thought about that stage when a body turns to liquid inside a closed casket while the bones linger for a while longer, before, finally, there is liberation, and the evaporation of the dust. Then he remembered the Lady of the Stairs, her silent affection, her gestures, her madness and caresses that had made him feel whole, and Rex the dog’s wagging tail each morning, and the routines that grounded him and made him briefly withdraw from his solitary existence to join the cycle of life—some cycle, any cycle.
And suddenly the night pulled in more darkness, and Pavlov prepared to howl once again.
SOCIETY BUSINESS
Early one September evening, two strangers dressed in leather jackets and pants, and high boots, showed up at Pavlov’s door. They introduced themselves as Hanneh and Manneh, and said that El-Marquis had sent them to assist with Society matters.
May we come in? they asked.
Pavlov ushered them in, and they went straight upstairs.
Both men wore thick eyeliner and red lipstick. Their hair was long and, Pavlov noted, a bit greasy from their helmets—helmets that each now held against his ribs, on opposite sides, accentuating the symmetry of their appearance.
Manneh withdrew a stack of money and placed it on the table. Both men looked around the house, then peered out of the window and up at the sky. They stepped out onto the balcony and glanced at the cemetery.
Manneh went to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of water. He drank from it and handed it to Hanneh.
Let’s go, Manneh said, addressing Pavlov.
Bring some identification, Hanneh said. The militia at the checkpoints don’t like bikers or long hair.
They put on their helmets and went downstairs.
* * *
Pavlov rode behind Manneh as they drove down the hill and towards the seashore. Pavlov had no helmet, and his curly hair sucked up, trapped and filtered particles like the sponges that his father had used to scrub the unmoving faces of cadavers.
They drove past Achrafieh’s maze of little shops and houses, and Pavlov was familiar with every curve and sidewalk on the narrow streets. Once the motorcycles reached the Nahr district, they made a left towards Quarantina and followed the highway towards the north. They left behind cars and trucks, raising dust as they moved. Pavlov had the taste of the city in his mouth. He looked over at a truck driver, and saw him singing—but the man’s smile at Pavlov was cut short by the sudden acceleration of Manneh’s motorcycle.
At length, they arrived at a restaurant on the beach. Manneh and Hanneh parked their vehicles and ushered Pavlov inside, where plastic chairs and tables with cheap nylon covers sat at the end of a cement pier, above the water. A woman in a yellow dress with a broad yellow hat on her head appeared like a crucifix against the blue backdrop of the ocean. Pavlov was reminded of the Swedish flag.
Pavlov, the woman said. She approached him with the slow gait of a tragic Nordic actress. Behind her, over the water, a plastic bag riding the many winds of the sea seemed indecisive about its final destination, full of air and sound, while a seagull on a mission from some god screamed profanity and insults at the world.
The woman reached for Pavlov’s hand and escorted him to her kingdom above the water. She held his hand tightly, perhaps fearing that the wind might take him.
Pavlov, she said, repeating his name. She seemed to enjoy repeating it. Is that your militia name, your war name?
He shook his head.
I am asking only because many of the young fighters assume a borrowed name these days. I was told it has something to do with the communication devices they use. But maybe it is also because they are ashamed of who they are?
She led him to a plastic chair. He sat and leaned against the fragile table. The smell of the sea, the moving open ocean with its battered rocks and abundant algae, made him think of living things—things that arrive and then retreat. He heard the woman’s voice again and was brought back to her kingdom above the sea.
In any case, it’s an original name to have, Pavlov. I am so glad you came. My name is Souad by the way—not as original a name as yours—and I am a friend of El-Marquis. I understand he visited you at home. Actually, El-Marquis is my second cousin and we have known one another since birth. Well, I hope you don’t mind, I already ordered us some food. The fish is coming. This place is a hidden gem—do not tell anyone about it, you know how people are. (She laughed.) The food is superb here. It is the grandmother who cooks…The daughter serves. It’s a family business…The meal will come soon…I hope you like it…It is from fishermen down the coast…They pull the nets…Jaroufee they call
it, you know.
Dear Pavlov, here’s what I would like you to do. Money is not an issue. Like El-Marquis, I am dying. El-Marquis and I, strangely enough, we have the same disease at the same time—a family inheritance, and we are both dying. We sat together the other day and remembered our childhoods…Unlike El-Marquis, I grew up poor and I wanted to escape poverty at any price, so I married a rich old man. Money permitted my cousin to live a life of debauchery and transgression, but I decided to marry for money. Marrying a poor young man required, I thought then, much more effort and the risk of continuous poverty. But life taught me differently…Well, my dear Pavlov, this is my story and why I wanted to meet with you, you see.
Upon my death, my children will bury me with their father, an awful tyrant who abused me for my entire married life—and I am afraid he will continue to do so, from the grave, after my death. Yes, I agreed to marry him even though he was older than me by thirty years. You see, I was young and beautiful and thought I needed someone to take care of me. Back then, I had long, straight dark hair and big eyes.
After our marriage, after our first sexual encounter, I found my husband repulsive…and with time, when the excitement of the honeymoon and travel was over, the inconveniences of his old age started to surface. Soon I noticed his old skin, his aged-cheese breath, his legs full of pink and purple veins that extended from his flesh and crept onto the bedsheet and up onto my pillow, up the sides of the bed. He would touch me just as I was about to fall asleep, always sneaking up on me, never with any foreplay or playful teasing or a sweet word. He was inept and boring—a businessman with no charm, no humour, no character, really…no personality…A man with no qualities…He insisted on taking me to church every Sunday to mingle with other merchants’ wives. I was subjected to unrelenting boredom and disgust. We spent our lives going from one restaurant to another…Food and work were his existence. His joy was to meet a villager who could sell him fresh vegetables, or a fisherman who brought him a live catch wobbling and suffocating for lack of salt and sea. All he cared about was money, cars and food…Oh, the platitudes I endured…Boredom has always been undermining…But before I could leave him, I found out I was pregnant. By then we were fighting every day. Boredom had ruined me, and everything around me seemed dull and tasteless. When he sensed my dissatisfaction, he became jealous and abusive. I was trapped, with nowhere to go and no one to complain to but El-Marquis. By then my cousin was living the high life—he had a good teaching job, his inheritance had come through, and he made even more money by appropriating and translating Harlequin romances into Arabic under the pseudonym of Nuwas, as in the Arab poet Abu Nuwas. He made so much money from the sales of these romances. Saudi women bought his books by the thousands, and women from all over the Arab world would send him secret letters of admiration. We used to sit for hours and read them and laugh. Some of his readers would come to Lebanon and he would embezzle them, corrupt them, sleep with them. Saudi princesses, Moroccan royals…But the irony is that my life turned out to be just as ridiculous as one of his cheap novels.
I took a lover, of course I did—and how could I not? El-Marquis laughed about it. He teased me about the castle, the maids and the rich husband—the price to pay for a golden chain. He called me Bovary. He was the only one who knew about my lover. A woman always manages to have affairs, he would say. I was very pretty and loved life; I would walk into a room and all the men’s heads would turn. My lover was a young major in the army who lived in the same building as us. He was handsome and smart. He read—and not just the newspapers, but books too, and he shared these with me. He gave me an education. He was sensitive and clever. We fell in love when we met in our building. His straight dark hair and uniform made me weep at night out of desire. We would meet in the garage, inside his car with its tinted windows. And we made love on weekdays for the next twenty years, right under the nose of my husband. I loved this man. I loved the way he wore his uniform, always tidy and pressed and clean. He smelled of French cologne, and he bought me books…
He loved me as well, I know he did. He never married out of his love for me. He was also involved in politics. Sometimes he would hint at top secret things, and once he said that he was in danger—and I cried. He said that the militia were after him. He died in a car accident, in the same car we made love in, on his way back from the regiment. He was speeding because another car with three armed men was chasing him, people said. His car flew off a ramp and landed on the street below. Luckily, it was early in the morning and there was no one on the road below…It’s a comfort that he died without costing innocents their lives…
I couldn’t attend the funeral because I was afraid to be seen in my devastation, and my husband would have asked me questions if he saw me crying over a neighbour. At a funeral, a neighbour’s grief shouldn’t outweigh the sadness and pain of the deceased’s family—but I knew that mine would have, and people would wonder how I knew the dead soldier. I cried for weeks, alone and in secret. I cried for months at his apartment door. I would go to the bathroom and lock myself in and cry, or climb the stairs until I reached his door, hoping to hear his boots on the floor again…I never visited his grave until the death of my husband. I was afraid that my husband or one of his colleagues might follow me.
I would have written in my will that I don’t want to be buried in the same place as my wretched husband—I was afraid of his decaying smell while he was alive; imagine it in death!—but I am afraid that my kids will insist on burying me with him regardless of my wishes. They have told me that my place is by his side. So, my dear Pavlov, here is my request. After my children bury me with my husband, I want you to steal my body—exhume it. And I want you to bury me with my lover. You will be notified of my death, and I will be grateful from beyond the grave. I have already arranged for one of my major’s closest friends in the military to help us. And if there is a link here from the other side, I will make sure your life is filled with good fortune. And please, before you bury me with my lover, make sure that I have a smile on my face? Sprinkle some of this French perfume on me. Will you do this for me?
At this, the food arrived—and it was as excellent as Souad had promised. She and Pavlov, and Manneh and Hanneh, ate fish and drank beside the sea. When they were done, Souad kissed Pavlov on the forehead, and wept. Then she handed him an envelope of money and thanked him.
You will see me again, she said. Talkative or not, she added, and released Pavlov’s hand.
MADAME AND MONSIEUR FIORA
Pavlov mostly kept to his bed for the next three days. He read. He left the house only to go to the grocery store for batteries for the flashlight, a few candles, cigarettes and ice. At night, the electricity went down. On the third morning, early, he was awakened by gun battles and bombs falling. Sirens and speeding cars came and went through the neighbourhood. He didn’t need to listen to the news—war and its constant mayhem inevitably ended up parading itself beneath his window. Tales of combat deaths, sniper deaths, deaths by misadventure, old age, accidents, car crashes, massacres, drowning, collapsing houses, stillbirth, hunger and gluttony, execution, slaughter—all converged under his balcony.
The fourth day after his meeting with Souad, Pavlov ventured out to buy bread. He overheard the grocer talking about the death of a neighbour, Madame Fiora. She had been shot by her husband, the grocer said, but even though she was the victim of this crime, the Church refused to bury her in the cemetery—because a Communist, an atheist such as her, he said, deserves only to be buried in hell.
Madame Fiora had been a tall Spaniard with broad shoulders, long gypsy-black hair, and wide eyes like those of an Arab, whose seductiveness she accentuated by lining the edges with thick black kohl. Two hand-drawn black lines substituted for her plucked eyebrows and formed permanent swords below her spacious forehead and above those big eyes. A grand madame with imposing breasts and strong shoulders, she had used the magnitude of her body to make her way among the diminutive local men. She wore thick high heels, whic
h made her taller than anyone in the neighbourhood, man or woman. Her deep voice was vocal against all injustices, from the piling of garbage on the sidewalks to the whistles of men as young women passed by. She was a kind of Jeanne d’Arc, with enough broken Arabic to intimidate a nation of mustachioed men.
Her husband, Monsieur Fiora—as everyone called him in deference to his wife—was a small man, bald, who wore bureaucrat’s glasses and a humble, defeated demeanour. He always carried a brown, soft leather briefcase. He hurried home each afternoon with an air of anxiety, but walked to work each morning with an air of relief, as if in respite from the antagonistic climate of his home. An accountant who had studied under French missionaries, he was meticulous, principled and studious, and took pride in his conventionality, honesty and obedience to institutions, secular or religious. On Sundays, he greeted everyone in his most proper manner, with a French Catholic Bon dimanche! He never left home without his tie or his well-polished shoes, and during the mild winter he could not be parted from his silk scarf, leather gloves and one-hundred-percent lambswool hat.
Lately, he had been seen with bruises on his face and a black eye, which he blamed on the unsafe sidewalks, on the startling effects of the falling bombs, which caused him to lose his footing, and on the lack of electricity that forced him to take the stairs with all their treacherous obstacles. In short, he blamed his bruises on the dysfunction of law and authority, and the presence of mayhem and chaos. But the neighbourhood joke was that Monsieur Fiora was a stickler for order, forever calling up the militia to report someone who honked his car horn at six in the morning or when the bulb on a traffic light had burned out. The thuggish members of the militia thought these were prank calls at first, but soon realized that they were dealing with a genuinely concerned citizen, which made their exchanges with him even funnier.