Beirut Hellfire Society

by Rawi Hage

  The Bohemian pointed his camera, and the fighters pointed their rifles vertically into the air, rested their arms on each other’s shoulders and posed. The Bohemian clicked away, and then he laid the camera down and pulled out some cigarettes, offering them. He pulled out a bottle of whisky from the bag, and shared that too. But when he pointed towards the building where Pavlov was concealed, Pavlov decided to leave. He walked calmly towards the car, got in and drove home.

  * * *

  Pavlov found Hanneh and Manneh waiting at his door. They had come to inform him of the death of Souad, the woman he had met at the beach.

  Pavlov asked for the location of the cemetery where Souad was buried. He would arrange the exhumation, he said, and they should return in two days, at midnight. Hanneh and Manneh nodded. They would inform their accomplice, the friend of the dead major who had been Souad’s lover.

  Two nights later, when the burial road beneath Pavlov’s window was deserted, Hanneh and Manneh returned on their motorcycles. They followed Pavlov in his hearse to a coastal town. Over the gentle hills they drove, and through rows of pines with slim, elegant trunks, crooked and bashful in brown livery that opened into umbrella-like greenery on top. This small forest of pine stood watch over the road in a regiment of vertical wood lines, its high-arching boughs covering the blue sky. Finally the convoy arrived at a small cemetery. A man stood waiting at the gate: an undertaker named Gerious who wore long rubber boots and muddy khaki pants, shovel in hand. Together, they walked between the headstones, following the gravedigger’s light, which shone along the ground, reviving a few names and illuminating a few beginnings and ends. In the daytime, Pavlov knew, there was a remarkable view from the graveyard of the horizon and the sea. In a place of such beauty, he thought, coffins should be hung high, suspended to face the water and pine trees and the ancient sky. I would dare to suspend them all, like branches bearing fruit. What a vision that would be for us all of what is to come, like the view of a sea storm to a seafarer watching from the shoreline.

  They reached Souad’s plot. In the hole, two ropes had already been laid around and under the coffin. All four men grabbed an end and raised the coffin to the surface. They laid it on the ground and caught their breath, then carried it to the deathmobile. Pavlov withdrew a stack of notes from his pocket and handed them to the gravedigger, who counted them and started to politely complain, reminding Pavlov of the risk he had taken and the sin he had committed towards the saints and his God. He had even opened the casket as instructed…Hell, he said. And he repeated, Hell! And in the name of the saints…

  Pavlov proffered more cash, and the gravedigger was pleased. He shook Pavlov’s hand, then returned to the hole in the ground. He swung his shovel, filling in the vacant space below.

  Now let’s find the colonel, Manneh said.

  Pavlov and his companions drove back to the city. The two motorcycles rode ahead of the deathmobile this time, two escorts, two single lights shining on the road, ephemeral but continuous, inconspicuous yet visible, flitting along the lines of the earth with its abundance of vermin and flies. In time, they arrived at a military base, and a guard appeared. He seemed to be expecting them. He opened the gate and, without a word, directed them towards a jeep nearby. In front of it, a man in regimental uniform stood stoically.

  Hanneh and Manneh got down from their motorcycles and went to meet the colonel. Pavlov stayed with Souad’s body, noticing how the coffin’s residue of earth had left its traces and fresh, moist smells of mud in the car. He opened the casket and perfumed Souad as she had requested, then placed the bottle in her hands and closed the lid.

  The officer gestured for Pavlov to follow him in the hearse. The jeep continued to the edge of the military complex and out another gate. In their small convoy, they turned up the road and reached another gate. Four soldiers approached the deathmobile. They slid the coffin out, carried it to the end of the lot and disappeared behind another building.

  We’ll handle it from here, the officer said. Your mission is done. You’re dismissed. He turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Hanneh and Manneh returned home with Pavlov. Upstairs in his apartment, they removed their leather jackets, their helmets and motorcycle leathers. They showered, and then slowly changed into their more feminine selves. They slipped on dresses, and made up their faces with puffs and brushes. Over the course of an hour, they went back and forth between the mirrors in the house, and finally they both slipped on high heels and stood before Pavlov.

  So, they asked, what do you think?

  Pavlov simply smiled and nodded.

  They reached for their purses, pulled out envelopes of cash and handed them to him. Here is your share from beyond the grave.

  As they turned to leave, Pavlov heard the loud shouts of the Bohemian below his window. He went downstairs with Hanneh and Manneh and opened the front door.

  The encounter between the drunk photographer and the ladies ignited immediately with sparks and flirtations. Pavlov stood watching as the batting of eyelashes fanned flames. He witnessed a parade of little steps and twirled circles and minuscule turns, followed by seductive laughs, complimentary words and the holding of loose hands.

  He saw, too, that the Bohemian was very excited at the sight of the girls, calling them lovely ladies, making Hanneh turn gracefully as he whistled sweet Spanish tunes. Hanneh and Manneh paused, then went back upstairs, followed by the Bohemian. They had decided to stay a while longer.

  Eventually Pavlov went to bed, but long into the night he could hear the Bohemian’s loud singing, his drunken monologues, and the women’s joyful responses as they poured drinks and the bombs started to fall again. Quiet alternated with muffled screams, followed by more laughing and giggling and clinking of glasses, and that was when Pavlov fell into a deep sleep, and he dreamed of bells and he dreamed of the creature of death roaming the streets, reaching inside doors and windows, swinging his long cane. And he dreamed of an army of workers in assembly lines building wooden coffins and gravestones, standing in long rows, reciting the alphabet with hammers in their hands, and peddlers carrying black dresses and screaming, Sale, everything must go! And he saw headless dogs in heat fucking each other in long chains, and flashes of the decapitated priest trotting around performing obscene acts of anilingus and slurping and drinking from a golden cup, and he heard his mother’s screams, and saw his father dancing with makeup brushes and bowties in his hands, and a grotesque woman opening a coffin in the middle of a wedding dance, and then the creature of death came towards him again and his stick shone—but Rex rushed to meet the creature and drowned him with his saliva, and Pavlov saw the Lady of the Stairs surfing above the grand wave of sputum, her feet moist and her hair long and flowing…

  Loud laughter erupted from the living room and Pavlov woke in a sweat. He opened his eyes. He thought about the night’s bombing and the new day’s inevitable spectacle—the repeated parades of wailing beneath his window. And he thought about how, throughout the fall, the roads would flow, like schools of fish beneath the sea, with accumulated tears and surfing wooden boxes. And for the first time since the departure of the Lady of the Stairs, he thought about the weight of her little brother in his arms, and how he had washed her naked body. Departure is death, he thought, but death is inconsequential for those who have departed. Remembering her last glance towards his window made him want to weep, and he wondered if he would ever see her again. After she had left, he had searched for and found her name and address. He had, on one occasion, walked up the stairs to her family’s apartment, and had even knocked at the door. There were crosses, flowers and icons leaning against it. The neighbours had come out and said to him, No one is there, everyone has gone. The whole family was killed. Weeded out. We built this shrine for them, they said, and we lit candles for them, but they are all gone, even the little boy. The family is extinct.

  Pavlov woke again from his reverie, dismissed his macabre thoughts, walked to the bathroom and washed
his face. Only then did he notice the smell of cigarette smoke, alcohol and drugs—and suddenly remember the previous night.

  He rushed into the living room and found clothing scattered on the sofa and on the floor. He followed the trail into the bedroom that his parents had once occupied and saw two beds filled with naked bodies. The Bohemian was sleeping in the arms of one of the ladies—Pavlov couldn’t distinguish which—and his mother’s separate bed had a single naked body in it, sound asleep. The room smelled of sex, cigarettes, alcohol and hash. There were traces of blood on the sheets, and the sheets had many wrinkles. Everything in the room was soiled and creased, and the three guests looked like a still photograph from the aftermath of a massacre, or a Roman orgy.

  Pavlov closed the door and returned to the kitchen, where he opened the freezer and greeted the remains of his dog. He made coffee and lit a cigarette in preparation for the first parade.

  While Hanneh and Manneh still slept, the Bohemian wandered out to stand next to Pavlov at the window. Pavlov offered a puff of his cigarette.

  A coffin was passing below. It was a silent procession that could be seen but not heard.

  These few left-over Christians in the Middle East should leave, the Bohemian said.

  And go where? Pavlov asked.

  They should leave this land and spread out all over the earth. The world is vast and these early converts are holding on, in vain, to their mythologies, religion, and a handful of picturesque valleys and mountains. Who and what are they fighting for? They should leave. Leave this country to the Muslims, and then the Muslims will leave it to someone else one day. I have never understood attachments to land and culture. Look at them, sliding one coffin after another into the pit! They wasted the little life they could have had elsewhere. They were never tolerated, and they tolerated no one. The Gods of these lands are cruel, jealous, petty and archaic. These converts should leave and roam the planet…

  Then why are you still here? Pavlov asked.

  The Bohemian laughed, meanly. Then he coughed, paused, looked Pavlov in the eye and said, I came to witness extinction. And he laid his hand on Pavlov’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. Hope we didn’t keep you awake last night. You could have joined in, you know. Liberate yourself. One day we’re here, the next day we’re not.

  THEATRE, DANCE

  The next morning, Pavlov was woken by the appearance of Rex the dog.

  They are here, Rex said. They are both here, satisfying their instincts…Ah, the urge…I so remember these urges…

  Pavlov took the stairs down to the street, and went looking for Son of Mechanic’s car. When he located it, he paced in circles, growling and snorting and pawing the ground with his feet like a bull. Patiently, he waited for the man to return.

  And there he was, walking towards his car. There was the Spartan, the son of a mechanic, the boy who had grown up surrounded by wheels and engines, caged in by tools and wrenches throughout his childhood. There he was, the graveyard fucker and dog killer, the performer of a masterpiece of eros before an audience of dead spectators who had cheered with muddy popcorn in hand, dusting the earth off their jackets, straightening their hair with holy water, applauding with bony fingers, laughing with sunken faces and absent eyes and missing teeth. Nothing could outshine a theatrical performance in the presence of that entombed crowd. Ah, the honesty of it! thought Pavlov. The courage, the brilliance. And now he, Pavlov, an admirer of ancient burial practices and Greek tragedies, was at last taking part in a play about vengeance. He would finally be onstage, yes, in a play with all the greatness and perfection of ancient theatre. The son of an undertaker finally had a role. Before the gaze of thousands of cadavers, he was about to wrestle Son of Mechanic and spill his blood in the agora. Pavlov, at last, had earned a role in the Pythian Games—he was here, standing on the half-circle stage of Dionysus, watched by legions of bare-shouldered, toga-clad mortal philosophers and lustful gods. His bleeding-nose-to-be, his future black eye, and his about-to-be-torn shirt would testify to his inclusion in the greatest tragedy ever conceived in this part of this world. Presenting The Fertile Crescent, ladies and gentlemen, a tragedy on the subject of procreation and death! All that was spoken, written and staged had foretold our eventual, inevitable extinction, and Pavlov now performed onstage before a once-upon-a-time audience, ready to receive a standing ovation from fig-shaped buttocks and olive-branch-like hands and cultured skulls thick and white as Greek yogourt.

  Son of Mechanic hastened towards Pavlov and grabbed him by the throat. Pavlov held his foe’s hand and wrestled him to the ground, and they fought and drew blood. Eventually Pavlov got a firm grip on Son of Mechanic and beat him mercilessly. Pavlov was strong, and had built his strength carrying cadavers on his shoulders and in his arms. He beat Son of Mechanic hard and drew blood from his eyes and nose, his split lip.

  Finally his cousin’s lover stood up, defeated, ran towards the trunk of his chariot, opened it and pulled out an AK-47. He pointed it at Pavlov once more.

  Pavlov held his ground and laughed hysterically, a loud mocking hyena-like laugh. And then he barked. He barked at Son of Mechanic and walked away, wiping the blood off his own chin and nose. Son of Mechanic stood there panting, bewildered, aiming the rifle at Pavlov but not daring to shoot him in the back.

  * * *

  Back at home, Pavlov put on some music and danced. He danced for a man he’d once known and to tunes he remembered from his childhood. Moskovian, an Armenian who had lived alone across from the grocer, had played them every afternoon. The Armenian’s soft music and dance tunes had enchanted Pavlov and everyone in the neighbourhood. Pavlov, as a kid, would stand under Moskovian’s window to listen. Moskovian had thick glasses and hardly uttered a word. He had full, robust hair that tumbled around his face and he walked like a bear, carrying the weight of his massive body on both hips. His Arabic was broken, good enough only to get him cigarettes, his customary daily bottle of wine, and food. The grocer always corrected his grammar, laughing and teasing him. The Armenian would only nod and grab his bag of cigarettes, his wine and the food that the grocer’s wife prepared for him every day.

  Pavlov recalled how the Armenian had confused the feminine and masculine in his speech. He’d once referred to God in the feminine and that had become the joke of the neighbourhood. She-God, the neighbours would say, and laugh as the man crossed the street. But his music, the tunes that drifted from his window onto the street, redeemed him. He played sad, soft gypsy tunes that no one in this land had heard before and that rendered everything feminine, as if all that was masculine in Arabic—the words gun, misery, eternity, home, ocean and bird—all came out foreign, lighter, shorter, dryer from Moskovian’s lips.

  Once, in the evening, after all the stores were closed, Pavlov had followed his father from afar. He was curious about his father’s nocturnal strolls beyond the cemetery road. He saw his father entering Moskovian’s building. Pavlov went up to the roof of the grocer’s store, which stood across from the Armenian’s house, and watched from there. He saw his father’s figure appear at the door. In the dim light, Pavlov could see his father’s silhouette. He saw his father’s long winter coat, his slightly curved, strong back. He watched his father stand facing the Armenian. They embraced and held elbows, then talked and paced back and forth in the room, and then they held torches of fire, and danced and swirled around each other, turning and waving the flames in their hands in vertical and horizontal motions until they both disappeared into another room and the fire ceased. All fell into darkness, all was quiet, and Pavlov stayed on the roof until he recognized the sound of his father’s footsteps on the street. He rushed down the stairs and followed his father back along the cemetery road, tucking in and hiding behind rocks, trees and walls.

  His father opened the graveyard gate, entered the cemetery, and stood under the direct rays of a clear moon and smoked. Then he waved at his son, and Pavlov, embarrassed and bashful, stepped out from behind the wall towards him.

 
What you witnessed is an act of love, said the father to his son. We worship fire because it is the closest sensation to what a man feels when love exists. Fire is a passage and a dance, but its destruction brings renewal. One day you will have to ignite my remains, but who is going to ignite yours, my son?

  A few days after that, the Armenian died. That afternoon, the music stopped and the Armenian didn’t come down to fetch his cigarettes, matches, food and wine.

  The grocer knocked at Pavlov’s father’s door and asked if the Armenian had a family.

  No, Pavlov’s father said. He was all alone. His family perished during the Armenian genocide. He was the only survivor.

  Then Pavlov’s father lowered his head and said: I’ll take care of it. He asked me to bury him up in the mountains. There is no need for anyone to come.

  That night, Pavlov accompanied his father to the Armenian’s house. He saw his father sobbing, saw him carry the corpse and lay it on a table in the middle of the main room. His father lit a fire and danced as Pavlov watched. It was a solo performance for the dead, a slow-moving dance in the Armenian’s room, in honour of Moskovian. Pavlov’s father performed the dance of the loner, of a man with a lit cigarette barely held between his lips, a cigarette dangling like the stray hairs of reclusive men avoiding attachments and eschewing the fragrance of ritual celebrations and burials, intoxicated by loneliness, suffocated by the closeness of others. These types of men are the hidden dark matter that exists in abundance in this universe, these kinds of men shine only in opaque corners, their deep shyness, their aloofness exorcised only through the freedom of drunkenness, their heavy eyes impersonating contemplation, their bodies swaying back and forth and sideways like worshippers. As unsteady on the floor as sarcophagi wings fluttering, these men emerge from their tombs to dance, coming alive at night in filthy places, built as shelters, with late drinking hours, and in moist basements filled with empty bottles of wine.