Najib cried, and again he begged me not to kill him.
Okay, here is the deal. You talk, I won’t kill. You do not talk, I will play Russian roulette with my automatic gun here. What are the chances, you think? Talk, or I will dump your body and expensive shoes in the sewer for the big rats to feed on. They would love to nibble on the French perfume behind your ears. Ya chic inta.
Najib shivered and a fresh, warm flood of piss came bursting through at his ankles.
Who are they? I said.
Najib cried, and protested that he had never met them before.
Okay then, to the rats!
No! No! Wait. They are De Niro’s friends. Please do not tell him that I told you. I beg you on your mother’s grave.
I am taking the car, I said. You walk home; it will dry you up.
I PARKED THE CAR down the hill from Achrafieh and opened the glove compartment. It contained a flashlight and a paper. The paper was military authorization to pass the checkpoints. Najib’s name was on it. I folded it and put it in my pocket.
I searched the rest of the car, but nothing else was there — no owner’s papers, no weapons. I got out, shut the driver’s-side door, and walked up the hill through the Syriacs’ neighbourhood. A woman with a broom was chasing dust away from her doorstep and into the street. When I walked past, she stopped fanning the ground and took a long look at me. We stared at each other, then I walked on, and the rustles of her broom pondered and rose again.
The moon fell from above and hued the dancing laundry on the little roofs. Above, the heaven of the Christians was luminous with stars and the thin alleys were smeared with shadows.
I was breathing up through the hills, passing ground-floor windows. With quick, intrusive glances I extracted images of sepia photographs showing dead forefathers with remorseful faces, images of flamboyant vases with plastic flowers, of archaic sofas stained by old sins, of picturesque, romantic paintings of green valleys and brick-red houses, of massive, wooden dining tables with vampire chairs under crucifixes crucified on vertical walls. And I heard sounds, sounds of clanging pots, cutting knives, and ultraviolet radio waves that made dogs chase their tails. Outside in the backyards, laundry was hung by flabby arms and paraded on straight pins in army rows, like frescoes on Venetian balconies. I smelled boiling chicken broth, heard onion-scented hands tapping knives on cutting-boards in a crescendo like that of a castrated church-boys’ choir, or of the soundless Aramaic tears that were shed, on that tempest day, for the nailed son of Yahweh and the dangled corpse of his companion, the forgiven thief.
GEORGE OFFERED me a chair.
He pulled out his box of cigarettes, lit his fire, and threw the Marlboros on the table.
Is everything settled between you and Najib?
Before I had the chance to answer, he added: Forget about the poker machines. I have other work for you.
I kept my eye fixed on him. And no cigarette was lit between my fingers; only my throat burned, my eyes itched. Anger crawled down my chest and images from childhood bounced on the table: two boys pissing in the corner of angled walls, shooting doves with wooden guns, thieving candies with little hands, and swinging wooden sticks to herd car wheels down the city hills, wearing cheap open sandals, mouths pounding purple chewing gum, pockets bloated with marbles, chasing Indians and African lions with slingshots and crooked arrows, praying on bruised knees, confessing in foreign tongues while surrounded by flames that danced like our stolen cigarettes did at night in narrow alleys and under the stairs.
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.