We walked toward my house. George’s boots were rimmed with brown soil, and his beard had grown in with straight black hair. He lifted his Kalashnikov and manoeuvred with difficulty through the cars that jammed our narrow streets; he was like an American soldier with his arms above his head, advancing slowly and half-immersed through the swamps of Vietnam. On the way, we stopped at the grocer’s and picked up few green bottles of Heineken. We took the stairs up to my apartment, because in Beirut, that crowded city, the electricity came and went as it pleased. Hardly anyone used the elevators any more, and those who did risked getting stuck and spending hours in small mechanical boxes that hung from metal ropes as old and decayed as the last French soldier who left this place.
George dumped his gear and rifle on the chair in my living room. He took off his boots and lay down on the sofa.
Where did Al-Nasik die, I asked?
In Kfar Al-Wali.
How?
Open the beer and sit down. It is a long story. Are you going somewhere?
No, not yet, I replied. I opened two bottles of beer and extended one toward his chest.
No work at the port today?
Yes, but there is still some time before I go. Speak, I said, I am listening.
George took a long first sip and stretched out on the seat. He said: Warm beer. He paused, and then he talked without stopping, and I did not interrupt him.
Around four in the morning I heard some shots coming from the next village, George began. I woke up, and woke the platoon. It was freezing, with that morning mountain cold. We arrived at the village around four-thirty, maybe five. Hanfoun, the commander, was on leave. I was second in command. I split the platoon; I sent Joseph (your partner, he added, with a wink) and Alakhtabout to hold a position up the hill. We parked the jeeps at a distance, turned off the headlights, and went on foot. We moved toward the village main street. I asked Abou-Haddid to come with me, and we ran ahead of the platoon. When the day started to break, we could see more clearly. I saw a few women and kids exiting from the back of an unfinished concrete building. They were rushing down toward the valley. They carried plastic bags and wool blankets. We ran toward them. I asked them where they were going. The eldest among them, a woman with a black headscarf, told us, We are going down. Where down? I asked, snatching one of her bags, throwing it on the ground, and prodding it with my boots. They were all trembling with fear. One of the kids started to cry quietly.
I asked the woman, Where are the men?
She was silent for a moment. Then she said that she and her companions did not live here, that they were refugees looking for a place to stay but had been kicked out of the building this morning.
Who is in the building? Who kicked you out?
Men.
What men? I asked.
She fell silent again.
How many?
Two, she mumbled.
I said, Go walk, and don’t say a word or look behind you. If one of you gives a sign, I will aim at the kids first.
The women grabbed the children and rushed down into the valley, slipping and falling down the hills. All the women were in black for mourning, so I figured they must have been all related. I asked Abou-Haddid to go back and give a sign to the rest of our guys to advance.
As soon as Abou-Haddid walked back, pressing himself against the edge of a stone wall, bullets showered on him from the top of the building. He dug into an irrigation canal that crept all around the village. The water must have been freezing. When they heard the shots, the rest of the guys rushed toward us and started to fire back at the building. I was left alone under the building, you see? I was thinking: I’ll take the stairs, and engage the two men upstairs, and finish them off. But I had no sign from Abou-Haddid. I was waiting for the firing to cease so I could cross and see if he was still alive. But I tell you, this Christian man is like a frog. He slid into the water and disappeared. The whole thing was a set-up. You see, while the two men in the building got our attention, an enemy jeep was advancing from behind the platoon. A classic ambush, right? The two men in the building were planted to distract us. The only thing that saved us was that Joseph and Alakhtabout were rushing down from the hill and saw the jeep coming behind us. They engaged the men in the jeep and it was enough to warn the others. I knew something was not right when I heard fire from a different direction. I sensed it was an ambush.
Meanwhile, Abou-Haddid crawled in the canal and, like a wet rat, showed up on the other side of the building. He was shivering with cold. He took off his shirt and I gave him my jacket. Then we decided to go up to the building and finish the two men, and then go back and join the platoon. I went up first, in case Abou-Haddid’s machine gun was too soaked to fire. But, you know, the Kalashnikov is rugged; water or dust does not affect it. Fuck the M-16. It feels like a toy. An AK-47 is still the best, I tell you. That is why I switched rifles myself. Even Israelis wanted us to trade AK-47s with them.
It was hard to locate exactly where the firing was coming from because every shot echoed through the empty concrete. But we knew there were only two men, right? So AbouHaddid and I waited. Then, when the fire intensified, we rushed up the stairs so they couldn’t hear us coming. When we got to the third floor, I heard one of the shooters changing his magazines. I opened a rummanah (a hand grenade) and threw it inside the room, and we both dug down behind the wall. The fucking explosion was so loud it made our ears whistle for days. They still do now, and sometimes I still get a strong headache and ringing in my ear. The building was under construction, so the dust blew and wouldn’t settle. Not only were we deaf, we were blind: We were lost in a thick cloud of dust, and dust filled our breathing. We became deaf, blind, and breathed with difficulty. Still, we had to get up and comb the room to make sure there were no survivors. AbouHaddid started to shoot in the direction of the room. I started to shoot as well, but there was nothing. Abou-Haddid said he saw a shadow, but it must have been the effect of his wet, cold testicles that made him see things.
As George said this, he laughed, and I laughed too. Then he continued.
The two men were already on the floor. After we combed the room with shots, I could hear that one of them was still almost breathing. I looked at his face and I saw a Somali or African of some kind, right? I stuck him with my bayonet and finished him right away. They are coming from all over the world to fight us, Bassam, here in our land. Palestinians, Somalis, and Syrians — everyone has a claim on this land, right?
Abou-Haddid and I rushed back to join the platoon. By that time, Elnasek, who was positioned in the back and closer to the jeeps, was already hit under his arm. I tell you, this guy was wounded and still he held off the enemy for about fifteen minutes. We covered for Zaghlloul, who rushed and pulled Elnasek back. We tried to get to the jeeps, but the enemy forces held the road. Elnasek was still bleeding. I think he could have been saved if we had got him to a hospital on time, but the other side held us for a few hours before we had some reinforcement. Only then could we engage them and make them retreat. So Elnasek bled to death. Before he lost consciousness, he held the zakhirah and an icon of Saint Elias that he always had wrapped round his arm with a rubber band. We detached the icon and gave it to him, and he kissed it and started to pray. Then a few minutes later he went unconscious, and he died in Zaghlloul’s arms. He was a pious man.
Here George paused. Then he asked, Is the water running?
You can go check. By the way, Nabila is asking for you, I said.
Yeah?
And Monsieur Laurent is asking for you as well.
I know what the old man wants; he did not pay for Nicole’s last fix yet.