Bassam! she whispered, sounding scared and bewildered. I pulled her by her dress to my parents’ room, ripping her clothes, snapping the buttons on her blouse. She attacked me with her nails. I slapped her face. She cried, escaped me, and ran out of the room with a naked breast, stumbling over chairs and hitting the wall arches. She threw herself on the door-knob, twisting it as if the house was on fire, and staggered out.
I went to my parents’ room and looked in the mirror. Tears slipped out of my eyes. I opened the drawer, grabbed my father’s handkerchief, and wiped my face with it.
Then I loaded my gun and walked toward George’s place. I banged on his door, but no one answered.
I took his motorcycle and drove fast up to the mountains and into the empty hills. I parked at the top of a cliff. I looked down at the green, and watched and cursed the brown valleys that were covered with listless patches of soil. I pulled out my gun and shot at the hills, and at the birds, and the echoes of my shots bounced on stones, and lamented and boomeranged treacherous syllables back to me.
11
A FEW DAYS PASSED AND TEN THOUSAND JOHNNY WALKERS marched west, burning throats and breaking houses. Men drank liquor, and bedroom doors slammed, and thighs closed with promises never to reopen, and rings were pulled from fingers and tossed toward old dressers, weeping mirrors, and joining walls.
One afternoon I received a call from the whisky manufacturer. He asked me to do an urgent delivery for the next day.
The next morning I picked up the whisky from the warehouse. Then I passed by Joseph’s place and picked him up. In the van, I handed Joseph some money. He counted it and smiled.
Ali was late for his delivery, so we waited. Soon, one of the kids showed up and informed us that Ali was on his way. I asked Joseph to back up the van. Then I walked behind the wall and met Ali. He shook my hand, opened his jacket, pulled out an envelope, folded it in two, and quickly slipped it inside my jacket. He winked at me. I waited until Joseph was far from the van, watching the kids unload, then I quickly hid the envelope under the van’s seat.
On the way back to our neighbourhood, Joseph mentioned that he had seen a few Israelis on the street recently. They are coming, he said. Give it a month or so, and you will see them here, chasing out the Syrians and the Palestinians.
How do you know?
De Niro came by to see me the other day, said Joseph. He told me that he needed me for a security operation. He picked up a few other trusted men, and we drove to the mountains. When we arrived, they told us that Al-Rayess was there for a meeting with an important Israeli general. So we cleared and surrounded the whole area. Half an hour later, a helicopter landed and five Israeli military men came down. They all had burgundy boots: Special Forces. They held a three-hour meeting with Al-Rayess. Your friend De Niro is a big shot now, the right hand of Abou-Nahra.
What is the Israeli general’s name? I asked.
General Drorir something. . I can’t remember.
When I arrived home I rushed to my room and opened the envelope from Ali. It was a letter from my Uncle Naeem:
Dearest Bassam,
I learned of you mother’s death with great sadness. It brought tears to my eyes, and it even made me sadder not to be able to attend the funeral. I long to be with you, especially in these hard times. I often wonder what your life is like on the East Side alone, and orphaned at such a young age. I did not attempt to get in touch with you or your mother all these years for fear that my position with the leftist forces might put you and your mother in jeopardy. But you are welcome to cross to West Beirut any time. I can arrange for your coming here. You can stay with me, my wife, Nahla, and your cousin, Nidal, whom you have never met. I have sent you this small amount of money, in case you might be in need. I have also enclosed another envelope to be delivered to an old acquaintance of mine by the name of Jallil Al-Tahouneh. Enclosed is his contact information. He is expecting your call.
I send you all my love.
Your uncle who misses you,
Naeem
I copied down the name and the number of my uncle’s contact, tore the letter to pieces, burned it in an ashtray, and counted the money. There were ten hundred-dollar bills, new blue bills that almost whistled. The other envelope from my uncle was closed and bore the initials J.T., for Jallil AlTahouneh. I opened it. There was a bundle of money and what looked like a map, or architectural drawings of a house foundation. The word asas (foundation) was written in red and circled on some areas of the map.
THAT NIGHT, I wanted to avenge a wrong done to me. I stood across from the poker place and waited. I saw Najib’s friend leaving. I watched him from across the street. I saw that he drove an old, beaten-up blue car.
I put on my helmet and hopped on the motorcycle and followed him to Dawra.
In Dawra, I waited until he parked his car. He went inside a baker’s store and came out with a lahm ba’ajin in his hand. He unwrapped the newspaper around his food and took a few bites, then walked to his apartment. When he entered the building I followed him up the stairs. As he arrived on the landing between two floors, I grabbed him from behind and twisted his shoulder, and once his face was exposed to me I hit him with my head (I was still wearing the helmet that, I hoped, would make me appear to him like a spaceman from a B movie). He fell on the stairs and moaned, his hands on his bleeding nose, his eyes bloodshot. I searched his pockets, pulled out money, put it in my jacket, and walked away and around the block. I found my motorcycle and drove it back home.
When night came again, like it always does, I dressed in black and smudged my face and hands with black shoeshine liquid. I lit a candle in the window on the street side of my apartment and locked my door. I wore a hat that covered my curly hair, a hat long enough to hide my wide eyes, a hat that concealed me from nights, birds, and the grocer’s eyes. I crossed the street to the building opposite. All is in opposition, I thought: cities, guns, friends, and foes. I went straight up to the building’s roof. Slowly and calmly I opened the heavy metal door, gently closed it behind me, walked to the edge of the roof, and sat and eyed the street below. I watched the light that shone and danced in my window.
A car drove by once, slowly, then came back again, turned off its headlights, and stopped in front of my house. I rushed down the stairs with my gun in my hand. I hid in the entrance and watched Najib and his accomplice, who had a bandage on his puffy blue face and wrapped around his broken nose. They looked toward my window. They appeared childish, clumsy, scared, hesitant. I stood there, like a vindictive ghost in a squeaky attic restraining his accusing finger from pulling the trigger, restraining himself from reaching an invisible arm inside his enemies’ throats to extract their last breaths. Najib and his friend whispered to each other, and then suddenly they drove away and did not return.
I went back to the roof and thought of George. I had almost killed George, my childhood friend, my brother who stabbed me and kissed me, and who kissed my lover long enough to leave me. . I have to leave this place, I thought; I have to leave this place. I pulled all my money from my pocket, and counted it again, and wrapped elastic around it to make a round, fat bundle.
I walked to the other side of the roof and watched Rana’s house. Her window was dark. I swung the gun around in every direction, waving it at the vacant water-barrels, the dancing partridge bird, the whistling bombs, waving it in Rana’s direction and in mine. I looked the gun in the face and I thought of the many ways to leave: The ghost could twist your arm and squeeze the trigger in your face, and if you’re lucky, my friend, he will push you over the roof and wait for the partridge bird to carry you back up, and he will chase the falling rockets back to the Nevada desert, or to the ticking Big Ben, or to the bent Pisa tower. Or you might hold the cooing partridge tight, and dive into the sea, and hunt for poison fish and a few snapping clams. Or you might gracefully catch a cruise ship by its sails and swing it to its own mambo tune, careful not to spill champagne on the tourists’ evening gowns while shooting water guns on migrating, sexless Byzantine angels. Or you might well trap sailors’ ghosts in water bubbles, and watch them burst on the surface, and drown them again. Or you might slay underwater nymphs, collect their tiny green jackets, roll them like grape leaves, like the money in your pocket, like Persian carpets aired on white balconies.