Or you might just walk down the empty stairs, back to your flickering candle, and get some sleep.
IN THE MORNING, I heard a knock at my door. It was Monsieur Laurent. He looked distressed, and his eyes were red.
Your friend George came to visit me last night and acted like an animal, Monsieur Laurent told me. He wanted more money. I gave him what I usually give him, but he said that he wanted more. Then he took Bébé by the hand and left, and they have not come back since. He was hostile, very hostile. Could you look for him, please? I couldn’t sleep all night.
Monsieur Laurent, I said, I am not George’s agent. George asked me to do him a favour the other night when I brought you what you needed. If I had known what it was all about, I wouldn’t have delivered the bag to you.
George was very hostile, Monsieur Bassam, pleaded Laurent. I even think he was a little high. He is asking for a lot of money now. He threatened me. Il faut qu’on quitte cet endroit. C’est devenu vraiment dangereux ici. I guess this is my destiny to be an exile, always an exile. Could you please look for George and Bébé? I just want to see mon Bébé.
Did you check George’s house, Monsieur Laurent?
No. I am afraid your friend might get angry. C’est un fou. S’il te plaît, go look for them.
I asked Monsieur Laurent to have a seat while I went inside to change. I brushed my teeth and splashed my face with a handful of water. I walked to the bedroom and put my pants and shirt on. On my way out to the living room I held my jacket with my finger and slipped my hand in the jacket’s sleeve. Monsieur Laurent held the second shoulder and helped with the other sleeve.
I walked out of the apartment and down the street, and Monsieur Laurent followed me. Then he rushed to walk beside me. Abou-Dolly, the grocer, passed us. He ignored me, but turned his face to Monsieur Laurent, and they both nodded politely to each other.
At George’s place, I knocked on the door. Laurent stayed down by the entrance, pacing with his cigarette, coughing an old man’s cough.
I banged on the door again. Finally Bébé opened it, half-naked, half-asleep.
Is George here?
Non, il n’est pas là.
Where is he?
He left.
Your husband is downstairs looking for you.
Ah, oui! Loulou est là? Barefoot, she rushed down the stairs.
When Laurent saw his wife, he coughed some more, threw the cigarette on the pavement, and walked toward her.
Bébé, Bébé.
Mais, ça va, mon amour, ça va, Nicole said, and she caressed Laurent’s blond hair.
J’ai pas dormi.
Oui, mais ça va. Nicole held his hand and kissed his cheeks.
While the two of them were downstairs talking, I entered George’s home and went to his room. Beside the bed, there was a thin needle and a burnt spoon; his rifle was lying in the corner. The place smelled of fumes and medicine. A lace bra was on the floor. I walked to the kitchen; the dishes were dirty and filling the sink. I glued my lips to the faucet; the water was weak, about to die and become extinct. I ran the last drops down my throat. They tasted of the air in the pipes.
I went back down the stairs. Bébé was rushing up, into George’s house.
Je viens, papa, je serai là dans cinq minutes, j’apporte mes affaires.
Downstairs, Laurent held my hand and tried to kiss it. I pulled it away fast.
Merci, merci, he repeated like a servant as I walked past him. When I reached the sidewalk, I stepped on Monsieur Laurent’s cigarette and put out its fire.
On my way home, I passed by Romanoce, the magazine store owner, and picked up a newspaper. The headlines: Israel moving on the southern borders. Fighting in the mountains between the Christians forces, the Muslims, and the socialist forces. Long, empty speeches by ministers and clergymen. A model or Hollywood actress marries a Saudi millionaire. Woody Allen plays the clarinet. Saheeb Hamemeh declares his love to an Egyptian actress. Meanwhile, Romanoce wondered if I would ever buy the newspaper, or would read it and put it back on the rack like I usually did.
Back on the street, Abou-Youssef stopped me and gave his condolences for the death of my mother. Salah, the plumber, saw us, paused apologetically, and said to me: May God rest her soul, two days before she died I fixed the pipes in your kitchen. My wrench and a few tools are still lying under your sink, and there is a small bill that maybe you can settle. I know it is not the time to ask, but the kids are without clothes, the wife is cursing the day she married me and her tyrant father who forced me on her, and my thick hands that are covered with calluses, and my chopped-up index finger that will never touch her saggy breasts again. She curses her fate. So this is me asking you for the rest. . And may God rest your mother’s soul. Such a lady.
I walked back home with Salah, and opened the door to him, and he went straight to his tools. I ducked behind the dining-room table and took my bundle of money from my pocket. I pulled out a few bills, straightened up, and gave Salah what my mother owed him.
When I returned to the street, it was calm. For the last few days, bombs had not flown our way. Taxi drivers fought over gas, women cursed the saints of cascades and water, and the men looked defeated in their unshaven beards. A few of the men showed off old guns that hung around their waists. People buzzed between stores, and card players disappeared like Houdini inside cafés obscured by a thick haze of argilahs smoke. The tobacco-apple aroma covered the garbage smells, and shielded the gamblers from the wrath of their hysterical wives.
As I walked, I passed my old school. Children in grey smocks walked in groups, books in their hands and in their brown satchels. They shuffled their feet in the direction of the long refectory, toward the priest in long robes, toward Napoleonic battles, toward ninety-degree triangles, toward Jahiliyyah poems of drunken Bedouins who praised many gods, and mourned the dead who dwelt under soft sand, over the shifting dunes, swaying with the dancing palms under a little bowl of half-lit moons.
12
ISRAELI SOLDIERS ENTERED OUR LAND, SPLITTING RIVERS and olive trees.
Vartan and I were reading the newspaper on the edge of the sidewalk. The headlines blared: The Jews are in the south! The Syrians have pulled back! The Muqawamah is getting ready! The Christian forces are allying themselves with the invaders!
Abou-Fouad passed by, and stuck his head into our open paper, and whispered, They are here. I heard the radio. We will get rid of those Palestinians, and be stuck with the Israelis.