I did not steal them, I whispered through my broken teeth.
What did you say? I can’t hear you, you are talking like a woman. Are you a woman who sucks old men’s dicks! Then the monster grabbed my neck and glued his ear to my lips. Talk to me, Chéri, and we all can go home tonight.
I did not do it, I said.
Tomorrow, he replied, you will remember. I know you have forgotten now, because your head is not on straight, and you had too much to drink. Now sleep.
Although he left me after that, I could not sleep well. I kept on waking up. I was afraid that the monster might burst into my cell and ask me to walk again. In the morning, he showed up. He shoved me with his boots and said, Now, where are they?
I started to cry. I did not do it, I said. I do not know anything.
Okay, Hashash. I think you are the type of man who does not accept kindness. I was fair to you. Did you like the soup? Because that was your last food. Come with me. Yallah! He called his friend, and they dragged me to a civilian car.
You like BMWs, I heard. You would want to buy one when you sell the old man’s stones, right? Here, we will take you for a drive.
They shoved me in the trunk and drove for a few metres. Then they stopped and a voice shouted, Rambo, where are you going?
We are going to finish the communist, Bassam something.
How are you going to finish him? the voice said, giggling.
Like Rambo, Rambo answered, and they all laughed out loud.
Then they drove fast and in circles, making loops. My head bumped into the spare tire, then I felt nauseous, and the smell of the clean leather made me even sicker. Dark, it was dark, dark like my parents’ tomb. Fuck him, I thought, at least I will not be buried in the same place as they!
Then the car stopped. The monster turned off the engine and the trunk popped up by itself. I kept my hand over my eyes. The little light that pierced the trunk blinded me, and vertigo made me vomit.
The second man was furious: Akhu al-sharmuta, he dirtied the car! Look — he vomited all over.
I heard a gun being cranked, and the second man’s voice said, I am going to finish off the garbage now.
But Rambo ordered him to wait. I am telling you, wait! Rambo shouted, and the two men scuffled with each other.
Go take a walk, Ya Allah. It is my car, and I will take care of it.
Rambo leaned his head inside the trunk and said in his usual sarcastic voice: Now, Ya habbub, do you remember where the stones are?
I did not answer; I vomited some more. The vomit felt like it was going inward, through my nostrils, splashing on my chest a mutant bowl of soup.
Okay, suit yourself, he said. You know, I could do you a favour by shooting you now. I know that is what you want, but I won’t do it. You and me are not done yet. I have not introduced you to the electric charger yet. I promise you will glow like Mariam Al-Adhra’ (the Virgin Mary).
And Rambo and his friend drove me back, and carried me to the cell.
TEN THOUSAND SLAPS landed on my tender skin, and soup was vomited from my stomach like an infant’s cereal from my mother’s feeding arms, from her piercing eyes, from her demanding breath, from her contempt for my father the fatal-ist, the indifferent, the slow walker, the quiet man who burst through the door, late, in the dark, and landed slaps on my mother’s feeding arms, her piercing eyes, her demanding breath, her contempt for my father the fatalist, the indifferent, the slow walker, the quiet man who burst through the door in the dark, like my torturer who landed slaps and offered me soup that was vomited from my stomach like an infant’s cereal from my mother’s feeding hands, from her demanding breath, from her contempt for my father the fatalist, the indifferent, the slow walker like his son in that cell, where he was forced to walk all night, asking for his mother’s feeding arms, her piercing eyes, her demanding breath to save him from the breathless water, to pull him from the bathtub with the duck that floated between the bubbles, and the water slaps that shook the cruise ship, and splashed soap on its wooden deck where once upon a time two strolling Brits, from the rainy north, walked calmly in the moonless night toward the dining hall, before the served soup got cold, and before the jailer, who wore a white apron, burst into the kitchen and asked me to stand up, and not to sit on the job, and not to answer back, and not to steal from the passengers’ purses, and not to fondle the teenage girls, and the horny diamond wives, and to keep on chasing dust, sweeping the deck, cleaning tubs with effervescent gas that precipitated from my drowning face, from my wandering submerged lips that flapped like flying fish over the moonless sea.
RAMBO OPENED the door and said, You are free to go, Hashash. He held the door open. You have two minutes to leave.
I stood up and walked slowly out of the room. Now, I thought, he will shoot me in the back and blame my corpse for trying to escape.
I walked down the hallway. A few other rooms stretched out on both sides. I had shared the same uneven floor, the same cold, moist walls with others who moaned underwater dolphin calls, who swam in the same sea with open eyes, watching the schools of purple bubbles floating by.
When I reached the end of the hallway, a man opened the gate for me. I struggled up the stairs, and through the blinding light I saw a silhouette of a woman. Ah, my mother is here, I thought. The Rambo bastard must have insisted on a family gathering. Then I heard Nabila’s voice swearing at saints and savages. She met me halfway down the stairs and pulled me to her.
When Nabila took a close look at me, she became hysterical, which frightened me. Then she caressed my hair, and in the flood of light she cursed the militia, she cursed Abou-Nahra, she cursed Christ and his disciples. She managed to half-carry me to her car, and she drove me to her place. Once we got there, she laid me at the entrance. She went up, called Chafiq Al-Azrak, and they both carried me up the stairs.
13
FOR A FEW DAYS, NABILA WASHED ME, FED ME, AND NURSED me back to health.
You have to leave this place, she said. Get your passport. Do you have a place to go?
Go to my apartment and see if my money is still under the sofa, I said.
She came back with a bundle of cash in an elastic band. Where did you get this money from? she asked.
I saved it.
You know, looking at this money I might think it was you who killed that man, but I heard that in your absence someone shot his wife. A shepherd found her in the mountains with a bullet in her head. After that, I went to that brute Abou-Nahra and made a scene. Behind all his good manners, he is nothing but a thug.
Where is George? I asked.
He is away. He came by and told me that he was going north, camping. I have not heard anything from him.
What is going on at the other side?
Al-Gharbiyyah (West Beirut) is still under siege. The Palestinians might surrender soon. And yes, I almost forgot: Nahla said two young guys were looking for you over at Julia’s store.
Did she describe them?
No, not really. She just said they were young. She said one of them had a broken nose.