The girl’s father flew back from Saudi Arabia, where he worked in the burning fields of sand and oil. He walked to the front, crossing his thick hands, his sunburned face in flames, his dark eyes sobbing, his feet dragging on dust and sand. The small white coffin was carried by the girl’s cousins and neighbours on the long walk to the cemetery; as the sunlight landed on the white wooden box it twinkled, the wood and the metal twinkled, everyone twinkled, even I twinkled. Men in grey suits and black ties moved slowly, past the closed stores, and sagged their heavy heads toward the floor. Tony was behind me, stuttering and telling his tale of driving, death, and hospitals. I was surrounded by familiar faces filled with grief. Behind us, the mother was fainting, hanging on to the women’s arms. She was pulled forward, slapped and sprinkled with rosewater by women who were beating their chests, chanting farewell and wedding songs, wailing, waving white handkerchiefs high in the air toward the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
3
MONDAY MORNING, I WALKED TO GEORGE’S WORK. NO ONE was there but him. I paid; while I played, he injected credit into the poker machine. Success! I collected and left.
I met George that evening, on the stairs of the church.
Let’s wait and see if they notice, I told him. Maybe they have a way of finding out. It is not too big an amount. If they find out, we could pass it off as a mistake.
I gave him half of the money, and we separated.
On my way home, I went by Nabila’s place. There was no light on at her house. The city was dark. No TV was on, no water was cold; ice cream melted in cube-shaped fridges and the old men drank whiskies with no ice. I saw Rana, our neigh-bour, and hardly recognized her at first. She said, Bonsoir, and I replied, Bonsoirayn for you, and where are you going in the dark with a silk shawl on your shoulders?
To the store to buy candles.
With a face like yours, who needs candles? I said.
Rana laughed and told me to go home and to be careful not to trip on the stairs. It is dark, she said.
There is a moon close by, I said.
It is still dark.
We can light a candle, I said.
Where? she asked. Your mother’s place or mine? And she put her hands on her curved hips. Her hair fell onto her shoulders, and her wide black eyes waited for my response.
In Roma, I said.
What?
I did not answer and crossed to the other side of the street.
SAAD, OUR NEIGHBOUR, got a visa to Sweden.
He threw a party the night before his departure. He knocked at our door and invited me to the goodbye celebration.
Stockholm, he said. Yeah, Stockholm, and shook his head.
At seven that night, I showed up at his place, hungry. His mother had prepared a mazah. I broke the bread and dipped my fingers in small, round brown plates. The electricity was still cut off, but there were candles and a lantern lit up. Some flies had travelled over from the butcher store, and they hovered around the lanterns then burned. Saad’s brother Chahker — a pompous idiot, if you ask me — was there. So were his cousin Miriam and his mother and father and a few of his relatives and friends. George was there, too, drinking and smoking quietly.
I looked at George and he smiled at me.
Jokes were made about Sweden and Swedish women, blondes and the cold weather. A man with thick villager’s hands and a rough neck and a mountain accent started to sing. Saad’s family joined in. They sang songs that were foreign to me, villagers’ songs that I had never heard before, hymns of goodbye and return and marriage, warnings not to marry foreign women: Our women are the best in the world, they do not dishonour you, and our land is the greenest. Go make money and come back. . She will wait for you.
But those who leave never come back, I sang in my heart.
George drank heavily. He laughed and flirted with Saad’s cousin. It made Chahker nervous and jealous. Chahker had asked for the hand of Saad’s cousin, but she had refused. She was young, with red cheeks and long legs. She was caught between her villager’s norms and trying hard to show off her newly acquired urban manners. Saad and his family were refugees from a small town; they had fled when a gang of armed forces attacked and massacred a great number of villagers and farmers.
By late that evening, George was very drunk. I pulled him down to the street and he threw up on the curb.
He reached for his motorbike, but I stopped him, and he swung punches at me. I held his hands, talked to him, trying to calm him down, asking him not to shout. Then I dragged him to his aunt’s place. I left him lying at the bottom of the stairs, ran up and knocked at Nabila’s door. She opened the door, frantic. Who? she said. Is Gargourty okay? Who? Oh, Virgin Mary, help us. Who?
No one, I said. Everyone is alive. George is just drunk and sick.
Where is he?
Downstairs.
Nabila ran down the stairs, her hand barely touching the ramp, half-naked and filled with fear; she caressed George’s cheeks and kissed the tips of his fingers.
Together, we picked him up and carried him upstairs. Nabila cleaned him, took off his shirt, his shoes, and his pants, and gave him her own bed and covered him with an old blanket. Then she sat on the sofa and wept.
I worry about him, you know? When a phone rings late at night I often think that someone is dead. He has a gun. Why does he carry a gun?
It is his work. He needs it, I said.
He should go to school. I will pay for his studies. Let him go back to school.
She offered me coffee, and I accepted. She tiptoed to the kitchen and poured water in a rakwah, grabbed a small spoon, the coffee, the sugar. She boiled the coffee thrice, brought it on a tin tray, and let it rest like a gracious wine before pouring it for me in a small cup.
I drank. Nabila watched.
Is it sweet enough for you? she asked.
Yes.
I read George’s cup the other day. It was dark, so dark. Let me read yours.
I do not believe, I whispered.
She held my cup and looked inside. She saw waves, a distant land, a woman, and three signs.
The usual superstitious beliefs, I said.
No! I see it. Come over here, see? This is the road, this is the sea, and this is the woman. You see?
No, but. .
She smelled like the night. I slipped my hand onto her knee.
Nabila held my hand, pressed it, and moved it toward my chest. No, Bassam, go home. She kissed my hand as if I were her own child. Take care of George, tell him to go back to school. You should go back to school too. You are a smart kid, you like to read. As a child you recited poems with your uncle.
Goodnight, I said.
You take care of Gargourty, Nabila said, and followed me to the door.
I went home to my bed. When I woke up, Saad had gone to Sweden.
BOMBS FELL, warriors fought, people ate, and the garbage piled up on the corners of our streets. Cats and dogs were feasting and getting fatter. The rich were leaving for France and letting their dogs roam loose on the streets: orphan dogs, expensive dogs, potty-trained dogs, dogs with French names and red bowties, fluffy dogs, well-bred dogs, china dogs, genetically modified dogs, and incestuous dogs that clung to one another in packs, covered the streets in tens, and gathered under the command of a charismatic three-legged mutt. The most expensive pack of wild dogs roamed Beirut and the earth, and howled to the big moon, and ate from mountains of garbage on the corners of our streets.
I walked past hills of garbage. The smell of bones, the sight of all that is rotten and refused, made me rush down, aimless, toward the gas station, where I saw long lines of cars waiting to fill their tanks. I saw Khalil, George’s friend, in a militia jeep with no roof and no windows. He drove straight into a crowded gas station. He stopped his machine, came down, took his rifle, and shot in the air. He shouted, waved his hands, and ordered cars to go back, forward, and to the side. Then he fired more shots. The cars dispersed. Khalil drove his jeep close to the pumping station, filled his gas tank, and drove away.