Kill it if it is still alive, George told me. Kill it!
But I couldn’t bring myself to kill that little bird. Its beak opened and closed in silence, as if it was asking me for water. Its eyes began to close above my palm.
Kill it! Why are you looking at that wounded bird? Kill it and release it from its suffering. Finish it off. Your brother sounded irritated.
But I waited for the bird to fly again.
George snatched the wounded creature from my open palm. He laid it on a rock, and with the butt of his rifle he hit it on the head, more than once, and then he walked away, looking for more.
Why are you telling me this story? Rhea asked.
George and I killed more than birds, I told her.
People?
Yes, I said, and I told her about killing Khalil, and about our money scams, and our silent quarrels, and about George joining the militia. I told her all about Monsieur Laurent, and Nicole, and my torture.
Rhea listened, leaning her body against the sink, at times looking me straight in the eye, and at other times looking at the floor or the ceiling. Then she said, So, you are telling me all this, but where is George now?
I did not answer her directly. Instead, I continued talking about the massacre at the camp. I described to her what George had told me about the lights, the dog, the birds, the cadavers that piled up and rotted, the axes, the rivers of blood.
I talked and Rhea shook her head. Finally, she interrupted me, shouting, Okay, that is enough now. I don’t know. . I don’t know why you have to come here now and tell me all this. She shook her head again. And you waited all this time to talk to me. Do you think it is a game? You waited, and where is my brother now? You tell me all these things, things that I do not know are even true. We don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. And yet you come and tell me all these evil things.
I ignored her shouting. I ignored her small eyes, and her twitching cheeks, her brown dress. I ignored her protest, and when she tried to leave the room, I held her back, cornered her against the kitchen sink. I told her about the night her brother took me under the bridge.
This is all confusing, Rhea said. Your stories are not making sense. I do not know these people you are talking about. You come here like this, and expect me to listen to it all. I need to leave, she said. Please let me go.
But I was merciless.
We sat in the car, under the bridge, I said to her. George and I quarrelled. He had come to take me to the militia headquarters just before I was leaving Lebanon. He picked me up in his car. I didn’t want to go with him, but he kissed me, he called me his brother. He made me hop in his car, and we drove below the Nabaa Bridge. You brother was sent to take me back to my torturer, and then they would have killed me. But he said that he would give me a chance. He played with his gun. He filled it with three bullets and spun it. He smiled, and then he said to me, I am giving you a chance.
I took the gun from his hand, and without blinking, without giving myself the time to think about the sea, the ship, the new place that I wanted so much to go to, I held the gun against my head and pulled the trigger. It clicked, and it did not go off.
I laid the gun next to me on the car seat. You brother smiled. He picked up the gun slowly. He was not scared; no, he was composed, and as fearless as ever. He held the gun in his hand. Then he turned his face toward me, gave me a smile, and a shot went off.
Rhea held her hand to her mouth and struggled to leave my embrace. You knew all this, she said. You knew. And you. .
I pushed her back, and said, I buried him there. I buried him under the bridge. The gun dropped on my feet, and George collapsed on me. There was an open wound. I could see the other side of his face, open, a piece of his brain hanging. The windshield turned red. And the red liquid moved down the glass and rushed toward the dashboard like rain. I sat and I watched the houses, the passing cars, submerging slowly in red rain. De Niro’s hair spilled on my lap. I caressed it. I caressed it.
Without thinking, I touched Rhea’s hair. She froze, scared. I held her firmly by the shoulders and continued: I buried him under the bridge. I dragged him above the sewage, toward a pile of stone. I laid him next to it. I picked up the first large rock I saw, and put it against his head. Then I laid another rock on the other side. I surrounded him with stones, and then I went back to the car, took his gun and his rifle, and laid them at his side. I covered him with rocks and stones. And then I grabbed the sand, scooping it with my palms, to fill the space between the stones. He is there. Your brother is there, under that bridge.
You want to know his whereabouts? Listen, I said to Rhea. Listen. I went back to the car. I sat in the driver’s seat. The windshield was drenched with blood. I tried to wipe it with my hand, but it just made it more opaque, somehow thicker, with large, wide lines. The blood was drying fast, and turning darker. Blood sticks. So I went back to that pile of sand, scooped up some more, and tried to rub it against the glass. Now everything turned to red mud, like that mythical river in our land. I just wanted to see the road, you see. I just wanted to see something else besides that doomed city. I just wanted to leave.
Rhea looked me in the eye then, and slightly twisted her shoulder, but I dropped my hands onto hers and said quietly, Please let me finish.
She barely nodded, and I could feel her body sagging with weakness, her knees bending and almost touching mine.
I broke that car’s glass, I said. I went back and chose the largest rock I could carry. I laid it on the car’s hood. I went back inside the car, pulled a jacket from my bag, and put it on the driver’s seat. I climbed out of the car and up onto the hood. And I lifted the rock, and smashed it against the wind-shield. The glass broke in a million little pieces.
I lifted my jacket from the driver’s seat and flung it against the sky, and got rid of all the little stones. I was surrounded by ten thousand glowing red-and-green diamonds. I laughed. After that, I drove away fast, and the wind was in my eyes. I drove, and the wind rushed through my shirt, and tears fell from my eyes, but I was not crying. The wind hit my face, and it felt as if my head was pushed under water again. I gasped for little breaths, exhaling the smell of blood. And then the blood got thicker on my hands. I couldn’t hide it; it was in front of my eyes. And it took over the wheels and the car, and it started to move through the lanes, fast, passing cars and diesel trucks. The blood on my hands was swinging the car out of control. So I had to get rid of the blood.
I drove the car onto a small dusty road, and I drove through a green meadow that led me to the sea. I left the car and rushed to the rocky shore, and I stepped into the water, and started to clean myself of my sins, of this burning land, of my loved ones. And the sea turned purple, like the onyx that had once filled the shore. And the blood screamed louder than the seagulls, louder than the ancient invaders. I buried my head in the waves and washed my hair. The pebbles behind me rocked back and forth; the clams shut their shells. I sat between land and sea, vomiting what I did not eat, spitting out the yellow substance that joined the sea foam and rushed past me to shatter on the massive rocks.
After a while, I went back to the car and stripped myself of the clothes I was wearing. I opened my bag and put on the other clothes that I had packed.
Then I drove away from there, and I did not think of George. You see? You see? All I wanted was to ride away on the sea.