They were planning to gather all the Semaani family women who had married into our neighbourhood and put them in Aziz al-Rami’s house. There were around twenty or more such women. It was possible they would turn them over to Father Boulos who would then escort them to the Lower Quarter. We imagined the scene as we sat there in the cobbler shop: Father Boulos leading the women, crossing over the green line with them before they went their separate ways to their families’ houses. And then he’d return with the Rami family women from the Lower Quarter.
‘If that’s the way it is, you don’t want me here, then I’ll go…’ Husneh said.
Husneh had heard all kinds of talk. It wasn’t the fact that she was a Semaani that bothered them; it was her brother they had to take into consideration. He was fighting right across from them, bullet for bullet, ploy for ploy.
‘Yes. I’ll go to my family.’
I didn’t try to tell Abboud what was being said because I was sure he knew. But Husneh, to make certain, bent into his ear and shouted so he could hear. ‘I am going to my family’s house, Abboud…’
Actually, she no longer had a family. Her whole family was her brother Muhsin.
‘In any case,’ she added not as loudly, to spite us and the armed man standing in the doorway, ‘the closer I get to the Lower Quarter the more my heart fills with joy…’ That was her way of taking revenge.
Suddenly three armed men arrived to provide backup for their comrade. Those men we knew. They were Salimeh’s boys — Hashem and his brothers Francis and Abu Layla. They’d been charged with a serious mission and had scowls on their faces. They paid no attention to us. It was clear that we were not going to be able to ward them off.
‘Where’s Husneh? Hurry up. Father Boulos wants to leave before noon…’
They caught sight of her inside.
‘If my own mother Salimeh were one of them, I’d send her,’ one of them said in turn to justify what was going on. He continued, speaking to Abboud, ‘War is war, Abboud… It’s either us or them.’
Husneh didn’t say anything. She just turned around and went inside the room at the back of the shop. Abboud stood up. It was the second time he stood up wearing his soiled apron. He rushed into the room at the back of the shop. He hadn’t tried to discuss things with Salimeh’s son Hashem; he had surrendered to the decision. Now he had to try to salvage whatever he could.
‘No. You’re not taking the boy with you…’
‘Who’s going to nurse him? You?’
‘You’re not taking him with you. I don’t have another son.’ He was resolute.
The little girls started to cry. The cobbler shop guests and I followed him inside. The oldest daughter was holding Raouf, unsure who to give him to, so she too began to cry. The baby followed suit.
Abboud was like a child who couldn’t be persuaded to let go of what he was holding onto. I don’t know why Husneh suddenly tied her kerchief over her hair and walked out of the room towards the shop. She had decided to go alone. We all followed her. We couldn’t believe she was going to leave just like that.
Salimeh’s boys were standing waiting for her next to a Mercedes taxi. She opened the door to get into the car, then turned towards us and said to her daughter, ‘Remove the lentils and green beans from the stove before they burn and peel some radishes for your father. He likes radishes with lentils and green beans. The meatless kibbeh is ready in the oven. Change your brother’s nappy. He stinks. And don’t forget to feed Bashir. Don’t let him go home. He might run into danger along the way. His mother asked me to look after him…’
Bashir… that was me.
Still they weren’t satisfied.
Salimeh’s son Hashem wasn’t satisfied with spraying bullets out of his 24x29 light machine gun, which he had taken by force. The shots he fired would fly into empty space. He’d shoot the gun for no reason, just to establish his presence, as he sometimes said. The only approval he got came from the little kids who’d gather around to pick up the empty cartridges while they were still hot.
He wasn’t satisfied, so he revived the idea of a catapult. Something to cause more damage.
At first he and his brother Francis went looking for some discarded tires. Tires from broken down cars. They removed the inner tube, cut it into long sections and carefully bound them onto a fork of wood like a huge slingshot. They secured it up on one of the rooftops and shouted to everyone to back away. People made futile attempts to stop them.
Hashem launched a hand grenade from it, which exploded in the air on its way to the Lower Quarter. Over on the other side it caused more noise and rumours than anything else.
When they got the 60-mm mortar cannon and along with it an officer — a stranger it was said — to train them how to use it, Hashem was the first conscript. He learned quickly. When the time came to execute, Hashem suggested they wait until people were coming out of the ten-thirty mass on Sunday, the most crowded mass. He volunteered to monitor them on their way into the church. They fired on them on their way out. Hashem was standing behind the cannon, but the shell went too far and landed on the riverbank, setting some dry reeds on fire and hitting a fisherman in the leg.
Hashem got frustrated and started firing the rocket launcher at random targets and at random times of the day and night. He managed to kill some women and children, according to news reports from the Lower Quarter.
But they still weren’t satisfied.
Salimeh’s boys organised two nighttime operations. They amassed their troops and moved stealthily towards the opposing barricades under a cover of gunfire consisting of tracer bullets and exploding bullets. They tried to drive out their enemies from their protected positions, but they didn’t succeed. They had planned ahead of time how they would take them and force them out and how they would divide up the booty, but they failed. Both times they came back with dead and wounded of their own. They weren’t going to win the war and they weren’t going to lose it, either. They had lost their wits, though. They went into the homes of the enemy families in their own neighbourhood and blew up their houses with dynamite; they caused numerous casualties in their own ranks from all the shrapnel that resulted from their lack of expertise in blowing up houses. Then one of them crept into the demolished homes and stole furniture by night so no one would witness his depravity. Those were houses belonging to their enemies who had lived among them, but who’d left temporarily hoping to come back after things calmed down. They blasphemed against the saints and nearly sounded the Muslim call to prayer from the dome of the church just to spite their enemies who had allied themselves with America and the President of the Republic.
They still wanted more, but the ‘revolution’ ended. The president’s term came to an end; the parliament came into session and elected a new president.
Chapter 20
The whole thing had been Kamileh’s mother’s idea. Muntaha would never have dared do such a thing on her own. In any case, she had absolutely nothing to do with it. Kamileh’s mother had whispered something in Muntaha’s ear, and at first she didn’t take what she was saying the least bit seriously. She was asking her to go to Fuad and Butros al-Rami, right after the funeral.
The funeral… The sharp smell of sweat… The smell of people, the smell of the dead.
They had brought them in their coffins into the church, against the protests of the families, after a big argument. At first the clergy got involved but no one paid them much attention until the family’s zaeem arrived.