‘Oh God!’
‘They sent me some news,’ Kamileh’s mother said. She didn’t mention with whom or how. ‘They want to come to the house to offer their condolences to Kamileh. Yusef al-Kfoury was like a brother to them and they don’t want to delay in paying their respects to his wife.’
Muntaha went home, but she wasn’t convinced she should do it. She hoped Kamileh’s mother would get preoccupied looking after her daughter and forget the whole thing. Muntaha’s mother was sitting with her relative the mute near the entrance to the house, as usual, carrying on a conversation. He made speedy signs with his hands while she went slowly, as if searching for her words with her hands, or like someone speaking a language not her own and hesitating before pronouncing each word. They got tired quickly. One or two sentences and then they would have to rest. Muntaha’s mother had been weeping along with the other neighbours, too. Her eyes were red. The mute didn’t cry for anyone. He was probably feeling sad in his heart, but he didn’t cry. He hadn’t gone eel fishing that day but he still smelled like the river. He was barefoot, as usual. The mute was the sturdiest one among them in the face of tragedy.
Muntaha asked her mother about Haifa Abu Draa. Her mother had gone to Haifa’s house while Muntaha was with Kamileh.
‘No one ever died over someone,’ her mother said, meaning that no one had ever died from sorrow over another’s death. She was a harsh one, her mother. ‘The unfortunate one is the one who goes,’ she added, meaning that when it came down to it, the true loser was the one who died.
The mute nodded his head in agreement. He couldn’t hear what the woman was saying since she wasn’t moving her hands as she spoke. He couldn’t hear anything at all, but perhaps he intuited what his relative would say in such critical circumstances. It was difficult to imagine how such adages could be said in sign language or in the language of the mute eel-fisherman. No wonder his conversation partner had to put forth so much effort choosing her hand signals.
The mute was smiling and nodding his head in agreement. An indication he understood.
Muntaha didn’t hear what her mother said. Her answer was always the same whenever she returned from a funeraclass="underline" death is a woman’s pastime. She’d heard her father say that once.
Muntaha collapsed onto the bench. She knew the day wasn’t over yet. She didn’t change her dress, in defiance of Kamileh’s mother who had told her to do so.
In all that stress, she had had the nerve to tell her to put on a new dress.
Muntaha later said that she had a dream during those few minutes when she shut her eyes and rested her head on the end of the wooden bench. She could have slept standing up.
Soldiers. She dreamt of soldiers. An entire platoon. A long line of soldiers dressed in blood-red, marching in a forest of tall trees. Poplar trees just like the ones planted along the two sides of the river road with their tops reaching up to the sky. The ground was wet from the rain of the night before and the ground was covered with yellow poplar leaves. Around each soldier’s neck was a cloth sack. Mizwid, they called it. They kept bread in it. They were all soldiers. No officers or sergeants among them.
They were the dead men. The ones who’d fallen and the ones who were going to fall.
The bread was the prayers that were chanted over each of their souls. They carried them around their necks to judgement day. Each would take the loaves out of his sack and present them to the Lord as He sat upon His throne.
He was the same Lord from the painting above the altar at the Church of Saint John the Baptist.
Kamileh’s mother, who didn’t knock at the door, because it was open, awakened Muntaha. She came right in to where Muntaha was in the sitting room.
She tugged at her shoulder. ‘Get up. We don’t have anyone besides you.’
Muntaha didn’t understand what she meant. She almost told Kamileh’s mother that she had two other daughters she could seek out for help. One of them was married and lived in one of the nearby villages; she could walk there if she wanted. The other one lived some distance away. Her husband didn’t like us and didn’t like our town, but she’d come from Beirut to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral. Her husband didn’t accompany her and made her go back in a hurry. Kamileh’s mother sent her daughters back to their families right away, out of fear for them. Why didn’t she send one of them? Why didn’t she go herself?
‘Why don’t they pay their respects tomorrow or the next day? There’s lots of time…’ Muntaha, half-asleep, asked only that one question.
‘They have to come tonight!’
‘Two men from the Rami family visiting the quarter tonight? Kamileh is totally distraught. What will she say to them? Wait until morning to see how God’s going to get us out of this mess!’
‘Tonight, Muntaha. We cannot put it off.’
The camel has one idea in his head and the camel driver has another.
God help her.
She dragged herself up from the bench. Neither her mother nor her mute relative was around. No one was checking on anyone that night.
She walked, somewhat afraid. Not many big things happened in her life. Had it not been for the fatigue and sleepiness she would have got a bit more excited. She would have to walk in front of them and clear the road for them.
The streets were deserted. Her heart pounded hard all the way to their quarter. She found them sitting at the entrance to the house, silently smoking cigarettes one after another, stamping them out under foot at the half-way point. They were waiting for her.
She knew them well. Kamileh was always pushing the idea that Muntaha should marry Butros al-Rami, the heavier and older one who was sitting to the right. If he paused from puffing cigarette smoke, he puffed the air as he exhaled.
They were sitting on wicker chairs.
‘What are people saying in your quarter?’
She didn’t know how to answer. She in turn asked them about their dead and how the funeral had gone.
She didn’t answer their question, and they didn’t answer hers.
One of them repeated the question. People said whatever they felt like. In any case, she wasn’t going to tell them anything. After thinking hard and carefully she said, ‘What do you want them to say? They’re hoarse from so much wailing.’
‘What are they saying about us, my brother Fuad and me?’
That was the real point of their question. They knew what was being said about them. News travelled fast, especially bad news.
‘I haven’t heard anyone mention you… I was busy with Kamileh the whole time.’
‘Poor Kamileh…’
They knew Muntaha would walk ahead of them.
It was a short road and a difficult one.
She walked ahead of them with her heart pounding. She could hear it the whole way. And the whole way, too, they remained silent, but she noticed each of them was carrying a gun. The metal glinted in their hands.
There had been three of them sitting at a table at the Brazilian Café in Tripoli, as was their custom — the two brothers and Yusef al-Kfoury, when the arms dealer joined them. He told them about a cache of revolvers he had just netted. They bought him a cup of coffee and exchanged bits of conversation and then ordered three revolvers. He delivered them the next day. He brought them in a sack to the same coffee shop. They found a secluded corner and looked them over. Yusef al-Kfoury chose the 14-caliber Herstel. Butros al-Rami paid for the guns and refused to let Yusef al-Kfoury pay him back. A gift, he told him. They didn’t keep track of debts with each other. Yusef al-Kfoury said things weren’t going to stay this way very long and that he didn’t like guns.
No one stopped them on the way, and they didn’t run into anyone.