‘A Colt-9!’
‘But that one is too expensive for you, Farid. And besides, your gun is still new, hasn’t shot more than two cartridges. I would know. I’m the one who sold it to you.’
‘A Colt-9!’
‘The Herstal-12 is better than the Colt.’
Farid tapped his finger against his temple. ‘My mind’s made up.’
End of discussion. ‘You’ll have it tomorrow.’
‘How much?’
‘540 liras. I swear on my honour I’m only making a profit of 40 liras. I’ll split it with you. 520. My final offer.’
Farid smiled. He knew the man was a liar, but he liked him.
‘I’ll pay you half now. Give me another month for the rest.’
He wasn’t rich, Farid, but he always paid.
They always gave him time to pay.
His friends found out about it. They demanded to see the Colt-9. They enjoyed flipping it over in their hands and wrapping their palms around its wide handle and closing their fingers around it. Some of them would take aim at an imaginary target and then lower it, shaking their heads admiringly, without explaining the reason for that admiration. Farid never took his eyes off of the gun as it moved from one of his buddies’ hands to another, for fear it might get scratched or fall to the ground. He didn’t relax until he got it back and slipped it into the holster attached to his belt.
His toy. His work of art.
Badwi al-Semaani, Farid’s father, had made his work of art, with his own hands. With the help of two mules, he dragged the stone out from the Ayntourin quarry and plopped the stone down in front of his house, beneath the eucalyptus tree. He chiselled it after getting home from work on the construction sites or on rainy days and holidays. A whole year it cost him, chiselling and refining it. A mortar that was meant only to be seen with the eyes, as he used to say. He didn’t allow his wife to pound and tenderise meat in it, not even once. He made another mortar for her to pound meat and make kibbeh.
Farid, on the other hand, bought his work of art. The Colt-9. He deprived himself of everything for three whole months. Master Boulos gave him 200 liras a month, which Farid withdrew early, one lira after another, long before the end of the month.
Farid never tired of feeling the revolver at his hip every time he found himself alone behind the measuring table. It distracted him from his work. He would stop putting buttonholes in the shirt he was working on in order to polish the gun. He would take hold of the handle and raise the gun up above his face, letting it shine in the light coming in through the open window that overlooked the street. He wanted to make sure there wasn’t a speck of dust clinging to it. He would puff on it repeatedly only to shine it up again with the lining of his jacket, just as people do to clean their glasses.
Master Boulos was worried about him. When he entered the shop, signs of worry were all over his face. He grabbed the trousers away from Farid again, put the iron aside, and prodded him in the chest. ‘You were at Sheikh Melhem’s funeral at the Church of Our Lady yesterday, weren’t you?’
‘I was. He was one of my mother’s relatives.’
Master Boulos knitted his eyebrows in reflection. With a faint smile, Farid added, ‘Nothing happened at Sheikh Melhem’s funeral. People exaggerate. Who told you about it?’
Master Boulos simply sighed.
Nothing happened…
They had shown up with their family zaeem. No one knew who invited them to the funeral. Twenty men came, not more. They surrounded the zaeem the whole time, never taking their eyes off him for a second. They frowned as they walked, casting fiery looks at the others. Their elegance caught Farid’s eye immediately. The youthful zaeem was a lawyer who had recently graduated from the Jesuit University in Beirut. They said he had met with Sir Anthony Eden when he came to Beirut the year before as part of a tour of Middle Eastern capitals to drum up support against Abd al-Nasser. Farid had seen pictures of him pasted on the walls before, but this was the first time he had seen him up close. He never imagined him to be as short as he was standing there before him, wearing those brown and white shoes Farid hadn’t yet been able to afford. Farid would order a pair of those shoes one day, after the Colt-9 and the pure silk tie. Farid could recognise real silk from its sheen. Three or four of the young zaeem’s attendants sported sherwal trousers and wore fezzes on their heads. The weather was hot. It was the middle of May. Everyone was wearing a jacket. Some, who may not have owned a summer jacket, came wearing their winter suits, intensifying the heat and the nervous tension.
And so, upon every hip there was a gun.
Under each jacket, a gun.
And tucked into every sherwal’s cummerbund, there was a gun, too.
The same was true in the case of Farid’s cousins and their supporters. The Semaani clan outnumbered their enemies and were in their own neighbourhood, on the road to their church. If only those congregating around their young lawyer zaeem would make one mistake. If only they would.
The pushing and shoving started when the procession entered a narrow street. Shoulders bumped shoulders. All that was heard was the sound of feet hitting the newly applied asphalt on the church road. The zaeem’s attendants seemed to be trying to clear a path for him by shoving back all those bodies pressing against him in the narrow passageway. They were insisting on keeping a cushion of space around him.
People’s faces appeared more and more worried. Farid saw a number of men, those who were not relatives and had no need to be there, leave the procession. They scurried down the small narrow streets that branched off left and right from the main road. They ran off without looking back; peace-loving types who preferred to go back to their homes. The only thing that could be heard during that time was the singing of the hymns by the religious brotherhood as they carried the Cloth of Divine Mercy at the front of the procession.