The glass was swaying in my hand as if it wanted to fall. The white liquid had a pungent smell and darkness was falling slowly. That’s the way darkness comes. You think it’s coming down slow, then suddenly without you feeling a thing you fall into darkness and turn on the lights. But in these black days, there’s neither electricity nor anyone who turns lights on for that matter. Everything was quivering. Even the stars are only seen quivering in this cursed city called Beirut. The heat is stifling. The sound of gunfire coming over distantly. How can they fight in such heat? How can they not just sleep on top of the sandbags? It’s impossible. The noise heats the air even further. And of course, the dust from the shells fills the air with clouds. So it’s raining in summer. Yesterday there was rain. Hot air with rain. Like in miracles. The sky’s sweating, my wife said, thinking she was being witty. But it’s God’s wrath. How can they? I don’t know. These new shells that howl like wolves. But best of all is this yarn about Vietnam. They want a new Vietnam! There’ll only be wars afterward. War means Vietnam and to have Vietnam you need a war. And Hani is content. I don’t understand this man. Poor thing, he died. My wife cried, as all women do, when he died. But me, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry over that man. Then they told me he died by mistake. No, I figured as much. They said he was out getting supplies when this shell came and killed him. That’s a mistake in my view. He shouldn’t have been getting supplies. Even in war, we don’t know how to arrange death. But he held the stick by the end. He’d say: you can’t hold a stick by the middle. Anyone who holds a stick by the middle can’t fight. If you held the stick by the middle … here, his face would go red as a tomato and his eyes would wander off, and you discovered that this man had turned into two drops of water … and the enemy attacked, how would you fight? The stick would then be against you. You’d have to put the stick up your arse and surrender or get killed. He went and held it by the end, but he died. He, too, died. Whichever way we hold the stick we’re going to die. That is the wisdom I have arrived at. And then, there are things one can’t hold by the end. How do you make love to a woman? You’ve got to hold her by the middle, to hold her tight, then you do it to her. The middle is sex and sex is life. So where’s the wrong and where’s the right and where’s life?
The voices were growing louder and there was the shuffle of feet and of the wooden clogs that have become the fashion these days. Wooden clogs suit women. But people forget. They forget everything and think only of bread. I, too, forget but the bread doesn’t forget a thing. There’s bread in the streets. I don’t know why I dreamed and why I did that. I woke up in the morning, smiling. We’d been sleeping in a shelter crammed with people and smells. The women’s voices buzzed all night as if we’d been condemned to listen without being able to object. The loaves, white as nurses’ coats, were piled on the pavements. My daughter and I stood amid thousands of people who’d come from everywhere and started to eat the bread, putting it in little bags and going off. My daughter laughed and pointed to a white loaf. But the crush of people prevented me from reaching the pavement where there was all the bread in the world. Abu Issam was shouting at the top of his voice, the bread turning into white froth around his lips. He tried to stop the crush of people advancing. My little daughter’s tears flowed white, the color of the loaves. And I just stood there, unable to move forward. When I opened my eyes, inside the shelter, my daughter was in her mother’s lap and Abu Issam was shouting and cursing his wife. Then he got up. I went with him to the bakery, where there were thousands of people. But the black bread was in plastic bags and people were shouting to the sound of the distant explosions and the nearby shooting. Everything that’s happened and hasn’t happened was there on the face of the baker, taking the banknotes, crumpling them up and putting them in the drawer all the while cursing the electricity, the water, and the impossibility of working under such conditions. By the time I got back home, the sun was high in the middle of the sky, the smell of cooking filled the house, my wife was beating the children and there wasn’t enough bread, and reading the papers was forbidden.
— You waste all your money on newspapers and then you spend your time listening to the radio. Since you listen to the radio, what are the papers for?
Women don’t understand politics. You can’t convince a woman that what’s happening is important, that our fate hangs in the balance.
— But you sit at home all day.
But she doesn’t understand. The truth is I can’t … At work, I used to feel I was part of something, of the institution. But now, I don’t even feel I’m part of my wife. There’s nothing left but noise. Hearing is the only sense that has any meaning. Everything else is meaningless. Hani didn’t agree. God exists, it’s inevitable. I’m a believer, but I can’t. Even faith has become an object of ridicule for my wife. Stop getting drunk then I’ll listen to you. She doesn’t give due consideration to my circumstances. Ever since I’ve stopped going to work, I’ve felt oppressed. The newspaper I read oppresses me. The black letters flow over my face and clothes.