The documents Hanna handed me were written in an affected and biased style. Throughout the period of my work on the biography, frankly, they were more of a handicap than a help. I tried to liven them up with irony and made fun of their repellent nature and superficiality. Page after page, I had to deal with fables such as “No sooner did the philosopher touch the branch standing before Husniya than its flowers bloomed,” or “No sooner did he take the chicken in his arms than it laid an egg weighing half a kilogram in his lap.”
I was going over documents that could turn a carriage conductor into a silent, huge, mysterious giant. They revealed the ability of some people to distort, imitate, and contradict without being aware how much their gibberish defied reason. More important for me were the names, an abundance of names: names of servants, masters, men of letters, merchants, children, and renowned personalities. Obviously I‘d have to look for them elsewhere, and not in those documents written in such a repulsive and provocative style.
I asked Hanna if the philosopher had had friends, but it was Nunu Behar who replied in her lazy tone, “We’ll introduce you to the merchant Sadeq Zadeh. He’s the only one who knows a great deal about his private life. There is also Butrus Samhiri the lawyer. You must meet him as well. He has official documents that will help you with your project.”
We sat around the marble fireplace on chairs with green satin cushions. A weak light came from the darkness of the chimney, and when Nunu Behar opened the window I immediately smelled the scent of her breasts mixed with a hint of earth and the lingering traces of strong perfume.
“When will you start working?” asked Hanna Yusif.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“I’ll write letters of recommendation. They might help facilitate your mission. I have a piece of advice for you as well.”
“What is it?” Nunu Behar was playing with a chain that rested between her breasts. “Are you a moral person?” he asked, smiling.
“I am an honest man,” I said immediately.
“You must be weary of that,” they both said and laughed in a quiet, subdued manner. Nunu Behar moved away from me with her wild hair, raising her hand and revealing a small expanse of skin between her underarm and breast.
“We’re not paying you because you’re an honest man. No, not at all,” said Nunu Behar. She broke into soft laugher, then carried on in a lazy voice, “We are all honest, but honesty does not put bread on the table.”
“I don’t understand,” I said to Hanna, “do you want me to tell the truth or falsify it?”
“It’s something else,” he said, adding, “You must know that truth and bogus facts are not necessarily a contradiction in your kind of work. Anyway, you’re not being paid to write a true story.”
“I’ll write about his greatness and his commonness at the same time,” I explained.
“Write whatever you want, and make this donkey greater than Sartre himself. I couldn’t care less. You and I can decide on the important details of his life,” said Hanna
Nunu clarified, “When you reach the conclusion you will understand.”
Frankly, I didn’t understand much of what they said, but I quickly realized that working with these two scoundrels wouldn’t be easy. They had other demands that I found difficult to accept. After a few minutes of silence I realized that I should leave. I excused myself and promised to see them again in a few days.
Hanna came to me and took my hand as if to escort me out in a tender and sincerely affectionate manner. Nunu Behar was sitting on a rattan chair directly behind him. She had put her legs up on a marble stool covered with a white embroidered silk tablecloth, her knees parted in a relaxed and provocative manner.
It was almost noon when I left their house. I wandered the narrow streets of al-Saadun Park and observed the wet sidewalks and the pillars supporting the buildings. I noticed they were made of coarse bricks. I saw young women enter the church, dressed in finely woven western clothes and high heels, their heads covered with light, filigree veils. Bells were tolling. Their metallic ringing echoed between the houses of the neighborhood.
I hadn’t met Hanna Yusif or Nunu Behar before, but I realized that those two had intentions that went beyond commissioning the mere writing of the biography — in other words, something in the story that went beyond the biography itself. It was one of those things that one ignores for various reasons, and my reason was my desperate need for money. I was so destitute I couldn’t hesitate or object. I had to act quickly and think later. I admit that mine was not a very moral attitude, but I never had been obsessively moral in my life — nor an enthusiastic scandalseeker — but I never knew that honor and moral conduct could have such a poisonous impact on some people.
I wasn’t at all concerned by the need to achieve a moral chef d’œuvre, but I didn’t want to create the kind of distortion proposed by Hanna Yusif and Nunu Behar either. I wasn’t obsessed with goodness, nobility, chastity, or rigor. I didn’t want to make the biography an expression of awe or exaggerated admiration or enmity, as those two scoundrels would have me do. I was not devoid of violent feelings or the capacity to fabricate facts like any other person, but I was unwilling to delve into the tragic history of the world. I had always been filled with a sense of freedom, and my morality had not been corrupted by my feelings of love or hatred.
The following day I examined the documents, photographs, papers, and other information Hanna and Nunu Behar had given me. I must admit, however, that I didn’t expect the matter to be easy or transparent. I found the insolence and insults that filled the language those two scoundrels used with me amusing. They had also seduced me with their irresistible charm and their ability to belittle and crush people. They won me over with their games, in which they mixed truth with lies and exaggeration with forgery, seemingly without contradictions. They sometimes succeeded in making me notice an absence of diligence and conveying a need for me to exert leniency regarding objectivity.
I don’t know why Nunu Behar fascinated me, whether it was her skills, her scandalous comportment, or her immorality. Maybe it was because she liberated me from something I had long despised in myself, a tendency to idealize and stand in awe of a personality who is now reduced to mere dust in a tomb.
On Tuesday morning we went out looking for information and documents related to the philosopher’s life. A man called Jawad accompanied me. Hanna Yusif had chosen him to be my companion and watch my every move. Jawad’s face resembled a pickpocket’s: harsh wrinkled features, dark reddish skin, and a drooping mustache stained yellow from cigarettes. Jawad was hiding inside clothes that he was wearing for the first time and which did not fit him well. I was sure that Hanna had asked him to watch me rather than keep me company. This didn’t bother me at all, and I tried my best to use him for my own purposes.
The late morning sun that day was pale, hidden by white scattered clouds, as we began to gather oral accounts and documents and take pictures of the district where the philosopher had lived in the sixties. I asked Jawad, who was carrying a camera on his chest, to choose the best angles to show the beauty and authentic character of al-Mahalleh, in particular the market, adjoining alleys, the mosque, the khan, the stable, and other sights. Then I prepared a detailed plan for describing the locations that the philosopher frequented to acquire background information that would help me define his personality.