Istez Camil, the oud teacher, was a widower. I met him at our concierge’s apartment, a small, sparsely furnished two-bedroom unit on the ground floor. I was visiting the concierge’s son, Elie, who was thirteen, seven years older than me. Everybody was gathered around the blue-gray transistor radio, listening to a scratchy news report. The beige waxed-paper shade of a small lamp sitting atop the radio vibrated each time the announcer pronounced an “s.” The concierge sat in the main chair of the living room, his wife next to him on the chair’s arm, Istez Camil in the other chair, and the five children, including Elie, huddled on the floor around the crackling radio.
The perfidious enemy attacked. The mighty Arab army. By the grace of God. We shall conquer. The evil imperialist forces will be crushed, spat the radio.
I noticed an oud leaning against the wall. I bent down, traced my fingers across the delectable wood, along the intricate designs of the mother-of-pearl encrustations, the delicately carved inlaid ivory. The instrument felt bigger than I was. For a moment, I felt lost in its magic.
“Do you like it?” asked Istez Camil, kneeling on one knee, his hand centered on my back.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“My father made it a long time ago.” Istez Camil lifted the oud gently, bringing the front close to my eyes. “Would you like to learn to play?”
“There’s a war going on,” snapped the concierge, looking up at the ceiling. “Can we concentrate a little?” He leaned over and pumped up the volume of the transistor.
We shall get rid of the occupying forces once and for all, liberate all of Jerusalem.
“Ask your parents if they’re willing to pay for lessons.” Istez Camil’s shirt buttons were fastened incorrectly, making his collar look oddly skewed. “And don’t worry about him,” he whispered, discreetly pointing at the concierge. “He’s just a crusty old man who thinks politics is important.”
Elie stood up, stretched languidly, and gestured with his head for me to follow. I heard the concierge mutter as we left the room. Elie didn’t speak, and I tried to keep pace with his long strides. His faded orange jumpsuit, a couple of sizes too big, billowed between his legs with each step. Slim and athletic, he moved with a cocky assurance. He descended the stairs to the garage, entered his father’s tool shed, and handed me a toolbox to carry for him. I almost dropped it, had to lift it with both hands. The toolbox made it difficult to walk. By the time he noticed I wasn’t behind him, he was already up the ramp and on the street. He came back down and took the toolbox with one hand; I followed him unencumbered. We entered the garage of a building around the corner from ours. He stopped in front of an old, rusty motorcycle, put the toolbox down. I broke the silence. “Is that yours?”
Elie nodded. His permanently serious face appeared to be concentrating on the machine in front of him, his lower lip completely hidden behind his jutting upper one.
“Your father lets you have a motorcycle?” I asked.
“He doesn’t know, does he? And he won’t know, because you won’t say anything to anyone about this, will you?”
I raised my eyebrows, but Elie paid no attention. He was on his knees. His wide eyes, their whites gleaming, looked intently at the engine. A vaccination scar on his arm looked like an old, frayed button. He opened the toolbox, handed me two screwdrivers, a box wrench, a monkey wrench, and two pairs of pliers. I held them close to my chest to ensure their safety.
“I got this for free because it doesn’t run,” Elie said, “but I’m going to fix it.” He put his palm out, extending his long, tapered fingers. “Screwdriver.” I carefully placed one in his hand.
“No, not that one. The other one.” Elie tinkered with the engine. “We’re going to win the war,” he said, keeping his gaze on his task, his aquiline nose glued to the motor. “We’re going to annihilate the Israelis, throw them back into the sea.”
“Are you going to fight?”
“I can’t join the army yet. But they don’t need me. We’ll humiliate them. Pliers.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“We,” Elie said dismissively. “We, the Arabs.”
“We’re Arabs?”
“Of course we are. Don’t you know anything?”
“I thought we’re Lebanese.”
“We’re that, too,” Elie said. “The Lebanese haven’t started fighting yet, but we will. The Israelis didn’t attack us, but we’re not going to wait. We’ll crush them. And we have a secret weapon. You see, there are five strong countries.” He looked up at me, held up the five greasy fingers of his left hand. “We have two and the Israelis have two. We have Russia and China on our side, and they have America and England on theirs.” His right forefinger pushed down two fingers on each side, leaving his middle finger pointing upward. “So we’re even. But then there’s still France. The Israelis think France is on their side, but she’s not. France will be ours, because France loves Lebanon. France is our secret weapon. We’ll trounce the Israelis for sure.” He brought the last finger down into a clenched fist.
I stared at him with renewed admiration.
“Monkey wrench.”
“King Kade is such a troublemaker,” Bast said, “but he does serve a purpose. A while ago, when I was even more ill tempered than I am today, I considered fighting him, but I came to realize that the warrior shield did not suit me. I was always meant to fight internal battles, not external ones. King Kade was my test.”
“You failed?” Fatima asked.
“Not at all. I won, if you wish to call it that. I prefer to think of it as transcendence. He no longer bothers me.”
“He bothers me.”
“Then you must conquer him, or conquer yourself, whichever is harder.”
“I will defeat him,” Fatima said.
“Of that I am certain.”
“Teach me how.”
“First, you must find him.”
“I think it’s time for Osama to take music lessons,” my mother told my father as she sat on a taboret in front of her dressing table. She was applying makeup, one eye closed, a finger delicately powdering the eyelid with color. I stood to the side, watching her reflection in the mirror. Her thick lashes were as dark as a starless night. She inspected her image, took out her lipstick, applied a coat of red, her mouth forming a demure O. She blotted her lips with a tissue.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” my father said, examining his appearance in the armoire’s long antique mirror. “Our boy is too smart for music.” He winked, then turned his head back to the mirror, continued knotting his tie. “He’s already a year younger than his class. We shouldn’t waste his time with music. He should concentrate on academics. If anything, we should get him into sports to toughen him up a bit.” He stroked two fingers along the deep grooves that ran from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t think music lessons will interfere with his studies.” She bobby-pinned the final strands into her beehive, applied so much hairspray my eyes watered. “If they do, we’ll just stop them. I’ll talk to Mademoiselle Finkelstein next week and see what she thinks.”
“I want to play the oud,” I said.
“The oud? Why? It’s so limited. You can play anything you want on a piano.” The diamond necklace glittered as she turned around to face me. “With the oud, you can only play Arabic music. You don’t see anyone playing the oud among the great orchestras.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. She shrugged, turned back to the mirror. “Why aren’t we listening to the news?” I asked. “How come we’re not following the war?”