“Not now. I’m busy now.”
So I left. And I didn’t see her again after that; or, rather, I did, about a week later — in fact, we went to her place, and I slept with her. But she was like a block of ice. She didn’t move or seem aroused, and I felt like I was raping her, so I got up and dressed and I left.
We’d made another date to meet at the café, but she didn’t show up and she never called. I even went to the film institute to ask after her, but they told me she wasn’t coming in that day.
And so, she vanished, just like that! I don’t know why she broke off with me. That day, when I was undressing, and she lay naked on the bed, I felt suffused with love: her brown body glistened against the white sheets as I bent down and kissed her, and as I fondled her breasts I told her I loved her and wanted to marry her immediately. But she turned into a block of ice. When I tried to break the ice, it wouldn’t even chip! And now, I hear she’s married! She never even contacted me, she’s married and living on Verdun Street. She hitched herself to some big merchant, some fat cat in the sugar business!
I wonder why she lied to me like that. She was forever going on about “the system” and “bourgeois hypocrisy” and yet whenever I criticized the situation, she said I was a niggling, narrow-minded petit bourgeois… And now, she’s gone and married a sugar merchant! Get that!
Naturally, I refused that part in the film they were making, but she wasn’t upset; she did try to convince me to change my mind but she wasn’t upset, she said she respected my point of view. And then she disappeared.
So here I sit now…
Actually, before they took him away, I heard them questioning him. What did they want with the poor guy, it was plain he had nothing to do with all this. He seemed like he had a screw loose maybe, or was some kind of a simpleton, but they buzzed around him like bees with no end of questions. I didn’t interfere-I don’t like getting mixed up in that sort of thing. The poor man was standing with his hands up in the air, as if a gun were being pointed at him, and then he began circling around the room, and they around him. I couldn’t figure out why he was going round and round like that, with his hands up in the air. I wanted to tell them to take pity on him, to leave him alone and let him go. I tried to approach him as he circled, and that’s when I noticed his smell. I thought he must not have washed in a long time for him to smell like that. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, and he made this rattling, rasping sound: he was trying to say something, but I couldn’t catch the words because he was muttering, so I got closer. I still couldn’t make out anything he said, he looked like he was chewing his words, then spitting them out, with a rattle from his throat. The others were also trying to make out his words, and one of them was even taking notes. When I asked the officer what he thought the man was saying, he said, I don’t have time for you now, I’m busy, the report needs to be ready soon.
“But what’s he saying?” I repeated. “It’s unintelligible.”
“Comrade, please, I beg you, I beg all of you comrades, just leave me alone with him.”
So I left the room. But that smell followed me, it was — how shall I put it — like the smell of a corpse. I held my nose, I even splashed my face with water, but the smell wouldn’t go away.
My father always said that if you wanted to honor the dead you buried them. Why don’t they ever bury the dead these days? I think that the dead should be buried even smack in the middle of a battle. The fighting should be suspended, and each side should bury its dead. It’s terrible how they just leave them. .
When I’d said as much to Comrade Omar, back in the mountains, he’d told me that I was having a rough time. And looking fixedly at my good eye, he said, “You’re a war casualty, and your injury has undoubtedly affected your morale. Go back to Beirut and rest up, Comrade.” And so he sent me back here.
It’s not true I was having a rough time in the mountains. Only once did I say I wanted to give up and go home. It was long before that, and I didn’t leave. I just said it, and went and spent two days in my tent. But then I came out and resumed combat with the others. Why did he say I’d been through a lot and should return to Beirut? I’m just fine. .
All I did was that I wanted to know why they killed the boy. I begged Omar to spare him. I was really serious this time, but they executed him anyway. I didn’t even tell them his name. I’m the only person who spoke to him. . there was no reason to kill him.
They just shot him in cold blood, right there in front of me. He stared at me with eyes full of terror and reproach; I lowered my gaze, but I saw how they killed him.
I’d been the first one to spot him. He was lost in the mountains, with his rifle slung over his shoulder. He seemed to be searching for something and I just went up to him and grabbed him. He offered no resistance as I led him away.
“You alone?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I lost my way.”
“Where are your people?”
“Over that way.”
“Come on. Walk ahead of me.”
We set off, him stumbling in front, with me behind, holding his rifle, and my comrades bringing up the rear. I noticed his knees were knocking.
“Please, leave him,” I told them. “I’ll carry out the interrogation.”
I took him into my tent and he told me about himself, in a trembling voice, over some hot tea. He said he was from Dowaar, that he had been raised by the monks in Bikfaya, and that he had lost his way.
“But why are you fighting?” I asked him.
“I fight just like everyone else.”
He was very young, with a pretty face. I told him not to be frightened.
“You’re going to shoot me!” he said.
“No, we won’t, don’t worry.”
“But you people kill.”
“No, we don’t. We don’t kill wantonly, like you. How many in your unit?”
“Five, we were on a reconnaissance patrol, and all of a sudden I found myself alone.”
“No. How many in the entire unit?”
“Oh, lots.”
“That is?”
“That is. . I, I don’t know. A large number.”
“A hundred?”
“More than a hundred. Perhaps… yes, more than a hundred.”
“Weaponry?”
“Same as yours.”
I hit him.
“You’d better talk,” I said, striking him on both cheeks. “This isn’t a joke.” He began to shake.
“I beg you,” he pleaded, “don’t kill me.”
“Weaponry?”
He added up their weapons for me, then added:
“Honestly, that’s all I know. I haven’t been to all our positions; I’m just an ordinary militiaman. Please don’t kill me.”
“We won’t, you don’t understand a thing. Are you hungry?”
“No. Thanks.”
I handed him a Marlboro, which he smoked greedily, in total silence. I heard Comrade Omar asking where the prisoner was. I stepped out of the tent and presented my report.
“That’s great, really great,” he said. “He spilled the beans quickly. Bring him out, I want to see him.”
I went back inside and asked the prisoner to follow me. “Here he is, Comrade Omar.”
“You scum, you fascist bastard, you savage!” And he started to strike him; then, moving in even closer: “You’re frightened. . real men aren’t frightened… a combatant doesn’t tremble like a child. . Stand up!”
The boy looked so desolate, I had wanted to go to him and reassure him, when I heard the gunshots. It was Omar, with his pistol; the boy keeled over into a sea of blood while the others fired machine guns and revolvers at the twitching body.
Once they had stopped, I went over to where he lay and turned him onto his back. Two glassy eyes stared back at me.