Everyone’s scared now, even my father was. And he too died… Who would have thought that you would meet such an ignominious end, Abu Ahmad! They killed you and threw you in a heap of garbage. . it was a complete fluke that anyone found you at all. In the garbage, Abu Ahmad! First your son, then you!
What the hell is going on here?
Right from the beginning, I never understood what was going on. I mean, why did my father lock himself up in his room like that? It must have been because of my mother, she’s so insufferable! God help you, Abu Ahmad, with her for a wife! Whenever I went to visit them — even though I never saw him — the smell was unbearable. If my mother was cleaning the room every day, as she claimed, where then was this smell coming from? Maybe it was the cat. Honestly, I don’t know how she ever agreed to this cat business. But even cats don’t produce such a foul odor! And then why did she let him out of the house? She should never have let him go. “But what could I do?” she lamented afterwards. . What could she have done? She could have stopped him. . she could’ve asked the neighbors for help. But she worried about what people would say. . And now we’re in the papers. .
What’s more, how could he disappear for three whole weeks, without us knowing anything of his whereabouts, when, afterwards, everyone said they kept bumping into him on the street? It’s all Nadeem’s fault: he tells me that since Abu Saïd died, he no longer knows “the boys.” How could they leave him like that after he died in such a gruesome way, how could they bring his body home, with that stench, and put on such a boisterous celebration at his funeral!
As far as I’m concerned, it’s utterly incomprehensible. None of it makes sense, and I can’t bear to think about it anymore. I don’t even care to know who the killer is. And if we did know, what could we do? Take our revenge? And who would do it anyway? Nadeem, who’s terrified? Or maybe the husband of Sitt Su’ad? Those people are all armed to the teeth, how could we possibly take them on? An eye is no match for an awl, as the saying goes. But why, that’s what I want to know, why did they do it?
Because he went around painting the walls? That’s nothing but a lie! The walls in Beirut are not painted, period. If he had whitewashed them, the city would look nicer. So then, was it to rob him? He wasn’t carrying any money, no more than twenty lira anyhow. That’s what Mother said. Or was it for his worthless wedding band?
At least, I’m not afraid for him anymore: he died, and found his rest. But it’s my mother. She’s been through so much, and Su’ad doesn’t seem to care. She says her husband won’t let her come to Beirut because the coastal highway is too dangerous, and driving down the other way, the inland route, is very long — it takes over six hours. The truth be told, I don’t have much time for that husband of hers, even if he is a rich contractor! All he’s got to show for it is his potbelly and his affectations of piety! His is the worst sort, as Nadeem says, appearing holier-than-thou but stopping at nothing to get what he wants. . completely underhandedly of course! He talks like some character out of that TV soap, Abu Milhim, all morally superior and sanctimonious, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!
So he won’t let her come to Beirut, and she won’t move herself, and I’ve had enough: I can’t take anymore, I can’t shoulder the entire responsibility by myself! Nadeem says I could stay with her, he even suggested she should live with us, but she wouldn’t hear of it:
“And leave the house! Not over my dead body. This is my home.”
When Nadeem insisted, she started shaking she was so upset. “I know what it is,” she said, “you want your inheritance while I’m still alive! You want to take the furniture and the house and the money I collect for my dead husband and son.”
Nadeem is so furious, he won’t visit her anymore. But he says I should. He wants me to stay on good terms with her — he’s worried that she’s going to leave everything to Su’ad!
“Money loves money,” he says, “and that fatso would love to add your mother’s to his.”
Me, I’m not worried about the inheritance — it’s her that worries me. When they brought my father’s body home, she went into a trance-like state. She wouldn’t see anyone, she just sat in the room by the closed coffin, keening and begging us to open it. Nadeem told her we couldn’t. But of course Su’ad’s husband had to say that it was her right, and that she should be allowed to see her husband one last time.
“The corpse is already decomposing,” Nadeem told him.
“So what. . It’s still her right. .!”
So they opened it — oh my God, you can’t imagine the stench that enveloped the house. It was the same kind of smell as when my father used to lock himself in there, but much, much worse. It was literally unbearable. Everyone left the room, except for my mother. Then Nadeem went back in and shut the coffin.
“Ma, no more. . It’s enough.”
And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the house swarmed with gunmen and gunfire filled the air.
After the funeral, their leader came to see us. I don’t remember his name anymore, but one of his arms was just a stump, and he bristled when he spoke. After seating himself in the center of the living room, he began while everyone listened with rapt attention.
“The martyr’s father has himself become a martyr. Khalil Ahmad Jaber has sacrificed his life for the revolution. What happened to him is unimaginable and we hereby declare him a martyr. Truly, he is a martyr!”
Everyone dropped their heads and invoked the Lord’s mercy for the deceased while my mother looked at him with utter consternation.
“But we’ve got to find out who did it,” Nadeem said.
“Yes, absolutely. And that is our responsibility. All of you please take note, please, that I am personally taking personal responsibility for this: the murderer will be arrested and will be hanged from one of the famous Beirut pines.”
Then he launched into a eulogy of my father, extolling his support for the revolution, his affection or its combatants, and the encouragement he gave his son to join the ranks and even make the ultimate sacrifice. He said that after Ahmad had died on the battlefield, his father had praised the Lord and bidden his wife to trill with joy.
My mother nodded heavily.
“That’s right! She ululated! It shouldn’t surprise you! Isn’t a martyr on earth a prince in heaven? ‘Think not of those who are slain in the way of Allah as dead. .’” Then he looked to us to finish the Qur’anic verse, and Su’ad’s husband intoned: “‘Nay, they are living. With their Lord they have provision.’”
And he got up and left.
And the visits started. To start with, he told me they had decided to give my mother a stipend of 1,000 lira a month, as a sort of living allowance. Then on the seventh-day memorial, he came in carrying big red and blue posters.
“They’re even bigger than the ones they made for Ahmad,” my mother remarked.
“Yeah, we’ve changed the format,” he said. “We’re making them larger now.”
And he started telling us how he had plastered the walls of the city with them.
“Everybody must see the martyr’s picture — especially a martyr as unique as Khalil Ahmad Jaber. It’s not every day that a fifty-year-old man is killed in such a barbaric way — God forbid! Everyone must see his picture. We’ve hung it everywhere. The walls of Beirut are plastered with his picture.”