“Marwan was the best of us all. The bravest.”
She feels tears rising again. Marwan is so far away.
Ahmad’s wound has re-opened. A bloodstain is growing on his T-shirt.
Abu Nasser takes Intissar tenderly by the arm.
“What do you want to do, Intissar? We have a car. I’ll take you wherever you like.”
Habib and the other three have lit up another joint and have begun playing cards again. Habib the impenetrable fighter. Courageous and loyal. He waits. He hasn’t even mentioned the incident of the machine gun and Ahmad’s cowardliness. Noble. She walks over to the little group and holds out her hand to Habib.
“Thank you. See you soon.”
“It’s nothing. Marwan was my friend. Take care of yourself.”
It’s almost 1:00 in the morning. Intissar feels exhausted. She can’t even manage to think. Marwan is dead. His body is there. Abu Nasser has exchanged the dirty blanket for a dark-green plastic tarp found in the car. Intissar wants to be alone. Alone with Marwan. She asks Abu Nasser if he can drop her off at her place in Hamra.
“And Marwan? You want. . You want us to leave him at the hospital?”
“No. At my place. At our place. Tomorrow morning I’ll bury him.”
“You. . you’re sure?”
“Yes, Abu Nasser.”
“OK, it’s up to you. Tomorrow morning I’ll come back with a car. The day should be calm. Or, if you like, we can take care of it now.”
“No. Tomorrow morning. Thank you, Abu Nasser.”
“Let’s go, then.”
The soldiers who are escorting Abu Nasser carefully place Marwan in the back of the Jeep. Ahmad gets in too. Abu Nasser has Intissar get in in front. He likes to drive. Despite being a higher-ranking officer, he always drives his own vehicle. He sets off noisily. Drive fast, without stopping. Even at night, you have to be careful. Abu Nasser is an important link in the military command of the PLO. You never know. Behind, his two bodyguards are holding their weapons at the ready.
They pass the checkpoints without any problems; everyone knows Abu Nasser, even the Lebanese militia in the Murabitun, the PNSP, or the People’s Party. At night, when the danger of Israeli attacks is a little more remote, Beirut seems to have a tiny burst of energy. The flickering butane lights in the rare open shops, the fighters at the streetcorners — all the last spasms of a dying animal.
Having reached Hamra, the Jeep stops in front of the dark apartment building where Intissar lives. Abu Nasser cuts the engine.
“In back of the car there’s a crate of bottled water. Take it. Tomorrow morning I’ll be there.”
Her voice trembles a little.
“Thank you, Abu Nasser. Thank you very much.”
The soldiers get out of the Jeep, except for Ahmad. He nods to her, one hand clutched over his wound. She takes the carton of water. The bodyguards follow her with the heavy green tarp.
She climbs up to her floor, opens the door. The little apartment is plunged into darkness.
The soldiers set down the corpse; she lights the first candle she sees. She thanks them. She sits down next to the yellowish flame and immediately starts crying. She is exhausted. The strange smell of the body invades the room little by little. She thinks. She goes into the bedroom to get the gas lamp.
Marwan is a hero. A martyr for the cause. A great soldier. Respected of course by Abu Nasser, but also by Abu Jihad and the others. He refused to surrender. He wanted to fight until his last breath. He died shot in the back by a machine gun during a reconnaissance mission to plan an operation. To continue the resistance. Fortify the city. Not let it fall into the enemy’s hands. Now, in the middle of the night, in the silence, all that seems laughable. Even to her, the fights she has fought, the expeditions into the South, the battles against the Phalangists, the men she’s killed, all that is very far away. Useless, pointless. She realizes that she forgot her weapon at the post on the front. It’s a sign. That never could have happened during the last two years. Marwan has no more weapons, she will not have any either. The city is suspended in air. After seven years of battle. Tears of rage and sadness fill her eyes. She takes off her jacket. In her closet, everything is khaki, dark green, camouflage. She finds a grey nightgown. She’ll take care of the corpse. She sets the lamp up in the little bathroom. There is no shower stall, just a plug in the middle of the tiled, slightly sloping floor. She carries in the crate of bottled water. Abu Nasser is thoughtful. Without this gift she could never have washed the body. She will put it on the bed, in a white sheet, and she will watch over it until the car arrives tomorrow morning. Then they’ll come pick it up and bury it. Somewhere. If the Israelis leave us alone. She gathers her courage and drags the tarp into the bathroom. She pulls off the plastic, uncovers the stained outfit. The deformed face. The dark beard. She trembles, she has tears in her eyes. Kneeling next to Marwan, it really is him, all of a sudden. She sees him there despite the distance of death. He has returned into his body. She has trouble taking off the jacket and T-shirt, the arms are stiff, she cuts the clothes off with scissors. His torso. There are four black wounds on his torso. Where the bullets came out. Big, well-defined, fatal. Made to go through armored tanks and walls. They surely continued their trajectory without even slowing down. The smell of meat, of death. She cuts off the pants, takes off the single boot. She takes all the bloody clothes, on the verge of nausea, throws them into the kitchen sink, pours a little lamp alcohol on them and sets them on fire. Who will worry about smoke in besieged Beirut? She has a brief bout of nausea. She makes sure nothing can catch fire around the sink and closes the door.
Marwan, naked in front of her on the bathroom tile. His eyes closed, his faced hardened by the contraction of the jaw. The surprise of death, the surprise of the 12.7 caliber projectiles that went through his chest, perforated his heart, his lungs, broke his ribs. She takes a sponge and pours a bottle of water onto Marwan. Intissar is no longer trembling. She is no longer crying. She caresses him gently. Little by little she erases the traces of coagulated blood on the torso, around the mouth, the nose, on the stomach, delicately. Marwan the warrior. The first time they fought together, along the boundary line, her training was scarcely over. She wasn’t afraid, she had confidence in herself, and confidence in Marwan to guide her. Marwan was one of the most respected officers. A brave man. The Palestinians had nothing to do with the amateurism and anarchy of the Lebanese militia. Once the artillery had fallen silent, they had prepared a perfect trap for the fascists, a pincer that had crushed them. She remembers the final assault perfectly: the taste of brass in her mouth, the noise, the running between buildings, she sees again the first volley she shot at a moving human target, and her surprise when she saw it killed, she remembers the excitement of combat, powerful, sexual, fierce, which was appeased, late at night, in Marwan’s arms. The pleasure of victory. Intissar is the only woman to have destroyed a vehicle and its occupants with an anti-tank rocket. She watched for a long time as the blackened corpses were consumed in the flames of the overturned car, full of a mixture of satisfaction, fascination and disgust. She knows that her cause is just. She didn’t start the war. It was the Zionists. Then the Lebanese allied with the Israelis. Then again the Israelis. And now, defeat, the heavy boots that no longer move forward. Marwan who could no longer run fast enough to avoid the bullets. Martyrs abandoned on a sidewalk corner. Bodies washed in apartment bathrooms. The city that’s falling and, on top of it all, exile.
XIV