The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

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  5

  Weird to think he was born here. This is my first time here, yet every street, every corner reminds me of him. I sense him smiling down enigmatically from the windows, watching me follow the clues, curious to see if I can figure them out. Follow me, the walls of the houses seem to say. Let’s see if you can find me. The traffic rumbles by, restaurant owners smile and point to their menus. So this is where he grew up. This is where he lived, breathed. Being this close to him, I feel his descriptions come to life. As if he’s standing right behind me here on the river bank, pointing to the water: This is the Berdawni. It’s a little calmer here in the south. This is where I used to swim when I was a kid. There’s a stretch about two kilometres long where the water isn’t too deep and the current is steady, perfect for bobbing around in a car tyre …

  I feel feverishly optimistic. I want answers. I want to forget all the nights I’ve lain awake, haunted by his face, by the way he looked at us, wet, numb, and haggard, the night before he disappeared. As if we were strangers. I want it all to have been worth it, all these years I’ve clung to the belief that he’s not dead. That he didn’t have a heart attack while he was out walking that morning. That he didn’t rot away in some desolate bit of woods. I want my own painful explanation to be true: that he simply left us behind like an old coat.

  We had approached the city from the north, driving past endless green hills rising like camel humps out of the rocky landscape, the city stretching out below. Even now, in the middle of summer, the peaks are covered in snow. The Berdawni meanders through the city, carving it up. The business district is in the east. The old quarter is a little higher up, west of the river. Zahle’s renowned restaurants are to be found downstream, where rows of vine trellises line the valley.

  Zahle is Lebanon’s third-biggest city, according to my guidebook, but I knew that already from Father. Its population is almost entirely Christian. You can tell just by looking around. Young couples stroll through the streets hand in hand. The women wear short skirts and leave the top few buttons of their blouses open, prompting the young men sitting on the steps to nudge each other and whisper. It’s exhilarating, surreal to walk where he once walked, to see the houses he saw, to breathe the air he breathed.

  Schoolchildren in blue uniforms get out of a bus and disappear into a side alley laughing. Entranced, I watch them before walking on. My gaze is drawn to older people in particular. A man shuffles along with a walking stick on the opposite side of the street, and I wonder whether Father ever teased him when they were kids. Did they know each other? Did Father carve his name into the trunk of a tree on the riverbank? What was it like growing up here? Did he take girls out on dates? To a restaurant by the water, maybe? Did he sit in one of the cafés and write stories? Was he standing right here by the fruit stall when he decided to take the job in Beirut despite the war?

  Time stood still for me after Father disappeared. As the years went by, my memory of him became hazier, fainter. His contours dissolved. I grew older and changed, but he stayed young. Whenever I thought of him, I saw the same man who’d left us behind, only a more faded version. Here, though, I can’t avoid thinking about what he’d look like today. If he did come back here, that is. If he’s still alive.

  “Zahle,” Nabil had said earlier as we rattled along the mountain roads, past makeshift stalls at the side of the road plastered with Pepsi posters and discoloured menus. “The City of Wine and Poetry.” Father had never tired of telling me that, but I’d never thought to question it.

  “I get the wine part, but why poetry?”

  Nabil glanced at me.

  “Well, if there’s wine, poetry can’t be far behind, now can it?”

  “I thought you were Muslim.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A Muslim who drinks wine?”

  He put his finger to his lips, signalling me to keep my voice down.

  “We’re pretty high up here, nearly 2,000 metres—getting closer to Allah. I’ll answer that question when we’re back in Beirut.”

  Now, Nabil is following at a discreet distance. He seems to sense that the city has triggered something in me, but he doesn’t probe. I, on the other hand, would love to know what he makes of me: a German guy who speaks fluent Arabic comes to Lebanon saying he’s looking for someone he doesn’t want to talk about, yet he carries on like a tourist, heading straight to the cedars and stopping to gape at every other landmark.

  We’ve been walking for a while since we parked the car. It’s not as if I have an address to head to; all I know is that I have to start here. After that? Who knows. There’s no plan B. All I have is an idea and a sense of compulsion. The truth is that for twenty years, I’ve been mired in the past. The only time I thought about the future was when I proposed to her. But if this trip doesn’t go well, there won’t be any wedding.

  “That’s Souk al-Blatt.”

  Nabil rouses me from my thoughts.

  “Hm?”

  “An old market street.” He points towards an alley branching off to the left of the main street. It gives off a reddish sheen in the afternoon light, rusty balconies jut out on both sides, and plaster crumbles off the walls. “In the past—I mean, a really long time ago—merchants from Syria, Baghdad and Palestine used to buy and sell their wares here. The street leads to one of the oldest parts of the city.”

  “What’s it like today?”

  “Today it’s just old.” He laughs. “I’ve heard they’re planning to redevelop it and turn it into a centre for traditional crafts.”

  “But?”

  “But this is Lebanon. I suppose the fact that someone has gone to the bother of planning anything at all is a minor miracle, a cause for celebration.”

  I look down the alley. Did Father experience the sight and sounds of the markets—traders shouting, customers haggling, the smell of soaps and spices, the jangling of coins on wooden tables?

  “We should get something to eat,” Nabil says.

  He’s right. Apart from the pies he shared with me earlier, I’ve eaten nothing all day.

  “Do you know any restaurants around here?”

  “No. But if we can’t find a restaurant in Zahle, we deserve to starve.”

  I let Nabil do the ordering. When I open the menu and read the familiar names of the dishes, it strikes me that I’ve never eaten Arabic food in a restaurant before. There was always hummus, tabbouleh, and kibbeh in my mother’s kitchen. The food would be placed in earthenware bowls on the table, a plate of steaming flatbread beside them. Now I really feel like a tourist. If I’m to accomplish anything here, I’ll have to focus on the one thing I have. And that’s a name.

  Nabil eyes me with a mixture of doubt and amusement as I dip the flatbread into the hummus and absent-mindedly shove it into my mouth. No doubt it’s delicious, but I can’t savour the moment. To break the silence, I say, “So what about your family? How many children do you have?”

  “Three sons.”

  “Three boys, wow.”

  “Yes.” He smiles. “We’ve been blessed.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Fifteen, thirteen, and seven. Jamel is the eldest, Ilyas is in the middle, and Majid is the youngest.”

  “I suppose they call you Abu Jamel, then?”

  Nabil nods.

  “That’s what most people call me. Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  “If you ever have a son, whatever you do, don’t name him Jamel.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know it means ‘handsome one’?”

  “Yes.”

  “The problem is, my son knows it too.” Nabil laughs, tears off a piece of flatbread, fills it with rice, and dips it into a bowl of labneh. “I never let the boy use the bathroom before me, because once he goes in, it’s hours before he comes out again. He stops in fr
ont of every damn mirror to check whether a strand of hair has slipped out of place. If he gets one pimple, he doesn’t want to go to school. Unbelievable, eh? He steals my cologne, too, but I don’t say anything because at least it smells better than the deodorant he buys, which strips the lining right from your nose.”

  “He’s at that age, I suppose.”

  “He’s a good boy all the same. After school, he helps out a friend of mine who owns a shop. They sell all kind of stuff: water, fruit, newspapers, groceries. Masoud says Jamel has been a blessing. Since he’s been behind the cash register, the number of girls coming in has tripled. They whisper behind the newspaper stand and buy things just so they can drool over him up close.” Nabil chuckles again. I sense his pride, the pleasure he takes in talking about his son. “It’s a miracle, really,” he says, reaching for the bowl with the vine leaves in front of my plate. “I mean, look at me. He must have inherited his mother’s genes.”

  “What’s your wife’s name?”

  “Nimra.”

  “What does Jamel want to do when he’s older, then?”

  Nabil raises his hands in mock desperation.

  “I just hope he doesn’t decide to be a model or something. He should study something sensible. Finish school and go to university, ideally. Education,” he says, looking me in the eye and tapping his index finger on the table for emphasis, “is the key in this country. I put a bit of money aside for him each month. My dream is for him to go to a private university in Beirut.”

  “Why not a public one?”

  “There’s only one public university in Lebanon. Students who don’t have scholarships and can’t afford private university fees go there. But it’s not nearly as good as the other universities. I’ve heard that the professors don’t bother to turn up to lectures, that papers lie around for months before they’re corrected. Only the private universities offer a decent education.”

  “Are they expensive?”

  “Puh.” He shakes his hand as if he’s just burned it. “A year at an average university costs around 10,000 US dollars. Some parents beg to send their kids there. Can you imagine?”

  “What do you mean, beg?”

  “Well, some people try to haggle with the universities like they’re at the souk. Lots of private universities offer discounts for good grades: the higher a student’s grade, the less the parents have to pay. But it still costs a fortune. So you know what the fathers do? They go to the Gulf States—Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar—because they earn far more there, and they use the money to pay for their kids’ studies in Lebanon. And when the kids have graduated, they head off to work in the Gulf States or Europe too. At least, that’s what they do if they have any sense.” Nabil’s tone has shifted from chatty to deadly serious. I can see his sons’ education is a huge worry. He’s pushed his plate away and keeps glancing anxiously at his hands. “I don’t know if I can send all three to a private university. It’s not easy. A lot of families have a bit of land they can sell if they need to. We don’t, unfortunately.”

  “Do you work full-time as a driver?”

  He laughs nervously; he’s obviously starting to feel uncomfortable. “I have a few regular customers, some business people I drive around. I don’t have the fanciest car, but I’ve got a good reputation, I’m reliable, and I know all the shortcuts. People know that if Nabil drives them, they’ll get to their meetings on time, and word spreads.”

  I can’t help thinking about how he showed up at the hotel an hour and a half late this morning, but I bite my tongue.

  “It’ll all work out,” he says, pointing upwards with his index finger. “Inshallah.” God willing. “Education is the path to the future. You know, we Lebanese don’t have a very high opinion of the past. The future is the only thing that matters.”

  Now, in the late afternoon, the streets are getting busier. The residents of Zahle are leaving work and pouring out into the streets. People are strolling along the riverbank, almost all the seats outside the restaurants are taken, young men are balancing on a slackline stretched between two trees. Zahle is no great beauty. It lacks Beirut’s gleaming hauteur, the sparkle of glass edifices, the magic of the sea, but it exudes a certain charm nonetheless. Very few buildings are more than three or four storeys high. In between parked cars there are donkeys laden with bags, smiling shoeshiners, women standing beside mobile stalls. Red, pink, blue, and turquoise sequinned dresses hang from the racks, and painted clay vases are lined up next to hand drums, piles of brightly coloured tea towels, and postcards of tourist attractions miles away from here: the port at Byblos, the historic centre of Tripoli, the cedar forests. It smells like our street used to. The fragrance of shisha and the aromas of grilled meat, mint sauce, and fresh bread waft past. Nabil turns his wrist and takes a furtive look at his watch. He probably doesn’t want me to think he’s in a hurry. But I can’t afford to waste any more time. I turn to him and say, “I need to find a woman.”

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “I thought you had one.”

  “Not to marry, Nabil. The person I’m looking for here is a woman.”

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “I’m saying so now.”

  “OK. Have you got a health-insurance number for her?”

  “What?”

  “Only joking. No one has that kind of thing here.” He laughs. “An address?”

  “No.”

  “Never mind. Have you at least got a name?”

  “El-Hourani.”

  “El-Hourani … it’s more common in the south: Tyre, Nabatieh, down that way. I wouldn’t say there are too many el-Houranis up here, are there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the first name?”

  “Elmira.”

  “Elmira el-Hourani. Trust me, Samir, you don’t need to be Philip Marlowe to track someone down in Lebanon. It’s a tiny country. Everyone knows everyone—just watch.” He gets up and goes over to a waiter standing in front of a giant menu. The waiter shrugs at first, then he thinks for a moment and points up the street.

  Nabil practically skips back to our table, grinning widely. When he gets close, he slows down, narrows his eyes to slits, and says in a gravelly voice, “I’m a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I’ve been in jail more than once and I don’t do divorce business.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Long Goodbye.”

  “Philip Marlowe?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What did the waiter say?”

  “There’s only one el-Hourani family in Zahle. He doesn’t know if the woman is called Elmira. Come on, he gave me directions.”

  I got the photo out earlier, while Nabil was in the toilet. Not that I needed to take another look at her face; I’ve examined the picture so many times, I can see it with my eyes closed. But there’s something different about looking at it here, in this city.

  This time, it’s me who’s following Nabil. Striding purposefully, he seems to know where he’s going. The number of restaurants dwindles as the road becomes steeper and more serpentine. In their place are snack stalls, little electronics shops, haberdasheries, garages. In my mind, I’ve run through this moment so many times. Will she be pleased to meet me? How am I going to explain what I’m doing here? The feeling is still there, this unhealthy mixture of fear and hope. Fear that he might actually be there, living with her or paying a visit.

  Nabil comes to a sudden halt.

  “We’re here,” he says. “This is the house, I think.”

  We’re standing in front of a crumbling facade. “House” is a bit of an exaggeration. It’s an old grey wall that seamlessly merges with the walls of the houses on either side, houses that are in far better condition. The wooden window shutters are weather-beaten. A couple of steps lead up to a door that was presumably once green. There
’s a bell but no nameplate. When I go to ring, I see that the door is slightly ajar. I look at Nabil nervously.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I point at the open door.

  He looks at it uncomprehendingly.

  “Like I said, everyone knows everyone. Most people don’t bother locking their doors.”

  Our door was open a lot of the time too. It was mostly Hakim and Yasmin who came and went as they pleased, but sometimes other neighbours would poke their head into our flat and call out “Hello?” It was a given that Mother and Father would invite them in and make coffee.

  I knock on the door. It opens a little further.

  “Hello?”

  There’s a radio on inside. No one answers, but I hear rapid footsteps approaching. I peep through the gap, so absorbed that it takes me a while to notice a little girl with huge eyes blinking up at me from a good metre below. A moment later, the door opens. Standing in the frame is a young woman. Mid-twenties, black hair tied up in a ponytail. She looks me over suspiciously.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, hi,” I say. “El-Hourani? Is that your name?”

  “Yes.” The little girl, wearing pyjama bottoms and a white jumper with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front, stares at me. The woman pulls the child back into the house by the collar and stands in front of her. She looks at Nabil behind me and then back at me.