The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  I followed the developments compulsively, always thinking of Father. I wondered what his reaction would be if he were here, watching it on TV with us, or, if he really was in Lebanon, what his reaction was there. It was impossible not to think of him, especially when the government eventually resigned and a general election was called. It would be the most important election since the one in 1992—the first election I was old enough to remember, and the beginning of those strange weeks that culminated in Father’s disappearance.

  Living at Hakim’s couldn’t make up for what I’d lost. I missed Mother, Alina, and Yasmin terribly, but so did Hakim, and somehow this created a bond between us. We spent many an evening in his living room, playing backgammon on an ornate board or sharing a water pipe. As the smoke wafted around us, we’d reminisce about the happy days when all six of us were together.

  Hakim was born in 1943, which made him fifteen years older than Father. To my eyes he’d always seemed like an eccentric granddad, partly because of his gait. His slow shuffle, hands behind his back, made him look like a learned professor on the brink of a great discovery. His face was full of wrinkles, as if life’s events had etched lines on his skin the way a prisoner marks off the days in his cell. Hakim always spoke in calm, even-tempered tones, rarely raising his voice. Even if he was cursing or discussing politics, he would speak impulsively but never rashly. In spite of his rather fragile appearance, he was a pillar of strength in the years after Father disappeared, and I never forgot that. He had helped Mother with everything, from filling out forms to doing the shopping to minding Alina. In those turbulent years, he was our anchor. He never tried to replace Father—that would have been impossible, as he well knew. Hakim didn’t tell us stories. Nor did he put us to bed; he left that to Mother. He was simply there, radiating calm and reassurance, and when the satellite dish on the roof broke down at one stage, he bought a new one and asked Khalil to align it—to 26 degrees east.

  As for me, at first I was afraid all the time. Afraid to look him in the eye. Afraid to ask if he knew more about Father’s disappearance than the rest of us did. Afraid he might say he knew nothing. Afraid he might say he knew everything but wouldn’t tell me. I just didn’t have the nerve. I slunk around, keeping a close eye on him, eavesdropping on his conversations with Mother. But Hakim never gave anything away. It was a long time before I let him get close to me again, though there was no going back to the easy intimacy of before. I buried the farewell scene I’d witnessed in the stairwell deep in my memory. Soon I couldn’t even be sure that it hadn’t all been a dream.

  After I moved in with Hakim, it took a while for us to get used to each other. Then Yasmin moved out, leaving a huge silence that we had to fill. We weren’t like father and son, yet I felt that Hakim was the one person who understood the enormity of my grief and knew how to relate to me. He was my legal guardian but he didn’t lay down any rules. When I got up, I’d find the breakfast table set—Hakim would be long gone to work. When he came home in the evenings, he’d change the shirt that smelled of timber and sawdust, tell me about his day, and slip in a few questions about what I’d been up to.

  “This and that,” I’d usually reply, and that seemed enough. He never asked me where I hung out all day, and I never told him that I spent much of my time retracing his daughter’s footsteps. Maybe he guessed. He never put pressure on me to get an apprenticeship or a place on a training course, nor did he lecture me about the importance of that kind of thing for the future. Some might say he was a little too hands-off, but I was grateful that he accepted me as I was.

  When I told him I’d decided to become a librarian, he was delighted, giving me a big hug and telling me I was doing the right thing. Hakim was glad to have me around, glad that the flat wasn’t empty. Ever since he and Yasmin had fled to Germany with my parents, Hakim had never strayed far from us. He was around when I was born and when Alina was born—he was part of the family. He missed Yasmin terribly. He didn’t talk about it much, but I often caught him in the living room, looking at photos of her as if they were precious paintings. He missed Mother and Alina too. The whole house was quieter without them. The toing and froing between our flats was gone, the creaking stairs, the carefree laughter he’d hear before they appeared around the bend of the stairs. All the more reason for him to look after me: I was all he had left.

  “There’s no need to move out,” he said sadly when I told him of my plan to find a place of my own. This was a few months after I’d started the librarianship course. “There’s plenty of room here for the two of us, and we get on well.”

  That was true, of course, but I had begun a new chapter in my life and it felt right to stand on my own two legs as I embarked on this adventure.

  One day shortly before I moved into the small flat he’d helped me find, I saw Hakim standing by the cherry tree on the patch of grass outside our building. He was running suspicious fingers along its trunk.

  “It’s canker,” he said, wincing. “Come here. Take a look.”

  He pointed at the bark, much of which had turned dark brown, with some reddish-orange patches. The wood was dry and cracked, and lumpy growths had appeared in places.

  “Is canker kind of like tree cancer? I didn’t know trees could get cancer,” I said.

  How many times had I walked by that tree without noticing the changes. It made me think of Father explaining the satellites with cherry stones from this very tree while Alina sat on the grass watching us.

  “It’s not really cancer,” said Hakim. “The cells don’t multiply uncontrollably. It’s actually a fungal infection.”

  “How does the tree get it?”

  “Through little wounds in the bark caused by frost. I’m afraid we’ll have to cut it down. It would probably still flower this year, but the cherries could develop fruit rot.”

  The thought of this tree dying saddened me. On the one hand, it was logical—predictable even. The bitter truth was that everything connected with this house seemed doomed. On the other hand, this tree held more than just my memories within its branches, as I had buried the little cedar box between its roots. It had seemed like a safe hiding place for the slide.

  Before the tree was felled, I dug out the box. I had wrapped it in newspaper, but moisture had got in and stained the cedar. It didn’t smell the same either. The sharp woody scent had faded into the earth, been washed away by the rain.

  I regarded the demise of the cherry tree as a sign. That slide was part of me, was meant to be near me at all times. It was also inextricably linked to the events surrounding Father’s disappearance. So I decided it was time to ask Hakim what Father had said to him that night.

  He didn’t seem surprised. We were sitting across from each other in the living room. My things were boxed up in the hall. That evening, for the first time, I’d be getting the keys to a flat of my own. Steam rose from the tea we’d just poured. Hakim didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “Were you watching us?”

  “Yes. I followed him. You remember the state he came home in that evening? Soaking wet and scared out of his wits. Remember what a fright we all got? I was worried, I wanted to keep an eye on him.”

  Hakim always wore glasses at home. The warm steam from the tea fogged up his lenses when he put the cup to his lips.

  “He went and got something out of the basement. He had it with him going into your flat, but his hands were empty when he came out. What did he give you?”

  Hakim scrutinised me thoughtfully. Without a word, he got up and went to his bedroom. He came back shortly afterwards and put a photo album on the table.

  “This is what he gave me.”

  I recognised many of the photos in the album. Photos of my parents’ wedding, the same ones Father had shown us that evening. But there were other pictures, ones I hadn’t seen before—pictures of Hakim playing the lute, his head inclined dreamily, and pictures of Yasmin as a child, playing
in a sandpit in Lebanon.

  It was a long time ago, that evening. All I’d seen was the vague outline of that rectangular object, since it was hidden under a cloth. It’s possible that it was the same size as a photo album. But there was something fishy about it all the same.

  “If this album was there all along,” I began, “why did he bother with the slideshow?”

  Hakim smiled and watched me go through the album page by page, inspecting each glued-in image.

  “That’s what I said too. No need for the slides. ‘Why don’t we just show the kids the album?’ I said. But Brahim insisted on putting on a show for you. You know how much he loved to perform. He really wanted to have a Leitz Prado bang in the middle of your living-room table!”

  “But why did he give the photo album to you?”

  “I’ve no idea,” sighed Hakim. “Your father was like a brother to me, as you know. We were great friends. These photos are souvenirs of our friendship. And they’re the only pictures of me playing music—he loved my music. In fact, we only met because I was a musician at the time. Maybe that’s why he gave me the album.” He seemed sad now, a bit helpless, and he avoided eye contact. “So, your father came to me that evening. Yasmin was already asleep. I asked what was wrong. I’d got just as much of a fright as you when I saw him standing there like that in your flat. Yasmin and I were worried. But he didn’t offer any explanation. All he said was, ‘I’ve got to leave, Hakim.’ He didn’t tell me it was for ever. I thought he meant a couple of weeks. I was convinced the whole time that he’d be back any minute. I don’t know what kind of trouble he was in.”

  “And you didn’t ask him where he had to go?”

  “Of course I did.” Hakim sighed again. The memories seemed painful. “He couldn’t tell me. I was sitting exactly where you are. He kept pacing up and down, and all he said was, ‘I’ve got no choice, do you see?’ He kept repeating that, as if he had to convince himself as well as me. I begged him to tell me what kind of trouble he was in. I wanted to help, but he brushed me off. I couldn’t get the slightest bit of information out of him—you must believe me. He took me completely by surprise. I couldn’t believe it next morning, when he was gone. We were friends, Samir. I loved him.”

  Hakim’s expression changed. He looked as if he’d been dreading this moment for years.

  “When he was leaving your flat, I heard him make you promise something.”

  I tried to make eye-contact with Hakim. I was remembering the two men crying.

  “What kind of promise was it?”

  The old man bowed his head.

  “He asked me to look after you all.” He drew a deep breath full of regret. “He wanted me to make sure you were all OK while he was away, to make sure nothing happened to you.” Hakim seemed dejected and uncertain. “Considering everything that’s happened since, I didn’t do such a good job, did I?”

  The day after the attack on Rafiq Hariri, I got up very early and went to the library. I needed to get there before anyone else. It was 15 February 2005—three years since that conversation with Hakim. I’d spent the night at Hakim’s; I couldn’t face the loneliness of my own flat. Our old street seemed the only safe refuge at that moment, a bulwark of solidarity. For the first time, I’d understood why people need to gather in churches or public spaces when disaster strikes, to light candles, lay flowers, reflect in silence. The crowds mourning on our street had eventually broken up. Everyone had gone home. TV screens continued to flicker in the darkness of the night. The portrait of Hariri remained propped against the tree, a film of frost forming on it. Hakim eventually fell asleep in front of the TV. I put a blanket over him. His rib cage rose and fell evenly. His head was on a cushion, his feet sticking out over the end of the couch. He looked utterly exhausted. I sat up for a little while, staring at the endless loop of images from Beirut—the smoke, the flames, the shattered glass, the news analysts’ worried faces. I didn’t hear what they said. I had turned the sound down on the TV. And I’d put my phone on silent because Aurea wouldn’t stop ringing.

  It was strange to hear my footsteps echoing off the library walls. Normally, I’d never be the first in. Chris sometimes wore the same clothes two days in a row, so I suspected that he slept in the library the odd time, but he wasn’t in yet. I went down to the archive. To my relief, everything was exactly as I’d left it—newspaper all over the floor, ancient articles on yellowed paper. How could I have been so careless? I set about covering my tracks, folding the newspapers and putting them back on the shelves.

  The morning passed without incident. Chris wasn’t due in until lunchtime, as he had a meeting somewhere else. The usual pensioners came in to pore over the papers through their reading glasses. Hariri’s murder was headline news. The front pages all showed the bomb crater in Beirut. Around eleven, a group of bored schoolchildren came in for a tour. I showed them around the public areas, explained how they could use the computers to search the catalogue and borrow books, told them about the reference-only collection and interlibrary loans and the DVD collection. That last bit got them interested. When Chris arrived at 1 p.m., his jacket was soaked, his hair was dripping, and his glasses were blurred by raindrops.

  “Forgot my umbrella,” he said, shrugging.

  “How was the meeting?” I asked nonchalantly.

  “OK. We’re definitely going to be one of the venues for Literature Night in May. Who we’ll be getting for the readings isn’t decided yet. How did your evening go?”

  “Lovely,” I lied.

  He studied me briefly, then nodded.

  “Terrible about Hariri. I heard it on the news. You must have got an awful shock.”

  “Yes, but who didn’t?”

  “I’m not that well up on him,” Chris said, “but he seemed like a good guy. He did a lot for the country, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was a really important figure after the war.”

  “Let’s hope there isn’t worse to come. There’s always some kind of trouble down there.” He hung his wet jacket on the back of the chair. “They were saying on the radio that it might have been the Syrians. What do you think?”

  “It’s certainly a possibility.”

  “I remember the eighties—when I was your age. There was a civil war in Lebanon. Then Bashir Gemayel was murdered. I reckon the impact of that must have been similar. The first thing they said was the same then too: ‘It was the Syrians!’”

  I nodded, adding gruffly, “History repeating itself.”

  I didn’t really want to discuss Hariri or Gemayel with Chris, even though I’d read a lot about Gemayel and his assassination. In fact, I definitely had no desire to discuss Gemayel. I remembered all too well the day, not long after I’d started my library training, when I’d opened one of the books on the civil war and hit upon a particular page. I got the shock of my life. It’s impossible to describe the confusion I felt, the surprise, the goose pimples. I stared in disbelief at the picture with the article: there he was, the Lebanese president, the man who had been leader of the Phalange militia and founder of the Forces Libanaises. The photo showed a handsome young man with a full head of black hair, dark eyes, and an engaging smile waving at a crowd. It was Bashir Gemayel. The same man who was on the slide, standing in his uniform beside my father.

  That evening I strolled home under a leaden sky. The whole town was wrapped in a pall of February grey. The shutters were down on most of the shops, smoke drifted from chimneys, and puddles formed on the footpaths. The umbrellas of people dashing home through the rain were the only splashes of colour.

  Despite the gloom on the streets and the horrific events of the previous night, I felt relaxed and surprisingly optimistic. No one at the library seemed to suspect me of anything. Little did I know this was the last time I’d feel relaxed and optimistic for a very long time. If I’d known, maybe I’d have slowed down, despite the rain dripping from the greengr
ocers’ awnings, and breathed in the clear air after the rain stopped. Maybe I’d have enjoyed, just a little longer, the feeling, that everything had worked out OK. How was I to know that Hariri’s assassination would trigger a series of events that would have serious consequences for my own life?

  One immediate consequence was that Aurea broke up with me. When I got home, she was huddled on the front steps.

  “You never rang back,” she sobbed. Her hair was dripping wet, her hands shaking, but I didn’t dare give her a hug. “Will you not tell me what’s going on?”

  The rain pelted down on the steps and the railings.

  “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

  I could see that Aurea was struggling and I felt bad. I would have liked to make more of an effort, for her sake, for both of us. She could have caught me at the library. But the fact that she was here meant she was testing me—if I finally let her into my flat, it would be a sign that I still cared. But I couldn’t, not even when she was sitting here on the doorstep, soaked to the skin. It had to end here and now. She’d left me no other choice.

  “You can’t.” It was less a question than a flat repetition of my answer. “You promise me a surprise and then leave me sitting on my own in a restaurant. On Valentine’s Day. And you don’t feel you need to explain that?”

  “I can’t,” I repeated.

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to ask me in now either?”

  “No.”

  “Is it that you’ve already got a girlfriend?” she said. “Do you live here with her?” She pointed behind her at the front door. There were eight names beside the bells. “Is that why you never wanted me to come to your place?”