The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  To whoever has my son, Adel Shamieh:

  Please bring him back to me. I pray to God that your mothers’ hearts never have to experience the pain I am suffering now.

  He left my house on 4 May 1981 to repair his car in Sabra.

  Please bring Adel back to me.

  “How are you going to fit all this into one book?” I ask Rassan. I notice that I’m now whispering too.

  “That’s up to Youssef. We won’t reproduce all of these ads, of course, but they’re helping us to work out just how many people went missing. The number’s far higher than the government’s official figure. Right now we’re in the process of sorting everything. We keep the historical photos and microfilms over there.” He points at a room where two young women are holding slides up to the light. Then he takes my arm and leads me to the door of a fourth room. “And here’s where we keep the militias’ flyers, posters, journals, and propaganda. Wissam said you were asking about that kind of thing. You’re welcome to take a look.”

  Just as I’m about to enter the room, a guy calls Rassan over.

  “Come on,” Noura says. “I’ll show you.”

  We step over boxes stuffed with flyers and newspapers. A young man is sitting cross-legged in front of one of them, filing magazines into a folder he’s labelled “Amal, 1984.” He briefly raises his head as we pass, then gets back to work straight away.

  “Are they Amal militia magazines?”

  Noura nods.

  “These are all from 1984. We’ve already moved ’81 to ’83.”

  “Moved them?”

  “We recently decided to split the archive up. It’s safer not to keep all the material in one place. We’re going to do the big move tomorrow, so it’s good you came today.”

  “Where are you taking everything?”

  “We’ve got our eye on a few locations around the city, but Youssef wants to take most of the documents to his village. He reckons that’s the safest place for them.”

  Rassan comes into the room, scratching his head and looking grave.

  “The silver car is outside,” he says. “They followed you.”

  Noura makes a hissing noise and just about stops herself from cursing. “I’m sorry, I was really careful,” she says.

  “It’s OK,” Rassan says. “Everything will be gone from here tomorrow anyway. Samir, you should have a look around.” He turns to Noura. “Don’t worry. It’ll be trickier for them once everything is divided up.”

  She stands there with her hands on her hips, her eyes downcast.

  “Noura?” I ask. “Have you got any documents from the Forces Libanaises?”

  “Forces Libanaises?” She looks at me as if I’ve just woken her from a deep sleep.

  “Yes. Have you got anything? Or have you already moved it?”

  “No, no.” Scratching her forehead, she glances out the window. “We still have Forces Libanaises material. Medhi?”

  The young man on the floor looks up at us and raises his eyebrows.

  “Could you please show Samir everything we’ve gathered on the Forces Libanaises?” She turns to me. “Or are you looking for something in particular?”

  “Yes, I am actually. A magazine.”

  “From what year?”

  “1982. I’m not sure what month. Could you show me everything you have for January to June of that year?”

  The boy nods and points to a box on the other side of the room.

  The contours of my old apartment crawl out of the murky depths of my memory, the acrid smell of old paper, the awful emptiness that expanded as the walls became fuller. Having these magazines in front of me triggers the same oppressive anxiety that ruled my life for so many years. I leaf through them. Photos of young men celebrating as they drive through Beirut brandishing flags and guns, militiamen in heroic poses, FL insignia everywhere—the cedar in the red circle. Most of the articles insist on the necessity of the war and offer various justifications for the violence. A three-page essay on the history of the Middle East pays scant attention to historical facts in its depiction of Christians as the victims of the conflict.

  In a May issue, I find the photo I’ve been dying to see since I visited Amir. It’s so unfamiliar that I almost flip past it: two men in the centre facing the photographer, no one standing around watching them. It’s much bigger than I imagined, taking up the whole page. The caption: “OUR LEADER, BASHIR GEMAYEL, WELCOMES SARKOUN YOUNAN, THE 25,000TH RECRUIT OF THE FORCES LIBANAISES.” The contrast is sharper in black and white, though the chandelier above the two men loses some of its lustre. They’re standing in front of the same velvet-carpeted staircase, of course, but it looks darker, and the banister looks grey rather than gold. It’s nice to see Father as a young man. The uniform still looks weird on him from this perspective, the pistol out of place. But the dreamy expression that always puzzled me betrays the poet in him. The man who went out to the cedars to write, the romantic, the idealist. In showing him from the front rather than the side, this photo only accentuates his dreaminess.

  I’ve never forgotten the low buzz of the Leitz Prado on our living room table. I can almost hear Yasmin’s blue dress rustling, feel my sister’s weight in my arms. And I’ll never forget the click when the strange picture appeared on our wall.

  I’ve replayed that scene so many times. Mother looking away, Father’s eyes fixed on the picture of himself, a picture he appeared for a moment not to recognise, the silence that followed the click. I’ve always wondered why he kept the slide after promising Mother to get rid of it. I’ve also wondered why he never confronted me, though he knew I had it. And, of course, I’ve wondered what it is about that photo that caused him to change so drastically.

  I reach into my rucksack, feel around for the zip of the inside pocket, pull out the photo, and place it beside the newspaper. The effect is astonishing. The newspaper shows the scene the way Bashir Gemayel had planned it: the lighting’s right; the perspective is perfect, with the stairs leading up to a vanishing point; and the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to Bashir and Father. By comparison, my photo is clearly a snapshot taken by an amateur, perhaps one of the Carlton staff who wanted to capture the commotion caused by this celebrity’s impromptu invasion of the hotel.

  “So that’s why he didn’t just zoom in on Bashir and Father,” I mutter. In my picture, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the two men as well, but only because everyone else in the photo is looking in their direction.

  “Holy shit!” Rassan shouts, making me jump. I was so engrossed in the photo that I didn’t hear him coming. “Where did you get that?” he asks, picking up the photo. “It’s the same scene, isn’t it? Incredible. Where did you get it?”

  “Please, Rassan, give it back.”

  He’s standing over me, legs apart, mouth agape. His eyes keep darting between my photo and the picture in the newspaper.

  “Don’t tell me you know this guy!” he shouts.

  “Shh, give it back, please.”

  “What’s going on, Samir? You have to tell me where you got that picture!” His voice cracks with excitement. He looks like an archaeologist who has just discovered a sunken city.

  I hear footsteps in the hall. I don’t want the others to come in and see my photo.

  “Hmm,” says Rassan suddenly, and then he bursts out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Look at this.” He kneels down beside me and lays the photo beside the newspaper.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know who this Sarkoun Younan guy is, but he seems a bit distracted, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about, Rassan?”

  I take a closer look at the photo in the newspaper. Bashir is looking directly at the camera. His eyes bore into me, as if he wants to drag me into the picture. Father has a faraway look on his face, as always. He seems to
be looking slightly beyond the camera, focusing on something in the distance.

  “He’s smitten,” Rassan says.

  “What are you on about? Look, just give me a few more minutes with the picture and then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Here,” Rassan taps on the newspaper, right in the middle of Father’s forehead. “Look at him. He’s obviously smitten. Unbelievable! There he is, standing next to Bashir Gemayel, and he only has eyes for the girls.”

  “What girl?”

  Rassan points to the photo beside the newspaper.

  “That one,” he says, pointing to a young woman standing among the onlookers. I recognise her. I recognise all the people in the picture, but I’ve never paid particular attention to her before.

  “No, that can’t be right,” I say.

  “Believe me, I know when someone’s smitten, I can always tell, and he”—Rassan points to Father again—“is so smitten that he couldn’t care less who’s standing beside him. Follow his eyes. Take a good look.”

  The newspaper: Father is looking past the camera.

  My photo: Father is looking towards the left edge of the picture, where the young woman is standing beside the magazine’s photographer, among the other onlookers.

  I feel I’m about to keel over.

  “Not dreamy …” My stomach muscles tense, my heart is pounding so hard it hurts. “In love. He’s in love.”

  “Do you still need the photo?” Rassan asks. Tears fill my eyes, and I barely hear him. I study the young woman through a watery curtain. She’s a little blurred, as the focus is on the centre of the picture, but her beauty is clear to see. A black dress falls over her delicate frame, and her hair … her hair.

  “Oh no. Please, no.” I look in panic at Rassan, who stares back at me with a bewildered expression. “Please don’t let this be true.”

  I feel utterly helpless, like a little child—and then I remember it, Father’s story. Him sitting at the edge of my bed that last night.

  He took off her veil and revealed a woman as beautiful as any legend. Her hair was jet black and held by a golden clasp, her eyes were Mediterranean blue, and her skin as pure and white as marble.

  The clasp is holding the young woman’s hair in the photo. She has a beautiful, elfin face, and she’s looking right at my father.

  I try to wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, but they keep dripping down onto the newspaper.

  “My God, Samir,” Rassan whispers.

  I hear footsteps, lots of footsteps, and the room fills with people.

  I close my eyes and see Amir on the terrace: I do remember him saying something odd …

  “What makes the photo special is what’s going on around it,” I whisper.

  I hear the others murmuring, watching me sitting on the floor with Rassan beside me, but they seem very far away.

  Only Amir is near. His voice is calm as he makes everything painfully clear:

  He often went to see her, usually in the evenings after work. He’d be back in the hotel before his shift began in the morning.

  I can’t breathe, I press my wrist against my forehead.

  I never met your mother.

  Your father, madman that he was, climbed up the drainpipe to get to her balcony.

  It feels like I’m being ripped apart.

  It was lovely to see him like that.

  The last time anyone saw me crying, I was a kid at a birthday party, on my knees in a garden. Now, once again, people are standing around, looking down at me incredulously. In a final excruciating flashback, I see Father before me, his eyes gleaming as he tells me what happened on the balcony:

  “My son!” said Abu Youssef.

  Fireworks transformed the street, the houses and the whole city into a dazzling spectacle … Blazing rockets whooshed into the sky … The night was full of shouts of joy.

  -

  12

  Beirut, 17 September 1982

  We were standing on the balcony when it happened. Israeli planes shot across the dark sky above us. They dropped flares, transforming the blackness into a sparkling sea of red and yellow, gilding the entire balcony. Screams and gunshots cut through the night. The flares descended in the south. They fell on Sabra and Chatila.

  Threw myself into bed. Thought it over. I’m done with it all.

  Nothing will ever be the same again.

  Nothing will ever be the same again.

  -

  13

  “How should I label it?” Medhi asks, looking at the diary I’ve just handed him.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe ‘contemporary account’. Or ‘eyewitness account’?”

  “You’re sure you don’t need it anymore?”

  I shake my head.

  “I know you guys will take good care of it.”

  It’s the next day, the day of the move. Students are dragging boxes out of the flat and piling up folders in the corridor. In the empty rooms, the sound of footsteps reverberates off the walls, which are bare apart from the dark outlines left behind by the missing-person ads. The students exude optimism as they form an assembly line and pass files and folders to each other. The last person in the line calls the lift to take the documents downstairs, where other students pick them up and load them into cars.

  Medhi puts the diary into a box. Just as he’s about to leave the room with it, I say, “Wait!”

  He stops and turns around.

  “You can have this too.”

  I pull the photo out of my trouser pocket and take one last look. In all these years of scrutinising it, how did I not notice that they were looking at each other? The reason for Father’s sudden change of mood is now clear. When he saw the photo, a dam burst, and all the memories, all the feelings he’d been suppressing came flooding back. It reminded him that his marriage to Mother had taken place under duress, that he’d just come to terms with it. It showed him another life: a life in Lebanon, in Beirut—a life with this other woman.

  Youssef is standing at the entrance to the underground car park. He sees me and waves.

  “I’m glad you’re coming with me,” he says.

  We’ve stacked boxes in the boot and on the back seat. Four cars leave the car park together and set out in different directions to bring the documents to safety.

  I lean back as we drive out of the city. In the side mirror, I see dust clouds stirred up by the tyres. Eventually Beirut is little more than a cluster of bluish strokes.

  “I told them I’m bringing a friend,” Youssef says. “They’re looking forward to seeing us.”

  Golden light spills over the mountains, and bellflowers bow their heads at the side of the road. When we set out, my legs felt numb. But they come back to life the farther we leave Beirut behind. First it feels like thousands of pinpricks, but the tingling stops as soon as I see the mountains rising ahead of us.

  “You’re very quiet. Everything OK?” Youssef gives me a concerned look.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  I wonder where the woman was from. Who her family was, how she met Father. What her name was. I wonder if Mother knew about her. If that’s why she was furious with him for holding on to the picture. Or was it just because it was stupid and dangerous to keep a photo of himself standing beside a president who’d been assassinated not long after?

  There’s a rough beauty about the landscape here. Its empty vistas, well-trodden tracks, and extreme remoteness seem to capture how I’m feeling inside.

  Youssef starts to sing. His voice is a little too high for the melancholy lyrics and melody; it’s an incongruous song for someone beginning a new chapter in life. I get the impression he’s singing it for me.

  “Ma fi ḥada, la tindahi, ma fi ḥada. shu qawlakun ṣaru ṣada? Ma fi ḥada.”

  No one’s there. No use in calling. Have they tu
rned into echoes? No one’s there.

  I close my eyes.

  “Do you sing too?” he asks.

  “Not really, not anymore.”

  “That’s a shame. Why not?”

  “I don’t know any songs.”

  “Make them up. Make up a melody and then sing about whatever you’re feeling.” As the road winds its way southwards, mist comes down from the mountains and swallows up the foothills.

  “That’s what my father and I used to do,” he says. “We used to make up songs and sing them together.”

  “That sounds like fun.” Father and I used to sing our own songs too. What happened to the woman? Did he go back to her? Did they have their own songs?

  After a steep descent, the road begins to climb again. Youssef switches off the engine and we come to a halt at the side of the road.

  “We have to park here. There’s no road into the village. Let’s go and say hi first. They’ll help us unload the car later.”

  Gravel crunches underfoot. Clumps of dry grass sprouting from the path become more frequent and eventually form a grassy track leading into a little wood. Twigs snap beneath our soles. It’s cool in the shade. Through the canopy of pine needles, we catch the occasional glimpse of sky. The trees open out into a clearing, and a wide swathe of grass winds downwards, sheer cliffs on either side of it. A small stream flows down into the silent valley. Insects dance in the soft afternoon light cascading between the mountainsides. We look down from our vantage point like pioneers. It takes me a moment to realise that the grey patches on the side of the mountain are actually mud cabins. The grass on either side of the track is almost waist-high, the stalks swaying in the sunshine. It’s a remote refuge, a well-kept secret.

  “Are you going to show me where you used to live?” I ask Youssef.

  I want to stand in the cabin where they embraced each other for the first time. Youssef and his father. I want to get a sense of the exact spot where they were reunited, because I can feel my passport in my pocket. I collected it this morning. I may not have found Father, but I’ve discovered his secret. Today I’m going to help Youssef lay the foundation for a project that will change his country forever. And then I must go back.