by Rafik Schami
She hurried to meet him, trying to button up her open house-dress. But the buttonholes were too big, and she couldn’t manage it.
“One of my fine relations comes visiting at last,” she said, kissing Farid. She smelled of cigarettes and cooking fat.
The apartment was a dump. An old woman sat in a faded green armchair in the sitting room to which Sana steered him. She looked as stiff and desiccated as a cast-off straw doll.
Children were crawling about, screaming, or running back and forth in the chaos. Sana ignored them. She made a way for Farid through the dirt to some seats in a corner around a low table. There was a smell of stagnant water. Farid soon discovered the source of it: a huge plant pot containing a dead papyrus, with black water in the saucer under it.
Sana disappeared to make coffee, and was gone for a long time.
“He comes every day,” said the desiccated figure suddenly, “he beats my son in front of the children every day, he takes his wife away from him.” Farid started with shock, and wished he could get out of there. The old woman went on sadly, and when he looked at her, he saw that hers was really a beautiful face, but marred by sickness, dirt and grief.
“He comes home tired from work,” she went on, “and he has to feed me, and wash his children, and then the joiner comes and she tells him how many times he’s to hit her husband, right there in front of the children, and the joiner knocks him about. My son weeps, and I can’t do anything to help him. Habib was a pretty boy like you, but after he married that whore he became a hunchback. My poor son! Can you get me a pistol?” Farid didn’t reply. “No? No, I suppose not,” she muttered despairingly, and relapsed into her silent grief. She did not say another word.
“I heard from Michel,” Sana began, putting the tray of coffee cups down on the table, “that you’re very popular with women.” She gave him a broad grin. “Just like your father. And that you often go to the club,” she added, pushing the scratched tray over to him. Two coffee cups of different patterns stood on saucers that didn’t match either of them.
“What Michel?” asked Farid, taking a sip.
“What Michel do you suppose? The Michel. He’s done a lot of your carpentry at the club,” she said indignantly, sitting down and spreading her legs so wide that he could see her red panties.
Farid guessed that Michel was her lover.
“I don’t know him,” he said obstinately, by way of taking sides with the old woman, who must be Sana’s mother-in-law.
Sana was speechless. She looked sideways at him. “You don’t?” she said incredulously.
Farid drank his coffee in silence. To his surprise, it tasted even better than Claire’s. He kept glancing at the old lady in the dilapidated chair. She was looking at him with eyes wide open, but didn’t move a muscle.
“Old viper,” whispered Sana, seeing the direction of Farid’s gaze. “She’ll live to be two hundred. She shits all the time, but I’m not cleaning her up. Her son can do that.” There was cold contempt in her voice.
Farid drank the last of his coffee, stood up and walked firmly out. He felt that if he stayed there a moment longer he’d throw up.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Sana called after him. The air was fresher out in the corridor. He stopped, leaning against the window sill, and feeling ashamed of his flight.
“I have to go home. There’s a meeting at the club this evening, and I must look in at home first,” he lied, looking down into the yard. A young father was playing with his son, a boy of about five, laughing and tickling him, and then suddenly he shouted, “Hold still there!” It sounded as if he were training a dog. The child couldn’t manage to keep still just like that. He fidgeted and went on laughing, at the same time looking at his father’s right hand in alarm. It landed right in the boy’s face, knocking him down. He screamed with pain, his father picked him up, carried him about, soothed him, gave him five piastres and began tickling him again. The boy, totally confused, began laughing once more, then his father put him down, laughed with him, gave him a candy, tickled him, and cried, “Hold still there!” And once again the hand came down on the boy’s face.
Farid was about to shout at the man when he felt Sana’s hand on his back. “Why in such a hurry, cousin?” She was gently flattering him. For a brief moment he forgot Rana, his mother, the old woman in the chair, the noisy children, the garbage and the sadist in the courtyard, and wanted to kiss her lips. She smiled as if she knew what he was after.
Farid ran to the stairs. Sana did not reply to his hastily murmured, “Goodbye.” She knew as well as he did that this was his first and last visit to her.
Farid was drinking tea on the terrace of the club late that evening when Michel the joiner came in. He seemed to be looking for someone among those present, and finally came over to their table.
“The bet’s on,” whispered Josef, who thought Farid’s entire story about his cousin and her lover was the old lady’s fantasy.
“A friend of mine,” began the joiner, “tells me you said today you didn’t know me, although we’ve known each other for years.” As he finished this remark he wondered why the two of them were suddenly roaring and choking with laughter. “Pay up!” Farid told Josef.
“And you’re a fool,” Josef said to the joiner accusingly. “My clever friend here set a trap and you fell right into it. So it’s true. You’re screwing his cousin Sana and now I’m paying for his tea.” Josef and Farid left Michel standing there and set off for home.
It was just before midnight. Two men were running down the street. They stopped for a moment, looking up at the rooftops. The smaller of the two was holding a pistol.
“He went over the roofs and escaped down Jews’ Alley,” said the smaller man breathlessly. He put the pistol back in his jacket pocket.
175. The Prayer
He had already been waiting quarter of an hour for the bus in vain when a taxi drove up. The driver got out, saying, “The bus driver’s had a heart attack. At this moment they’re treating him, he can’t drive any more today. The next bus will be along in an hour.”
Farid didn’t think about it for long, but got into the shared taxi. The driver seemed to be trying to pick up everyone he saw at the roadside today, and even stopped when a man who only wanted a match to light his cigarette waved to him. At his leisure, he gave the man his booklet of matches and asked at least ten times if he was sure he didn’t want to go anywhere. “Times are bad,” he said apologetically to the passengers he already had. “You have to be patient.” At the next bus stop he told a different story about the bus driver, who this time had allegedly murdered his conductor, so that was why he couldn’t drive any more that day. There was still plenty of room in the taxi. But no one got in, and the taxi driver made for the next bus stop. It didn’t bother him at all when, at the fifth or sixth stop, the bus came up right behind him and its driver hooted the horn.
Farid was slightly late at the church. Rana was standing deep in thought under the picture of St. Barbara. He went quietly up to her, and looked around before he touched her, dropping a quick kiss on her neck. Rana started, and then smiled.
They sat in a corner near the confessionals right at the back of the church and held hands. The service was just beginning, and there were only a few worshippers, sitting in the three front rows.
“For once my father was wonderful. My mother’s been wanting me to marry my cousin Rami, her brother’s son, as soon as I’d taken my high school diploma and left school. He’s a first lieutenant in the army. But Papa said I was to study at the university first and then we’d see.”
“Well, that’s good news. If you’re studying we’ll have four years’ respite, and we’re sure to have thought of something by then.”
“Yes, but my mother isn’t letting it go at that. She keeps looking out for any opportunity to say bad things about me to my father. And you know how hopeless Jack is at school. Even with private tutors he only just got his middle school diploma. Now he’s sick of studying and wants
to work and earn money. It’s a bitter defeat for my mother, and she can’t come to terms with the idea that I might succeed at university too. Yesterday she and my brother were saying it would only make me more rebellious, and guess what, they simply decided to marry me off to Rami in a hurry.”
Farid shook his head. “Can’t you tell your father?”
“I did. He thinks I’m imagining things.”
“Listen, if it gets to be a real threat we’ll run away again. Don’t worry, I’m always there for you, and Claire will back us up too. After all, I’m the result of an elopement myself.”
“Believe it or not, when I heard what the two of them were saying I packed my bag at once. You’ll remember it: the one I had in Beirut. But then I unpacked it again, because I didn’t want to show that I know their plans. If the worst comes to the worst, I can run away without a bag,” she said.
Farid kissed her ear. “And I’ll love you even without clothes and a toothbrush,” he whispered. His breath tickled Rana. She laughed nervously, and moved a little way off.
“I have more than enough money hidden away,” she said firmly.
The service ended too quickly for Farid. Rana left the church on her own. At first he just sat there, looking at the pictures. When he was alone he went up to a statue of Christ and began talking to Jesus. “Can you hear me?” he whispered. “This is your friend Farid. I know I haven’t spoken to you for years, the monastery spoiled all that for me. And yes, I’m a communist now, but I still believe in you, it’s just the Church I don’t believe in. Please help Rana and protect her. She’s so brave in a cowardly world, and her mother is a viper. Can you hear me? Help her. You don’t have to help me too. I can manage on my own.”
Farid spoke to the statue for a long time. Finally, when he noticed a young priest standing behind him, keeping at a courteous distance and waiting, he smiled awkwardly, crossed himself, and left the church, walking fast.
176. Hunter and Hunted
“You’d better watch out for Suleiman,” said Josef, looking concerned. “I discovered yesterday that he’s an informer. Since when I don’t know, but he certainly is one.” He was speaking very fast, as if anxious to get the words off his chest.
Farid looked at him and said nothing.
“Yes, of course he’s working for the state, and yes, I think our President is the saviour of the Arabs, but I despise informers. And you may be idiot enough to go running around with communists, but you’re still my best friend. Yesterday he was making up to you just too obviously in the club. What did he want?”
“He was inviting me out hunting,” said Farid. “His father’s given him a gun that the Spanish consul got from France, but he didn’t want it, so he gave it to his chauffeur. Do you think I should go?”
“Yes, of course, and either act as if you didn’t know anything or tell him what you suspect straight out. Only you mustn’t show any fear, or he’ll finish you off.”
“Me, afraid of him? Are you joking?”
“No, you stupid Kamikaze. Informers are cowards, but once they taste blood they get amazingly greedy.”
“I can’t get my head around this. Why would he try it with me?”
“How do I know what you get up to at night? I suppose his bunch just want to know more about you.”
Farid sat perfectly still. Grief overcame him. He had liked the lively and mischievous Suleiman. After getting his middle school diploma Suleiman had left school, worked for a while as a taxi driver, and now, at nineteen, he already owned half a taxi. That seemed to Farid too soon for someone earning an honest living. Some said that Suleiman had been involved in smuggling for a while, and invested the money cleverly. Others spread the rumour that the clever young man had, appropriately enough, taken all the taxi owners who employed him for a ride.
But why would he be an informer? Why would he give away people who had never done him any harm? Could he be behind the arrest of Marwan, the new maths teacher, who had suddenly disappeared? No one knew if he was still alive. And who had reported Nadim the barber to the police?
“Informers are monsters,” said Farid. “I just can’t get it into my head that our friend Suleiman is that kind of a creep.”
“There’s a hell of a lot you can’t get into your head. But our childhood’s over now. And a great many people go through the gate to adulthood as perfectly harmless men and women, while others turn out to be monsters. Want me to begin with my family or yours?” asked Josef in friendly tones.
Farid was to be waiting at the door at three next morning, with provisions and a canteen for the expedition. Suleiman was picking him up. They had to be in the game reserve at four, before sunrise.
All night he tossed and turned in bed. He had already warned Amin, but even Amin couldn’t tell him how to deal with Suleiman.
What could he do? Wild answers shot through Farid’s head. Clichés out of movies and novels: grab Suleiman’s gun, point it at his head, heart, or balls, and make him talk that way? And suppose he refused to talk? Could he bring himself to pull the trigger, he sheepishly wondered? The answer was no. He cursed his cowardice.
What would Suleiman say if Farid reminded him of their hours together in the attic with the gang? Too sentimental. He was a trained informer, and their childhood was definitely over.
He slept for only three hours and then sat up in bed with a start. In his dreams, Suleiman had been shot and stowed under Farid’s own bed. Not until he put the light on and looked at his room did he calm down again.
It was just after two-thirty already. He dressed and went to the front door, where he met Claire in her dressing gown. She gave him a kiss and a picnic bag.
Suleiman arrived punctually, looking as if he had had a good night’s sleep. His hunting rifle was on the back seat. Farid threw his picnic bag in beside it and got into the car. They drove about forty kilometres through the dark to an oasis visited by birds, hares and gazelles. Date palms, pomegranates, figs, wild grapevines, cacti and walnut trees grew there. Only the spring of water was disappointingly tiny. But there were plenty of birds, and when the first rays of the sun came through, and the dawn chorus began, Suleiman fired. He missed, but the shot had made a lot of noise. Farid was surprised by the gun’s strong recoil. Suleiman cursed the birds, the wind, the trees, and his own bad luck, and kept firing into the air.
He hit only once, but the injured bird could still fly. Farid ran after it while Suleiman waited. Finally Farid found the bird, which was only slightly wounded in the wing, under a wild pomegranate bush. He didn’t know what kind of bird it was – rather like a turtle dove in size, but brightly coloured and with a straight, strong beak. That evening Amin told him it had been a warwar, a bee-eater from Africa.
The bird looked at Farid, its eyes frightened, its beak wide open, and uttered a hiss that sounded more like a snake. Farid stopped. “Found it?” he heard Suleiman call.
“No,” said Farid, and he let the branches of the pomegranate spring back into place.
When Suleiman had fired three-quarters of his cartridges, they stopped for breakfast.
“This oasis stinks of gunpowder so much, no bird will be able to survive without a gas mask,” said Suleiman, laughing. They sat down beside the water hole and began eating their sandwiches.
“Did you hear about Simon being arrested?” Suleiman suddenly asked.
Even when he was telling Josef about it that evening, Farid couldn’t say how the words to save him had risen to his lips. “What Simon? My cousin Laila’s husband? What has he done?”
Suleiman faltered. “Is Laila’s husband the violinist called Simon too?” he asked in surprise, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“Of course. You saw him at that benefit performance for the Catholic Church last Christmas. What about him?” Farid was acting stupid. Of course he knew perfectly well what Simon the informer meant. He was one of the soldiers who belonged to a communist cell, a brave, hot-tempered man.
“No, I didn’t mean your c
ousin’s husband. I mean the one who lived near Bab Tuma. A poor soldier suspected of plotting a revolt. Don’t you know him? He sometimes used to go to the club and drink tea with your friend Amin,” said Suleiman.
“No, I don’t know him, I’m afraid. Amin has a lot of friends, and I’ve never seen this one, but if he comes to the club again you can point him out to me,” replied Farid naïvely.
“He won’t be back. My aunt’s been weeping her eyes out. He was her daughter’s fiancé, such a brave young man,” said the hypocritical Suleiman. Farid didn’t know if Suleiman had an aunt with daughters at all, but at that moment all his feelings for his former friend died, and he was surprised to find how unattractive Suleiman suddenly looked to him.
Three months later Farid and all other members of the Communist Party received orders from the leadership to break off all contact with soldiers. Only years later did he discover that work inside the army had been halted on instructions from Moscow.
177. The Wine Cellar
Josef’s family were celebrating the engagement of his sisters Balkis and Jasmin to Samir and Amir, the old pharmacist’s sons. Between them, they owned a large pharmacy near the Italian hospital. Everyone in the neighbouring streets knew about the party. The sight of Matta racing around for a week in advance, getting in all kinds of supplies for Josef’s family, was a better advertisement than a hundred posters.
On the day of the party itself Matta was among the guests, spruced up in well ironed clothes and along with his aunt, also in her best. It was Madeleine’s express wish that Matta wasn’t to do any more work at the party.
Farid himself had little chance to enjoy it. He, Azar, Rasuk, and Toni were helping their friend Josef to make sure all the three hundred guests had somewhere to sit, were served drinks, knew their way to the lavatories, and above all could find their old places when they came back again. All this had to be done without a sharp word. They were constantly having to mollify the guests, find more chairs, and wipe dirt off the floor and bad-tempered expressions off faces.
