De Niro's Game

by Rawi Hage

  Abou-Nahra was surrounded by men I recognized: Kamil, Joseph, and Abou-Haddid, Khalil’s friend, who waved from a table behind us and asked me if I still worked at the port.

  It is slow these days, I said.

  George told Abou-Nahra that my father had been the founder of a radio station in the 1950s. Abou-Nahra said he had known my late father and my uncle Naeem. The communist, he said and smiled. He left us for the other side. How is he doing?

  We never hear from him, I said.

  We were on the same volleyball team. Did you know that?

  No. I must have been a kid at the time.

  You are still a kid now. He laughed.

  When Abou-Nahra was ready to leave, his men stood up. Some crushed the paper wraps in their hands and shoved their sandwiches into their mouths. Abou-Nahra put his arm around my neck. He tapped one finger in his palm slowly and said in his deep voice, George, bring this fighter to the centre one day to join. We don’t want him to join the other side like his uncle. We always need good young men.

  George was evasive; he muttered something in a low voice. I watched Abou-Nahra. I still wanted to see his eyes. George winked at me, went out with the men, and then came back inside and sat across from me. When I finished eating, we walked down the street to a jeep parked on the sidewalk.

  That’s Khalil’s jeep, I said.

  Yeah, he won’t need it any more.

  We drove down to the stretch of road under the bridge. We parked. George kept his M-16 by his side. I moved back in my seat, just enough to feel my own gun pressing against my back. We could hear the sound of rushing cars from above.

  When are you leaving? George asked, looking straight at me.

  Not yet.

  Najib visited me last night. He said that you owe him money.

  Your cousin is a liar, I said. He has another person in the deal.

  I’ll talk to him. How is Rana?

  She’s fine.

  Listen, I’m leaving next week for Israel. We are going by ship. I will leave you the keys to the apartment. If Nabila asks, tell her that I went camping in the mountains with some friends.

  George slipped his hand onto his rifle. He pulled it out slowly and placed it on the back seat. Then he turned on the jeep’s engine and we drove back to the neighbourhood.

  When I stepped out of his jeep, George looked at me and said, I will talk to my cousin.

  I WAITED FOR NAJIB at the top of the hill outside the city, as we had arranged earlier that day.

  He came in a car with two other guys. From far away I could hear their loud music. Dust flew up and smothered the scent of the idiot’s perfumed aftershave and hair gel. He got out of the car. I watched from behind a tree as he walked uphill in his flat Italian shoes, slipping on the rocks, carrying his shiny leather jacket on his arm. I let him pass me by; when I saw his back, I walked slowly toward him. I grabbed his jacket and threw it on the ground, and I pushed him against a tree.

  Najib jerked in fear. I looked at his hands; they were empty. I ran my hand along his waist; he was clean.

  Who is in the car? I asked.

  My friends, he said, startled. He smelled of alcohol.

  Why did you bring your friends?

  We are on our way to Broumana.

  No one should have come with you.

  They do not know about our deal.

  I slipped his share of money into his pocket and said to him, You are reckless and acting like an idiot. One day Abou-Nahra will find out and he will put a bullet in your head. Not your cousin or your mother will stop him from doing it. Now, go and say that you went for a piss. That’s what you told them, right?

  He did not answer.

  I walked up the hill and looked down into the valley. Then I looked at the sea in front of me, the sea I’d have to plunge into and slip beneath and swim through one day, to reach other shores and leave this place.

  8

  GEORGE CAME BACK FROM ISRAEL.

  He called me, and I went to see him at his place. AbouHaddid opened the door. He kissed me, held my neck, and made me sit next to him, tapping his hand on my shoulder. George had a deep desert tan. They were both sniffing cocaine from a flat glass surface.

  Do you want a line of dried milk? George pointed at the coffee table.

  No, I will pass.

  George wore a T-shirt with three Hebrew letters on it. He looked muscular, quieter, and his hair was shaved. He moved slower and seemed more intense. He poured whisky and talked of the camp in the desert and the training.

  When you sneak up on an enemy from behind to slash his throat, you should hold him by the chin and not his mouth, because he will bite your hand, right? So we had to practise it. Paul Jeouriege — you know, the one who lives in Karm Al- Zeitoun? You know him, Bassam, he drives the white Fiat with the high spoiler — anyway, he put his hand on Beebo’s mouth, not his chin, right? So what does Beebo do? He bit his hand and he wouldn’t let go, and Paul was screaming in pain, Wou yallah shid ya, Beebo, shid mitl ma shad bayak awwal laylah (Push, push, Beebo, in the same way your father pushed on his first night).

  George and Abou-Haddid both laughed.

  Listen to George’s story, Abou-Haddid said to me. Listen. On your sister’s honour, listen. This guy is a big fannas (liar).

  George was high and smiling. He looked at me and said, By your father’s lost soul, Bassam, tell Abou-Haddid about Nicole, that young woman who gave me her number in Broumana. You were with me then. Tell this guy.

  Yeah, I was there. She is hamshah, shalkhah, I said.

  Shalkhah, right? said George. Well, I gave her a call. An older man answered the phone, right? I thought it was her father, but when I asked her, Nicole said no, he is her husband.

  Should I call you later? I asked her.

  No, she said, not to worry, and she kept on talking, natural, like no one is there, right?

  So I kept on calling her every day, and sometimes I asked her what she was wearing, and she would tell me she had nothing on, or some lace underwear, or sometimes just a T-shirt.

  So we started to talk dirty, while her husband is still at home, right? When I asked if her husband was there once, she said that he was listening on the other line. So I am thinking, What the fuck? You know, maybe he is not a real man, right?

  The next time I called he recognized my voice and said, How are you, George? Come and visit us sometime. Then Nicole took the phone and we started to talk, natural.

  George approached the tray, kneeled, and took a snort of cocaine. He inhaled through one nostril while blocking the other with his index finger. Then he continued:

  So I went to their home in Surssock. You know, one of those fancy houses. A maid opened the door. The man, who maybe is in his sixties, maybe older, he looked like her father. He had white hair and was dressed in his robe de chambre and slippers, and he was smoking a big cigar. He invited me in and started to talk to me in French, right? Bonjour, George, comment ça va? He showed me around the house. Then Nicole came and kissed me on the mouth right in front of him. Then she turned, kissed him on the cheeks, and called him Loulou. He called her Bébé.

  They opened French wine, and all the time Nicole is looking at me and smiling.

  I would fuck them both, yelled Abou-Haddid. And the maid too.

  Wait, listen. George stood up, filled with energy. Listen. Nicole takes off her shoes and plays footsie with me under the table. After dinner, the maid left the house.

  I would fuck the maid, Abou-Haddid interrupted again. I would fuck the maid!

  And we sat in the salon, George continued. She sat next to me and held my hand, right?

  In front of her husband? Abou-Haddid asked.

  Yeah, in front of him.

  What did you do? I asked.

  Well, I said, Excusez-moi, but are you really husband and wife?

  Bien oui, said Laurent — that was the name of her husband. Bien oui, George, absolument. Nicole likes you. C’est quoi le problème, alors?

 
; Nicole started to kiss me. Then she took my gun and she said, I love strong men. Regarde, Laurent. Regarde, mon chéri, and she handed him my gun, right? Laurent looked at it and said, C’est un vrai guerrier, lui. Now her hand was on my dick, right? She was breathing heavily, all excited. She went down on her knees, pulled my zipper down, and moved her head up and down.

  In front of him? Abou-Haddid shouted. Do you believe this story, Bassam?

  Wait, George interrupted. There is more. Now she is sucking me and the guy starts to cheer her on. He claps his hand and sings, Vas-y, Nicole, vas-y, bébé, vas-y, bébé. When I came, he ran to the kitchen, got her a towel, and held her face and cleaned around her mouth. All the time saying, Bébé, mon petit bébé . . .

  Then Laurent asked me to leave. C’est tard, George, he said. Nicole est fatiguée maintenant. He walked me to the door, thanked me, and said, Nicole likes you and we will call you again.

  Did she call you? Abou-Haddid asked.

  Yeah, she did.

  Can I come with you? Abou-Haddid laughed. He bent toward the tray, his nose diving forward.

  George walked me down the stairs on my way out and said, Listen, it seems tension is growing between you and Najib. You better work things out, or maybe both of you should stop the deal. I do not want Abou-Nahra to find out. If he does, he might ask me to put a bullet in both of your heads. If you need the money, you can always join the forces.

  You talk to your cousin, I replied.

  THAT NIGHT, THROUGH the flames of a million candles that brawled inside the neighbourhood houses, I walked. Under those lights, hazy behind nylon sheets that covered our broken windows, I walked the streets with no dogs. I walked, and the candles danced inside a city with injured walls, a city void of light, a broken city wrapped in plastic, and plastered with bullet holes.

  On my way, I met Um-Dolly. She was going to the church for evening prayer; her head was covered in a black lace scarf.

  I will pray for your lost soul, my son. God’s wrath is great and it’s upon us all.

  God is dead, I said.

  Um-Dolly shrieked and crossed herself, as if she had just encountered the devil himself. I walked in the absence of the sun and I thought I saw the devil stalking me, sniffing like a nocturnal dog above barrels filled with bits of candles, fragments of journals, offal from slain goats, body refuse, rubble, ruins, shit, trash, human waste, house dreck, ship wreckage, broken glass.

  I heard the engine of a car slowly ticking behind me. I looked back and saw the outline of three heads behind the windshield. In the dark I heard a man telling me to move onto the sidewalk. I looked back again and recognized Najib in the company of two men I had never seen before. Suddenly, they climbed out of the car, slammed the doors shut, and started to push me. I felt an elbow below my chin and a lock on my throat. One man held my hand and twisted it behind my back, and his companion pushed me onto the sidewalk. They cornered me against a metal door. Najib came up beside me and whispered in my ear, Don’t show up at the machines anymore, do you understand? Don’t even think about showing up. We will break your ugly face.

  I tried to reach for my gun, but I was fighting for breath and my right hand was twisted up toward my shoulders.

  You bring back what you stole from us, or my friends from the forces here will pay you a visit at your home, Najib whispered with an authority that clashed with his boyish voice. The two guys pulled back my arm and brought me down to the ground. I covered my head and curled like a worm under garden soil and waited for giants’ soles to fall on me like gigantic leaves from high trees in titanic forests. I felt the men pounding on my ribs and on my face. Their feet followed their fists, raining down on my body like a winning jackpot. Najib spat on me and walked away.

  I watched the three of them slamming their car doors and driving down toward Hospital Street. Then I bounced back like a demon: I ran with the drive of a thousand vengeful gods, salivating sweet blood and poisonous promises like a mad hyena, like metal piercing a beast’s throat. I jumped over a fence and ran toward the alley that led me to Hospital Street (I, a lightning bolt of wrath, a Trojan horse’s belly on fire, an erect cobra in an Indian valley). I jumped over another fence, landed on Hospital Street, and watched the car lights slowly moving toward me. I pulled out my gun, cranked it, and stood in the middle of the road. The car stopped and started to move backward in the narrow street. It smashed into parked cars left and right. I heard Najib squeaking, like a mouse in a lion’s paw. I fired straight at the car and hit the right light. I moved to the side of the street near the wall, where it was darker. With both my hands extended, my finger on the trigger, I strolled slowly toward the car. Najib was howling, Rja’ ya Allah-rja! (Go back, for God’s sake, go back!). I fired another two shots at the car’s left light. I saw the men’s confused heads in silhouette, like trapped birds in a glass cage. I bled from my left hand, bit my swollen lip, ignored my tender ribs, and asked them to get out slowly. I said, Slowly. And, slowly. I said: Slowly.

  Najib got out first. The other two put their arms up and moved toward me. I laid them all on the ground, on their bellies, in front of the car’s fender, under a raging moon, parallel to my shoes and beneath my heavy breath, my dripping blood, and my shining devil’s eyes. Najib croaked and cried like a hungry infant.

  I frisked them; they had no weapons. I released Najib’s two friends and ordered Najib to stay.

  We took the car. I sat in the front seat. Najib drove. He cried all the way. He smelled of piss and his pants had a long patch of wetness that went down to his knees. He was crying and babbling and begging me as he followed my driving directions.

  When we arrived under the bridge I asked him to get out. He clung to the steering wheel and started to move back and forth, sobbing, begging me not to kill him.

  Get out, I said. I wouldn’t hurt you. Just get out.

  I am wet, he said. Tell me what you want.

  Get out.

  He opened the door slowly. Before he had a chance to run, I grabbed him and pushed his waist over the warm hood and put the gun above his ear.

  Who were the two guys with you?

  I do not know them, he cried.

  I know they are from the forces. Little Najib must know something. Who sent them?

  Najib cried, and again he begged me not to kill him.

  Okay, here is the deal. You talk, I won’t kill. You do not talk, I will play Russian roulette with my automatic gun here. What are the chances, you think? Talk, or I will dump your body and expensive shoes in the sewer for the big rats to feed on. They would love to nibble on the French perfume behind your ears. Ya chic inta.

  Najib shivered and a fresh, warm flood of piss came bursting through at his ankles.

  Who are they? I said.

  Najib cried, and protested that he had never met them before.

  Okay then, to the rats!

  No! No! Wait. They are De Niro’s friends. Please do not tell him that I told you. I beg you on your mother’s grave.

  I am taking the car, I said. You walk home; it will dry you up.

  I PARKED THE CAR down the hill from Achrafieh and opened the glove compartment. It contained a flashlight and a paper. The paper was military authorization to pass the checkpoints. Najib’s name was on it. I folded it and put it in my pocket.

  I searched the rest of the car, but nothing else was there — no owner’s papers, no weapons. I got out, shut the driver’s-side door, and walked up the hill through the Syriacs’ neighbourhood. A woman with a broom was chasing dust away from her doorstep and into the street. When I walked past, she stopped fanning the ground and took a long look at me. We stared at each other, then I walked on, and the rustles of her broom pondered and rose again.

  The moon fell from above and hued the dancing laundry on the little roofs. Above, the heaven of the Christians was luminous with stars and the thin alleys were smeared with shadows.

  I was breathing up through the hills, passing ground-floor windows. With quick, intrusive g
lances I extracted images of sepia photographs showing dead forefathers with remorseful faces, images of flamboyant vases with plastic flowers, of archaic sofas stained by old sins, of picturesque, romantic paintings of green valleys and brick-red houses, of massive, wooden dining tables with vampire chairs under crucifixes crucified on vertical walls. And I heard sounds, sounds of clanging pots, cutting knives, and ultraviolet radio waves that made dogs chase their tails. Outside in the backyards, laundry was hung by flabby arms and paraded on straight pins in army rows, like frescoes on Venetian balconies. I smelled boiling chicken broth, heard onion-scented hands tapping knives on cutting-boards in a crescendo like that of a castrated church-boys’ choir, or of the soundless Aramaic tears that were shed, on that tempest day, for the nailed son of Yahweh and the dangled corpse of his companion, the forgiven thief.

  GEORGE OFFERED me a chair.

  He pulled out his box of cigarettes, lit his fire, and threw the Marlboros on the table.

  Is everything settled between you and Najib?

  Before I had the chance to answer, he added: Forget about the poker machines. I have other work for you.

  I kept my eye fixed on him. And no cigarette was lit between my fingers; only my throat burned, my eyes itched. Anger crawled down my chest and images from childhood bounced on the table: two boys pissing in the corner of angled walls, shooting doves with wooden guns, thieving candies with little hands, and swinging wooden sticks to herd car wheels down the city hills, wearing cheap open sandals, mouths pounding purple chewing gum, pockets bloated with marbles, chasing Indians and African lions with slingshots and crooked arrows, praying on bruised knees, confessing in foreign tongues while surrounded by flames that danced like our stolen cigarettes did at night in narrow alleys and under the stairs.