De Niro's Game

by Rawi Hage

  MOUSTAFA SOUGHT ME out, sat next to me, and offered me a cigarette.

  I have seen passengers vomiting for days; you do not get seasick. You are leaving. He smiled.

  Yes, there is nothing for me there.

  Yes, there is nothing in these places, he agreed.

  We smoked, and Moustafa walked down to the stern of the ship, above the ceaseless waves that passed under our fleeing feet.

  The little lamps went off, and only the captain’s room shone in the middle of the sea. The wind got cooler, so I went downstairs, through the narrow alleys, and sat in the kitchen. The captain came down slowly and sat, pensive and calm. Then he stood up, filled a kettle with water, and offered me tea.

  I have a cabin for you, he said. You can have it after eleven. Mamadou, the African sailor, has a shift at eleven, and you can lie down in his bed.

  We drank tea in silence. At eleven, I followed the captain. He banged on a cabin door, and an African man slowly opened up. The captain explained the situation to him. Mamadou nodded and waved his hand to invite me in. I lay on the bed and tried to sleep through the sound of the omnipresent engine, a sound that was loud but muffled like underwater signals from a clanking factory buried under seven layers of seas. I imagined a factory with armies of slave monkeys packing tuna in metal cans, and sticking on labels with esoteric languages, and arranging the cans in waterproof musical boxes screeching diabolic symphonies, and shipping them on the backs of seahorses to underwater villages filled with drowned soldiers, kidnapped maids, invading barbarians, treasure hunters, and a princess who had been enslaved in a sealed bottle by a jinni with a single earring, and who was now waiting for a fisher to solve the riddle and take her back to her lost palace, where she would rejoin the caliphate in a garden of jasmine and amber, and stroll through the arches of Baghdad before the invading armies burned her favourite books and destroyed thousands of tales.

  IN THE MORNING, Mamadou knocked at the cabin door, and we exchanged places. As I was stepping out, he smiled and said that the last passenger had refused to share his bed with a black man. He shook his head and smiled again.

  I went up to the deck. The ship was surrounded by blue water and blue sky, and nothing else. Sailors rushed along the deck, and up and down the metal stairs. The boat cut its way through water that merged with the sky.

  MOUSTAFA FOUND ME on the deck and asked if I had eaten. No, I said.

  We went down to the kitchen, and the cook offered us food in plastic bowls. The boat rocked, and the dishes swung in our hands, and the food shifted side to side in our mouths. Everyone was silent. The engine’s hum cut through the sailors’ bashful eyes, their quiet manners and balanced feet. After a time, a blue-eyed sailor spoke to Moustafa in broken English, saying something about the boiler in the back. Moustafa stood up and slowly shuffled his feet. The man sat in Moustafa’s place and started to eat, ignoring my presence. I finished my food and walked up to the deck. The wind had risen. The smell of water surrounded the boat. I sat and thought of my home. I tried to locate its direction but found I was lost in the roam of the drifting-away earth, as if my neighbourhood drifted on the tide, and my chunk of land, with its war and my dead parents, floated on the seas. I stretched my neck, and stood on my toes, but could not see it; it floated away all around me, it was swept away in the flux of things. I leaned over the rail and watched white foam passing the bottom of the ship, caressing its edges and changing shape. And a partridge appeared and said to me, No condition is permanent. I shall bring you a branch when the floating mountains are closer to your feet.

  I PACED THE DECK, the splashing waves staining my face in ocean blue, and when the boat rose above a high wave I stretched out my hand, and touched the sky, and pulled it down, and took a peek over it, and released it. It bounced back, fluttered, and settled again.

  When night returned, Moustafa sat next to me and asked, Do you like a little kayf (hash)?

  I nodded and smiled.

  He pulled out a small bag, and we rolled oily hash into a thin sheet that we cut, with giant scissors, from the drape of the stretched-out sky. Moustafa passed his tongue along the edge of the sheet, and the liquid, like carpenter’s glue, sealed it. I extended my arm and picked a light from a burning star, and Moustafa grabbed the wind and squeezed it in his chest. Then he passed the wind, the sky, and the fire to me, and I pulled all these toward my lips, and like a black hole I sucked them in, held them, released them. They floated and landed on the water’s surface, bounced on the waves, and attracted a school of flying fish that circled inside the fumes and sang ultraviolet, watery melodies to the enslaved underwater monkeys who repeated the tunes over the pounding noises of the tuna machines, sweet tunes reminiscent of the jungle sounds in their long-destroyed habitats, their abodes in swaying branches.

  You will never go back. You seem like the wandering type to me, my brother, Moustafa said to me.

  What is there to go back for? I whispered.

  I have been on the seas for many years, Moustafa told me. I left Egypt when I was young. I have travelled places, my friend. I went to Japan and saw glittering lights, I had massages with tiny women walking on my back, I went to Africa and got drunk in bordellos, I slept with whores of all colours in all continents. I wasted my money on restaurants and bars, I smoked opium and snorted the best cocaine. I worked on many ships. I have seen prostitutes with black eyes like deep wells who asked me to save them from the fists of their gold-toothed pimps. I have walked in cities where men’s arms were stamped with anchor tattoos, and women perched on windowsills, calling out to you to make haste before their husbands returned.

  Moustafa and I smoked and told stories, and for days the ship slid over the waves, and waves passed by and never came back, and the sailors pulled their sails, and the wind puffed and huffed and pushed us north and stole the smoke from our breath, and when the winds were high up, the sea slowed down and the water slowed, and the sail slowed, and the fish slowed, and the partridge glided above our heads under the sheet of the Hellenic skies, and one-eyed nymphs saw us and gathered to listen to our fantastic tales, charmed by the smell of our burning plants, mistaking it for the incense of their flying gods.

  Two days before our arrival in Marseilles, the partridge took flight and disappeared.

  16

  WHEN THE BOAT ARRIVED IN PORT, A GROUP OF THE SAILors led me down to the engine room. I stayed behind the boiler, sweating, and hid from the inspector who checked the cabins. When the inspector left, Moustafa and Mamadou ran to me and brought me water, laughing at my wet hair and clothes.

  That night, Moustafa and I sailed to shore in a small boat. We crossed a fence and some train tracks. Then Moustafa smiled and said, You are in Marseilles. You are on your own now.

  I WALKED.

  I walked through vacant streets, past doors that opened directly onto the curb of the street. A few dogs barked at my passage. My shadow was pasted to the ground; it moved and shifted shape depending on the position of the street lamps that hung high on curved poles. A car passed me by; loud music blasted my ear and then faded behind the buildings when the vehicle made a sharp turn. I walked on, looking for the centre of the city, for a place where I could rest. I looked at the sky: the purple light of dawn was starting to break, rising from underneath the sea. Then I heard that same bombastic music approaching again. I recognized the sound of the car without looking behind me. I grabbed my bag, switched it from my back to my belly, opened its useless lock, dug both of my hands into it, and cranked the gun inside the bag.

  I could tell, from the stretch of the headlights on cobblestones, from the slow passing twilight on the doors of houses, that the car was slowing down behind me. I kept on walking. The car drove up beside me. Three kids were in it, and they all stared at me. The driver’s hand was extended from the window like the hands of our taxi drivers from car windows back home. The two passengers shifted their heads to get a better look at me.

  I heard one of them saying, Une merde de beur
ici chez nous.

  Hey, the driver called in French, we do not want filth like you here.

  I looked him in the eye, said nothing, and kept on walking.

  The kids cursed at me and drove away fast. At the top of the street, the car made a U-turn. Its lights beamed in my face. The kids opened their doors, got out of the vehicle, and slowly walked toward me. Their long, evil shadows touched the tip of my shoes; they swung sticks and pipes in their arms.

  I turned and ran in the opposite direction, away from the car lights that were blinding me. I heard rushing steps on the ground behind me, and promises to bash my head and stomp my body with heels.

  When I turned the corner, I stopped in the middle of the narrow street, between two houses. I could hear dogs barking on the horizon. I waited for my pursuers. They rounded the corner and stopped suddenly when they saw me. I kept my gun hanging behind my back, and when they approached me, tapping their sticks on their palms, flashing their sarcastic smiles, telling one another jokes, and mocking my masochistic tendencies, I pulled it out slowly. I cursed my pursuers in my own language, and waved my hand, daring them to accept that my bullets would kiss their high boots, shred their leather jackets, enlighten their shaved heads, rewrite their tattoos, colonize their souls, twist their skin like water faucets, block holes like Tuma’s fingers, and make them sing a church-choir tune.

  The one farthest from me ran off, and I was left with two of them walking backwards in fear, their pipes and their sticks bent toward the ground like thirsty flowers.

  I smiled and waved my gun in their pale faces. I cursed their mothers and their great-grandfathers, and ordered them to drop their pipes and their sticks. I made them kneel on the ground, and when they did that, I asked them to take off their shoes and their pants.

  Les pantalons aussi, sharmuta, I shouted, and dogs barked behind doors. A few lights appeared in kitchens and above doorsteps, and curious faces filled small, square windows. Women in see-through nightgowns parted theatrical curtains and peeked out their heads with a playwright’s nervousness.

  I kicked both the kids, and then I walked away fast with their shoes in my hand. When I reached the street where I had been walking, I threw away the shoes, and I ran through foreign alleys and avenues. I ran until dawn, until finally I settled on a bench on the promenade, and listened to the sea, and watched the slowly changing colours of the sky.

  BY MID-MORNING, the sun shone strong, which made the city shadows darker. I saw Manichaean split walls, sparkling tree leaves, and shaded benches. The cafés opened, and people strolled on the promenade. I walked beside them, passed them, and then slowed to walk again with them. I looked for a place to exchange money, and found one. I did my exchange and walked to a café. There, I sat and I ate and I drank and I looked at the newspaper. The old owner behind the bar did not seem surprised to see me. I walked on again and decided to look for a place to stay.

  I entered the first hostel I saw, and the woman behind the desk, a large woman who looked indifferent, or bored, asked me for identification. I said that I would get it from the car. I stepped outside and never went back.

  Instead, I wandered the whole day, aimless. I looked at people and shifted from one café to another. Finally, I searched my pocket for a light and pulled out the paper that Nabila had given me. On it, there was a name: Claude Mani. There was also a number, and on the bottom of the paper: Paris.

  Suddenly it hit me — how far I was from Nabila, that I had left Beirut. At the same time, this realization gave me a sense of purpose. I decided to call the number, like I had promised. I found a telephone booth and dialed. The phone rang, but no one answered. Still I stood in the booth, looking with an empty gaze through the glass. I felt as if I could live inside of the booth, feeling its borders, claiming it for myself. I pretended that I was talking on the phone, but all I wanted was to be in the booth. I wanted to stand there and watch every passerby, I wanted to justify my existence, and legitimize my foreign feet, and watch the people who passed and never bothered to look or wave. I did not recognize a soul. So I waited and glued the receiver to my ear and listened to the long, monotonous tone. I listened until the recording of a lady’s voice came on and gave me two choices: dial again or hang up.

  I chose the former, and this time, a soft woman’s voice answered.

  I am looking for Monsieur Mani, I said in French.

  The woman paused, then said, Monsieur Mani is dead.

  We were both silent.

  Who is calling? she continued after a moment.

  I am a friend of his son, George, I said carefully.

  There was another pause, and then the woman asked, Where are you calling from?

  Marseilles.

  I am Monsieur Mani’s wife, she said.

  I have a message for Monsieur Mani, I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Are you from Lebanon?

  Yes.

  There was a final pause. Then: Can you come to Paris? My daughter and I would like to meet you.

  I TOOK THE BUS to Paris. It passed through fields of vines that were arranged in rows. The vines curled around batons dangling white, and sometimes red, grapes through green leaves. We passed rustic villages with brick roofs, and churches perched on modest dunes, and clean, open spaces that seemed to have no purpose but to provide scenery for the occasional balancing villager pedalling a bicycle with a basket filled with vegetables. The bus stopped at a few small villages, and passengers entered and left quietly, aloof, like tourists on church visits. I sat alone, and leaned my head against the window, and slept. When I arrived in Paris, I got off the bus and looked for the woman I had talked to on the phone.

  She wore a long navy dress, as she had promised. I approached her, and she smiled.

  Do you have any luggage? she asked.

  No.

  The car is on the other side. She walked beside me, smiling. I am Genevieve, she said. Claude’s wife.

  I nodded.

  When did you arrive in France?

  A few days ago.

  You came straight from Beirut?

  Yes.

  Yes, I knew the city a long time ago, before the war. I knew Beirut; it was a beautiful place.

  In the car, I examined Genevieve. She was in her late forties, maybe her early fifties; she was well dressed and well made up, which made it hard to tell her age exactly.

  She looked in the mirror constantly, and then before she took a turn she looked back at the rear window, then quickly glanced at me.

  So you know George?

  Yes, we were good friends.

  He asked you to get in contact with Claude?

  No, it is his aunt Nabila who gave me the number.

  And George’s mother?

  She is dead.

  Genevieve nodded slightly.

  When we arrived at our destination, she parked the car and asked me to follow her. She opened the gate of a large, old, white building, and we walked through the entrance to the elevator. It was small and made of red wood and massive steel. Through the metal grid I could see a large spiral stairwell behind the ascending cage, and when the box arrived on Genevieve’s floor (after being pulled up by demons who lived on the roof, I supposed), it gave an echoing screech like the kind one only expects to hear in large hallways suitable for chamber music, or in aristocratic ballrooms. Genevieve placed a key in the lock of her door, but before she got the chance to twist it, the door opened from the inside. A maid greeted the madame.

  Genevieve invited me in and asked me to sit down.

  I sat, and she disappeared. The maid brought me juice and some biscuits.

  I drank, and ate, and looked at the high ceiling, the oriental carpets, the large Japanese paintings, the mahogany and cherry woods. I stood up and slowly made my way to the window, and from there I gazed down at the street. It stretched away on both sides, lined with balconies and small cars, and the white traffic lines that make Paris look symmetrical and divided.

  Do you like the
view? Genevieve asked me as she came back into the room.

  Yes.

  Where are you staying here? Do you know someone in town?

  No.

  Did you come by plane?

  No, by boat.

  Oh, mon Dieu, c’est long ça, non? she said in her pleasant, gentle voice. I noted her graceful manners, and her long robe, and her well-brushed, chestnut hair.

  I promised Nabila that I would come and meet her brother-in-law, George’s father.

  Nabila is George’s aunt? she interrupted.

  Yes.

  Listen, she said. Like I told you, George’s father is dead, but my daughter, who is George’s half-sister, is coming here, and she is dying to meet you. She is on her way. Maybe you can tell us everything when she comes? We will have dinner together. Do you want to take a shower? I can give you some clothes.