Beirut Hellfire Society

by Rawi Hage

  They are a type, Pavlov imagined, men whose birth marks a futile beginning and for whom death is no grand ending but the final small act in a long march to the always-open casket. They are forever outside paradise, in life or in death. They are open books who feel their only redemption might be in everything else remaining open too, and everything openly said.

  Pavlov asked to borrow the Bohemian’s car, which had belonged to Monsieur Fiora and had not yet been sold. When the Bohemian asked why, Pavlov replied that he wanted to watch someone from afar, and that his own hearse was conspicuous. The Bohemian was hesitant but intrigued. He moved closer to Pavlov, offered him hash and asked if he had heard about his father’s disappearance.

  Pavlov shook his head.

  The Bohemian handed Pavlov the keys to the little Fiat.

  * * *

  Pavlov drove through the neighbourhood and parked near Son of Mechanic’s house. He sat low, only his eyes and the top of his head visible above the steering wheel, and heard himself say, Oh, oh, look who’s coming, Son of Mechanic is on his way! Then the chorus in Pavlov’s head sang, Now he’s opening the trunk of his car! Now he is changing his jacket, and now he is pulling out his Russian Kalashnikov—how Orthodox of him. He’s looking for his car keys, opening the front door and getting into his seat…Getting into his seat, the chorus intoned, getting into his seat…

  And Son of Mechanic’s car moved off along the road, heading out of the neighbourhood and away from his lover and her bed of stones and crosses. Pavlov waited, and when Son of Mechanic had passed the olive tree in the distance, Pavlov followed behind in the Fiat that had belonged to Monsieur Fiora. He tracked the car through empty roads until Son of Mechanic arrived at the local militia headquarters.

  He watched Son of Mechanic park, get out and climb into a jeep with three other fighters. He followed the jeep along the highway towards the port then up into downtown, until it came to a stop near the Green Line. This was where the heaviest fighting occurred between the opposing factions. Pavlov continued past in his little car, then parked under a nearby bridge and got out. He entered a building that looked out over the Green Line, and climbed the stairs to the top floor. The building had been bombed, and its remaining walls were pitted with bullet holes. It smelled of moist cement, and the stairs were littered with broken glass and chunks of concrete. Human feces dotted the hallway.

  So this is where these war heroes defecate: between the walls of their bombarded city. And how interesting that they do defecate, after all, Pavlov reminded himself. Only Byzantine angels do not defecate! Although even that is debatable.

  He found a spot at a window and watched his foe, the mechanic’s son. The kid was sitting on a plastic chair beside his fellow soldiers. He was acting silly, like a child playing, walking around and making grand gestures, and occasionally wrestling with his companions. He had shed his role as a lover, fighter and killer, and metamorphosed into a jester. Pavlov frowned. Jesters may have some wisdom, but they are also meek and gutless, cowardly buffoons, he thought. And this one hid behind the shipping containers filled with sand that split the city of Beirut into two separate oceans.

  By noon, the fighters seemed infected by sleepiness and inertia. They lounged on their plastic chairs, and even lay down on a mattress in the shade of a building, as they waited for the killing to start again. All was calm and Pavlov watched in vengeful silence, gazing out at the empty streets and the grass that grew everywhere. After watching for hours, he walked back to the Fiat and drove home. There he stood at his window and looked down along the road of death. Those fighters were bound to pass by one day, he predicted. It was boredom that would kill them.

  He was reminded of his own solitude, and decided to drive the little car back to the Bohemian. The bombs had started to fall again—they whizzed above the Fiat and landed with a familiar sound, that of metal dropped on roofs and empty water tanks. It was like the muffled sound of titanic collisions underwater, metal against metal, the sound of violence made by a two-legged species of alchemists who managed to mix earth with fire and solidify lava into glittering swords, javelins and nails for crucifixions. Oh, the shining armour of this species that only ceased to glitter when dipped in blood. Pavlov’s father had once informed him that Orthodox Jews never put metal in their coffins—except perhaps for the lead fillings in a cadaver’s teeth. The burial was purely of wood, because maybe, just maybe, the presence of metal inside a coffin would stop it from floating when the grand flood comes again. The sea, Pavlov had imagined as a kid, would one day be filled with wooden coffins floating on salty water—millions of little boats resurrected from beneath the waves to surge above the flood water. What a sight! Thousands upon thousands of resurrected bones paddling with wooden oars towards a promised paradise. Pavlov laughed as he drove in circles, looking for a parking space on the Bohemian’s street. We poor, silly humans, he thought, and the stories we tell ourselves.

  Finally, Pavlov found a spot where the Fiat would fit, although it blocked a large car. But who would want to leave and drive now under the falling bombs? He went up to the Bohemian’s apartment on the fifth floor, and on the way passed families taking shelter in the stairwell, kids playing cards, mothers nervously assessing the proximity of the falling bombs with the expertise of military personnel. He saluted everyone as he climbed the steps.

  The door to the apartment was open. The Bohemian was standing on his balcony, pointing his camera at the sky. When Pavlov entered, he glanced back for a second then invited him to have a seat.

  Do you know why it’s possible to take a photograph of a falling bomb in Beirut and not elsewhere? he asked Pavlov.

  Pavlov stayed silent.

  Because of the sun, the Bohemian said. The plentiful light allows us to shoot at a high shutter speed. A high shutter speed freezes passing, flying, speeding objects in a photograph. Just a technical observation. This is not always possible in an overcast climate. Taking images of descending bombs is more feasible in sunny places, and in this century there have been more falling bombs in sunny places than in northern overcast places. He laughed.

  Pavlov ignored this, and reached for a cigarette. He placed the car keys on the table and was turning to leave when the Bohemian called him back.

  Where did you go? he asked.

  To the Green Line.

  Did you reach the fighting?

  Pavlov nodded.

  Next time, I am coming with you. What better place to get an image of a falling bomb than from the battlefield itself?

  Pavlov turned again to leave.

  The car is yours anytime, the Bohemian declared, and clicked the camera shutter, pointing it at Pavlov.

  * * *

  Later, in front of his own window, Pavlov watched the twilight burial of an old man. Three old women walked behind the coffin, and only Pavlov’s brute uncles and their son were present to carry the casket to the gate. The three old women with their faces covered in black lace veils walked in complete silence, their backs curved, their shoes round, their dresses covering their knees and frail bodies, their feet advancing in careful movements, barely leaving the crust of the ground.

  The priest seemed in a hurry to get it over with. Pavlov could tell from the economical swinging of incense and the unenthusiastic, disingenuous mumble of his prayers. His expression was irritated, his backward glances at the slowness of the mourners scornful. Yes, he was in a hurry to get it done but the old women were slowing his pace. The priest repeated the same refrain, Your slave, Joseph Knefeh, have mercy on him—nothing too musical, loud or elaborate. This must be a low-grade, basic-package burial, or maybe the priest was doing it for free.

  Pavlov watched as his uncles struggled to carry the cheap coffin, the idiotic son of the younger uncle barely tall enough to help. Eventually he went downstairs to assume once more his old role of pallbearer. He took the front handle and walked as his uncle Mounir, right behind him, whispered threats about the hearse in his ear. Together, they reached the hole in
the ground. The interment was done in a rush; the prayers were brief. The three old women did not cry.

  The man in the coffin had died alone, and the three women were only his neighbours. He had lived too long—outliving all his children, even his twin grandsons who had both died carrying weapons in the war. Hearing the family name of the deceased, Pavlov remembered the burial of the grandsons in the early days of the war. Their two coffins had danced and swayed in sync to the music of the band. The Knefeh twins had died in the same battle, or so went the official story. The truth was that they were killed by their peers. They and two other militiamen had managed to secure a jewellery district downtown, and had gone straightaway to the safe of an Armenian jeweller and blown it up. The brothers were carrying off the spoils in bags when they were promptly gunned down in the street by their two accomplices. These accomplices were hard-asses, feared in the neighbourhood, criminals who had moved quickly up the ranks in the militia hierarchy. They were executioners, racketeers and gamblers who drove fancy cars and did contract killings to secure stolen merchandise from the commercial district. Always on cocaine, they were psychopaths to be avoided at all costs. The rule was: never look them in the eye or get in a fight with them over a parking space or challenge them to a car race. They would kill without a blink, then go eat at their favourite joint. One of them had a poked-out eye. In his youth before the war, he had been in a fight and been hit so hard that his left eye popped out of its socket. He had carried it in his palm as he ran all the way to the hospital. Pavlov remembered seeing the two killers carrying the twin brothers’ coffins at the procession, wearing Ray-Bans that hid their vacant eyes. The whole neighbourhood had known they were the killers, yet these assassins had continued down the road, dancing with the coffins, gold chains ornamenting their butchers’ necks, gold rings glittering in the summer sun.

  That autumn, the father of the twins had died of heartbreak, and then the mother fell into a deep and final slumber. And now the grandfather too had died, and no one was left to carry his coffin except for the family of undertakers. And no one was left to walk behind that coffin but three old women who quietly, timidly, beneath the black veils covering their transitory old faces, mourned the end of a lineage and the inevitability of extinction.

  SEX AND DEATH

  Early the next morning, Pavlov heard an assertive knock at his door. He anticipated the return of his brute uncles, their bulging bellies presenting themselves on behalf of everything and everyone. It was their bellies that expressed their state of mind, their vision in life, their convictions and causes—including their persistent demands for possession of Pavlov’s hearse. They were driven by the needs of their bellies to expand and conquer. In contrast to Pavlov’s father, who had been slim and energetic, the brothers loved sloth. It was the fruit of their labour, which they equated with good morality, responsibility, provision and success. They moved slowly, and their slowness was determined and menacing. With their high chests with saggy breasts, and the fat under their arms that pushed their limbs outwards, they fancied themselves righteous knights in shining armour, and owners of the castle next door.

  They banged on the door as if with the intention of breaking it and gathering its wood to use as joints in Pavlov’s coffin. Their utilitarian tendencies were impressive, Pavlov admitted. His uncles were scavengers who recycled and buried everything. At the sound of yet more knocks, he hunched his back like the conditioned animal he was, inclined his ear towards the noise and reached for his rifle.

  He carried his rifle downstairs, laid it against the wall and opened the door. And as he opened it, Rex’s shadow escaped, running towards the gate of the cemetery and releasing a long, sad howl.

  It wasn’t the brute uncles at his door after all; it was the Bohemian, drunk and high. He smiled at the sight of Pavlov and, without waiting for an invitation, entered the house and stood at the bottom of the stairs laughing. He bent down to study the arabesque motif of the tiles on the floor. Pavlov went back upstairs and the Bohemian followed, barely functional, still lucid but visibly intoxicated. He dragged his open sandals up each stair, placing each foot with difficulty, lifting his soles with effort. The earth, the gods, the devils—all beings that dwelled over and under the earth—pulled him down, making him step with the heaviness of the damned whose souls inevitably give way to gravity. His entrails had absorbed a high level of alcohol, and his body appeared wet, and he radiated the pungent smell of cigarettes, thick and permanent, trailed by a hazy vapour and mumbling and curses. He reached the top of the staircase, where he threw his weight on Pavlov, showering him with drool and mumbled words and kisses. Then he detached himself and collapsed on the sofa. He declared: I need to get that photograph. A photograph of a bomb falling would be priceless.

  Pavlov went to the kitchen and boiled water to prepare coffee. Through the door, he could hear the Bohemian talking about settling in Beirut and never returning to Spain, claiming that the only meaningful experience was the constant threat of death and living through war made him feel alive. The only way to escape this miserable eternal condition is through the courage to position oneself in proximity to danger, even death! he shouted. His loud voice disturbed Pavlov, but soon the Bohemian started to sway and hum a tune in a low voice. Pavlov, watching from the kitchen, was pleased to see the Bohemian dance between his empty walls and over the tiles of his home.

  Listen, Pavlov, the Bohemian shouted again. Listen to this drunk man, because even those who are not all there, if you know what I mean, have something to contribute. Wisdom doesn’t require full consciousness. Listen, the fatal mistake is to forbid the intoxication of the body. Sex, its corporeal intoxication, is short-lived—in this world at least. But substances can be a lifelong project, as long as nature provides. Look at my mother, for instance…She disdained sex. But now that my mother is gone, I have every reason to stay in this land. I couldn’t have possibly lived with her nearby. In a way, her death is a relief, liberating, the passing story of a human creature who existed, interacted, reacted, but did nothing too special, nothing worth mentioning or memorable. Stories are told, dear Pavlov, but are not remembered forever. Someday, no one will want to tell them anymore. No one will be left to tell them. But what an ending my mother had. What a grand ending! She never approved of my life, nor I of hers for that matter. She only admired my brother, the doctor. She worshipped the doctor. The problem with my parents was that they never came to terms with their own sexuality, he said, and smirked. They were both latent homosexuals, like much of humanity, and they never came to terms with it. Whatever that widow woman who befriended my mother might say…Are you a homosexual, Pavlov? Are you? Answer me, my man, are you?

  Pavlov stood in the middle of the room, a tray in his hand bearing two small coffee cups and a coffee pot, and ignored the question. The Bohemian, Pavlov noticed, looked awful—not only drunk but dirty, neglected, wearing mismatched clothes. He recalled his own father’s delicate attention to details and appearances—the makeup he had applied to the dead, his suave manner around the cadavers, his choice of shoes for them, how he had combed their hair. Disguise before dust, his father used to sing in his low voice, wearing his long apron, even occasionally clapping his hands and furtively dancing around the coffins.

  How about you, Pavlov? the Bohemian rambled. Were your parents homosexuals, deviants, transgressors, filthy sinners? Hahaha, do tell. You’re a handsome fellow, Pavlov. With your curly, wild hair and your broad, strong shoulders. You should go to Europe, you’ll have so much success. Some women, or men, whatever your preference, would fuck you just for the colour of your skin and the look in your eyes. But tell me, Pavlov, how do you feel about death? Does it excite you? Does the idea of death ever give you an erection? You’re a lucky man, Pavlov. You like these endings because they assure you of your own existence. The end can only be witnessed by those who persevere, the quiet survivors. Death can’t be experienced by the dead, unless you’re immortal like a god. Are you immortal, Pavlov? Are you
an ending that never ends?

  The Bohemian began to roll some hash. He shouted, Let’s smoke! And he lit up, inhaling and, after a moment, exhaling with a long sigh. What I need from you, Pavlov, is an introduction. I know that you went to the Green Line the other day. I need you to take me there. You can use my father’s car, but I need to get downtown so that I can take portraits of fighters. I am planning a series for a magazine. Maybe an exhibition one day. Art, baby, art!

  Pavlov extended his hand. Give me the car keys, he said. He drank his last sip of coffee, told the Bohemian to finish his cup, and then they both went downstairs and got into the Fiat. Pavlov drove towards the centre of the city. The Bohemian smoked hash in the car, and Pavlov, liking the smell, smoked too.

  Upon reaching the outskirts of downtown, Pavlov parked the car and he and the Bohemian entered the bombed building opposite Son of Mechanic’s military unit. They both stood for a few minutes at the window Pavlov had found before, observing the empty plastic chairs in front of the shipping containers. Then the Bohemian turned away, told Pavlov not to wait and rushed back down the stairs.

  Pavlov watched him crossing the street and walking towards the containers. The Bohemian carried a bag at his waist, his long hair reached his shoulders, and he wore a psychedelic tie-dyed shirt and hippy sandals that gave utmost liberty to his untrimmed nails and dirty toes. Once he arrived at the containers, he shouted and waved, and Son of Mechanic and another militia boy came out from behind the building, rifles in hand. They looked stunned and intrigued. Son of Mechanic wore a black T-shirt and the other kid was bare-chested, his hair wet and his face covered in shaving soap. The kid with soap on his face aimed his rifle at this man who had appeared from nowhere. The Bohemian raised his hands and continued shouting. Neither of the fighters seemed to be alarmed—cautious, but not alarmed. The Bohemian pointed at his bag. Gently, he put it on the ground, knelt down and opened it slowly. He pulled the camera out and started to gesticulate. There was an exchange that Pavlov couldn’t hear. A few minutes later, the Bohemian was dancing in triumph and the fighters were laughing.