Beirut Hellfire Society

by Rawi Hage

  Pavlov kissed them all and said goodbye. As he drove back home alone, he thought: Now I must attend to the life of a new dog.

  FADDOUL

  Later that night, a faint knock struck Pavlov’s door. Then a stone bounced off his balcony window, followed by a familiar chuckle and a laugh. The dog ran down the stairs, barking and pacing back and forth.

  Rifle in hand, Pavlov cracked open the door. His cousin was on the steps, hissing. She had been beaten and blood seeped from her lips. Bruises covered her face. Pavlov went back up to the top of the stairs, and his cousin followed him into his living room.

  When Pavlov asked what had happened, she leaned close to his face, paused, took a deep breath, and in a barely audible exhalation, which he imagined to be the origin of her demonic laugh, she uttered: I am pregnant.

  He jumped up and went to the bathroom, ran water on a hand towel and walked back to the living room. He covered her forehead with the towel, and for the first time he noticed her grey eyes. Hera the grey-eyed goddess, he mumbled to himself, savouring the line from Homer. Hera, he repeated to himself, a witness to the fallen Paris.

  He looked her in the eyes, and she wept.

  Pavlov walked to his uncles’ house, and paced back and forth in front, rifle in hand. He stood below the front window and contemplated vengeance—death, followed by a cheap burial. He cursed his uncles, then edged closer to their front door and recited:

  Death to those who dare lay their hands on a goddess’s face. Death to those who turn bodies black and blue before death. Death will come to those who dwell in the abode of death. Death to those who refuse to set fire to the dead.

  Death to the hands that beat the living dead.

  * * *

  The next morning, while his cousin was still asleep, Pavlov left the house and got into his car. Out of boredom, sadness and curiosity, he drove to the Bohemian’s house. The Bohemian ushered him in and rolled a joint. Oily little brown balls of hash were chipped from a pasty roll, mixed with tobacco, carefully wheedled onto thin paper bound by spit, dribble and drool, eagerly lit, and slowly inhaled, with eyes closed. Then, through open mouths, exhaust was released, and lips shaped into smiles in anticipation of numbness, and forgetfulness of the mass killings of this world.

  The Bohemian complimented the quality of the product. The best hash in the world, he said. One more reason for you to stay on here…Faddoul will arrive any minute, and you should meet the man who provides me with these exquisite herbs. A wild man, a wild man, a handsome, fearless man, a savage.

  Pavlov replied that he knew Faddoul. Everyone knows Faddoul, he added.

  A few minutes later, a man in sunglasses and a black leather jacket showed up at the Bohemian’s door.

  Pavlov despised Faddoul, a scumbag who still owed Pavlov’s father for the burial of Faddoul’s parents. Faddoul had refused to pay for the coffins and the funeral procedures. After his parents were buried, he went to Pavlov’s father and complained about everything, even daring to accuse Pavlov’s father of disrespect for his dead parents. Faddoul had fabricated one excuse after another. He claimed that he and his three brothers were insulted by the treatment of the cadavers. This, after all the work Pavlov’s father had put into cleaning them, beautifying them and keeping them company before they were sent below. Faddoul had come to the house to complain, threatened Pavlov’s father with a gun and left without paying.

  As a kid, Pavlov had watched his father’s humiliation, his mother’s silence and fear. But when Pavlov had pulled out a knife that day, his father had calmly asked him to put it down. He remembered his father saying, with a hint of pride, A feisty little Spartan, my son, a feisty Spartan. It was then that Pavlov had become curious about the Spartans. He had read about them and their enemies, the Athenians. He had studied their gods and their wars, and finally in time he had read the philosophers. He vowed he would one day avenge his father as a Spartan would. But time had passed, and war had consumed everything.

  Now, upon seeing Faddoul, Pavlov imagined himself a Spartan once more, spear in hand, cape hooked below his Adam’s apple, wearing sandals and a sword, and a helmet that covered the cheeks and protected the eyes. I will burn Faddoul’s city and enslave his wife and children, he thought.

  The Bohemian introduced Pavlov, and Faddoul smiled and said that he knew the family.

  I remember the funeral of your parents, Pavlov replied. Both your parents, he added, who mysteriously died on the same day. My father buried them with dignity.

  Faddoul took off his sunglasses. He sat down next to Pavlov.

  Yes, he said. My parents did both die on the same day. He smiled. But let bygones be bygones. I think we should all go for a drive. My car. I think we should go hunting birds. It’s the season, he declared, and laughed loudly, filling the room with his smoky breath. And the son of the undertaker is welcome to join us. As a matter of fact, I insist that you come. Those who remember my parents, Faddoul said, will always be dear to me. That’s the kind of family we are, my brothers and I always say.

  Pavlov protested that he had been about to leave. But Faddoul was insistent, even holding Pavlov’s hand, pressing him to come along.

  The three men went down the stairs to the street and got into Faddoul’s car. Faddoul had a smirk on his face. He clasped Pavlov by the shoulder and laid one hand on his neck. Tell me, does your father still own that building on the edge of the cemetery?

  It’s not for sale.

  Faddoul burst into a loud laugh. You are a smart man. You see and know everything. You undertakers, you must have special powers, being so close to death. Have you ever seen the devil? People in the neighbourhood say they hear laughs and loud voices at night coming from the cemetery. Do you and your family host the jinn? He laughed. Our Muslim brothers on the other side of the city believe in the jinn. Maybe you’ve seen a jinn crossing from the other side into our cemeteries? He smirked again. If you do, shoot him for trespassing. It’s a Christian cemetery, after all—or whatever remains of land in this region for these leftover Nassarah. He laughed loudly again, and the moustache on his upper lip formed a perfect straight line that mirrored his eyebrows.

  When they reached the highway, Faddoul accelerated. Suddenly he turned to Pavlov, who was sitting in the passenger seat, and said, How is your fat uncle Mounir? Is he still fucking his brother’s wife? I heard that undertakers fuck anything, dead or alive, anything that has a pulse or not. Did your father fuck his sister-in-law as well?

  Pavlov imagined dragging Faddoul outside the car and stomping him into the ground. He eyed the gun at Faddoul’s waist and thought about grabbing it, sticking it to his head and pulling the trigger, letting the car take its course, hit the wall and flip. He checked that the door was unlocked and the windows were down. That way, he thought, it will be easier for good Samaritans to pull the bodies from the car.

  Faddoul saw him eyeing the gun, pulled it from his waistband and put it casually on the dashboard. Help yourself, kid. You seem curious about my piece. But help yourself to a cigarette first. And he laughed, then took the gun back, shoved it into his pants and accelerated, continuing towards the seaside.

  The Bohemian, in the back, was amused by this boastfulness and talk of duels. Pavlov, he said, this is real life. People like Faddoul are rare in this world. He touched Faddoul’s shoulders from behind. Faddoul, you are the real thing, he said, and Faddoul laughed and laughed, choking on the fumes of his cigarette. He glanced at the Bohemian in the mirror and winked at him.

  I say never sit in the front passenger seat, Faddoul declared with a smoky exhalation. Let me tell you the story of my uncle. He was a gangster. I am talking the fifties here, long before the war. He hung out with these two badass criminals. All three of them were the real thing. We in my family were seriously rugged before and after the war. It didn’t take a war to make us tough guys, we were hard as nails before any of the kids that parade around these days in their uniforms.

  So my uncle and his partners had a disp
ute over money and women. The two criminals decided to whack my uncle. But do you know how they killed him? My uncle was sitting in the passenger seat. The driver grabbed my uncle’s gun, and the man in the back stuck a knife in my uncle’s neck. It was one of those old American cars with a low back seat, very spacious—they used to make them wide, and all leather inside. So wide, with a high roof, that you could swing a knife easily up and down, if you know what I mean.

  Are you both comfortable? Faddoul looked first at Pavlov, and then at the Bohemian in the rear-view mirror, and both Faddoul and the Bohemian laughed sardonically.

  They are laughing at me, Pavlov thought. What does it take to turn someone into a corpse? In his veins, he felt capable of killing, of causing death, of bringing death forth, recalling that tall figure who appeared to him in his dreams, always walking with a stick, swinging it and transforming the moving, the talkative, the affectionate, the sexually deprived and the sexually active, the greedy, invading, gluttonous omnivores into still, silent carcasses. Pavlov could call upon the tall man to hand him the cane now. In his dream, and outside of it too, he was capable of killing—he was sure of it.

  As they drove nearer to the sea, they encountered an old pickup truck carrying birdcages. Faddoul tailgated the truck, and honked. Then he accelerated and drove beside it, waving at the driver to stop. The pickup pulled over. In the back were cages of chickens stacked on top of each other. The birds inside the cages looked stunned, nauseous and bewildered by the fast passage of the blurry world. Faddoul got out of the car, fixed his gun behind his back, pulled up his trousers and adjusted his belt. He walked calmly towards the driver and leaned on his half-open side window. He looked back at the Bohemian and smiled. Then he waved at the driver and asked him to get out and follow him to the back of the truck. The driver, half-defiant, half-concerned, adjusted his flip-flops, his short sleeves revealing where his left arm had been burned by years of dangling out of the window in the sun. His right arm looked pale and uneven by contrast. Everything was uneven about this man, observed Pavlov. One of his eyes was half-shut, he limped, and his hair, buffeted by the wind, had formed a disproportionate tuft on one side. What was more endearing was that he was aware of his unevenness, and before he got out to follow Faddoul, the driver fixed his hair, tucked his shirt in, straightened his head and shoulders. He walked around to the kept birds.

  Faddoul pointed at the cages and asked the truck driver where he was headed.

  To the slaughterhouse, the uneven man answered.

  I need to buy a couple of birds, Faddoul said.

  Faddoul and the man bargained and reached a price. Faddoul paid, and returned to the car with two birds tied together by their feet, hanging upside down in his hand. He threw them in the trunk and drove to a gas station, where he filled two plastic containers. On his way back to the car a splash of the liquid fell on his feet and he cursed. He tightened the lids on the containers and deposited the gas alongside the birds in the trunk, cursing and lamenting how he had ruined his expensive pants and shoes.

  Now the car smelled of gas. When Faddoul reached for his pack of cigarettes, Pavlov took the matchbox and threw it out of the window.

  Faddoul laughed and shouted, Awake! This man is always Awake!

  They continued up into the mountains. There, they reached a remote area and took a dusty road that finally arrived at a dead end. This gave way to a secluded, errant plain.

  Faddoul opened the trunk, grabbed the chickens in one hand and a gallon of gas in the other. He laid the chickens on the ground. Look how still they are, he said. But not for long. He poured gas on the chickens, and they fluttered, and then tried to jump—but the fumes of the gas must have made them too high and nauseous to do so.

  Pavlov got out of the car and walked slowly towards Faddoul. Don’t be cruel, he said.

  Faddoul lit a cigarette and looked at the Bohemian then at Pavlov, laughing. He waved his gun in the air, turned to Pavlov and said, So you never answered me. Is your uncle still fucking his brother’s wife?

  The Bohemian was still in the car. Pavlov could hear him laughing nervously, entertained but clearly reluctant to join them.

  Faddoul turned and flicked his lit cigarette down, and the birds went up in flames. They jumped in the air at last. He watched them, still grinning.

  Pavlov, thinking of cruel, malicious, expelled gods, rushed at Faddoul and hit him from behind. Faddoul turned and pointed his gun in Pavlov’s face. Pavlov could hear the jumping birds, and under his breath he recited a line from an Arab poet: slaughtered birds that danced not out of joy but from pain. The birds had come apart and they now started to jump towards the men like two balls of fire. One bounced towards Faddoul and hit his thigh. The residue of gas on his shoes caught fire, and then his synthetic pants and leather shoes burst into flames, and in no time his whole body was alight. He dropped his gun and danced with surprising grace, waving his arms and turning in circles as the flames caught the wind and rose up.

  Pavlov heard the burning man laughing, perhaps even singing. He picked up Faddoul’s gun. Faddoul stood in one spot and beat his body, flapping frantically, trying to extinguish himself. Then he waved his hands in the air once more and ran towards Pavlov, trying to embrace him. Pavlov aimed the gun at Faddoul and shot him three times. Faddoul fell to the ground, dead, the flames alive and completing their dance over his remains.

  Pavlov turned to the burning chickens. They were exhausted and incapable of movement. He shot both of them.

  Mercy, he said, mercy to all creatures.

  He took off his jacket and used it to extinguish the flames surrounding the dead man on the ground.

  Pavlov could hear the Bohemian’s heavy, slow breath through the open window of the car, followed by whimpers of fear. He had rolled himself into a ball in the backseat and was glancing sideways at the scene with only one open eye.

  Pavlov took the leftover gas and poured it over Faddoul, and watched his body go up in flames. The Bohemian was still in the back seat, trembling and refusing to leave the car, crying and hyperventilating. Pavlov took him by the shirt and pulled him out.

  Stop crying, he said.

  Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me, the Bohemian pleaded.

  I just saved you, Pavlov said. Why would I kill you?

  But the Bohemian didn’t seem to understand. He repeated his plea: Don’t kill me.

  You were planning to sell your inheritance to Faddoul. That was your plan. Pavlov gently pulled out the gun and put it to the Bohemian’s head. He would never have paid you for your house, you know.

  The Bohemian stayed silent.

  What happened to your father?

  The Bohemian cried harder. Again he begged Pavlov not to kill him.

  Scumbags like Faddoul make you sign over your possessions then get rid of you on the spot. He would have killed us both and made it look like an accident.

  I didn’t know him that well, the Bohemian said.

  I think you did. He excited you and took you out of your perpetual boredom. He seduced you. I just saved your unworthy life…What happened to your father? Pavlov asked again.

  I don’t know. My brother told me he threw himself off the boat.

  I think you know, and your brother knows, that isn’t true.

  The Bohemian shook his head.

  And your father? Pavlov repeated.

  My father is beneath the sea. He killed her…My brother wanted him dead. At these words, the Bohemian wept even harder.

  After a while, Pavlov and the Bohemian poured the other gallon of gas over the seats of Faddoul’s car and set it alight. They turned their backs on the burning and started the long trek down towards the bombarded city.

  By the time Pavlov returned, Barbus was hungry and thirsty. Pavlov poured water into a plastic container and gave him food. The dog slurped and salivated and wagged his tail and ate. Then Pavlov walked the dog around the cemetery. Barbus sniffed the fence, picking up the odours of men, hyenas and the
ghost of a fellow canine.

  EL-MARQUIS AT HOME

  The next day, Pavlov’s cousin still lay on his sofa. Her stomach had grown into a visible semi-sphere showing her pregnancy. She helped herself to some of the food in the kitchen and ate all morning long. She walked barefoot on the old burgundy tile on the floor, stepping on its arabesque motif of strange flowers. She would periodically release chuckles, then suppress her loud laugh with food and drinks.

  After she was full, she reclined on the sofa and stared upwards for the rest of the day, contemplating the white clay of the ceiling.

  Late that night, Hanneh and Manneh knocked at Pavlov’s door, weeping. El-Marquis is dead, they pronounced. His body is at his estate.

  Pavlov grabbed his thickest coat and left his house. The windshield of his deathmobile was still broken and the doors had been marked by bullets, but it was functional and, he calculated, capable of transporting the now-still libertine on its rolling black wheels.

  He went up into the mountains, following the tail lights of the two motorcycles, two dots illuminating the wandering lanes of Mount Lebanon. The wind entered the car, hit him in the face and filled his nostrils with the fresh cold air he liked. In time, he reached a large stone house that stood alone on top of a hill.

  When Pavlov and his companions entered, they found two attractive cleaning ladies in short seductive aprons dusting the furniture and sweeping the floor of a grand salon. The women were singing cheerfully in French. A round chef was preparing food in the kitchen. He was masterly and clearly in control. A hairy Turk, thought Pavlov. Bald, short, with chest hair seemingly determined to overrun his ursine torso beneath his low-cut shirt. His arms were also unusually hairy, and ready to steadily invade the counter beneath his knife. He looked rough, but like the maids, he was singing, and his voice had a feminine lilt. When he turned to the stove, more hair sprang free from beneath his collar with no hesitation. A singing, cooking bear, Pavlov thought, and smiled to himself.