Bone Ash Sky (12 page)

Why should she marry a Muslim when she owned her apartment outright, bequeathed by her parents, in the family for generations? A Muslim husband would only take it for himself, depriving her of freedom. Why would she settle for a Muslim when she had an independent income? Old money hidden in tight rolls, withdrawn from the bank at the beginning of the war, still just enough, even with such inflation, for some luxuries. Gold and silver jewellery, her mother's rings and necklaces and brooches to sell on the black market if things got really bad.

But at the same time she knew there was no future for her with Selim. Their casual union was illegal, since civil marriages didn't exist in Lebanon. Even if they agreed to take the final step, they'd have to make their way to Cyprus to bind it. So she kept Selim a secret, from her neighbours, girlfriends, the cousins who came for cocktails once a month – such casual Muslims – and tried to arrange matches with her among their fundamentalist friends.

Her eldest cousin, Shahid, almost suspected. He drew her aside regularly to whisper in her ear, elbow resting on the kitchen counter near the knives as he watched her slice shreds of orange, mix drinks. His admission of violence all the more sinister for being so intimate.

‘If you play with Christians, Sanaya, you know what you'll get.'

She shook her head, knife poised above the fruit's soft pale heart, mesmerised by her cousin's slow breathing. His face was calm when she lifted her eyes to him, his expression self-possessed. He trailed a pinkie finger – offensive, the long burnished nail – in a line from her eye to her jaw.

‘You'll get your face cut, Sanaya. You know that's what they'll do.'

Despite the threats, she didn't stop seeing Selim. She was more afraid of the alternative: arranged marriage, unsought babies, the unwelcome clinches she'd be forced to submit to each night. No marriage to a Muslim, no sharing her man with another woman. Or three. No divorce whenever he felt like taking someone younger into his bed, throwing Sanaya out of the house and even taking away her children. Not that the Koran authorised any of this behaviour. She read the Koran every night before bed, even when Selim was there, even when he laughed at her. She read the Bible as well, but mainly for the Old Testament stories. It was the Koran she believed: the unassailable word of truth. She read it and cursed those mullahs and clerics, unscrupulous fools sanctifying manmade rules in their own interest.

BEIRUT, 1995

S
omeone is coming to meet me this evening – a contact I met through the tribunal. When I went back for my second session he got up to testify, in his role as project manager for the UN's post-conflict portfolio. His team spends a lot of time in the Palestinian camps in Beirut and the south of the country.

He'd been a UNDP finance manager during the civil war, so had seen the Phalangist militias assembling outside the camp before the massacre, asked them what they were doing, and in getting no real reply had called his superiors. Strangely, throughout his testimony he accused both Phalangists and Israelis, but I could also detect his faint distaste for the Palestinians. As if he thought everyone was as bad as each other, and that he was above them all. He mentioned my father's name three times as well and each time I heard those familiar syllables coming from his stranger's mouth, in that transatlantic, cultivated accent, I burned from my stomach to my cheeks, red with blood.

When he finished, he sat – I can only assume deliberately – right down beside me. His name is Kajetan D'Andrea, an Italian of indeterminate age. He could have known my father personally. I don't know yet. I haven't told him my surname, or whose daughter I am, just that I'm an American journalist interested in writing an article about the massacre for
The Boston Globe
. I've arranged to meet him this evening in the lobby. I was faintly alarmed, but not really surprised, at how keen he was to follow up.

The phone rings. Reception calling. ‘A gentleman called Mr D'Andrea down here to see you, madam.'

‘Already? Sorry, yes, I'll be down in five minutes.'

I put the phone down, suddenly sweating so much my singlet sticks to my body. D'Andrea said we could meet at ten-thirty, and at first I was put out by how late people stay up in Lebanon. But now the night has slipped away from me, and I'm not even dressed. Cockroaches scuttle into corners as I turn on the bathroom light, strip off, splash myself with water. There's no window, only an air vent with the cover torn off. The open shower drain emits a melancholy odour. I want something tough to wear, a man's shirt with unbreakable thread. A belt to tighten around my waist, so I won't have to breathe out and feel any ambivalence. Instead I slap on some deodorant, hide my tattoo with a blouse, fluff out my hair.

As I press the button for the lift and hear the eighties' muzak piped from downstairs there's my father, always my father's mystery, his hard knuckle knocking and demanding entry into my life. Selim, the evil martyr, whose face I sometimes can't remember, then conjure up in disparate shapes to comfort myself. Only some aging photographs, a scrawled note, to anchor him to his brief life. And all these years later I feel an illogical guilt: at leaving Beirut, joining with Lilit against Siran to erase his memory, not being there to save him. Yet he left me first, the day I was born. I feel no anger at this – at least consciously. He was so young. My mother trapped him by falling pregnant. He hadn't loved her, so Siran said. But did he love me? He couldn't have, surely, if he left me so soon then made no attempt to see me again. Even so, the smell of certain festival foods, batter, sugar, meat; the haze of quiet, sunfilled, dirty streets; the reiteration of a minor key in a woman's voice, all remind me of him: a man I never knew.

In the lobby, D'Andrea waits. He rises from his seat as I enter, puts out a slender hand.

‘I'm sorry I came so early – I don't know this side of the city so well. Do you prefer English, Arabic, French?'

‘English, if you don't mind.'

‘Tea, coffee? Something stronger, yes?'

He pours, I accept whatever it is.

‘So, how can I help you?'

‘I wanted to ask …' I feel embarrassed, wonder if he can see it. He inclines his head, inviting me to speak.

‘I wanted to ask whether I could get in contact with any aid workers at the Sabra-Shatila camps, and maybe some of the Palestinians who live there. I'm thinking of writing an article for
The Globe
. “Fifteen years later, the survivor's story” – something along those lines. What do you think?'

‘A worthy story indeed. Very worthy.' He pauses. ‘I can get you limited access to the camps, if you like. You can interview some of the women and teenagers. The older men are not so keen to talk to reporters, as you understand.'

I murmur my thanks. He looks around the lobby, back at me. His eyes lock with mine. Now I allow myself to really see his face: sharp nose, silvered goatee, short legs in expensive suit trousers with immaculate cuffs.

‘Why don't we go somewhere … a little more comfortable? Have dinner, a few drinks. Have you eaten? We can talk further about the contacts you need.'

I hesitate, feel slightly pushed, but say yes. He hasn't given me any contacts yet.

We go to an exclusive restaurant on the Corniche, in a high-rise far above the city. Reflexively, as we sit down to dinner, I finger the recorder in my bag.

We talk half the night, on deep couches, under dim lamps.

Back in my room, it's just past six in the morning. I'm not ready yet to fully remember what he did, what I almost let him do.

I blame myself most of all: for being too open, too empty, too trusting. For giving the impression that I liked him more than I did. I remember I was shaking on my walk back to the hotel, but I'm not anymore.

I can say that, after a few drinks, I finally told him my surname and whose daughter I am. He seemed aroused by that, suddenly leaned forward over the low table, his eyes alight. We went for a walk to the beach across the road, at four in the morning. All I can recall with any composure now are his final words to me, before I broke free, running away from the black pre-dawn sea. He said he knew who ordered the killing of my father, and could arrange to have the surviving family ‘taken care of '. The subtext to this was, provided I do what he wants.

I listen to my voice on the tape, rising slightly, becoming panicked, and on top of mine his protesting drunken slur. My feet, soft at first, and harder as I make it to the boulevard.
Click
. Silence.

Now I have his voice on tape, saying something so incriminating as to be laughable. Why did he think he could trust me with his indiscretions? I'm almost sure he didn't know my recorder was in my bag, but did he really think I won't pass on what he said? Maybe he thinks I'm such small fry he has nothing to fear from me. I'm not sure whether to erase the tape now or call the editor in Boston right away. So I do nothing.

I'm exhausted, sweaty, soiled. Sitting on the bed, I call the UNDP number scrawled by him. I wonder if it's too early; but no, a woman with a Texan accent explains there are certain families whose homes are open to journalists. She tells me to wait on the line, and five minutes later she confirms that an older woman who survived the 1982 massacre is available next week. She says the woman seemed surprised when told my surname, that she may have even recognised it. Could this be a sensitive situation? Has anyone in my family ever been an aid worker, doctor, an English teacher in the camps perhaps? A sharp, cold column, like sudden sickness, passes through me.

‘Please make sure you don't ask any difficult questions,' the woman says. ‘Nothing political. We don't want to offend anybody. I'll be sending you the forms to fill and sign today. Please send them back ASAP. And obviously, as the paperwork will explain, we need to see any articles you write before anyone else.'

I write down the Palestinian woman's details. Her name is Bilqis Ali. I note bus routes from Rue Hamra. The woman wishes me a nice day and hangs up.

I'm shaking after this conversation. Everything is political, I want to say. Don't talk to me about difficult questions. A flash of D'Andrea's hands comes to me: the way he gripped my wrists with one hand and pushed down on my shoulder with the other. For a second, I'm inflamed by hatred for him. Then I start blaming myself again. And I'm anxious about the Palestinian woman who seemed to recognise my surname. Could she have known my father? He would never have been friendly with Muslims, let alone Palestinians. Maybe his Muslim lover knew these people, maybe he helped them through her in the past. At this point I'll do anything, put myself through thousands of tortuous equations, to prove that my father was not all bad.

I'm paralysed on the hotel bed. I stare at the table at my side, the fragile amulets I've grouped there to keep me safe. Unread novels, cheap hotel pens. Lilit's photograph, buckling in the humid air. I lie on my back among countless pillows that are too hard or too high or too thin and look at the ceiling: discoloured, a water stain the shape of a stunted tree blossoming out from the wall. Holding my elbows tightly, trying to stop from flying apart. I would like to believe I can find the truth here. That there's only one truth, and that my father's actions will be finally vindicated by the tribulations suffered by his race. I need to believe that the massacres, the deportations, the destruction of a culture and its people were not for nothing. That my father did only what he thought was good. If this is a made-up story I'm telling myself, then I can at least control the characters, their motives, the ending. This will be a happy ending, and I should be part of it. I can will this life of mine to flash into brilliance, unfurl a terrible beauty – exactly how I imagine my Armenian ancestors, struggling to retain their dignity, the child destined to be my grandfather trudging alone into the night. Selim dogging his father's footsteps, civil war raging around him, killing, being killed. I know all the details. Did I make them up? If I think too hard about my family I'll leave, never to return. All the while I know the end to this particular story can't be happy no matter how hard I try.

LAKE VAN,
TURKISH ARMENIA, 1915

M
inas bent over his history books, steeling himself to forget it was spring, to ignore the soft, painful scents of plum trees and dry grass, the niggling reminder of other boys on the bank of the lake, slippery in the setting sun. He could hear their shouts carrying through the evening quiet to his window, where he sat hunched over the narrow ledge with his schoolbooks spread before him, Papa's blunt nib seeping in the margins. He knew he could be punished for this by his teacher, but also knew it wouldn't be severe, as he was displaying
initiative
and
individualism
, both prized above anything else by his American teacher at the mission school.