White Masks (23 page)

“The cinema is such a fabulous thing,” she went on, “the way it can lend grandeur to events. Imagine, for instance, a sequence on Tall al-Zaatar: women, children, wailing and sobbing, the camera panning from face to face, zooming in on this cute kid with large black eyes and curly hair who's picking his nose; the kid is totally unaware of what's going on, as if he were unseeing, unhearing. Now wouldn't that be fabulous?”

“Yes, that would be very powerful, it'd be really great,” I replied.

“And imagine,” she went on, taking out her Marlboros and lighting one for each of us, “just think in what original ways we could portray death! Let's assume, for instance, that we're filming a corpse somewhere in the old downtown: the corpse is surrounded by overgrown weeds and grasses and a high earth embankment. The camera rolls silently, stops at the corpse, then cuts to a wild flower growing among the weeds. Wouldn't that be absolutely beautiful?”

“Yes. Yes . . . but what about the smell? . . . The smell would be intolerable!”

She just smiled.

“Oh, I see! Of course! The camera wouldn't capture the smell, only the picture!”

“So you see, even death can look beautiful!”

I looked at her. Light music played softly in the background.

What does this girl know about death? She talks about it as if we were talking about the movies . . . What does she know about it? If I told her about what happened to Sameeh, what would she say?

We'd gone up to the Zaarour heights by cable car, which sat under Sanneen's silent gaze. There was snow everywhere and we were posted in one
of those snow-bound two-storey chalets. We'd lit the wood stove and the five of us sat around keeping watch at the windows. I didn't understand why I'd been stationed with them, they were all older than me, in their thirties, and I didn't know any of them. But they were professional fighters and I felt safe with them and expressed my admiration for them as they told stories of missions they'd carried out inside occupied Palestine. We had practically forgotten there was a war going on, sitting there day after day, eating and drinking tea, playing in the snow together and listening to the radio. It was all very peaceful.

And then, all of a sudden, everything blew up. There was a huge explosion, the snow turned a deep red, and from our positions behind the windows we saw them, advancing in line formation, like a pack of wolves. Despite the fierce shelling, we were able to watch them firing and advancing, getting closer and closer. I had my Kalashnikov, so I opened fire, but still they came, and when some fell to the ground others surged forward in their place. I don't know where I got the courage to do it . . . it was the first time I'd ever fired a gun in my life, and my bullets were lethal . . . I could see the advancing men falling and dying. Shells were raining down on us now, blackening our faces and hands with soot, and still we fired, round after round after round ... The advance suddenly halted, giving me enough time to refill my magazine and release its contents, even though the shells kept coming down. I left my post at the window to look for the others. No one. And then, there, by the wall under the westerly window, two bodies. Looking closely, I saw Sameeh slouched against the wall in a pool of blood oozing from his waist.

“Where are the others?” I asked him. He gestured that they'd gone.
“We must retreat,” I went on. He nodded in agreement. I told him to lean on me.

“I can't,” he said. “I'm really bad, I can't move. Leave me here and you run for it . . .”

Then I saw his tears . . . a grown man, with a thick mustache, and tears silently washing down his blackened face.

“You go on, I'm not going to make it.”

I picked him up and hoisted him onto my shoulder. His body was a dead weight and he was having trouble breathing. We left the chalet and I started up the mountain. I knew that our side was stationed on the eastern flank, so I walked eastwards ... Just him and me, miles from anywhere, with nothing but mountains and snow around us, and the cloud-studded sky . . . Climbing up that mountainside, with him slung across my shoulder, I was gasping for breath. I could hear my heartbeat ringing in my ears, and I thought I was going to collapse. My legs felt like a solid aching mass gradually spreading upwards, and with him pressing down against it, I thought my chest would burst.

I stopped, and eased him down to the ground gently. He lay motionless against the snow, with the congealed blood around his stomach dark and thick. I sat down beside him. He asked for water, and I thrust my bottle towards him, but he couldn't hold it, so I opened it and held it to his lips. He took a few sips and said, “Leave me, it's too far, we're not going to make it.” Then he began to shiver, his teeth chattering from the cold. I took off my jacket and covered him, he was shivering so much his entire body shuddered and his teeth clattered in my ears. I sat beside him in silence and, gradually, the shivering subsided.

“We can go on now,” I said.

“Leave me,” he repeated. “I'm dying. It's a long way, and you won't make it.”

I put my jacket back on and hoisted him once more onto my shoulder - the hills stretching endlessly before me, I carried on with him dangling over my back, hot and feverish. I kept climbing upwards, as snow filled my boots and my feet turned to blocks of ice, and he continued to shiver from the fever running through his body. When I felt I couldn't go on, I stared at the ground doggedly and kept going. But then I had to stop, I just couldn't go any further. I could see a little hollow that had been carved out by heavy artillery, so I put him down and he crawled towards the hollow. I covered him with my jacket again.

“Listen,” I said.

His face was the color of chalk, white as the snow, his lips yellow, his eyes shut.

“Listen,” I repeated. “I'm going to . . .” He murmured something inaudible. “Louder,” I told him, “a bit louder, I can't hear you . . .”

He repeated the same words . . . just that one little sentence . . . nothing else . . .

“It's been a long day ...”

“Listen,” I said again. “The water bottle is here next to you and I've covered you with my jacket. Stay still, don't move. I'm going on to the next position to fetch some help.”

“It's been a long day . . .”

“Listen, I'm going. Do you need anything? Sameeh, do you hear me, we'll be back soon, don't worry, we won't leave you here. I'll be back with
them in less than an hour and then we can carry you properly. Did you hear me?”

“Such a long day ...”

“I'm leaving now. Do you need anything? I'll be back. Stay right where you are and don't move.”

I set off, leaving him lying in the hollow, shaking under the khaki jacket, with the water bottle next to him. I realized I was thirsty and had a long way to go, so I came back, picked up the water bottle and drank. I drank greedily, almost finishing the bottle, and still my thirst wasn't quenched. But I had to leave him some, so I stopped, and put the bottle back next to him. I leaned down close, he was still breathing, with his head propped against his chest, his body all curled up on itself.

“Sameeh,” I said one more time, “I'm coming back, wait for me.” And I set off again.

I was climbing nimbly now, hurtling along, jumping where I could, as if I had rid myself of a great burden, going steadily eastwards. I didn't feel frightened, I was sure I wouldn't lose my way in the hills. Only now, when I picture myself on that solitary eastwards journey through the hills, after leaving Sameeh in the hollow, do I feel frightened. What if I had got lost with no food or water? What if I had stumbled on their positions, not ours? And why had I drunk from the water bottle? The mountain was covered in snow, and I had drunk the water in the bottle and left him so little!

I walked and walked, and after three hours without a moment's rest, I finally reached our positions. I could see my comrades in the distance and could hear their voices.

“Fahd is here,” one of them said.

First Lieutenant Omar led me to his tent. There, I drank my fill, then tea was brought and he started questioning me about the numbers involved in the attack, the weaponry they had used, and the ensuing skirmish. I told him they'd attacked in waves, that the skirmish was over quickly, but that the shelling had continued and I withdrew under fire.

“That shelling was from our side,” he said. “We assumed the position had fallen to them, so we shelled it.”

Then I told him about Sameeh.

“Poor bastard,” he answered.

I told him we had to go back for him. “Where did you leave him?”

“Three hours from here.”

“That's impossible.”

“What's impossible?”

“We can't go back.”

“What do you mean we can't? We're just going to leave him there to die!”

“Yes. I can't jeopardize the lives of ten men for the sake of one. The hollow where you left him is now in enemy hands.”

“But I promised.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What do you mean, you're sorry?”

“He'll be a martyr to our cause.”

I began to scream.

“Listen Fahd,” he said, “this is a war, we're not playing cops and robbers here. Fighting a real war means sacrifices have to be made.”

I was almost in tears, desperate to get back to him. “But I promised,
Comrade Omar! I left him in the hollow, covered with my jacket, and I promised I'd be back.”

“Take it easy, Fahd. He'll become a war hero and live forever in the glory of martyrdom.”

“That's outrageous!”

“OK, enough now. It's over.”

And that was that.

I would not have gone back had I been asked to do so, but I was screaming because I knew that no one would make such a request.

It was all over.

It had been a long day.

 

Samar was still talking with that strange excitement of hers. “Listen,” she said, “you're not listening! We have to publicize the justice of our cause and expose their fascistic practices; the killing, the rape, the looting, the house demolitions and dispossessions. That is the role of progressive cinema! It's our job to document such atrocities!”

“But we do the same,” I told her. “We too are guilty of crimes, of killing, of . . .”

“That's not true! What you're saying isn't true!”

“It's true. I swear to God! Remember Damoor? When we were in Damoor . . .”

“Don't you start up about Damoor! Why don't you tell me about Maslakh and Qarantina, about Naba'a and Tall al-Zaatar instead!”

“Please. There's no need to use that tone of voice. I'm only speaking the truth.”

“What truth! That's not the truth. The truth must serve the revolution. That kind of talk just undermines our cause.”

“The truth must serve the truth. Period.”

“And war is war. Period.”

“Don't I know it! As God is my witness, you think I don't know that ‘mistakes' are made in all wars, and that it's all about ‘strategic momentum and political gain'? All I'm saying is, that we too are guilty of ‘mistakes.'”

“No, you're overstating the case. How can you be a freedom fighter and speak like that?”

“Well, Comrade, I can, and I will continue to be a freedom fighter. But that has nothing to do with what I know to be the truth.”

So that's it, and I'm still here. What else could I do, where was I to go? Samar's advice was that I should go back to the university. What for? How could I study with my useless so-called good eye? It becomes inflamed and painful as soon as I start reading. There's no way I can resume my studies, and I don't know any other trade or occupation. And anyhow, why should I? Half my friends have been killed in combat, should I simply forget about them, let them rot in their graves and run away, like I did with Sameeh? No, I wouldn't do that.

I stood up to go and the waiter brought the bill. She insisted on paying.

“I've got it,” she said.

“So do I.”

“But I invited you.”

“No, no, really, it's OK.”

She paid and we walked to her car.

“Where shall I drop you?”

“At the party office.”

We drove in silence, with foreign music playing on the radio; when we arrived, I invited her in.

“Thanks, but not today.”

“Shall we meet again?”

“What for?”

“To continue the discussion.”

“Alright,” she said, and we set a date.

We met like that several times. We always went to the same café, and said almost the same things, but I was never bored. She was pretty and lively, and I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I didn't dare.

Then, one day, we went to her place. It was in a secluded building, somewhere off Bliss Street, close to the American University of Beirut. We went there because she wanted to read me the draft of a screenplay she was working on with the filmmaker Jalal Abul Huda - the same guy who had tried to “direct” me.

The apartment was nice, with a large living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen . . .

“You live alone, how odd,” I said. “Rents are so high.”

“This apartment's been requisitioned,” she said. “Comrade Abu Habib worked his connections and I don't pay any rent.”

She got the screenplay and began to read aloud. But I wasn't listening. She was sitting so close to me on the sofa, smoking as she read, I was trying to think of a way to take her hand. Then she stopped to comment on a sequence.