White Masks (30 page)

I can't remember who told us the story, but we used to sing it as a ditty at school, and the nun would get so mad at us, saying that it was wicked, and would chase us across the playground in her white and brown habit. She was pretty, that nun. I told my mother that I wanted to be a nun when I grew up, but when I draped a white towel over my head and walked around the house rattling off French words, Ahmad on my heels, it upset her.

She told my father about it, and he hit me. I nearly died he hit me so hard. The following year, he moved me from the convent to the local government school. But I liked the nuns' school better.

I haven't become a nun, and whenever I think about him now, I can't help picturing Ahmad as a skinny little boy, brown as a nut, with a mass of curly hair, dripping with molasses! My mother is screaming at him in the kitchen for pouring a jar of molasses all over himself, and I run and scoop him up into my arms and whisk him off to the bathroom, where I undress him and splash water over his head and back and neck, and feel like licking the molasses off his eyes and face! And him holding his fists out in front of him like a boxer, running around the bathroom to make me chase after him and my mother yelling. His head dripping wet, his lips blue with cold, and my clothes soaked from washing and scrubbing his skinny little body, and still the molasses won't come out of his hair. So I get the scissors and snip
this way and that, and his thick dark curls cascade to the ground, and there is water everywhere, and then Ahmad slips. I finally take him to my bed to get him to go to sleep. He asks for the story of the Russian priest but I want to tell him about Jebina who's lost in the forest and is attacked by wild animals, and how the wolf chases her so that he can ravish her.

“But that's a scary story,” protests Ahmad. “I don't like stories that make me cry.”

I begin the story, and he immediately starts to cry.

“But in the end everything's alright,” I tell him. “Jebina gets married and the wolf doesn't get her.”

He won't stop crying, so I switch to the story of the Russian priest, and then he laughs and laughs and finally he falls asleep.

Hey, brother! That's how he would call me. I don't know why, but even as a grown man, he'd always say, “hey, brother.” He was the only one who truly loved me in the family: my father loved Su'ad, my sister, because she's fair-skinned, but he hated me.

“Little soot-face,” he'd say, “we found you in a sack of charcoal!”

But he always spoiled Su'ad because she is fair, even though she never lifted a finger for him! When Father was ill that time, she came down from Tripoli just for two days and then went back home. The roads aren't safe, she told Mother.

Whereas I stayed day and night - even though he wouldn't talk to me, and Mother said I should go home. “Your husband will be upset, girl,” she'd say. But it wasn't that ... she doesn't like me either, because I'm dark. I think dark is nice. Everyone says I'm prettier than my sister, except for my mother... All she ever wants is news of my sister . . . She treats me like
a servant. Yes, a servant . . . ever since I was little.... First, I was a servant to them at home and now I'm a servant to Nadeem.

But Ahmad . . . how could he die?

I told him, I begged him, not to! I still can't believe it. I hardly saw his body for one minute. They brought him home in the coffin, they put it on his bed, and they opened it for just one minute and then they took it away. There was blood on his neck, it was horrible. And now, he's dead. Everybody's dead. Abu Saïd is dead too.

The war was supposed to be over. That's what people said. The Deterrent
¹⁰
had come in and everyone said it was over. But it was nothing of the sort. Wars are like cats, it's one litter after another . . .

One day Abu Saïd is standing outside his butcher's shop, with the freshly-slaughtered carcasses hanging from their hooks, and this car speeds by, guns blazing . . . and, boom, he's dead.

Nadeem was really upset. When he saw Abu Saïd sprawled out on the sidewalk with the strung-up lambs in the storefront, he came home crying like a child. Why did they kill him? I don't know, Nadeem wouldn't say anything. All I know is that ever since Abu Saïd died, Nadeem has started coming home early again. He'll watch TV, have a glass of araq with a plate of
labneh
and some sliced tomatoes, and then go to bed.

Mother said they closed down the gambling den after Abu Saïd died. Which means Nadeem was involved. But I never asked-I don't want to know. The important thing is he no longer hits me, and he doesn't rant and rave and turn the house upside down. And he no longer gets apoplectic
every time he sees Ahmad's picture in its black frame hanging in the living room. And he's stopped getting upset when I tell the children stories of Ahmad dancing in the ring and beating his opponent in every boxing match he was in.

Basically, he's calmed down. Ahmad never did, however.

He used to come home from school, toss his books on the bed, and go straight out again to the sports club; and he wouldn't return until after dark. Mother complained that he wasn't studying hard enough but Father always said the boy had a future full of promise. Some future! What promise? He's gone now, dead and gone.

They're all dead. Even the son of our neighbor Abu Khalil died. The war was supposed to be over, that's what everyone said, but they still kidnapped him, when his body came back, it was mutilated. Poor old Abu Khalil, sitting on a chair outside his front door, day after day, waiting for people to come and condole with him! Nine months he didn't move off that chair, sitting there waiting all day, drinking endless cups of coffee and listening to the radio.

They're all dead now.

What I'd like to know is why this shelling doesn't stop, since the war is supposed to be over. When I asked Nadeem, he said it was the Jews.

“The Jews are shelling the South,” I told him, “not here in Beirut.”

But he said the only explanation for the shelling was the Jews.

“Why are they still shelling?” Abu Khalil would ask the mourners coming to condole with him. “Looks to me like they want to kill every single person - like that, there won't be anyone left who's witnessed this war to do the telling: if someone survived to tell the tale there'd never be another
war. It seems that this country's destiny is to spawn a new war every twenty years. That's why everyone must be killed.”

“But who would do the fighting then, Abu Khalil?”

“People . . .”

“But they would have all died.”

“Others would replace them. The human race is resilient, it's not easily annihilated. God created Man to hold sway over Nature, to burn it all up if he so wishes! And that's what we've done, we've torched every field and every orchard, and if it came to it, we might even set the sea alight.” Abu Khalil is always waiting for visitors and I feel scared. I've been scared of the shelling ever since the war began - unlike Nadeem, who was totally unfazed by it. He'd come home at all hours and never seemed scared of anything. But he's changed. Now, whenever he hears the shelling, he doesn't stir. He stays home all day, and sits quietly in a corner like a child who's afraid he's going to be punished.

Everyone's scared now, even my father was. And he too died ... Who would have thought that you would meet such an ignominious end, Abu Ahmad! They killed you and threw you in a heap of garbage . . . it was a complete fluke that anyone found you at all. In the garbage, Abu Ahmad! First your son, then you!

What the hell is going on here?

Right from the beginning, I never understood what was going on. I mean, why did my father lock himself up in his room like that? It must have been because of my mother, she's so insufferable! God help you, Abu Ahmad, with her for a wife! Whenever I went to visit them - even though I never saw him - the smell was unbearable. If my mother was cleaning the
room every day, as she claimed, where then was this smell coming from? Maybe it was the cat. Honestly, I don't know how she ever agreed to this cat business. But even cats don't produce such a foul odor! And then why did she let him out of the house? She should never have let him go. “But what could I do?” she lamented afterwards . . . What could she have done? She could have stopped him . . . she could've asked the neighbors for help. But she worried about what people would say . . . And now we're in the papers . . .

What's more, how could he disappear for three whole weeks, without us knowing anything of his whereabouts, when, afterwards, everyone said they kept bumping into him on the street? It's all Nadeem's fault: he tells me that since Abu Saïd died, he no longer knows “the boys.” How could they leave him like that after he died in such a gruesome way, how could they bring his body home, with that stench, and put on such a boisterous celebration at his funeral!

As far as I'm concerned, it's utterly incomprehensible. None of it makes sense, and I can't bear to think about it anymore. I don't even care to know who the killer is. And if we did know, what could we do? Take our revenge? And who would do it anyway? Nadeem, who's terrified? Or maybe the husband of Sitt Su'ad? Those people are all armed to the teeth, how could we possibly take them on? An eye is no match for an awl, as the saying goes. But why, that's what I want to know, why did they do it?

Because he went around painting the walls? That's nothing but a lie! The walls in Beirut are not painted, period. If he had whitewashed them, the city would look nicer. So then, was it to rob him? He wasn't carrying any money, no more than twenty lira anyhow. That's what Mother said. Or was it for his worthless wedding band?

At least, I'm not afraid for him anymore: he died, and found his rest. But it's my mother. She's been through so much, and Su'ad doesn't seem to care. She says her husband won't let her come to Beirut because the coastal highway is too dangerous, and driving down the other way, the inland route, is very long - it takes over six hours. The truth be told, I don't have much time for that husband of hers, even if he
is
a rich contractor! All he's got to show for it is his potbelly and his affectations of piety! His is the worst sort, as Nadeem says, appearing holier-than-thou but stopping at nothing to get what he wants . . . completely underhandedly of course! He talks like some character out of that TV soap,
Abu Milhim
, all morally superior and sanctimonious, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!

So he won't let her come to Beirut, and she won't move herself, and I've had enough: I can't take anymore, I can't shoulder the entire responsibility by myself! Nadeem says I could stay with her, he even suggested she should live with us, but she wouldn't hear of it:

“And leave the house! Not over my dead body. This is my home.”

When Nadeem insisted, she started shaking she was so upset. “I know what it is,” she said, “you want your inheritance while I'm still alive! You want to take the furniture and the house and the money I collect for my dead husband and son.”

Nadeem is so furious, he won't visit her anymore. But he says I should. He wants me to stay on good terms with her - he's worried that she's going to leave everything to Su'ad!

“Money loves money,” he says, “and that fatso would love to add your mother's to his.”

Me, I'm not worried about the inheritance - it's her that worries me.
When they brought my father's body home, she went into a trance-like state. She wouldn't see anyone, she just sat in the room by the closed coffin, keening and begging us to open it. Nadeem told her we couldn't. But of course Su'ad's husband had to say that it was her right, and that she should be allowed to see her husband one last time.

“The corpse is already decomposing,” Nadeem told him.

“So what . . . It's still her right . . . !”

So they opened it - oh my God, you can't imagine the stench that enveloped the house. It was the same kind of smell as when my father used to lock himself in there, but much, much worse. It was literally unbearable. Everyone left the room, except for my mother. Then Nadeem went back in and shut the coffin.

“Ma, no more . . . It's enough.”

And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the house swarmed with gunmen and gunfire filled the air.

After the funeral, their leader came to see us. I don't remember his name anymore, but one of his arms was just a stump, and he bristled when he spoke. After seating himself in the center of the living room, he began while everyone listened with rapt attention.

“The martyr's father has himself become a martyr. Khalil Ahmad Jaber has sacrificed his life for the revolution. What happened to him is unimaginable and we hereby declare him a martyr. Truly, he is a martyr!”

Everyone dropped their heads and invoked the Lord's mercy for the deceased while my mother looked at him with utter consternation.

“But we've got to find out who did it,” Nadeem said.

“Yes, absolutely. And that is our responsibility. All of you please take
note, please, that I am personally taking personal responsibility for this: the murderer will be arrested and will be hanged from one of the famous Beirut pines.”

Then he launched into a eulogy of my father, extolling his support for the revolution, his affection or its combatants, and the encouragement he gave his son to join the ranks and even make the ultimate sacrifice. He said that after Ahmad had died on the battlefield, his father had praised the Lord and bidden his wife to trill with joy.

My mother nodded heavily.

“That's right! She ululated! It shouldn't surprise you! Isn't a martyr on earth a prince in heaven? ‘Think not of those who are slain in the way of Allah as dead . . .'” Then he looked to us to finish the Qur'anic verse, and Su'ad's husband intoned: “‘Nay, they are living. With their Lord they have provision.'”