A Stranger at the Door, and Other Lebanese Short Stories 1931956324, 9781931956321

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A Stranger at the Door

A STRANGER AT THE DOOR AND OTHER LEBANESE SHORT STORIES

TOUMA AL-KHOURY

Translated by

ADMER GOURYH

First Edition, copyright © 2003 by Gorgias Press LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey.

ISBN 1-931956-32-4

GORGIAS PRESS 46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

Printed and bound simultaneously in the United States of America and Great Britain

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents Acknowledgements Preface – The Ethical World of Touma Al-Khoury The Dream Coat The Thief The Falcon The Bulky Shoes A Stranger at the Door Help! The Striped Shirt It’s Alright, Sir The Price of the Car And Death Cried! A Masterstroke Born Again Status Quo (Recollections)

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v vii ix 1 4 13 22 31 40 47 53 60 67 72 79 90

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The translator wishes to express his appreciation to Alex Byron for his wonderful editorial work. I would also like to thank the many colleagues and friends who helped in the production of this collection, especially Angela Romeo-Molloy and Carole Gregory for their helpful comments on few stories. I am particularly grateful for the attention given to the final manuscript by Peter Denegre and Samira Clough. Special thanks are extended to Touma Al-Khoury for his eagerness to read and critically appraise the manuscript throughout the entire course of its preparation. Finally, I would like to dedicate this translation to my wife, Dalal, and my son, Christopher.

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PREFACE – THE ETHICAL WORLD KHOURY

OF

TOUMA AL-

Touma Al-Khoury, a prolific and versatile creative writer, is well known in Lebanon and the Arab world for his short stories. He has published more than twenty books in Arabic and English. His literary work, in the eyes of Arab critics, has broken new grounds in the art of short fiction, as a result of which, his published stories have received excellent reviews throughout the Arab world. The popularity of his short stories has also attracted the attention of Western scholars and translators. Some of his stories have found their way into English, French, and Spanish. Echoes of Pushkin, Dostoevesky, Chekhov, Maupassant, Poe and others may reverberate through Al-Khoury’s stories, but the intricate fabric always suggests the unique creative vision of their author. Therefore, these stories, not only explore the potentials of different artistic modes and techniques, but they even explode and deconstruct them in their ceaseless quest for a form peculiar to the author's view of the world. Al-Khoury’s short stories exhibit a wide spectrum of literary modes. Some of his stories verge on the tragic. The Falcon, in this collection, is a good example of a narrative tragedy. The author has also experimented with the medieval allegorical mode. And Death Cried, for instance, is a typical allegory in that some of its fictional characters and events are shaped along abstract and biblical lines. A Knock at the Door, exploring the hidden psychological depths of its characters, is a story experimenting with the stream of consciousness as a modern literary form. The author’s satirical view of certain human institutions, such as medicine in Status Quo, and government institutions in The Election Bus, is ix

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typical of satire as a genre that blends a critical attitude with humor and wit. Although Al-Khoury’s narratives are set in Lebanon, as his characters interact with each other, as well as with their physical, social, cultural environment, the particularity of their facade gradually fades away to disclose hidden human qualities, with which any reader can easily identify. In fact, very often the setting, though includes hints to its Lebanese background, is also marginalized so that the reader's attention would be focused on the unfolding of events that have universal dimensions. Thus, these stories, though originate in a totally different culture, they are not bound by history, culture, and politics. Their intrinsic properties take them out of the prison-house of culture into the open realm of human essences. The short story, as a literary genre, is known for the integrity of its text; its structure has intrinsic elements conditioned by the prevailing linguistic, stylistic, and literary traditions, but no one can deny the fact that fictional characters, their actions and reactions are usually modeled after some social and cultural constructs, and their unfolding aims at stressing ethical values. In other words, fictive characters set out from a certain ethical perspective. This, of course, applies to Al-Khoury’s stories, which take the reader out of the intricate web of esthetic structures into the larger world of ethical judgments. His depiction of the individual in relation to himself, to others, and to different existing social, political, cultural institutions reflects his firm belief that the survival and advancement of humanity is contingent upon moral principles. Any close reading of Al-Khoury’s stories reveals that his selection of characters, their choices, and their encounter with each other underlie some ethical presuppositions. The erosion of moral values can be detected in how some individuals are molded by their professions or institutions. Major characters are stripped of their individuality, and their values represent their institutions rather than their own value system. Such stereotypical characters are found in several stories, such as Status Quo, The Election Bus, A Masterstroke, Born Again, to name but a few. These stories introduce characters that are representatives of specific

Preface – The Ethical World of Touma Al-Khoury

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institutions or professions and highlight their destructive role in society. Institutionalized, these characters seek nothing in life but personal and material success, and while reaching their goals they show no feelings or remorse for those who are victimized. The Physician, in Status Quo, is a case in point. His responses to his patients are reduced to a patterned medical routine, totally devoid of any personal feelings or values. Similarly, Zarzour Bey, in The Election Bus, pauses as a politician running for a parliamentary seat. He manipulates his constituents to win the election. In A Masterstroke the individual is pitted against the collective, construction workers. Here, too, Abu Anwar, a contractor, abuses his hardworking laborers in different ways. He forces them to overwork and deprives them of their break, and when it comes to paying them their wages, he always pretends that he is broke. Not only medicine and politics, and business, as institutions, come under attack, but even institutionalized religion. The sly preacher, in Born Again, acts as a mouthpiece of his congregation. Instead of teaching the true value of Christianity, he emphasizes the uniqueness of his church. These individuals are totally subservient to their institutions or professions, and they take no responsibility for their choices. In other stories, such as The Falcon and The Price of the Car, the author draws attention to harsh political conditions leading to the breakup of family ties and values. The repressive Ottoman rule, in The Falcon, prompts a brother to kill his brother, who is said to have been plotting against the Ottoman ruler, but soon after the brother kills the rebel, the same ruler kills the killer himself. Family and communal ties dissolve as a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, a theme underlying The Price of the Car. People live in a state of fear, worried about their present and deprived of any hope for a better future. As the husband and wife plan to flee the country in search for peace, masked gangsters come at night to rob them of their money, but as they defend themselves and kill one of the gangs, they discover that the killed person is the wife’s brother. Certainly the unfolding of events in both stories indicates that the survival of human values is contingent upon stable, open, and just political systems.

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Other stories, in this collection, focus on characters who, though wrapped up with their petty thoughts, some shocking events wake them up to their petty choices, and open their eyes to their past. The hero of The Dream Coat exemplifies such petty choices. Muffled up in an attractive coat, he becomes stultified, restless, and self-conscious—unendurable state that leads him to strip the coat of its attractive facets, thereby restoring his inward emotional balance. As the hero of The Dream Coat strikes a balance between him and the outside world, so does the main character in The Bulky Shoes in relation to his wealthy friend. He assumes that the widening social and economic gap between him and his friend seems to have undermined their long-life friendship. However, the rich friend proves to his poor counterpart that what binds them together are their shared ethical values, not material wealth. The triumph of ethical values is quite evident in It’s Alright, Sir, whose hero denies hurting an innocent man, but later on, though the victim never presses charges against him, the perpetrator develops a guilt feeling, admits his crime, and asks the victim to forgive him. Ethical sensitivity takes on an ideal form in The Striped Shirt, where a father who learns that his missing son can be among some dead people, rushes to the hospital, but as he arrives at the hospital, he finds out that his son is not among the dead ones. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, his face looks soft and sorrowful as he spots a dead young man surrounded by his parents and friend. There he sits with the bereaved family to offer comfort. Obviously, bonding with the bereaved family is indicative that the father considers the loss of that unknown young man a human loss. Irrespective of the literary modes and/or techniques AlKhoury adopts, and apart of the stand he makes against corrupt social, political, or religious institutions, he values the individual who questions himself, opens up to others, and, above all, makes choices inspired by ethical ideals—ideals that deepen his understanding of himself, bring him closer to others, and bring about justice. Admer Gouryh

THE DREAM COAT It was one o’clock in the morning when I heard a loud, repeated knock on the door. Upon opening it, I was surprised to see an old friend of mine who had joined the Allied armies. He was accompanied by a fellow I didn’t recognize. “Welcome, welcome,” I said, stepping aside to let them in. “No, thank you,” answered my friend. “Can I have a word with you right away?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he flaunted something before me like a bullfighter flourishes his cape. “What do you think of this?” By the lamplight streaming through the door, I caught sight of a splendid, crimson-colored coat, one I had often dreamed of wearing. It was the middle of January and the first time I had ever seen snow in Beirut. “It just fits you,” my friend added. He had me try it on over my pajamas, as he weighed the excitement on my face. “Believe me, you were the first person on my mind. However, to make it short, we are in a hurry, and you have to sleep. Would you buy it for ten liras?” “It’s worth fifty,” I said, examining the coat with the joy of a child. “By the way, where did you find it?” “Believe it or not, a foreign officer gave it to me in exchange for a bottle of Arak.” “Or you snatched it off his shoulder when he was dead drunk!” I remarked jokingly, while patting him on the back. I was all too familiar with his wheeling and dealing. 1

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“Regardless of how I got it,” he said, “would you still take it for ten liras? Otherwise, I am going to sell it to the first person who walks by on the street.” I felt it was a real bargain and that I was more entitled to have it than some stranger. It was 1940, during World War II, when Beirut was crawling with Allied soldiers and officers, some French, others British and Australian. Next day, as I wore my new coat and my homburg, I noticed several people gazing at me. I felt proud and overjoyed, only to be startled by two soldiers who walked by, raising their arms in salute… and I myself was about to make a terrible mistake when I tried to salute my own grand image as it was reflected in a shop window. Perhaps people assumed me, a simple seventh-rate clerk, to be an important secret service agent, or a high-ranking officer, who out of carelessness or because of drunkenness had forgotten to wear his military badges. That same night I determined to remove the epaulets that were above the shoulders of my coat; I cut them off with dispatch. However, that too proved to be futile, because people continued to stare at me, and native as well as foreign soldiers continued to salute me right and left. Even high-ranking officers were deceived by my appearance. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I should exchange the leather buttons, which looked like rose buds, for simple, ordinary ones. Thus I stripped them off posthaste, feeling as though I was slicing off pieces of my own flesh. Even this attempt, however, failed to conceal my new identity. The problem was that my tall and slender figure, along with my homburg and the magnificent coat, bestowed a cachet of honor and awe upon me, to the point that local and foreign policemen, whom I had always dreaded and shied away from, would either stand in awe, saluting me, or keep their distance from me. Probably my great fear of policemen and my uneasy feeling about them, coupled with the frown or stern look on my face under my peaked cap baffled them even more.

The Dream Coat

3

In order to live calmly with a clear conscience, I made up my mind to eliminate two noticeable pleats hanging down loosely, like a goat’s ears, from the back of my coat. This time, of course, the alteration was performed by a tailor; nevertheless, when I deliberately tried to hunch up and crawl inside myself, in an attempt to hide my real height, my looks never ceased to be the center of attention wherever I went. Finally, I took my splendid coat and dyed it black. I must admit my heart bled for all the terrible mutilations the coat had been through. However, by so doing I hoped to have done away with all of its menacing effects, and stripped it, once and for all, of all its suspicious military associations. Soon afterward, I recovered my normal, upright, manner of walking and breathed a sigh of relief. To this day, no one has raised his arm in salute.

THE THIEF On the sofa, facing the door of the glassed-in drawing room that overlooked the street, sat Salim al-Maaz (Salim∗, the shepherd) in a way clearly indicating alertness and anticipation. He could see and be seen by everyone. Like someone waiting for an expected guest, Salim sat, dressed in his formal black attire, which he had worn on special occasions ever since he was young. He had put on his tarboosh, twisted the ends of his moustache, and leaned on his cane. He said in his heart that no one would dare unexpectedly break into his house to rob, as had happened two weeks ago when he heard a commotion in his bedroom. There was a whisper, so he fancied that two men were in the dark, toying with his cupboard, but he thought he was only dreaming; therefore, he paid no heed and continued sleeping while mumbling, “Even if they are real thieves, they cannot steal anything, because only God and I know where my wealth is hidden.” No, no one would ever spot his buried money until the Day of Resurrection. However, next day, when he checked his things in the morning, he found that the thieves had stolen his gold pocket watch, worth more than one thousand liras, two hundred dollars in cash, and some silver spoons, all of which had been hidden, with other items, inside an earthenware jar, which had been tossed aside. How did those despicable cowards come upon his wealth, and why did he forget to turn his money into gold? Ever since he was fifteen years old, in pursuance of his father and grandfather’s advice, he had turned all his savings into gold—into Ot∗

Salim means Solomon in Arabic.

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toman and English gold coins—and had stored them in a safe place. The villagers still made fun of him because fifty years ago he had sold a piece of property for thirty thousand Lebanese liras, that, if kept, might have tripled in value. However, those idiots had forgotten that he sold it on condition that he received its value in gold, and the value of gold, as his father and grandfather taught him, would keep rising. Since that awful theft, he had decided to be cautious of thieves, because the watch, which he cherished more than his own life, was a gift from his mother. He was also bent on finding out who, exactly, the thieves were. Were they relatives or strangers? Were they village residents or one of his tenants who was informed by his relatives or neighbors that the old man was a millionaire? When he recalled, he was no longer known as “the shepherd” but “the great millionaire,” his face creased with a broad smile. He then realized that those thieves were undoubtedly from the village, from his family and relatives, because lately he had noticed some of them were hovering like ravens around him, frequently visiting his house, and showing him great affection. After his wife died, more than twenty years ago, they rarely paid him a visit. They would not even stop by to wish him Merry Christmas or Happy New Year. Later, when his health had slightly deteriorated, they began visiting him, individually and collectively. Strangely enough, even after his recovery they didn’t stop visiting him. What was more strange, they began to drop some hints, in his presence, about Mary, their relative. Still later, they spit it out, saying, “Why do not you marry her? It is true she is a spinster, but she is still in her forties. She is a decent woman, able to take care of a man approaching his eightieth year. An old man your age needs a woman like her.” When Mary’s name was mentioned, Salim smiled and twisted his moustache. Why not? David, the prophet, was his age or even older when they brought him a young, beautiful girl the age of his niece. Though old, Salim walked around, cut wood, and did all the household chores. True, he was almost forty years older than Mary, but hot blood still circulated in his veins. Who said he was impotent? Then all of a sudden he was

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agitated when it dawned on him that his wicked relatives were not concerned about him but about their own interests. Those who had not cared for him for a quarter of a century would not suddenly change and worry about him unless they had evil intentions. Yes, their chief objective was to make him marry Mary, a mutual relative, so they could inherit his fortune. Thus, through Mary, his wealth would wind up in their hands after he died. Salim would never let those mean thieves rob him again. Man must not make the same mistake twice. No, he would not even hire a maid, who might spy on him and rob him while serving him. He could prepare his own food. After all, he did not have to worry much about his food, because it was made up of a piece of cheese, a few olives, one or two eggs, one beef steak, a baked potato, and a cup of tea. He had taken care of himself since his youth; he had also tended to his mother who had a chronic illness, and since he had grown up in a certain manner, he would remain the same. Everything was the work of habit. A maid these days would not be content with three hundred liras a month. Was he out of his mind squandering all that money? Let his thievish relatives be sure he would not be deceived by them. He was more aware of his needs than any of them. Thus he was going to wait until the identity of the culprits was revealed and they were caught with their fingers in the till, and then he would slander them throughout the entire village. He would never forgive those cowards who betrayed an old man and robbed him while he was in his own house. Salim decided to stay wakeful day and night. His schedule included taking a nap during the day. Someone his age did not need more than three or four hours of sleep daily. During the day, he would take a nap while sitting on the sofa facing the door that overlooked the street. At night, he would stay up on the sofa in his full formal attire. Woe unto him who allowed his despicable self to be tempted to slip into Salim’s house to steal. He would smash his head with his cane until his brains were blown all over the room. In the past, if he had thrown a stone at a billy goat, he would have killed it on the spot. His powerful forearm, which was able to lift an ax and break logs, could still

The Thief

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defeat the toughest person in the village. From now on he would be vigilant. Today a wonderful thought came to him, so he woke up and jumped off the bed in which he had remained more than a month and because of which his neighbors thought he was about to die. All of those neighbors would be disappointed when they found out that he was in control of his body and senses, and if they had their doubts, let them try to rob him again. He was able to walk, run, and ride his bicycle as he had done in the past; he could even jump over the table lying before him. Boiling with rage and driven by hatred for his neighbors, Salim was about to jump over the table on which lay a cigarette box, a pipe, a cup of tea, and other things, but reconsidered the matter, laughing at himself. He then sat down alertly, anticipating something. After twisting the ends of his moustache, he loaded the pipe he had abandoned during his illness, lit it, and took a full puff. He coughed, and his eyes welled with tears; throwing the pipe away with a couple of curses, he pledged he would quit smoking for the rest of his life, as his doctor had suggested. Last winter was very cold and many roads were blocked by deep snow. The snow kept falling to the point that Salim thought it would never stop. Therefore, he had preferred to stay in bed and remain there. Had it not been for his neighbor Mona, who unexpectedly came upon him, he would have died of cold and hunger. She took care of him, supplied him with tea, cookies, meat soup, eggs, and honey until he regained consciousness. He did pretty well this winter because he had laid in stocks of food—meat, eggs, flour, oil, rice, sugar, and canned food, without which, and without help from his neighbor, he could have perished. His neighbor was right; he should not have stayed in bed so long. Later on, he had left the lights on day and night, not worried, even if the electricity bill was staggering. After all, the bill, though sky-high, wouldn’t match the value of what the thieves had stolen, or what they still planned to steal, in the event he fell asleep and they slipped into his house. This time they couldn’t deceive him, because even if he took a nap, he would be leaning on his cane, and those walking in the streets

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would think he was like a fox, just pretending to be asleep. Thus, no one would ever dare to break into his house. Ever since he was a kid tending his father’s sheep, he had gotten into the habit of taking a nap while sitting, and now, though aged, he did not mind doing it. Damn it! How come I didn’t take any precautions in the past to keep the thieves from robbing my house? Anyway, what’s past is past. The important thing was not to make the same mistake twice. No, from now on he would never sleep for more than three hours a day. He who would give in to sleep might confuse his sleep with his death and others might not know the difference either. Giving in to sleep meant giving up the will to live, and thereby abandoning all he owned—his money, buildings, real estate, and the big orchard. Oh, his orchard alone was estimated at more than one million liras, and it was loaded with apples, peaches, figs, grapes, and so on. He was unaware that, because of his frailty and illness, his orchard had already turned into a wasteland and even the trees had dried up. Probably the thieves, too, were now roaming freely through it. Going up the road leading to his orchard was quite taxing, for one would get out of breath and become exhausted. In the past, when he was young, going up the road was a cup of tea for him. For more than seventy years, he climbed that steep road on his way to the orchard, whose trees, fruit, and fountains were swaying gently to honor his arrival. However, most likely even the kids and shepherds were now trying to rob him. At least they were not able to steal as long as his orchard was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence standing more than two meters high above the ground. No thieves would ever be able to carry a basket of fruit through its gate because the key for the sturdy lock was in his pocket with the rest of his keys, he thought. However, unbeknownst to him, even this fence had been stolen a long time ago and was already installed around the orchard of someone else to prevent thefts there. Thrusting his hand into his pocket to make sure he had the keys, Salim laughed delightedly upon hearing them jiggle. After all, even if it had occurred to someone to climb the fence, the number of grapes and figs he could steal would not exceed a

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tiny basket, and even that basket could not be slipped through the fence; he would have to toss it over the fence, but it would scatter over the ground, or the fruit would be trampled by the thief because of his anxiety, not to mention the likelihood of his rear end getting entangled in the barbed wire. The scene of the thief, his pants torn off, his hands and legs bleeding, the stolen fruit crushed under his feet, made Salim burst into loud laughter. Then he muttered, smilingly and proudly—“My dear thief, I have carefully calculated everything. Don’t you know that illgotten gains never last long?” Installing a barbed-wire fence and a sturdy gate around his orchard set Salim’s mind at rest. If he had not done everything since he was kid so carefully, professionally, logically and wisely, he would never have developed from an obscure shepherd into a well-known millionaire. His orchard measured more than five thousand square meters. Two years ago, when he was offered seventy liras per square meter, he had frowned at the offer sarcastically. Then he heard the buyers whispering behind his back—“Who will inherit his wealth after his death?” Those lunatics didn’t understand that a man’s life span was not determined by his age at any given time. Salim had already walked in funeral processions of dead children, young men, and adults from his village. He, however, was like the mount of Sannin in challenging death—nothing could shake the mountain. Man’s end is decided by God. Who expected Faris, Salim’s cousin, who was thirty years younger than he, to pass away before him? Who knows, probably poor Faris had also aspired to inherit Salim’s wealth. “May God forgive him,” thought the old fellow. God, however, would never forgive some of his relatives who were thieves, because they used to wait for an opportunity to rob him. Hadn’t they robbed him while he was still alive? God would bury them, one after the other… would not let them delight in his stolen money again… would chop their hands off if they ever tried to rob him again… would smash their heads with this cane. If someone had walked past Salim at that very moment, an angry look would have been seen on his face, a thick, swelling

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vein on his left temple, brandishing his cane in the air, like a madman threatening some imaginary opponent. Then, upon putting down his stick and twisting his moustache, Salim thanked God for his good health, for his appetite, for his ability to walk, though slowly. Even his memory had not betrayed him yet, though sometimes he was absent-minded, forgetting the whereabouts of his pipe. But who was not inclined to forget? His wife, God bless her soul, would run from one room to another looking for the broom she was holding in her very hand, and when she became aware of it, she would burst into laughter until she almost lost consciousness. Only the aftermath of winter scared him, especially the ominous month of February. Every year, damned February dragged two or three men of his generation to their graves. During this month he had to snuggle down in bed to keep his shivering bones warm. He was, however, worried that he might give in to sleep and deprive himself of food and drink for days, as he did last winter. He was lucky, last time, that his neighbor had awakened, warning him to be careful not to give in to sleep, to keep moving, to walk around, to visit this friend or that one. It is true he has to move; motion is health and blessing; he should keep walking; walking vigorously keeps the entire body lively, even if it is done aimlessly. By walking, the body perspires and renews itself. God meant no harm to Adam but compassion and mercy when he said: “By the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread, because an active body never rusts.” After all, he who walks tires; he who saves eats, drinks, and lives. Without walking down the streets shopping, one cannot spot and remember what one needs to buy. Several times in the past he had forgotten that he was out of bread, very short on cheese and olives, and if he had not walked past Khalil’s store and seen the bread in the window, he would not have remembered to buy it. He then recalled his neighbor telling him, “Take care not to give in to sleep, Salim. You have so far managed to stay alert and held out through hard times, so keep on going. Your life today is invaluable. As the saying goes: You’re worth what you own.” Today I have more than one million liras, so I am worth more than all of those evil relatives who try to rob me. One mil-

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lion liras is not something to frown on; it can bring back my youth. Therefore, care for your life as you care for your money. Care for your money as you care for your life. You need to have the will to live in order to stay alive. Don’t ever grow feeble, helpless, and, above all, don’t give in to sleep. Keep continuously awake, cautious, and alert. He kept on repeating the word “continuously” to his heart… until he felt his mind and tongue were growing feeble; he even fancied that he heard someone asking him—“Until when can you continue, Salim? Does not everything have an end?” He was deeply hurt that his life would come to end like the rest, like his father’s, grandfather’s, and many of his acquaintances, and that his wealth would be left behind. He was even more hurt when he realized that his wealth would be left to others, probably to his family and relatives. He spat at the notion of death and sighed—yes, time is a wheel, and the wheel of time loomed before his eyes huge, roaring, and spinning, putting a merciless end to people’s lives, ever since mankind has existed. The wheel of time reminded him of the wheels of his red bicycle, which, as a little boy, he used to ride, zooming through the streets of his village and laughing at the children and the elderly who stepped hastily aside to allow him to pass. Salim envisaged himself on his bicycle going round and round… and then his head began spinning along with the spinning wheels of the bicycle… relishing the days of his boyhood. He slept through the spinning of the bicycle’s wheels and that of the fickle wheel of time… and sank into a deeper sleep. Once more, another thief, of whom he was unmindful and never took precautions against, had slipped into his house. Like King Solomon, who remained seated on his throne while dead, leaning on his scepter,∗ Salim’s body remained on the chair for a long time, with his head leaning on his cane.

∗

Arabic legends mention King Solomon’s death and how he used to punish genies and demons by keeping them trapped in bottles and thrown into the depths of the ocean. Once aware of Solomon’s death, those genies and demons managed to set themselves free and spread evil in the world.

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When a strange, suspicious smell reached his neighbor’s nose, she howled and wailed, rallying the entire village to his premises. A quarter of a century has elapsed since Salim’s death. To this day, no one from the village has found Salim’s hidden wealth. They have searched every inch of his orchard, stripped the tiles off his house, bulldozed the hill where he tended his sheep when he was young, removing every rock, yet have not found a trace of his wealth. Only God knows its whereabouts, and no one shall ever find it until the Day of Resurrection.

THE FALCON His name was Namir∗ but he was nicknamed “Falcon,” because he used to hide in high, rugged hills and was as quick and alert as a falcon in surprising and pouncing on his prey. One day he was downtown, disguised as a soldier who wined and dined with the emir’s soldiers; the next day he exchanged fire with them through the village’s alleys or from his hideout behind some cliffs, killing some and wounding others. Namir was more familiar with the caves and dens of the mountains than even wild animals and birds of prey were. Since the day the emir issued a warrant for his arrest, more than two years ago, when Namir rose against the emir in opposition to his oppression and tyranny, desolated, forlorn regions had become his shelter, and the mountain peaks his wide world. There were conflicting views of Namir. For some people he was the Devil’s disciple and worthy of being hanged; for others, he was a highwayman who robbed and killed mercilessly. However, for still others he was a hero who took with one hand to give with the other, robbing swindlers and feudal lords of their money to lavish it on the poor and needy. Thus the falcon had become the talk of the town. Though there weren’t then any newspapers in the country to report his daring exploits, the news in no time reached the mountain people, from north to south, from the most remote regions to the coast. The emir felt uneasy about Namir. In fact, what worried and annoyed him most was the fact that if the common man realized that the emir, who was feared most, failed to capture ∗

Namir in Arabic means a tiger.

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Namir, then this outlaw could become a legendary figure in the eyes of all people. Therefore, an army, huge enough to seize an entire country, was ordered to chase him. The emir also sent out some spies to peer around and keep a close watch on his activities and whereabouts, whether in woods or on mountain trails. He also offered a tempting and generous reward to those who captured Namir, either dead or alive. However, Namir was always able to disappear from sight and vanish like a ghost. Then somebody came to the emir, saying, “Nothing blunts steel but steel, Lord. Hanash∗ is the only one able to bring you Namir. He is of the same caliber, yet even more daring.” The story is set in Lebanon when it was an Ottoman protectorate. The emir jumped to his feet, inquiring, “And who is Hanash? Where does he live? I’m certainly going to get hold of him even if he is at the other end of the world.” “He’s at your beck and call, Lord. He’s one of your soldiers, and a father of a unique son. He’s Namir’s brother.” In no time there stood before the emir a tiny, skinny soldier whose face was pale and whose long neck was topped with a head very much like that of a snake. And right beneath his closely woven, pitch-black eyebrows sparkled two wolfish eyes. The emir confronted him with a question he seemed to be pondering. “What does he who eats the sultan’s bread do?”** “He kills with his sword, my Lord,” Hanash answered quickly, with the excitement of a little pupil who came upon an answer for his teacher’s question. He had hardly finished answering when he sensed the hidden evil behind the emir’s question. But before Hanash got his breath back, he was bombarded with another question. “He even cuts off his brother’s neck, isn’t that so, Hanash?” ∗

Hanash in Arabic denotes a snake. “He who eats the sultan’s bread kills with his sword,” as the Arabic saying goes. **

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The emir stared at him with a gaze bent on pricking his conscience. Hanash felt restless in the trap set by the emir. Noticing that Hanash had turned pale and his moustache was trembling on his tightened lip, the emir yelled at him, almost losing his temper and self-respect. “You haven’t answered me, you coward!” “He cuts off even his brother’s neck… my Lord,” mumbled Hanash. The emir straightened himself in his seat. His long beard was still shaking over his chest because of his excessive irritation, as he added, “Within two days you must fetch me the head of your brother. I have been informed that he’s now in Nab’ alhajal. You will be accompanied by ten brave men. You may leave now.” As Hanash turned around to leave, raising his arm in salute, the emir surprised him with a statement that would have made a man who lacked Hanash’s composure and willpower collapse at once, because the emir’s words always said very little directly, but a great deal by implication. “For quite a long time I have been thinking of your only son. I’m going to make him one of my guards if he remains obedient like you.” Hanash was aware that his brother was an outlaw but didn’t know his exact offense because of the conflicting and controversial rumors about him. He was also well aware that the emir had been after Namir for quite a long time and that Namir would be hanged once he was arrested. But it never crossed Hanash’s mind that one day he would be the obedient tool for executing his brother. On the way home, he inquired, “Why did the emir choose me, of all people, to kill my brother? Was it because others tried and failed?” He then came to realize that he, as a soldier in the emir’s army, could do nothing but submit to his master’s will, and his brother, as a fugitive from justice, must be stopped and punished, even if it were at his hands. Splendid, awesome, and towering was the mountain, and as one got closer, determined to climb, it loomed larger. In a green valley at the foot of the mountain, enclosed by huge rocks called “Ain al-hajel,” Namir paced up and down a long, shaded path,

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under a grapevine within his reach. Opposite him, within its upper reaches, was a hawk hovering like an evil omen. He wished the hawk would fly a bit toward him, so that he could kill it. At that moment , before noon, he asked himself, “Why were there always some sad moments in a man’s life that were inexplicable, and no matter how hard he tried to ward them off, it was all to no avail? Why was there always something paving the way for an impending tragedy?” The murmur of the stream was unusually sad today, and the twitter of the nightingale was a ceaseless moan. Like someone who was never misled by his intuition, Namir felt, at that moment, an imminent evil was lying in wait for him, sending a shiver down his spine. He paced back and forth in an effort to drive away that unforeseen distress, while staring at bunches of blood-red grapes hanging over his head. Though summer was drawing to a close, its sweltering heat was still felt. Before noontime the road that led to the rising hill was redolent with the scent of roses, and blurred with dust that rose from the galloping horses… and a song that would wring any human heart reverberated across the valley. Hanash felt worthless and feeble, because the emir was able, at any time, to crush him like a fly. He recalled for the twentieth time the emir’s heartening and disheartening words, “For a long time I have been thinking of your only son; I will make him one of my bodyguards if he remains obedient like you.” Hanash wondered whether, if he failed to bring his brother’s head, that would mean his only son was in jeopardy? And once the emir said something, nothing would stop him from carrying it out. Fantasizing about the emir flying into a rage and killing his only son, Hanash shivered with terror, spurring and whipping his horse fiercely. The horse strained to climb the rugged hill, but as it reached the top, it loped leisurely and was ignored by Hanash, who had given in again to his worries. Cheering himself up with the same words he had been repeating since he set out with his bodyguards to chase his brother, he tilted his head and succumbed to whatever was destined by fate, saying, “Go ahead, Hanash, don’t worry, don’t give up, keep going, pity no one and

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have no mercy on anyone but yourself. If you don’t kill your brother, the emir will certainly kill you along with your son. It’s destined by fate and by the emir’s will, and both are unavoidable. I am not the first man to kill his brother, nor the last one to surrender to the emir’s orders and fate. Then he had a sudden realization, and said to himself, “Anyway, your brother is not one of those who would surrender easily and quickly, so don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. For all you know, your brother may kill you and save you from the emir and remorse.” Before climbing the wooded hill that led to the hiding place of his brother, Hanash rested his horse and let his eyes wander about “Nab’ al-hajel,” which looked like an eagle whose dark shadow had been painted all over the barren mountain. The eagle reminded him of the “falcon,” his brother’s nickname, so he bowed his head in shame. Deep down, however, he envied his brother’s impending death, as he had always envied his grace and virility. Then he looked up again, examining and contemplating the place. It might take him more than an hour to get up there. As he took a deep breath, the hardship of climbing the rugged hill reminded Hanash, once more, of the difficult mission he had undertaken, and he was overwhelmed and in anguish over his need to kill his brother, irrespective of his crime. Very few men before him had committed such a repugnant act, and in his heart he cursed himself. He then mounted his horse, spurred it, and went on climbing the hill, surrounded by his bodyguards, whose horses and shiny armor disturbed the stillness of the wood and scared off its birds and beasts. Hanash lifted his heavy head like someone trying to take a burden off his back. No sooner had he wiped off his sweatsoaked forehead than he found himself in Nabe’ al-hajel, confronted by his brother, who was under the grapevine with gun in hand, as if waiting for him. Hanash didn’t, however, pale at the unexpected sight of his brother. On the contrary, he calmly got off his horse and tied it to a nearby tree. He then walked toward his brother, and stood a few feet from him, leaning against the trunk of a tree.

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Thus the two brothers met, face to face, after being separated from each other for at least two years and a half. Namir, dressed in a white silk robe, was under the grapevine, and the sudden arrival of his brother left him with only the opportunity of unfolding the sleeve of his right hand, in which he was holding his gun, while his left hand was resting on his thin waist. He was bareheaded, and a few locks of his raven hair hung down over his shoulders, enhancing the glow of his dark face; his waist was encircled with a golden belt, and he seemed to Hanash to be tall enough to touch the top of the grapevine with his head. In contrast, Hanash was short, with a pale face. Hanash clutched at the tree to catch his breath. He stood that way for a while, staring at Namir, dazzled and mesmerized by his brother’s manhood, as if he had seen him for the first time. And because he was in a hurry and still sweating and breathing heavily, the conversation between Hanash and his brother was quite brief. Both faced each other, eyeball to eyeball, until Namir broke the silence. “Welcome, Hanash.” “Hello, Namir.” “We haven’t seen each other for two years, have we?” “True, even longer.” “So, you’re here to kill me, and you haven’t even had the decency to greet me first?” “No, because, first and foremost, I didn’t want to be like Judas.” “Do you think Cain was better than Judas was? Hanash, have you forgotten that blood is thicker than water?” “And have you ever considered being more than a highwayman, robbing people of their money and rebelling against the highest authority? “You say this to justify your intentions.” “I’m only doing my duty.” “Killing your own brother is a duty?” “If he broke the law as you did.” “Who appointed you to be the advocate of the law, and when?”

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“You don’t seem to understand what it means to be a soldier in the emir’s army and under the sovereignty of the Ottomans.” “And do you understand what it means to be the son of my father and mother—my brother?” “As long as you realized I was coming to kill you, why didn’t you go ahead and kill me? I know you’re a crack shot.” “If I intended to shoot you, I wouldn’t have missed.” At this point, and after catching his breath, Hanash uttered a cry that was heard by his guards and echoed in the valley. “Why didn’t you just run away?” Calmed and composed, Namir replied, as he let his eyes wander around. “I could have made my escape even if I were ringed with the emir’s whole army. It was also easy for me to surprise each and every one of your guards, but probably the yearning of the victim for the victimizer made me wait for your arrival.” After laying his gun aside, Namir walked toward his brother, patted him on the back, and whispered, “Since I saw you on the plateau heading toward me, and even before catching sight of your ten men sneaking up on me like jackals, I have known your intention.” Then he stepped back a little. “And the rustle of the leaves through which you slipped gave me a fright, as if I had heard the hiss of a snake.” Pulling himself together, Namir burst into laughter and patted his brother on the back. “I was just joking.” However, it didn’t take long before Namir backed off cautiously, as if waylaid by a snake. He then resumed talking to his brother without taking his eyes off him and the gun. “From what soil were the two of us molded? Our mother was no whore.” “Nor was our father a criminal like you, Namir. But my only son,” he gasped for breath, like someone about to cry, “was born after five years, and I waited five more years to make sure that he was a legitimate heir. Otherwise, I would have killed him, his mother, and myself. However, it’s inevitable that the emir will kill him if I don’t kill…”

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“Now I understand everything!” Namir laughed sarcastically, “If you don’t kill me…” “But you don’t understand the emir.” “I understand him, and today I came to know you and him better. But take your time, Brother! At least, before we part as brothers, don’t you think we should have the last supper together?” There was a moment of silence, baffling to both, but then Hanash pointed with the muzzle of his gun to the grapevine, and said, ominously, “That red bunch of grapes, right above your head, would be enough.” Staring at his brother’s face for a moment as if he had seen through his scheme, Namir’s rosy face turned pale like his brother’s. Nevertheless, without uttering a word or showing any sign of hesitation, he complied with his brother’s wish. But, he had hardly turned around and got hold of a bunch of grapes when his brother fired a shot at him. Namir fell to the ground, and his hand, smeared with blood was still holding the red grapes. As though intoxicated by the smell of gunpowder, the sound of the shot, and the sight of bloodshed, Hanash was destitute of human feeling. He grabbed his dagger with his right hand, pulled Namir’s thick, long hair up with his left hand, and chopped off his head as if he were killing a lamb; he then stuffed the head into his saddlebag and fired another shot in the air to assure his men that the mission was accomplished. When Hanash came down the slope, his men gathered around him in silence, their heads bowed as if overwhelmed by wonder and awe. They observed, as he approached them, the saddlebag swelled by the head of Namir. And while escorting him, they turned their heads away, feeling too horrified to meet each other’s gaze, since in their hearts they realized that each one of them could be a murderer of his own brother. Reaching a hill, Hanash’s horse headed for a nearby pond whose water had formed a large trough, and on the calm surface of which danced patches of sunlight that had slipped through the leaves of the willow trees. As the horse went through the shallow pond, trying to drink from the deeper and clearer water,

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Hanash was glum and sullen, staring out into space. No sooner had the horse bent its head to lap some fresh water, than a gush of warm blood leaked out of the soaked saddlebag and disturbed the surface of the water. Falling back frightened, the horse neighed and threw its front feet in the air, and Hanash, aware of the problem, began to kick and whip the horse, trying to force it to drink, but in vain. The horse grew more obstinate, and continued neighing. It then backed out of the trough and broke furiously and aimlessly into a gallop, as though it felt the heat of the chopped head pressing against its chest; the horse wished to fly and throw itself and its rider into the deep valley to the left. Hanash, however, kept whipping and kicking it while cursing loudly his brother, mother, father, and even the emir. Next day, as was his custom, the emir deposited the carefully salted heads of Namir and Hanash inside a sack, placed a royal seal on it, and sent it out to Constantinople, as a token of his obedience and loyalty to the Ottoman sultan.

THE BULKY SHOES Every morning the two friends would carry their shoeshine boxes under their arms and head toward the west suburb of the city, where they would work all day long. Sometimes they set up their boxes right beside each other; other times they would be on the other side of the street from each other. At night both would return home all smiles, delighted with the day’s earnings. Just looking at one was enough to be reminded immediately of the other, despite their age difference. Shukry was ten years older than Sudqy, but this disparity didn’t keep them from having similar thoughts, inclinations, and even clothes. Sudqy looked short and chubby against Shukry, who was tall and thin, like a palm tree. Perhaps this difference in age and height brought them closer to each other and turned them into intimate friends. Who knows! Isn’t it said that opposites attract? The friendship between Shukry and Sudqy remained solid and untroubled until the return of Shukry’s son, Shafiq, from Kuwait, where he worked as a tile layer in the palaces of the emirs and the rich, making a great deal of money. Upon visiting his father’s place of work, Shafiq was distressed to see his father bending his gray-haired head over a customer’s shoes, totally engrossed in shining them. Not only did he find it unappealing, but he also thought it inappropriate to see an old man like his father cleaning dirty shoes. He wondered why he had not been aware of this before, so he decided to protect his father’s honor at any cost. Shafiq’s initial plan was to spend the money he had saved in five years on furnishing his house in preparation for his marriage of Yasmin, his aunt’s daughter. But he postponed this plan 22

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in favor of buying an imported, used-clothes store for his father, and the store was soon open for business. Before long, Shukry’s living conditions were improved, his son was married, and he was relieved of shoe shining. This, however, never prevented the two friends from exchanging visits or providing each other companionship. Probably Sudqy’s excitement about Shukry’s success was unmatched even by the latter himself. Every morning Sudqy would accompany Shukry on the way to his store, and from there he would head for his own workplace on the outskirts of the city. In the evening he would stop by his friend’s store so that both could walk home together. One night, Sudqy and his wife paid Shukry a visit to congratulate him on purchasing a new television set. Other friends were already there, and the evening gathering dragged on because of comments made by the guests after watching the world news. Some argued for Russian dominance, others for American supremacy. Having failed to reach an agreement on this topic, they touched on the subject of war. One group assumed that the universe is taken care of by Divine Providence, so it can’t be harmed by anyone. Others stressed that a war is just round the corner, and once war breaks out, God forbid, the whole universe will be in flames. As though everyone was worried about their valuables after the destruction of the world, they suddenly shifted the conversation from war and warring factions to representatives and the House of Representatives. With this regard, all agreed that a candidate for the House of Representatives would never hesitate to visit your shack, squat on the floor, and even eat with you, but once he was elected, he would turn his eyes away from you, and not even recognize you. During his campaign he may squander thousands of liras, but after winning the election he will make millions from you and me; nevertheless, we never stop siding with this or that candidate, and we sometimes even kill for them. Then the guests broached the subject of inflation and the spread of unemployment in the country. Finally, the conversation focused on the issue of poverty and wealth.

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“If God loves a person, He bestows wealth and happiness on him, and when God rages at another, He inflicts poverty and misery on him,” someone said. “Folks, God has nothing to do with wealth and poverty. If living conditions were improved, everybody would be just fine,” another one argued. As the guest who intruded God into the conversation tried to talk again, he was interrupted by Shukry, “Life is nothing but work and struggle. Don’t miscalculate. The wise man is known for his wisdom.” “You’re wrong, Shukry. Someone may toil all his life in vain; another may not worry and work at all, yet, in a twinkling of an eye, he becomes one of the rich. Life, in brief, is luck… fate and chance,” Sudqy reacted. The guests split into two camps, one supporting Shukry, the other siding with Sudqy. “I know one thing; he who is lazy never succeeds. God helps those that help themselves, but God never helps those who sit idly by,” Shukry remarked. Sudqy was fuming with rage as though Shukry’s words were targeted at him. “Do you mean I haven’t turned into a businessman, like you, because of being lazy? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Sudqy’s words made the guests roar with laughter until their eyes flooded with tears. “I swear to God, I didn’t mean that, my friend,” Shukry mumbled confusedly. “Yes, you certainly meant it,” Sudqy interrupted angrily. Without waiting for an answer, he stood up and took his wife’s arm. “Let’s leave. Businessmen don’t enjoy the company of shoeshiners.” The guests failed to calm Sudqy’s fury, and although they tried to stop him from leaving because it was raining, he elbowed them out of the way and stormed out of the room, muttering, “Good heavens! Mr. Shukry has forgotten the nick that

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the shoeshine box cut in his side. No problem; God is great. Today thee, tomorrow me.” After that, the neighbors never saw the two former friends walking together. Even those who had been envious of their friendship were moved by the breach between them, not to mention the neighborhood’s elderly dog, who whined whenever he caught sight of Sudqy shouldering his rattling shoeshine box and walking alone in the street. Their friends made every conceivable effort to settle their differences, but it was all to no avail. “No, I swear to God, I was never once envious of his wealth or his new business, but to be insulted and maligned by him in front of people and in his own house; I would never forgive him even if I were about to die,” Sudqy began to repeat. “God is my witness, I never meant to hurt him. Probably he began to hate me as soon as I opened the store. May God fight envy. It’s true that man’s mind changes with his changing conditions. Who knows? I probably wronged him unintentionally. May God forgive me my misgivings.” Thus Shukry responded to his friend’s charges. Two years went by and the two friends remained apart, shunning each other; they used to be together, but now they didn’t even know where to spend their free time, how to stay up late, and with whom to have fun. Lasting friendship is something rare and precious, and difficult to form overnight, and for someone who has passed his fiftieth year, making new friends is not an easy matter. Therefore, both Shukry and Sudqy withdrew into themselves, and their lovely, bright smiles, which had filled their enemies with hatred and envy, faded away. It was New Year’s Day when Sudqy left home, with his back slanted to the side of the shoeshine box he was carrying. On his way to the open square, the elderly dog barked at him. Sudqy bared his teeth and mumbled, “This dog must be stupid. How come he doesn’t recognize me any more?” As he approached the open square, he thought the man who was walking with a cane ahead of him was Shukry, his friend. He suddenly broke into a run and swept past him in a

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cold and indifferent manner just to further spite him. Deep down, however, he wished he could lay his box on the ground, run to hug his friend, and wish him a Happy New Year. He still couldn’t understand why on that day he was overcome with a longing to see him. A week had already gone by without having caught sight of him. The mere thought that Shukry might not be feeling well bothered him, despite their differences. It was always refreshing to have a look at his friend, even if it was from a distance. No one knows whether Shukry ever inquired after Sudqy since he had become a businessman. How simple and gentlehearted Sudqy is! If he were not so decent and naive, he wouldn’t have stayed poor. His ceaseless worries about Shukry’s well-being have contributed not only to his declining health and loss of weight, but also to failing eyesight, which made him mistake another man for his friend. Settled sluggishly in his chair, Sudqy felt the past two years had aged him noticeably, as if he had been separated from his friend for twenty years. Sudqy began to shine the shoes of customers who flocked to him from everywhere. Suddenly a wave of despair swept over him, making him feel powerless to meet the customers’ demands. For the first time in his life he was overwhelmed by a flood of dirty shoes, as if all of Shukry’s former customers had headed for his place. During the day, new customers mingled with his regulars, and he was supposed to serve all. He shined and shined with the same care and skill he’d been known for, showing no preference to any particular customer or stranger. Even in shining shoes he never cheated; it was his nature not to cheat. Good work ran in his blood, yet Shukry had claimed his friend stayed poor because of carelessness and laziness. Every time he recalled how he was insulted by his friend, his blood boiled and he flew into a rage. Then he determinedly bent over a pair of bulky shoes, trying to shine them thoroughly. However, soon his rage subsided, and he felt his arms were tired. Up until now he had polished more than twenty pairs. Usually, during holidays, he was so busy that he couldn’t even

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raise his head. His hands were almost numb and his back, because of the constant bending, was about to break. It was true that he made more money now, but when he went home at night, he had no appetite, and lay in bed exhausted, his limbs stiff as wood. These bulky shoes he was now shining remind him of Shukry’s. His friend was known in the neighborhood for his immense feet. He couldn’t wear any other shoes but those that were quite wide and long. He wished he could jokingly ask the customer to double his payment, for his shoes were almost twice the size of regular ones. However, his weariness kept him from jesting. It’s natural he thought, to wear comfortable shoes, because the pain of corns and teeth is quite alike, and one’s feet, like one’s nose, need to breathe. The odd thing about the owner of these bulky shoes was that, like Shukry, he had his socks held up to his knees with garters. The bulky shoes brought back old yearnings and happy memories, so he patiently began to shine them, as if they were his friend’s. “My goodness! How come people are so identical! These hairy, huge legs look like those of Shukry. Do people who have similar tastes have similar shapes?” He was tempted to lift his head and look at the owner of the bulky shoes, whose lower body was very much like his friend’s. He thought he would probably find his upper body also similar to that of Shukry. Suddenly the smiling face, which bore lines of fatigue, stiffened and looked like a mask of dimples and wrinkles, because the customer bending over him was Shukry himself, with his round head and bulky shoes. But what was he doing here, and how dare he set his feet on my shoeshine box? How dare he be so rude? It’s an injury to my pride! Has he come on a holiday to show off that he is a well-known gentleman and I am nothing but a shoeshiner? No way! Anything can be tolerated but this. Irritably, Sudqy shoved away Shukry’s shoes, but his friend laughed, putting them back where they were. This time Sudqy wrenched his box from under his friend’s feet and scolded him in such a sarcastic way that all the customers began to laugh.

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“You, sir, go get your shoes shined somewhere else. I’m not your slave!” “Happy New Year, Sudqy!” “Don’t wish me anything. I don’t know you from Adam!” “Alright, but do me a favor. Please shine the other shoe.” “I’ll never lower myself to do that. How dare you ask me to shine your shoes?” When Sudqy got to his feet and picked up his shoeshine box, the customers intervened to try to reconcile the two friends, but to no avail. Sudqy was so cross and irrational that he snatched his box back out of their hands and forced his way through the crowd, cursing everyone left and right. Then he moved away from the customers and sat on his chair. Soon after, a group of customers gathered around Sudqy. He kept mumbling as he shined the shoes of the new customers. “The devil insults me in his house and in front of his guests. Then two years later, he wants me to shine his shoes in public, in the presence of friends and strangers. I’ll get him for that!” “Mr., are you shining my shoes, or what? Look, you have polished my pants!” “I’m sorry, Sir. I have so much on my mind.” As he resumed shining the shoes, he fell deep into thought again; however, this time he reproved himself—“the truth is, your rudeness went too far, Sudqy. An hour ago, you ran down the street to catch sight of Shukry, and you had such a longing to see him that you confused several passersby with him. Now that he came here of his own accord, apologizing and offering you his shoes to shine as a token of good will and affection, you turned him down harshly and drove him away, acting like a thug. You certainly seem to be impolite, Sudqy. You’re a beast, beast, beast!” “What did you say, Mr.?” said the customer. “Are you insulting me?!” The customer who was reading a newspaper, as Sudqy was shining his shoes, thought the word “beast” was addressed to him. “God forbid, Sir. I’m only talking to myself.”

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“Talk as much as you want, but it’s time that you finish shining my shoes. You’ve already spent an hour on one shoe.” Complying with the customer’s demand, he began to shine quickly, but never ceased being carried away with his daydreaming. As Sudqy was admonishing himself for being rude to his old friend, a customer who heard him stopped by and bent over him. Sudqy was startled and lifted his head. “What did you say?” “I swear to God, with my own eyes, I saw Shukry wiping away his tears.” “Why?” “You probably hurt his feelings. How much longer will this breach in your friendship last? You didn’t murder his father, nor did he kill your brother. He willingly came asking you to shine his shoes to win back your friendship.” “Where is he now?” “He’s at the grocery store, on the corner.” The customer, whose shoes still weren’t shined, raged at Sudqy without taking his eyes off the newspaper. “Will you please shine my shoes, or…?” Before the customer could finish the thought, Sudqy had already snatched his box from underneath his feet and run away. The customer calmed down, but then uttered a subdued shriek. “Where are you going? Come back; finish shining the other shoe. Hey, you… shoeshiner!” The customer was standing next to a lamppost, waving his hand and newspaper at Sudqy, one of his shoes carefully polished, the other still dirty. He again roared, “Hey, Mr. Shoeshiner, come back and shine my other shoe.” Sudqy was rushing up the road, utterly reckless, his jars of polish rattling inside his box, followed by the man who had informed him how deeply Shukry was hurt. A host of other men from the neighborhood chased after them, anxious to see the rest of the farce. Some of those who didn’t know Sudqy thought he was deranged, because they had seen him twice shining only one shoe for two different customers and then running away. By the time Sudqy arrived at the grocery store, Shukry had already left and was heading for home. Sudqy ran after him,

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huffing and puffing, and when he caught up with him, he stretched out his hand and got hold of Shukry’s shirt. “I swear to God I’m not going to let you go before I shine your shoes.” “There’s no way I’m agreeing to that.” “I’m going to do it.” “No way; you’re not going to do it. Leave me alone, please.” Wrenching his shirt out of Sudqy’s hand, Shukry was about to run away. Meanwhile, Sudqy reacted with a shaky voice and cried, “My friend, please forgive me, I’m guilty.” Seeing Sudqy’s sad, helpless look, Shukry could do nothing but give in. “I’ll permit you to shine my shoes on one condition.” “What is it?” Shukry whispered something in Sudqy’s ear. The neighbors couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the two friends sitting on the corner, face to face, as was their habit. They too gathered round them, filled with joy. Shukry had settled down in Sudqy’s chair, and Sudqy knelt before him, polishing the bulky shoes. Then, a most amazing thing occurred. The two old friends reversed their positions. Now, Sudqy sat up on his chair and Shukry knelt before him and began to shine his shoes.

A STRANGER AT THE DOOR Waiting, this loathsome malady that irritates you quite seriously, keeps you restless and makes you yawn and look pale. I suffered enormously from waiting during the days following my mother’s death. I spent twelve hours a day working in a factory, going to a night school, then walking back and forth between them and the house. In addition, I had to wait deep into the night to open the door for my father the moment he knocked. That night, in contrast to his habit, my father was quite late, so after I was done with my geometry assignments, I started writing a letter to Edgar, my friend, who lived abroad. Trying to avoid being overcome by a nagging sleep, I deliberately wrote an extended letter. In mythology, a giant might be trapped in a bottle, or a genie in the fist of a holy man, but keeping a handsome, wealthy young man like Edgar locked up in marriage or in one country is inconceivable. He was a confirmed bachelor, roaming the capitals of the world. Edgar would have breakfast in London and dinner in Paris, chasing beautiful women wherever they were, driven by his youth, charm, and boundless wealth. I came to know Edgar when he inherited a great wealth, estimated at millions of dollars, from his uncle who had died abroad. I still, however, don’t understand why on that particular night I vented my anger on him for staying a bachelor! Probably it was my father’s unusual lateness that had provoked me, and instead of taking it out on him, I shifted it to my friend. It was about one o’clock in the morning when I finished writing the letter. There it was in my hand; I was reading it for 31

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the third time, but my father still hadn’t returned. Throwing the letter on the table, I turned to the window and leaned over the sill, pressing my hot forehead against the bars, which were wet with rain. I was trying with weary eyes to penetrate the pitchblack night, in the hope that I could catch a glimpse of the arriving ghost of my father. I stayed like that for a while, carefully watching and listening to every passerby, to every motion or low sound coming from outside. The narrow alley that stretched out before me was lifeless and silent, except for some drizzle falling sadly and monotonously on the black flagstones of the alley, whose end was swallowed up in the darkness of night. All the stores were closed. For fear of staying in that hopeless state and falling asleep while glued to the window, I kept it open and continued pacing the room back and forth, over and over again. Everything around me lapsed into silence. The wind died out, the rain almost ceased, and the neighborhood dogs had barked themselves hoarse and lay shivering with cold in a corner. Even the words of my letter ceased to dance before my eyes or mean anything whenever I approached and took a glance at it. Nothing broke the silence of night save the exchanged whistle of a night patrol every now and then. Sitting sluggishly on the edge of my bed, I held my head with my hands, thinking about my father’s lateness. My father had never felt uneasy about the night and its horror; he always wore a hat, bundled up in a thick coat, and kept a pistol under his vest—a pistol from which he had not been lately parted. Speaking of the pistol, I still don’t understand what made him carry it all this week. Why was he keeping it under his pillow whenever he went to bed? Was he expecting some specter to slip into his room to kill him while he was dreaming? Who, by the way, was my father’s enemy? I was probably the last one to know his acquaintances. At any rate, why didn’t I go out and look for him or, at least, report the incident to the police? I put my shoes on twice and took them off, and then put them on for the third time without budging from my seat, indulging the hope that he would be back shortly. Why did I

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worry and panic? There was no doubt he was now on his way home. My father was a noted gambler and a first-rate alcoholic. I was quite aware that my mother, a wise and educated woman, had died while in the prime of life grieved and heartsick, deprived of affection and marital rights. Given my father’s boorishness and his misbehavior toward my mother, I didn’t understand why I was strongly attached to him. It was an attachment that made me fret and even fall ill if he had a headache. Probably it could be attributed to the fact that I looked like him and I bragged about it, because my father was a paradigm of charm and physical strength in the neighborhood. Or maybe I felt for him because he was miserable and restless, but I had no adequate explanation for all of that. My attachment to my father could be attributed to all the above reasons and others that consolidate the ties between father and son. As for my mother, she was in the hereafter, and my father was left with nothing save a memory of his fading youth and symptoms of aging that he cured with dyes and aspirin. How awful it was to see him wretched, but here I was, for the first time, harboring a grudge against him for being late. My wrist watch indicated that it was exactly two o’clock in the morning, so I turned off the lights and lay on my bed, with my shoes and clothes on, to have a little rest. I felt weary of sitting and standing, but despite my alleged calm, my intuition had told me that it was essential to be alert because something unforeseen was likely to happen that night. How I wished I could let myself go… fall into a deep… deep sleep… without paying my father any attention… even if he smashed the door by knocking… and kicking. Suddenly I heard a knock at the door, so I opened it. I was completely baffled when my eyes fell upon a stranger whom I could not remember having ever seen before. His long face, which looked like a rusty spearhead, had a stern look. Right under his narrow forehead and bushy eyebrows shone two tiny wicked eyes whose cruel and piercing glitter was intermingled with a sort of sarcastic gesture and childlike gentleness. His eyes

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looked like those of a genuine, but criminal child. His clothes, however, like the color of his face, had the color of darkness. Inwardly I said, “Certainly this man must be one of the thugs my father hangs out with.” I was afraid that he was going to break the reprehensible news that I anticipated, so, at once, a shiver went up my spine. As if he realized the restlessness I was experiencing, he said in a hoarse voice that came out of his mouth like a whisper, “Well done! you’re dressed.” “Anything wrong?” “How did you figure it out?” “Figured out what?” “Didn’t you expect this to happen a long time ago?” “I am at a loss. Come on, speak openly. I don’t understand a word of what you’re talking about.” “At any rate, I have come at the right time, and I am glad you have your shoes on. Hurry up, let’s go before it’s too late… Edgar wants you over.” I felt unburdened of a heavy nightmare. “Thank God, my father is all right,” I said inwardly. “Edgar calls me over! To where?” “To his old house. Have you forgotten his house?” “What does he want at this late hour of the night?” “He’s dying.” The word “dying” resounded deep inside me, moved me and reminded me of my mother’s death. “What have you said? Say it again, please.” “I said your friend Edgar is dying. An unknown person has shot him.” These words, which came out through the gaps separating his sawlike sharp teeth, landed on my head like a hail of bullets; I felt a painful headache and said with a lot of effort, “When did he get back from abroad?” “Just two days ago.” “But he didn’t mention that in his letters to me.” “He didn’t tell anyone. He returned in a hurry and didn’t let anyone know. He singled you out for this request.” “He singled me out?”

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“Yes, he did.” It was quite shocking, I said to myself. Why did Edgar want to see me while he was dying? Why did he single me out of all his relatives and friends? Was the bond of feelings and thoughts stronger than that of blood relation? Perhaps he wanted to draw my attention to a document in which he willed some of his huge wealth to me. Upon thinking of the will, my dejected face relaxed, and a wave of tranquillity swept over me; some of it, which welled in my eyes, was noticed by the scrutinizing eyes of the stranger. He nodded and smiled as if he had agreed with the validity of my happy thought. Suddenly I recovered my previous sobriety and frown, and like someone caught red-handed, I tried to hide myself from the looks of witnesses. Then with bewilderment I said to him, “You go first, and I will leave in a little while.” “Make sure you are not late.” The stranger left and was swallowed up by darkness. The style of my friend’s house was classical, a huge, splendid mansion, similar to the crusaders’ castles in our country. It stood sharply and unexpectedly protruded through a wide pine thicket that linked the city with the mountain from the east. From a distance during the day, the red bricks and the tall walls of the mansion appeared to the observer like a ruby island in the midst of a sea of emeralds. However, that particular night the house was so wrapped up in darkness and silence that it looked like a huge grave whose dweller was stretching and yawning after having taken a long nap. The creek that ran along the road leading to my friend’s mansion flowed along deep and radiant. With the flash of lightning and the few glittering stars in the sky, my eyes caught sight of something that resembled human spirits swimming there, human spirits gliding over the water as radiant and clear as the water itself, while their heavy bodies sank to the bottom and settled there, like worn-out clothes. A few shops and gambling clubs still open on the right side of the road, and out of their apertures poured pale lights accompanied with laughs, and occasionally curses. I wished, after

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returning from my friend’s house, I would find my father in one of those places. I felt dispirited as I approached the old house that my friend Edgar had deserted a long time ago. Upon leaving, he had left all his belongings in it and put an old man in charge in return for a little salary. I entered the large reception hall whose suffocating atmosphere was filled with mustiness and humidity. It was quite apparent that the closed windows were never opened and the furniture was covered with an enormous amount of dust. Had it not been for the cold breeze coming from the opposite window, staying there, even for a little while, would have been unbearable. Then I went into my friend’s room, which still was as I used to know it. The radio was to the right of the bed, and the ebony library cabinet, filled with precious books, to the left. The middle of the room was occupied by a table made of cedar wood, upon which newspapers, magazines, and papers were piled up in disorder, and among which I was shocked to find my friend had a huge book of mathematics. Edgar, a tall man as I knew him, was on his bed, covered with sheets. The day I went to the harbor to see him off, people who were standing there hardly reached his shoulders, but tonight his bed looked much longer than him! At once I recalled a giant friend who was the best soccer player at school. He had died from a malignant disease, so his body had shrunk and shriveled. That giant young man had looked like a dwarf in his small coffin, and so did my friend Edgar in his long bed. I sat on a chair next to his bed and regarded him carefully for a while. What a pity, the last ten years had harmed him enormously! His hair had turned totally gray, the bones of his long face also stuck out from under the soft skin, which had acquired the color of dust. He looked so much like someone I had known and liked very much, but uselessly I tried to remember who it had been. Suddenly I recalled a series of faces that I knew from the factory and school, but again my memory failed me and I got irritated. As a result of the excessive effort of

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searching my memory, my forehead was dripping with perspiration. Yes, I remembered. He looked like my father, exactly like my father, who had hollow eyes, cracked teeth, and a large mouth. Then, looking up, my eyes caught sight of a preserved eagle above Edgar’s bed. The eagle had unexpectedly folded its huge wings as if it were about to fly. It looked like this dead bird was my friend’s spirit, and in its turn was about to go away. “Edgar, what happened?” Edgar turned over slightly in his bed and his wide, gray eyelids opened, revealing pupils the size of billiard balls. Then he cried out in pain, “The criminal killed me. The treacherous criminal killed me.” “Who killed you, my dear friend?” (I was about to say, my dear father). “I was playing poker with him. He lost a lot… then claimed that I fell in love with his homely, flat-nosed mistress, who looked like him.” Then my friend was overwhelmed with a fit of laughter, interrupted when a spurt of red liquid flowed out of his mouth, staining his chin, chest, and shirt. As he calmed down, he muttered, “You know my taste in women better than anyone. May he perish! He was an idiot. He was drunk, dead drunk.” “But what is his name, Edgar? For God’s sake, speak up. Come on, speak up.” I was worried that if Edgar died before he disclosed the name of the murderer, then the whole case would be closed once and for all. “Don’t worry. He will never get away with it. I have already called the police, and they will be here at once.” On his bed, Edgar continued writhing in pain, pressing his bloodstained hands against his left chest, and through the openings of his thin fingers a deep, dark wound came into view. It was the effect of a bullet, which looked like the gaze of a crime piercing your very depths, searching and mocking you and everything that exists. “Haven’t the police arrived yet? They are too late. Oh!”

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He heaved a sigh that sounded like the rattle of a slaughtered bull; then his fingers drew together over his chest and twitched as if trying to pull out the bullet that had penetrated his chest. “They will be here soon. Calm down, Edgar.” He then shouted, “Where are the police? What kind of government is this?” Edgar leaned forward in an attempt to rise, but I stopped him with a motion of my hand and kept him in bed. All of a sudden, as a result of the rough pull to get himself seated in bed, the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, as if swimming in his own deep-red blood. Then there was a knock on the door. “Here they are. They are knocking on the door. It is the police.” Edgar would have jumped off his bed at once to open the door before me had I not rushed to calm him down in his bed. “Stay where you are. Where do you want to go? You are wounded.” “Leave me alone. It’s the police… the police.” He said that, and as I was holding him, he rose to his feet and laughed loudly as if the devil had come over him, and he was restored to life. I was overwhelmed with wonder and fear, but it did not take me long to remember that that is how a human being acts when his end approaches. Then I left my place, stung by his loud laughter, and as I jumped quickly toward the door, I bumped into something hard, which caused me to feel pain in my right leg. As if the bump had knocked over a lamp, the place turned dark. When I turned my face to where Edgar was, suddenly his terrifying image faded away. The huge room shrank, enveloped in unexpected, thick darkness. I was about to miss the door, so I began to feel the walls before me, guided by the knocks I was still hearing. Then I got out of my bed and opened my eyes quite wide. Opening the door, my own door, lo and behold there I saw something terrifying!

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Through a flash of lightning, I saw my father, with his hat and his thick black coat on, lying with his tall figure on the doorstep of my house, and his gaunt big fist pinned to the fixed leaf of the door, as if he were trying to knock again. “Dad… Dad!” I shouted in terror, while I bent over him, caressing his face with my mouth. The stench of my drunken father was overpowering. Then I saw, under his blood-stained shirt, right above his left chest, thick blood oozing out of a deep wound. While I was laying him in bed, catching a last glance of his face, he breathed his last. In the electric light that shone bright late at night in our old neighborhood, I noticed my ten fingers had been stained with the blood of my murdered father. When I looked at my wristwatch it was 2:02 in the morning. As for that second knock on the door, up till now, it still haunts me whenever I go to bed. Its echo reverberates through the depth of my soul and rocks my very foundations.

HELP! Bacchus Canal is an ample stretch at the western foot of Mount Sannin; it looks like a piece of Bekka’s plain because of its expansive size, abundant springs, and lush greenness. The canal was probably named after Bacchus, because the Romans built a grape press in this low land, or rather in its southern incline from the direction of Biskanta. Up till now remains of some old, broken pottery canals have been found scattered throughout the vineyards. Bacchus Canal rises about two thousand meters above sea level. The canal, in fact, is the terrace of Lebanon and its balcony, because from it one can overlook such villages as Kasrawan, Almatin, and Mount Lebanon, behind which lies the Mediterranean like a blue crescent closely embracing all in her arms. Winter, which comes early in Bacchus Canal, is intolerably severe. No sooner do its first winds blow than the farmers begin to gather their crops and utensils and leave the place. Only shepherds stay there until their herds wipe out the last plant on land and the last grass grown in a crevice of a rock. That afternoon, however, a stormy winter was beginning, though without any previous warnings, and flakes of snow were first seen flowing gently and mildly like a pleasant dream; then the snow became dense and heavy. The fear of the two shepherds, Saeed and Salman, loomed larger when they noticed huge, new footprints of a wolf in the snow, east of the shed. As they rounded up their flock and rapidly left Bacchus Canal, they bundled themselves in their warm woolen coats and hid their heads between their shoulders as the flock of sheep went down ahead of them like a rumbling torrent, preceded by Ghabour, 40

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the dog, barking as if he had sniffed out some trouble. All were drifted by a rumbling and raging wind. “It is very important that we reach Fiteroun’s vicinity before it gets dark,” said Saeed, the younger brother. “No, Saeed,” his brother answered. “We have to continue going in the direction of Balluna, whether it is dark, raining, or snowing. “Then let me stop by the farm of Kiferdebian to bring Rahwan, our other dog, too. I am frightened of wolves. Three years ago, around this time…” “Don’t worry,” Salman interrupted his brother. He laughed and put his arm around Saeed’s shoulder. “Ghabour himself is more than enough, and besides, don’t underestimate my gun.” “But Salman, you just said you have only six bullets.” “With six bullets I can deter a whole army of wolves.” Then Saeed parted from his brother to bring back a sheep that had strayed from the front of the flock. The road shepherds take in traveling from Kiferdebian to Baluna runs along the outskirts of three villages—Fitroun, Qulaiat, and Raifoun—and cuts across the valley and above its spiral terraces. It is also shorter and has plenty of grazing land for the sheep, though it is more exposed to threats of wolves. Shepherds have walked this road under the cover of darkness and during drizzly days for a long time. A couple of times during the trip, the two shepherds either heard the howling of a wolf or imagined it, because its footprints, which they had seen in the thin snow at Bacchus Canal and on the outskirts of Fitruon, were still haunting them. In an attempt to strengthen his resolve as well as his brother’s, Salman fired a shot into the air. Around midnight, the brothers arrived at Wadi al-salib—a deep valley whose water flows into the Al-Kalb River—-located between Kiferdebian and Quliat. Quite often in summer, shepherds and hunters rest in the shade of its cliffs, lie down on its smooth, cool ground, and spread out their tasty provisions on its pebbles. This is obvious from the ashes of their hearths and the stones of their black trivets, and from the empty cans scattered here and there. Some cans are new, from last summer,

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while others, which have blackened and rusted, have been there for years. The valley was weighed down with dark clouds, loaded with lightning, signifying an imminent snow storm. As they agreed to take shelter to protect the flock inside wide hollows in the valley and spend the rest of the night awake, the two brothers were gripped with one feeling and apprehension as they penetrated deeply into the bottom of the valley. “It is shocking, Saeed, that the more silent it becomes, the more your fears increase, and you tend to fancy strange things.” “And you imagine the rocks on your right and left staring at you with the empty eyes of the dead.” “And you feel the wolf is getting closer and closer, Salman. And its howl sends a shiver down your spine.” “By contrast, when thunder rumbles between the cliffs and rain and cold strike your face, everything around you begins to groan, lament, whistle, and roar; even the blood in your veins shares with nature its excitements and festivities.” “Then your fears fade away because you become part of nature.” As if the sky above them had been listening to their humorous dialogue, suddenly its face became ablaze with lightning, turning red and yellow, and a burst of thunderous laughter came out of its thousand throats. Before the break of dawn, the two brothers resumed their travel through a gorge overlooking the slope of a valley, leading to a path that wound through trees of gall and oak. The snow that kept falling all night long had come to a halt after having covered the gorges and hills with a white sheet, and the sky emerged from behind the clouds like an ice sheet covering a swamp. Then the trembling moon, by which the flock was guided as it resumed walking, scattered its pale lights through the trees of the forest. The brothers were exhausted from lack of sleep and the quick pace of their travels. The glitter of snow, reflected in their tired eyes, worsened the situation, so they were in desperate need of warmth and sleep. Suddenly, for the third time, they noticed those strange signs on the snow that had been following

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them from Bacchus Canal. Saeed was the first to see them and was perplexed by them. He thought, at first, they were the footprints of a bear because they were big and clear, but Salman recognized the footprints were of recent date, as if the animal had just walked ahead of the flock, eyeing it vigilantly. Ghabour, in his turn, had sniffed out something and began to bark loudly while wandering about. Ghabour was as huge as a big wolf; his color inclined to white, and his tail and ears had been cut off so that they would not be hurt if he had a deadly fight with dogs or wolves. As Salman noted, Ghabour was strong enough to deter the wolf’s attack. However, his odd barking and unexpected rush frighteningly here and there, was cogent proof that the horror of his foe and its suspicious presence were somewhere nearby. Though curious and seized with a desire to take a risk, the two brothers kept an eye out for the present/absent beast, expecting to see it at any time. With every step taken, they felt the confrontation to be imminent. Like children whose mothers scared them with a terrible toy monster, they fancied the beast’s shape and horror. Finally, Salman saw the wolf emerging from the periphery of a thicket located on an incline near the valley. It looked like the jungle was too crowded to tolerate its presence, because it was of mythic proportions, inclined to blackness and as huge and stately as a bull. Emerging from behind a gall tree, its piercing eyes were staring determinedly at Salman. The moon, in its turn, was watching this unique scene with its eyes wide open. Faced with the wolf, Salman did not startle or retreat. He was close enough to aim his gun at its pulsing throat or at its bony forehead or at its chest where its huge heart lay, but like someone physically and mentally paralyzed, Salman found himself pushing the first sheep, with the muzzle of his gun, into the wolf’s open mouth, as if feeding it bit by bit. Snatching the sheep silently, the wolf, like a boulder, landed down in a wooded incline. As Ghabour growled and rushed off after the wolf, the sheep were in turmoil, and Salman, like someone waking up, was startled and muttered, “Was I awake or was I dreaming?!” To quicken the sheeps’ pace, the two shepherds prodded them with sticks and stones, until they arrived at Dair Alrumieh,

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east of Qaliat, about noontime. After resting there for two hours, they soon resumed their travel through Mrah Almir and then Dariah until they reached the outskirts of Balluna. After driving the flock into a shed and firmly closing its entrances with rocks, they retreated to a corner of a little room whose ceiling was half missing. There they gathered some twigs and started a fire. Before sitting to rest and eat, it occurred to them that they had to inspect their flock. They found that the spotted sheep, which had strayed from the flock in the incline of Bacchus Canal, was missing, and they looked for it twice but to no avail. They also failed to spot Ghabour and wondered if he too had been killed by the wolf. Salman had hardly uttered Ghabour’s name when he and his brother saw him entering the shed, panting. There were two streaks of blood around his thick and smooth neck. Saeed wiped the blood with his palm. It was not a serious wound, just an elongated scratch at the tip of the neck. Then the two brothers began to ask themselves, “Has the dog killed the wolf, or has it merely managed to save its own skin?” Being exhausted, they stretched out near the fire and fell into a deep sleep. The younger shepherd, first to arise, woke up his brother, and both squatted down near the fire, eating and chatting. Ghabour lay down near them, stretching out his neck while supporting his head by its front paws, all the while looking sadly at the shepherds. Every now and then, Ghabour would lift his head and rise up, as if listening to an imminent danger; then, with unprecedented whining, would lower his head down near his front feet. At that moment, the sound of a huge stone falling down was heard inside the shed, followed by the noise and clamor of sheep. No sooner had the shepherds raced to the shed than the wolf, like a frantic bull, pounced rashly ahead of them, clutching a writhing, moaning sheep in its mouth. The dog, which had had a fierce fight with the wolf the day before, this time showed no interest in chasing the wolf. Did the dog run away because it had realized its foe’s power? They did not notice the dog going into the shed before them, when they heard the sound of the falling stone and the clamor of the

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sheep. However, Saeed remembered that the dog had slipped, like a shadow, out of the shed and run off. The two brothers, holding lamps in their hands, entered the shed and began looking for the victims of the wolf. With sarcasm, they commented about the loss of their new sheep, “Probably the wolf had, like a passionate lover, kept an eye on that sheep since the flock left Bacchus Canal.” “The sheep, a friend of the spotted one, had kept its company along the road. Did you observe that?” “And did you notice that it looked like a chicken in the wolf’s mouth?” They marched out of the shed and began calling and whistling to their dog, but to no avail. Later, Salman said, “The poor thing must have sustained serious wounds and went, like all the animals of the jungle, to die without being observed.” Because of torrential rainfall, the shepherds spent another day at the shed. It appeared as if the battle between them and nature had its ups and downs. Their fears multiplied when it began to snow and to get dark. They were afraid that they would be attacked by the wolf again. This time, the wolf might be accompanied by a flock of wolves, because it savored the tasty meat of sheep and had learned of Ghabour’s death. Salman was thinking of sending Saeed to Balona to seek help, but he was worried that the wolves would attack him. The two brothers were armed with patience, the weapon that shepherds and country men use against the calamities of time. They would hold on even if they were attacked by a flock of wolves; they would repel their attacks by clubs, by the butts of their guns, or by stones. Should the need arise, they would fight them with their hands and feet. What would people say if it was rumored that they had been defeated by wolves? They would certainly be the butt of the villagers’ jokes! It was about two o’clock in the morning when it stopped snowing, and their fire went out, but they did not rekindle it because dawn was breaking. Though their eyes looked tired, fear had deprived them of even a wink of sleep. They were so bored of waiting and keeping alert that they wished the return of the

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fierce wolf. As if their request had been granted, they glanced through the shed’s door. On the horizon could be seen two black dots, growing larger by the second, as they rolled closer in the direction of the shed. Both shepherds’ mouths stood open. Who were these creatures? They looked like wolves. Though one of them was limping, it was a few steps ahead of the other. Salman picked up his gun, and his brother took shelter behind an oak tree. The flock, too, sensed an imminent threat: a sheep bleated and the rest of the flock responded. Then Saeed , whose sharp eyesight never failed him, said, “How odd! Is it possible that the limping one, in front, is Ghabour and the one behind him… the wolf?” “Why not?” Salman replied, sarcastically. “A dog and a wolf have finally signed a peace treaty!” Saeed rushed out of the shed but returned rapidly, thrilled with joy, “Good news, Salman! The limping one, as I told you, is Ghabour, but can you guess the other?” “I give up!” “The other one is Rahwan, our dog.” “Woe unto you! Rahwan is in Kiferdibian, thirty or forty miles away from here. What could bring him to Balluna?” Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the two dogs barking outside. The brothers ran toward them as if to meet two of their favorite friends. And there stood Ghabour and Rahwan, their two loyal dogs, panting and whimpering, as the two brothers stared at them without being able to believe their eyes. There were clear signs that the two dogs had gone through a fierce battle. Their jaws were stained with blood, as were their necks and flanks. By constant barking and rubbing their bodies gently against the shepherds, the dogs got the brothers to follow them. Two hundred meters away, in a small open space among gall trees, Salman and Saeed stood before the body of a huge, black animal, whose face and limbs had been ripped open, as if bitten by ten dogs. It was the body of the wolf that had chased the flock from Bacchus Canal to the outskirts of Balona.

THE STRIPED SHIRT When the lights went off at home and my brother had not yet returned, my mother, as usual, began crying, and my father, tossing in his bed, started cursing “the dark day” his prodigal son was born. That night, all my attempts to avoid hearing my mother’s sobs, my father’s curses, and the squeaks of his bedsprings every time he turned over, were futile. When my brother does not come home, this usually means he has gone away and will spend several nights outside the house. As he has been doing this for two consecutive years, why all these anxieties and worries? However, I must admit that on that night, contrary to how I normally felt, I was restless and anxious. I saw, in a dream, my mother, dressed in complete mourning; my brother was there, sitting in a corner, reading a play. When the dream had faded away, I hardly got a wink of sleep. In the morning, while having breakfast with a friend of mine in a restaurant overlooking the sea, I heard the news vendors shouting, “One killed in a demonstration; unidentified young man found murdered.” “Come over here, kids!” I shouted. Two new vendors ran over, each trying to elbow the other out of the way. As they clumsily shoved their newspapers in my face, the edges of the papers were about to sink into our plates, so Fouad, my friend drove them away. On the front page was a picture of the body of a young man covered with a winding sheet, and right above the picture 47

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was written in big, bold, red letters: “Unidentified Murdered Young Man.” After providing an extensive and detailed account of the incident, the paper mentioned that “this unfortunate incident happened on Sunday afternoon, around three o’clock. The young man was in his midtwenties, tall, with dark hair, wearing a striped shirt and a pair of khaki pants. His rough palms indicate he was a manual worker. In his pockets were two Lebanese liras, a movie ticket, a lottery ticket, and a pack of “Tatly” cigarettes. The body of the deceased will remain in the morgue of Hotel Dieu Hospital until his identity has been established, after which it will be turned over to his family.” I was barely finished reading the report when an overwhelming feeling of restlessness came over me. Three o’clock! That was the time that my brother had left home. Could he be the murdered young man? Coincidentally, my brother also smoked Tatly cigarettes when he ran out of money. Though usually indifferent to my brother’s fate, I was seized with a myriad of misgivings. Recalling my mother’s cries, my father’s curses, and my horrible dream sent a shiver up my spine, and I felt utterly dejected. My mouth was so dry that I had trouble forcing a mouthful of water down my throat. I looked around but saw nothing save heads, young and old, with hair and bald, all, without exception, bent over their plates, as if struck with a chronic hunger. They looked stripped of all human qualities, their true nature reduced to greediness and insatiable hunger, as though they were born only to eat, and now eat voraciously to hasten their death. Oh God! How disgusting they were! Turning my eyes away from these people, I sat gazing at the sea, whose wide expanse had already turned dark and whose metallic surface had creased. I heard the sea raging, as if it had just wolfed down a fresh corpse and begun to wipe its foamy mouth on the rocks. I turned to Fouad as if begging him to wrest me from my unexpected apprehensions but found him still bent over his plate, greedily devouring his food. Then I leafed through the

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newspaper again but with foreboding and fear, scrutinizing the picture closely, something I did not do at first. Yes, the person in this picture looked like my brother. Why was I not aware of that at first? Was delusion the source of my apprehensions and excessive fantasies? However, the Tatly cigarettes, the three o’clock time, his absence from home last night, and this picture, didn’t they indicate something? I stood up and announced, “I am going to call Hotel Dieu Hospital.” When my friend asked why, I picked up the newspaper and departed, without giving him an answer. I began to reminisce about my brother’s life, since the time he dropped out of high school because of my parents’ financial difficulties. After quitting school, he found himself a job, but he claimed it was tedious, so he abandoned it for rough manual work. I also recalled his repeated and lengthy absences from home to earn a living because the factory in which he was working had closed down. Last Sunday, however, right before he left home, I heard my brother, who rarely spoke to any of us about his plans or destination, telling my mother, “I have an appointment with a friend downtown, but I will be back soon.” The stages of my brother’s life, replete with both trivial and serious details, unwound before my eyes like a film tape. My brother was one of those eccentric young men with odd ideas about life and people. One day when I asked him how the owner of the factory in which he worked died, he answered indifferently, “The blood that his workers so desperately needed clogged up his arteries and choked him to death.” “Why do you talk in riddles?” I said. He answered, sarcastically, “You consider yourself a psychologist? He has died because of an abundance of blood, as others die of anemia. Now, do you understand?” When he saw me staring at him silently, he added, laughing boisterously while patting me on the back, “He died of a massive heart attack, as a result of high blood pressure.” Occasionally, I used to attribute my brother’s pessimism and his odd thoughts either to his failure in finding the right job and settling down permanently, or to the fact that he had quit school too early because our family was in dire straits. He would

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work two or three days a week and idle away the other four days. He would smoke excessively, go to the movies three to four times a week, and waste most of his income on detective stories and plays that he read day and night. Unlike his friends who improved their living conditions, he never tried to resume his studies in an evening institute or specialize in a branch of mechanics by correspondence. Every time I brought up this matter, he would say, “It is too late; I’m too old.” My brother’s absence that day was not an unordinary matter to me, but obviously the newspaper account drove me crazy, and while running like a madman to the closest telephone booth, I tripped over some pedestrians’ feet. “Hello, hello. Is this Hotel Dieu Hospital?” “Yes, it is. How can I help you?” “How can you help me?” … I wanted to ask the receptionist a couple of questions. Is the murdered person in the morgue tall and skinny? Does he have a short nose and a pimple on his chin? I would like to tell her much more about my brother. However, I refrained from telling her everything, for I was scared that asking her about the identity of the murdered youth might bring me face to face with the bare truth and reduce me to helplessness.” “Hello! Hello! Why don’t you speak?” How could I? I was speechless and senseless, so I hung up, giving in, once more, to a wave of apprehensions and anxieties that tossed me about, aimlessly. When I remembered the striped shirt mentioned in the report, and that my brother had one, too, I raced home like someone obsessed. Although I did not approve of my brother’s lifestyle and his conduct, now that the corpse in the morgue could be his, I just could not bring myself to harbor any grudges against him. Upon entering the house, I held my younger brother, fourteen years old, with my two hands, and asked, “Was Habib wearing a striped shirt on Sunday?” “Yes, he was.”

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My kid brother did not know the calamity and misfortune the word “yes” would bring down on the whole family. “Mom, Dad, I am afraid Habib has been killed.” My mother was stunned by the news, tossed aside the shirt she was trying to button, and threw herself down on the bed. “Oh! You have broken your mother’s heart, Son.” And my father said, in a hoarse voice, while trying to catch his breath, “Is it true?” “Didn’t my brother leave home yesterday at 3:00 P.M.? Wasn’t he wearing a striped shirt? Isn’t this his picture? Here is the newspaper. See for yourself!” Whenever my father was afflicted with a calamity, he would suppress his feelings, look gloomy, fume inwardly, yet fail to shed any tears, even under the most tragic of circumstances. However, this time, as my father finished scanning the newspaper, I was shocked to see tears rolling down his cheeks. In a trembling tone, turning his back to me for fear of being seen in tears, he said “Have you called Hotel Dieu Hospital?” “I was afraid to find out… ” “Coward! Coward! Bring me my jacket.” As I handed him his jacket, he said, “Follow me.” My father and I got in a cab heading to Hotel Dieu Hospital. The streets were so congested that the traffic was bumperto-bumper. I wished the traffic would come to a permanent halt, so the trip to the hospital would be endless. Suddenly, an old friend of mine, a classmate who was working for a foreign company, crossed the street like a flash of lightning. He was carrying a yellow briefcase and looked quite busy. Ever since I had known him, he had been on the move. Everyone around me was running. They were racing, some on bicycles, others in cars, on trams, or in noisy trucks. Where were they rushing and why? Is not the end for all a cold grave? I had already begun to sink into a deep depression when the cab driver announced that we had arrived at the hospital. At the door of the hospital stood a doorman who was overweight and short. He had allowed his moustache to grow bushy and long, as if trying to divert attention away from his bald little head. He took me by the arm and showed me a small

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hall in a corner of the hospital, saying, “There is the morgue, Sir.” He said that with a smile on his face, as though he was doing me a favor and expecting a tip for his services. At that moment, I felt like pulling his moustache or smashing his head. It was almost spring, a time to see eyes sparkling with merriment and hearts full of joy. However, not here! Not only was the doorman laughing; several people around me were laughing, too, and even boisterously, as they were coming from the direction of the morgue. I walked behind my father, dragging my feet. Oh God, how can I bring myself to look at my brother, with his brown, strong, muscular arms, murdered and frozen in a room resembling a refrigerator? Is the refrigerator able to freeze his resounding laughs and his humorous jokes? Is it true that my brother is dead? Taking a few steps, I felt both agitated and apprehensive, as if I were Dante following Virgil through Hades and the World of Darkness. “What you dread to see today, you will see, sooner or later. Why all this cowardice and desistance? Go ahead. Go ahead!” urged a voice emanating from my depths. I stepped forward ever more bravely. Then, when I was only a few steps away from the morgue, I wavered. I was scared stiff and about to break into tears, when I heard some heartrending cries and laments coming from within. “Dad! Dad! My brother is alive!” I shouted. “My brother is alive!” I was so overwhelmed by joy and merriment that I burst out laughing. “Dad! Dad! The murdered man is not Habib. Why are you frozen there? Those who are wailing inside are the deceased’s family. Cheer up!” At that very moment, as if I had fallen under the spell of a heavenly ecstasy, I hugged my father and kissed him repeatedly. My father did not smile and did not laugh. With a frown and a grave face, he remarked, solemnly, “Remember, my son. Although the deceased is not Habib, he is also your brother.”

IT’S ALRIGHT, SIR Since I was a child I have dreamed of wearing a pair of boots like my father's, a Moroccan tarboosh, like his, while carrying under my arm, as he did when he strolled about, an orange staff, covered with shiny knots. It has been my wish to emulate my father in all respects, as if he were my ideal role model. When my father died, nothing was left of him save his beautiful portrait, hanging conspicuously in the hall. I used to stand before it, twisting up sharply the ends of my moustache, as my father had done. Then I would put on his tarboosh and press it down, so that its edge would slant and touch the right side of my eyebrow. Afterwards, I would carry his staff under my arm, and strut about the streets of the city, flaunting my youthful looks, which I had intentionally molded to look like a copy of my father's youth, as it was illustrated in his portrait. I was seventeen years old when I got my high school diploma. In those days, holders of a diploma could be counted on the fingers of both hands, and their status was of equal importance to that of doctors and engineers. Therefore, I contented myself with the diploma that bestowed grandeur on me and gained me a wide reputation, to the point that girls from every corner of the neighborhood pressed around me, encouraging my mother to say: “Son, after the diploma comes the bride.” However, either due to conceit or ignorance, I paid no attention to the neighborhood girls, for whom my mother had high praise. Instead, I kept looking for my dream girl among movie actresses or girls like them I would run into during my constant strolls. By the way, my strolls, like those of Kant, never 53

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changed in terms of time and space. They always took place between five thirty and six o'clock every Thursday and Saturday, when school girls, my age or older, would get out of movie theaters. I would start by walking past the “Rialto” theater down town, go by all the theaters in the “Martyrs’ Square”, and then turn back to the starting point, where I took a taxi home. Every time I returned from my strolls, I would feel quite disheartened and fatigued, because I would never encounter the girl of my dreams, although I would find her image reflected in a kaleidoscope of passing faces. Every time my mother found me in such a miserable state, she would confront me with her typical remark: “What is wrong with you, son? You leave home holding your head up high, like a rooster, but you come home looking as if you had been to a funeral.” Then, while I was standing with my head bowed, she would put her arms around me and say: “What do you think of Farida?” I couldn't utter a word. “Nadia is gorgeous -- beautiful figure, attractive face, and noble manner, don't you agree?” When I remained silent, my mother thought I had fallen into the trap: “Alright, son. Why don't you marry Muhiba? She is a housewife, and white like jasmine. Don't you notice how often she visits us and tries to win your favor? She loves you, son.” As my mother kissed me on the cheek, I drew back, as if I had been kissed by Muhiba, who had a hooked nose, like that of her father. Every time I caught sight of it I became so annoyed that I cursed her attractive mother for being content with a husband whose daughter had inherited his ugliness! “Why don't you answer me, dear?” Upon entering my room, I felt that the ghosts of Nadia, Farida, and Muhiba were chasing me like demons. I realized, finally, that as long as my father, who had been our sole breadwinner, was dead, no bride would ever put a foot in our door unless I had money, and money would only come with a job, but a job wouldn't be conferred on me due to the

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charm of my diploma. I had to put my shoulder to the wheel and find one. However, I wasn’t looking for any ordinary job; I wanted one that would befit my social status and never detract from the value of my diploma. First, I thought that getting a job would be as easy as waving a magic wand. I assumed that, once I mentioned my diploma or presented it to a prospective employer, he would say, “Welcome aboard.” But, my efforts dashed my hopes. I felt like a crack shot who aimed, repeatedly, at an easy target, but never hit his mark. Thus, I was stunned that my fancy diploma failed to get me the job I sought. “Would you like to be a teacher son?” “No, mother. No. Anything but teaching. I hardly managed to get out of school, and now you want me to return to the same prison again!” “How about business? I'm sure our neighbor, abu Faris, can find you something…” I interrupted her, gruffly: “To buy and sell? That is meant for illiterate people, Mom.” “Alright, don't get angry, dear. Perhaps you would like to work in a hotel?” “You expect me to work in a hotel? Did I graduate with a diploma to work as a waiter?” Thus, the first year had elapsed and I was still jobless, basking in the crowning glory of my diploma. Like the heron of “La Fontaine,” which after catching good fish and discarding of them, it finally settled for an oyster. I, too, had to give in to those harsh realities and content myself with whatever was available. I was even willing to teach for one year, but the schools turned me down, because I had applied in mid-session. I couldn't even find a job in a store. However, I must admit I didn't have the courage to actually ask for one, because every time I went into a store wearing my red boots and slanting tarboosh, the owner would receive me warmly and courteously, as if I were a rich customer. After such a warm reception, I would, naturally, feel awkward and eventually frown on the idea of asking for a job. To top it off, when the owner was asked me if he could be of any help, I would feel bound to buy something I

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never needed. In this way, I would waste my weekly allowance, and miss my movie and my stroll. This unfortunate scenario had multiple consequences: My mother was at a loss; I didn't know how to begin to find a job; the neighborhood girls were deeply perturbed by my indecisiveness, and my dream girl still hadn't materialized. One day, I shaved closely, wore a spicy cologne, dressed up, and put on my red boots and tarboosh. Then, as I stood before the mirror contemplating myself, I caught sight of my mother examining me closely and proudly. Her thin, expressive face lit up in a triumphant smile. “My goodness! You're an exact copy of your father.” When I didn't answer, she moved closer, putting her arms around my shoulders. “This is your lucky day, son. I dreamed that you would marry the daughter of one of the most distinguished families in the city. Go, may God be with you.” She kissed me on my forehead quite cautiously, so that my moustache, whose ends were sharply bent up like a rooster's crest, and my slanting fez would not lose their order. Then she slipped one Lira bill, instead of the usual half, into my pocket. “Spend a quarter for the movie ticket and a quarter for sweets and fun…” “And with the rest of the money,” I said, “I will bring you the daughter of one of the distinguished families.” My mother and I laughed and laughed while hugging each other. That night I went downtown, as usual with empty hands, unaccompanied by the girl my mother dreamed of. The rain fell continuously, so people were pushing and shoving to get into cabs. I had to wait on the sidewalk, telling myself I was in for another frustrating day. For the first time I realized how insignificant my diploma was. It seemed like yesterday's soiled newspaper floating on the water to be buried in a nearby drain. Oh God, where is my father to rescue me from this dilemma? What have his magic staff, Moroccan tarboosh, and twisted moustache achieved for me? What am I, compared to him?

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As if my father’s memories had awakened me from a dream, I leaped into the street, and elbowed my way forcefully through the waiting crowd to get to a taxi. Suddenly, my tarboosh was blown off, as if by a forceful blow and rolled down the street ahead of me, followed by dozens of round loaves of bread as if the sky had burst. In the wake of these loaves, there was a loud crack of two, long wooden boards and I saw a huge man, lying prone on the ground. I still don't understand how and why my hand spontaneously reached for the staff under my arm. Perhaps I was worried that it would join the tarboosh which had already sunk in dirty water and was drifting towards the opening of the drain. Those who saw me under those circumstances – my hair disheveled by the wind, my bulging eyes staring at the tarboosh, and the brandished staff in my hand -- thought, undoubtedly, that I had just walked out of one fight and was about to start another. A couple of the onlookers turned from me to the prostrate figure on the ground, saying: “It's alright, sir. It's alright. Forgive him.” These words suddenly rang a bell, not only throwing light on the matter but making it wonderfully clear. It transpired that, as I leaped into the street, I had knocked a poor baker down, and because of that his hand was fractured, and the two wooden boards that were on his head, loaded with over forty fresh loaves, had been knocked over. What could be done now? As I was at my wit's end, suddenly someone grabbed me by the arm, but then some men interposed themselves between us. They stared at me, then bent over the poor baker. “He meant no offence,” they said, “it was totally unintentional.” That the fault was due to my lack of attention was a possibility, and that the gentleman would release me and clear me of all charges was also conceivable. However, how could I compensate him for the forty ruined loaves and pay for putting the baker's hand in a plaster cast, when I had nothing in my pocket save a little change to pay for my transportation? Probably I

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would be taken into custody for further investigation, until my mother came and paid damages. The poor baker, his face and clothes soiled with dirt, rose from the ground, holding his fractured hand. I was eating my heart out for him as my eyes fell on him. Then, hesitantly, I cast a quick glance at the gentleman who had grabbed my arm only to discover that he was a handsome, middle-aged man, dressed in civilian clothes. “It's alright, sir. It's alright. Forgive him," he whispered, dusting some flour off my sleeve. As I looked around, I couldn't find, in the large crowd, a single scowling face willing to take me to the precinct. Instead, several hurried to pick up my tarboosh before it wound up down the drain, and several others begged me to pardon the baker who had inadvertantly knocked off my tarboosh. Right then, it dawned on me that I was the “sir” to whom the people kept referring. They thought I was one of the secret police. They were obviously deceived by my outfit, especially by my magic staff, which I had managed to get hold of, and now it rectified and even justified my mistake. Then it occurred to me that the secret police in my country did in deed wear, like me, boots and tarbooshes, and did terrify people with the staff they held under their arms. As I breathed a sigh of relief, I said to myself silently: Please let me be a "gentleman" for only a few moments to avoid being fined and to maintain my dignity. My moustache, which had been drooping for a while, suddenly stiffened. With my staff brandished like a sword in my hand, I scolded the baker, but the people around me made every effort to separate us. “Please, have mercy on him; forgive him, sir, they begged me.” The poor man was shivering from the cold and was in fear and pain. “He deserves to be whipped; he should watch his step,” I replied. I kept screaming loudly at him, feigning anger and staring ferociously at the curious bystanders to my right and left. “Are you blind? Are you stupid?”

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“It's alright, sir; it's alright,” they replied. “I swear to God I will crack your head to teach you to watch where you’re going,” I screamed. A large crowd had gathered around me, placating me by cleaning my tarboosh and shaking the dirt off my clothes. I didn't know how or in what manner the issue was settled, but I do remember that when I got into a cab, I felt quite triumphant; however, it didn't take me long to feel equally guilty. I told myself as I was going up the stairs of my home: You were a gentleman in looks today. Why shouldn't you be a gentleman in reality? Wasn't a huge crowd taken in by my appearance? Perhaps I had found profession, befitting my status and not detracting from the significance of my diploma. Thus I became one of the secret police. Wearing a tarboosh, carrying a staff under my arm, walking in heavy boots, and having a pistol around my waist, my God, were things that even my father never dreamed of in his day. However, my happiness was never truly consummated until I received my first monthly paycheck. Immediately, I rushed to give the poor baker, whose wrist was still in cast, a surprise visit. I had intended to pay for his suffering, but as I started to reach into my pocket in order to hand him five Liras, he grabbed my arm and fell to his knees. “Please don't hurt me, sir,” he pleaded. He had mistakenly thought that I was reaching for my pistol! “It's alright, sir. I’ve learned my lesson. It's alright, sir, he cried, as tears of remorse ran down his cheeks.” “I am to be blamed, not you,” I said. I then handed him five Liras and left.

THE PRICE OF THE CAR The taxi was his sole source of income, and he was the family’s only breadwinner. Driving his taxi day and night, transporting passengers from their villages to the city and back, he was content with his livelihood, though small, and he was happy like everyone else, meeting his family’s needs to the best of his abilities.* The war broke out unexpectedly, and it was a long, insane war, during which business came to a halt. His family, however, never stopped eating and seeking education. Up to that time, the war, to put it simply, had not reached their village, whose school was the only one still open. But from where could the poor driver get money to fulfill his family’s desires if he did not work? On top of that, he had a big family—a wife and five male children, the oldest fifteen years of age. And all of the children at school! The children were not in a public school, where tuition is free, but in an outstanding private school whose students come from the affluent families of the village and even from families living in nearby villages. He and his wife, though poor, were quite ambitious and determined to provide their five children with an education they themselves were not exposed to in their days. In fact, they wanted to get all their children highly educated in the manner of the rich. Their chief wish was to see their children become doctors, lawyers, and engineers in the future. And why not! Education, in their eyes, is always, regardless of how high or costly, within everyone’s means. In their opinion, education under all circumstances was for those who seek it *

The civil war in Lebanon provided the backdrop for this story.

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and work hard to achieve it, and all their children had this desire. Besides, all of them were the paradigm of perseverance and diligence, and in their classes they were in the lead. The principal of their first school said to them that he who excelled in his class now would always excel, and thus they would remain in all their classes ahead of others. During the time of welfare and prosperity, he was able to supply all his family needs perfectly, but in these hard times, he was barely able to feed his family members. He was also worried that one day he might not be even able to serve them food, especially after he stopped driving his taxi to nearby villages for fear of exposing himself and his car to highway robbers and gangs who had increased those days. Sometimes, under the pretext of being passengers, highway robbers got in a taxi not only to rob the driver, but also to kill him and take possession of the car. After all, men like him with a limited income, even in the time of peace, had difficulties taking care of a family like his, and how much more difficult it would be if business came to a halt in this dark period. And if the stores stopped selling on credit, then schools would refuse deferment of tuitions, too. Even if tuition was waived through entreaties and fervent pleas, where could he find the needed money? It was ironic. In the past, he considered himself the happiest father in the village; suddenly, he is now the most wretched and unhappy. He imagined his children sitting at home deprived of education because he is kept from working. Then he envisaged them, with the passage of time, deprived even of clothes and food, because all the signs and radios in the world indicated that the war was a devilish riddle with no solution, a war that couldn’t be brought to an end without a heavenly miracle. But the time of miracles had gone, and it pained him even more when his fantasy became bitter reality: his children indeed quit school and played excitedly with many of their friends in the alleys and squares of the village. To relieve himself of his worries, he, in turn, began to participate in the war game. He went down the village valley, holding an automatic rifle, and started to practice shooting. He first fired at squirrels, birds, and trees until he was able to hit a

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rooster’s eye. He said in his heart, if he did not have an income in the future, he could act as a robber, too. He would kill others before he would let his children starve to death. Then he was little solaced when he found out, a week later, that his rich neighbor had stopped sending his two sons to school as a result of financial straits brought about by the freezing of his liquid assets that had been left in a bank that had closed because the city was besieged by militia men and heavily shelled by destructive and incendiary mortars and rockets. Consequently, this war, for the first time, made the rich and poor equals. Perhaps among the only advantages of the war was that it had made all people poor, scared, wandering and perplexed. The atrocities of this war, however, did not please the driver, so he began to weigh up the people of his village: members of his family, relatives, and acquaintances, comparing their living conditions with his. He found that the circumstances of most of them were not better than his. His brother, for instance, was not just poor and, like him, the breadwinner, but his situation was even worse; his brother-in-law had absolutely nothing—he spent every day in a cafe drinking and playing cards with his friends, simply wasting his time. As for his cousins, they were all in financial distress. Till then, however, he had been better than all of them by at least one thing: He had still tried to help his children receive a good education, while the children of his relatives and many others like them were deprived even of learning, because they had chosen handiwork or held jobs in stores and likewise. Soon after, however, he realized that he was probably the only extremely poor one among his relatives and acquaintances. All of those people had, no doubt, enough money to last them for years because their children were working. At first, he had been the only one in his family who had kept working and sending his children to school, but now he was not working and his kids were out of school. After all, people are hidden under their clothes. It is true that he was probably more ambitious than all of them, but ambition was not the only thing needed these days. The smart one these days was he who fed and clothed his chil-

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dren and endured till the end. However, this looked like an endless crazy war. How come he had not taken into consideration such hard times as these? He had spent all his money on his children’s education, but nowadays the educated were the target of holdups, kidnapping, and assassinations. Numerous engineers, doctors, and scholars had been killed by a worthless sniper. The educated individual was killed by an illiterate for a maximum of thirty or forty liras. As it was often said, “misfortunes never come singly.” There had been some frightening news indicating the war was likely to be extended to both the plain and the mountain. Suddenly, the people of his village were scared that the disaster and fire of war were likely to reach them overnight, and they were worried that an unexpected attack might ravage their homes, food, children, and women. At no other time in his life was he so concerned about his children: he had heard news that homes, livelihoods, women, and children in distant villages had perished, so he was quite frightened. The old saying goes, “Lucky is he who has a small resting place in this beautiful mountain,” but now people around him said, “Lucky is he who has a plane or ship ticket to run away from this country to hell.” He had to find enough money to buy seven plane tickets and thousands of liras to live abroad in peace and dignity until calm was restored. But he had nothing left except his furniture, the taxi that was his only source of income, and an automatic rifle, which should not be sold because of unforeseen events. First, he put up his new, tasteful, and masterfully made furniture for sale, but all people shrank from buying it. Even when he was willing to sell it at the lowest price, the entire community turned away from it. Who would buy furniture in these days when people were ready even to abandon their own skin in order to run away? He was left with only one choice, and that was to sell his new taxi, which had cost him, with the red plate, more than sixty thousand liras. Before putting his taxi up for sale, he wanted to consult some friends and relatives who might spare him the trouble of selling it. He begged them to loan him some money, even a small amount for a while, or he would pawn the

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taxi in return for a little amount of money. He thought they would keep him from selling it, for they knew it was his only source of income. They disappointed him, however. Some said, “Sell it for twenty thousand liras, and you are a winner”; others advised him, “You should be grateful to God if they pay you fifteen thousand liras, for every lira is worth a man in these days.” Though hurt, he thanked them for their advice, then sold it to a visitor vacationing in his village for thirty thousand liras. The buyer drove the car and went abroad, but as he caught sight of the car driven by the new owner and vanishing from his sight, he wished he and his family were the ones going abroad. However, he indulged in the hope that as long as he had the money, he could, if God willed, leave in the nearest future. But the future arrived neither as God willed nor as he expected. Like fate and divine decree, in the dark of night, a little after midnight, three masked men, armed with pistols and hand grenades, faces invisible, except for eyes which emitted evil sparks, stealthily slipped into his house while he was sleeping. Prepared for such a sudden event, he had hidden his automatic rifle under the mattress of his bed and the thirty thousand liras under his pillow. But that night he slept gratified for the first time during the vicious war. The three masked men, however, surprised him, as they had slipped through the kitchen door, with their shoes wrapped with cloth, as in movies, in order to avoid waking those who were asleep. They stood there poking his side through the quilt, with the muzzle of their automatic rifles; he opened his eyes, startled to see the bright light from a flashlight in the hand of a masked man focused on his face. The men ordered him to remain silent and calm. “Give us what you have, if you want to stay alive,” said one of them while putting his gun to his head. The first thing that occurred to him, while the cold muzzle of the rifle was still attached to his head, was that his village had been attacked as he anticipated, and in every house were intruders threatening the owners with guns and hand grenades. As for his wife, who was sleeping in the next room with the children, she was probably like her husband, either dreaming of the day they would go abroad to rescue the children from a hellish war

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or of the hardship of traveling and the surprises awaiting them away from home. Perhaps her dreams were spoiled the moment someone put his gun to her husband’s head, for she and her husband had similar thoughts crossing their minds. If her disturbing dreams had awakened her at that moment to the imminent danger encompassing her family, she would have attacked those masked men and torn them apart with her nails, without paying any attention to the guns leveled at her. “I have nothing worthwhile,” he said in a quavery, crying voice. Ask everyone in the village. They know I am a poor person, a cab driver, and a family provider.” The masked men, however, did not heed his heartrending pleas and shaky voice. One of them yelled at him without letting his yell reach the other room. “Yes, you have, Mr. Hand me the thirty thousand liras, the amount you got for selling your taxi yesterday.” He was at a loss and did not know how to respond. Confronted with the muzzle of a gun at his chest, he was totally perplexed. The only thing he was able to conclude was that the masked men were from his own village, or some who were acquainted with the tourist who had bought his taxi. But how could he unveil their real identities when they were masked? “Hurry up handing us the money, or we will rush your death. We hope you still love your children.” Until now, his sacrifices had been made for his children. He had risked his life and property for them; how come he would not ransom them by paying thirty thousand liras?” “Provided you keep my children safe,” he said it with crying pleas. “We give you our word of honor.” Then one of the masked men pulled the money bundle from under the pillow and hid it inside his shirt. Before they went back to where their car was parked in front of the door, one of them said to him, “If you even budge or scream before our car leaves, your house as well as your wife and children will be blown up.” Then they went out as they had come in, and walked past the shaded alley, above which a leafy grapevine had woven itself.

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A pale moon was illuminating the path they took to the back door that they had slipped through after breaking its lock. He saw them rushing toward that door; through the window of his room he caught sight of their ghosts running away with the loot. He also noticed their car parked on the main street, waiting for them. Then he glimpsed them darting through the door and trying to get in the car and could still see their backs through the fence around the house. Imagining his children starving to death, especially after having lost all his money, he felt dejected; his eyes welled with tears… and remembered the automatic rifle under his bed. His lips muttered, “Woe unto you! I never thought, in my life, of killing a human being!” The masked men were only few feet away from getting in their car when the cab driver’s automatic rifle went off, showering their bent backs with bullets. The sounds alarmed the villagers because it was quite late at night, but they did not bother to get out of their beds to find out where the shots came from. He, however, could not wait until the morning to get his money back. When he saw that the three masked men had been mowed down by his gunfire, he ran through the kitchen door and rushed out into the alley, followed immediately by his wife who had been alarmed by the whistle of those bullets. She, too, was barefoot. The three masked men lay on the ground motionless. The first one’s lifeless body had rolled up against the rear left wheel, as if hugging it along with the stolen money. The second one, racing after his friend and butting his head against his back, had collapsed with his face to the ground. As for the third one, he had fallen to the ground, far away from the car and the other two, lying on his back sprawled, with his mask slightly off his face, and his protruding eyes looking like someone staring at the face of the moon. In the morning a rushing crowd raced to the site of action. The masks were taken off the faces of the three men, and the driver cried out, “Oh, this is my brother!” Then his wife shouted, “Oh, and this is my brother!” The third killed man was a stranger, not from the village.

AND DEATH CRIED! On that day the aged Death walked out of a splendid banquet given in his honor by Lucifer, the head of the myrmidons of hell. The banquet, however, was an endless, fierce war, the like of which no planet had ever witnessed before and during which millions of souls were annihilated. Death was pacing back and forth through the hall of the ninth level of hell, burping and smacking, feeling satiated due to excessive drinking and eating, a toothless, vile-looking creature. The victory Death had accomplished that day not only intoxicated but also blinded Him. Instead of rewarding and praising Lucifer, His butler, for waging sweeping worldwide wars, Death began to heap abuses and curses on him in the presence of his patrons, the leading grandees of killing and murder. “Lucifer, why have you diverted my attention all this time from these devastating wars and made me feed on the remains of bland human beings, some sick, some frail, and others physically defected? Now, as your punishment, you must go and fetch me the source of life itself; otherwise you are doomed to die.” Spreading corruption in the world was Lucifer’s desire and hobby, and destroying life through discord and war had been his career and policy from time immemorial, but searching out the source of life was something utterly alien to him. Lucifer’s base soul may permit him to try to convince Death, his leader, that this request went beyond his understanding, surpassed his limited power, and consequently, that achieving it was an impossible task. However, how dare Lucifer say that when he knew quite well that, once Death issued an order, it had to be carried out. 67

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Feeling Lucifer’s absence, now in its fourth day, Death began to occupy Himself with pictures displayed on the walls of the hall. There were pictures of wild animals fighting or people of different races killing each other in fierce battles. A wonderful picture of Cain caught Death’s eye; it represented Cain, after fracturing Abel’s head with a stone, seizing his brother by the throat and savagely finishing him off. As if He had seen that picture for the first time, Death’s wrinkled face relaxed and beamed with joy, and then He let out a sigh of satisfaction. “What a wonderful father. You are my father, Cain!” Thus said Death, ecstatically patting Cain on the back. As He retreated a few steps from Cain’s picture to gratify his ravenous appetite, He was thrilled by Cain’s eyes, glowing with hate, his jugular veins swelled with viciousness, as the fingers of his hands, like the jaws of a wolf, closed in on his brother’s soft and feeble neck. If it were not for Lucifer’s delayed return, which had already infuriated Him, He would have stayed much longer in contemplation of the painting. Death, who had not in His life experienced weariness and fatigue, felt, for the first time, weakness in His joints and a wave of nausea going through His entire body, as He sank exhausted into an old chair. Waiting long was quite annoying and torturing for Death. Drowsiness had slipped into His heavy, puffy eyes, and as His eyelids were closing, they sounded like the rustling of bats fluttering their wings. Death saw in his sleep the sword He had taken at the beginning of time hanging over him now, unsheathed, bright, sharp, firm, and deadly, like fate and divine decree. His efforts to fend off the sword and avert its cutting edge were futile. Suddenly, the sword fell on His neck and cut off His head; like a flying comet the head landed in His lap, and like a river, thick, dark blood poured from His veins. He was trying to lift His severed head to put it back in its place, but His strength betrayed Him. His head was like a mass of lead, too heavy to be budged, and His hands were too feeble to lift it up. Overwhelmed with fear, He woke with a shriek.

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Death opened His eyes just enough to see Lucifer, His envoy, standing before Him haggard, lowly, shivering like a bird soaking wet from the rain. After feeling His head to make sure it was firmly standing on his shoulders, Death yelled at Lucifer reproachfully. “Where have you been all this time, Lucifer? What news do you have? Hurry up, speak!” In a high-pitched stammer, Lucifer recounted the story of his journey. “Lord, I wandered about the Earth, east and west, roved about its cities and villages, asking its rulers, wisemen, scientists, and philosophers, but no one was of any help. Finally, on my way back to see you, after having lost hope in fulfilling your wish, I ran across a gray-haired woman who was cutting wood in the forest. She led me to this young woman who lived in a shabby cottage built at the foot of a hill. There she stood talking tenderly to her only child. Turning to where Lucifer was pointing, Death found, to His left, a woman in her twenties, with a figure slender as a sword, and dark eyes glowing with spite. Her dense, flowing hair fell gently over her naked shoulders. Upon seeing her, Death suddenly recalled His disturbing dream and shuddered. “Who is this, Lucifer, and what does she want from us?” “Lord, in order to persuade this woman to see you, I have kidnapped her child. She had no other choice but to follow me through woods, deserts, valleys, over mountains, and across seas. With my wings I was riding the winds, but she, barefooted, caught up with me, as if she was equipped with a thousand wings. Neither long distances nor the fear of darkness and wild beasts wore her down or undermined her resolve. Ask her, Lord. She may have the secret that you have been after for a long time; that is what the old woman of the forest told me.” Death was offended that Lucifer would bring this woman to Him, for He had seen several like her, and was about to scold him, but He contented Himself by telling the woman, “You must leave this place at once!” She, however, replied resolutely, “Not before I wrest the soul of this monster out of his rotten skin!”

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She pointed a finger as firm as a skewer at Lucifer, then repeated, “As he took my son, I am going to take his soul.” “No one can take your son’s soul but Me,” proclaimed Death. As the woman heard the voice of Death, she wished her nails could have grown into claws to stick them into His flesh and tear it up. “Who do you think you are, you old murderer, to deprive me of my son? What allows you to do so? Besides—what crime have I committed against you?” When the head of hell’s myrmidons revealed his horns, and before the woman uttered his name, Lucifer, who had never bowed his head to mankind, bowed it slightly, saying, “I am Lucifer!” “And who is he who orders you around like a humble slave?” “My lord and master, Death, the magnificent.” It then dawned on the woman that she was in Hades and she heard, through the cracks in windows and doors, the moans, cries, and curses of the tormented. Then Death said, “Madam, I sent him to fetch me the source of life, but he strayed off course and brought you. Leave now; your hour has not yet come.” As if her answer was inspired by God’s wisdom, the young woman was showered with a divine power. Overwhelmed with delight, she cried out, “He has brought you what you have requested.” And Death cried, “You! Who are you?” “I am the source of life that you have been seeking.” “You? You weak creature?” “Yes, I am the mother. My womb is larger than your entire kingdom, and from my breasts flow rivers and seas of the essence of life, one wave of which is enough to drown the nine levels of your Hades.” Death was appalled by her words, which brought Him back to the vision of His disturbing dream. He would have collapsed on the floor, if Lucifer had not supported Him.

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Then the young woman added, “Though you may have destroyed my son, it is futile for you to attempt to annihilate the human race that other mothers and I embrace.” At this point, Death turned a deaf ear, but the woman added, sarcastically, “It is useless, Death, trying to avert hearing me. The flow of life will keep roaring in your ears, even if you fill them with melted copper and lead.” Then Death yelled at Lucifer, “Give her back her son and spare us her trouble. Give him back to her immediately!” Thus, the mother walked out of Hades, thrilled and victorious, escorted by her son and accompanied by the music of life. In the heavens hosts of angels were reiterating in unison, “Oh, Death, where are your plagues? Oh, Sheol, where is your destruction?” And Death cried for the first time.

A MASTERSTROKE Whether the construction site was inside the city, on its periphery, or on the seashore, the boss, Abu Anwar, used to pay his workers on Saturday evening in his house, located in “HaiAldabsh.” His construction workers, after twelve or thirteen hours of work a day, would either ride or walk to his house to receive their weekly wages. Upon arriving there, they had to wait outside, standing or sitting on the sidewalk, leaning tiredly on each other’s shoulder to have a sort of catnap. During that time their boss would be either in the barber shop or in a café smoking narghile or playing cards until late at night. In case he returned (undoubtedly he would because he knew his workers would still be there) and had won some money, he might pay their wages in full. But most often he paid in part, delaying the rest to a later time that might or might not come. A worker would probably return to his village yearning for his family or to work his land, or he might just die, so his unpaid salary was buried with him. However, if the worker was destined to live and still remembered what Abu Anwar owed him, he had to bring his boss a basket of figs or grapes or, at least, a few plump chickens. In brief, bringing the boss the first crops had become an imperative for every one of his workers. This was the manner in which Abu Anwar treated all his creditors, from the butcher, to the grocer, to the baker and others. He would always give them their due, but piecemeal. It was an ingrained habit, which he could not break or change, even if he had wanted to. This was the way his father—and probably his great grandfather—treated their workers and creditors. 72

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On those nights when Abu Anwar returned from the café a loser, he might pay his workers an insignificant part of their wages, not enough to subsist on for Sunday alone, or he might not pay them at all. Whenever he had no luck with his poker game, he would send them home empty-handed. His resentment and anger might even lead him to drive them away by beating and cursing them. Abu Anwar’s yelling and his workers’ shouting would wake some neighbors from their sleep, who, in turn, would shower Abu Anwar, his family, and his employees with curses before returning to their beds. More than twenty workers I saw yesterday loitering in front of Abu Anwar’s house at midnight were next day scattered throughout the immense construction site, and Abu Anwar, the one-eyed man, wearing dark glasses, was watching them from his high perch. A cigarette in his mouth, Abu Anwar had protected himself from the burning sun with a huge umbrella with a grape-colored handle. It was summer, and the heat in Beirut was unbearable. Whether you were in the shade or inside your house, it was humid, sweltering, and suffocating, so imagine yourself exposed, like those workers, to the scorching heat of August. Some workers, to protect themselves against sunstroke, covered their heads with a wet towel or cloth, while their dusty chests and shoulders came into view through their khaki or faded blue shirts. Other workers, dressed in tattered pants over naked torsos, wore straw hats riddled with holes. A few others were bareheaded, their faces and eyes smudged with dirt, wearing shorts that revealed legs as scrawny as sugar canes or gnarled and gaunt as the stumps of old trees. Here and there on the construction site discordant noises clashed, ranging from a truck unloading gravel, to the squeal of nails being pulled from hard wooden beams, to the screech of electrical saws cutting through steel. Meanwhile, from the northern section was heard a monotonous song sung collectively by workers who carried on their backs and shoulders sacks of cement, with their heads bent under the scorching sun, as sweat poured profusely down their backs and rumps and glittered on their hairy calves.

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The sun here was the uncontested master of the situation. It is as if it had abandoned every other part of the world to stare, with its hot and red eyeball, at this particular construction site and at these very workers on the eastern outskirts of the city. Though sweltering, the workers kept working and panting, and woe unto him who slowed down or showed negligence. Abu Anwar’s eye, from behind his dark glasses, like a viper in a thicket, waylaid a worker, seeing him without being seen. It was an eye whose voracity and burning were no less than those of the sun’s eye. His eye not only burned and caused its victim vertigo and unconsciousness, but it also penetrated his depth, questioned his sincerity, and spied on his conscience, to the point that every laborer, from the highest to the lowest rank, felt the pricks of his eye, like knives stuck in their backs. Whoever wasted time, Abu Anwar would take his life and money, even if he worked the whole day. That is why you saw them all working and singing as if they were dancing at a wedding. As one poet put it, “a slain bird dances from excessive pain,” but these workers sang and danced to avert Abu Anwar and to blot out his existence. They tolerated and suppressed their pain because they were busy thinking about their wages, due by the weekend. However, how could they shield themselves from Abu Anwar’s eye? Where could they run to from it? It was the one intolerable thing. It sufficed that you thought of it; the mere fact that you observed his eye observing you was likely to get you confused and tangled, until, perhaps unexpectedly, you fell into a ditch of lime boiling like a volcano, or you fell from the fifth or seventh floor of a construction site, as happened to more than one worker. Abu Anwar’s eye kept switching, like a wasp, from one worker to another, until it finally landed on a blond laborer who was talking to a coworker while both were up to their waists in a ditch, laying foundations. The blond young worker was embroiled in crushing a rock that hindered his progress. Since yesterday he had tried and tried to budge it, but to no avail. Today when he found out that the rock was too firmly rooted in the ground and that it was impossible to dig it out, he chose the rock crusher and chisel to pulverize it. The rough handle of the

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crusher had already started to bruise his palm, and some of the blisters that had appeared on the bottom of his fingers were about to burst and bleed. The young worker was a novice at construction work. He had been a student in the village, but when he realized that his financial conditions wouldn’t allow him to complete his studies, he quit school and started this hard manual labor. Now, as he was complaining to his friend about the difficulties he had encountered with that rock, the latter warned him, “Be careful, Sulaiman! Abu Anwar is watching us.” “I have noticed that.” “Then, keep working.” “But I can’t.” “Woe unto you! Do you want to lose your job? Do you want Abu Anwar to deprive you of your wages?” “I can’t work at all when someone is spying on me.” “Look, he has left his perch and seems to be heading in our direction.” Afraid of losing his job, the other worker turned from Sulaiman, keeping himself busy digging the foundations, while Sulaiman continued complaining loudly, not knowing what was going on around him. “Let him come. I can get nowhere. As a child, I couldn’t do my homework when my father was watching me. When the pen in my hand was motionless, my father used to strike me on the head. I can’t budge a pebble when I am being watched. I feel as if I have committed some unthinkable crime. But when I am left working without being watched, I work easily and honestly. I don’t understand why a human being should be spied on if he does his job in earnest.” When Sulaiman noticed that his friend was busy digging, not paying him any attention, he looked around hopelessly, but by then Abu Anwar had already left his perch, and all the workers were engrossed in their work. Sulaiman was pained by the different noises. And when he remembered how he stood the other night on the sidewalk until midnight without being paid his wages, he flew into a silent rage and felt dizzy. Abu Anwar hadn’t pay him, though he was in desperate need. At school, his little brother was told by the principal he would lose the right to

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attend classes if the rest of his tuition was not paid. He had promised his brother to remit the payment last Sunday, but Abu Anwar had not only refused to pay him, but also cursed him and drove him away as if he were a beggar. Sulaiman was about to cry, especially when he began to plead with his boss, explaining his little brother’s case. The principal had probably suspended his brother by now, and the youngster was, most likely, roaming the village streets. Sulaiman cursed Abu Anwar, then picked up the crusher and kept hammering the chisel with voracity, as if trying to crush Abu Anwar’s head. The rock, however, was so hard that the chisel couldn’t penetrate its surface. He felt his forearm go numb and his entire body turn weak. Though sensing that the rock was stronger than his will, he continued to hammer the chisel but, this time, with disappointment and defeat, as if striking a flint rock, or Abu Anwar’s heart, much harder and ruthless than flint. For a moment, he imagined the construction site empty, himself the only one working. He could barely hear anything in the entire place except for the monotonous noise of his rock crusher. Where were the on-site sounds and singing workers? Where were his fellow workers who were scattered through the construction site? He couldn’t even see his friend who was digging next to him. He felt a mysterious hand had grabbed the construction project’s heart and choked it to death. How odd! People and objects had, in just a moment, turned into still life. Even the sun had been transformed into a disk of glass whose rays had dimmed and faded. Abu Anwar alone was swinging like a pendulum on the surface of that dead painting; he was a specter, stalking like fate, freely and ruthlessly. Where was he heading and why? “You son of a bitch. This is not how you strike.” Upon hearing his boss’s voice, Sulaiman shuddered like someone waking from a dream, and the entire construction site came back to life. Savagely, Abu Anwar kicked Sulaiman, causing him to fall on his face. Rising from the ground, Sulaiman noticed all the workers had ceased working and begun staring at him. Abu Anwar had wrenched the rock crusher from Su-

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laiman’s hand, and with his tall stature and colossal build, now stood bolt upright. With excitement and pleasure, Sulaiman watched in awe as this giant of a man crushed the rock with his extraordinary power. Up till then, Sulaiman had detested his boss, but now he admired him. He was like a lover enchanted with his beloved, or like a pious worshipper fascinated with his Almighty God. For the first time his boss appeared to him omnipotent—all powerful, as he began to examine him from the top of his head to the bottom of his high-heeled boots. When Sulaiman was still in his first year of high school, he didn’t run to the courtyard to play during recess, as his classmates did. On the contrary, he would stand alone in the hall adjoining the classrooms, where a big portrait of a young athlete throwing a discus was hung, and underneath which was written, “Myron—Discus Thrower.” Sulaiman was fascinated with the features of Myron’s beautiful body. Looking at this athlete from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and staring at his physical features, Sulaiman felt relieved and the anxieties of his study vanished. With equal pleasure and enchantment, Sulaiman was ravished by the perfect manhood of Abu Anwar, starting with his strong fists, which had snatched the crusher and lifted it in the air, to his thick neck, whose layers of meat were firmly pressed together because of his formidable exertions, to the muscles of his back and shoulders, piled and rolled up defiantly, so that his shirt had ripped into shreds below the armpit. But as the horrible strike landed on the chisel like a thunderbolt, it sent up sparks and deafened everyone. Then followed a frightening silence by which Sulaiman was alarmed and at a loss. He expected Abu Anwar’s huge torso to straighten up again to continue striking and destroying that stubborn rock that was yet to be budged, and then he thought Abu Anwar would turn the crusher over to him, saying, “You silly ass, this is how to deliver a masterly stroke.” However, he was appalled when the crusher fell silently from Abu Anwar’s hand, followed immediately by his sagging and writhing body that landed—a speechless lump of meat—headfirst, into the ditch.

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Workers and managers (even some inquisitive pedestrians) rushed to the site, attracted by the stink, or else led by their infallible intuition, to a horrendous catastrophe. That terrible blow had ripped an artery in Abu Anwar’s heart. All the workers were struck dumb to see a powerful boss, who had filled the construction site and their world with his terror, dominion, and dexterity, reduced, in just a moment, to a helpless, mute thing, not even able to fill up a tiny corner of the ditch in which he was lying. The workers stammered among themselves as they exchanged sad, baffled looks, then mumbled, “Poor Abu Anwar! He was really the most skillful boss in the country.”

BORN AGAIN I was just about to have dinner, when my friend Isaiah burst in panting. And without saluting, he said, “Follow me at once. There is a prodigious preacher who animates stones… transforms sinners into saints. People by hundreds, by thousands, from different denominations, are pouring to him. Tonight he will deliver his last sermon. Believe me, the very preacher you would really like.” Isaiah was quite aware of my negative attitude toward such evangelists, to whom my father used to say while arguing with them, “The eighth commandment states, ‘you shall not steal.’ Why then are you robbing stones from our church? Go to the quarries nearby. They are full of stones, brand new stones to build your churches.” In fact, in the vicinity along the rocky coast there were a lot of quarries. But by “new stones,” my father meant Moslems populating the whole area to whom those evangelists dared not preach. They were rather endeavoring to convert the faithful among other congregations and denominations to their own sect. And my father added, “Besides, by preaching to Christians, you are contradicting even Paul, who said, ‘And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation.’” (Romans 15:20) “I am afraid of not finding vacant places in the church,” Isaiah continued after breathing a sigh of relief. “The taxi driver is already waiting for us.” And he stepped out. To her dismay, noticing me following my friend without having dinner yet, my wife stood agape at the door, unable to utter a single word. And maybe she talked to me while I de79

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scended the stairs frantically after him, but I didn’t hear her. I was still stunned by Isaiah’s words. “A prodigious preacher that animates stones and transforms sinner into saints. The very type you would really like.” True, neither a great sinner was I nor a saint whom angels envied; I was rather in between so to speak. I had shortcomings that I was ashamed of and virtues I used to brag about or refrain from disclosing. Besides, I was very eager to attend religious meetings and listen to subjects that dealt with good and evil, heaven and hell, angels and sinners, death and resurrection and the like (that is, the metaphysical problems that perplex both mind and imagination, and around which opinions are most often diverse and divisive, controversial and contradictory, so that you are always teetering between the firm faith and deceiving doubt, your curiosity aroused to listen again and again). As for my interest in all those matters, it all started when I was a child, when I used to listen constantly to a noted neighbor so witty and versed in the Scriptures that his home was always full of curious people like me. Oh, how often I neglected my homework and went there to listen avidly to their tempestuous debates with him. Sometimes when it was late, my mother, without hailing me, used to storm in, snatch my arm, and drag me away amid their laughter. As Isaiah had already expected, the church was packed full with people of different denominations. Those standing in the aisles seemed to outnumber those in the pews. Perhaps because of my tall stature and white suit and the black garment of my short companion who looked like a clergyman, a young gentleman approached, nodded, and with a very polite manner, invited both of us to follow him. To our astonishment, he ushered us to the first row in the foreground just below the pulpit, where distinguished persons were sitting in luxurious armchairs. What embarrassed me most was being the focus of attention. I couldn’t even avoid the master of ceremonies on the stage, who, while advancing to the pulpit, welcomed me with a slight smile. Ashamed, I nodded to him, stooped, and followed the usher. But no sooner was I seated to the left of an elderly woman than I noticed again the master of ceremonies still following us with

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his eyes as if to make sure that we had reached our destination so that he could begin his speech. Isaiah, in turn, while looking hurriedly for his seat next to me, bumped the foot of a respectable young lady at his left. He apologized, mumbling in a funny way. The man sitting beside the woman, her husband maybe, frowned without uttering a word. After introducing the preacher with terse terms that did not, however, lack humble praise and vivid plaudits, the master of ceremonies retired from the scene. And lo and behold, the door behind the stage opened and a burly and brown man, very brown, with short hair almost shaved, entered and stepped toward the pulpit with a hasty, steady pace. “This is the preacher,” whispered Isaiah in my ear. He was, as I said, dark brown and good looking; he had a sound and strong constitution. I noticed his large barrel chest dominating the pulpit and his hand grasping the sides of the podium with fat and forceful fingers like pincers. He was wearing a dark, almost black suit, which increased his brownness. His snow white shirt and collar formed straight lines between the red necktie and the vest and joined in a big V, ending with the single button of his jacket—and above this whiteness and brownness spread all over with a showy elegance, a pair of dark eyes from which quick and pierce glances shot through his eyeglasses. The preacher stood still for a few moments, staring at his large audience calmly and vigilantly, as if waiting for total silence to permeate the souls, for ears to be more attentive, and hearts to be more receptive to his sermon. Thus, encouraged by the delight and astonishment of his listeners so that you could literally hear the pounding of their hearts, he persevered to the utmost his performance, his stylistic oration as if words were inspired by heaven. He was really an actor, orator, raconteur, poet, and priest altogether. His sermon was a masterpiece, a marvelous mixture of Demosthene’s declaration and Chrisostomos’s eloquence. I was really more awestruck by his performance and magniloquence than by the spiritual content of his sermon. When he stopped for awhile, as if to take a break for the first time, we didn’t expect him to deliver more than he did.

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Then to our astonishment, he proceeded to present this unexpected parable. The parable was about a preacher and his confrontation with a great queen. As he told this parable, our preacher stepped from side to side, assuming all roles with their various voices. Once the preacher was on stage, like me now, but outside, in the large open square of the nation’s capital, and while the multitudes were listening to him sermonizing, the pavement of the street trembled under the footfall of horses’ hooves. And lo, a magnificent chariot adorned with gold and ivory appeared, then approached with pomp and splendor the preacher’s pulpit. It was drawn by six superbly beautiful and thoroughbred horses whose muscles were moving under a polished, smooth, and splendid coat. Thousands of eyes were staring at the chariot. The preacher and the mob recognized the queen’s chariot. People suffered too much because of her oppressions and reluctantly disregarded her debauchery. Then the preacher turned around, stretched his long arm as a palm branch toward the queen, and shouted with vim and vigor, “Countrymen, here is the tyrant Jezebel. Here is your queen.” Hearing his terrible terms, the queen pulled the chariot’s curtain, and her eyes were about to wink, because his fingers were still, like a spearhead, wagging at her in a menacing manner. And here the preacher, addressing the mob, shouted in a ringing and resonant voice, “who would buy the queen? Yes, who would purchase the precious queen?” It was indeed a queer question that shocked and shook the multitude as a whirlwind. A mare neighed as a protest against the abominable insolence of the preacher, who persisted and repeated with a more vehement tone, pointing again to the cowardly queen, “who among you, good citizens, is willing to buy the queen,” I said? A tense silence fell over the crowd. Heads bowed and statures bent as if every individual was personally accountable, rather culpable because of the contemptuous question repeated time and again. “I would buy her,” a voice came from the crowd.

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“Who are you, arrogant creature, to dare to buy our great queen?” “I am Money. I am Mammon. I am the Lord of the World.” “No, neither money nor mammon of the entire world can buy even the sandal strap of our priceless queen.” And here, a wave of ease permeated the multitude that was about to heave a sigh of relief, when suddenly the voice of the preacher shouted vehemently, “who among you is really capable of buying our queen?” “I am, preacher. Yes indeed I would purchase the queen.” “You? But who are you, brave stranger?” “I am he who is worshiped, with heads bowed. I am he who at my door, knees prostrate, bodies bend, and souls melt. I am Glory and Fame, Splendor and Sublimity.” “Absurdity. Nonsense. Ha, ha, ha.” “Why are you mocking me miserable preacher? I said I would buy her indeed.” “And I say, presumptuous purchaser, that no gold or glory in the whole world is worth even the nail clippings of our Great and Glorious Queen.” There was anew an audible sigh of relief, laughter, and brouhahas among the joyous throng. But at this very moment a troop of armed forces on horses stormed and surrounded the place. Surprised and scared to death were the populace. Whereas the preacher, without even blinking, resumed his daring question. Nay, his voice now was expressly more firm and fomenting, more strong and sarcastic as to pierce the ears of the soldiers themselves. “Who among you guardians of the country would dare purchase our queen? No one? Alas.” With an authoritative glance and wave of her hand, the queen silenced the rattling of sabers in their scabbards. “Neither you, handsome officer of the guard? Nor you, old man there? Look at your queen. She is as gorgeous as a goddess.”

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Again uncanny silence was about to spur the soldiers lest the voice of the preacher rang now with unusual questions and answers going from bad to worse. “Peace with you, piteous preacher. I bought the queen.” “You said what, stranger?” “I said, I already purchased her. The queen is mine now, under my own dominion, in my private possession.” “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. But in exchange for what did you buy her?” “Of course, not with material things like silver, gold, or glory, but by my own gore that was shed on Calvary. By my precious blood I purchased the queen.” “Oh gracious God! Oh sweet Jesus! No. There is no greater love, no greater sacrifice than yours. In whom can we take refuge other than you? You are the way, you are the truth, and you are the life. Amen.” And here, the church exploded with thunderous ovations as if it was torpedoed by tons of dynamite. A charge of electric ecstasy seized the souls and pervaded the hearts like catharsis in the tragedies of the ancient Greek great poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Depicting the last scene in his parable, our prodigious preacher said, “The solemn silence that seized the masses in that great open square of the capital was interrupted for the second time by the neigh of a horse that began to strike the floor with its iron hooves, emitting sparks as if it were striking the innermost part of the queen’s heart and igniting in it intense fire. Ashamed and humbled, the queen nodded, retreated with her troops weeping, repenting and returning to Lord Christ and Savior. And the mob rejoiced at her sight, and the sight of tears welling in the preacher’s eyes, and flowing out, filling his palms. His uncovered face was now so radiant, so glowing as if illuminated by the blessings of heaven.” Again a splendid ovation was heard in the church. “Great, wasn’t he?” Isaiah whispering to me. “Wonderful! Really wonderful!” I muttered. “Didn’t I tell you?”

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Paying no more heed to Isaiah’s repeated remarks and praise about the preacher, I pondered. On one hand, I marveled at Christ’s great love and sacrifice for mankind and see in Him alone the Supreme God, more than just a historical man or the Son of Man, or of all other gods. I saw no one else but Him as the sole, single, and unique God of our planet, sinking in its constant worries and concerns, troubles and turmoil, dreads and dilemmas. On the other hand, I admired this prodigious preacher still standing on the stage with his graceful looks, so delighted and leisurely savoring the great felicity, delight, and joy of the audience. I equally marveled at the wit of the Western preacher, who through his peculiar and profound parable could convert a straying queen. Now, when the audience was about to leave the church, it was the master of ceremonies who stopped them by a gentle gesture of both of his hands. And they sat down, gladly watching the preacher and the master of ceremonies, impatiently awaiting a pending surprise. In that very solemn evening we were expecting many wonders, even the opening of the sky and the landing of angels on earth. For people everywhere are so thirsty and hungry for the very Word of God that they are restless all their lifetime waiting to hear it. And lo the preacher, accompanied by the master of ceremonies, descended from the stage and marched calmly toward those sitting in the front, still grinning and waving. It seemed to me he was asking them questions, but I couldn’t hear him because he was still at the far side of the front line. As he passed from one person to another, eyes focused on him and attentive ears yearned to catch what he was saying. In the meantime, while still absorbed in evaluating his skill in sounding the social consciences and captivating by his eloquence the minds of the crowd, behold my ears perked up. “Are you born again?” “So this was his question every time he passed from one person to another,” I said within myself, as he approached the woman sitting next to me. She was a middle-aged woman, shab-

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bily but properly dressed, and presumably from a middle-class background. “I am asking you, if you are born again, Madam?” Confused, she began to teeter and stammer, not knowing exactly how to respond to him. This was the first time she had heard such a question. In our churches in the Middle East, preachers or pastors don’t ask the faithful such a question. Thinking she was deaf, the preacher stooped and asked her loudly, “I am asking you if you are now born again?” Moving uneasily in her seat, the old woman eyed him silently for a while, and again she mumbled and trembled, saying, “Truly… I don’t know… what… what to say… exactly.” “Ah,” exclaimed the preacher, “It seems to me that you are afraid to say what is really on your mind, although my question is very simple.” “I know… I know… but you know,” she uttered hesitantly, taking off her eyeglasses. And here the preacher bent forward, and down, and asked her with a tart tone, revealing discomfort and discontent as if he was fed up with her, “I asked you, Madam, if you have been born again after my speech. Answer my question; yes or no.” “Oh yes, yes… but… but I have still a hazy idea about… about,” she said in such a hurried and weepy way that I felt sorry for her. “But about what?” asked the preacher sharply, as he shook his hand in front of her. Then with a harsh voice and warning, “Look at me, Madam. Do you know what Jesus says?” “No,” she answered hastily but hesitatingly. “He says word for word, ‘For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him the Son of Man also will be ashamed.’” And he pronounced his last sentence with such a majestic tone of voice that a shocked murmur spread through the whole audience. Trembling before him as if before God’s throne, the woman moaned and cried. “Oh no… no. No, I am not ashamed of Christ.” “Oh, yes Madam, and the proof is that you are ashamed to testify that you are born again, and you are trembling.”

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“But no… no.” “But yes, yes.” He interrupted her abruptly, “Long before you, Peter denied Christ thrice.” The woman was about to faint. And a heavy silence fell on the church for a few moments. Turning all this over in my mind, I was now quite aware of the preacher’s tricks and tactics. I felt an urge to expose him openly. “Your preacher is exaggerating,” I whispered to Isaiah. “He has infuriated the whole audience.” “In fact he,” the Preacher said with a slight smile on his face, “Yes, he denied Christ three times.” And the woman tried to defend herself, “But, Sir.” Without giving her respite, he continued, “Yes indeed, tomorrow you will meet your neighbor and she will ask you, ‘Have you really been in that church? And have you listened to that preacher? And of course, he has converted you, and certainly you will have been born again.’ ” “No, no,” she desperately whimpered in protest. Turning his back halfway to her, seeming not to notice her protest, he continued, addressing now the audience as with a fresh, new sermon, “The Lord says, ‘be cold or hot. But do not be lukewarm lest I will spew you out of my mouth.’ ” And while he was explaining this saying of the Lord, I began to ponder afresh the preacher’s sly and skillful game. He is certainly a genius psychologist. He mercilessly trapped her in his snare as he did with many others. He is like all other preachers, predators of easy prey. His sole purpose is to convert her to his own sect. The saying of the Lord “Whoever is ashamed of me… I also will be ashamed of him,” will ring time and again in her ears. My ears perked up anew at, “Are you, Sir, a born again?” I wasn’t aware that the question was addressed to me now, when Isaiah tapped my shoulder twice and said to me, “The reverend preacher is speaking to you,” and the preacher interrupted my friend, and said to me, “I am asking, Sir, if you have been born again today?” At that very moment I regained full consciousness. The preacher was still standing next to me with his pale, pitiful face

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and empty eyes, as if he was asking me alms and charity, but I felt no pity for him. Rather, I winced, leaned back in my comfortable seat, and started to scan and size him up carefully. And the slight smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared at the left corner of his lips, as if he was disgusted with his ceaseless, monotonous, and automatic question addressed to Christians who are maybe more genuine, more faithful than he. Then an unbidden answer rose to my lips, and I said, “Oh. As for me… Most Reverend Preacher and Teacher of the Gospel… (then very quietly, clearly and punctiliously) Oh. Yes, as for me, even before hearing your outstanding and sensational sermon, yes I am, and…” Aware now of my response, he didn’t let me continue my sentence. He dashed forward as if leaping over a large gap. But my quick words dashed through and jumped after him jerking and jolting his ears, “And, yes, I am still, as I have always been, kept in Christ, a new creation.” “What was your response to him sir?” The old woman sitting beside me asked. “It seems he didn’t stop too long with you.” Her countenance was so sad and broken with great affliction. I felt sorry for her and said, “I said to him that I was a new creation in Christ even before hearing his sermon.” “Alas!” she uttered as though frightened, her hand convulsively clutching her dress as if to suppress a shiver. “What is the matter with you, Madam?” I said, smiling. “Nothing… Nothing… Your response to him was better than mine.” Feigning that I was unaware of her response to him, and not mindful of those long sardonic and menacing words of the preacher to her, I said, “By the way, what was your reply to him?” She looked all around to see if anyone was looking at her, and as if she was confessing a great sin or revealing a significant secret, she murmured, “I think… I think I said something similar. But, but I don’t know, I don’t remember well.” “If so, what is wrong with that, Madam? Don’t worry. Don’t you believe in Christ as your sole God and Savior?”

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“Of course I do. Certainly I do love Him and worship Him constantly. The crucifix is over my bed. Day and night I pray to Christ to deliver me from evil and forgive all my sins.” “But why are you then so confused? Do you feel guilty of something you said wrong? To the preacher, for example?” “Not exactly… maybe… I don’t know,” she said calmly and kept wiping unseen dust off the black purse on her lap. I couldn’t refrain from laughing because of her frankness and naïveté. And to tease her a bit, I said, imitating the menacing tone of the preacher, “Don’t forget, Madam. Do you know what Jesus said? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed.” “So you heard our conversation?” she interrupted me. “I heard it, Madam, and you were very sincere, very frank, and brave with your responses to the preacher; because for the first time you were hearing such an expression “are you born again?” “Yes indeed. Thank you so much,” and a little ashamed, she bowed her head smiling, totally relieved. And I began to watch the predator preacher, now almost out of sight, forcing his way among the throng, hunting for his corpulent prey. Translated by Touma Al-Khoury

STATUS QUO (RECOLLECTIONS) Had it not been for the incident that occurred (I still don’t exactly know how it happened), I would have left my country for a utopia, where I could regain my lost identity and enjoy the freedom I had as a little boy, about which I ceaselessly dreamed, and for which I suffered much later, in the prime of my life.* Normally, an actor assumes a role for a while, for fifteen minutes, an hour or even two, but then he takes off his costume, returns to his actual personality, to his real self, and takes a rest from the hardship of acting. In my country, however, we are accustomed to abandoning our real selves and our identities all the time. Here, life is nothing but a charade; we please others, sham, cheat, lie, dissemble, and wheel and deal. In other words, we remain, throughout our lives, locked into role playing, though we agonize over the loss of our “identity.” I am going to relate the facts of that peculiar incident faithfully, accurately and elaborately, as well as my memory serves me. And my memory, as all my acquaintances have acknowledged, is my most powerful faculty. Here is how it started, and because of what happened, I had to postpone my trip for an indefinite period. Life, in my cell, exists outside the realm of time. And time, in my country, because of its flexibility, resilience, and amenability, is at the courts’ beck and call. Courts, however, are marked with a propensity toward postponement and procrastination. Therefore, only time, in my country, has the power of solving The author considers Status Quo a narrative essay, rather than a short story.

*

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the most complex and insoluble problems. As time allows us to forget the deceased, after they are buried, so does it cause us to forget the most sacred matters, for which we protest, go on strike, write about and suffer for. Having discovered the power of time, our rulers made it their most powerful and terrifying weapon; they use time to weaken our people’s memory, deal with their worries, settle their issues, cure their wounds, alleviate their pains, and in time they make our people abandon their most cherished causes. Thus, our wretched people are deluded into believing that they lead a life of ease and comfort, when, in fact, they live in utmost misery, bleeding to death. On the very day when the incident occurred, our washer had broken down. The washing machine, a superb appliance marked with faithfulness, precision, and durability, served us for fifteen years, during which it never had a breakdown. My wife, being nervous and up to her ears in work, had forced a washed, thick blanket into the wringer. When it failed to squeeze the blanket, my wife kept on forcing it into the wringer until it choked, screeched, and its steel arch split into two pieces. At once I called the company that sold me the washing machine, inquiring about the price of a new arch. Upon learning that it would cost an arm and a leg, it suddenly dawned on me that, instead of buying a new arch for thirty liras, I could easily weld the broken one for only a couple of liras. We, the citizens of this country, know how to act when faced with a desperate situation. Our motto is “the shrewd one never dies, even if his shrewdness leads to the destruction of others.” But this is beside the point. I wrapped up the broken arch in an old newspaper and left. I never felt constrained or uncomfortable about carrying the arch until I reached the main street, where I had to wait for a taxi. Being a journalist, the owner of a chicken farm, and a college professor is hardly unusual in my country, for whether we are members of parliament, ministers, or clerks of the lowest rank, we are all jack-of-all-trades, and some of us suddenly drop dead from this excessive vitality and endless work. We are the only people who can live a carefree life if some political party or religious sect can secure us a position as a minister or a manager, even though we are uneducated or completely illiterate. These

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are only a few of our traits, for which we are unmatched—but that is beside the point. Because of my profession as a journalist, in addition to my other careers, I was not used to carrying anything save a book, a magazine, a newspaper, or a fancy leather briefcase. Holding two broken steel bars, about two feet long and weighing more than ten pounds, was something my soft hands were unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, I was resolved to mend that arch as soon as possible because the unfinished laundry and my wife’s unpleasant mood could in no way be disregarded. First, however, I was supposed to stop at the hospital to see my mother, whose gallbladder had been removed. Then I had planned to head to a welder to fix the broken arch. Therefore, I had to take three taxis, one to the city center, another to the hospital, and from there to the welder. Although it was still early winter, a heavy rain began to fall, turning the streets into streams of dirt and waste. Each year the changing weather challenged our municipality, which must have forgotten to clean the openings of the drains, so the water flooded the sidewalks and rose, spilling into shops and commercial buildings. The thing that drew my attention, as the taxi went down the center of the city, was the street, which has recently been renewed. Its asphalt had already cracked and flaked off from rainstorms, and some of it was washed away, like melted chocolate, by the current. Around the beginning of summer, the old asphalt was pretty smooth and firm, with no sign of cracks or potholes, and I was deeply hurt watching construction workers remove it and replace it. I felt then as if the workers’ pickaxes were breaking up my own body rather than that of the road, because I was able to see through their plan. You may think I exaggerate and get carried away with my feelings, but that is not true. I personally can’t even tolerate to see a water tap running. Such odd things not only bother me, but they even cause me pain. As a result, I often suffer from migraines and look terribly emaciated and pale. Once, I read an article in an international magazine, the author of which was advising people like me “not to worry about worthless things, nor pay attention to those who make a mountain out of a mole-

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hill; not to bother about those who are weary, nor be affected by any idiosyncrasies, unpleasantries, or even the iniquities of others.” If people like me want to stay mentally and physically healthy, the author of the article stated, “they have to consider everything unnatural in life as being natural, inevitable, and absolutely logical, like 2+2=4.” But I must admit; I truly mean it, and my wife and family doctor are my witnesses: I cannot stand being indifferent toward life’s injustices. It is in my nature that I detest all sorts of idiosyncrasies; they make me look ill and feel pain, and I often lose my temper and commit some horrible act, which I later regret. Had it not been again for the incident that occurred and embroiled me in this trouble and led me into this cell, I would certainly have left a long time ago for an ideal country—a utopia devoid of all idiosyncrasies, where I would spend the rest of my life without feeling headachy. The passenger sitting next to me also noticed, as he was reading the newspaper, the despicable condition of the road and its wasted asphalt. He then remarked sarcastically, “Another year, another contract.” The passenger to my left responded, “Contracts of huge projects are implemented the same way; buildings are built and rented out to the government for millions of liras every year, and all these transactions are conducted by brokers who are often government officials. No wonder the country is drained of its resources. How could a country not bleed to death when it is stabbed in the back every day!” As the taxi was approaching the center of the city, the steel arch slipped out of my hands and fell on my foot, causing me some pain. Meanwhile, the driver remarked, “Take it easy, next spring the government will contract with another firm for new asphalt.” Such whispered remarks were exchanged between my friends and me in private and even in public. At that moment, my eyes caught sight of the headline of the newspaper the passenger next to me was reading. In big and bold letters, the headline stated that a man had wriggled out of a hellish marriage to savor the pleasure of paradise. The man, who was said to be

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forty years old, had six children and was arrested with his mistress in a suspicious house. Noticing that the headline had caught my attention, the man reading the newspaper commented, “Probably the owner or the editor of the newspaper thinks that marriage in general and his parents’ marriage, in particular, must be hell, whereas committing adultery, unlawfulness and violating the sanctity of others are to him a source of pleasure. Prostitution, obviously, takes different forms.” “The authorities have to be blamed, because they don’t censure such misbehavior, nor do they care about what is going on,” observed another passenger. When we arrived, the city center was packed with people. I noticed two drivers, whom I happened to know, shoving others aside and running between the cars parked on both sides of the street, chasing each other. One was cursing and holding a screwdriver with which to hit the other, but when both got tired of the chase, the fugitive turned around, and with an agile motion, grabbed his pursuer’s hand, wrenched the screwdriver out, and tossed it in the air. The people who witnessed the scene were so frightened that, while running helter-skelter to avoid the fighting drivers, some were trampled in the stampede. Then when the two drivers resumed cursing and pushing each other, other drivers intervened, breaking them up. “What is going on?” asked one of the gentlemen who rushed to the site of the fight. “Nothing,” answered one of the drivers sarcastically. “As usual, we’re putting on a show for the public.” In less than two minutes, the two bickering drivers were holding hands, smiling, and hugging each other. At once the driver’s statement reminded me of some shows we have often seen or read about, in which the nation’s assembly and its parliament were the setting and the focus. As the drivers were cursing and fighting, so were the parliamentarians, in the nation’s assembly, yelling, accusing, and occasionally, even throwing chairs at each other. However, soon after, they would apologize, shake hands, cooperate to ensure their mutual interests continue to be reelected. It seems as if their perpetuity is modeled after

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that of God. Why not? Have we not stripped God of all his qualities when we claim infallibility, greatness, splendor, loftiness, honor, virtue, holiness, exaltedness, and beatitude and bestow them upon ourselves? It is both a parliamentary trick and a sign of professionalism. The people, however, are the ones who are always tricked; they pay the price for their naïveté and simplicity. It is true that the government is independent, but the people are still slaves and colonized—they are a nation of sheep. Sorry Mom! Being so engrossed in contemplating the current status quo has kept me from visiting you. Sorry poor wife for keeping you impatiently sitting next to your damaged wringer, smoking one cigarette after another, while waiting for the repaired arch. When I arrived, the hospital was packed with unfortunate people, coming from different parts of the city, and ambulance sirens were ceaselessly heard. There were massive tragedies. Obviously, no capital, as big as ours, would ever be devoid of disasters. Reasons may vary, but the catastrophes remain the same— they range from a person shot by his old enemy or by a stray bullet during a funeral ceremony, to someone who has committed suicide by taking poison, to a woman found with her head chopped off as a result of adultery. This appears to be an immutable situation, and there is no hope of getting it changed, altered, corrected, or improved. As has often been said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The only thing that made me forget about this unbearable situation and my mother, who was hallucinating, was an evil rumor that caught my attention, and people in every room were whispering about it. The rumor dealt with the owners of a wellknown bank who had declared an illegal bankruptcy. “Those bank crooks are hospitalized in the first-class section,” said someone. That vicious statement stirred a dialogue in my head. “Is that possible?” “Why not?” “Such crooks were supposed to be thrown in jail. If there were a God to watch and judge, such people would have been kept in hell.”

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“What you’re saying is blasphemy! Even if these people are thieves, they are probably ill.” “People whisper that those crooks merely pretend to be ill.” “The doctor is the best judge of that.” “Then how come they get first-class treatment?” “Because they can afford it.” “They can afford it because they steal the money from the poor.” “The hospital’s administration does not care where the money comes from.” “Don’t the authorities inquire?” “The authorities must have done their duty. These crooks were indicted and put in prison, but now that they are hospitalized and have armed guards at their doors.” “Guards provide protection so those patients can have sex with prostitutes in their rooms?” “What are you talking about?” “Rumor has it that instead of medicine, they are supplied with scotch, caviar, and sexy girls.” “Though prostitution has been condemned, unanimously, by our religious authorities, it has been legalized by our government.” “Sex in a hospital and under the supervision of the authorities?” “Even there!” “If other men were spotted in suspect places, most likely the same authority would have arrested them.” “Probably.” “But to assign armed guards to their rooms and have them salute every prostitute that comes and goes…” “This matter calls for careful study.” Running a temperature, my mother was delirious; her hands were burning; the hot steel arch was burning my hands; and the heated debate in my head was almost boiling over into an open war. From a room across the hallway, right opposite my mother’s, I saw an eminent doctor looking at his wristwatch and

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telling his aides and students that the patient around whom they were gathered was seriously ill and would soon die. The tight, rectangular hallway that looked like the rubber tube inserted in my mother’s nose was resonant with the cry of a child, a painful cry, so touching to those who heard it that they themselves were brought to tears. Then I heard someone saying, “It’s a child whose back is terribly burned. For the second day his mother has brought him to the hospital for treatment, but hospital officials sent her back, saying there is no vacancy. There are plenty of vacant rooms in the first-class section, but the Ministry of Health only permits poor burned children to be hospitalized in the fourth-class section, namely the section for the poor who either don’t have money or who don’t know how to wheel and deal: how to rob other people, or how to declare illegal bankruptcy.” “But why is the child not treated in the first-class section and then taken home until a room is vacant in the fourth-class section?” “Won’t he die if he is left untreated?” “No doubt he will die, for I have checked his burned back,” whispered a medical student to an inquiring person. Evil rumors, like all evil things, pass from mouth to mouth, like a stink that first penetrates an alley, then permeates the entire city. However, the people of this city are quite oblivious to the threat. Time in this city conceals everything, suppresses every voice, even the cries of dying children. The child whose back was terribly burned gave a shriek that reverberated through the hallway and stirred a flaming rage in my head, then triggered so much tension in my forearm that I gripped the steel arch tightly in my hand. Suddenly, I jumped up, shifting my grave looks from my delirious mother to the opposite room, where the doctor, with his neck as stiff as the immutable status quo and his head bent over his golden watch, was repeating his irrevocable decision, waiting for his patient to breathe his last. A plea for help echoed through the entire place… pimps making the headlines of newspapers and magazines… the hospital turned into a brothel, a tavern, a place of dissipation, wheeling and dealing… pickaxes were falling on the

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road’s body, tearing it into bits and pieces… and daggers ruthlessly stabbing the nation’s body, in the back, in the waist, in the chest, everywhere, until it dropped dead… and with utmost force and intensity, my hand, holding the steel arch, landed on the doctor’s stiff neck, smashing his straight body and freezing his life in less than a second, before he pronounced the terminally ill patient dead. I have already made it clear that I can neither tolerate idiosyncrasies in any shape or form, nor the existing situation, for such oddities often make me lose my temper. That was the incident that occurred. It not only entangled me in an awkward situation but also forced me to put off my travel to a utopian country for an indefinite time, because time, in my country, is, in its turn, the property of the judicial system and, therefore, subject to its courts.