Muhammad Abi Samra - Beirut Noir

They pitied him and I envied him. Lying in bed, I wished he were the one about whom people said, “Beautiful features and a good head on his shoulders,” and I were the one about whom they said, “Poor thing, deranged looks and a deficient mind.” Because of my jealousy I started acting like he did while holding his hand, walking together to school: I would take my hand from his, making sure no one was watching, and then I’d start to cover everything with wet kisses. I’d open up my schoolbag and eat my snack before the bell rang, marking the arrival of the ten o’clock break, or I’d throw it to a homeless dog or stray cat, or I’d put it in a hole in a tree stump, and on top of all that I’d kiss it because... because it was there, on the side of the road. I’d take off my school uniform and throw out the coins in my pockets. If my shoes were too tight or a pebble got into them, I would take them off too and walk barefoot, not feeling pain, cold, or shame. My brother’s laughter would accompany me, rising up behind me and causing a huge bevy of leaves to fall from the trees onto us.

My brother was the only one who missed me after what befell me. In any case, he is the only one I missed too. Others would pass by the eye and not linger or tarry. Passersby, people in transit, visitors. Capturing the wind. I don’t remember any of their features, and they don’t leave any trace on me. The faces which come back to me are themselves few, wild, and don’t tolerate any intimacy. Sometimes I can put names to them, when the waters of memories explode within me; I’m not aware of them flowing down in my lower regions.

This is how “Ta” came in disguise, hiding behind memories that weren’t his, despite all my miserable attempts to make him go away. Ta, who I fell in love with when we were still children. Because he stopped to watch me play with my brother. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t ridicule. Because he approached us trying to be friendly, begging us to include him in our clique. Because I didn’t understand at the beginning and didn’t believe. Because I prevented my brother from hugging him and kissing him like he did with every other stranger. Because I started noticing him every day following us from a distance. Like a dog. And because I saw him one day playing with my brother, when he didn’t see me; he picked my brother up off the ground, wiped his runny nose, straightened his clothes, and kissed his head. And because when I approached, he stopped silently and asked, “What’s his name?” I said, “My brother, he doesn’t have another name.” He said, “Then he’s my brother too!”

AAAAAAAAH...

My wife rushes over to me, alarmed. My eyes are bulging, fluids streaming out of them, which she catches with her hands so they won’t soil her red sofa. She asks me what’s wrong, repeating, “Do you want me to call the doctor?”

What doctor? And what use are all the doctors in the world to me if I can’t turn back the wheel of time even a few seconds? A few seconds, not more, to push my life to the junction, which would deviate from a hell whose fires only subside to crane up its neck anew. A few seconds, my God, and I would rewind parts of the tape. I would see Ta walking with my brother and playing with him, not noticing me after he lifted him from the ground, straightened his clothes, and wiped his nose. I would go over to them and remain silent, not uttering a sound, until he asked me what his name was. I would answer, “My brother. You aren’t related to him and if you come near him again, I’ll bust your nose and even God won’t be able to fix it”... So Ta, who was cowardly by nature, would have walked away frightened, head bowed, leaving my brother and me alone, never to return.

But I didn’t rebuke him, I didn’t make him walk away, and Ta got closer and closer to us until he started haunting us. On the way to school, in school, and on the way home. We were almost like relatives — even the family on both sides followed us. In any case, they didn’t have a choice. As we grew older his infatuation with and devotion to us increased, as did our trust and devotion to him. I even started relying on him and leaving him alone with my brother, whenever desire called me. I was at the age of discovering desire in all its forms and I would forget my brother or to wonder about Ta’s devotion to him. I would forget to think about how strange it was that he wasn’t passionate about life like I was. So I’d push any doubts about him or rebukes to my own conscience right to the back of my mind.

When I discovered what was happening, they were together in the garage where my parents had set up a place for us to play when we were little. As we got older, they transformed it into a kind of space to hang out where we could have our forbidden dreams, secret conversations, and crazy music in private. My brother would rejoice when we’d take him there and he loved spending time there with us, since he could feel that perhaps he was like us, equal to us, far from the eyes of the family. We would enter, and he would explode like a volcano because it didn’t matter if we threw our things around in a mess or if havoc was wreaked on the place. We’d stand idly watching him playing our drums, strumming the strings of instruments very dear to our hearts, or ripping up pages of magazines we’d bought. The garage remained our oasis for many years. When I grew up and fell in love with my aristocratic rabbit and she was determined that we get married or break up, Ta convinced me to accept a compromise. He would stay with “our brother” and take over his care and protection so my parents — hardworking government employees who only came back home late in the evening — wouldn’t send him where disabled people like him were sent...

I heard a moan and rattle of the throat, so I looked through the keyhole and saw Ta there, standing with his trousers scrunched up around his knees, his naked bum convulsing. I thought, He’s having an intimate moment, I won’t disturb him, so I took a couple of steps back. But just then I heard my brother’s voice, weak and strangled as though a large hand were covering his mouth. Could Ta be having sex with a girl when my brother is there watching him? I wondered if he’d offered to stay with my brother and watch over him just so it would be possible to make love in secret? Who is this girl he’s hiding from me? Why the need for all these secrets?

The voice got louder, so I bent down again and this time I saw Ta standing to the side, stroking his erect member, putting strawberry cream on it — the kind my brother was so fond of — and showing it off, adorned with sweets, to a person who the keyhole wouldn’t allow me to discern until Ta moved backward and my brother’s distorted, wretched face appeared before me, soiled with a mix of cream and semen.

I don’t know how I got the door open and reached him, faster than an untamed wind, stronger than an earthquake, and started hitting, punching, kicking, and beating him. Until what was underneath me was just a mess of features covered in blood and urine. I didn’t regain consciousness from my waking coma until my brother took my hand and pulled me — us — out of the garage. I didn’t want to go with him, as though I intuited from that moment that I’d lost the right to be outside, anywhere outside. He sat me on the doorstep of our house and, perching down next to me, put his head on my shoulder like he used to when he was sleepy. He cried a little and then fell asleep. When he woke up, it was already evening and my family came, with Ta’s family behind them, bringing the police, who took us away — me to jail, Ta to the cemetery, and my brother to one of those centers they call “special.”

During “my absence,” I learned that my brother had lost his appetite and that he used to ask for me from morning to night, while banging his head on the wall, repeating, “Kaaaaaa.” Even looking at him makes your heart bleed, that’s what my wife told me on one of her visits, after I entrusted her with his care. Whenever he saw her he would get more agitated and angry until the nurses would remove him, restraining his arms and legs and gagging him. Finally, she asked my permission to stop visiting him since every time he expected to see me and not her. My family stopped their visits to him too. But every time I asked about him, they’d all reassure me that he wanted for nothing, that he was in good hands, and that specialists were caring for him. I thought that prison came as a mercy to my parents, since it delivered them of me, because had I remained outside I wouldn’t have let them do this to him and I would have inevitably committed two more crimes without batting an eyelid.