Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

— True, if we’re victorious here in Lebanon, what will happen?

— Israel will come, and after we defeat her, Amer ica will come.

— And after we defeat America, who will come?

— When we defeat America, everyone will go. We will have written the story of the longest and most beautiful war.

— But what?

Talal doesn’t agree. Winning isn’t important. What’s important is something else. What’s important is that we live life as it is, take it as it comes, fight, and die on the mountain top.

The church shook with every shell. The body of Christ was still bent over the ground. And the long censer still awaiting the hand that would hold it, but the hand wouldn’t come. Everything smashed: brass vessels, small silver spoons, silken robes littering the ground. And then, Jihad discovered the treasure. Innumerable candles. Thin, shiny tapers, in special drawers. He took them and threw them up in the air. We ran, gathering them up. This is a fortune. In the evening, we lit up the entire fortune. One hundred tapers, which we stood on the ground, shining into the night. Between the beat of the censer and the beat of the rain. They cast a brilliant glow such as we’d never known. In it, our bodies seemed slight, our movements sha dowless. A hundred tapers flickering in the middle of a ruined church. We’re in a real ship. The ship shimmering in the middle of the sea and inside it strange seamen looking for their new clothes. In the middle of the sea, the drizzle falling on the church’s red tile roof and running off its sides, all around us waves and priests and pirates’ bullets. Father Marcel comes running and smiles when he sees the candles.

— I thought the church was on fire. No problem, do as you please.

— Thank you, Father.

A tribe around the tribal fire. The lights were dancing but we didn’t dance around the fire. We were blowing cigarette smoke into the vast emptiness and looking for the sea.

— What do you think, Father? Why doesn’t the ship sink?

Father Marcel doesn’t answer, sets off for his memories, telling us stories about the saints, then goes back to asking: Why don’t you kill me?

— And why should we kill you, Father? We are to gether, living close to the sea in a wrecked ship. When we reach the sea, the ship will sink and our story will be over.

The sea’s our goal, the commander says, and we are waiting for the sea. We will get there, cast our nets, take off our clothes, and breathe in the smell of the fish. Jihad sits down close to the fire and starts singing. Our voices rise. And from the chorus soars Ahmed’s voice, taut, moaning as he traces the future on the broken wall in front of him. SCENE FIVE

The sea in our eyes. Between the cordons of fire and the salt of the sea, Jaber fell. He fell like an arrow on the mountain top, so the snow mixed with the sea and the rain with the saltiness from the gunbarrel. The battle for the sea was the most difficult, the roads twisting and turning endlessly. We didn’t surprise them, nor were we surprised, except when we reached the sea. The raining shells mixing with the sky’s own rain, the wind carrying the rifles as much as we did, the battle flowing from balcony to balcony and from trench to trench. The sea was far away, that’s why it surprised me. There was darkness and voices and the movement of feet and the suppleness of bodies and fear for one another. All of them things we’d experienced before. But today we were experiencing surprise. We were running, no longer seeing for the thick darkness: just fire and movement which we shot at, advancing, as across the entire area the others shot and advanced.

The smell of salt and fish sprang to my nostrils. We’re there, I shouted. I gripped my clothes, unbelieving. The hours of pain vanished. But I wasn’t seeing the sea, or hearing anything save the sound of the waves. I breathed in its smell. The smell of the sea spreading through the pores of my body and penetrating the joints that had soaked up the decay of the swamps and hugged sand and dust while looking for the arc stretching from Mount Sanneen *to the shore. The sea was entering our eyes. Searing them, the smell of salt smothered in fishy things flooded our eyes. We were advancing and the sea was ours.

Talal tore off his clothes and threw himself naked into the waves.

— But we’re still in the middle of the battle!

— This is the battle.

He swam like someone making love to a woman. Diving in and coming up. He scooped up the water, throwing it to the sky. Embracing the cold and the drizzle and the salt. And when he got out he was shivering like a bird.

— You’ll get sick and have to leave the battle.

But Talal didn’t get sick and didn’t leave the battle. From shipwreck to shipwreck, he carried the battle on his shoulders and when he had safely delivered his trust to the sea, he died on the mountain top.

— Jaber’s fallen, said Sameer. He was beside me; he was hit in the head and just keeled over. I carried him and ran to the back. Some comrades took him. And now they’ve come and told me he’s dead.

— Death is a bird, Jaber says. It circles above the water, in search of fish, then drops and the fish eat it.

— Death is a sign, butterflies and horses. Death is us, then Butros falls silent. The sea was bleeding salt into his eyes and he wouldn’t cry. He was laid out, his head covered with his red keffieh, * his eyes half-shut, his clothes spattered with blood and mud. Jaber, graceful as a spear, fallen between church spire and mountain top. He lay there, covered, surrounded by voices and the Palestinian flag. He knew he was going to die, that’s why his laugh welled up with every shot. He’d hold his rifle tight, fire and laugh like children holding their toys.

— We’ll drape him in the Palestinian flag.

— This isn’t the Palestinian flag. Palestine isn’t a country for it to have a flag. Palestine is a condition. Every Arab is a Palestinian. Every poor man who carries a gun is a Palestinian. Palestine is the condition of us all.

Palestine used to be a map, but has become the sea. Some day, I’ll make a film about the sea, Talal said. Ill sew the sea into a dress and Jaber will give it to his mother as a present.

He was laid out. Surrounded by voices, in his head a single shot, and his laugh ringing through the courtyard. We brought over an empty coffin, put him inside and set off, with him held aloft the upraised palms, the chanting voices, the unbending rifles. A long wooden coffin, inside it, a boy sleeping, surrendering to the hands carrying him.

Look, Butros pointed. The coffin is like a ship. A long wooden ship floating in the sea. The ship sways on the uplifted hands. In front, on the mast a tall flag. And behind, people and fighters, comrades who have come to bear the ship to sea. Inside, Jaber playing captain for the last time, leading us on his new sea voyage through the empty streets.

The priest stood. We put the ship down in front of the altar, and from the pews there rose a soft moaning like the sound of the sea before the breaking of the storm.

This is a real church, whispered Salem.

The priest stood, censer in hand, intoning his Byzantine chant. It was a sunny day, color-tinted lights reflected on his long, black clothes and his shining beard. Jaber, inside his ship, couldn’t find the words. The voice of the sole chanter in the Ras Beirut *church rose next to the priests robe. Standing before the wide-eyed icons, listening to the prayer, watching the priests gestures as he spoke in raised voice about the meaning of martyrdom.

The church a ship, and Jaber in his ship and we inside the vast ship. Outside, the sound of shooting growing louder and the advancing commotion.

We carried him once more and set off. Our footsteps on the asphalt like the oars of ancient mariners steering their boat to shore. Voices subsiding, the sun shining, the upraised hands carrying the wooden rectangle and the ship swaying.