Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

— But he burned alive.

— All fathers burn alive.

I lifted the camera to my shoulder and stood up. I want to film you. Holding the camera, I traced the lithe young African boy against the wall, then drew a circle. Stand in the circle. She stands in the circle. I rotate her and she rotates. She stretches her arms forward, then bends over, becomes a circle.

— Why do you wear trousers? She laughs. She rotates inside herself then falls into the middle of the circle.She stretches her arms to their utmost and her face quivers slightly. I leave her on the ground and raise her to the ceiling of the room. Sand fills up the ceiling, then the face collapses. I get some straw and put it on her head. You’re a chicken, I say. Why is there this war? she asks. I’m holding the camera and giving the orders. I’m the director; one actress, the sea, and the sand.

— And how was your father whom I don’t like burned alive?

She gets up, brushes the straw off her head, steps out of the circle. I don’t like the circle or the cinema.

— But how did your father burn?

— I want to go home. In any case, I don’t read the papers and don’t like reading them either.

— Where did your father die?

— I’ve been in Beirut for a long time. Yesterday, my mother said she wanted us to go to Amman. I don’t want to go to Amman. I don’t like Amman. Do you like Amman?

Amman was a city when I went there. No, it wasn’t a city. It was a cluster of hills. I went, the army was readying itself and we were preparing. That’s why I didn’t get around the city. I would stand in a dugout beside men with brown foreheads, but I no longer remember their names. The gunfire exploded in the air above our heads. But the clash didn’t happen. The objective conditions weren’t ripe. That’s what they told me. Naturally, I was convinced. When objective conditions come into it, you can’t but be convinced. And convincing conditions need to be objective. I walked through the streets of Amman alone. I didn’t know anybody. The military training course was over and I should have been getting back to Beirut. Amman didn’t mean anything except that it was full of fedayeen’s shoes, pictures of martyrs, guns and memories of the homeland, and the 1967 defeat. That’s why I don’t know Amman. I remember it being white. During the September massacres, even the blood seemed white to me. Of course, I don’t like that city. None of my friends like it. It’s like nothing at all. Maybe it’s like the night. My friends died in Amman but that doesn’t change anything.

She dances on the ceiling, then slides to the wall. The first city was a clump of sand, stone, and rubble. The lithe young boy is on the ceiling. He bends, rotates upon himself, breaks in two. He falls from the ceiling to the floor. The camera carries him to my hands. I switch on the electricity. Did you like the film? Next time, I’ll carry the sand and the salt within a rhythm I haven’t yet discovered. When a woman bends down inside it, the circle grows more beautiful. It becomes like bread or like an orange.

— But you don’t know Amman.

— Name.

— Talal. Talal Saleh.

— Occupation.

— Student at the Engineering School. — Why are you demonstrating?

— All the students are demonstrating and I’m demonstrating like them.

The police, red-faced, carrying white truncheons, white shields, and tear-gas. Weeping, we attack them. Some of them have gas masks and some are crying without their masks. They’re shaking. And we run in the middle of the streets, ripping down powerlines and road signs. We attack Beshara al-Khoury’s statue, *gird it with metallic wire. The truncheons are white, the shields are white, the cops cry and we cry. The officer: you, and he points to me. You’re the one responsible for this. My hand sinks into my pocket, my shirt falls out and hangs over my trousers. I don’t answer. Scores of policemen are wounded. The officer shouts: you are responsible. I slide to the corner. The king is the one who’s responsible. Then I go home, as usual.

“What is it you were doing in the ancient gardens three hundred years ago.”

My father knows Amman. And my mother insists on going there. She’s scared of the shells. I also hate wars. I know what you’re going to say. She put her finger to her lips to silence me. But I hate war, and especially just wars. I love my father. When he went away the last time, he never came back. Even his shoes didn’t come back. I asked the officer — he was a friend of my father’s — to give me his clothes or his shoes or any other thing. There was nothing left. When we went to the cemetery, he was inside the coffin. And he descended into the earth in the coffin. He burned alive. I didn’t understand anything. We never grasp the fundamental things in life, that’s why we stop at details. That day, I discovered Amman. It’s a cluster of mountains, that’s what people always say. But it’s a succession of impenetrable circles; broad streets and hollow slogans running through them, but a succession of circles nevertheless; with the blood oozing out all around turning into circular blotches. The city cannot become an orange. The tanks came while we were there. My father wasn’t there because he’d died before that. He died in the shelling, when the planes did whatever they pleased. Everybody scattered. My father scattered. He raised his head and the gun in his hand fired shots you couldn’t hear because the sound of the planes was the only thing you could hear. Then the shell came. It was the tanks which divided the city into circles. We survived. The thirst, and my mother cursing them all and my fathers picture hanging on the wall.

The lithe young African boy stretches his neck, laughing. Those are old memories. But he died. Death is far off, she said. That’s why rituals were created. Crying and wailing and dancing and standing for a long time in front of the grave. Death approaches, hand and bald head. The city we call white fills up with pictures and corpses and posters. Serhan Beshara Serhan’s face *leaps out in front of the American revolutionary tourist.

— What’s that?

— A poster. We consider Serhan a hero. “I killed for my country.”

— But he’s a terrorist and an enemy of democracy.

— And I’m a terrorist, I said to the American tourist. But I can hold you and kiss you and laugh. She laughed a white laugh.

The young boy bent over the sand, plunged his hand into a damp spot, and sat. You talk a lot, he’d say. My mother says I don’t talk. And wonders to herself why she has lived to know such dark days. Then she tells me the story for the hundredth time, and I listen to it for the hundredth time. She always forgets the madman’s story. Be quiet, you’re mad. There’s no madman’s story, you’re just an intelligent boy. All those who saw you said, Imm Ahmed you must perfume him with incense and take him to Hajjeh Fatmeh. **I used to perfume you with incense, feed you sugar and almonds, and give you money. But you were a clever child.Instead of buying balloons and sweets, you used to go to the shop and buy a little bit of everything, then stand in front of the house and open up a store. And the children of the neighborhood would come and buy from your shop, God be blessed. A half pound would become three pounds. Of course, I contributed to your brisk trade because Id give my sisters children money to go and buy things from your shop. But you made the profit. I told myself, Imm Ahmed, this boy will become a merchant, he will open shops and build buildings. But look at what you’re doing with yourself now. Joining political parties and the fedayeen, you’re not going to become a merchant.

But my mother wont tell me the madman’s story. And I have forgotten it.