Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

The voices were growing louder and there was the shuffle of feet and of the wooden clogs that have become the fashion these days. Wooden clogs suit women. But people forget. They forget everything and think only of bread. I, too, forget but the bread doesn’t forget a thing. There’s bread in the streets. I don’t know why I dreamed and why I did that. I woke up in the morning, smiling. We’d been sleeping in a shelter crammed with people and smells. The women’s voices buzzed all night as if we’d been condemned to listen without being able to object. The loaves, white as nurses’ coats, were piled on the pavements. My daughter and I stood amid thousands of people who’d come from everywhere and started to eat the bread, putting it in little bags and going off. My daughter laughed and pointed to a white loaf. But the crush of people prevented me from reaching the pavement where there was all the bread in the world. Abu Issam was shouting at the top of his voice, the bread turning into white froth around his lips. He tried to stop the crush of people advancing. My little daughter’s tears flowed white, the color of the loaves. And I just stood there, unable to move forward. When I opened my eyes, inside the shelter, my daughter was in her mother’s lap and Abu Issam was shouting and cursing his wife. Then he got up. I went with him to the bakery, where there were thousands of people. But the black bread was in plastic bags and people were shouting to the sound of the distant explosions and the nearby shooting. Everything that’s happened and hasn’t happened was there on the face of the baker, taking the banknotes, crumpling them up and putting them in the drawer all the while cursing the electricity, the water, and the impossibility of working under such conditions. By the time I got back home, the sun was high in the middle of the sky, the smell of cooking filled the house, my wife was beating the children and there wasn’t enough bread, and reading the papers was forbidden.

— You waste all your money on newspapers and then you spend your time listening to the radio. Since you listen to the radio, what are the papers for?

Women don’t understand politics. You can’t convince a woman that what’s happening is important, that our fate hangs in the balance.

— But you sit at home all day.

But she doesn’t understand. The truth is I can’t … At work, I used to feel I was part of something, of the institution. But now, I don’t even feel I’m part of my wife. There’s nothing left but noise. Hearing is the only sense that has any meaning. Everything else is meaningless. Hani didn’t agree. God exists, it’s inevitable. I’m a believer, but I can’t. Even faith has become an object of ridicule for my wife. Stop getting drunk then I’ll listen to you. She doesn’t give due consideration to my circumstances. Ever since I’ve stopped going to work, I’ve felt oppressed. The newspaper I read oppresses me. The black letters flow over my face and clothes.

— Don’t leave the papers lying around in front of the children, my wife screams. Why don’t you throw them away? You pile them up in the house, the children play with them and the house stinks of ink.

Even reading the papers is forbidden now. She does whatever she pleases. She chatters all day and cries all night and she’s afraid. This modern woman, who when I married her I thought I was marrying the 20th century, is worse than my mother. And I bow down before her like a he-goat who’s had his horns cut off. My father laughed before he died; I laughed when he died. Our customs are incomprehensible. A man dies, they lay him out on a bed; then the women gather round, douse his corpse with cologne and begin their lamentations and wailing. My father laughs and whispers in my ear. Really, they wait for a man to die then they have this sexual celebration right there in front of his corpse. Wouldn’t it be better if they gathered around him while he was alive? When my father died, I couldn’t conceal my mirth. He was at the center of the sexual celebration in an old neck-tie my mother got him God alone knows where, cologne all over — and under — him, and the woman ululating. As soon as I entered, the wailing intensified and I burst out laughing. The women stopped crying and looked at one another. And my mother, she started quivering with embarrassment and muttering unintelligibly. Then the wailing resumed, my father neither speaking nor moving.

The ceiling from which the woman dangles is moving closer to my head. Things are purple and the candle’s white. But the candle has a smell. The ceiling’s getting closer. And the white liquid is trickling down from my hand onto the floor and the smell is spreading. Salt doesn’t have a smell. The air was stifling. They said they could. Of course, I didn’t believe it. I have no faith in superstition and magic. But it danced. The small table hovered in the air and danced. They shut the doors and windows. We were sweating as if we’d been in a Turkish bath. Speak. I looked and saw the small table flying through the air. It was small, the size of a hand, but it flew. I was very frightened. They said they’d try the glass; the spirit of the dead would come, enter the glass, move among the letters, and tell all. I told my wife when I got back home that I was afraid. I was surprised by her sudden enthusiasm and her desire to be acquainted with every detail. I can’t, I told her. She made fun of me. I didn’t tell her that I’d turned down their offer to conjure up the spirit of one of my friends. Hani was before me. I saw him, full-bodied and tall. But I was scared by him. I came home running. The streets were full of darkness and fear and my mouth was salty. The dead and the living coexist in a remarkable way in this city. The dead have become more numerous than the living. I slept all night, at home. I told my wife I felt I was suffocating so I wouldn’t go down to the shelter. I begged her to stay beside me.

— And the children, what shall I do with them? What if a shell hits the house?

Anyway, she left me there and went down to the shelter with the children. I stayed alone, with the sound of the shells and the darkness. I said to myself, I’ll sleep in my own bed, it’s allright. But the shells whistled as though they were coming out of my ears. I got up and sat in the corridor. I said to myself, I’ll sleep sitting up. My body ducked with every shell, incoming and outgoing. I spent quite a unique sort of night. I wished I were a little child. Even our fantasies have become ridiculous. I slept sitting up, then awoke in the morning to a tremendous clamor. I don’t know what happened exactly, but the shell fell near the house.

I put the glass down on the table. Took the white candle and tried to put it down on the table. But it fell from my hand. I bent down, the floor was dirty and the candle light slanted off to the right. I took hold of it a second time and approached the woman dangling from the ceiling. She was screaming. I looked carefully: my wife’s face was white as she groped for something to clutch onto. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a terrible crash, and the ground was covered with glass. It was tiny and glittered in the candle light and my smell spread all over the house. I heard my wife scream. Then she dropped from the ceiling and started to cry. The lamp broke, she said. I’ve been stuck up there for half an hour, looking for it, and like a boor you didn’t offer any help. People are dying and you’re getting drunk. Doing nothing. The only lamp we own breaks and you just stand there. She snatched my glass away and threw it to the ground. The ’araq splashed up, white, its pungent smell spreading between the shattered glass. There was glass on my clothes. My wife came up to me and threw me out of the kitchen. Go on, get lost. I went to the balcony and sat alone. During the night, in the shelter, and amid everyone’s breathing, my wife lay beside me and breathed regularly. Then she began to sob. Crying, she moved over toward me, and I moved over toward her. When we’d finished, she told me I smelled of ’araq and that she didn’t like that smell. 2