Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

The car’s in the streets of the city. The motor behind, the steering easy, and everything is very good. I look joyfully at my wife. This woman has a special flavor now. I’ve become a successful employee. I’m no longer afraid. Now everybody wants to be my friend. Everybody loves the car. But my wife lays down the rules. The car is for work. Only on Sundays, we go to Rawsheh and cruise along slowly. The cars like a person. It can die. This car must not die.

The most important thing is how car lights shine on people. Car lights are amazing things. Under their beam, people glisten as if you’d put them in a pool of water. But for the neon. The neon lights erected on every street ruin the pleasure. And my wife doesn’t like the village where the roads are dark and a car’s a car. I don’t know why I’ve begun to think that my wife looks like the car. When I told her that, her face shook she was so upset. But the car’s more beautiful. True, it’ll become decrepit, but it’ll be from the inside, whereas people disintegrate from both within and without. From that day on, my wife stopped moralizing. The power to stop a woman moralizing is equivalent to getting to the moon. But the car’s something special. I now go wherever I want and I’ve discovered the truth about these people. I used to be afraid of them. I was a new employee, I’d been transferred here from the Ministry of Public Works after a conflict with the boss that almost drove me mad. A boss is something unimaginable, something trashy to be precise. Trashier than the trashiest of employees. Like flies: you swat them but they keep coming back to sit on your neck until you give up in disgust. When I came here, I decided not to interfere in anything. Just to work and keep my head down. But then I discovered that the problem isn’t the boss, it’s the employees. A right proper gang they were, and they needed a victim. I was the victim. And for the first time ever, I was struck by real fear, became like a fly and started to hate my bald patch. They’ve finally been exposed. They’re all rats. And where have they got to? They’re just like me. I, at least, put my life on the line without going too far. But they’re like me and I’m like them and glory be to the car. I knew that they didn’t need a ride but wanted something else. They wanted to laugh at me, but openly this time. They laughed a lot but when I started to laugh the game fell apart, and so did the family. The world is extremely complicated, Id tell her. But she didn’t understand why I stayed out late and came back smelling of ’ araq. I never brought ’araq into the house until this war. What else is there to do, brother, but get drunk and read the papers? Even Hani, I thought, was like the rest of them. But he died. Death transforms things. You don’t understand someone until they die. And the others, my friend, they didn’t die. And I didn’t die. So then, we’re rats.

The car rolled along. Ahmed was screaming in the back with the others, we were going to have dinner in Raw-sheh. I wasn’t carrying any money but they were. The roads were wet with the autumn rain. The ground was slippery as soap. Be careful, I was careful. But the ground was like one huge bar of soap. The car slid along slowly. The car was like soap. Small, like bath-soap and with a smell all its own. They were laughing and I wasn’t careful. Then things began to go round. I didn’t understand why things were going round until I saw the blood on my face. Everybody was shouting, it’s all right. I was seeing soap everywhere. It was white and it covered everything. Like in films where the beautiful heroine is in the bath and the soap covers everything and we think we’re seeing it all. The blood trickled down to my hand, my hand took on the shape of a multi-fragrant bar of soap. Really, it wasn’t serious, that’s what we said as we sat in the restaurant, drinking ’araq and laughing. My teeth hurt. I tried to remember exactly what had happened. The car skidded, you lost control of the steering, then your face fell on it as the car went round and round. Its nothing at all. My teeth are hurting, I told them. Soak them in ’araq, it’s the best remedy. We ate and drank. Then Ahmed Ayyash stood up. He took the ’araq bottle and swallowed it neat. Then he started up. Our land in the South … everyone roared with laughter. Ahmed sat down and told the story. He always whispers it in my ear when he’s drunk. Everyone interrupted, laughing. Acre … tobacco leaves in the sun. My father died — he used to tell me about the tobacco leaves. Then they told him the land wasn’t his. He was sure he’d inherited it from his father. But as to how and why … The title deed, they told him. The title deed means that the land is registered in the name of another man who owns all the land in the area. *My father almost went mad. He had to give half the harvest to a man he didn’t know, who’d never set foot in the village. Ahmed Ayyash bowed his head and snored. We thought: he’s asleep. But he was imitating the gestures of the stranger who’d come to the village, beaten his father and thrown him into prison. When Father came out, he died of cancer. Brother, what idiocy is this. An idiotic nation visited with djinns and rules and regulations. Ahmed waved his hand through the air. He seized the bottle of ’araq and threw it to the ground. The waiter came, had harsh words with him.

The nicest thing in the restaurant is the men’s room. It’s nicer than the table all laid out with food. Its undoubtedly part of modern civilization. We went to the men’s room, Ahmed and I. We stood side by side in front of the urinals. Ahmed was on the point of vomiting. But he said he could control himself. Then, after we’d finished, Ahmed took a quarter from his pocket and put it in the plate. In modern men’s rooms, there’s always a plate, a bottle of cheap cologne, an old woman, and a chair. Most of the time, the old woman leaves the chair empty and goes off. Its up to the customers to understand and put money in the plate. That night, the woman was there. She was staring at the ceiling, holding a handkerchief. Ahmed put the quarter in the plate then put his arm round my shoulder. He thought he was whispering and I was sure he was. But the old woman stood up, her eyes filled with terror. Her face was strange. Full of wrinkles with long hair straggling from her chin. But Ahmed insisted she was pretty. Maybe so, I said. But she’s old and she won’t accept.

— They all accept. You don’t understand a thing. I’m an expert on women. You’re married and sexually hung up.

— Let’s try.

— Let’s.

He approached her. The woman turned on her heels. The floor was orange and the woman was orange. Ahmed advanced slowly, lurching. The woman raised her hand as if to stop something.

— Sons of bitches. At my age, they want to turn me into a whore for 25 piastres.

The woman’s hair was long and it hung matted about her shoulders, very fuzzy and reddish. Ahmed stepped forward. I stepped forward. The woman stepped back, she was against the wall. A sound like a lament welled up. Then she disappeared. I don’t know how she disappeared, as if the earth’d split open and swallowed her up. She disappeared with the plate of money and the bottle of cologne and the chair. Ahmed cursed, I cursed. Then we went back to our seats to find that everyone wanted to go.

The car was pulling to one side. They were all afraid, I wasn’t. The car isn’t frightening. They stopped me. They sat on the pavement; I sat beside them, then they threw up. I tried but I couldn’t. I stuck my finger down my throat, but I couldn’t. Then they all left. They said I was drunk and that they were afraid and the best thing was to take a taxi. Naturally, I refused. How could I leave the car. When they’d gone, I felt really frightened. I’m drunk. I must not drive. I got off the pavement and started to push it, holding it by the door with my hand on the steering wheel. Half of me was outside the car and half of me inside. And the wheel kept slipping from my grip as though it had turned into soap. Then I got home, I don’t know how. I don’t know what my wife said but I remember she made sure the car was there on the street in front of the building.