Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

By the time Kamel got home, he was convinced of it. The car had died. But my wife was shrieking. I acted serious. I wanted to mislead her into thinking that I was with the lads. She yelled at me as if I were a little kid. She looked like a goat, letting off the sort of noises a hungry goat does. She marched me to the shelter. I told her I wanted to sleep in my own bed. She refused, she took me to the shelter, and I slept next to her.

Apart from children and vegetable sellers, everyone’s afraid of artillery shells. It used to be that there was shelling at night and the daytime was for the children. But even this law they desecrated: now there was shelling day and night. The women pretended not to notice and the children were out on the street. Shells flying. A car bursting into flames inside the garage. Where are the children, shrieked my wife.

She ran, I followed behind. The street was all torn up and the children were crowding about. My wife wailed. All women wail. I saw the color red. I looked: my wife was standing in front of the children in the building lobby. I yelled at her to go up home. Come up with us, she yelled back. Her hair was long and she was covered in blood. She was sprawled against the pavement over a pool of blood, like a pretty sheep drinking water. No one came near. All the men stood around the building entrances. Then a boy wearing glasses came along. He picked the girl up. The salt spread. The blood spilled onto his face and clothes. He carried her, put her in his orange car, and went. Then they said that she died and we took to spending the day in the shelter. When Sameer and the lads came along with the blue poster, I couldn’t believe it. The poster was blue and it was the same boy. The glasses, the round face. The red writing. Talal, they said his name was. I looked at the poster, blood spilling onto the glossy blue paper, over the white print and the slogans. The blood of the girl who looked like a sheep covered the walls of the city. I remembered Hani and cried. The boy looked out from the poster as if from a window. His eyes motionless, the blood trickling over them. But they’re like my mothers eyes, I told him. The girl was salty. Even the color of blood isn’t important, it’s just salty and hot. Everything that has a taste has a smell, except salt. Salt hasn’t got a smell but it floods one’s mouth. It grows on one’s hands and shoulders and spreads into the hair on one’s head. The poster, beside the other posters, covering the walls and bleeding like a sheep to a mounting rhythm in the undestroyed city.

I was thirsty. She said, there’s no water. I went a long way, all the way to the public garden filled with flies. I washed my face. Filled the containers. But the salt clung to my clothes.

Kamel Abu Mahdi no longer understands. He’s taken to saying the newspapers are colorless, but he reads like everybody else, listens to the radio like everybody else and believes in God like everybody else. Beirut was sparkling like a ship with its lights turned off in the middle of the dark sea. Everybody sleeping. In a deathlike stillness — the stillness of ceasefires — when suddenly the city was ablaze with light. All the houses lit up together amid bursting gunfire and joy. Everybody woke up and celebrated. Beirut had come home. Kamel Abu Mahdi awoke, sat out on the balcony leaving all the house lights on. And with the electricity, water returned. His wife got up and filled every container in the house. Electricity and water, the essence of happiness, thought Kamel. When he said as much to his wife, she cursed him. Get up and help me carry the water. But he didn’t get up. He was going to enjoy the electricity to the last. He wanted to breathe in the smell of Beirut which they said had died. He had a cup of coffee and stayed up till three in the morning when the electricity was cut off. He went back to bed happy. But he dreamed the car had come home. It was covered in dust and mud. It came back alone, climbed the stairs, knocked at the door and came in. It was full of hair, it looked like a dog. It barked, rubbed its mouth against its paws, circled around him. It had no eyes. He went up to it, found it as he’d left it. He sat up front, held the steering wheel with both hands. It disintegrated and his head crashed against the window. The window broke. The seat began to sound an uninterrupted moan. Wearing the white wedding dress, a red bouquet in her hand, Kamel’s wife was seated opposite him and smiling for the pictures. He wanted to tell her the car had come back and that it looked like a dog but that it had no tail. He wanted to tell her the steering wheel had broken but that it could be repaired. He wanted to tell her everything but she never turned toward him. She was looking at the photographer and smiling. Kamel was pouring with sweat. He opened the car door. It wouldn’t open. His wife was turning red, the color of the girl who died. The woman was opening her mouth to say something, blood streamed out of her mouth and nose. Kamel stuck his head out of the window and saw that the man was naked. But he had no genitals. He screamed. His voice was dry. And the walls of the house were covered in salt. Terrified, Kamel got up. Found nothing. Wife asleep, kids asleep, the whole city asleep. So he went back to bed.

But the war didn’t come to an end. All those who said that the war had ended knew this war wouldn’t end. Darkness returned to the city along with the sound of the shells. War comes back all of a sudden. It comes to a halt slowly, after long negotiations and interventions and prominent figures and the radio and the favorite newscaster all the employees like because he’s an employee like them. But it comes back all of a sudden. The electricity goes off, the shelling starts and people rush to corridors and shelters, to the safe rooms and to the houses overlaid by houses.

I don’t know how I woke up. The building was shaking. Smoke and voices. My wife screamed. I screamed. The kids everywhere. We ran. The ground gleamed. We stood in the corridor next to the kitchen. The children were crying. My wife said let’s go down to the shelter. She ran, flung the door open. We went down. The crush of people. The whole world’s tenants on the building stairs, rushing for the shelter. I carried my little daughter. The two boys were in front of me and my wife was holding the bawling, half naked baby. I didn’t ask her why the child was half-naked. They all looked like ghosts, running with their matches and candles. The women in nighties and the men barefoot, and the children falling over and picking themselves up. Dust and smoke. I started coughing. My wife clutching my sleeve. The two boys clutching her legs and I clutching the wall. The wall was shaking, moaning, smoking. I tried to go faster — but the crush of people, what can you do. Everybody screaming. You, he shouted. I said to myself I don’t know, it’s not anything to do with me, I’m just an ordinary citizen. He was standing on the stairs in front of me.

— Why did you throw the tire down?

I told him it fell. He raised his pistol. It glimmered. He held it with both hands, a terrifying noise came out. Never mind, I told him. He advanced, placed the pistol between my eyes. I could no longer see. He hit me with his left fist. I fell to the ground. Got up. He hit me again and I fell once more. My mouth was bleeding. I’ll bash your head in. I didn’t look up. I went back to the house and didn’t tell my wife I was scared.

I’m scared, she yelled. I didn’t answer. These stairs are so long, I told her. And it was dark. Everyone had vanished.

— Where’s the box of matches?

— I forgot it. I’ll go up and get it.

— Don’t leave me alone, I’m scared.

I told her, I’m scared, where have they gone? There wasn’t a soul left. My wife clutched my sleeve and the children were crying.