Elias Khoury - Little Mountain

All squares are alike. There are white squares and green squares and gray squares. I prefer white squares, she said.

— But they look like hospitals and smell of a combination of medicine and plasma.

— No, they are the squares of kings.

— But I hate kings, I prefer gray squares. In gray squares, there are prisons and in prison there is rest. There are times when prisons are necessary perhaps: I can rest a little bit there and forget my worries, because prisons generate their own, persuasive worries.

All squares are alike. Even in green squares where there’s grass and flowers and water, you’ll either find a rope dangling or a king, or a stake which looks like complicated artistic things. On closer inspection, you realize that it’s just a very ordinary stake.

The square was empty. The sounds were the voices of hawkers who’d awakened early and carried their loads of fruits and vegetables to the various neighborhoods so that the day might start and things proceed as they should. Like that, in spite of everything, things could go on being the way they should. Actually, to be precise, there were also the sounds of garbage trucks with their load of workers making the rounds of the refined residential quarters to prevent the spread of disease. And still a few pale lights flickering like early morning lights. Standing in the square, with her holding my hand and a short, fat man standing in front of me, his neck thick as a wild boar’s, slightly stooped, clutching a scroll covered in writing of all sorts of letters. Standing exactly opposite me, looking me in the eye. Next to the man, a long rope dangling down as though descended from the sky. The man came up to me and began to read from the scroll he was clutching. I didn’t understand a thing, looked at her. Her face dilated, whitening. It seemed she understood the terrible words the man was uttering.

— What’s he saying?

— What he’s saying is not important. What’s important is that what’s said in books will come true.

— But what’s said in books?

— They’ve written a lot of things in books. And they’ll come true. As for us, we neither like books nor reading them. What’s written in them is of no concern to us because we know exactly what the fate of books is. Our professor knows it too. I met him in the street as the shells flew about the sky over the city. I didn’t recognize him to begin with. He looked wasted, crushed. His mouth pulled slightly to the right, a little more than necessary. Then I realized he must have been ill and it had twisted his lower jaw.

I went to the university, he said, saw unbelievable things. Why did they do that? It’s a crime against future generations. Plundered the place, they have, taking chairs, tables, carpets, blackboards, chalk, the lot. Never mind, those things can always be replaced. But the library. Do you know what they did to it? If only they’d looted it, one could say that they were getting something out of the books at least. I went to the library and found the books — simply torn. A million pounds’ worth of books torn to shreds, trampled, strewn all over the place, the garden, the window sills. I’m on their side, with their cause, but what is the fault of the books!

I pacified him somewhat and went on my way.

He was suffocatingly self-assured and I didn’t understand his utterances. He came closer. I was standing with my back to a thick, impenetrable wall. He put his mouth right up to my face so that I felt he was about to swallow me. I tried stepping back but couldn’t. Then he began to spray spittle as he read faster and faster, the spray coming quicker and quicker at my face until I screamed for him to stop. But he just went on, driven like a blind, uncomprehending machine. Then, slowly, under this foul-smelling spray, it began to dawn on me: he seemed to be speaking about dangerous things, multiple sentences, executions, hangings.

But the man with a neck thick as a boar’s went on as if hearing nothing or, rather, as if he didn’t want to hear. It would seem that the major part of his job consists in not listening to what the defendants have to say. Once in a while, one of them is pretty convincing and that’s a threat to the thick-necked man’s job. He’s the head of a large household, after all, he’s got to live and he knows of no other job that pays as well even though all the neighbors think it’s a revolting thing to do. However, as far as he can see, all professions are revolting, they’re all alike, and you can’t beat drinking at the fountainhead. That’s why he sticks to this job. He would not stop. Reading the scroll, articulating every sound. He couldn’t care one way or another about the contents. What matters is the job. In a few moments, this man must be hanged. The actual hanging operation doesn’t take very long, a few minutes to listen to the statement of the accused, then a few more minutes to carry out his last wish. They usually ask for a cigarette and smoke it extremely slowly. But however slowly you smoke a cigarette— and especially an American cigarette — it is quickly finished. Then starts the real work — which doesn’t take very long if he’s prepared the rope properly. Whereupon, the job’s over when he scales up the man’s legs and pulls down hard so he doesn’t suffer too much. The thing he hates most about this job is reading out the scroll. In the past, a magistrate was brought over to read out the sentence. But now he has to do it. He knows it’s not legal, that the verdict hasn’t been handed down by a legal body. But he doesn’t care, legal bodies or not, they’re all the same. And everything leads to one result and that is the continuation of his job.

The man stepped forward, wearing the customary white robe. The square was green, the sky gray. He didn’t request anything, not even that the foul-smelling spray be wiped off his face.

— A cigarette?

He didn’t answer. Simply shook his head.

— Would you like anything?

He didn’t answer. Simply shook his head.

— What is your bequest?

He didn’t answer. Simply shook his head.

What is this new kind of man, thought the thick-necked man. Still, in the end, before the rope, they’re all the same: they tremble and begin to rattle off verses and incantations, begging forgiveness and crying. The man in the white robe advanced. He wasn’t trembling. His right foot trembled just a little maybe. But that isn’t important. He came forward, there were traces of burns on his face and water bled from his ears. He didn’t say anything, went up the steps, put his head through the noose, his body a little bent, trembling slightly. But he went up with a firm step. He could go no farther. He held him up. Lights colored the sky and his body was as a dough of constantly changing tints. He didn’t fall. She took him. His body quivered as though feverish. Then he fell. And it was a very long way. That is the point. The long way, and the long square, and the long rope. But the king was short and he trembled. The obelisk was long. What’s said in books will come true, she said.

But books are far away and it’s a very long way. Ropes are more important than books, I answered.

We were walking, her hand in mine, the sadness blowing across the face of the city buffeting our faces. The man they hanged was sad. Next time, we shouldn’t content ourselves with stealing the rope, we should break it; next time, we shouldn’t content ourselves with overrunning the squares and the buildings, we should destroy them. The essential thing, though, is that there should be a next time.

— Didn’t I tell you? All squares look alike. All cities with tunnels boring through them will be destroyed. Bergis was looking completely haggard now, beginning to slither away inside his clothes until nothing was left of him but clothes in motion, the sweat streaming out of them. He’d started to think about the Foreign Legion again. The Foreign Legion is just a temporary solution, but it’s better than nothing. Clothes in motion and the gesticulations no longer meaning much. The Foreign Legion is the only solution. It’s better than nothing. It may become everything.