Jabbour Douaihy - June Rain

‘Forty-two… do you recognise this card?’ Eliyya asked him, showing the little card he was holding.

He took the card from Eliyya’s hand. He, too, smiled. It was one of those little cards with the name, address, and telephone number that the photographer used to give out to people he had persuaded to stand in front of his camera in the streets or at parties or in the public park so they would come back a day or two later to get the pictures. He’d take the fee for the pictures and give them the card, thus insuring he got paid.

‘Where’d you get that from? It’s so old…’ He stretched out the word ‘old’.

‘It was in my father’s pocket the day he was killed in the Burj al-Hawa incident.’

‘We’ll never be finished with that story,’ he said, practically to himself.

‘Do you remember it well?’ Eliyya asked.

He bent down to raise the leg of his trousers and uncovered his thin white leg. ‘Look, habibi ,’ he said, pointing to the small scar.

‘How were you hit?’ Eliyya asked.

‘I didn’t know I’d been shot until I stood up and tried to walk. That’s when I screamed out in pain and saw the blood dripping down my leg, baba . I was in the back area with the women. I don’t know where that bullet came from…’

‘If you have any pictures from Burj al-Hawa I am prepared to pay you for them. It means a lot to me…’

They all wanted to pay him money. They never believed the money didn’t matter to him.

He hesitated a little, thought about his impending death, about his diabetes, about his wife’s leaving for Canada. What was there to be afraid of? Suddenly he said to Eliyya, ‘Look, baba . My conscience is clear…’ He stood up and grabbed an orange envelope from one of the shelves.

‘All the pictures that customers haven’t come to retrieve I’ve collected here in this envelope. I told myself, “Look, Nishan, the people these pictures belong to paid for them in advance.” I used to take pictures, baba , and take money for them up front. Maybe they would remember to come get them… Some people died and some forgot, but Nishan Davidian has a clear conscience.’

He tossed the orange envelope onto the table.

Nishan’s collection was not limited to pictures that were never picked up by their owners. He had another envelope full of pictures, which he now remembered. He opened it from time to time. Pictures of women, of two pretty girls, Jorge’s pictures, pictures he would surely show someone someday. If anyone came asking about them — Jorge’s relatives, for example — he would give them all of them.

‘Sit down, here, take a look at these pictures. I don’t want any money for them anymore, but be careful. Don’t take pictures that belong to others…’

Eliyya sat down before the envelope like someone sitting down to a feast after a long period of hunger.

‘The truck is here!’

We had been waiting for the truck since morning. We waited for it, coming and going and shouting all around the quarter and the main street where we expected it to come from. The main street was our boundary, especially in those difficult days.

The moment the truck entered the intersection, we dashed out in front of it and started yelling. We shouted to the bystanders and the neighbours as if we were being chased by fire. We yelled to them to back away so we could direct the driver to the house. The truck was so wide it blocked the road, not leaving any space for pedestrians. It towered high, menacingly.

The porter was standing in the bed of the truck. When he started down the steep hill, the driver poked his head out of the window to shout at us to back away from his wheels because the brakes might not hold out. He shouted over the roar of the motor telling us he knew which house he was going to and didn’t need us to show him the way, but we didn’t pay any attention to his screams and just continued to run in front of him.

‘Where are they going, Mother?’

‘To their quarter…’

‘…’

‘… It looks like they’ve rented a house there.’

‘Do they have relatives where they’re going?’

‘Of course they have relatives. All their relatives are there. I just told you that’s their quarter. Look where all your uncles live, isn’t it here close to us? This is our quarter, and their quarter is up there.’

‘They’re not going to come back here?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

‘Then why were they living here so far away from their family in the first place?’

‘…’

‘Are they taking the cat with them?’

‘…’

My mother didn’t always answer all of my questions, and I for my part just said whatever came to mind. I didn’t wait for her answers. The cat, which didn’t have a name, trusted me. She was a cute little kitten and I would take her all over the place. I had coaxed her to come to me the night before, as soon as I heard the news they were leaving.

It was rumoured that a messenger had come sent by Abu Jamil, a messenger no one saw, under the cover of darkness most likely. He told Umm Jamil to pack up everything in the house and get ready to move. The next morning Abu Jamil sent them a truck for the furniture. Abu Jamil had found them a house to move into. He had gone there ahead of them, to where they were moving. His relatives — his paternal cousins — helped him in his efforts there. A man was more vulnerable to danger than his wife and children, it seemed. They spirited him away from us, got him out before his wife and children. He left his wife and children exposed to danger for many days while he was kept safe. That was the opposite of my uncle Saeed. He’d taken off with his family the second the mortar rockets started shelling. He stayed away for two days and then came back by himself. He made sure his wife and children were safe first and then came back to the barricade.

I played with the cat for a little while, patted her and picked her up and walked around with her. I closed her eyelids with my fingers and dropped her into a big empty barrel. I tossed some pieces of meat for her to eat and locked her in. Not even her meowing could reach them. They couldn’t find her in the evening and she didn’t turn up in the nearby area, so they asked us. Everyone agreed with the notion that the cat didn’t want to leave the quarter and that was why she had run away. They laughed, then quickly realised they should stifle their laughter. The important thing was the cat made them laugh, so once again they spouted off everything they knew about cats and their intelligence. Good heavens. The talk about feline intelligence extended to mice and from there to dogs, as usual, making a full circle that ended up with Umm Jamil’s neighbours reassuring her that the cat would surely turn up again.

‘We’ll send her to you the moment we catch sight of her. Don’t worry.’

I realised later on that in difficult situations when adults don’t want to get into arguments with each other, they bring up trivial things everyone can agree upon, like stories about animal intelligence, and they pretend to believe them and be amazed by them in order to appease one another. I always noticed that talking about animal matters in our quarter was the quickest way to make peace and avoid a fight.

‘Hey, kids, get out of the way…’

‘God protect us…’

‘The truck’s mirror is going to hit the window. Watch out, watch out…’

‘Do you need some help, Umm Jamil?’

‘Look out for the power line. Don’t sever it.’

‘Stooooooop!’

With his door open and leaning halfway out of the truck, the driver backed up until the rear of the truck was right up against the door to the house. We continued giving him directions all the while. The porter jumped out of the truck. He was advanced in age and moved lightly — a professional porter we’d never seen before. We moved in closer to him. He had a small copper badge on his back with the serial number 64 engraved on it. He was an official porter from the city, from Tripoli.