Rawi Hage - De Niro's Game

The camp was a meadow now, with wild weeds growing from the cadaver compost, ashes of burned walls, and troops of flies that once grazed on blood and empty bullet shells.

Speak, I said. Speak, before the buried under our feet come to life.

I am leaving the poker place, George said. I asked Najib, my distant cousin, to take my place. You can still do the deal. I will show him the trick.

Why are you leaving?

Abou-Nahra asked me to do some work.

What kind of work?

I will be leaving for Israel soon for some training. The forces are establishing relations with the Jews down south.

It is a mistake, I whispered.

No, Bassam, we are alone in this war, and our people are being massacred every day. And you. . whose grandfather was butchered. . your father killed. . you. . you. . We will unite with the devil to save our land. How are we to make the Syrians and the Palestinians leave?

I am fleeing and leaving this land to its devils, I said.

You believe in nothing.

Thieves and thugs like us, I said, since when have we ever believed in anything?

WE DROVE DOWN the highway to the seashore. The roads were empty; it was a summer day, and the wind was warm. We sat at the shore and watched the water.

Little boats rocked, modest waves advanced, and still we sat. Night fell, and we lit fires on thin paper, and smoked and gazed and watched and hallucinated, and laughed and smoked some more. We burned the joints down to the tips of our fingers, sealed the embers with our nails. I had a vision of trees and plains, and a house — an open house, and shadows and a sun that travelled in a straight line and not in a circle, and a moon that stayed still and was lit at night by candles, by stars, by nothing but tiny holes through which light passed and landed on an ocean. The earth smelled of wetness, but the grass was brown, dying and changing and floating on salty water. I got up and walked, and I met a fisherman; we passed each other in utter silence — not a glance, not a glimpse. I had a dream of a table, a woman with dyed hands, and a broken chair, all under one roof. I saw doors that I had to open. I walked toward the first door and pulled it with all my strength; I entered and rushed toward the second door, but it was locked. I stayed there for days, begging the door to open. Then I fell asleep and dreamt of the door opening. A naked woman with a bag smiled at me and said, Take off your garments. I looked down and saw my robe turning to water. I gathered the water and gave it to her. She held it in her hands and poured it in my eyes. Now, she said, go through the third door and if you see your father tell him that you left your garment. I saw two paths. I will take the narrow path, I said. I had another dream, and in that dream I was in a river; I held a piece of bread that I threw to a bird. I crossed the river and found the fourth door. I pushed it with all my might, but it wouldn’t open. I touched it gently with my finger, and it opened. I entered into a garden with a chair and a book. I sat on the chair and smoked. Then I sang, and another door opened to me. I rushed through it and passed through emptiness and no trees, no tables, no chairs, no bird wing, no moon nor lights, no thoughts. I stood still and closed my eyes. I dreamt of a large flower. I smelled it. I climbed its stem and made a bed out of its petals. Then I slept and had another dream, a vision of a friend immersed in a pool of light and blood.

GEORGE AND I drove back, the road ahead of us brightened by the single light that shone under our numb chests, our knuckles, and our heavy, red eyes. We drove toward the darkened city lit by dim lanterns hung on barricades. The city’s feeble rays bounced off shiny soldiers’ boots.

When I arrived home, the phone rang, but I did not pick it up. I lay down on my bed. I could not sleep. I pulled out the gun from beneath my shirt and hid it under the mattress. Noises came from below: cat fights, occasional rushing feet, murmurs, quiet murmurs that entered my mind and my dreams and turned into familiar words.

Suddenly my mother’s hands were rocking me, pulling my cover and begging me to wake up.

Come down; they are targeting the neighbourhood. Come down and away from the window. How can you fall asleep like that? The bombs are all around us.

Nahla, our neighbour, was with her, and she pleaded with me as well. Have pity on your mother. Come down with us to the shelter. She has waited for you all day and all night. How can you be so thoughtless? She did not sleep all night. Where were you?

I will stay between these two walls, I said. You two go down; I’ll be fine here.

No, come down! We need a man in the shelter. Come down now, my love. On your grandfather’s grave, come down!

We heard a loud blast. A bomb fell nearby. The women shrieked and threw themselves on the floor. Close! This is a close one, they said and got up and ran into the hallway. Glass and chunks of stone fell from above, onto the street. My mother was shaking. I looked in her eyes and noticed that wrinkles had surfaced to channel her tears down her sunken cheeks.

The kids, my kids! Nahla cried.

I grabbed Nahla’s hand to stop her from running outside. The second one must be coming, I said. Don’t move!

Nahla tried to run, but I held her. She fought in my arms like a captive beast. Then she scratched my face and escaped. I followed her down the stairs. In hysterics, she shouted her kids’ names all the way down to the street filled with broken glass. A sudden loud, penetrating boom shook the building. I felt it pressing on my chest. I heard the noise of delayed glass falling; I saw a fog of smoke that tasted of old dust and cruel soil. The smell of powder and burned bread pushed me through the smoke and up the stairs where, breathless, I cried: Mother .

MY PARENTS, WHO HATED EACH OTHER IN LIFE, NOW rested together in wooden boxes under the same earth.

They had fought and screamed at each other when my father came back late at night with alcohol on his breath and a pair of defeated gambler’s hands that slapped my mother’s face, and blackened her eyes, and chased her to the kitchen under flying saucers and above broken plates. Now still, two corpses devoured by slimy carnivorous worms, they were at each other’s throats under the moist earth.

I threw the first grain of dust over my mother’s coffin, then turned and walked back toward the house, away from the repetitive chants, and white smoke of incense, and tears.

FOR DAYS, NEIGHBOURS and friends came and knocked at my door, but I didn’t open it.

I smoked. Somehow, the quiet of clinking pots, the silence of the radio, the absence of the subtle rustle of a broom, the solitude, gave me tranquility.

The wind blew as it pleased through the two large holes in the house. Only the wind entered; only the wind could. Late one night when I opened the door on my way out to buy cigarettes, I found a plate of bread on the doorstep. The neighbours had left it there, after their knuckles had turned red and tired from knocking at my door.

I walked the streets and found my way down to the cemetery. I smoked, then climbed over the fence and stood in front of a pile of soil. It was still not shovelled down. I stood and listened to my parents’ murmurs. Or was it the winds stroking the white stone crosses?

Later that night, Nabila and George broke the lock on my door and entered the apartment. Nabila wore black. She rushed toward me.

Skinny, she said. Look at you, how yellow and skinny you are. You have to eat. I brought you food. She sat at the edge of my bed and said, You have to eat. Please, Bassam, eat.

George stood quietly, a little farther away. He strolled between the pieces of broken furniture, looked through the open walls. Then he pulled out a box of cigarettes and offered me one. When he struck the match, Nabila hissed at him, Enough cigarettes. He has to eat. Look how yellow he is.