Rawi Hage - De Niro's Game

George lifted his glass. Whisky, he said.

Whisky, I whispered back sarcastically.

There is money in whisky. Work with me for a few months, forget about the poker place, make your money and leave.

I am not joining your military.

No, you do not have to. This is a side job. Cheap whisky from Romania, a few thousand imitation Johnny Walker bottles, and fake labels. You combine it all and you have Johnny ready to go. The manufacturer needs to send a few hundred cases of it to the Muslim side. You load a truck and meet someone downtown. You deliver, and that’s it.

Who’s in on the deal?

No one, just you and me and the manufacturer.

Abou-Nahra?

Abou-Nahra is not so important.

Are you coming along?

No. You do the delivery alone. I can get you a military pass, in case you’re stopped. First you’ll do it once a week. Give it a few weeks and the whole West Side will be begging for more.

It is an operation for two, I replied.

Well, who do you have in mind?

I will let you know.

Let me know soon. The first shipment has to go on Thursday night, the man is waiting, and I thought of you first. I always think of you.

We all think of ourselves first and foremost, I said, and I threw him back his lighter and left.

I LEANED ON THE EDGE OF MY VERANDA AND WATCHED A few Christians go by. The faithful trotted past, like horses, carrying shopping bags; at the end of the street they lingered over vending carts that displayed kitchenware and vegetables. When the vendors called, housewives came out on their balconies and lynched baskets, money, ropes. They ordered by the dozen, negotiated from the sky, and hand-picked goods while batting their long eyelashes. Their orders resonated against the broken walls. Their baskets came down from their verandas like buckets into dark wells. And when the vendor filled the baskets, these women, like miners, pulled on the ropes, started fires, and cooked meals in metal pots and red sauce.

I saw Rana walking by below. She dug her head toward the ground. She reached the end of the street and turned round and passed below me again. She was waiting for the housewives to fold up their ropes and their long tongues that entered every door, wrapped around every pillow, slithered like serpents in beds, and stretched under every young skirt to assess menstrual flows and hymens.

Tongues that slurp sauce on tasting spoons, I thought. Tongues that curse the dead, tongues that hang laundry and people’s lives on balconies and roofs, tongues that tell. .

My mother told me, Rana said, as she finally reached my door, either Bassam comes and asks for your hand or let him stop prowling like a cat around your window.

I am working on something, I said. Just be patient.

I cannot come here any more, Bassam. Abla, haydi al-sar-sarah , saw me entering the building the other day, and she said the forty days of mourning are not over yet. In this neigh-bourhood, people watch and gossip all day. I am sick of it, Bassam, I am sick of the war and the people here. I want to leave, Bassam. Let’s leave soon. You are not going to spend the rest of your life lifting boxes at the port.

I am working on something. Soon, I said. Soon we will leave, khalas . And I held her waist, kissed her lips, pulled her skirt up, and brushed my hand on her curves. Wetness and warmth streamed gently, warmth on fingertips, warmth on cracked lips, warmth from tongue on salty fingers, fingers spinning in curly hair, fingers splitting blouses, fingers crawling, fingers suffocating pillows.

We burned two cigarettes, and Rana said, I saw George the other day. He was driving a new BMW. Is it his?

Probably not. It must be Abou-Nahra’s.

I was walking with my friend Leila the other day, said Rana, just talking and looking at clothes, and this nice sports car stopped next to us. I did not recognize George because he was wearing sunglasses. Then he pulled off his shades and asked us if we needed a ride. I said, No, thank you, we are not going too far. Then cars started to honk behind us and George’s door was already open, so we got in. He drove us back here. . He is so funny, he played this Arabic music very loud and drove like he was in a race. . You’re so quiet, Bassam. . Your silence is breaking me, it is breaking me. All you want is to touch me. I meet you, and you want me to take off my clothes, and then you lie on your back and look at the ceiling, and smoke, and hardly say a word to me. You are breaking me.

LATER, I WENT TO George’s place. Members of his platoon were stretched on his sofas, wearing cotton shirts, cowboy belts, and Levi’s jeans. I recognized Nicole, the woman from Broumana. Her husband, Laurent, was drunk and talking about Africa. Highways of cocaine were stretched on mirrors. Noses operated on glass like vacuum-cleaner hoses, driving white powder into the molecules of numb, wide eyes. The apartment buzzed with invincible fighters, with swelling laughs and shiny teeth. The fighters filled the kitchen with their straight, broad shoulders, they sang to the music with commanding voices, they landed their lips and heroic praises on one another’s cheeks, and their sharp-shooters’ eyes were aimed on serpentine asses. There was food and drink and talk and cigarettes.

I stood against the wall with a beer in my hand. I talked to a few people: to Fadi, to Adel, to Raymond, to Souha, Chantal, Christine, Maya, Souhail, and to George, who was smiling and high.

George said, Have a good time now, and we will talk later. There is a girl inside bleeding from her nose.

I will ask one of your soldier friends, Joseph Chaiben, to help me with the whisky job, I said.

We will talk tomorrow, he said, and kissed me on the cheek. You’re my brother, you’re my brother, he said, and walked toward Bébé and her husband, Monsieur Laurent.

YOU CAME FOR the tea, the manufacturer said to me when he opened the door. Listen. It is simple. I make the contact. It is business; everyone drinks. Did you eat?

Yes, I said.

You have to try my wife’s bamia . Come, sit down and eat.

No, I ate. Next time, thank you.

You like whisky? he asked me.

Only the good kind, I said.

The manufacturer laughed. I won’t offer you any of mine, then. By the way, I knew your uncle. He was always involved in politics. I would tell him, Stop wasting your time with all these activities. But he was a socialist, he liked demonstrations! At the warehouse tomorrow, my son Hakim will load the truck for you. You just give them the merchandise; no money exchange is involved. The contact’s name is Ali. George gave you directions?

Yes, I said.

Will you be alone?

No.

It’s just business, he said again. No religion, no war; this is only business. Muslim, Christian — it does not matter.

JOSEPH AND I DROVE down to Al-Aswaq. The streets were vacant. Little plants sprang from beneath the sidewalk’s cracks, lived underneath broken arches, shone in front of looted stores, sprang from the bellies of decaying sandbags, and dwelt in deserted governmental buildings that longed for the old days when lazy bureaucrats strolled in long hallways, snoozed on metal desks, dipped their moustaches in thick coffee, paraded their thin ties on hairy, conceited chests, waved their hands to expel flies and welcome bribes and seal endless deals with forged wills, illegal roofs, rebirth certificates, religious divorces, contaminated water pipes, underage driver licences, expired bank notes, stumbling constructions, derelict sewers, stained travel documents, and clandestine harvests of hallucinogenic plants that grew in the Bekaa Valley on the steps of Heliopolis, where Fairuz, that whining singer, sang at night under twinkling stars that had guided the three Babylonians from the east and down south into that stable with ruminating cows and the child who extracted milk from the virgin’s round, black nipples.