Rawi Hage - De Niro's Game

Abou-Nahra smiled, the door slammed, and I passed out.

When I came to, the brute guard led me to a small room that contained nothing but a blanket and a filthy toilet.

I could see from only one eye. I sat on the floor, swept the dust with my left hand, and let my right palm rest on the cool ground, channelling the temperature from my hand to my eye. My body ached; my lips bled.

I tried to sleep, but Rambo was determined to deprive me of sleep. He opened the door every few minutes to ask me to stand up.

If I see you sitting or sleeping I will stick your face in the toilet, he said. Do you understand, Hashash ?

Walk! he shouted; and I walked back and forth.

For most of the night, the monster deprived me of sleep. I held the wall and tried to keep my body upright. When I fell on my knees, I tried to listen for the door latch. Before Rambo entered, I would pull my body up. When I fell asleep, he was furious and dragged me out of the cell to a bathroom. He filled the sink with water and pushed my head in it repeatedly. Once, when I was under water, I thought, Fuck him. When he pulls me back up I will not breathe. Fuck him, I thought, I will hold my breath and dive under the sea with the poisonous fish. I will stay there and watch the tourists passing in that cruise ship again. This time I will wear my best tuxedo and show those foreigners how I can swing, and wave my dancing stick in the air to those mambo tunes with a belly dancer on each side of my hips, with sexless angels who watch me with envy, with mocking nymphs, with whisky connoisseurs serving Saudis with trimmed goatees, with a few underground Playboy Bunnies with soft, white cotton tails. Fuck him. I will sleep in a cabin with two beds and room service. Fuck that brute. I just have to save a few bubbles from the effervescent water in the sink, and I will just swallow them for air, and wait underwater for the mambo tune to come back. That is what I will do.

But the monster would watch me, and slap me as I turned navy, the colour of the deep sea, the colour of my left eye, the colour of the uniform of the captain of the ship.

The diamonds, he kept on repeating. Ya habbub (beloved), why are you doing this to yourself? I cannot understand why people like to go through so much pain. Is it worth it? They are only stones. . Listen, I hate to kill another Christian. We are all from the same bone here. Now, tell me where the diamonds are, and I will let you out, I will even send you back to your place in a taxi. Here, I brought you some soup. I will even let you sleep tonight, and I know in the morning you will wake up fresh, and tell me exactly where you hid them.

I did not steal them, I whispered through my broken teeth.

What did you say? I can’t hear you, you are talking like a woman. Are you a woman who sucks old men’s dicks! Then the monster grabbed my neck and glued his ear to my lips. Talk to me, Chéri , and we all can go home tonight.

I did not do it, I said.

Tomorrow, he replied, you will remember. I know you have forgotten now, because your head is not on straight, and you had too much to drink. Now sleep.

Although he left me after that, I could not sleep well. I kept on waking up. I was afraid that the monster might burst into my cell and ask me to walk again. In the morning, he showed up. He shoved me with his boots and said, Now, where are they?

I started to cry. I did not do it, I said. I do not know anything.

Okay, Hashash. I think you are the type of man who does not accept kindness. I was fair to you. Did you like the soup? Because that was your last food. Come with me. Yallah! He called his friend, and they dragged me to a civilian car.

You like BMWs, I heard. You would want to buy one when you sell the old man’s stones, right? Here, we will take you for a drive.

They shoved me in the trunk and drove for a few metres. Then they stopped and a voice shouted, Rambo, where are you going?

We are going to finish the communist, Bassam something.

How are you going to finish him? the voice said, giggling.

Like Rambo, Rambo answered, and they all laughed out loud.

Then they drove fast and in circles, making loops. My head bumped into the spare tire, then I felt nauseous, and the smell of the clean leather made me even sicker. Dark, it was dark, dark like my parents’ tomb. Fuck him, I thought, at least I will not be buried in the same place as they!

Then the car stopped. The monster turned off the engine and the trunk popped up by itself. I kept my hand over my eyes. The little light that pierced the trunk blinded me, and vertigo made me vomit.

The second man was furious: Akhu al-sharmuta , he dirtied the car! Look — he vomited all over.

I heard a gun being cranked, and the second man’s voice said, I am going to finish off the garbage now.

But Rambo ordered him to wait. I am telling you, wait! Rambo shouted, and the two men scuffled with each other.

Go take a walk, Ya Allah . It is my car, and I will take care of it.

Rambo leaned his head inside the trunk and said in his usual sarcastic voice: Now, Ya habbub, do you remember where the stones are?

I did not answer; I vomited some more. The vomit felt like it was going inward, through my nostrils, splashing on my chest a mutant bowl of soup.

Okay, suit yourself, he said. You know, I could do you a favour by shooting you now. I know that is what you want, but I won’t do it. You and me are not done yet. I have not introduced you to the electric charger yet. I promise you will glow like Mariam Al-Adhra’ (the Virgin Mary).

And Rambo and his friend drove me back, and carried me to the cell.

TEN THOUSAND SLAPS landed on my tender skin, and soup was vomited from my stomach like an infant’s cereal from my mother’s feeding arms, from her piercing eyes, from her demanding breath, from her contempt for my father the fatal-ist, the indifferent, the slow walker, the quiet man who burst through the door, late, in the dark, and landed slaps on my mother’s feeding arms, her piercing eyes, her demanding breath, her contempt for my father the fatalist, the indifferent, the slow walker, the quiet man who burst through the door in the dark, like my torturer who landed slaps and offered me soup that was vomited from my stomach like an infant’s cereal from my mother’s feeding hands, from her demanding breath, from her contempt for my father the fatalist, the indifferent, the slow walker like his son in that cell, where he was forced to walk all night, asking for his mother’s feeding arms, her piercing eyes, her demanding breath to save him from the breathless water, to pull him from the bathtub with the duck that floated between the bubbles, and the water slaps that shook the cruise ship, and splashed soap on its wooden deck where once upon a time two strolling Brits, from the rainy north, walked calmly in the moonless night toward the dining hall, before the served soup got cold, and before the jailer, who wore a white apron, burst into the kitchen and asked me to stand up, and not to sit on the job, and not to answer back, and not to steal from the passengers’ purses, and not to fondle the teenage girls, and the horny diamond wives, and to keep on chasing dust, sweeping the deck, cleaning tubs with effervescent gas that precipitated from my drowning face, from my wandering submerged lips that flapped like flying fish over the moonless sea.

RAMBO OPENED the door and said, You are free to go, Hashash . He held the door open. You have two minutes to leave.

I stood up and walked slowly out of the room. Now, I thought, he will shoot me in the back and blame my corpse for trying to escape.

I walked down the hallway. A few other rooms stretched out on both sides. I had shared the same uneven floor, the same cold, moist walls with others who moaned underwater dolphin calls, who swam in the same sea with open eyes, watching the schools of purple bubbles floating by.