Rawi Hage - De Niro's Game

I saw a well-dressed older man waiting at the entrance to Rhea’s building. I watched the streetlight projecting beams on his face, and saw that he changed colours like a chameleon. Then I saw Rhea come down. I retreated from the corner and stood in the shadows. Rhea kissed the older man, and they walked together down the street. He was skinny, and delicate-looking, with a baby face. I followed them, keeping to the shadows; when they looked behind them, I froze like prey in the presence of a predator.

Rhea and the man entered a bar. He opened the door for her. On the way to the bar she had done all the talking; he just nodded and leaned his head toward her.

I waited outside the bar. I smoked all my cigarettes, and still I stood, watching through the windows. The waitresses walked back and forth, blocking the central light that was suspended in the middle of the window frame like an extraterrestrial ship. At times, the waitresses’ movements made the light flicker in my eyes. I thought of these flickers as Morse code signals instructing me not to lose my subjects, to follow their tracks, to take note of every laugh and every conversation, no matter how trivial, to watch their body gestures, to detect any exchange of paper, cigarette boxes, glances, smiles, tender voices.

I waited for hours on end. I craved another cigarette, and I also craved the burning candles above Rhea’s bed. I craved her photos, her endless questions.

When Rhea and the man finally left the bar, I froze. I did not blink. The man stopped onto the sidewalk and pulled out a box of cigarettes and an old lighter. Then he lit a smoke, puffed, and walked beside Rhea. I followed them as they traced back their route to Rhea’s home. The man walked her to the door, she kissed him, and he left on foot. I waited until he passed me, and then I followed him down to the metro. I stood on the platform, not too far from him. I watched him closely. The suspended neon light gave him disturbing shadows that were at odds with his blue eyes, his silk tie, and his well-combed hair.

I got on and off at every station he did; I followed him everywhere, and I did not care whether he noticed it or not.

When he got off at the last station and began to walk away, I ran after him. In a little ruelle , I asked him for a cigarette. He answered rudely, saying that he did not have any.

I know you have one! I replied.

He brushed past me with an air of arrogance and told me to scram.

I pulled out my gun and rushed in front of him. Either the cigarette, or I will use the gun. Which would you prefer?

He pulled the box from the side pocket of his jacket and gave it to me.

The lighter too, I said.

He frisked his clothes, pulled the lighter from a pants pocket, and gave it to me slowly, still looking at me with fearless eyes. I took it and walked away in the opposite direction. I decided not to take the metro in case the man called the police; they would surely keep an eye on the stations.

I walked fast through deserted streets, and I felt my hunger. I had not eaten all day because I had been waiting for Rhea to call, waiting to share food with her, to look at her looking at me straight in the eyes like no one ever looked at you in this city, to smell her hair.

When I finally arrived on a busy street, I stood behind a young tree and lit a cigarette. I felt the weight of the lighter and examined its gold colour. It had some initials that I decided to examine later under better light. I opened and closed it; when it closed, it snapped and gave a sound that echoed like a jail door, like the clang of a torture chamber, like lovers quarrelling in cars and parking lots, like my father’s exits from our home at night and his exits from gambling joints in the morning. I was thirsty, but the thought of water brought back the memory of Rambo’s hand on my neck, drowning me, and the thought cut the air from my chest, which made me inhale my cigarettes longer and walk faster, and the faster I walked the more like a stranger I felt. I longed for my lengthy walks under falling bombs. Bombs are not only for killing, I thought; bombs are like Morse code signals filled with messages, with words. But Paris has no falling bombs; Paris is a mute city.

THE NEXT DAY, Rhea phoned from the lobby of my hotel.

She said that she was coming up to my room. When she entered, she slammed the door (like the slam of an expensive gold lighter).

You followed me last night, she accused me.

I kept quiet.

Yes, you did. I saw you. I saw you waiting outside the bar, across the street. I recognized your posture, your bag, your cigarettes. You stood there for hours, like a stalker. I recognized you from the way you smoked and the way you looked sideways from under your hat and coat collar. Yes, you stood under the dim light, thinking no one could recognize you, but I always recognize people by their shapes. I prolonged my stay in the bar because I did not want to leave before you, but stubborn as you are, you stood there as if someone had paid you. You stood there, and the look of your stiff, sad body, like a standing corpse, terrified me. What right do you have? What right do you have to follow me? I saw you following Roland after he left me. I saw you! she shouted. Why did you follow him? What right?

Her eyes looked straight at me again, but this time it was a new look that I had never seen before, a kind of a squint like that of a marksman shooting against the sun, the squint of a lost sailor, the squint of a person looking through smoke from a cigarette or burning hay.

Why, why? Now, tell me why you followed me. Why? she shouted.

To protect you, I mumbled.

What? To protect me? From what, from whom? Who asked you to? Who? You have no claim on me, do you understand? I took pity on you, and just because I felt sorry for you and slept with you, you do not own me. Understood? Now, do not ever follow me again! She raised her finger to my face and said, And do not bother Roland, because he is not as soft and fragile as you think.

She turned and slammed the door (yes, it sounded like a prison door). From my window, I watched her crossing the street, stepping over the white interrupted traffic line, and disappearing behind white stone walls.

I PACED MY ROOM between the window and the bathroom, looking for something new, something to examine. I was missing soap and needed a new towel. I went downstairs to the lobby.

The receptionist, an Algerian man with thick glasses and curly hair, was reading a book. Slowly, he lifted his head. When I asked for a new towel and soap, he told me that I would have to wait until the next cleaning. I asked him if he had a book I could borrow.

He leaned under the desk and pulled out a few books. Here, he said. People forget books in their rooms and we keep them. Like a juggler, he held a wobbling pile of books in his hand and put them all in front of me. Choose. We expect you to bring them back when you finish them or before you leave.

I picked L’Étranger by Camus.

Ah oui. On est tous ça ici, mon frère , he said and laughed.

I went up to the room and lay in bed. Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure. This was the first sentence in the book. I got up and sat at the window and flipped through the pages in the book. When I glanced down at the street, I saw a man and his dog walking. The man cursed his dog. The sun shone strong and low, which made Paris slide into Mediterranean heat. The smell of thyme filled the cafés, and the stronger the sun poured down its heat, the more Paris slid toward the North African shores. Between the covers of my book, I saw the protagonist walking on the seashore with a gun in his hand. . This man who is morally guilty of his mother’s death , the prosecutor said and pointed at the accused. I quickly left the courtroom and dropped the book on the bed to watch Paris continue its path downward and south under glittering red waves of light. Reflections of desert sand joined to waves of water from the Mediterranean Sea. The heat was so great it made me dizzy, and I felt myself perspiring through my back in a cascade of sweat that rushed down my pants and crossed my buttocks. I felt its dampness on the joints behind my knees.