Yasmina Khadra: The Sirens of Baghdad

Night veils Beirut’s face again. If the tumults of the evening haven’t awakened her, that just proves she’s sleepwalking. According to ancestral tradition, a somnambulist is not to be interfered with, not even when he’s headed for disaster.

I’d imagined a different Beirut, Arab and proud of it. I was wrong. It’s just an indeterminate city, closer to its fantasies than to its history, a fickle sham as disappointing as a joke. Maybe its obstinate efforts to resemble the cities of its enemies have caused its patron saints to disown it, and that’s why it’s exposed to the traumas of war and the dangers of every tomorrow. It’s lived through a life-size nightmare, but to what end? The more I observe the place, the less I get it. It’s so trifling, it seems insolent. Its affected airs are nothing but a con. Its alleged charisma doesn’t jibe with its qualms; it’s like a silk cloth over an ugly stain.

I arrived here three weeks ago, more than a year after the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. I could feel the city’s bad faith as soon as the taxi deposited me on the sidewalk. Beirut’s mourning is only a facade, its memory a rusted sieve; I abhorred it at first sight.

In the mornings, when its souklike din begins again, I’m overcome with silent loathing. In the evenings, when the party animals show off their gleaming high-powered cars and crank up their stereos to full blast, the same anger rises inside me. What are they trying to prove? That they’re still having a great time despite the odd assassination? That there may be some rough patches but life goes on?

This circus of theirs makes no sense.

I’m a Bedouin, born in Kafr Karam, a village lost in the sands of the Iraqi desert, a place so discreet that it often dissolves in mirages, only to emerge at sunset. Big cities have always filled me with deep distrust, but Beirut’s double-dealing makes my head spin. Here, the more you think you’ve put your finger on something, the less certain you can be of what exactly it is. Beirut’s a slapdash affair: Its martyrdom is phony; its tears are crocodile tears. I hate it with all my heart for its gutless, illogical pride, for the way it falls between two stools, sometimes Arab, sometimes Western, depending on the payoffs involved. What it sanctifies by day, it renounces at night, what it demands in the public square, it shuns on the beach, and it hurtles toward its ruin like an embittered runaway who thinks he’ll find elsewhere the thing that’s lying within reach of his hand….

“You should go out. Stretch your legs, clear your head.”

Dr. Jalal’s standing behind me, practically breathing down my neck. How long has he been watching me rant to myself? I didn’t hear him come out here, and it’s irritating to find him hovering over my thoughts like a bird of prey.

He senses my discomfort and points his chin in the direction of the avenue. “It’s a wonderful evening,” he says. “The weather’s lovely, the cafés are packed, the streets are full of people. You should enjoy yourself, instead of staying here and brooding over your problems.”

“I don’t have any problems.”

“Well, what are you doing here, then?”

“I don’t like crowds, and I detest this city.”

The doctor jerks his head back as though a fist has struck him. He frowns. “You’re mistaking your enemy, young man. Nobody detests Beirut.”

“I detest it.”

“You’re wrong. Beirut has suffered a lot. It’s touched bottom. But it’s been miraculously cured. Although it seemed to be on its last legs not so long ago, now it’s starting to recover. Still groggy and feverish, but hanging on. I find it admirable. What’s to criticize? What don’t you like about it?”

“Everything.”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“Not to me. I don’t like this city. Period.”

The doctor doesn’t insist. “Well, to each his own. Cigarette?”

He holds the packet toward me.

“I don’t smoke.”

He offers me a can. “Would you like a beer?”

“I don’t drink.”

Dr. Jalal places the beer can on a little wicker table and leans on the parapet wall. We stand there shoulder-to-shoulder. His alcoholic breath strangles me. I don’t remember ever having seen him sober. In his early fifties, he’s already a wreck, with a purplish complexion and a concave mouth furrowed at the corners. This evening, he’s wearing a tracksuit stamped with the colors of Lebanon’s national soccer team. The top is open, revealing a bloodred sweatshirt, and the laces on his new sneakers are undone. He looks as though he just got out of bed after a long nap. His movements are languid, and his eyes, usually lively and passionate, are barely visible through puffy lids.

With a weary gesture, he pats his hair into place on the top of his skull, camouflaging his bald spot. He asks, “Am I disturbing you?”

I say nothing.

“I was getting bored in my room. Nothing ever happens in this hotel — no banquets, no weddings. It’s like an old folks’ home.”

He raises the can of beer to his lips and takes a long pull. His prominent Adam’s apple makes each swallow visible. I notice, for the first time, a nasty scar running all the way across his throat.

My frown doesn’t escape him. He stops drinking and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, nodding his head, he turns toward the hysterical lights of the boulevard below us.

“Once, a long time ago, I tried to hang myself,” he says, leaning out over the parapet. “With a length of hempen twine. I was barely eighteen.”

He takes another swallow and continues: “I had just caught my mother with a man.”

His words are disconcerting, but his eyes hold mine fast. I must admit that Dr. Jalal has often taken me by surprise. I never know what to make of his frankness; I’m not used to confessions of this sort. In Kafr Karam, such revelations would be fatal. I’ve never heard anyone speak like this about his mother, and the doctor’s casual way of spreading out his dirty linen confounds me.

“Such things happen,” he adds.

“I agree,” I say, hoping the conversation will move on.

“Agree with what?”

I’m embarrassed. I don’t know what he’s getting at, and it’s tiresome to have nothing to say.

Dr. Jalal drops the subject. We’re not cut from the same cloth, he and I, and when he talks to someone like me, it must be like addressing a wall. Nevertheless, solitude weighs on him, and a bit of a chat, however inane, will serve at least to keep him from sinking into an alcoholic coma. When Dr. Jalal’s not talking, he’s drinking. He’s a fairly serene drunk, but he doesn’t trust the world he’s fallen into. No matter how often he tells himself he’s in good hands, he’s never convinced it’s the truth. Aren’t those the same hands that fire weapons in the dark, slit throats, strangle people, and place explosive devices under selected chairs? It’s true that there haven’t been any punitive operations since he landed in Beirut, but his hosts have a record of bloodbaths, and what he reads in their eyes is unmistakable: They’re death on the march. One false step, one indiscretion, and he won’t even have time to understand what’s happening to him. Two weeks ago, Imad, a young fellow assigned to taking care of me, was found in the middle of a square, squelching around in his own excrement. According to the police, Imad died of an overdose — and it’s better that way. His comrades, who executed him with the help of an infected syringe, didn’t go to his funeral; they pretended they didn’t know him. Since then, the doctor checks under his bed twice before slipping between the sheets.