Sonallah Ibrahim - Beirut, Beirut

She picked up the folder and brought it back to the cabinet. Then she sat down behind her desk and became engrossed in her work. I went back to my chair, lit a cigarette, and began observing her.

Suddenly she tossed the pen aside and pushed back her chair.

“ Oof . I can’t concentrate.”

“Let’s go — we’ll get out of here.”

She thought a moment and then said, “I have to go home.”

I put my hand out on the desk and clutched her hand. I felt her nails with my fingertips.

This time the noise was extremely close to us. I could distinguish the sound of two gunshots, one after the other. The door swung open violently and the secretary appeared, looking pale and trying to speak. Right behind her came two of the young men who worked in the office, and behind them one of the two armed men who guarded the entrance to the building.

From the flood of rushed and contradictory words, we were able to piece together that Abu Khalil had gone out to buy cigarettes, and when he came back in the elevator, he noticed an armed man he didn’t know on the stairs. The man raised his machinegun to shoot Abu Khalil. But Abu Khalil was faster: he shot two bullets at him but missed, and the gunman was able to escape toward the roof.

We all rushed out together. We stood in front of the elevator; the glass on its wooden doors looked shattered.

We heard the sound of heavy feet and heavy breathing. Abu Khalil appeared at the top of stairs, his gun in his hand.

“I chased him up to the roof, but he managed to escape.”

The outer door guard shook his head.

“No one came into the building that I didn’t recognize.”

“So where did that guy come from?” shouted Abu Khalil. “Out of thin air? He must have come through the door, while you were asleep on the job!”

The guard was furious. “You’re the one who’s sleeping all the time!”

Lamia intervened to break up the fight, and asked both of them to check the building thoroughly.

We made our way back to the office. She closed the door and leaned her back against it.

“It’s a good thing Abu Khalil saw him,” she said, tapping her fingertip against her lower lip.

Still thinking, she walked over to her desk.

“What time is it?” she asked me.

“Two thirty,” I replied.

She walked toward me and stood in front of me, then she put her hand out to my chest and pressed against it. I leaned my head against her chest and took the tip of her breast between my lips. She drew her legs close and held them against my body.

“ I’m very turned on ,” she said in English.

“I can’t take much more of this,” she added in Arabic. “Do you know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Let’s go to my place.”

“What about Wadia?” she asked.

“I can call him now at his office and make an arrangement with him.”

“I don’t want that. I won’t feel relaxed that way.”

She looked at the two sofas leaning against each other in a corner of the office, and said, “Not here, either. Not after what happened today.”

Suddenly she made up her mind and picked up her purse.

“Come with me,” she said.

“Where to?”

“To my place.”

Abu Khalil was waiting for us in the outer reception area, and he walked ahead of us to the stairs. We followed him down to the front door, where we were met by the two guards, brandishing their guns.

Abu Khalil asked us to wait inside; he gestured to Ibrahim, one of the guards, and left the building. After a few moments, he reappeared in the front seat of the Chevrolet, next to its driver wearing an official uniform.

At a nod from Abu Khalil, Ibrahim raised his gun to his chest, as his eyes swept across the rooftops, windows, and entrances of nearby buildings. He walked up confidently to the car; pulling open the back door, he nodded at Lamia. He remained standing there until she got in, then he closed the door behind her. Then he walked around the car and opened the other door. Stepping aside, he addressed me: “This way, sir.”

Ibrahim closed the door, then wheeled around the car and opened the door next to Lamia. She moved over in my direction to make room for him, so that she was pressed up against me. He sat down with his gun in his hand.

“ I was planning to get rid of His Excellency here at the end of the month ,” Lamia said to me in English. “ But it seems as though I still need him .”

The driver set off through a network of intersecting streets, carrying out the instructions from Ibrahim, who kept his eye on the cars, watching them come up behind us until we reached her house.

Before the car came to a complete stop, Abu Khalil had opened the door and jumped onto the sidewalk with his gun in his hand. The armed man did likewise, and he stood next to the car with his machinegun up to his chest and his finger on the trigger.

We got out of the car and walked up to the building under the protection of the gun and the Kalashnikov. We were joined by two of the armed men standing in the entranceway. We went up the wide marble stairs, then we crossed the inner reception room. Ibrahim took the key to the elevator from Lamia, and rode up to the top floor to make sure there were no explosives.

The elevator came down after a few minutes, and Lamia and I took it to her apartment. She led me to the room I had sat in the last time, and she left me there.

I headed to the library and stood looking at its contents. I saw that the shelf with the photograph of Adnan was empty, and I discovered the photo placed on the floor, next to the library, with Adnan’s face to the wall.

I pulled out a fat, strangely-shaped volume, and found that it was an Arabic — Hebrew dictionary. I flipped through its pages until Lamia walked in on me. I noticed that she had added a new layer of eyeliner to her eyes, making them appear wider.

“The food is ready, ya bey ,” she said.

I put the dictionary back in its place, and followed her to the living room. Sections of carpet hung on its walls, as well as giant trays made of silver engraved with Islamic decorative motifs. In the middle of the room sat a large wooden table, with a large number of chairs lined up around it.

The table was set for only two people, so I asked her, “Won’t your daughter be eating with us?”

“Salma ate with her nanny and they went out for a walk,” she explained, sitting down.

I sat down in front of her and looked around me.

“Isn’t there anything to drink?” I asked.

She pointed to a bottle of orange juice and smiled.

“We don’t keep any liquor in the house. You forget that we’re Muslims.”

Two waiters in white jackets and black pants took charge of serving us. We moved from various kinds of salads to kishk with chicken breasts and stuffed grape leaves. Then pieces of cooked meat with the light-green zucchini known as kusa , and boiled carrots.

Dessert was a concoction of chocolate. I contented myself with an apple I took from a wide bowl filled with apples, plums and grapes.

I lit a cigarette and we moved to the library, where they brought the coffee to us. Lamia left the room for some time, and when she came back, she sat down next to me and took my hand. My hands were cold, so she let go of them.

“Come with me. I’ll show you my room,” she said.

We walked down a long corridor with a marble floor. She stopped in front of a room.

“Is the bathroom near here?” I asked.

She pointed to the opposite door, so I opened it and went in. I found myself in a wide cave made of black marble streaked with pink veins. Mirrors covered a large part of its walls.

I urinated and washed my hands and mouth in a wide sink with gleaming yellow faucets that looked as though they were made of gold. Then I dried my hands while contemplating my face, which had several reflections in the mirrors. Finally, I left the bathroom and quietly closed the door behind me.