Elias Khoury - Gate of the Sun

“And is it real shampoo?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Abu Akram, “but he stands in front of the mosque, washes his hair, and people buy.”

“What’s he saying?” asked the tall man.

As I told him the story of the shampoo, I was looking at Catherine, expecting a reaction, when we heard a racket outside the door. The bodyguard Abu Akram had sent to look for Daniel had returned with him. Daniel came in with three children larking around while he handed out chewing gum and chocolates and they argued over them.

“Get the children out of here!” shouted Abu Akram.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Walking around,” he said. “And, as you can see, I like children.”

The tall man stood up and Catherine got ready to go; it seemed they’d lost interest. They didn’t ask for more information about Salim.

Abu Akram asked if I’d taken them to the mosque-cemetery.

I said no.

“I’ll take them,” he said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

I was on the verge of leaving when Catherine asked me what Abu Akram wanted.

“He’ll take you to the cemetery,” I said.

“But we’ve already seen the cemetery,” said the tall man.

“The one at the mosque,” I said, and explained how we’d turned the mosque into a cemetery during the siege.

“Another cemetery!” exclaimed Catherine, and her lower lip started to tremble. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to. I want to go back to the hotel.”

I told Abu Akram that our friends were tired and it would be better to take them back to the hotel, but Abu Akram insisted and asked me to translate what he said. He started talking about death, and about how we as a people regarded the dead as holy, and that if Shatila hadn’t stood fast during the siege, the Gaza and West Bank intifada *would never have happened.

I interrupted and said I wasn’t going to translate. “Can’t you see, my friend, the woman’s crying and the man’s trying to calm her down, with his pale face and his bald spot shining with sweat? Drop it and let them go.”

I heard the girl whisper to the tall man that she wouldn’t do the part: “I’m scared. I won’t do the part, and I want to go back to the hotel.”

I translated this to Abu Akram, and the fat man said he understood and went over to pat her on the shoulder. The moment his hand touched her, she trembled and pulled back, as though she’d received an electric shock, and I saw a sort of fear mixed with disgust in her eyes.

I left them there and walked out without saying goodbye.

Shit!

Is this what things have come to? They’re afraid of the victim! Instead of treating the patient, they fear him, and when they see, they close their eyes. They read books and write them. It’s the books that are the lies.

But why does the image of Catherine stick in my mind? Perhaps because she’s young and inarticulate, or perhaps because of her short hair, cropped like a boy’s. I must have felt something for her, especially when her lower lip started trembling. It started when I translated parts of the anecdote about Salim, and especially the part about how he used to stand in front of everybody and dye his hair in order to sell the shampoo. Catherine didn’t laugh like me and Abu Akram and the tall man. Her face seemed obscured by a dark veil, as if she’d seen us playing out our own deaths. I think she thought we were beasts. How can we take all that and not implode?

In fact, Father, wouldn’t it be better if nobody saw us? Otherwise, why would they want to build a wall around the camp? The Lebanese journalist I told you about spoke to me about the wall. He said the government would soon complete the rebuilding of Sports City, which was demolished by Israeli planes, and that Beirut was going to host the next Arab Games, and it would be better for the Arab athletes if they didn’t see.

They solve the problem by covering their eyes. And maybe they’re right! In this place, we’re a kind of a dirty secret. A permanent dirty secret you can only cover over by forgetting it.

“I’d like to forget, too,” I told Baroudi when he invited me to Rayyis’ restaurant.

I’d prefer to forget, and my encounter with Boss Josèph changed nothing because I’m not seeking revenge.

Can you believe it? The man invites me to meet with one of the butchers of Shatila, and I tell him there’s no point because I don’t hate them.

“There is a point,” said the journalist. “I want you to come because I’m going to write about reconciliation and forgiveness.”

“But I haven’t forgiven him or the others,” I answered.

“Never mind, never mind. What matters is how you feel.”

“And what about how he feels?” I asked.

“About what who feels?” he asked me.

“This Josèph that I don’t know.”

I went out of curiosity, since I don’t know East Beirut, and I’d never had the chance to meet someone we’d fought. The civil war had become a long dream, as though it had never happened. I can feel it under my skin, but I don’t believe it. Only the images remain. Even our massacre here in the camp and the flies that hunted me down I see as though they were photos, as though I weren’t remembering but watching. I don’t feel anything but astonishment. Strange, isn’t it? Strange that war should pass like a dream.

What do you think?

If you could speak, you’d say that the whole of life seems like a dream. Maybe in your long sleep you’re floating over the surface of things, as eyes do over pictures.

We went to Rayyis’ restaurant and waited, but he didn’t come.

We sat at a table for four. The journalist ordered two glasses of arak and some hummus and tabouleh, and we waited. Then a group of young men came in. Their hair was cut like youths in the Lebanese Forces.

“Nasri!” yelled Baroudi, who jumped up from his seat to embrace him.

“What are you doing here?” asked Nasri.

“What am I doing? I’m getting drunk,” answered Baroudi.

“Come and get drunk with us,” said Nasri.

“I can’t. I have a guest. And we’re waiting for Boss Josèph.”

I found myself at their table. There were six young men and a young brunette in a very short skirt and a low-cut blouse. It seemed to me she must have been Nasri’s girlfriend because whenever she got the chance she’d put her hand in his.

They laughed and drank and ate and told jokes. I tried to match their mood, but I couldn’t, it was as though my mouth were blocked with a stone, or I was ashamed of my Palestinian accent.

Baroudi broke the ice and told them who I really was: “I forgot to tell you that Dr. Khalil works for the Palestine Red Crescent in Shatila.”

“Welcome, welcome,” said Nasri. “You’re Palestinian?”

“Yes, yes.”

“From Shatila?”

“Yes. Yes, I live in Shatila, but I’m originally from Galilee.”

“I know Galilee well,” he said, and he started to tell me, to the delight of his companions, about a training course for parachutists that he’d taken part in in Galilee.

“Have you visited Palestine?”

“No.”

“I know it well. You have a beautiful country. It’s a lot like Lebanon, but the Jews have fixed it up, and it’s in good shape. The way it’s organized is astonishing — gardens, water, swimming pools. You’d think you were in Europe.”

He said they’d done their training in a Palestinian village. The village was just as it had been, but weeds had sprouted up everywhere.

“What was the name of the village?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell us, and we didn’t ask.”

“It was a small village,” said another youth, called Maro. “In the center of it, there was a big rock.”

Nasri said he’d fired at a tree, to amuse himself, and the Israeli trainer had scolded him and told him that he was lucky he’d missed because in Israel they loved trees and forbade anyone to cut them down or do them any harm.