Elias Khoury - White Masks

The war didn’t seem to affect Musa. The store burned down, but he opened another one, on Television Avenue. To tell the truth, he wasn’t really working anymore — the sales clerks were the ones who ran the store, he just came by around ten every morning to check in and have some coffee, then he headed home. He really didn’t do much of anything and behaved as if there was nothing wrong.

I found out from my wife that Nadia had come into a lot of money-I mean millions — after the death of one of her uncles in the Congo. It seems that my friend Musa was looking for ways to spend this windfall, so one day he came to see me and told me that he had bought a new house. “But you’ve already got a really nice place,” I told him.

“Oh, but this one is much better, with both sea and mountain views. It’s amazing!” And he asked me to help him refurbish the place.

“I want parquet everywhere — we’ll rip out all the tile floors and replace them with parquet! No tiling anywhere! And all the furniture must be Italian. Cost is not an issue. I want a stupendous house!”

I agreed, and we set to work. When I went over to the new house, I was dumbfounded: marble floors stretched all the way from the entrance to the end of the living room!

“It’s a pity, Musa, a real pity to replace this marble with parquet,” I told him.

“No, that’s how I want it. All wood, just like houses in Europe,” he insisted.

I was baffled. I said, “I don’t agree with you but will do whatever you wish.”

Musa’s eyes danced with delight as he glanced over at his wife, who was there in some tight-fitting black pants with one of her sons, wandering around the apartment. And so we set to work. Nadia was at the worksite every day, and Musa came by once in a while. The fact is that nothing happened between us, nothing at all, the thought didn’t even cross my mind, nor hers I am sure — and in any case, the place was teeming with workmen! Nevertheless, somehow or other, the devilish thought took hold of him.

He came over to our apartment one day and asked to see me alone. After my wife left us in the living room, he got up and closed the door.

“It’s about Nadia,” he said.

“What about her?”

“You and her-I know everything!”

What was this man talking about? His face had gone crimson, and he had this glazed look in his eyes.

“Nadia and you,” he repeated. “I know about it. . But you’re a friend, how could you?”

I tried to explain, but it didn’t do any good. “Honestly, Musa, there’s nothing like that going on. Your wife is a respectable woman — she’s like a sister to me. I don’t know how you got that idea into your head — it must be all the stress. .”

“It’s true I’m very tired,” he answered. “I’m at a loss, at a complete loss what to think. . but you’re a friend. .”

Then he asked how the work was progressing at the house, questioning Nadia’s frequent presence there, our long conversations, and our visits to furniture galleries and cafés together. I told him that when she went to the Italian furniture dealer — because she liked to pick things out for herself — she requested, indeed demanded, that I accompany her. I assured him that he was my friend, and that nothing had happened, I swore, nothing.

I’m not sure why he believed me so quickly, but it must have been because it was the truth — the truth is quick to convince, apparently. “You’re a real friend,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. I offered him a drink and he asked for a whiskey. I got up and opened the living-room door, and my wife brought us two tumblers of whiskey on ice. We drank under her questioning gaze, and as soon as he’d downed his drink, he got to his feet and announced he was leaving. I tried to keep him but he insisted on going. After shutting the front door, my wife asked why he had come.

“Nothing in particular. . He just wanted to find out about the new house.”

“You’re lying! I heard Nadia’s name being mentioned, what did he say about her?”

“Nothing.” And I picked up the paper and pretended to start reading.

“I heard everything! About you and Nadia,” she said, bursting out laughing. Sitting down beside me, she added, “Poor guy! I know what’s going on, Nadia tells me everything!”

No, it wasn’t Nadia that caused the tension in our relationship, nor the car accident.

“I know everything, Nadia tells me everything,” she repeated. “She’s told me that her husband can’t… he can’t. . do it! You know what I mean. . I mean. . get it up. .!”

Nadia had apparently been over one morning and, in a flood of tears, told my wife that Musa was impotent. “It’s been like this from the night of our wedding,” she had said. “He married me even though he knew he couldn’t do it and was taking all sorts of medicines and potions. He said he couldn’t help himself, he was haunted by the idea that I was going to cheat on him with every man I saw! Imagine that, me only twenty years old, still studying for my Baccalaureate, with my newlywed husband sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned to me, puffing angrily on a cigarette, what was I supposed to do? I put on my nightgown and went to sleep-I was tired and went out like a light. In the morning, he told me he hadn’t slept all night, and that tonight he would do it. But he never did. . I spent the day in tears. . and now he wants me to stop going to the worksite, telling me it’s a woman’s duty to stay home! All I feel like doing is crying, but I can’t leave him: I was already divorced once and went back to school… It’s all my parents’ fault, they married me off to the first one when I was only sixteen and if I divorce the second one now, people will say I’m a whore. . No, I won’t leave him, I can’t, but I want what everyone else wants, just like you.”

I told my wife that I didn’t understand how Musa, broad as he was tall, and in good health, couldn’t do it. And that’s when all the trouble started.

My wife and I never had any disagreements until the car accident. It was horrible: that car accident frightened me more than all of the insane shelling that brings down entire buildings. I was driving home from work one day, not far from the UNESCO roundabout. It was dark and the rain was really coming down. Just as I put on my windshield wipers, a car appeared out of nowhere, cut in front of me and came to a screeching stop. Several gunmen-I don’t remember how many exactly — spilled out, pistols and machine guns drawn. I don’t remember what they looked like, but I do recall one of them had a gold tooth that glinted in the dark. He came over and banged on my window with a pistol aimed at my face, so I rolled the window down.

“Switch off your lights,” he barked. I did as he said. “Get out, get out of the car!”

I was gripping the steering wheel hard, and even though I didn’t really want to stay in the car I found myself clinging on, unable to release my grip. Their guns still pointed, one of the gunmen hopped into the front seat, and another one climbed in the back. The barrel of the gun they held against my neck was practically boring through my skin.

“Follow the car in front of you!”

As I switched on the engine and started the car, the gunman in the back seat hit me across the head with his pistol. “Faster,” he screamed. “If you try to escape we’ll kill you. Not a word out of you. Come on, faster than that!”

I stepped on the accelerator and, as the car picked up speed, they spat out directions, and I tried to follow the speeding car in front of me. It came to a sudden stop and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. As soon as we stopped they fell on me, kicking and punching.

“Your money. . everything you’ve got!” I gave them everything I had: one thousand lira in cash and a check for another fifteen hundred. “More. Come on now!” And they took my watch, my wedding band, my papers — my ID card, passport, and address book — as well as the car keys.