Elias Khoury - White Masks

That night there was a police raid.

A military jeep drew up outside his house, policemen, with rifles cocked, banged violently on the door. Sleepy-faced, Zayn opened the door in his pajamas. They grabbed him and dragged him out by the arms and legs. His wife got up, frightened, and then his children all woke up, just in time to see him being led away in his pajamas. He didn’t know what was going on; he asked the officer, but they shoved him into the jeep under a torrent of blows, punches, and curses, and took him straight to Internal Security in Badaro.

“But I haven’t done anything. . I don’t know anything!”

They hustled him out of the jeep and pushed him into a dark cell, slamming the metal door shut behind him. Zayn began to wail, he’d done nothing, nothing at all, he had no links to anyone suspect, why had they thrown him in here? He fell into a fitful sleep, dozing and then waking with a start, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He tried to doze off again but he was desperate for a cigarette, so he began pretending to smoke, bringing up to his mouth the two fingers that usually held the cigarette, drawing them close to his lips and inhaling deeply. Then he tried to go back to sleep again. It was a night he wasn’t about to forget. That’s what he’d told his wife when they brought him home three days later: the three nights in that cell were unforgettable. He didn’t have words to describe it, he told her. “It was revolting. I had to urinate in the same room I was held in — into a little tin can which stayed there for the whole three days.”

Then they took him off for questioning. But there was no questioning, just beating and kicking. There were four of them in the room, with him in the middle, like a soccer ball; first, one would punch him, then the next one would catch him, and so on. After that they gave him a taste of the “chicken,” 5and one of them told him they’d make “mincemeat” out of him.

“Godless wretches! Atheists, Communists, sons of bitches, the lot of you!. .”

“I’m not an atheist…” He could hear the blows but couldn’t go on.

“Don’t talk back, you son of a bitch.”

He was more than willing to talk, but they weren’t asking him anything. Not one question! All they did was beat him, and then they took him to see the officer. Standing behind his desk, he looked like he too was ready to start thrashing him.

“My respects, Sir.”

“Out with it now! And quickly! Tell us everything you know about the organization.”

“What organization?”

“Ali Shuayb’s.”

“I swear I don’t know anything.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

The officer told him they knew everything there was to know about him. They knew that he’d been standing outside Abu Khalil’s shop talking about his acquaintance with Ali Shuayb; they knew he was married to Husniyyah and that he worked for the municipal authority; they knew that he was thinking of selling a piece of land he’d inherited from his father; and they also knew he was involved in smuggling arms from the South to Beirut, and that he kept the weapons hidden somewhere outside his home.

“Where are they, you dog?”

“Sir, there are no weapons.”

It was then that the officer went for him. Zayn stood absolutely still as the officer struck him, shouting and cursing, and spraying his face with spittle. The officer then dragged Zayn back to his cell with a bloody nose.

Oh God, now he’d lose his job with the municipality. In that dark cell of his, Zayn felt very sorry for himself. “If I lose my job, what will I do? Nothing! There’s nothing I know how to do aside from being a garbage collector. And the municipal corporation is a state agency. But I haven’t done anything against the state, I’m not against it, on the contrary, I’m all for it. And I don’t know any Ali Shuayb. Poor Ali, calling him a dog when he’s a martyr. . they’re the dogs. . and even if he weren’t a martyr, he’s dead, and they killed him. . and the dead may suffer only mercy! Some God-fearing officer he was!… Oh, but why won’t they let me smoke?”

In the evening, a man in civilian clothes came and unlocked the cell and told him to come out. Zayn was sure he was in for another beating.

“Sir, honestly, I know nothing.”

The officer in charge of the so-called interrogation had told him that if he confessed and told the truth, the beating would stop. So he made up his mind then and there to confess. He would tell them that he was a member of Ali Shuayb’s organization. And then surely the beating would stop.

“I have something to say,” Zayn said.

“Shut up,” said the man.

“But Sir, it’s something really important.”

“Shut up, will you! And listen. A jeep is on its way here now, and there’ll be a First Lieutenant Nujaym asking for you. You are to go with him, understood?”

“But, Sir, I have something to tell you, I want to talk to the officer who interrogated me.”

“It won’t be necessary. Not necessary, you hear. First Lieutenant Nuj aym will be coming here to take you to the Military Tribunal. There you’ll sign some papers and then you can go.”

“What do you mean, go?”

“Go home.”

Zayn ’Alloul couldn’t believe his ears. They were lying to him! They were going to take him off for more questioning and another beating. “But Sir. .” The man in civilian dress walked off and Zayn’Alloul waited, sitting on a wooden bench in the empty hall. His mind was made up, as soon as he saw Lieutenant Nujaym, he would confess. A knot in the pit of his stomach.

Night fell, and still no one came for him.

Then there were footsteps outside and, craning his neck, Zayn saw an officer running in and shouting.

“Zayn ’Alloul!”

“Yes Sir!”

“Get up and walk.”

Zayn did as he was told.

“Where are your clothes?” the officer asked, surprised.

“They took me from the house in my pajamas.”

“OK. Let’s go.”

He was bundled into a station wagon. The officer sat up front, Zayn in back, next to a soldier holding a rifle between his legs. The officer said something to the driver, which Zayn strained to hear. The officer was saying that the question of Ali Shuayb and his extremist Communist group was really getting to him.

“We’ve arrested a hundred people, and not one of them is linked to the organization. So where is this organization then? All our information seems to be false. The organization has disappeared, vanished into thin air. Yet they’re still out there killing people. It’ll be our turn next.”

Clearing his throat, the driver ventured that it had nothing to do with them whatsoever.

“It’s between them and the authorities.”

“What do you mean? We are the authorities. You want the country to fall apart? We are the country, and it is our duty to eliminate every single one of them.”

The station wagon reached the Military Tribunal.

“Get out!” the officer barked.

Zayn ’Alloul climbed out of the vehicle and followed the lieutenant. They entered a luxurious office. The officer saluted and stood to attention. The man sitting behind the desk was in civilian clothes; he yawned ostentatiously as he asked:

“Where is he then?”

“Right here,” replied First Lieutenant Nujaym.

Zayn stepped forward; he could see there were papers on the desk.

“Sign here.”

“What are these?”

“Hurry up, will you… you don’t need to know everything! They’re papers, just papers. Sign.”

Zayn ’Alloul took the ballpoint pen from the man in civilian dress and signed.

“You can go home now.”

Joy slowly enveloped Zayn’Alloul. He’d never felt so happy, not even on his wedding day. Of course he was happy the day he got married to Husniyyah, but he was also consumed with embarrassment. The young men from his village were being bold, slapping him around the neck and shoulders as he cringed with shame. He knew they were all thinking about how he was going to sleep with her that night. But his happiness now was different: it was unadulterated.