Elias Khoury - White Masks

So I said to him, “You know how it is, Nadeem being a family man and all…”

That really set him off. “Your husband’s no man!” he ranted. “He’s just using the kids as an excuse not to join up. If that’s what it really is, why is he spending all his time hanging out with those guys?”

“Which guys?” I asked.

“Forget it, forget I ever said anything.”

I asked again, and he said the same thing.

“I want to know,” I insisted.

So he began telling me about this bunch of so-called combatants who were nothing but hooligans and gangsters and who hung out in Nadeem’s shop smoking dope. “They’re the ones who do the looting,” he said, “during the fighting.” Nadeem didn’t accompany them, he added, but he had opened his doors to them, and the shop had become a den of iniquity and vice.

“Not only is that wrong,” he said, “but it’s shameful. Once we take over, they’ll all go to jail.”

“Including Nadeem?” I asked.

“He’ll be the first to go.”

Now I understood why Ahmad rarely visited us anymore, and why he and Nadeem had fallen out, but as a woman what could I do? I had tried, once, to tell him. .

It was the middle of the night, and I wasn’t able to sleep. I was sitting up in the hallway, I’d settled our little boy there, the shelling was so bad that night. . It was two in the morning, I thought the shelling was never going to end… I was so afraid. . Every time I heard a shell ripping through the sky with that high-pitched whistle and then landing with a wailing thud nearby, I would huddle over my little boy to try and protect him with my body. Nadeem wasn’t home, and I was really worried about him that night. I was sure he’d been hit. But there was nothing I could do except wait, and weep. As I lay huddled against my little boy, crying, he finally arrived. He opened the front door and walked in humming, as if nothing was wrong, as if all those shells were nothing at all. He refused to lie down with us in the hallway and said I should come to bed as usual.

“And what about the boy?” I asked.

“Leave him there if you like.”

“But I’m afraid.”

“There’s no need to be.”

So I followed him into the bedroom. He undressed, put on his pajamas, and lay down. The room reeked of that strange smell. I snapped, I felt I couldn’t take any more — what kind of a life was this, by God, my mother was right!

“I won’t have it,” I told him. I swear that’s all I said. I didn’t say anything bad; all I said was that he was smoking dope, that the shop had become a hashish den, and that he wasn’t looking after us properly. Honestly, I didn’t say anything.

He went ballistic! He hurled himself against me and started hitting me with his fists and gnashing his teeth like a madman. How dare he. . He’d never done that before. . this was the first time. . I couldn’t cry out, I was afraid to wake the little one. He just kept hitting me and hitting me, and, in the end, I couldn’t hold out any longer, I bit down on the pillow and began to sob. The blows kept coming as he screamed and cursed and carried on, saying things I would be ashamed to remember, let alone repeat!

Now, honestly, do I look like a whore to you? He told me, his wife, that I was a whore! He said all women were whores, and he could do as he pleased. And, then, he took me, you understand what I mean, he had sex with me! Can you imagine? I didn’t want to, I told him, but he just did as he pleased. He slept with me, and then he sat up in bed and told me to make him a cup of coffee!

“Coffee now… At three in the morning. .?”

“Yes, now. I want a coffee, now.”

Going to the kitchen, I thought I would collapse. . my legs felt like jelly and my eyes were stinging. But I made him his coffee. He lit a cigarette and started talking-I could hardly understand what he was saying, though, because he was slurring all his words. He rambled on and on, and I told him I agreed with everything he said, even though none of it made any sense to me. I had to force myself to listen to him and was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

“This is the beautifulest war!” That’s what he said. And then: “It’s shit! Yes, war is shit. But it’s beautiful. Oh my, the women out there! And the guys, you should see those young guys, may God protect them all! Such a war, praise the Lord, such a beautiful war!. . I’m all in favor of it now. . I’m into the big time. . you know what I mean. . the kingpin! Yes, me! You understand?. .

“Bah! You understand nothing! No one understands anything! Those guys are real tough, they’re brutes. You know the butcher, Abu Saïd, yes, our butcher? Well, listen to what he just did. . He closed the shop, rounded up a few of the guys, and with his assistants from the shop, they all set off together. His is a nice, tight little operation, those guys only go where the going is good, they only fight where there is the really good stuff, you know, fridges, couches, stoves, gold, silver. . Now, there’s this guy, his name is Sami al-Kurdi, and — and, if it weren’t for your dear brother, the son of a… they call themselves honorable men, he and those boys of his! Honorable, my eye! Me, I’d like to know what that means!. . Honorable!. . Like a dog. . or a donkey, perhaps? It’s honorable, is it, that they do the dying and others rake it all in! Well, let me tell you, with Abu Saïd it’s like this: he rakes it in and he doesn’t die. Here’s to you Abu Saïd!” And raising his cup, Nadeem slurps some of his coffee and asks: “And you, Madam, what do you think of that? I haven’t heard your view on the matter, Sitt Nada.”

Me? I wanted to go to sleep, that was my view.

So, back to Sami al-Kurdi. . Tonight was Sami’s night. God knows where he gets his stuff from. . He walked into the arcade and asked me where Abu Saïd was. I told him he hadn’t arrived yet, so he sat and waited for him. He poured himself a glass of araq and said Abu Saïd was late.

“He must be on his way, where’s he gonna go?” I told him.

“You sure he’s coming?”

“Of course I’m sure. He was probably just held up somewhere. He’s bound to come. Where’s he gonna go?”

An hour later, Abu Saïd shows up, with four of his best boys in tow. Some of the finest he has. The best, I swear, the very best. . they pay up and get to do as they please! Not like your idiot brother. You heard me, milady, yes that idiot who pontificates about principles! I’d like to know where he picks them up, those principles of his. . I’ll tell you where he gets them from. . from the open sewers on our streets! Principles, my eye!

Anyhow, where was I. . oh yes… Sami al-Kurdi. I don’t know where he gets stuff from. . He must have some kind of inside information. Anyway, there he was sitting, whispering into Abu Saïd’s ear, and then, all of a sudden, the chief jumped to his feet, fully alert, with this serious look on his face.

“I don’t believe you! You’re nothing but a liar, you son of a Kurd!”

“No, Chief. I’m not lying.”

“I swear I’ll shoot you if you’re lying!”

“You do as you wish, but I’m telling you, my info is one hundred percent correct.”

“Let’s go, boys!”

“What’s going on?”

“A quickie and we’ll be back. The court will assemble here, in the shop. OK by you, Nadeem?”

“OK by me. What court?”

“You’ll see. And I don’t want any customers around here when we get back, do you hear? Come on, we’re off. We’ll be back soon.”

“The place is all yours, Abu Saïd.”

They grabbed their rifles and left.

“What about your drink, Abu Saïd? You haven’t finished.”

“We’ll be back I tell you. We’ll be a few minutes, only. It’ll wait. And you wait too.”