Elias Khoury - The Journey of Little Gandhi

“There’s comfort in betrayal,” she said to him once. “You’re unfaithful to me and I feel I’m free. Freedom is betrayal.”

He would look at her as if she were far away. He could never get close to Rima. He’d go out with her and spend the night out with lots of different friends, but he never once felt that kind of overwhelming love he felt with Nuha. He didn’t know how he lost touch with Nuha’s scent in the days that followed, but he became distant. At the salon he could hardly work, and Master Ahmad started looking at him differently, as though he were afraid of him.

Alice told Gandhi that Husn’s story wasn’t shocking.

“Men are like that. He’ll forget everything. The best thing about us is that we are capable of forgetting. This is human nature. The important thing is to take care of your daughter.”

How could he take care of his daughter, when he knew nobody wanted her? His wife, Fawziyya, was silent about the matter. She never talked about anything, that’s how she always was, from the day they got married. When Gandhi would come home, she’d come in, quiet, always yawning, not say a word. He’d discuss their daughter’s situation, but she wouldn’t respond or seem to care. Nothing moved her, nothing, as if she were unconscious. Even the dog she made no objection to. When it was brought to their house in Nabaa, all she said was “It’s filthy” and spit. But she put up with it. Gandhi knew that every time the dog came into the house she’d mop up after it, but she never protested. And when Gandhi killed the dog, following the advice of the Reverend Amin, she bathed and told her children and husband to bathe, as if the deceased were one of the family.

She said she was cleansing herself of the impurity. “God protect me from the dog and its filth.”

Her relationship with their daughter frightened Gandhi. She wouldn’t talk to her or feed her, as if she wanted to kill her. If Gandhi hadn’t stuffed his daughter like a chicken every night she would’ve died of starvation.

Gandhi didn’t know what he should do. Days became black. They’d taken Madame Sabbagha, the Reverend Amin had been smitten with senility and Alice took him to the nursing home, and Alice was different, and bombs were everywhere. The smell of the city became like the smell of dogs. Stray dogs filled the city streets and their barking increased night after night, as though they were standing right below the windows, barking. And the people walked, not hearing anyone or liking anyone. “Nothing. This is the city of nothingness.” That’s what Dr. Atef said when he ran into him that morning. Dr. Atef had changed a lot. He said he was suffering from toothaches and that his doctor, Dr. Gidigian, advised him to have them removed and replace them with dentures. He opened his mouth and Gandhi saw a mouth that looked like an abandoned cave.

“Oh my God, Doctor.”

“What can we do, my son? This is old age. What’s left of my life is less than what I’ve already used up.”

“But the dentures don’t look good. I’ve heard about implants. Why don’t you have new teeth implanted and look like a young man again,” Gandhi said.

“A young man, hah. You think this’ll make us live forever? We’ll finish removing the teeth and before we put in the dentures, we will have gone.”

“Where to?”

“To there, on the road to no return.”

“No big deal, Doctor.”

“What do you mean, no big deal, my dear Gandhi? We’re going to die and you tell me no big deal? It is a big deal. This is a university. You think of it as a university and a hospital. But, hey, what can I say to you? Mr. Gandhi, I swear shining shoes is better than what we do. A shoe shiner works with paint, and paint is color, and color is art. Your work is nicer than ours.”

“But I quit and you’re still a doctor. Tomorrow what do you say I’ll pass by. This daughter of mine isn’t getting any better.”

“Tomorrow you’ll go back to your work, don’t worry. Do you think the situation is going to stay like this, with all these stupid committees and crap and tasteless war? We’ll have a new government and you’ll go back to your profession.”

“And what about my daughter, Doctor?” Gandhi asked as he watched the doctor continue on his way.

“I told you go back to shoe shining. Take care of your shoe shining.”

Dr. Atef left and Little Gandhi didn’t see any more of him. They said he stopped going out of his house and no longer opened his door to anyone. His wife was having fainting spells but he refused to take her to the hospital. “God is the only healer,” he’d say.

And Alice couldn’t sleep anymore.

She had insomnia from the time she took up residence at the Salonica Hotel.

It’s been a long journey, I told her.

So she asked me what journey I was talking about.

Nothing, I said. The book.

What book? she asked.

I didn’t answer. She said she wanted some sleeping pills, but she was afraid she’d take them and die and they’d say she committed suicide, and suicide is a sin.

“Suicide is a sin, my son.”

And Alice, who could no longer sleep, became a maid. She lost her job at the Blow Up after al-Askary’s murder. Then she lost her apartment in Ayn Mraysi. Gandhi helped her get a job selling flowers at the Montana, but finding a suitable place for her to live was difficult. She slept at the Montana for two years, and there felt her joints would collapse from the humidity. Then she met the white Egyptian in the bar. He was looking for something. Even now Alice was not sure exactly what. She thought he was looking for prostitutes, that he wanted to set up his own network. He saw the possibility of using her as bait and so he suggested the hotel to her. She asked him why.

“I need you as an adviser, Madam. You can stay here for free. You’re a gold mine.”

So she started sleeping there. The war raged on, contrary to the Egyptian gentleman’s predictions. The gold mine evaporated and the hotel turned into a meeting place for retired prostitutes and soldiers. Alice became a simple maid and nobody cared about her.

Alice said he died.

“I came and saw him, I covered him with newspapers, there was no one around, his wife disappeared, they all disappeared, and I was all alone.”

Alice said she took him to the cemetery, and she saw the people without faces. “People have become faceless,” she told me. She spoke to them and didn’t get any response, then she left them and went on her way. That’s how the story ended.

“Tell me about him,” I said to her.

“How shall I tell you?” she answered. “I was living as though I were living with him without realizing it. When you live, you don’t notice things. I didn’t notice, I just don’t know.” She shook her head and repeated her sentence. “All I know is, he died, and he died for nothing.”

I recall Alice’s words and try to imagine what happened, but I keep finding holes in the story. All stories are full of holes. We no longer know how to tell stories, we don’t know anything anymore. The story of Little Gandhi ended. The journey ended, and life ended.

That’s how the story of Abd al-Karim Husn al-Ahmadi al-Mughayiri, otherwise known as Little Gandhi, ended.

Death is black.

The newspapers covering the body of the little man dissolved under the light September rain. The color black oozed from the body, and the body swelled. The light rain poured down silently, and the newspapers got soaked and became transparent, the black words seeped out of them. The color black rolled onto the street to the curb filled with black trash bags.

Everything was black. Soldiers’ boots, their rifles, their faces, their screams in the streets, and the hissing of bullets as they tore out buildings and windows.