Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors

Ahmad and his wife thought Karim was asleep on the back seat and, not wanting to disturb him, decided to forget about stopping at the Patisserie Helmi in Batroun to drink the frothy Batroun lemonade.

When they got to Abd el-Hamid Karami Square at the entrance to the city — now called God’s Square because the Islamists had replaced Karami’s statue with a stone monument composed of the words that form His many names — Muna turned around and shook Karim’s shoulder to wake him and the photo fell to the floor of the car.

“Show me the picture,” said Muna, who, as soon as she looked at it, declared his wife beautiful and said the girls were to die for.

“You never told us the names of your wife and daughters,” said Muna.

He put the picture back in his wallet, got out of the car, and walked sluggishly to Hallab’s, hearing Ahmad’s voice saying, “You’ll be taking a taxi to the Silver Shore restaurant in the port. Don’t be late.”

He found a young man waiting for him at the door to the shop. “Are you Dr. Karim, sir?” he asked. Karim nodded. “This way,” said the young man. “Mawlana is waiting for you on the second floor.” The young man walked ahead, Karim followed in his wake. They climbed a flight of stairs leading to a second dining salon. Karim scanned the people there but the young man kept on going, so Karim followed him and they emerged from the large salon to find themselves in front of a closed door. The young man knocked three times and they entered.

“Welcome, welcome, doctor!” said the sheikh, who got up, his arms open in greeting.

The young man left the room, closing the door behind him. Karim approached the man, who was wearing a gray mantle that failed to hide his belly; he had a large white turban on his head. They embraced, to the accompaniment of the sheikh’s astonished exclamations that Karim hadn’t changed a bit.

“It looks as though France agrees with you, Brother Sinalcol. Heavens be praised, you’re just the same as ever. No paunch, no gray hair, not like us, God help us.”

The conversation had got off on the wrong foot but Karim made no comment on his being “sinalcolized.” He swallowed the name and behaved as though he’d heard nothing.

Soon a waiter arrived with dishes of meat cooked in pastry, stuffed lamb, and salads. The sheikh rolled up his sleeves and removed his turban, exposing his bald pate. “In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate,” he said, reaching for the food and inviting Karim to join him. The waiter came back carrying a jug of chilled ayran. The sheikh poured two glasses, raised his, and said “Cheers!”

Karim was too embarrassed to say he couldn’t eat because he was invited to lunch at the Silver Shore, so he reached out and ate a few mouthfuls while drinking the ayran and listening to the sheikh’s requests.

Sheikh Radwan wanted Yahya’s papers from Karim. He said he remembered very well that Khaled had sent him, Radwan, to Karim with the papers; he wanted nothing else from him. “You’re far from the country and the struggle now and I have need of these papers for two reasons, the first being my memoirs — the revolutionary movement that we created here must be documented and I am currently engaged in that very process — and the second is that I am thinking of publishing them as an appendix to my book so that all may see how we were guided to God’s religion through our commitment to the defense of the impoverished.”

Karim was surprised at the classical tone of the sheikh’s Arabic. He had abandoned the aesthetics of the dialect of Tripoli and the people of the north who changed the glottal stop into a w. He listened to the sheikh recounting how he’d made the decision to wear the turban during his long stay in Ain Helweh Camp, how he’d worked with Palestinian brothers engaged in jihad, and how now he’d come back to Tripoli convinced that education and cadre-building had to come before jihad and the bearing of arms.

Karim nodded and told the sheikh he respected his choices, and that he’d loved Khaled and had respected his choices too, even though he wasn’t convinced by them. True, Marxism no longer attracted him and the repressive excesses of China’s Cultural Revolution had made him rethink it all. But he was still a secularist and a believer in socialism who thought the struggle for Palestine was the shortest path to the liberation of the Arab individual.

The sheikh cleared his throat before saying, “Thou guidest not whom thou likest, but God guides whom He wills.”

The sheikh’s questions focused on the Arab and Islamic communities in France, especially in Marseille, and on the great renaissance that these communities were experiencing — he predicted a major role for them in the future.

The conversation continued along the same lines, Sheikh Radwan not asking again about Yahya’s papers, a topic Karim also avoided. Instead he spoke about living abroad, saying he understood the thirst of second- and third-generation immigrants for an identity. He spoke of his experiences with patients from Maghrebi communities who suffered from the identity disease, which had now replaced the nostalgia so widespread among those of the first generation.

Karim continued, saying he thought that the death of nostalgia for one’s homeland and the feeling that return was impossible lay behind all the identity-based turmoil. It was further fed by European racism, which had begun to target Muslims more and more. “The Muslims and Arabs seem to have become the Jews of Europe now. Strange, how people are put together. Capitalist societies seem to need anti-Semitism to release their inner complexes. The Arabs and Muslims are becoming the Jews of Europe and the Palestinians have become the Jews of the Jews. It’s bewildering.”

Sheikh Radwan said he wasn’t surprised by these developments. “Verily, the Europeans have not ceased to be crusaders in their heart of hearts and their hatred of Muslims will continue to grow as they weaken and collapse, God willing.”

“What are you talking about, Mawlana? First of all, the Arabs called them Franks, not crusaders, and besides, what crusaders are you talking about? The crusaders were over long ago and modern colonialism has nothing to do with crusader times. Have you forgotten Lenin’s maxim that ‘imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism’?”

“Lenin too was a crusader.”

“What? It looks like we have nothing left to talk about, Sheikh Radwan.”

“Talk? We can talk as much as you want! The hegemony of this imported culture is, however, no longer viable. The age of ‘sinalcolized’ culture is at an end, my dear Brother Sinalcol.”

Karim swallowed the slight and there was silence.

“Why do you not eat? In a minute they will bring the kenafeh with clotted cream and other comestibles,” said the sheikh.

Karim looked at his watch and saw the hands were pointing to a quarter to two. He told Radwan he was in a hurry because he had an appointment with some friends at the port and thanked him for the meeting.

The plates of pastries arrived. Karim ate kenafeh with clotted cream, which had been his favorite when he’d been in Tripoli with Danny. Then he drank from the glass of water in front of him, and said he had to leave.

“When willst thou send me the papers?” asked Radwan.

Karim said he was sorry, they’d been placed in his safekeeping. “You’re the one who brought the papers to my apartment in Beirut and I’m sure you remember Khaled’s message that they were only ever to be given to one person — Hayat.”

The sheikh said Hayat was now in the keeping of God, Great and Glorious, and that he himself had issued a ruling that Karim was released from his promise to Khaled. So, as the promise was no longer valid, Karim could give him the papers because he, Radwan, was now the person closest to the martyr.