Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors

Instead of explaining his position or responding, Karim found himself gasping with admiration as he looked at the map and saw the points at which the Fedayeen had stopped before arriving at their death.

Danny had taken him to a building in Burj Abu Haydar. A guard carrying a revolver asked them what they wanted. “Deir Yassin,” responded Danny. It seems that was the password, for immediately on hearing it, the guard spoke into a walkie-talkie. A few minutes later a youth wearing khaki appeared, asked which of them was Karim, and gestured to him to follow.

“I’ll be at home if you need anything,” said Danny.

Karim entered the building with the youth, whose Tokarev pistol was visible at his waist, and they descended endless steps. Karim was silently counting the steps and when he got to sixty he saw in front of him a door, which opened, dazzling him with light.

The youth had left him in front of the door and begun to climb back up the stairs. Karim hesitated a little, then heard a voice calling to him to enter. This was the only time he met Abu Jihad. The leader was wearing a dark gray shirt and sitting behind his desk.

“Welcome, Brother Karim! What would you like to drink?”

Abu Jihad poured two glasses of sage tea from a thermos in front of him, offered a glass to Karim, drank from his own, and said he was pleased to meet him.

Abu Jihad said he’d chosen him for three reasons. The first was that he’d known the martyr and it had come to his knowledge that an innocent friendship had developed between the two of them at the Baissour Camp two years before. The second reason was that he’d read his article on Shaqif Castle and been impressed by his ability to recount and summarize history and put it at the service of the cause; his attention had been caught particularly by Karim’s citing of a story by an Israeli author called Yusha about a Palestinian with a severed tongue and his ruined village.

“Yehoshua,” said Karim.

“Right, Yehoshua. You read Hebrew?”

“No, I read it in English.”

“You’re from the Shammas family of the Galilee — Fasouta, I think.”

“I’m not Palestinian,” said Karim. “I’m from Beirut.”

“Anyway, we’re all one people.”

“Thank you,” said Karim.

“Where were we? The third reason is that I don’t want professional writers. I want what’s written about Jamal to be full of life, which is why it has to be a writer like you, meaning a writer who isn’t a writer.”

Abu Jihad started explaining to Karim the map in front of him and how the young people had infiltrated via a commercial ship; then, when they reached a point opposite Haifa beach they’d thrown their rubber boats into the sea and themselves into the midst of the waves to get to them; and that two of the youths had become martyrs by drowning; and had it not been for the intensive training they all would have drowned before getting to the boats. Then he spoke of the two buses and how the Israeli army was responsible for the massacre that took place. “The orders to Jamal and the boys were not to kill any Israeli hostages. They were to get to Jaffa and negotiate there the release of a hundred Fedayeen captives and their safe exit from occupied territory. But the Israeli army closed the road at Herzliya and bombed the bus from the helicopters and the massacre happened.”

“But I know from Jamal, Brother Abu Jihad, that the chances of not dying were zero.”

“Not true. We prepare the young people psy​chologi​cally for martyrdom but that doesn’t mean that the chances of returning safely are zero. That’s not true.”

Karim asked what it meant to say that “the chances weren’t zero.” Abu Jihad smiled bitterly and said, “They’re like my own children and in any case the road we’ve chosen can lead only to martyrdom. I’m certain that the moment when I shall meet them again is near. It will be the happiest of my life.”

Abu Jihad explained to Karim that he expected a short text from him — enough to fill a five-page pamphlet — that would tell the story of Jamal and turn her into a symbol of Palestinian womanhood.

“But to write, I have to have all the facts,” said Karim.

Abu Jihad opened his desk drawer and took from it a spiral-bound book that had been placed in a closed brown envelope. “I made you a copy of the diaries kept by the martyr. I’m sure they’ll be a very useful source. There are only two copies of these diaries. The original is with me and the photocopy with you. Absolutely no one must see this text. Take your time and write at your leisure and if you have questions phone Brother Nabil directly. He’s the one who’s going to take you home. I’m ready to answer all your questions any time you call. It’s a big responsibility that the revolution is placing in your hands. Please don’t spend a lot of time on some of the personal issues, they’re not useful, but you have to know about them so you can write.”

Karim took the brown envelope with trembling hands and, seeing the leader stand, stood up too. Abu Jihad put out his hand and shook Karim’s, and Karim heard the voice of Brother Nabil, who had suddenly appeared in the room. They went out into the darkness of the stairs and climbed in silence. He got into a small Volkswagen next to Nabil. Nabil drove the car carefully through the empty streets and didn’t ask where he was supposed to be taking him. The car stopped in front of Karim’s building on Abd el-Aziz Street. Nabil gave him his number and said he’d be waiting for him to phone. Karim opened the door of the car and made to get out but Nabil’s hand reached out for his knee to stop him. “Forget where you met Brother Abu Jihad. No one must know where Center Thirty-Eight is.”

Karim nodded and quickly got out of the car. Because there was an outage he climbed the steps to the third floor where he lived, lit the paraffin lantern, and sat down on the only sofa in his room, where Jamal’s words started marching toward his eyes. He felt as though he were choking; he felt thirsty and the words danced over the shards of light from the lantern, which, seen through his tears, appeared upside down.

Why hadn’t he dared tell Abu Jihad that he would never write the pamphlet? Was it cowardice, admiration for the man, or a mixture of the two?

He wanted to tell him that suicide operations were a sin, they did no good, and that he was against them because the killing of civilians wasn’t a revolutionary act. At the same time, though, he admired and was enchanted by this girl who had fashioned heroism through her death. Things were mixed up in his mind because he wasn’t against the heroic operation that Jamal had led: he’d wanted it to happen and to succeed and in so doing to shake Israeli society to its roots and make it feel the significance of the catastrophe that had befallen the Palestinians and of their expulsion from their homeland. But he’d also wanted Jamal to emerge alive. The problem of the revolution is that the men and women who die for it and are transformed into posters and images don’t see their posters. They die imagining the poster. Truth becomes an illusion in their lifetimes, and their lives vanish into the darkness of death. He lost himself amongst Jamal’s words. He felt they’d become traps and that he’d fallen in and would never get out.

Why had Abu Jihad chosen him for this impossible task? Did the man know of his silent love for the martyr and had he chosen him to make him pay the price of his cowardice? Jamal would never have been able to invite him to die with her without first consulting her commander. Maybe they thought they needed a doctor, but a doctor can’t treat suicide if he commits suicide along with the rest. What a bind! How was he to write of his disappointment? How was he to write after reading what Jamal had written about him? Was it true that he used to weep at Baissour, and if not, why had she pictured him so? Had she wanted to castrate him to justify to herself her failure to respond to him? But she had responded. True, she’d been reserved at the camp, but at the Café Jandoul she was different — distant and close, her eyes wandering as though she wanted to say and not say. And then there was the meeting at the clinic in Burj el-Barajneh, which had happened by chance. Karim was certain it hadn’t been a coincidence at all, and that Jamal had dropped by the clinic deliberately so that she could run into him because she’d wanted to convey to him a precise message. That was why she’d agreed to his invitation to coffee at Café Jandoul, though there she’d hesitated and hadn’t said what she’d meant to.