Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors

New winds were blowing and the walls of the cities became covered with the slogan “Islam is the solution!” Under the influence of groups of young Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood who had taken refuge in the city to escape repression, a new Islamist language of struggle was spreading and had begun to dominate the minds of young men in the various quarters. Then suddenly Sheikh Ramadan Esawi proclaimed himself emir of the city and appointed Sheikh Salim Muadhen emir of the port. At the same time, he announced that the process of appointing emirs for each of the quarters of Tripoli had begun and requested Muslims to declare their allegiance to them.

Khaled had no idea how things had come to take on the form of armed confrontation in the Qubbeh quarter. It was twelve noon and he was working as usual in the bakery when the boys began pouring in with their weapons, announcing that they’d never let the army enter the area. Khaled picked up his machine gun, tucked his revolver into his waistband, and left the bakery followed by a group of more than sixty young men. In front of the Qubbeh roundabout he saw tracked vehicles entering the district’s winding lanes, so he fired into the air in warning and they shot at him in retaliation. Radwan was injured immediately in the thigh. Khaled gave orders for him to be taken to the hospital and distributed his groups around the crossroads, and the clashes, which ended with the withdrawal of the military vehicles from the area, began.

Khaled saw how the cry “God is great!” had issued spontaneously from the boys firing the B7 grenade launchers and found himself shouting along with them, intoxicated by the first real victory in his own city among his own people.

The clashes had been preceded by heated discussions at the bakery on the subject of Islam and the emirs who had begun sprouting up everywhere in the quarters of the city. The discussions took on a more serious tone following the battle, when Khaled announced he had no choice but to ally himself with the Islamists.

“But we’re all Muslims,” said Radwan.

“True. All the same …” said Khaled.

“All the same” emerged hesitantly and falteringly from his lips. He was thinking there was no other way: joining the rising Islamic movement was the only way out if the organization was to continue and preserve the boys’ fighting spirit.

The next morning an envoy arrived from Sheikh Ramadan Esawi to announce that Khaled had been appointed emir of Qubbeh and asking him to come and meet the sheikh at the mosque. Khaled went — to object to his new title.

“I don’t like the title emir,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life in struggle against emirs and feudalists.” The sheikh looked him in the eye and gave him to understand that the title of emir didn’t mean belonging to a noble line. “In Islam, ‘emir’ derives from imra , meaning ‘authority,’ and you now have authority over Qubbeh. Whatever you wish, though. We can call you whatever you like,” said the sheikh.

“My name will be Abu Nabil,” said Khaled, “and my boys will have full control over Qubbeh and Bab el-Tabbana.”

Khaled returned from his meeting with the sheikh at ten at night to find the boys waiting for him at the bakery. He informed them of what had been agreed upon and said nothing would change. The organization was the organization and the work was the same work. “We were the army of the poor and shall remain so, and it’s revolution until victory. That was our slogan in Fatah and will remain our slogan until death.”

“No,” said Radwan. “One thing has changed. Perform your ablutions, boys, so that we can pray.”

“But I don’t know how to pray,” said Khaled.

“Of course you do,” said Radwan. “Islam is the religion that needs no teacher.”

The boys formed rows behind Radwan, who led the prayer, and Khaled found himself with them, praying the way they prayed and believing what they believed.

Radwan stood after the prayer was finished, turned to Khaled, and said in a loud voice that all could hear, “You are now our emir and I pledge to you my allegiance.” Then he held out his hand, shook Khaled’s, and kissed him on the shoulder. The young men stood in a single line behind Radwan, each waiting his turn to ask Khaled to hold out his hand and accept his allegiance.

Khaled reached home at midnight. Hayat was waiting for him. He patted her belly, rounded with pregnancy, and said he was tired. They drank aniseed. Khaled cleared his throat and said he wanted to tell her something.

“Before you tell me, let me tell you. I’ve decided to cover my hair and tomorrow I’ll be another woman.”

Khaled came to visit Karim twice before his death. The first time he said he’d gone to Danny’s apartment in Tall el-Khayyat but hadn’t found him so he’d come to Karim. The second time he came to Karim to give him the news of his impending death. It was six p.m. Karim opened the door in surprised welcome. It was the first time Khaled had come to see him at home. Khaled entered carrying three packages containing an assortment of sweet pastries of the kind in which Tripoli specializes.

“So those are for Danny, not me? I’ll get them to him, don’t worry.”

“No, they’re for you and Danny,” said Khaled.

“What will you drink?” asked Karim. “I have a bottle of village arak that came to me yesterday from Douar, great stuff. Shall I set up a small one?”

“Still playing the bad boy?”

“We’re your students, boss. You taught us everything we know.”

Khaled said he’d prefer a glass of tea.

Karim made the tea in the kitchen. He carried it into the living room and found Khaled gazing at the floor and smoking avidly, his mind so far away he failed to notice when his host entered.

Karim sat, poured the tea, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and looked at his friend. Khaled, however, neither raised his head nor reached for the tea.

Karim cleared his throat and said, “Welcome.”

Khaled raised his head, rubbed his face as though waking up, and asked Karim about Danny.

“I haven’t seen him for a long time,” said Karim. “It seems he’s busy organizing the paper’s archives. Last time I met him, which was about three weeks ago, he told me he was organizing the archive on the civil war and writing a book evaluating what happened.”

“But the war isn’t over,” said Khaled.

“Come on!” said Karim. “It’s finished. The Syrians have taken over the country, the boys in Fatah have decided to go back to the theory of ‘all guns against the enemy’ and gone to the south, and the subject’s closed.”

“And us?” asked Khaled.

“You and we and everybody else have to look at things again and think about what to do.”

“But we’re still fighting,” said Khaled, and he recounted in detail the battle for Qubbeh that he’d waged with the boys. He spoke of the agitation everywhere, from Tripoli to Homs and Hama, and said the revolution had started to reshape itself.

Karim said he wasn’t convinced that kind of agitation could make a revolution, and he was tired of revolutions anyway. He told him of his project to write a book about Jamal.

“So you and Comrade Danny are still writing books and leaving us to die like dogs. No, Karim, we aren’t done and we won’t be till we’ve squared the books with you.”

Then Khaled smiled and said, “In fact, though, your writings have their uses.”

From his pocket he took two blue cheaply produced copies of a book and said he’d come especially from Tripoli, in spite of all the dangers, to give them to their authors — “you and Danny.”

Karim flipped through one of the copies, then went back to the blue cover, where he read the words Organization for Righteousness and Prosely​tization, and the title Arms and the Lebanese Balance of Power .