Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors

“We wrote a book that’s been put out by the Islamists? You’ve got to be joking!”

“Anything goes in this war, as Danny used to say.”

“But we’re atheists, and everyone thinks we’re Christians!”

Khaled took the book from Karim’s hand, opened it randomly, and said he’d put “Islam” for “the working class” and “socialism” wherever they occurred, “and it worked fine.”

“What! Islam! You too, Khaled? And what are you going to do with the memory of Yahya, who died a Marxist and struggled for socialism?”

“Don’t bring Yahya up. I know what you and Danny thought of him, you thought he was a populist and impulsive. And Danny used that French word which makes my skin crawl every time I hear it. What was it again — lummen ? That’s it — lummen .”

“ Lumpen ,” said Karim.

“ Lummen, lumpen . Nonsense anyway. You had a very low opinion of Yahya, so spare me, don’t ask me what he would have thought. If my uncle were still alive he’d have done what we’re doing now.”

There was silence and all that could be heard was the sipping of tea.

“You, comrades, can give up, but not me. What would I do with the boys? Leave them to split up and go back to being neighborhood hoodlums working for Intelligence and taking drugs? We’re poor, we live in the low-income neighborhoods, we don’t have apartments in Hamra and Tall el-Khayyat like other people, and without a belief to bring us together we split up. Without Islam everything will fall apart.”

Karim wanted to say that Khaled’s new choices were wrong but he didn’t. What was he supposed to say? It was true, the war hadn’t ended and perhaps never would, but this phase was over. When those who had struggled started writing their memoirs, it meant they were finished and it was time for them to withdraw.

A deep silence reigned which Khaled broke by getting up to open the boxes of pastries from Hallab’s he’d brought with him.

“I bet you brought feisaliyeh,” said Karim.

“To tell you the truth I completely forgot about feisaliyeh. Anyway it’s silly stuff — burma shaped into triangles that the people in Tripoli came up with to put one over King Feisal I, the one who was friends with a British spy called Lawrence and who made an about-face and ran as soon as the first sound of a bullet was heard at Maysaloun. Why would you bother with feisaliyeh? Look and see what I did bring.”

Khaled opened the three boxes and said they were the best sweet pastries in the world: “Pastries and revolutio​naries are all Tripoli produces.”

“The girls are pretty too, and don’t forget the scent of bitter orange blossom,” said Karim.

Khaled explained the three kinds of pastry, which bore unusual names.

“These are Hookers, these are Angels’ Balls, and these are Bear’s Turds.”

“See what a vulgarian you still are?” said Karim. “And yet you come here this evening to teach us how to behave!”

“No, I swear. Those are their real names!” He showed him the names written on the colored paper in which the three boxes were wrapped.

The two friends laughed as they ate the nammoura, which the people of Tripoli call Bear’s Turds, the shmeisa, which they call Angels’ Balls, and the basma stuffed with Aleppo pistachios that they call Hookers. Karim asked about the origins of the names but Khaled shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “How should I know, Brother Karim? That’s what everyone calls them in Tripoli. Now you must have realized why I can’t give up — who could leave behind these gorgeous Hookers and come to Beirut to be unemployed?”

Khaled asked for bread so he could eat the pastries, explaining that ever since he was a child he’d always eaten pastries wrapped in hot bread that his uncle fetched from the bakery. “I used to think it was because we were poor but then I discovered that the poor were right, they taste better like that and they fill you up.”

They ate the pastries with bread and drank the tea and Khaled told Karim he was expecting a child and that Hayat was the greatest woman in the world because she understood him without him having to say anything.

He told him of his experience at Shaqif Castle: when he was there he’d kept thinking of Tripoli with its crusader castle of Saint-Gilles, which overlooked the city and topped the cliff above the Abu Ali River, and he said he’d had no choice but to return.

“I know what I did with your essays wasn’t right, but honestly, doctor, it fitted. If ideas are to stick together they need glue. We took off the Marxist glue, put on a new glue, and they stuck. Maybe Islam’s better, because it’s stronger. Anyway that’s how I found rest and the boys found rest, and I wish you could see how happy the people of Qubbeh are. Now people aren’t pleased with us just because we’re tough guys and defend their rights, they feel we’re part of them. Now, at last, we’re like the fish in the sea.”

“But Khaled …”

“Just say you were with us before and you’re sticking with us. Isn’t this guide to Islamic action your book?”

“But I don’t want to become a Muslim like you!”

“Why not? Take Abd el-Messih, he became a Muslim and a Shiite and his Christian wife refused to let him divorce her. He told her, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll go on supporting you and I’ll marry my sweetheart,’ and so he had two.”

“And are you going to take another wife alongside Hayat?”

“God forbid! One only: ‘And if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one’!”

Karim said Abd el-Messih had been wrong. He thought the man had become a Muslim so he could live with the woman he loved, which wasn’t a problem, but he’d pushed it too far, which was. What did it mean for a Christian intellectual to become a Muslim in these times? It was a covert invitation to kill Christians, and that was insanity, especially in a multi-sectarian society such as Lebanon’s.

“God forbid!” said Khaled. “You Christians have been placed under the protection of the Muslims.”

The conversation devoured the evening without their realizing it. It was close to one when Karim said he had to sleep because his shift at the hospital started at six the next morning.

“You go and sleep in the bedroom and I’ll sleep here in the living room. I’ll heat water early in the morning if there’s electricity. Don’t forget to turn it off before you go or the pump will burn out.”

“There won’t be electricity tomorrow. Don’t worry about it. You sleep in your room and I’ll sleep here.”

Karim spread a sheet on the living room couch, placed a cushion on it and covered it, and went into his room. But he came out again wearing pajamas to find Khaled in his underclothes, preparing to get under the covers.

“What’s up?” asked Khaled.

“Nothing. I came to say good night, and that tonight you’re under my protection.”

“We all need the protection of the good guys,” answered Khaled, laughing, and he turned out the light.

At last Karim understood why the veiled woman who had come to visit him a week after Khaled’s murder had said she was “under his protection.”

Hayat had come wearing a long black chador that covered her from head to toe and carrying her baby, Nabila, who was four months old, in her arms.

When he opened the door she said she was Hayat, Khaled’s wife.

“Please come in, sister. This house is your house.”

She came in but didn’t sit down. She said Khaled had told her to go to Danny. “He said, ‘If anything happens, go to Danny. Danny’s like a brother to me and more, and he’s married and has a little girl. You can have a nice talk with his wife while things are being worked out.’ I went to Danny, and stood in front of his door for three hours. I rang the bell and heard movements and felt someone was watching me through the peephole but he didn’t open the door. I thought maybe he hadn’t recognized me because I was wearing a chador. I don’t usually dress like this, our kind of veil is different, but I thought this way no one would know me. We were in great danger. I took the chador off my head and I rang the bell and said, ‘I’m Hayat, Khaled’s wife.’ I heard the same movements and felt the same eye but no one opened the door. I covered my head again and thought, ‘Just be patient, there’s no one inside because it’s not possible Danny won’t open the door. Danny slept at our house about ten times, he can’t have forgotten us.’ I sat down and waited on the steps and then I got so desperate I came to you. God is my sufficiency and the best of those on whom to depend. Do you know where Danny is?”