Rabee Jaber: The Mehlis Report

“I called the police. I tried several different numbers. I opened the Yellow Pages and circled some numbers in blue ink: domestic security, the fire department, emergency services. I tried a few different numbers. The ringing of the phone in my ears. And then the waiting. The awful sporadic ringing, and then I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I tried another number. Maybe I’d get lucky this time.

“On the fourth or fifth try, a voice finally answered me. They asked for my address and I gave it to them. Ten or fifteen minutes later — I don’t know how long exactly — I heard the sirens. I hadn’t been waiting very long. One expects such things to take some time. If you call a plumber on Monday morning and tell him it’s urgent, very urgent, and you need him to come right away, he won’t show up until Thursday or Friday — if he shows up at all, that is. Even the gas container deliveries are normally late. But the sirens had stopped in front of the house, and the police said they were inspecting the car at that very moment.

“There weren’t any explosives. They found no sign that anyone had tried to rig the car. They said that people were skittish these days, that their nerves were frayed.

“I said I wasn’t skittish.”

“I said I wasn’t skittish, and I was convinced I hadn’t been wrong about the car. The police left. I went inside and cleaned myself up, washing my body well with soap. I toweled myself off as I left the bathroom, and continued drying my body as I put a bottle of beer in the fridge. I only drink Almaza beer. It’s the best beer in the world. I drink beer whenever I travel, and I still haven’t found a better one. I finished drying myself off, put on my pajamas, and turned on the TV. A few minutes later, as I drank the cold beer and stared at the TV, I started to laugh. I flipped through the channels to the satellite stations, and stared at the news ticker at the bottom of the Al-Arabiya screen, and then at the Al-Jazeera news ticker, and then at the NBN one. I was looking for the car that had almost killed me. Where was the car? Why wasn’t it on the screen? I kept flipping through the channels. Then I began to laugh. A strange fit of laughter. I’ve never laughed like that in all my life. I kept on laughing for a very long time, occasionally choking on my beer. After the news roundups on LBC and Al-Mustaqbal, the TV settled on the Discovery Channel. They were showing a city, a glass city shaped like a pyramid that was being built in Tokyo Bay. A city made of steel and glass, levels upon levels of glass, with no cars to be seen. I dropped my jaw in amazement. I had been laughing, but I stopped laughing for a moment to drop my jaw. I dropped my jaw knowing full well that I was dropping my jaw just like actors do in the movies when they’re struck by some sight or some piece of news. I opened my mouth and looked at the pyramid made of steel and glass hovering above the water on the shores of Tokyo.

“They moved through houses and shops scattered among the pyramid’s many levels. They passed through clouds of steel and through escalators like the ones in airports. There were also high-tech elevators that resembled cars or large boxes, and that you could control by pressing a button: they carried you from level to level, or from one side of a level to another, moving horizontally or vertically according to your desire. And there were no cars anywhere.

“I started laughing again. Waves of laughter poured out of me: I felt like I was alone in all creation, yet I was never alone. This television was speaking to me. No. All of creation was speaking to me. I didn’t understand what was happening. The whole night was a strange experience. I had been transported from the summit of fear and terror to another, opposing summit. And then suddenly I found faith. That’s it exactly. That’s what I’m trying to say. I became a believer.

“I slept like a bear that night, and woke up refreshed the next morning. Then a drowsiness came over me as I drank my coffee in the office. A strong, sudden irresistible drowsiness. I put down the cup, laid my hand on the desk and my head on my hand, and dozed off. I slept a half hour, then got up and went out. I wanted to walk, to look at the buildings and the sky, to feel my body moving though the streets, passing among the buildings beneath the vast sky.

“I bought some Bulgarian nuts (something I’d gotten used to: they’re similar to Lebanese nuts, except they’re wrapped in these delicious hard shells that break between your teeth). I walked around as I ate the nuts, looking at the cars and people and buildings and shops as if I were coming out of a long coma and opening my eyes for the first time. I once saw a documentary on TV about a guy who was in a coma for eleven years. When he finally woke up, he discovered his wife had divorced him and married another man. His children were treating the other man like a father, and that man was treating the children — who were grown up now — as if they were his own and not someone else’s.

“I walked and thought about what had happened to me the night before. It felt as if it hadn’t happened the previous night, but rather eleven years earlier. Or as if it hadn’t happened to me at all, but to someone else who had told me about it, and I had somehow come to believe that it had actually happened to me. These thoughts kept coming and going as I passed by the Awdah Bank (the Awdah and Saradar Group) in the Bab Idris district, and by Elie Saab’s new building, and by the Besançon School. I stopped there beneath the shade of the school’s lush trees, finished the nuts, then tossed the bag into a trash bin. A bus was leaving from the station beside the school, and I saw girls laughing and a man putting out chairs at the entrance to one of the buildings. Up above, the autumn clouds were drifting by like cotton, calm and white. I looked at the flowing clouds and was filled with a love for life, and a love for this city. My city. As I thought about these things, I saw a man cross my path. Who was he? He was on the other side now, heading up the street, walking quickly on the sidewalk. I recognized him. It was the man I’d seen the night before. It was him, wasn’t it? The man I’d seen on the motorcycle. Then I thought it couldn’t possibly be him. This man was shorter. His hair was black and curly like the other man’s, true. But half the men in Beirut have curly black hair. They all have white faces as well. And two ears, a nose, and a mouth, of course — and a pair of eyes to boot. These delusions caught me off guard. What had caused me to think that this was the same young man I’d seen the night before behind the garbage bins? Where was the resemblance? Apart from the curly black hair and the fact that they’d both passed quickly in front of me, where was the resemblance? I watched him ascend the street in his jeans and black shirt, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually seen the man’s face the previous night. I’d only seen the side of his face: a cheek and an ear and the corner of one eye, nothing more. I hadn’t seen a face. I’d seen half a face. And that’s not the same as seeing a face.

“The man had almost reached the top of the road. The road swerved and he vanished, and I could see birds perching on the lofty cypress trees over there, at the top of the rise. Cypresses lined the front of an old house with arches. Windows with green blinds. High faded tiles. Flaking walls. The house had two stories and a long wrap-around balcony with black wrought-iron handrails. Whenever I passed through the area, I always saw that house. It looked abandoned. And maybe it was.

“Time lay empty before me. I quickened my pace. I don’t know why, but I wanted to see the man again. I sped up to keep close to him and saw him turn to the right, descending now toward the distant sea. I stayed after him, leaving the church behind me, and saw him turn right once more to go down a side street. What street was that? It had to be the one with the old house, the house with the arches. That was odd. I stood there and stared at the cars stopped at the red light, not knowing what to do. If I rushed after him into that small street, he’d see me. I knew that street. I could see it from the sidewalk whenever I walked down to the sea or to the Phoenicia Hotel. A small half-paved alley. The green iron door of the house with high tiled arches was at the end of it. That man with the jeans and black shirt — was he the owner of the house? What if I went after the man and called out to him?