Bone Ash Sky (36 page)

Sanaya could hardly find breath to speak.

‘What do you mean, selfish? I—I care about him. He trusts me. It might do him some good to talk.’

‘To you?’ Rouba sneered. ‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you in the eye.’

She was shaken after Rouba’s words. She went upstairs to her apartment, taking the steps two by two. She let herself in, flopped on the divan, looking around the living room.
Am I selfish?
She surveyed the splotched Turkish rug, an accident with wine, smoked salmon and Selim a few nights ago, the kitchen sink piled high with dishes. She looked through the open bedroom door at her slatternly, unmade bed. All those trivial, mindless tasks, unimportant to her, waiting for someone to transform them into imperatives.

She made herself some tea, spooning in less sugar than usual. Her precious store was dwindling in its little paper sack. After two glasses she recovered enough self-composure to dismiss Rouba’s criticism.
Well, of
course she’ d think that. So different from me. She’s only jealous.

Growing up in a refugee camp south of Sidon, Rouba never knew a home other than that seen in postcards: out-of-date, grainy daguerreotypes, a mythic Palestine in scenes of the harbour and citrus orchards. Fabricated memories, second-hand grief. Old stories embroidered by a phalanx of women, generation upon generation. Of course she would resent Sanaya, who had never known displacement, except of the psyche, never known death, except in peace, never known hunger, except of the soul.

She should feel sorry for me. I might appear to have everything, but I
have less than she does.
She felt sorry enough for herself as it was. It had become sickening, a low, dull ache in regions undefined.

She remembered Rouba’s ambivalent expression those nights during the air raids, when she would sit back and watch Sanaya and Issa joke, laugh, fight over winning at cards and backgammon. Sanaya put it down to the loss of her husband. There was something in the set of her jaw: not jealousy exactly, nor ill will, but a bitter wistfulness, as if Sanaya in her own lack of suffering was lighter, easier, more desirable to men. A blank page, an open book, a sheet drawn tight and pure against the past. She got up, went downstairs to the courtyard again, telling herself it was only to check if her washing was dry.

She looked up; Issa was still there, in his position at the window, except now he was chanting the Koran aloud and rocking back and forth. ‘On that day they will all share in the scourge. Thus shall we deal with the evil-doers, for when they were told,
There is no deity but
God
, they replied with scorn:
Are we to renounce our gods for the sake of
a mad poet?
’

She tried to tell herself this was normal behaviour for a devout man, and that even her father, a fair-weather Muslim, would do the same sometimes at the mosque on holy days. Nevertheless she was disturbed. Issa seemed to be in a trance. A bubble of ecstasy which no one else could penetrate.
If there was a wall in front of him, he’ d
bang his head against it. Fanatic.
She couldn’t reconcile his apparent fundamentalism with his youth, his humour, his many kindnesses to her, his gentle hands.

Nor could she understand his hatred of America and Israel when she could also see his obvious devotion to Hollywood films, like any teenager:
Rambo
and
Terminator
and old black and white war movies, his collection of music tapes and videos. Those absolute pronouncements and professions of holiness, living as he tried to with the example of the Prophet, and then his absolute commitment to violence at any cost. A
shahid
, that was what he wanted to be. A holy martyr. He continued to rock, getting faster and louder, oblivious to her, staring up at him among the fluttering washing.

In all her fear, all her perturbation, something in him called to her.

She watched Issa each day when he left the building at dawn. She told herself she wanted to do something for him, to help. By each afternoon, when she was finally honest with herself, she realised it was less about helping him than making him notice her. She’d become curious about him, now flattered by his small, almost unconscious attentions. She suppressed a thrill of something – she couldn’t yet call it desire – when he leaned close to brush a mosquito from her arm as they sat outside on the balcony, when he asked her how much olive oil she liked drizzled on her beans when she brought them to the table.

There was more to it than that, she admitted. She heard how his voice dropped and wavered when he talked of the fighting, when she asked him who were his closest friends at the front. His insistence that his Iranian commander was a prophet, exactly like Mohammed himself, unnerved her in a way that contrasted with her indifference to Selim’s professions of love for Bashir Gemayel. There was something in this desperate intensity that didn’t ring true. And she wanted to be the one to unravel it. Show Rouba a thing or two. She wanted to buy Issa’s trust so he would take her into his confidence.

Today he was later than usual. She stood in the shadow of the balcony and craned her body over the railing to see which direction he would take. He was wearing civilian clothes and could have been someone else entirely without his faded battledress. His jeans didn’t sit well on him; she could see him attempt to pull them up around his waist as he walked. Couldn’t Rouba find him a belt? She watched him cross the road toward the sea wall, look to the right and left as if afraid someone was following. He bought a plaited sesame bun from a hawker, walking brisk and sure toward the southern suburbs.

She flung off her bathrobe, dressed without giving any thought to what she should wear. Ripped clothes off their hangers, buttoned her blouse askew. Slid her feet into flat sandals. Before she left, she dropped to her knees and rummaged under the bed, shoving rolls of Selim’s money into her pockets, stuffing them into her handbag. She slung it over her shoulder and sprinted down the stairs.

She was afraid she might have lost him already. She ran, swerving around cars and trucks, an abandoned tank, crossed the road, dodging the hawkers and beggars blocking her path. She couldn’t see him. She ran faster than she ever thought she could, handbag banging against her hip. Patted her pockets at intervals to make sure the money was still there.

She saw his figure, far away, a speck against the sea.

‘Issa!’

He didn’t look around, if it was indeed him. She spied a taxi idling nearby, signalled to it and got in the back.

‘Only down the road,’ she said to the driver.

He shook his head at her without turning around. She peeled off a US ten-dollar note from one of her rolls, waved it at him in the rear-view mirror. He put his foot on the accelerator.

‘Stop over there,’ she said. ‘Just behind that white car.’

She got out, almost falling into Issa’s arms. He brought his right hand to his heart.

‘What’s wrong, Sanaya? Are Rouba and Hadiya—’

‘No.’ She was still breathing hard. ‘I just needed to talk to you.’

He was perturbed, even slightly embarrassed, but motioned to the sea wall. They sat and she looked down at her feet, not sure where to start. Issa followed her gaze and looked down, too, apparently mesmerised by her toes with their chipped, pearly polish.

‘Let’s go somewhere and have a drink.’

Issa frowned.

‘Not in a bar, please.’

She stood up, scanned the row of shops across the road.

‘There’s a place over there that looks all right.’

Once inside and seated on cushions, they ordered tea. She placed her hands flat on the low table. Mirroring her, Issa placed his palms down as well. They were nearly touching hers. The ends of his fingers were stained with henna, in memory of an obscure Shia martyr’s blood. They were in the private family room of the restaurant, where gauze curtains partially hid them from the other patrons. In the corner against the wall, a group of heavily veiled women ate from ten different meze plates. The man with them stared hard at Issa, but said nothing. Sanaya whispered.

‘I just want to help you, Issa.’

He straightened up, looked ahead at the polished counter through the curtains, the glass drinks shelves with nothing left on them to sell.

‘You can’t help me. I don’t need your kind of help.’

‘But your militia does.’

At this, she began taking the rolls of money from her pockets and thrusting them into his lap under the table. Issa recoiled, pushing them aside.

‘I don’t want your money! What are you doing, woman? Anyone could come in and rob you here.’

She sat back, shamefaced. The money lay strewn on the carpet. Methodically, Issa gathered it up. He fixed her with an unwavering, fanatic eye.

‘How do I know how you made this money?’

She smiled.

‘It’s all above board, Issa. No drugs, no corruption.’

She knew she was lying and wondered if he did as well.

‘You’re not a—’

‘A prostitute, Issa? Is that what you’re trying to say?’ She breathed out. ‘Thank Allah, no.’

She thrust her handbag at him.

‘There’s more in there. I just want to help you.’

He drew the bag toward him and crammed the rest of the notes into it. For a moment she thought he would throw the whole lot at her. Then he slid the bag onto his lap. He looked about him at the room, avoiding the women, bowed his head at nothing in particular.

‘Today, Sanaya, for the first time in your life, you have done something good.’

Selim passed from woman to woman at the luncheon party. He was not aware of flirting, would be terribly embarrassed if the epithet were applied to him. Yet he did know he was working the room. It was his duty. His silk tie and tight collar made him itch in the hot August sun that came through the concertina doors. He dabbed at his face with a monogrammed handkerchief; women always found this quaint and endearing. As they did his imperfect French.

By sunset he’d ended up on the front terrace with a daughter from one of the north’s most stately families, a teenager with ashy hair – he could see it had been dyed by one of the best – and an impossibly short dress. He became distracted counting the number of frills on such a small piece of fabric, all the way from plunging neckline to hem. She kept asking him to hold her glass while she pulled the skirt down over her speckled, dimply thighs. Surprisingly, she made him think of Sanaya with fondness and something like regret.

Women tended to do that for him: got jumbled up, faceless, all lips and breasts and eyes. Even the one he married, blurred now, unrecognisable. There were small, insignificant scenes that stayed with him, but they always featured her young and wild, when she’d been a rebellious teenager and crept into his bedroom each morning at first light. He filled the girl’s drink, lit her cigarette, looked out with her over the glistening, pristine coastline of Jounieh, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

The girl was speaking about the new colourist she’d found in Milan. He tried to extricate himself from the conversation, asked if she would like him to fetch her another drink. He was trying not to appear too attentive to any woman, or any one man, tonight; his instincts were trained on Bashir. The party had been held in his honour, to celebrate his election and rise to power. Bashir Gemayel, new president of the Republic of Lebanon. Devout Christian, militia leader, elegant killer, Selim’s idol. He would like to kill so well, to speak French so fluently, to charm women with a flick of his hair.