De Niro's Game (10 page)

Najib got out first. The other two put their arms up and moved toward me. I laid them all on the ground, on their bellies, in front of the car's fender, under a raging moon, parallel to my shoes and beneath my heavy breath, my dripping blood, and my shining devil's eyes. Najib croaked and cried like a hungry infant.

I frisked them; they had no weapons. I released Najib's two friends and ordered Najib to stay.

We took the car. I sat in the front seat. Najib drove. He cried all the way. He smelled of piss and his pants had a long patch of wetness that went down to his knees. He was crying and babbling and begging me as he followed my driving directions.

When we arrived under the bridge I asked him to get out. He clung to the steering wheel and started to move back and forth, sobbing, begging me not to kill him.

Get out, I said. I wouldn't hurt you. Just get out.

I am wet, he said. Tell me what you want.

Get out.

He opened the door slowly. Before he had a chance to run, I grabbed him and pushed his waist over the warm hood and put the gun above his ear.

Who were the two guys with you?

I do not know them, he cried.

I know they are from the forces. Little Najib must know something. Who sent them?

Najib cried, and again he begged me not to kill him.

Okay, here is the deal. You talk, I won't kill. You do not talk, I will play Russian roulette with my automatic gun here. What are the chances, you think? Talk, or I will dump your body and expensive shoes in the sewer for the big rats to feed on. They would love to nibble on the French perfume behind your ears.
Ya chic inta
.

Najib shivered and a fresh, warm flood of piss came bursting through at his ankles.

Who are they? I said.

Najib cried, and protested that he had never met them before.

Okay then, to the rats!

No! No! Wait. They are De Niro's friends. Please do not tell him that I told you. I beg you on your mother's grave.

I am taking the car, I said. You walk home; it will dry you up.

I PARKED THE CAR
down the hill from Achrafieh and opened the glove compartment. It contained a flashlight and a paper. The paper was military authorization to pass the checkpoints. Najib's name was on it. I folded it and put it in my pocket.

I searched the rest of the car, but nothing else was there — no owner's papers, no weapons. I got out, shut the driver's-side door, and walked up the hill through the Syriacs' neighbourhood. A woman with a broom was chasing dust away from her doorstep and into the street. When I walked past, she stopped fanning the ground and took a long look at me. We stared at each other, then I walked on, and the rustles of her broom pondered and rose again.

The moon fell from above and hued the dancing laundry on the little roofs. Above, the heaven of the Christians was luminous with stars and the thin alleys were smeared with shadows.

I was breathing up through the hills, passing ground-floor windows. With quick, intrusive glances I extracted images of sepia photographs showing dead forefathers with remorseful faces, images of flamboyant vases with plastic flowers, of archaic sofas stained by old sins, of picturesque, romantic paintings of green valleys and brick-red houses, of massive, wooden dining tables with vampire chairs under crucifixes crucified on vertical walls. And I heard sounds, sounds of clanging pots, cutting knives, and ultraviolet radio waves that made dogs chase their tails. Outside in the backyards, laundry was hung by flabby arms and paraded on straight pins in army rows, like frescoes on Venetian balconies. I smelled boiling chicken broth, heard onion-scented hands tapping knives on cutting-boards in a crescendo like that of a castrated church-boys' choir, or of the soundless Aramaic tears that were shed, on that tempest day, for the nailed son of Yahweh and the dangled corpse of his companion, the forgiven thief.

GEORGE OFFERED
me a chair.

He pulled out his box of cigarettes, lit his fire, and threw the Marlboros on the table.

Is everything settled between you and Najib?

Before I had the chance to answer, he added: Forget about the poker machines. I have other work for you.

I kept my eye fixed on him. And no cigarette was lit between my fingers; only my throat burned, my eyes itched. Anger crawled down my chest and images from childhood bounced on the table: two boys pissing in the corner of angled walls, shooting doves with wooden guns, thieving candies with little hands, and swinging wooden sticks to herd car wheels down the city hills, wearing cheap open sandals, mouths pounding purple chewing gum, pockets bloated with marbles, chasing Indians and African lions with slingshots and crooked arrows, praying on bruised knees, confessing in foreign tongues while surrounded by flames that danced like our stolen cigarettes did at night in narrow alleys and under the stairs.

George lifted his glass. Whisky, he said.

Whisky, I whispered back sarcastically.

There is money in whisky. Work with me for a few months, forget about the poker place, make your money and leave.

I am not joining your military.

No, you do not have to. This is a side job. Cheap whisky from Romania, a few thousand imitation Johnny Walker bottles, and fake labels. You combine it all and you have Johnny ready to go. The manufacturer needs to send a few hundred cases of it to the Muslim side. You load a truck and meet someone downtown. You deliver, and that's it.

Who's in on the deal?

No one, just you and me and the manufacturer.

Abou-Nahra?

Abou-Nahra is not so important.

Are you coming along?

No. You do the delivery alone. I can get you a military pass, in case you're stopped. First you'll do it once a week. Give it a few weeks and the whole West Side will be begging for more.

It is an operation for two, I replied.

Well, who do you have in mind?

I will let you know.

Let me know soon. The first shipment has to go on Thursday night, the man is waiting, and I thought of you first. I always think of you.

We all think of ourselves first and foremost, I said, and I threw him back his lighter and left.

I LEANED ON THE EDGE OF MY VERANDA AND WATCHED A
few Christians go by. The faithful trotted past, like horses, carrying shopping bags; at the end of the street they lingered over vending carts that displayed kitchenware and vegetables. When the vendors called, housewives came out on their balconies and lynched baskets, money, ropes. They ordered by the dozen, negotiated from the sky, and hand-picked goods while batting their long eyelashes. Their orders resonated against the broken walls. Their baskets came down from their verandas like buckets into dark wells. And when the vendor filled the baskets, these women, like miners, pulled on the ropes, started fires, and cooked meals in metal pots and red sauce.

I saw Rana walking by below. She dug her head toward the ground. She reached the end of the street and turned round and passed below me again. She was waiting for the housewives to fold up their ropes and their long tongues that entered every door, wrapped around every pillow, slithered
like serpents in beds, and stretched under every young skirt to assess menstrual flows and hymens.

Tongues that slurp sauce on tasting spoons, I thought. Tongues that curse the dead, tongues that hang laundry and people's lives on balconies and roofs, tongues that tell . . .

My mother told me, Rana said, as she finally reached my door, either Bassam comes and asks for your hand or let him stop prowling like a cat around your window.

I am working on something, I said. Just be patient.

I cannot come here any more, Bassam. Abla,
haydi al-sar-sarah
, saw me entering the building the other day, and she said the forty days of mourning are not over yet. In this neigh-bourhood, people watch and gossip all day. I am sick of it, Bassam, I am sick of the war and the people here. I want to leave, Bassam. Let's leave soon. You are not going to spend the rest of your life lifting boxes at the port.

I am working on something. Soon, I said. Soon we will leave,
khalas
. And I held her waist, kissed her lips, pulled her skirt up, and brushed my hand on her curves. Wetness and warmth streamed gently, warmth on fingertips, warmth on cracked lips, warmth from tongue on salty fingers, fingers spinning in curly hair, fingers splitting blouses, fingers crawling, fingers suffocating pillows.

We burned two cigarettes, and Rana said, I saw George the other day. He was driving a new
BMW
. Is it his?

Probably not. It must be Abou-Nahra's.

I was walking with my friend Leila the other day, said Rana, just talking and looking at clothes, and this nice sports car stopped next to us. I did not recognize George because he was
wearing sunglasses. Then he pulled off his shades and asked us if we needed a ride. I said, No, thank you, we are not going too far. Then cars started to honk behind us and George's door was already open, so we got in. He drove us back here . . . He is so funny, he played this Arabic music very loud and drove like he was in a race . . . You're so quiet, Bassam . . . Your silence is breaking me, it is breaking me. All you want is to touch me. I meet you, and you want me to take off my clothes, and then you lie on your back and look at the ceiling, and smoke, and hardly say a word to me. You are breaking me.

LATER, I WENT TO
George's place. Members of his platoon were stretched on his sofas, wearing cotton shirts, cowboy belts, and Levi's jeans. I recognized Nicole, the woman from Broumana. Her husband, Laurent, was drunk and talking about Africa. Highways of cocaine were stretched on mirrors. Noses operated on glass like vacuum-cleaner hoses, driving white powder into the molecules of numb, wide eyes. The apartment buzzed with invincible fighters, with swelling laughs and shiny teeth. The fighters filled the kitchen with their straight, broad shoulders, they sang to the music with commanding voices, they landed their lips and heroic praises on one another's cheeks, and their sharp-shooters' eyes were aimed on serpentine asses. There was food and drink and talk and cigarettes.

I stood against the wall with a beer in my hand. I talked to a few people: to Fadi, to Adel, to Raymond, to Souha, Chantal, Christine, Maya, Souhail, and to George, who was smiling and high.

George said, Have a good time now, and we will talk later. There is a girl inside bleeding from her nose.

I will ask one of your soldier friends, Joseph Chaiben, to help me with the whisky job, I said.

We will talk tomorrow, he said, and kissed me on the cheek. You're my brother, you're my brother, he said, and walked toward
Bébé
and her husband, Monsieur Laurent.

YOU CAME FOR
the tea, the manufacturer said to me when he opened the door. Listen. It is simple. I make the contact. It is business; everyone drinks. Did you eat?

Yes, I said.

You have to try my wife's
bamia
. Come, sit down and eat.

No, I ate. Next time, thank you.

You like whisky? he asked me.

Only the good kind, I said.

The manufacturer laughed. I won't offer you any of mine, then. By the way, I knew your uncle. He was always involved in politics. I would tell him, Stop wasting your time with all these activities. But he was a socialist, he liked demonstrations! At the warehouse tomorrow, my son Hakim will load the truck for you. You just give them the merchandise; no money exchange is involved. The contact's name is Ali. George gave you directions?

Yes, I said.

Will you be alone?

No.

It's just business, he said again. No religion, no war; this is only business. Muslim, Christian — it does not matter.

JOSEPH AND I DROVE
down to Al-Aswaq. The streets were vacant. Little plants sprang from beneath the sidewalk's cracks, lived underneath broken arches, shone in front of looted stores, sprang from the bellies of decaying sandbags, and dwelt in deserted governmental buildings that longed for the old days when lazy bureaucrats strolled in long hallways, snoozed on metal desks, dipped their moustaches in thick coffee, paraded their thin ties on hairy, conceited chests, waved their hands to expel flies and welcome bribes and seal endless deals with forged wills, illegal roofs, rebirth certificates, religious divorces, contaminated water pipes, underage driver licences, expired bank notes, stumbling constructions, derelict sewers, stained travel documents, and clandestine harvests of hallucinogenic plants that grew in the Bekaa Valley on the steps of Heliopolis, where Fairuz, that whining singer, sang at night under twinkling stars that had guided the three Babylonians from the east and down south into that stable with ruminating cows and the child who extracted milk from the virgin's round, black nipples.

I drove, and Joseph navigated. I know this place like my own fingers, he said to me. Turn right, there, next to the barrel. Stop.

I pulled out my gun, and got out of the van, and stood beside it. Joseph pulled out his
AK-47
and took his position behind the vehicle.

Chai, come and get it. Chai, Joseph shouted.

A man whistled from the first floor of an empty building.

Ali? I asked.

Bassam?

Yes.

At Ali's signal, two young boys appeared from behind the sandbags. They were dressed in worn clothes and plastic flip-flops, and had dirt-smudged faces.

I got into the van and turned its rear toward the West Side of the city. The boys' tiny arms pulled cases from the van and carried them inside the building.

Forty cases, I said.

Mahmoud, did you count the number of cases?

Forty, the little kid shouted from inside the building.
Arba'in
.
Twakkalala Allah
.

Kassak
, and watch out for the land mine on your way back, Joseph shouted to them.

TEN THOUSAND NEEDLES
had penetrated Nicole's arms, but still I brought her a little bag to open. Monsieur Laurent stood above the stove with a spoon in his hand, breaking powder and heating liquid.