June Rain (34 page)

He named his son Raouf.

He was Abboud’s first son . . . and last, too, most likely, after four daughters. The day they rushed to bring him the news, Abboud knocked at his neighbour’s door and asked if he could borrow his rifle. He fired seven shots and then returned it.

Abboud couldn’t hear the child if he cried, but he certainly was able to dole out orders incessantly to his two oldest daughters and their mother.

‘Pick him up!’

‘Take him outside a little, let him get some sunshine.’

‘Change his nappies . . .’

Abboud was a boring pest, a parasite. He could never look at his only son without finding something that needed to be done for him. He behaved like a tough guy around the house, but now in his shop he just sat there on his cobbler’s chair not moving an inch. He didn’t do anything about the armed man standing there in his doorway asking about his wife.

He hid behind his deafness. Abboud was completely deaf or nearly so and possibly the most famous deaf man in town. He was persuaded to use a hearing aid only after I stopped working at his shop and opened my own. Just a few years before he died he had finally agreed to using a hearing aid, but it irritated him quite a bit with all the sudden buzzing and whistling sounds it made, so he would only put up with it for a few minutes, preferring instead the quietness and isolation of deafness he’d grown accustomed to.

In spite of all that, people accused him of only hearing what he wanted to hear. That was his reputation at least, and I thought they were right. They used to test him, too. They’d curse at him in a very soft voice and he’d retaliate with a harsher curse. Even though he couldn’t hear them when they spoke, he could always tell when they were cursing him. From merely noticing the semblance of a smile on my face he knew whoever was standing there talking to him was mocking him and so he’d respond however he saw fit in order to defend himself.

All of a sudden, the man holding the rifle turned back around toward the door of the shop and said, ‘We need her!’ He said it while pointing to an unspecified place off to the east. In other words, he wasn’t the one who needed her, they did, them over there.

This time Abboud heard even though the man hadn’t raised his voice any higher than before. I didn’t have to shout in his ear.

The armed man didn’t get animated. It was more like he was confused by his own actions.

It was more than likely he’d been told that the women on his list were sending messages to their relatives in the Lower Quarter and were leading the enemy to us, that the women were spies in our midst that we must get rid of.

A lot of time passed while he stood there with his back to the shop absent-mindedly looking off into the horizon, his view blocked by a dilapidated house and some fallow land. We resumed our conversation.

Abboud’s shop was the place where the townspeople assembled for the final word on the talk of the town. Whenever anyone heard anything, he would come to the shop to have it confirmed. And anyone who had an opinion to express came to the shop to make it known. We often ran out of chairs, leaving some people to remain standing.

The situation was going to last a long time, they were saying. The headline of the newspaper tossed onto one of the chairs said that the search for solutions was getting closer.

The Americans were participating in the solution. Ever since that point in history the Americans have been behind much of what goes on in this country. Camille Chamoun wasn’t going to succeed in his bid for a term extension. They commander of the army was mentioned as a possible successor.

Abboud resumed his work, poring over the shoe in his hand once again.

He signalled for me to go back to driving the thin nails into the circle of leather.

We used to talk politics or the news of the night before, whether it had been a harsh one or calm one. The topic of weapons cropped up suddenly, as it did every time. Everyone was an expert on guns, even people like us in Abboud’s cobbler shop who were unable to fight.

There was praise for the semi-automatic rifle, which shot only one bullet at a time. But there was no substitute for it for long range and for high-precision targets. It could penetrate the trunk of a poplar tree.

There was praise for the Mauser rifle, though it was still new to them and they were only beginning to discover its merits.

There was praise for the 12-caliber revolver, their idol.

There was praise for weapons of all kinds.

Suddenly the man came closer to the door and stepped inside; the talk about guns came to a halt. He began right away, with no introductions and in a loud voice this time, like someone trying to be heard by a deaf man, counting off all of Husneh’s offences. He addressed Abboud, knowing exactly how high he should raise his voice – high enough to render me unnecessary. As stingy as he had been with his words when he first arrived, now he was running his mouth off to no end. Having that rifle on his shoulder gave him superiority over us – we who’d had enough of counting the dead and wounded and sought the cover of walls just to get home.

‘Husneh has been making secret visits to her family or has somehow been sending them messages. In any case, her brother Muhsin is hurting us a lot. Abu Haroun’s wife Khadra was killed from the direction of his barricade, and DeGaulle al-Rami was shot in the back from there . . .’

‘Come on, man, use your head . . .’ one of the people sitting in the shop interjected. ‘The woman just had a baby. She’s overjoyed with her new son. How in the world would she go down to the Lower Quarter and leave her nursing infant behind?’

Abboud didn’t respond. His eyes widened as he began to understand why the man had asked about Husneh a little earlier.

‘She sneaked information to her brother about where we were keeping the 60-mm mortar cannon and he blabbed to everyone else. We noticed they started shooting heavily at that spot, so we were forced to change the location, which changed the coordinates, and now we are having trouble hitting our targets.’

‘Who told you such lies? He should have his tongue cut off . . .’

All of a sudden Husneh appeared. She had been listening to everything from the room in the back of the shop. The whole house consisted of just two rooms. She wasn’t holding the baby. She’d given him to her eldest daughter. The visitor at the shop spoke again.

‘Be reasonable, now. This is dangerous business. We can’t go around accusing one another. Husneh is one of us now. What name do her children carry? Shame on you.’

Abboud took refuge in his total deafness once again, no longer hearing anything even though everyone was speaking loudly.

‘One of our women told us,’ the armed man said. ‘One of our women who is married into the Lower Quarter. We too have our informants. Blood cannot become water.’

Abboud looked to me for help even though I felt he was hearing everything. I could tell from the agitation that appeared on his face when he heard the man’s mounting criticism of Husneh. The voices intermingled.

‘The best solution would be for you to go to your family and stay there with them.’ The man had finally come out with the true objective of his mission.

Even with my voice so close to Abboud’s ear, it wasn’t reaching him. Abboud was unable to hear any more.

‘We won’t allow you to stay here,’ the man continued amidst protests. ‘I came against my will to tell you this calmly.’

‘And if she refuses to leave her house?’ asked Abboud, finally daring to say something. He stood up from his chair with his eyes wide open and his cobbler’s apron smeared with the stains of his profession.

‘Someone else will come and take her by force. I don’t draw weapons on women.’

Abboud heard, not wanting to understand, cowering behind his deafness. ‘Where are you going to take her? What kind of outrage is this?’

They were planning to gather all the Semaani family women who had married into our neighbourhood and put them in Aziz al-Rami’s house. There were around twenty or more such women. It was possible they would turn them over to Father Boulos who would then escort them to the Lower Quarter. We imagined the scene as we sat there in the cobbler shop: Father Boulos leading the women, crossing over the green line with them before they went their separate ways to their families’ houses. And then he’d return with the Rami family women from the Lower Quarter.

‘If that’s the way it is, you don’t want me here, then I’ll go . . .’ Husneh said.

Husneh had heard all kinds of talk. It wasn’t the fact that she was a Semaani that bothered them; it was her brother they had to take into consideration. He was fighting right across from them, bullet for bullet, ploy for ploy.

‘Yes. I’ll go to my family.’

I didn’t try to tell Abboud what was being said because I was sure he knew. But Husneh, to make certain, bent into his ear and shouted so he could hear. ‘I am going to my family’s house, Abboud . . .’

Actually, she no longer had a family. Her whole family was her brother Muhsin.

‘In any case,’ she added not as loudly, to spite us and the armed man standing in the doorway, ‘the closer I get to the Lower Quarter the more my heart fills with joy . . .’ That was her way of taking revenge.

Suddenly three armed men arrived to provide backup for their comrade. Those men we knew. They were Salimeh’s boys – Hashem and his brothers Francis and Abu Layla. They’d been charged with a serious mission and had scowls on their faces. They paid no attention to us. It was clear that we were not going to be able to ward them off.

‘Where’s Husneh? Hurry up. Father Boulos wants to leave before noon . . .’

They caught sight of her inside.

‘If my own mother Salimeh were one of them, I’d send her,’ one of them said in turn to justify what was going on. He continued, speaking to Abboud, ‘War is war, Abboud . . . It’s either us or them.’

Husneh didn’t say anything. She just turned around and went inside the room at the back of the shop. Abboud stood up. It was the second time he stood up wearing his soiled apron. He rushed into the room at the back of the shop. He hadn’t tried to discuss things with Salimeh’s son Hashem; he had surrendered to the decision. Now he had to try to salvage whatever he could.

‘No. You’re not taking the boy with you . . .’

‘Who’s going to nurse him? You?’

‘You’re not taking him with you. I don’t have another son.’ He was resolute.

The little girls started to cry. The cobbler shop guests and I followed him inside. The oldest daughter was holding Raouf, unsure who to give him to, so she too began to cry. The baby followed suit.

Abboud was like a child who couldn’t be persuaded to let go of what he was holding onto. I don’t know why Husneh suddenly tied her kerchief over her hair and walked out of the room towards the shop. She had decided to go alone. We all followed her. We couldn’t believe she was going to leave just like that.

Salimeh’s boys were standing waiting for her next to a Mercedes taxi. She opened the door to get into the car, then turned towards us and said to her daughter, ‘Remove the lentils and green beans from the stove before they burn and peel some radishes for your father. He likes radishes with lentils and green beans. The meatless
kibbeh
is ready in the oven. Change your brother’s nappy. He stinks. And don’t forget to feed Bashir. Don’t let him go home. He might run into danger along the way. His mother asked me to look after him . . .’

Bashir . . . that was me.

Still they weren’t satisfied.

Salimeh’s son Hashem wasn’t satisfied with spraying bullets out of his 24x29 light machine gun, which he had taken by force. The shots he fired would fly into empty space. He’d shoot the gun for no reason, just to establish his presence, as he sometimes said. The only approval he got came from the little kids who’d gather around to pick up the empty cartridges while they were still hot.

He wasn’t satisfied, so he revived the idea of a catapult. Something to cause more damage.

At first he and his brother Francis went looking for some discarded tires. Tires from broken down cars. They removed the inner tube, cut it into long sections and carefully bound them onto a fork of wood like a huge slingshot. They secured it up on one of the rooftops and shouted to everyone to back away. People made futile attempts to stop them.

Hashem launched a hand grenade from it, which exploded in the air on its way to the Lower Quarter. Over on the other side it caused more noise and rumours than anything else.

When they got the 60-mm mortar cannon and along with it an officer – a stranger it was said – to train them how to use it, Hashem was the first conscript. He learned quickly. When the time came to execute, Hashem suggested they wait until people were coming out of the ten-thirty mass on Sunday, the most crowded mass. He volunteered to monitor them on their way into the church. They fired on them on their way out. Hashem was standing behind the cannon, but the shell went too far and landed on the riverbank, setting some dry reeds on fire and hitting a fisherman in the leg.

Hashem got frustrated and started firing the rocket launcher at random targets and at random times of the day and night. He managed to kill some women and children, according to news reports from the Lower Quarter.

But they still weren’t satisfied.