Little Mountain (8 page)

— And what happened to the woman after that?

— I don’t know.

We took the tank and colored it. We took off the 500mm. machine gun and fixed it down in the church. The neighborhood kids gathered around the tank. They drove it, then it stopped. We tied a clothesline to the cannon from the window. The clothes hung out were of every color. Talal held the loaf, I don’t know what we should do. The revolution should start. But it has started, Salem said. You don’t understand what the revolution is. This is revolution. Revolutions are like this. Do you know why a loaf is round? Because it’s a loaf. A loaf can’t be any different, just like a cemetery. A cemetery is round but we can’t see that from the inside. Everything’s like that. We only see the surface of things. The smell of gunpowder was spreading. Carrying our guns, we were standing in the winter sun, relaxed. Scattered bursts of shooting.

A man approached. You don’t know ’Ammiq. You eat grapes and drink
’araq
but you don’t know ’Ammiq. Now, there’s grapes. My father’s a hard-headed man. You don’t know the way, come on, I served in Beirut, I know all her streets. But the mountains are prettier. The sight of grapes dangling from the vine whets my appetite for
’araq.
You don’t drink
’araq —
that’s a mistake.
’Araq
is very important. It’s fire.
’Araq
inside me and I’m on fire. Human beings should burn up.
’Araq
alone sets you alight. I put away some
’araq
inside me and go pilfering. Do you know what I did? After all that had happened, I finally realized that the government was falling apart. I took the armored car I was in charge of driving and went off with it. That was before everything really collapsed. I fled alone with the APC from Hawsh al-Umara to ’Ammiq. My father came out of the house, showed no surprise. He took the APC and leashed it in front of the house. I got up in the morning and couldn’t find it. I must go and join the revolution in the APC. I asked my mother, she said my father took the APC and went down to the vineyard. I ran to the vineyard and saw him trying to fix metal farm attachments to it. I’m going to plow. By God, this APC’s better than a tractor. The APC became the talk of the village. The
mukhtar
^*
came by to congratulate us and proposed that an agricultural cooperative be set up. But,
Mukhtar,
you’ve been plowing your lands with tractors for ages and we’ve not asked you to set up cooperatives. The tractor is private property but the APC is public property. That’s what the
mukhtar
who knows about these things said. We argued and shouted at each other; it seemed as if things wouldn’t be resolved peacefully.
Mukhtar,
there isn’t any such thing as private property anymore. Anything goes. Everything’s topsy-turvey. But the
mukhtar
wanted to take the APC and my father wanted to hold onto it. To avoid trouble, I stole the APC back from in front of the house and returned it to the barracks. It was all over; nobody was going to ride anyone roughshod from now on. That’s what they told us. But fighting in cities is a hard thing. It takes a tremendous effort to kill your enemy. This isn’t war. I don’t know. You might be right. But everything’s fallen apart.

The Kurdish woman asking after her husband, her husband stretched out cold in the middle of the street.

— He’s going to rot there in the street.

—We’ll wait for nightfall then drag him off. Don’t mention it.

She bent down. She was holding a loaf. She bit into it. May God repay you. But don’t forget me.

—We won’t forget you.

And he —he was stretched out on his stomach, his legs raised slightly off the ground, the ground wet with mud, sand and dust all around him.

“What is it you were doing in the ancient garden three hundred years ago.”

The mountain was full of holes but it edged along. The women were standing in two long lines waiting for the war. But the war wouldn’t come. We’ve been waiting for the war for three hundred years. But the war always comes with two large holes in it: one, above, out of which the woman’s neck rises, strangulated, and one in the middle before we are born. The advancing mountain was full of holes, like the war. The mountain’s just like the war, I told him, my voice rolling down between our feet which stumbled through the night-filled village with its strange silence and cold wind. We reached the forest. An old abandoned house, pine trees. Making a fire inside a pile of stones so that no one would see it.

— Do you see the trees? The people’s war has started. A people’s war needs trees. For Vietnam’s sake, at least.

Jungles and swamps. Trees and the embers of a fire that has begun to die out. For fifty years now we’ve known nothing but wars.

—That’s not important, Talal was saying. Look at the mountains. This is the first time we go up to the mountains. Nabeel was dreaming of sand. I don’t like mountains.

— Why did you come then?

— Duty. Then he smiled. War in Beirut is nicer.

— Swamps and mosquitoes. You like swamps.

— I like the city.

I like women, Talal said. Tonight, well move on from the glory of the revolution, to the glory of death. Death is a tranquil state. In the middle of the shooting, the explosions and the noise, leaping and bounding, you subside into stillness, complete stillness.

But the mountain was full of holes.

A woman standing, holding piles of food, surrounded by men and women. We saw the fire so we brought over some food. The woman put the food down and went. We ate. The food stuck in my throat. I must puncture my neck and then I’ll become a mountain.

The mountain was king. Sanneen was king. But who could climb such a barren mountain? Impossible to move such gear without mules. The mule was the real king. We went up. We carried the ammunition up on a mule, following behind it as it led us to the top. Snow. Fog. And the red shots piercing the night. Talal bent down, put on his glasses. Three hundred years ago the lithe young boy was a leaf lying on a shore. A passer-by picked it up and put it in his pocket. The Chinese seer bided his time. The man didn’t know that things lie in wait. The Chinese seer took the leaf and spoke. The man didn’t understand. And when he came back to ask, he found that the seer had died. That the rice which used to grow in the street had become a fiery alcohol. But the young African boy climbs my neck. He doesn’t talk, doesn’t ask me. He dreams that he won’t travel, but he will. Next to me slept a tall man with a thick beard. He put his hands behind his head and slept amid the drops of water dripping from the roof of the tent and the snow-covered snow.

— Come on, let’s go light a fire at the top. The top of the mountain must go up in flames. What’d happen? A few shells … no problem.

He lit a fire. Raised his arms. Took off his khaki shirt and waved it in the air.

Here, the quail sleeps. Here, the quail dies, said one of the fighters in his unerring village accent. They stake out the quail and then kill it. The mule was bleeding. It was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the midriff. Its eyes cast down, not moaning, just letting the blood run down its belly without stirring. The mule was king. Sanneen was grayish. Snow, gray patches and incalculable expanses. Were higher than the clouds, said the man with the thick beard, holding a piece of canned meat and chewing it as though it were chocolate. One must eat. Tomorrow, you’ll eat like me. I’m a married man. That means I’m a practical man. I understand things. I know a woman is never pleased. If you make love to her, she gets fed up with so much love-making. And if you don’t make love to her, she asks what the point of marriage is. My wife, whom I left a thousand years ago, doesn’t understand. She thinks I’m not serious. But the matter’s settled. I’m standing on the highest peak of the highest mountain and making up my mind, once and for all, that this wife who’s just like all wives isn’t fit for marriage. Don’t look at me like that. Eating is inevitable. You can’t withstand the cold without hormones and vitamins. There isn’t any bread. The bread has spoiled. It got soggy with snow and has become like a lump of mud. One can’t eat mud and one can’t mix meat and snow.

On the peak, where everything is just like everything else. There were thirty men, sleeping in the snow. Their rifles slung around their necks, gazing into each other’s faces. Asking questions. Nabeel jumping up and down. The football player jumping up and down to escape the cold. The shells flying about lighting up the snow. Planes piercing the clouds once in a while, but still remote. Because the mountain had become remote.

The man with the thick beard called Nazeeh propped himself up on his left elbow, stretched out on a woolen blanket placed on patches of snow and the gray earth. I’m tired, he said. No, the war is tiring, but its not like women. Why do people usually associate war with women? Movies are dumb. In films, there must always be wars and, alongside them, women. They even put in a woman with Che Guevara. And the hero always dies while the woman survives to mourn him. Of course, my wife will cry. She’s like all wives, so she will cry. But even death, which is
the
question of all questions, isn’t a problem. It’s a trivial question that comes up in times of illness. When a man is sick, his head fills up with problems and he begins asking questions. But when he’s as strong as a mule, he behaves with the simplicity of one.

Talal was standing beside me chewing cold tinned broad beans in an attempt to still his hunger.

— Why are you talking about death and women? You should be talking about victory.

Victory is a tattered robe, Nazeeh would say. Do you see those clouds close by? You can reach up and touch them, but you can’t hold onto them. That’s what we’re like. We can touch victory but we can’t hold onto it.

The gunfire sparked above our heads, then the shells began to sound that faint whining which is pulverized by the noise of their crashing to the ground. Debris was flying over our heads while Sameer, with his beard and his tenderness, leaped gaily, firing, tumbling down through the rocks. I can’t see a thing. This fog is thick, he screamed. But Nabeel didn’t answer. He was on his knees, firing tensely, the curses preceding the bursts of gunfire. For his part, Nazeeh was sprawled out on the snow, relaxed, firing calmly, looking to his right and seeing Talal, nerves taut, fighting like someone praying in a church. Suddenly, the shooting stopped. Sa’eed came running. They’ve run away and left this. He had an automatic rifle magazine in his hand. This kind of war isn’t enough, Sameer said.

— What would you suggest?

— We should stone them. A rifle’s a rifle, but a stone is part of my hand. I should feel that it’s my hand that does the fighting, and not this cold metal which doesn’t satisfy the need.

Talal smiled. This mountain has turned you into a savage.

Thirty men standing on the mountaintop, lighting a fire and dancing. Eating canned meat. Seeking refuge in their memories. We must stop talking about memories, Salem said. We are making the future, memories don’t make the future, memories fuse into ballads and songs. Ahmed’s voice rising, splitting through the rocks, floating into the cold winds. I’m king of the mountain, Ahmed was saying.

— We’re insects thrown into this vast expanse.Mountains … as we climb them, we become little.

—That’s a lie. We get bigger and the mountain becomes little. That’s what they always say: Man in Nature is like a tiny insect. But it isn’t true.

— I’ve grown taller, said Salem.

— I’m the tallest man in the world, said Sameer.

—
We
are the real kings, said Talal. But we share the throne with these two mules.

The lithe young African boy was running. Slow down a bit, I told her. But she ran on, the sand flying up from her bare feet. She dropped to the ground. I’m going to put you in a little box and put the little box in my pocket. Because you don’t deserve any better. She laughed. I don’t like prisoners.

—And I don’t like prisoners either, but I’m forced to.

— Forced! That’s what all tyrants say; when the truth embarrasses them, they start telling you the story of their troubles and it boils down to their being forced to be tyrannical. You’re just like them.

My foot was getting bigger, the snow lined my shoes. Look, said Talal. The colors of the rainbow spilling into one another. All the colors that I’ve ever seen and those I’ve never seen. The mountain opens its mouth and the sun tumbles out. A mountain rolling through the clouds. The colors resemble the sea but the sea is flat. Colors forming circular gaps. My hand reaching out, catching nothing. The perforated mountain moves. We run toward the valley. The valley embraces my body, cuts it in two halves, and the distant sea enters the clouds. I raise my hand to my face. My face is a big, wizened apple. And my hand rises toward the sun that falls into our eyes as it tumbles between the flames and the mouth of the whale that is about to swallow it.

The villager-fighter carried his shoes and walked barefoot. Yesterday, the sun burned us; today, the fog and the rain have come and taken the sun to the bottom of the valley. But the problem is these damned shoes. They stay wet. I walk as though I were carrying the mountain in my leg. My toes are so swollen I can’t feel them anymore. Snow is against war. He carried his shoes and entered something like a tent. Water everywhere. The smell of sodden wool is like the smell of sheep before their slaughter. By God, it’s the butcher that’s king. What does he care? He does whatever he pleases. Slaughtering and selling, he can eat until doomsday.