Little Mountain (9 page)

What kind of food rations are these?

My tongue was dry and my insides burned. I went into the tent and found the villager-fighter talking politics with Nazeeh. Propped up on his left hand, Nazeeh was shivering with cold. His face was red with sun and fog. His raised right hand gesticulated as he talked on and on.

The Eastern Question must be settled once and for all. For three hundred years now the West has been driving the knife into our side in the name of the Eastern Question and the rights of minorities. We should be done with the question for good.

I sat next to them and listened. Then the discussion began to heat up. The villager-fighters voice rose. I looked at him, he was holding an orange which glowed in the dark tent. The orange took part in the debate in its own way, shifting in slow motion from left hand to right. As the argument flared and abated, the orange would step in to cut the silence in a quick sleight-of-hand as if he had become a trickster who puts an orange in his ear and has a tree come out of his mouth. He put the orange on top of the sodden blankets all squashed together. Nazeeh leaned over and reached out but the villager’s hand was quicker. He grabbed the orange, it danced between his hands, then he let it roll a little.

— But where did the orange come from?

He ignored the question. Then his voice took on a special inflection.

— Weapons have to be cared for in this climate. Water seeps into them. The important things to keep on fighting. That’s what you want. I agree. Provided that we don’t stay up here on the mountaintop in this unbearable cold. The orange rolled away. Talal grabbed it. The villager-fighter leaped to his feet.

— I want the orange. Its my own private orange.

—There’s no private property in the revolution.

He pounced, grasped the orange and wrenched it out of my hand, and sat in a corner of the tent all by himself with his orange. We advanced on him. He put the orange behind his back.

—We should go to Baskinta. We’d find houses and things to eat there.

The sky flashed with the sound of distant rifles. Nazeeh stood up. The battle has begun. We should eat this orange before the battle, split it between the three of us. Talal rose to his feet and grabbed his rifle. The villager-fighter slipped the orange into his pocket and began trying to put his shoes on. We were all set. But the orange had escaped. He disappeared and then came back, smelling of orange. Reeking of orange from head to toe.

— What happened to the orange?

—The orange turned into a tree. The man has become a tree.

They were in front of us but they weren’t like humans. Of course, they were ordinary men. But no. We opened fire, they fell theatrically. I couldn’t see properly. But they were falling. It was going into slow motion. A man falling as though he were play-acting. I’m not sure it’s man. We’ve done an excellent job. No one can take this mountain. We are the guardians of the snow and the cold. But I don’t know, maybe that wasn’t clearly understood. I’m sure of it, killing is something else. Here, it’s as if I were shooting at stones. Actually, I was shooting at targets, mere targets. And the targets behaved like targets. That’s all there is to it …

Talal took off his glasses, wiping away the mud mixed with sweat. Nazeeh came. The tree has died. The villager-fighter, with his oversized shoes, and his face burned with snow and fog, approached, slung across a mule. Asleep, with three men leading the white mule holding onto him.

The mule stopped in front of me. Talal bent down. The smell of death is like the smell of oranges. Death is an orange tree. When I die I want to smell like an orange tree.

We returned to the tent. Talal went to the villager-fighter’s bag. He opened it.

— Look, another orange was waiting for the end of the battle.

Nazeeh took the orange, divided into two, took half and squeezed it, the drops trickling into his mouth and onto his beard.

— A toast to the martyrs. Why don’t you have some?

— I can’t.

— You’re a romantic. Don’t you want to smell like a tree?

I put the orange in my mouth. It tasted really sharp. I ate it without peeling it, all of it. The tent began to smell like the vast orange grove stretching from Saida to the end of the world.

The last option is me, I told her, our footsteps striking the streets of the dark town. Clothes rustling, words spoken in silence. Cruising ahead of us, a Land-rover filled with ammunition and food. Walking along, whispering to each other and listening to the whispers of the villagers gazing at us in awe. Pleased with ourselves, full of pride, just as we used to dream we would be when we were little. We are little but we are just as proud as we should be.

A long line of fighters who’ve come from everywhere to the wedding that hasn’t started. We filed into the seraglio. They said it, alone, could fit the hundreds
of fedayeen
that’ve come from all over. Candle-lights, long corridors. We moved in and on in, not understanding where we were. We found ourselves in a very large, long room with high windows fenced off with barbed wire.

—We’re in the prison. We came to fight and find ourselves in prison. On principle, I don’t agree. We can’t sleep in the prison, even if it is empty. No way—even if we abolish prisons.
A feda’i
can’t sleep in prison. That’s a matter of principle. I’m not about to agree to it.

Salem, B-7 rocket-launcher in hand, his face trembling against the prison wall, his voice raised: I will not sleep in prison. I came to fight and I won’t sleep here.

Talal walked up to the circle gathering around Salem. Standing like a lecturer, speaking unhurriedly: this isn’t a matter of principle, it’s a practical matter. There isn’t a place big enough for us other than this prison. Besides, this is magnificent. Imagine —emerging from the prison to destroy all prisons. Revolution beginning from the prison. I don’t think this thing was planned but it’s happening as if it were. It’s as if it were saying that it’s prison which will destroy all prisons.

You’re a romantic, I told him.

I’m a romantic, he answered me.

The mountains that stretched away stretched on and on. We must get to know the area really well, said Nabeel.

The debate expanded. Small groups forming, distributed about the corners and the corridors. The wan light paling further. The shells merging with sleepiness. Then, by around nine o’clock, the entire hall was asleep. Candles asleep, I asleep and Talal asleep beside me. Even the shells seemed to want to sleep. Talal woke me up.

— Do you know why we’re falling asleep so quickly?

— Fatigue, I said to him, my voice jumbled with yawning and drowsiness.

— No, it’s not fatigue. It’s prison. Prison means sleep. Lots of little problems, then you escape into sleep. When you sleep, you can disregard all prohibitions. You escape to something that is yours alone. Sleep is mine alone. No one can share it with me. I sleep as I please. I dream. Toss and turn. That’s why we sleep and why prisoners sleep.

— But I’m not a prisoner.

— Of course, we’ll destroy the prisons. But in order to destroy the prisons we had to go to prison.

— I want to sleep. And anyway, you’re contradicting yourself.

—That’s life. Contradiction doesn’t mean that I’m contradicting myself. Contradiction means contradiction.

— And sleep means sleep.

I turned my back toward him and tried to sleep. But Talal wouldn’t sleep. My father says the fish in the sea don’t sleep. I’ve never asked him where then do the fish sleep? My father insists that fish don’t sleep. And Talal wouldn’t sleep. And my hand wouldn’t reach the prison’s high ceiling. I got up. Red flames were glowing through the small high windows. My feet dragged on the tiles covered with the dry woolen blankets. In the side room, voices and mumbling. I approached and watched them from behind the bars. Four men, each sitting by himself in a dark corner. A single, quivering candle. I went up to the bars. One of them came toward me, then the others moved. The first one opened his mouth, then the others did the same. Only one voice emerged, in differing gradations, as if we’d been in a Greek drama. I don’t understand, I said to them. I’m a prisoner, one of them said.

—And I’m a prisoner like you.

— But you’re carrying an automatic rifle.

—Tomorrow, I’ll give you one.

One of them drew back, crestfallen.

— You’re making fun of us.

— I’m not making fun of you. I mean it. Tomorrow, I’ll give you weapons. But why? Why are you here?

— It’s a bit complicated. They said they were worried about me. I’m from a remote village, and you know what the atmosphere’s like there.

Talal and Nabeel and some others came. Talal seemed concerned.

— Look, tomorrow, I’ll take you to your village. There are no prisoners here. We’ve abolished prisons once and for all.

—Tomorrow, I’ll give you a rifle and you’ll come and fight with us. Do you accept?

— But I know nothing about fighting.

— You’ll learn to fight as you’re fighting. Are you scared?

— Of course he’s scared. I’m scared. We’re all scared. Courage is a fallacy. There’s no such thing as courage. Fear comes before or after. We’re always scared, whether before or after. We’re scared of prison before going there. We’re scared of death before dying. We’re scared of war after the battle starts. We’re scared of women before getting married.

— No. We’re scared of women after getting married.

The prisoners huddled around the prisoner who was scared, and we gathered around Nabeel who wouldn’t scare. In the end, we had to sleep. The sound of shells grew around the prison as my sadness grew. Talal grew sad and his sadness clouded the three prison days we spent waiting for the release of the prisoners. Talal in a corner, counting the shells and waiting for his turn. Then the unit commander came and told us we were going back because the operation had been canceled. But what shall we do with the prisoners? Talal asked. The commander said it was a complicated matter, needing time and contacts. We cant act on our own. Well leave them for the time being. They’ll no doubt be released in the end.

Everything is temporary, she said, holding her picture. Look at my picture. You’re prettier than the picture. Talal lifted the camera to his shoulder. The lithe young African boy ascended, blending into the sand and the raindrops.

— I’m talking because I’m sad. We’re dying like flies. Ever since the Mongols, maybe just before or after them, we’ve been dying like flies. Dying without thinking. Dying of disease, of bilharzia, of the plague, in childbirth or the absence of childbirth. We’re dying like flies. Without any consciousness, without dignity, without anything.

— And yet you call for war. And war means the death of even more people.

— Revolution means life.

— But they’re dying.

— They’re dying with consciousness. Consciousness is the opposite of death.

We can abolish death only with consciousness. Then we’ll be over with dying like flies and start into real death.

— Death abolishes consciousness. Death abolishes consciousness, do you hear?

She ran, put sand on her hair and began shaking her head.

— You’re a bourgeoise and I don’t love you.

She ran off and I didn’t run after her. I carried my shoes in my hand and slowly walked to the car. Where to? she yelled. Aren’t you going to take me prisoner and put me in the box? I opened the car door, turned on the ignition and left.

The snow was rolling over our heads. Fog, and the big mountain bowing at our feet. The enemy was advancing—trying to advance —but we stood at the top, immovable, as gods. We were advancing slowly and the white mules slowly advanced with us. The sound of gunfire fusing into our voices. Swollen, our feet had become gray splotches, part of the snow. We ourselves remained. Going back over our memories. Recounting the prison story. Remembering the four prisoners. Each one telling the story the way he liked, the way he remembered it, or the way it was. Shots rang out in the vast expanse where the sun was rolling, the snow falling, and colors didn’t look like colors. My throat was dry, my hand wooden around the rifle. We were listening to their voices. They were cursing and we were cursing back and opening fire. We need Sameer’s stones, Nazeeh shouted. Moments later, they retreated. We were sitting quietly around our rifles when Salem jumped up, yelling, his voice booming like the mountains: who’s there? He ran toward a man, whom at first glance I thought was one of our comrades.